“The criteria for being Godforged has been one of Odin’s greatest mysteries. Why does he - and the Aesir and Vanir gods who follow him - choose who they choose? Why do the bodies of those who first receive an Elemental Forging change so drastically? Are the Conceptual Forgings lesser because they leave no such modifications?

  I’ve spent a lifetime studying the Forged gifts, and gathering arguments from natural philosophers, priests, mages, and learned men. Yet I must confess, while I have drawn many conclusions, much of the mystery still remains.”

  - Codex Aesir Theistica, Prologue

  Viggo had outdone himself. After much thought and a brief discussion, Taliesin had given him a shopping list, and Viggo had delivered beyond any reasonable expectation.

  Taliesin had spent much of the following morning talking with his own villagers and a few hopeful merchants that had wandered by. The villagers were holding up well, all things considered, for they’d been able to retain much of their belongings and they had food and shelter for the winter. It was far better than many of the refugees in town who’d come from other villages without the old Jarl’s heir and an archmage. The merchants who’d come in sought to ingratiate themselves to Taliesin in hopes of securing whatever magical services he might be willing to share. Artifacts, spellcasting, wards and curses - all were desirable and profitable, so they sought to pry knowledge of what he could, or would, do for a fee.

  After these long conversations were dispensed with, Taliesin retreated to the small workshop room in the small suite of guest rooms in Gunther’s manor. The room had formerly been a servant’s bunkroom, intended for maids or groomsmen of nobles. Viggo had arranged for a scribe’s desk, work table and stool to be brought in, opting to bunk with Runolf and his throng in the small barracks reserved for the varingjar of the Jarl’s guests so that Taliesin could have a proper place to work.

  Piled on this table were a variety of useful materials that Taliesin needed for his work. There were several stout sticks of ash, rowan and yew wood. Atop the wood was a strip of leather a few inches wide and a dozen long. A wooden cup of lye sat next to a bowl of wood ash. A small pile of rocks that were easily identified as various minerals was next, although Taliesin suspected they did not include everything he’d requested. Several small metal ingots were stacked neatly against the back, mostly iron but one copper and one tin as well. An irregular piece of slate and a few roughly cut pieces of chalk sat to the right, for jotting temporary notes. But the true prize was on the scribe’s desk.

  It was not one, but two journals. The volumes were bound in well-tooled leather overtop thin sheets of wood, with two clasps that kept the volumes shut tightly. Inside was a sheaf of surprisingly thin vellum pages, off-white but well pumiced and neatly trimmed. They had perhaps fifty sheets, bound expertly into the spine. Next to them was an inkwell, three ink sticks, and a pile of long goose feather quills. Behind the books was a scribe stand large enough to hold a single book while it was being written in, and a dozen sheets of far cheaper parchment that could be washed and reused with ease.

  The table with its miscellaneous materials, a desk with two journals, and no implements - it was a good start. It was far from his old tower in Londinium, with decades of history and countless thousands of hours invested. Yet his own understanding of magic had grown immeasurably since then. Taliesin’s uncountable years in the Void had led to a spellform design that was vastly superior to his old world’s methods.

  Let’s take stock, thought Taliesin as he re-arranged the materials to give himself a more convenient workspace. He ignored the journals for now - he’d not write anything into them until he’d gathered his thoughts and had a plan. The pages were too few and the cost too high for them to be wasted. Instead, he pulled over the slate. A simple cast of [Shape] turned the lumps of chalk into thin, smooth sticks.

  “What do I actually need?” asked Taliesin to the empty room. The answers were many.

  I need better protection. I need to be able to cast more powerful spells. Taliesin casually re-Shaped the thick slate into a wider, thinner board that he placed on the scribe stand, then began to make tiny notes using scribe’s notation on it.

  But that answer wasn’t sufficient. Better wards and better spells was well and good, for he had no doubt that he would fight many more times in the future. Yet he had to think bigger than himself, too. His desire to build a safe haven against the Twilight of the Gods would not go uncontested. Taliesin knew that he’d need to build up an army, and the community to foster that army. In fact, he was going to need to be far more capable with other utilitarian magics as well. Construction-oriented spellforms, building and city wards and curse barriers all came to mind. On top of that was the standby of weapon and armor enhancements.

