Kaius stared up at the Spire and the runewright’s Collective, feeling more than a little intimidated by the sheer size of the buildings. They were a lot bigger up close, and both burned with enough magic to level the entire plaza if something destabilised.

At least the big tree was taking the heat off — his tunic had started to stick to his back. The Dukedoms were hot, far more tropical than the Frontier.

“Well,” he said after a few moments, turning to Ianmus next to him. “How do you want to do this?”

They’d left Kenva and Porkchop only ten minutes before, their friends shooting off into the district that lay behind the buildings in front of him. Kaius was only mildly worried that Porkchop would get them in trouble by accidentally breaking a door frame — but judging by the waves of interest and curiosity Kaius could feel through their bond, he was just enjoying exploring the city.

“I could handle the Spire if you want to head to the Collective yourself?” Ianmus suggested, “The council has likely spread at least a description of our original notes already, and we’re really just updating them — I expect you’ll be dealing with a lot more hullabaloo.”

As true enough a statement as he’d ever heard, if the reaction of Deadacre’s runewrights was anything to go off. Splitting up seemed like a fair enough idea to him, they were on a time schedule after all. Kenva and Porkchop were supposed to return once they’d found them lodgings, and he wanted to wrap this up before they got stuck waiting for some pompous noble pageantry to dissipate.

“Sounds good to me,” Kaius replied. “I imagine the Collective will want to see my Glyphs in action, so if there are mages desperate to do the same, maybe you could bring a couple of the more senior ones with you once you’re done?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ianmus clapped him on the shoulder, and strode towards a large door of carved jasper that sat at the base of the mage tower. It wasn’t anywhere near as busy as the guild, but there were a handful of casters drifting in and out — clutching staves or towering stacks of tomes.

Kaius focused on the Collective, and the inscriptions that burned on every span of its walls. This close, he could see the chimneys that were stacked on the rear of the building. They lacked smoke, but it was easy to spot the ripple of heated air that suggested it was being filtered away. Runesmiths, maybe. Like Father. A nervous tingle spread through his fingers — one that he hadn’t quite expected to be so strong. He was excited to talk with those who shared his love of the craft…but there were a fair few more people than he’d expected.

He could see them through the windows that had been half frosted with densely packed runes, bustling through a large entry hall. More flowed in and out, dressed in the canvas and leathers of working folk — often with belts of specialised styli strapped around their waists, a common choice for working on different materials for those who couldn’t afford to drop a mountain of gold on their tools.

Some were already staring. Bloody hawks, the lot of them. He might be standing two-hundred strides away in the shaded square, but they’d still caught sight of his glyphs. Maybe Eirnith had been a poor choice — it was damn obvious.

Kaius tapped the edge of his scabbard for comfort. “You’ve killed a bloody Tyrant, fool — what do you care about the attention of runewrights,” he muttered to himself.

Deciding to simply not give himself the time to think about it, Kaius made his approach.

It got worse as he reached the doors, every runewright he passed stopping mid stride to simply watch. They were fascinated — not staring at him, but the lines upon his skin. Body formations were enough of an oddity, one that would have no doubt got him attention, but ones as detailed as his own? In a completely unknown script? Yeah, that would get him eyes.

Kaius walked straight through the front door. It took seconds for the whispers to start.

He managed another step before a dozen people crowded around him. Oddly, despite a man with grey hair and soot stains on his face leaning into literal kissing distance, he felt invisible.

They only cared about the glyphs. Rune fanatics to the last. The thought banished the hint of anxiety in his stomach, making him grin.

“That’s new,” the older runewright who had leaned in said, stepping back with a puzzled frown. “That doesn’t happen often.”

More people started to gather, shuffling with him as he made a vague attempt to stop blocking the door.

A middle aged woman with blonde hair tilted her head at Kaius. “Single script, too. Most of em i’ve seen are butchered hackjobs — clever ones, but messy. This looks clean.”

“Hey look, they’re on his hands!”

Kaius could only laugh, tugging up his sleeve before he held it out. Three clustered around it immediately, flicking between Drakthar on his hands and Eirnith on his temples.

“Oh, that’s weird. They don’t look like the same script, shapes to the runes are all wrong, and the style’s different — but they have to be! Got shared ones there, there and there,” a man prodded his wrist, before he pointed out a few more.

Kaius looked at him in surprise — that had taken him weeks to figure out, and the bastard did it in seconds.

“Oi, you lousy gits!” a man boomed, standing on the reception desk as he scowled at the gathered crowd. He looked weathered, and fully gray — but still burned with an astounding vitality. No doubt thanks to reaching Silver. “That’s a bloody man, not a prime rack of ribs — back up!

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The gathered crowd froze, and then finally looked at him. The chorus of sheepish looks he got as they slowly retreated was ridiculous, Kaius couldn’t help but snort.

