I picked the last one I had made. I was most happy with it.

  “Excellent choice. Although I am nearly certain that the previous two would also work.”

  She calmed her breathing, and I mirrored her.

  “You know what you seek. You know the source. You understand how to snatch and where to set. Proceed when you are ready.” She directed.

  Rune lords had their four “S’s”, similar in some ways to other mages' four “W’s”, to help apprentices successfully cast spells. Seeking was the process where the rune lord fixed the rune symbol in his mind as the sole focus of concentration. Knowing the Source involved the unique tapping into rune magic that paralleled what I did with gems. Snatching was an abrupt and aggressive process that created a three-way bridge between the source, the mage, and the rune object. Setting is placing that rune magic securely into the rune object.

  Both my knowledge as an enchanter and my skills with gems helped to make rune magic far easier for me than it likely would be for others.

  I used a casting point and completed the casting. My small two-inch cube of wood glowed yellow brightly for a moment and then faded to a gentle yellow glow that was just barely noticeable.

  “Yay!” Starla cheered. “First try and you did it.”

  We both grinned at each other.

  She looked down at it. “I’m still a bit banged up. Mind if I-” And she motioned to the rune.

  “Be my guest!” I said.

  She reached over and placed her hand on the rune. A moment later, there was a mild yellow flash, and the rune went back to its normal, woody appearance. No glowing.

  “Hey, it didn’t disappear,” I said, surprised.

  “You are used to your SUS enchantments. A rune may be used more than once. The more durable the medium, the longer it lasts. The weaker the spell, the longer it lasts.”

  “So I can put more casting points into this and use it again?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. In fact, anyone can use it once it is made. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as a storage gem where anyone could put casting points into it. You still need to seek, source, snatch, and set. I wish it were otherwise.”

  “Maybe if we taught this to all the journeymen, they could refill some of these that could be distributed to the walls.”

  “We could, and I’ll help teach them, but I don’t know that it would be any faster than just making more SUS rings and crystals.” She said.

  “But it does increase the number in case something happens to you and me.”

  “That makes sense. And of all the runes to teach them, I am most comfortable with this. But it is fairly weak. The most healing you can do at one time with this rune is five points. You would need a Second Combine or higher, or align with a second rune to create more powerful augmentations.”

  “That is too much for them. I have years of rune language under my belt, along with gems and enchantments. I am confident I can learn to do that, but I’m not so sure about the others.”

  “My thinking as well.” She said, and a slo,w mischievous grin started. “You want to learn either a Second Combine Healing or try a simple augmentation to double its effect?”

  “Wow. I am tempted. I have four more points that I was sitting on to learn Scorching Light as an AOE attack against the goblins. But an augmentation would be really, really cool.”

  “It’s up to you, Patron.” She said, baiting me.

  I sighed. “Okay. A simple, First Combine augmentation. I will use one more point.”

  She laughed. “I was the same way. My second rune was the Double Rune. It is crazy useful and can double the effect of nearly any First Combine rune.”

  All of a sudden, she got very serious. “I am going to reveal one of our guild’s deepest secrets.”

  “Are you sure you are comfortable doing that?” I asked, both eager and concerned.

  “You must give me your word not to share this with anyone you are not convinced has the heart of a rune master with a moral compass that points true.”

  I sensed that those words had been shared with her by her own master.

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  “I promise,” I said solemnly.

  “You know that there are Seven Combines, and that there are subtle changes to the runes across them. In your readings, it is like adding the qualifier “more” or “many” or “very” or “most” in connection with the words to differentiate a light healing from a major healing from a greater healing. Yes?”

  “Of course. I have seen lists of rune families along those lines. Each has the same core rune with some subtle variations to parallel what the other mage guilds account for minor, lesser, greater, etc.”

  She nodded. “Exactly so.” She paused and revealed, “They are nonsense.”

  I just blinked at her. “What do you mean? In stories as part of the language, these are relatively common.”

  “Yes. In stories, that is true. But in magic, there is but the one rune and one source for that rune. All the rest is either literature or distractions to protect the magic of the guild.”

  The importance of what she just shared with me fell hard upon my shoulders.

  “What you just shared with me…” I trailed off.

  “Is one of the deepest, most closely guarded secrets of our guild.”

  “Starla, I don’t know what to say.” I foundered for words.

  “How about, ‘thank you,’ and ‘I’ll take the secret to my grave’ or ‘share it with my own apprentice someday’.”

  I smiled and said, “Sincerely, thank you. And I’ll take the secret to my grave or share it with my own apprentice someday.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Hey, does that make me your apprentice?”

  She laughed out loud. “Sure, we’ll go with that. Secretly, of course. I just didn’t think I’d be here long enough to have an apprentice, and if the city falls, the secret goes with it.”

  “Then let’s see what we can do to stop that from happening,” I stated seriously.

