[Hanako] Chapter 12: Idyllic Days

[Asta]

"Well, I suppose it's not like I'm going to go around flaunting it at every opportunity. It's just another tool to use when the situation calls for it. Once I've gotten the hang of it, I'd like to learn anything you might have to teach me as well."

She turned back to Kari. "Anyway, what's a good time for you tomorrow?"

[Throndir]

Location: Klein's Estate
Date: Day 13 - 6:10 PM

"Anytime tis a valorous time, though I prefer the morn." Kari said as she sipped more of the tea. Amarille too continued sipping the tea, more at ease this time due to your confirmation earlier that you would help Amarille see her home again.

"How much does thou knoweth of magic? If thy knowledge tis only wielding the elemental magic that would mean starting from the beginning."

[Asta]

"Uhh... I guess you could say I really only know how basic elemental magic works. Though part of my 'blessings' gives me intimate knowledge about certain topics that also have magic related to them. For example, when I opened all the cages downstairs I had to form a magical contract with a dead man. I did that by performing some kind of ritual that made a lump of meat act as his proxy. It was most definitely some kind of necromancy but I really couldn't tell you specifics. The knowledge I have is only really there when I go 'looking' for it. If you get my meaning." Hanako said, then took a drink.

"I don't think we have any guests coming to the estate tomorrow besides weapons deliveries, but I don't know how many people working under Sofia know the entire situation here. Morning should be fine, but it might be best to remain unseen by anyone coming by during the day."

[Throndir]

Location: Klein's Estate
Date: Day 13 - 6:10 PM

The valkyrie nodded her head. "Forsooth, that is necromancy. Creating a psuedo soul to taketh the lodging of a dead man is something elemental mages wouldn't bethink of attempting. Truly, thou are gifted, and may it not be skill, but thou are gifted in blessings of the goddesses."

When you explained your plans tomorrow the valkyrie nodded. "I, Kari, servant of the Goddess of Darkness shalt do mine best to bequeath thee with mine knowledge. Tis simple, thou art the hero. Simply tell thy people that thou art undertaking private lessons with the valkyrie. Then I wilt teachest thee."

[Asta]

Hanako nodded in thanks. "I'll be in your care then, sensei."

If nothing else is going on, Hanako will simply go through the motions for the rest of the day then sleep. Next morning she'll seek out Kari for instruction.

[Throndir]

With no evening plans decided, I'll assume you'll wake up at 6 AM.

Location: Klein's Estate
Date: Day 14 - 6:00 AM

Waking up the next morning, you made your way looking for Kari. You found her at the common room. Thinking about it, apart from when Kari was drugged up and unconscious, you haven't actually seen her sleeping. The common room seemed to be one of her favorite places to be in, even though you knew that the soldiers had assigned a room to her. Like always, Kari was indeed enjoying a cup of tea. Around her were various stacks of papers. So too seemed to be some writing materials, and chalk.

"Good morn to thee, hero Hanako." Kari said when she saw you. "Thou art ready?" She said grinning. "Tis shalt be boring at first. But tis said heroes learn quickly, mayhaps thou wilt learn this faster than I had centuries prior..."

[Asta]

Hanako stretched and stifled a yawn. "Mornin" she replied shaking off the last of her sleep. "I suppose the only way to find out is to get down to it."

She sat down near the diminutive warrior and steeled herself for the lessons ahead.

[Throndir]

Kari nodded as she handed you some of the stacks of papers. They were all hand-written, telling you that Kari must have spent sometime last evening, or perhaps early in the morning setting it all up. They were primarily circles of various sorts. Your knowledge of magic in pop-culture and anime told you that these were indeed arcane circles.

"Necromancy, the magic of life and death maketh a lot of useth of arcane circles such as these. Thither art many types, each with different purposes, and the spells changeth depending on which runes art used, the order they art used in, and the layers of arcane circles for each one..." Kari began her lesson immediately, explaining the fundamentals of the arcane circles, and explaining their important to necromancy and other types of magic as a whole. The next couple hours would be spend drilling into you these basics, along with memorizing the runes, the order of circles, and then practicing drawing each of them on paper.

Unlocking a magic system will take a lot more work than learning new spells. You'll need to meet the following prerequisites for Necromancy magicka:

Magicka Circles, DC: 12, RS: 6, Be able to draw a magicka circle.This will take a couple of full round actions depending on the size of magicka circle being drawn. Unlocks Runes spell base.
Knowledge (spiritual), DC: 15, RS: 8, Knowledge of the spiritual plane and domains.
Knowledge (astral), DC: 15, RS: 8, Knowledge of the astral plane and matters of the soul.
Knowledge (ethereal), DC: 15, RS: 8, Knowledge of the ethereal plane. The blueprint of the physical world.
Knowledge (occultism), DC: 15, RS: 8, Knowledge of the occultism magicka. Unlocks occultism magicka spell usage.
Knowledge (necromancy), DC: 15, RS: 8, Knowledge of the necromancy magicka. Unlocks necromancy magicka spell usage.

Note on Untrained Usage (copied from Spell doc)
A hero can attempt an Untrained Usage of the spell, in a similar way to other Techniques. They must succeed a Training check with a DC equal to the spell's Learn DC plus 2 for every missing successful training session. A natural roll of 1 will fail the attempted use.

So attempting to cast a Tier 1 Necromancy spell right now would be at least a DC 57 Training check.

