Astrid wasn't exactly big on prayer. She'd always uttered the words any soldier should, telling the gods who weren't there that they could watch her or not. This was different.

  Even the time on the train, when she'd prayed to Bookkeeper to give her strength so she could fight mightier foes had only earned her the barest hint of approval.

  Nothing could have prepared her for the reality of a goddess talking to her for an hour about how death worked. "How is any of this different from when I've died in the past and Travis or Brayden have brought me back?"

  "It's…" Bookkeeper thought she'd explained it all. "The simplest way to describe it is that when you die normally, your soul is passed to the god or goddess you most look to. They can keep it safe and let someone bring you back. All that is needed is a little physical matter. That's easy to do, and some priests can completely regenerate a body.

  "My attempt to converse here without the temple being properly buffered against so much power was like a huge fire rolling through you. Instead of harming your body, it burned your soul away. I— Sorry, again. That's why I loaded a copy of your soul from a buffer. That was just a pattern, though, and I had to use it to create a soul pattern on pure energy."

  The words were still hard to follow, but Astrid could feel truth in them, if only because her own soul resonated with Bookkeeper so closely. "You used your own energy. What am I now?" The pressure she felt as Bookkeeper replied felt like it was the world itself talking. If she hadn't believed that the Southerner's gods existed before, she did now.

  "Different. You're still the woman you were when you walked into the temple, also a monster, and a follower of me. But, now, you're also part of me. My power is your power, but this world limits how much you can have. If too much divine power is pulled into the world in one place, it could annihilate the existence of all those around you, to say nothing of forcing you out of this plane forever. Oh, and you probably have about two minutes of memories that are super fuzzy."

  The last held up to scrutiny, so Astrid continued speaking candidly. "So, don't try to do too much with it. I can do little things, right?" Astrid could feel a small knot in her stomach at the thought of never coming back to protect her new home and friends. Transcending death and becoming functionally immortal had been a new chapter in her life, but now she had the potential for another. "And what would that do? Where would I go?"

  "Eventually you'd end up in the higher realm, where the gods live. You get why that would be, right?" Bookkeeper began tapping her foot—not that it was audible in the temple—when Astrid went very quiet and still. "You'd be a g—"

  "I get it. It's just too much." Astrid felt completely numb. The situation was entirely beyond her means to take-in without some struggle. "How am I supposed to accept this? I'm not— I can't become a—" Still unable to say the word in the context of herself, Astrid tried nonetheless to continue, "So I'll grow, uh, stronger?"

  "'Eventually' is the key word there. You won't become a god overnight. You will need to train and grow, build your divinity and the purpose you will embody. And it might change later on. I wasn't exactly destined to be the goddess of dungeons and cities, but here I am."

  "You're still the goddess of books and libraries." Having never been particularly well-read in anything except maps and orders, Astrid had never experienced a library before coming to Northridge. She could admit to seeing a reason for them, but she still preferred the outdoors.

  "So you won't get upset at all the books?"

  "No. You can't change that completely. Look at this temple." Astrid didn't need to glance around to see the shelves of old books all around the temple. She could still smell the leather-brass-glue-gut-twine scents that older books came with—a smell that she found more relaxing now. "It might be in a dungeon, and it might have spawned because of the dungeon, but the world remembers who you are, even if you have had to adjust." When Bookkeeper was quiet, Astrid barked a laugh. "You thought I wouldn't understand changing who you are to help others?"

  Bookkeeper was silent for some time. Astrid used it to focus on herself and what felt like too much power within her. She was no mage, and certainly didn't consider herself any kind of priest, so relating to the energy wasn't the easiest task. She had seen both types of magic used, of course, but she hadn't been able to feel them inside herself.

  The Priest class had been close, but all that had done seemed transactional. She had what felt like timers for the abilities, she could trigger them when the timer ran out, then the effect happened. This was utterly different. Still in a meditative state, she reached her hand out, palm up, and pushed a little of that power out into her palm.

  When she slowly opened her eyes, it was neither light nor flame that danced in her palm. She had halfway expected one or the other, since they were the most flashy and evident expressions of power. Were she not a dungeon creature now, she might have even missed the pool of pure magic cupped in her hand.

  There was something there, she realized. It was like a gun with a loaded charge or a line of heavy cavalry at a gallop. It was unrealized power and the ability to accomplish something. Magic, like this, was potential on the very cusp of utilization, she mused, and withdrew it back into herself. "I think I understand magic."

  "You might be underselling magic. It's kinda a big thing. Like…" Fishing for a thing within Astrid's wheelhouse, Bookkeeper snapped her fingers. "Oh, like sword fighting. You have a length of steel. You have a body. With those two things, can someone say they understand sword fighting?"

