Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe made her way back to Kaira park and sat on her favourite bench in eager anticipation. If her internal calendar was right, then today should be the final day of summer. The heat was beginning to mellow out and hordes of people were out in the forests surrounding Flester chopping down logs in preparation for the long, cold winter that would soon be upon them.

She wasn’t sure what to do with her time anymore at this point. She had already capped out her income for the year and still had most of it left to go. Meditation was an easy skill to keep levelling while she sat around and passed the time, and she had a sneaking suspicion that it made her feel less restless while she did it too.

But without something to drain her mana, meditation just felt pointless. It still helped pass the time but it didn’t do anything. It felt like a massive waste of time to her, which was something that she could recognize as not being a problem for her anymore but didn’t enjoy anyway. She would need something else to pass the time, some other project to work on.

Zoe brought up her list of skills to help her figure something out.

General Skills:

- Vampyric Regeneration (22)

- Vampyric Senses (34)

- Vampyric Resistance (18)

- Vampyric Immortality (2)

- Vampyric Charm (53)

- Vampyric Empathy (29)

- Gathering (7)

- Archery (34)

­- Meditation (55)

- Cooking (1)

- Dagger-fighting (23)

- Tracking (16)

- Stealth (15)

- Frost (18)

Her vampyric skills were off the table. If her understanding of how skills worked was correct then working on better understanding what they did and how they worked could benefit her immensely.

The problem was just that she found it boring. Something she could get around to some other day but not what she wanted to spend the next year playing around with while she let time fly past her.

Everything else had some kind of draw to them at least. She could see herself spending time at the open training facility she found last winter, or maybe getting an outdoor stove set up in a park and working on her cooking skill. But cooking in particular would be rather expensive to play with and money, while not tight, wasn’t something she wanted to spend a tonne of either.

Her eyes wandered to Frost. It fit the bill for the most part but it just didn’t accomplish anything concrete. There was just something so magical about filling the mana orbs for Zoe. Such a primal pleasure in some strange way. It was visual and progress was so clear as the orb filled with energy and identify even showed the exact progress.

She still had another skill that she needed to get, maybe she could find something useful that was as enjoyable as charging mana orbs. The rest of the day passed and night fell as Zoe sat in silent contemplation.

Her mind raced between different skills that might exist — running, smithing, fletching and so many others just fell flat for her. She didn’t want something so physical. If stamina ended up being a problem for her then she wouldn’t be able to stick to it for days on end without finding some way to recover her stamina quicker.

Which likely just meant another skill, if that was even possible at all. In which case she should just get that skill instead and call it a day.

Zoe kept thinking about different things she might be able to work on right up until the sun began to rise and her focus was interrupted by a popup that she had been waiting for.

*Ding* For surviving a natural summer without shelter, you have been awarded with the [Summer’s Master] feat.

Zoe immediately brought up its description.

[Summer’s Master]

You have mastered the hottest season. Others fled from the devastating heat wrought upon you by the blazing stars in the sky, but you chose to embrace it and let it drive you further. All classes gain a bonus to heat affinity.

She looked at its description and felt a bit confused. Winter’s Master gave her the cold resistance, but Summer’s Master only gave her the bonus to affinity? What was the difference? The description still mentioned the devastating heat, it was clearly an important part for the feat.

But it didn’t give her a matching resistance? That didn’t make any sense to her. Was it just because she already had heat resistance?

She shrugged. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter much. Her goal wasn’t the resistance, it was the feat itself. And she got that. It was a bit confusing, but she still accomplished what she set out to do and should be proud of herself for it. And Autumn’s master was just a few short months away.

Autumn was an interesting season for Zoe in Flester. She had spent most of her life in an area that was full of deciduous trees. Every autumn the trees around her would shed their leaves and the ground would be covered in colourful leaves that crunched under her feet.

But in Flester, deciduous trees were a thing from stories. Tales of beautiful oak trees on the other side of the world. All Flester had were tall coniferous varieties, and a few deciduous trees that seemed magically resistant to losing their leaves, like the large library she visited often.

But perhaps most unusual for her was how soon the snow began to fall. It wasn’t unpleasant, but the autumn in Flester felt so similar to a winter from back home. Snow covered the ground and lent the landscape its beautiful radiance, but wasn’t in the way or disruptive. She knew that would change come winter, but seeing it happen so soon after the warm sunny days was an incredible experience for her.

She spent a lot of time talking with Emma over the autumn. Oliver had settled in to his new life and was spoiled with toys and a large yard that Emma had started planting sturdy winter flowers in.

On one of her visits, Emma had suggested that Zoe try getting an enchanting or alchemy skill from a local business who might have lessons. Enchanting in particular would be inexpensive to play with and she might end up being able to make some interesting things from it eventually too.

For a moment, Zoe thought about going to Lorelei and getting some alchemy advice. But laughed at the ridiculous thought. There was no way Lorelei would get her any usable advice in an amount of time that wouldn’t ruin her Autumn’s Master.

Instead, she looked around for enchanters and found one who had a course available for seventy-five silver near the end of autumn. It was a bit steep, but if she got a skill she enjoyed out of it then it would be worth it.

The shop was called The Enchanted Life and it was run by a young woman named Catalina who took a great pride in her work. Zoe walked in to the shop and looked around.

The decorations were rather plain, a few wooden shelves and a wooden counter at one end that a young woman was stood behind. But the products were, for lack of a better word, enchanting. Each one seemed so alive and precious in their own way. Weapons that exuded strength and finesse, tools that seemed to beg for use.

“Hello, welcome to the enchanted life, how can I help you today?” The woman said.

“Uh hi, are you Catalina?" Zoe asked.

“That’s me, why do you ask?" Catalina asked.

“Oh I saw that you have a course available and I thought I might be interested.” Zoe said.