Note on existing blessings and extensions
Any spell that can be related to slavery can be attempted with a proper Knowledge (slavery) check (can be rolled even untrained due to being part of a blessing), including potentially any spell under Necromancy. If success, you have all prerequisites needed for the spell to cast.

Any spell under Contractual, Accord, or Binding magicka can be attempted with a proper Knowledge check of that magicka type. If success, you have all prerequisites needed for the spell to cast.

Training check(s) requested, and specify how many hours you plan to do Magicka Circles, as that will affect the DC. Since Kari is mentoring, she'll roll her own Training checks as well to help your progress.

[Asta]

Oh lord. Hanako thought, realizing she had taken on quite a difficult task, then set to learning.

Magicka Circles, Expedited Training, 4 sessions:

Rolled 1d20+8 : 2 + 8, total 10

Rolled 1d20+8 : 10 + 8, total 18

Rolled 1d20+8 : 15 + 8, total 23

Rolled 1d20+8 : 16 + 8, total 24

[Asta]

Correction from previous post, doing expedited x3. Doing four more sessions of 30 minutes each. Magicka Circles.

Rolled 1d20+8 : 16 + 8, total 24

Rolled 1d20+8 : 14 + 8, total 22

Rolled 1d20+8 : 18 + 8, total 26

Rolled 1d20+8 : 11 + 8, total 19

[Throndir]

Training
Session 1
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Success

Session 2
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Session 3
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Session 4
Hanako: Success
Kari: Fail

Session 5
Hanako: Success
Kari: Critical Success

Session 6
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Success

Magicka Circles completed. 5 hours left of free training.

[Asta]

Moving on to Knowledge (Spiritual), Expedited x2, five sessions for 5 hours

Rolled 1d20+8 : 9 + 8, total 17

Rolled 1d20+8 : 4 + 8, total 12

Rolled 1d20+8 : 20 + 8, total 28

Rolled 1d20+8 : 18 + 8, total 26

Rolled 1d20+8 : 19 + 8, total 27

[Throndir]

Training
DC: 23

Session 1
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Session 2
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Session 3
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Session 4
Hanako: Success
Kari: Fail

Session 5
Hanako: Success
Kari: Fail

Session 6
Hanako: Fail
Kari: Fail

Training Progress
Knowledge (spiritual): 4/8

Location: Klein's Estate
Date: Day 14 - 2:00 PM

You and Kari spent the entire morning going through drawings, diagrams, teaching, and note-taking. By the end of it, you realized you were absorbing more information than you thought you ever could before back in Japan. Memorizing the diagrams and runes, and connecting them to specific actions or magical effects came to you much easier than you thought it would. You eventually managed to get a good grasp of magicka circles. Their intricacies, the types of circles you could make, and being able to draw them out from memory alone. It was from this that you also found out that it didn't really matter what kind of medium you used to make magicka circles. In fact, Kari herself 'drew' the magicka circles by forming her mana in the air, creating glowing runes that hovered in mid-air.

Unlock condition for Mana Magicka Circles reached. I've placed them in your character sheet with a 0 progress. This can allow you to do self-training for it without Kari's help.

After you had mastered magicka circles, Kari began to teach you what she knew about the spiritual side of magicka. Not just the arcane, but apparently, even magic had a side to it more intune with the god, spirits, and domains. This part was a bit more different, unfortunately, Kari didn't have any written books to teach the subject, but it ended up being more akin to lectures, with you absorbing the information as much as you can.

During the day there were a couple of people passing by in interest, greeting you as the hero, or even dropping off a food tray. Minette and Trudy ha come by briefly as well to have a quick lunch break, but soon enough, everyone went back to their own training and teaching. By the end of this round of training when you were starting to get mentally exhausted, it was then when another three more wagons appeared at the front gates of the estate. Elyse had come by earlier mentioning that it was more of Sofia's employees who would help 'fill the house' in your absence. But they brought with them a couple of things as well. Various parts of the armored carriage was provided. All covered up and hidden on the wagons of course. The driver for the three wagons, an employee of Sofia, had pretended to be a slave trader, while the 'slaves' they carried were actually the staff to soon take care of the estate.

"Frau Hero!" Elyse said making her way towards you. She seemed to have a new set of weapons in her hand. It looked like a slimmer version of the longer guns from before. These indeed had what looked to be ammo cartridges in them. "Frau Hero! These is the result of your discussion with Frau Leiningen. As thanks, she sent us 10 of them for our use, along with ammo. They are still researching how to add light magic to the ammo cartridges, but they believe it's possible."

Unassembled Armored Carriage and 10 Rifles added to your Item sheet.

[Asta]

"Fantastic, these rifles should be able to fire farther, more accurately, and be reloaded faster than the guns we've been training with so far. I have an idea for dealing with the sound too, involving dampening it with magic but I haven't figured out the specifics yet. Consequently, do you know if there is a magic that enhances senses like sight?"

She wondered to herself why she hadn't bothered to bring up the concept of telescopic sights for accurate distance shooting when she explained rifling to Sofia before, not that a scope was what made a sniper able to shoot over great distances but it certainly did help.

[Throndir]

Captain Elyse Dietriche shook her head. "Enhancing sight for magic? Normally I would say that would be impossible, but I've seen enough strange magic while we made it to the new world that nothing would surprise me anymore." Elyse said, specifically glancing at Kari.