Kaius strode forwards, cutting towards the man who had yelled. He had some sort of densely inscribed medallion around his neck. Judging by its complexity, and the man’s level, he had to be someone of authority.

“Sorry about that,” the man said. “People lose a bit o’ their sense when they see something strange around here.”

“It’s fine, I expected something like that. The name’s Kaius,” he said, offering a hand.

“Runemaster Casso,” the runemaster replied, shaking firmly.

Kaius didn’t miss the way that Casso used it as an opportunity to make his own inspection of the glyphs inscribed there. Nor the way the entire room had gone dead silent as every runewright present made very little pretence about staring at his glyphs and listening in.

“That your work?” Casso asked.

“Yep.”

“You a member?”

“Nope.”

“Want to be?”

“I do…”

“Good. Did you come here to tell us more about whatever these are?” Casso waved his stained hands in the general direction of Kaius’s glyphs.

“I did, actually,” Kaius replied, grinning.

“Great! I name you honorary Runemaster.”

“What?!”

“I fucking told you it was new!” someone screamed from the room behind Kaius.

“Shut it!” Casso bellowed, before he raised his brow at Kaius. “Lad, he’s not wrong. This is new new. Not ‘I made a minor improvement on basic lightwards’ new, but new new. And if you try to tell me that this is some variant body formation, I'll smack you myself. There’s no blood anchor array, and instead of letting it flow it’s gripping your mana tighter than a babe on a tit. This is ‘stroke of genius’ shit, absent of iterative design. Almost certainly means that these are from system-gifted knowledge, and you don’t know a hoot about how they work, but that also means ya got something that you do know how it works, because that’s how ya would’ve gotten the class in the first place — and you want to share that with us. Even with the most restrictive licensing we got, that means something. So yeah, I name you honorary Runemaster,” Casso ranted in an unbroken stream as he flexed Kaius’s hand from side to side, inspecting how Drakthar moved.

How in the hells had the man deduced all of that in a matter of seconds? That was some monstrous familiarity with runes — he’d come to the right place.

“So what’s an honorary Runemaster?”

Casso turned his hands over, his brow raising as he noticed the glyphic sigil of a blade beneath a sun on his palm.

“This is weird,” he muttered, before he glanced back up at Kaius for a moment. “Second highest rank we have, and judging by the fact that I can’t make heads or tails of this, likely too low of one for you. Unfortunately, I can’t grant out ranks I don't have for myself — closest city that could ratify honorary Grand Runemaster would be Suminal.”

That was no great surprise — crafting classes who had reached the second tier were rare. Suminal wasn’t that far though, another major city in the Dukedoms to the north east. He doubted he would go out of his way though, especially when they intended to eventually make their way to Wight’s End. He’d eat his boot if there weren’t any grand runemaster’s there.

“And the honourary?” Kaius asked, still curious about what it meant. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“Just means we don’t vouch for the quality of your work, but you’ve made significant enough contributions to be recognised,” Runemaster Casso said, before he paused for a moment. “On that note, you don’t know how licensing works, do you?”

He did not — though the fact they had a methodology to share developments at all was genuinely surprising. He was so damned used to everything being hoarded that it was an honest breath of fresh air.

“I don’t.”

“Achk, it’s simple enough. You set the terms on how people use your work. How much it costs to use the designs on a once off or unlimited basis, and how much of a cut you want from the licensing of designs that iterate on your own. Just from the licensing, ye don’t get a slice of labour fees. Non-heritable, of course.”

That seemed… inordinately complex. Most runecraft inventions built on the work of dozens of others. If they each got a small slice, how was that all factored? Was half this building bloody Accountants?

“Oh yes, I see that gleam in your eyes son. Like I said, this is new new. If any of this is even slightly useful, you’ll make a bloody good dollop of dosh, that’s for damn sure,” Casso said, grinning.

That wasn’t what he was thinking at all! He had money falling out of his damn ears, and they hadn’t even liquidated all of the second tier artefacts they’d gotten from their most recent delve. Unless he wanted to buy a goddamn palace, anything he could want was just a delve away.

“I was actually thinking the opposite. Is there some way to make it so that those that develop on my designs have to also licence theirs for free?”

Casso froze as half a dozen runewrights in the room let out a sudden whooping cheer.

“I…why?”

“Well, I think it’s too valuable to sell. I would rather developments happened faster — I'm much more likely to get insight into how these things work that way,” Kaius replied, shaking his hand at the man.

The runemaster blinked at him, before he grinned.

“Genius and a saint, I can work with that,” he said, before pausing for a moment. “What is it, by the way?”

A wide grin spilled across Kaius’s face. He’d been waiting for this.

“It’s a glyph. They let me inscribe spells that I can cast without channeling.”

The reaction was immediate, Casso stared at him with a wild look while a chorus of heckling shouts burst through the room behind Kaius.

“Clear out the main testing room!” Casso yelled over his shoulder. “This I've got to see.”