Chapter 2

Triumphantly exiting the bathroom with her breath smelling vaguely of lavender, Julia made her way to the kitchen. Braden had gotten out a pan to start cooking breakfast, but what caught her attention was the box sitting on the table. It was made of bright, glossy wood and bore what she assumed was the name of the store from which it came. As far as she could remember, she’d never been to Striton before, so the name didn’t mean much to her. The box was about as long as her forearm, but she had no clue what might be inside.

“You can open it if you want. You’ve brushed your teeth, so that’s the bargain fulfilled,” Braden said in an amused tone without turning around.

Well, she wasn’t going to argue. She picked the box up and opened it to find a hairbrush made of the same polished wood as the box. It was…she wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it was different from the combs she and Braden used. This one had hundreds—maybe thousands—of individual bristles that looked a bit like hair. Although, they were much stiffer to the touch than any hair she’d ever felt. On the back of the brush, she could see some carved runes.

ᛞᚢᚱᚨᛒᛁᛚᛁᛏᛁ

‘Durability,’ if she read it correctly. She was decent with her runes from Braden’s instruction, despite never focusing too much on enchanting. So, a hairbrush with a durability enchantment. Undoubtedly expensive. Any enchantment, even one so basic as durability, was worth the price of a year or two of comfortable living in Rockyknoll. She couldn’t help feeling a little baffled, though. Braden knew her really well, so he definitely knew she didn’t particularly care that much about how her hair looked…

Something of what she was feeling must’ve shown on her face, as Braden, who had turned around to see her open it, began chuckling.

“First of all, it’s a hairbrush that’s made for a different purpose than the combs we use. Combs are for detangling the hair—or getting sticks, leaves, and other detritus out, in your case. This brush is meant to help spread the natural oils from your scalp down through the rest of your hair. The bristles are actually hair from the Rock-Spined Boar.”

Julia was surprised to hear that the bristles of this brush were made from the hair of a monster. The Rock-Spined Boar was considered a beginner-level monster in the Adventurer Guild, but any monster parts would be expensive due to the danger (however minimal) from retrieving them.

Other than the hard spines sticking out from its back, the Rock-Spined Boar is otherwise the same as the non-monster counterpart. It’s definitely dangerous, but since its only tactic is to charge head first towards its target, trusting that its spines will deter an attack from behind, it’s considered relatively easy to take down.

She still couldn’t figure out why Braden had gotten it for her—especially after spending what was obviously a lot of coin on it.

“Second,” Braden continued, “The reason you need this is because I expect you’ll be spending a great deal of time outdoors when we perform the ritual today. As such, you’ll be wanting to spend as little time inside as possible. If you use this brush to help even out the oil levels in your hair, you don’t need to wash it as much.

I would love to tell you about how good for your hair it’ll be and how great you’ll look with shining, golden locks, but I know you’re not really interested in that. Healthier hair will, I guess, just be a side-benefit for you,” he said with a smile.

Julia found she was also smiling while thinking about not having to wash her hair as much. What he had given her was not just permission to spend all her waking moments playing with her new friend, but also a tool to facilitate it. Julia had to wash her hair almost daily as it was due to how much sweating she did in her daily life. Not to mention all the detritus (as Braden called it) that got caught in her hair. Not having to wash it would dramatically cut down on her total bathing time.

“Thanks, Braden,” she said with sincerity.

“You’re welcome. Now, I also brought back a new bottle of maple syrup from Striton, so let’s plate these pancakes up and eat. The sooner we eat, the sooner we can get on with it…that said, don’t rush and choke. We both know the real gift is the magic we’ll be doing today, after all.”

Julia took the warning to heart and ate as fast as she could while drinking almost an entire pitcher of water. Hard to choke when it’s more water than food, right?

After cleaning up the dishes, Braden led them to the basement. The house was not large. Braden didn’t like unused space, so there was only exactly as much space as they needed. The front door opened into a quaint living room on the right with a comfortable couch and chair facing a stone fireplace that was the centerpiece, despite it rarely dropping below a light chill at night.

To the left was the kitchen, which had plenty of counter space as well as a small table with two chairs pushed against it. At the back of the kitchen was a little hallway that had a backdoor leading outside, a staircase leading to the second story, and a staircase leading down to the basement.

Most people in town called an underground storage space a cellar. She was unsure why she and Braden called theirs a basement, but she also didn’t care that much.

The second story was an A-frame with two bedrooms (one for each of them) and a bathroom between them. The bathroom had a tub with a spigot above it that Braden had enchanted to spit water out like rain.

Julia was aware that when most people around town talked about bathing, they meant literally taking a bath. Braden said he was, “more of a shower guy,” so this overhead spigot is what they used. Although, there was a faucet just barely above the bathtub that could fill the tub so it could be used in the traditional way as well.

Following Braden down the stairs, Julia tried her best to focus on the thought of her new friend rather than thinking about how many bugs there likely were down there. She didn’t much care for the basement. She wasn’t afraid of the dark or anything. She just didn’t like the idea of creepy-crawlies right above her and in falling-on-her-head range.