“Yes, I do indeed. It’s seventy-five silver and takes about two hours, I’ll show you the basics of enchanting and you should be able to qualify for the apprentice enchanter class.” Catalina said.

Zoe shook her head in surprise.

“I thought the only requirement was twenty-five wisdom?” Zoe said.

“Well, that’s one of them. You can get it by being taught by an enchanter too!" Catalina said.

“Huh. I just want the enchanting skill, honestly. If I keep practising without the class should I eventually get it?” Zoe asked.

“I guess. I’d just take the apprentice enchanter class if I were you though. Much quicker and cheaper, but I won’t stop you from paying me if you like!” Catalina said.

“Yeah, I’d prefer that. Is there any way we could have the lesson outside somewhere? I’m working on a thing that requires no shelter right now so two hours would be a bit much.” Zoe asked.

“Yes! Enchanting works best in a controlled environment with good materials but there’s no reason you couldn’t do it anywhere you like. When would you like to schedule your lesson?” Catalina asked.

“Well, any time works for me really. I don’t do much.” Zoe said.

“We can start now if you like?" Catalina suggested.

“Uh, sure. Yeah, that’s fine I guess. Again I do need to be outside though.” Zoe said.

Catalina jumped over the counter and started walking towards the door. “That’s fine! I have a table set up around back, we can go learn there.”

“Okay, cool. That works then.” Zoe said and followed along.

Catalina locked the front door when she left and then walked around the building to a small yard at the back where a round table with a single chair was set up.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to stand unless you’ve brought your own chair? Normally I teach inside so I only have one chair out here.” Catalina sat down and leaned on the table.

“That’s fine. I can stand. I’m the one getting in the way anyway.” Zoe said.

“Awesome, so this will be seventy-five silver. I do need the payment up front and it is non refundable.” Catalina held her hand out.

Zoe rummaged around in her bag and found a silver square, two silver circles and a silver star and handed them to Catalina.

“Thank you!” Catalina vanished the coins to whatever storage item she was using and summoned a metal rod that she placed on the table.

“So the first step to enchanting is saturating an item with mana. Have you ever infused something with mana before?” Catalina asked.

“I’ve filled a few mana orbs before.” Zoe answered.

“Great! That’s really awesome. Now, with mana orbs you just leave the mana as it is because they’re for storage. But with enchanting, you would then carefully manipulate that mana into the form that gives you your desired effect.” Catalina held out the metal rod to Zoe.

“Here, take this rod and infuse it with your mana. It should be much more difficult than a mana orb since it’s not made specifically to draw in mana, but give yourself some time and you’ll get there.” Catalina said.

Zoe took the rod and tried to do the same thing she had done with so many mana orbs in the past, but nothing happened. Her mana rushed to her hand and then just stopped, rather than flooding into the rod she held. She tried pushing it around, tried prodding at the rod from different angles. After a few minutes of struggling she managed to get a slight trickle of mana into the rod and smiled.

“Good, now with time you’ll get better at infusing objects with mana that weren’t specifically made for such a purpose. In time it should feel natural, but it’s definitely a bit tricky at first!” Catalina smiled at Zoe.

“Now, keep pushing your mana into that rod until it’s filled, and we’ll move on to the next step. I would do it for you but unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to complete the next step if the rod were saturated with somebody else’s mana.” Catalina sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.

Zoe kept focusing on filling the rod with her mana. She expected it to be quick, but it took almost an hour before the rod stopped accepting any more mana. Catalina looked up as soon as the rod was filled.

“Excellent! That was very quick. Now, do you have the identify skill?” Catalina asked.

Zoe nodded her head.

“First off, identify the rod. And then what I’ll want you to do is turn your focus inwards and find your identify skill in your mindscape. Have you ever done that before?" Catalina asked.

Zoe nodded her head again and identified the rod. It didn’t show up as anything to her.

“Fantastic, what an accomplished student you are. Find your identify skill in your mindscape and rather than disable it, bend the mana in the rod to your image of the identify skill. It’s a bit tricky and everybody has a different way of imagining their skills so unfortunately it’s something you’ll have to figure out the specifics of yourself.” Catalina said.

Zoe looked for her identify skill and found it a few moments later. She burned the image of it into her mind and then tried to push that image into the rod like Catalina had explained. But she wasn’t even sure where to start. She tried to push her focus into the rod, to align herself with the mana within it. And there was a small connection that she could feel but she wasn’t sure how to manipulate it.

It took another ten minutes of struggling before she managed to accomplish anything. She felt a tiny portion of the mana in the rod solidify, and she smiled.

Zoe kept trying to recreate the feeling, willing the mana in the rod to solidify in the form she wanted. And bit by bit she could feel the rod’s mana taking hold, and becoming more real, more substantial. When the final piece clicked in place, Zoe felt the rod shudder in her hand and Catalina clapped.

“My what an incredible student you are. You pick things up so quick. Try identifying the rod again.” Catalina said.

Zoe did as she said, and this time the rod actually showed up as something for her.

[Identify]

“With practice you’ll be able to tweak your image to get your enchantments to do what you want. Identify is a unique skill when it comes to enchanting as instead of imbuing an object with its effect, it simply allows the object to be identified with the skill. Practice lots and you’ll be able to control what the object gets labelled as.

“If you ever come along some other skills, try enchanting objects with them and see what effects you can squeeze out of them. It’s quite fun sometimes seeing what different skills can do as enchantments!” Catalina stood up from her chair.

“At any rate, thank you very much for coming and learning. I wish you the best of luck with your future enchantments.” Catalina bowed slightly.

“Yeah, thanks a bunch. That was really fun, actually.” Zoe said.

“Good, I’m glad.” Catalina turned and walked back to the front of the building.