  On a purely academic level, Taliesin also felt a deep need to document and explore the spellform system he’d devised. Ideally, he would be able to teach other mages how to cast in this system. However, the true key to understanding spellforms was the visualization aspect. Courtesy of his endless time in the Void, Taliesin had learned how to see aether at an existential level. He did not have a convenient Void to dump potential students into, nor anyway to guarantee their sanity. Sometimes he wondered if he’d come out entirely sane. He’d certainly not come out unchanged or unscarred.

  To that end, he would need to devise visualization spells based off of illusion and divination magics to help learning students grasp the mechanics of his far more efficient system. He’d noticed the aether flow in the Forgings of Jarl Gunther and Aina both when they used their divinely granted powers, and they seemed very similar to the aether interface to the Akashic Records he’d encountered in the Void, and might be something he could use in the future, if he could get a closer look.

  That would have to wait, however. He had to grow strong quickly, to secure some measure of independence and power. Taliesin continued to jot down notes, so outline future plans.

  Minutes turned into hours, and many of the most valuable notes and refined ideas were transcribed to the cheaper sheets of parchment. Even on this poorer medium, Taliesin kept his writing tight and small, his neat script making cramped blocks of text, formulas, and ideas without wasting even an inch of the page.

  Around mid-afternoon, a knock interrupted him, and a curvy maid barged in with a tray carrying a mug of small beer, thick sliced bread spread with farmer’s cheese, and a small wrinkled apple.

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  “Apologies, Stormlord, but your man Viggo sent me in with a snack for you.”

  Taliesin nodded appreciatively as the woman set down the tray. She was comfortably plump and curved in a way he quite enjoyed. He gave her a roguish grin that well suited his renewed face. “Many thanks, madam. My stomach was just crying out for attention. You’ve certainly saved me from certain doom, or at least moderate discomfort.”

  The woman gave a genuine laugh. “Oh, you.”

  “No doubt I’d have gone many hours wilting away, but your kind presence has brought hope, and more importantly, food, back into my life.”

  She gave a light blush at that. “You’re a charmer, you are… err, milord. Oh! Hey, I recognize those! My husband bound them!”

  Taliesin turned with a slight sigh of disappointment to follow where she pointed, and caught sight of the new journals. “Ah, he’s a book binder, is he? A bit surprised to see a small town such as this with a bindery.”

  “Oh aye, he’s a good one at that. He makes parchment, too, although his partner does most of that. They have a fair few apprentices, too. Strange how much noblefolk such as yourself need to be writin’ and such. I got no letters myself, but…”

  Taliesin tucked into his food as the woman served him from the platter and casually tidied up around him. She chattered non stop as she wiped away a few specks of non-existent dust then blew out of the room moments later in a storm of gossip.

  For someone who claims illiteracy, she sure knows all of the words, thought Taliesin drily. But the fact remained that this small town had a bindery. It changed his understanding of this new world slightly. Were they more educated? This was a rustic corner of a Northmen fief, yet they had a sign of civilization beyond the runesticks he’d seen in the Danelaw duchies of his own world. On one hand, this world seemed a mirror of his old. On the other, a thousand large and tiny differences crept through at every moment. It was as large as the gods and as small as the availability of parchment.

  With a shake of his head, Taliesin finished his meal and returned to his tasks. The break had been helpful in that his mind had a moment to rest. Now fed and refreshed, it was clear where his next steps should be. He needed both defenses and improved offenses. In his past world, he had enchanted robes to protect him, and the Staff of the Four Winds to help him fight. Yet the robes had done little when he’d needed them the most, and the Staff of the Four Winds had been more a weather focus than a combat device. It had helped him end droughts, but did little to prevent a world from burning.

  Taliesin drew the chunks of wood before him. Rowan, Ash and Yew. He’d considered asking for more types of wood, for they each had different mystical qualities. The oak, for example, was stout and strong, a guardian and protector of the virtuous. Yet he’d known that would never suit him. The Staff of the Four Winds had been a linden wood, for linden was associated with growth and fertility. He was no longer the peaceful researcher and weather worker anymore, nor was he the desperate academic making last ditch portals to worlds unknown.

  The yew he discarded immediately. He did consider the rowan, for its strong warding and curse protection affinities. In the end, Taliesin set it aside for a protective charm or amulet instead, and picked up a length of ash wood. Immediately, the wood felt right in his hands, much the way linden had once felt right many decades ago. The ash tree represented the universe, the power cosmic, and secret knowledge. Wielding ash would be to symbolize rebirth and renewal, and a mystic connection to worlds and spirits.