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“So, you’ve got the requisite Attributes now?” Braden inquired as they walked down the stairs.

Julia knew she did, but she liked seeing the results of all her hard work, so she called up her status screen.

Name: Julia

Age: 10

Class: None

Subclass: None

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 5

Constitution: 7

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 8

Resilience: 7

She felt a surge of pride looking over her stats. True, most kids would get all their Attributes to 10 around age 16 just by growing naturally, but she had hit 10 in Intelligence six years early! And there were several Attributes that were not far behind.

The only Attribute slightly lagging behind was Dexterity. She knew it was because it’s the Attribute she liked working the least. Strength was easy. Just pick heavy things up and put them down—according to Braden. Constitution was also easy since she ran all the way into the woods almost every day to find rocks to use for strength training. Not to mention her strength training itself also contributed to raising her Constitution.

The mental Attributes? Well, that was also easy. She loved to read, and Braden had books aplenty. In fact, her daily routine was to run into the woods, train her strength, then find a cool branch to climb to and sit on while she read. Her favorites were stories of brave adventurers or heroes, but she would read anything she could find—including the dry stuff, like wildlife manuals.

She would even meditate in the way that Braden had taught her, which seemed to help with both Wisdom and Resilience.

Dexterity was harder just because it was a little more complicated. She did her stretches after her run and strength training, but stretches alone didn’t raise it that much. Dexterity was about more than just your flexibility. You had to find ways to be, as the name would suggest, dexterous, which was harder than just picking up heavy rocks.

Braden had given her a few routines to do (calisthenics, he called them), which she liked reasonably well. The issue was that they were always longer and more involved than any other training. Except maybe the meditation, but she found that fit in her current routine nicely as a rest period between the physical exertion and the reading in a tree.

“Int at 10, Wis at 8, and Res at 7,” she declared proudly.

“Wow. I’m truly impressed, Julia. Not many kids would have Attributes like that at your age. You’ve worked hard, I can tell. I’m proud of you.”

Julia glowed with the praise but was suddenly embarrassed for some reason.

“Thanks,” she murmured with a small smile.

Braden turned towards her as they arrived in the center of the basement.

“Alright. Here is the sapphire powder. I bought it in Striton so that we don’t have to use any of our normal supply. Draw it out just like you practiced. I’m here if you need any help. Much better to ask for help and get it right than guess and get it wrong.”

Julia resisted rolling her eyes. He said the same thing every time they practiced the ritual! What a worrywart.

“Ok,” she said as she took the pouch and stuck her fingers in. She had prepared for this ritual for over a year. In fact, her level 2 in Runes was almost exclusively from learning the runes necessary for this specific ritual.

Bending over, she began letting the dust fall as she traced out the pattern. She could draw it with her left hand while blindfolded at this point.

ᚹᛁᚦ ᛗᛁ ᛗᚨᚾᚨ ᚨᛊ ᚦᛖ ᛊᛟᚢᚱᚲᛖ

ᛒᛁ ᛗᛁ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ-ᛞᛖᛏᛖᚱᛗᛁᚾᛖᛞ ᚲᛟᚢᚱᛊᛖ

ᛒᚱᛁᛜ ᚦᛖ ᚲᚱᛖᛏᚢᚱᛖ ᛁ ᚾᛖᛖᛞ

ᚹᛁᚦ ᚦᛖᛊᛖ ᚷᛖᛗᛊ ᛁ ᚠᛖᛖᛞ

ᛈᚱᛟᛏᛖᚲᛏ ᚹᛁᚦᛟᚢᛏ ᚠᚱᛟᛗ ᚹᛁᚦᛁᚾ

ᛊᛖᚾᛞ ᛁᛏ ᛒᚨᚲᚲ ᛊᚺᛟᚢᛚᛞ ᚦᛁᛊ ᚱᛁᛏᚢᚨᛚ ᛖᚾᛞ

With my mana as the source

By my will-determined course

Bring the creature I need

With these gems I feed

Protect without from within

Send it back should this prematurely end

Julia knew rituals didn’t need to be so verbose, nor did they need to rhyme. According to Braden, being specific was very important to beginners, as giving exact directions to the magic can help alleviate issues you’d run into if your visualization and intent weren’t coherent enough.

The rhyme-scheme was just fun for Julia. Braden let her write the whole thing herself, only making minor alterations where he thought necessary.

This particular ritual needed the runes to be written in a circle, but it would be tremendously wasteful to use enough sapphire dust to encircle the amount of space they needed entirely with runes. So, instead, she would write the six individual lines in a rough circle.

There would be empty space between each line, but as long as they were all aligned in a mostly-circular pattern with roughly the same amount of empty space between each line, it would be fine.

With the runes drawn out and a spot check with approval from Braden, Julia sat down just outside the circle. She touched a finger to the dust and began to channel her mana.