Chapter 104: One Spell for Another

In the dim light of the house that night, two warlocks faced each other.

Young Jess wore a blank expression. Gakin, much older, had just been beaten up and then rescued by the person in front of him. He looked far less confident than usual.

"We're both walking the path of dark arts. And I know you understand spells at least as well as I do, Jess." Gakin sounded defeated. He lowered his voice. "I like this new spell of yours very much. Will you tell me where you found it?"

"It wasn't from the Dark Iron dwarves. That's all I'll say," Jess replied. "But you saw what it did, Gakin. It can bring down a fighter like Erlan. And look at me. The spell doesn't use much energy. I think I could cast it twice more without trouble."

"A perfect spell for dealing with thugs." Gakin nodded, took a bottle of rum from a cabinet, and drank. "This spell is worth a great deal, Jess. When you asked about the next meeting, was it because you wanted to share it with the whole group?"

"Yes," Jess said. "Unless you have something else in mind."

"I don't. Even if I get it from you, I'll share it." Gakin took a booklet from the cabinet and flipped through several pages. "As a reward, look here. Jess, I have three more spells I got from the Dark Iron dwarves. I've never shown them to the group. I don't think any of those warlocks deserve these incantations, except you and Gardes. Letting the rest of them practice would be an insult to these precious secret words."

The longer Gakin talked, the more excited he became. Jess noticed that his goals seemed different from Erlan's, Surena's, or even Gardes's when it came to dark magic.

Many people who practiced warlock magic were like Jess. For various reasons, they'd missed the chance to enter the Wizard's Sanctum. Arcane magic had rejected them, but they still wanted power and wanted to learn magic, so they'd turned to warlock spells.

Gakin, though, seemed to pursue darkness for its own sake. Whenever he came across a new spell, he became fascinated with the dark magic itself.

"The first is what the Dark Iron dwarves call the Demon Eye spell," Gakin said. "It's powerful and extremely difficult, Jess. It demands very fine control of shadow energy, and I haven't mastered it well. It was invented by an orc warlock of very high standing. It lets you create an eye out of shadow, hide it in the darkness, and use it to watch anything you want."

Eye of Kilrogg. Jess knew that warlock spell. In the game, there weren't many occasions when it was useful. But in this world, it was undoubtedly valuable.

Gakin went on. "The second is called Curse of Recklessness. It can turn someone into a complete madman. You know how ferociously the orc warriors fight? I suspect the warlocks behind them have cast Curse of Recklessness on them. The spell works very well. I've already tried it on Surena. You know what I mean... Maybe one day we can try it on Erlan... Ha!"

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From his expression, Jess could pretty much guess why Gakin had used Curse of Recklessness on Surena.

Still, neither spell interested Jess much.

Eye of Kilrogg... what did he need a controllable eye for? Thieves, spies, and intelligence agents probably had much more reason to use it for secret work.

Curse of Recklessness wasn't particularly useful to him either. It made people incredibly brave and wild, but it also increased their fighting strength. In this world, you might cast it on an ally to bring out their full potential.

But Jess would never cast it on Gred. The dwarf was reckless enough already. Give him that curse, and it would probably become a Curse of Certain Death.

"What's the third?" Jess asked.

Gakin turned a page. "The third one I haven't learned, I must admit. But the dwarves showed it to me, Jess. They call it the Blood-Draining spell."

"Blood-Draining?"

Jess wondered if he meant Drain Life.

"What exactly does it do?" he asked.

"It draws blood from an enemy and turns it into your own. Doesn't that sound frightening? But the real effect isn't as powerful as you'd imagine. I watched a dwarf master use it on a goat. After the spell had run for a while, the goat began losing large patches of hair and its skin wrinkled. Yet even after nearly a minute, the goat hadn't died. When they untied it after the spell ended, it struggled to its feet. The dwarf master was the one who looked terribly exhausted."

"In other words, the life energy he drew wasn't even worth the mental energy he spent, Jess. I consider the spell precious because it's fundamentally different from other spells, don't you see? Drawing the life out of another living being... it's as fascinating as the vampires in old legends. But it's a shame. Maybe the inventor was trying to become like those legendary vampires and simply didn't get the results he hoped for."

Jess didn't know who'd created Drain Life. But he did know that the nathrezim dreadlords in the game were masters at draining life, and their version of the spell was absurdly powerful.

Which meant the spell itself might not be weak. Gakin and that dwarf might have the same problem Jess had with Curse of Weakness: an inaccurate source incantation, leading to a poor effect.

So even the Dark Iron warlocks were only somewhat more authoritative than this little warlock group. They weren't an absolute authority.

That was fine. Jess was fairly sure the spell used Demonic. Once he got home, he could ask Saeno to check the words and find the mistakes.

"I'll take that one," Jess said.

"Are you sure?" Gakin asked doubtfully.

"I'm sure."

"It seems you and I are alike, little brother Jess. Chasing practical results at all costs is an insult to art, after all. And this Drain Life spell is the perfect expression of dark arts, isn't it? So perhaps Erlan does have a point sometimes. Some spells really aren't powerful enough."

Jess nodded, though he didn't agree in the slightest.

If magic didn't do anything, why call it magic? Why not just set off some huge fireworks?

Once they agreed on the trade, Jess wrote the Curse of Weakness incantation in Common letters and handed it to Gakin. He explained the gestures and the points to watch while speaking the spell. Gakin studied everything carefully.

Then he gave Jess the page about Drain Life from the booklet.

"You're not keeping it?" Jess asked.

"It's only a copy. You can take it and keep it," Gakin said. "As for the other spells, Jess, if you want to trade for them, bring something valuable. Or another spell, like you did today. After all, we're a group that believes in sharing."