  “Then, it's time to learn and practice your second rune. Even though Double will only use a single spell/skill point to acquire, it will cost you two casting points when using it. I’ll explain more as we go. When you make your first Combine augmentation, you will use from one to five casting points for the healing because it is a variable rune, and two for the doubling.”

  “So I would spend three casting points as an augmentation to get two healing points if I put one point in healing and two for doubling.”

  “Right, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. You’d just put two in healing and be done with it if you needed two health. But, if you put five into healing and two into double, you go from five healing and five casting points to ten healing with seven casting points. There are not a lot of efficiencies with lower Combine runes, but it gets much better, much faster as you advance Combines.”

  “So, if I were to learn the Triple Rune, it would cost me one spell/skill point, and my efficiencies would be even better.”

  She pointed to her nose with her pointer finger and said, “And you picked up on that now. I had to learn the double spell first and then figured it out later.”

  “Do you have the Triple Rune?” I asked hopefully.

  “Why, in fact, I do. Would you prefer to learn it instead of Double, my inquisitive apprentice?”

  “Only if you don’t have a fourth or fifth, which would be better,” I said and added. “My master.”

  She laughed again. “Sorry, the best I have right now is Triple.”

  “Then let’s do this. I am fascinated by how augmentation works.” I said, excitedly.

  And we worked on it for another couple of hours. I placed the single healing rune block I had used over by my nightstand at the side of my bed and empowered it for five healing points. I’m not sure why I did it, but it did create a soft yellow glow, which would create a little light in the room like a night light.

  I only made two practice versions of the Triple rune and then a single version of the Triple Healing runes on a block of wood. When it met with her approval, we both took a blank rune stone. I used one of Davon’s sandstone gifts, and she pulled out one of her handmade blank bone runes. We both made a triple healing rune. She carved hers, and I engraved mine. By making two, I could try both in a socket and see how they worked.

  I withdrew one of my recently forged Dwarven Copper five-socket rings. With her encouragement, I placed my augmented rune in it first. The rune clicked into place as usual, and when I put it on, I knew that I had a tripled five-point healing ability that was good once per day. It was better than the ten-point healing I placed into a crystal that Steven made with a five-point Heal Self spell. In fact, it was also better than the crystal healing spells Adriana was able to make using her First Element Blood spell, Heal. She could make it more powerful in the SUS rings, but crystals tended to max out at five casting points for whatever first-level spell was being cast. It was all these little bonuses and limitations that made enchanting fun, and also a little frustrating.

  Starla handed me her augmented rune, and it clicked into place as well, but it felt different, somehow. I put the ring on, and her Triple Healing provided a fifteen-point healing just like mine.

  “What’s wrong?” She asked, seeing me furrow my brow.

  “I’m not really sure. It felt odd when I put it into the ring.” I said.

  “Odd how?” She asked.

  It was difficult to put my finger on it. “It felt like I just closed the door behind me but left my keys on the kitchen table.”

  She pondered that. “Does it seem like it will work?” She asked.

  “Oh, yes. That part seems right as rain. Odd.”

  “Can you remove the runes?”

  I focused on my rune, used a casting point, and it popped out. I focused on her bone rune, and the casting point wouldn’t take.

  It dawned on me what had happened. “Your rune was carved on a bone. My prodigy skills work with stones, both mineral and gemstone. I don’t have the same control over bone carvings.”

  “You may want to keep that between us. Your reputation as a miracle worker helps to keep the wheels turning around here. Letting on you can’t do something with sockets may be counterproductive.”

  “Or maybe it will just make me look human,” I said.

  “I see your point, but with war coming, I think the others don’t want human. I’m just saying, it is probably worth keeping a lid on it for now.”

  I didn’t like keeping secrets from my team and said so.

  “You don’t share everything with them. Do you tell them how to make your Dwarven Copper?” She asked.

  “That’s different,” I argued.

  “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Regardless, I just think it's a bad idea. Here,” She said as she removed one of the rings I gave her. “You take this one back, and I’ll take this one and add some runes in it.”

  “Keep the ring and also that one. Add some runes to it that work for you. Between the two of us, we can make a few more. You should have some dope rune powers as our only Rune Lord.”

  “Dope rune powers?” She asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Not my thing?” I asked.

  “Not really, no.” And she laughed.

  I pulled out some more blank sandstone rune templates. “Let’s make some Triple Healing runes before heading down to the evening team meeting. You make some grammatically correct and linguistically erudite bone runes for your own ring. It will draw conversation and build up your reputation among the journeymen.”

  She stared at me and shook her head with a sigh. “Let’s just make some dope runes. We will need some more Magical Restoration potions, though.”

  Bella placed a small box on the table between us. Starla jumped, and I flinched. “Here you go.” She said and then disappeared again.

  “Do you ever get used to that?” Starla asked.

  “Nope. But I sure do appreciate having her around.” I said with a laugh.