  The short piece of wood was more suited for a fireplace than a staff of power, but it was recently cut and the wood was still magically alive. It hadn’t dried out or cracked, and was still in fact too green to burn. The first thing he needed to do was to make the wood into a usable staff. Taliesin’s [Shape] spell wouldn’t work on living materials, and a non-living staff was useless. Instead, Taliesin used a spell he’d learned from the Merlin, one he’d never converted to his spellform system.

  Because his staff was a symbol of his power and who he was as a person, Taliesin needed to lean on more sympathetic magics. While druidic power was typically weak, it was deeply tied to the world and nature.

  {Sacred Growth},” said Taliesin as he drew only on his personal power rather than the torque around his neck. Glowing green energy spilled from his hands in a shower of ethereal ash leaves, which fell onto the table around the ash log. In seconds, the log sprouted ethereal roots and began to elongate and grow. Layers of bark grew around the slender rod as twining tree branches sprouted then wove themselves around the new stave as it reached for the ceiling.

  The tree-like shaft continued to shape itself under Taliesin’s spell. It shed the remnants of the log it had just been. The random branches faded away, and the bark gave way to an inch-thick stave that stood near six feet tall. The wood circled and swirled in circular patterns from base to tip, with smooth lengths of wood mixed into the design. The grain of the wood seemed deeper, more real somehow, as if the cosmos themselves had touched the ash wood. The spell reached its completion, and a small ring of wood separated from the top of the new staff and fell to the table.

  Taliesin let the spell drop with an exhausted smile. His personal aether pool was really far too small for such demanding castings. Thankfully, he didn’t need to use it again to finish his work. He could now work the enchantments into the living staff while he recovered. With the copper stylus he’d Shaped back in Landsman Varo’s home, Taliesin scratched tiny spellforms into the wood, careful to flow with the grain of the wood, before aether paths formed into glyphs. Unlike when he engraved his Torque of Dawn, he wasn’t digging deep into metal with the stylus and a [Shape] spell. Now he was barely scratching the Ash wood, just deep enough to be visible.

  The new enchantments tied into the Torque to draw power, and Taliesin could already tell that he would be working on this new, unnamed staff for weeks before he would be satisfied. However, for now he was able to craft two functions. He finished the last of the sigils for the day, and took a pinch of wood ash and a pinch of lye. He dashed them across the delicate scratches, and cast a minor [Engrave] spell. Purple aether burned into existence and followed the lines of the sigils. The spellform burned precisely where Taliesin had carved, then leapt to the small ring of wood that had fallen to the table earlier. This sliver of ash fit Taliesin’s finger precisely, and glowed purple as the spell concluded.

  Taliesin put the ring on, and used it to activate the staff’s first function. A portal spell wrapped itself around the staff, and a split second later, the staff reappeared in his hand. He wouldn’t be so easily separated from his staff the next time he faced a powerful foe, he thought to himself as he recalled how easily Balidar had taken away his old staff and broken it.

  The second enchantment was purely to hold the magic circle required of his battle spell, [Celestial Annihilation]. He’d been caught unprepared the last time he needed it, and injured himself in the casting as a result. Now it would be readily on hand.

  With a tired yawn and a stretch, Taliesin stood. He left the staff on the table, but donned the ring. It was the first of many such days, and as the days of winter grew short and people stayed inside, he’d have time to truly build the staff into a fearsome weapon. He planned to defy the fate of this world, he’d need a weapon that could shake the heavens themselves. It was then that he decided on a name, as his new weapon gleamed with eldritch power on the workbench before him.

  A knock came at the door, and Runolf entered the small workspace.

  “Stormlord, the Jarl has invited you to the evening meal…” he trailed off as his eyes caught the new staff on the bench. The staff’s almost illusory gleam of stellar light and universal depth was hinted beneath the dark ash surface, and the patterns that swirled around the purple-black enchantments in a nod to the surreal.

  “Milord! What is that?” exclaimed Runolf after a long moment.

  “That, Runolf, is the start of a weapon, which I will use to shake the firmament of this world,” said Taliesin with a note of pride in his voice. “It is the Empyreal Staff.”

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