  It stalled Astrid's newfound self-confidence in its tracks and gave her an angle to work her way forward. "How do I learn to use it, then?"

  "Training. Learning from masters in the art. There's a few in your dungeon." Bookkeeper almost felt like she could see the machinery in Astrid's head turning over the idea. "I should stop leaking mana into the world now. Just ask for help or advice, and I'll give them if I can."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The moment Bookkeeper was gone, Astrid felt like when she'd first gained draconic traits. Solid, more real, and bigger—though she knew she didn't look any different. One more breath in and out surprised Astrid. She looked around and realized she could see more of that magic floating in the air freely.

  Astrid stood up from where she'd been crouched and looked around. Even the walls of the dungeon seemed more colorful now, with patterns swirling here and there. One in particular caught her attention for its likeness to a sword stroke. Walking over to investigate, she moved to intercept it as it came to rest on a book.

  Taking the book from the shelf, Astrid opened it and read the words. They were clear as day, which was odd because the only languages she could read were her own Northern one and the common language of the kingdom she'd joined. This was neither.

  That she understood the words shouldn't have been as surprising given the source of the book. Her problem now was discerning the meaning behind the words. She'd read enough to know that they were a vessel. "Like their legs carry a soldier into war, words carry the meaning of the book into a mind." Understanding what each word meant alone would not get her the secrets of this tome.

  Tucking the book under her arm, Astrid left the temple with a specific target in mind. Being on the bottom floor of the dungeon too, the Library wasn't too far away. Unfortunately, Katelyn wasn't there. "Travis?"

  Having spent the last hour specifically not looking at Astrid, through Astrid, or listening to her conversation, Travis had to make a mental shift to do so. "Hey. How'd it go with Bookkeeper?"

  "She is not what I'd expect a goddess of books to be." It was the utter truth. She had expected a god with such a name to be a mewling weak thing. What she had found was an iron will that had reforged herself into the weapon her followers were so desperate for. It made her smile a little to have discovered that. "I need to find Katelyn."

  Travis didn't have to focus nearly as hard as he used to when it came to finding people. "She's in her lab working on a new teleport trap that can send people long distances."

  "Every day I am surprised by a new marvel someone here is producing. I will talk to her about those, once I ask my favor." Astrid ran through ideas as she walked out of the library and around to the Trap Factory room that Katelyn had adapted to be her workplace. She could see the wizard was busy, and waited quietly at the door.

  For Katelyn, the equations were all ridiculous. The magic requirements were beyond what any reasonable enchanter would attempt. Her problem was the amount of power any combination of arrays of mana collection could provide. She, however, knew something revolutionary was coming, and continued with her attempts regardless.

  "You can come in. I'm as done with the initial design of this as I can be right now," Katelyn said, her eyes flicking to the entrance and registering a modicum of surprise at seeing who her guest was.

  An itching feeling made Astrid want to ask what Katelyn was having trouble with, but part of why she was here, she was sure, would stop her from doing so. "I have a book I need to understand." She held it out toward Katelyn. The other woman, an advanced type of kobold but still a kobold, seemed tiny before her—but she would never doubt the woman's ability to demolish something if she needed to. The heat wafting off Katelyn constantly was enough that Astrid's own fire-affinity was relishing the warmth.

  The book's cover had some embossed words on it, but it was no language Katelyn had ever read before. Setting it on her workbench, she delicately opened it and examined the first page. "Where did you find this?"

  "It was on a shelf in the new temple. I think— No. I'm sure Bookkeeper wanted me to read it." Astrid could see a little apprehension on Katelyn's face. "Is there something wrong with it?"

  "What do you make of the title?"

  Astrid looked at the book. The cover was hidden now, but she could still remember it. "Advanced Arcane Magics and Their Applications. It seems obvious that it is a book for teaching magic at a high level. I— Bookkeeper explained to me that magic is like swordcraft." She could practically feel Katelyn wanting to cut in, but kept talking. "I might have magic now, but until I train with it, I'll be akin to a child swinging their table knife."

  Whatever Katelyn had been about to say about the horrible disrespect of the statement collapsed on her tongue. "That is a surprisingly apt comparison. Arcane magic is"—she winced a little as she spoke—"similar, then, to swordcraft. You will need both the training in the physical acts, and the study of the tactics and lore. The first problem with this book is that it is the final part of a journey. The second is that I can't read a word of it."

  "You can't? But it—" Astrid looked at the words on the page. Dots started to connect for her. "Of course I can read it; I have a pile of magic in me from the goddess of books."

  Katelyn tilted her head to the side a moment. "I heard we have a new temple, but no one was being talkative about it. She blessed you?" The idea of it grated a little, and Katelyn struggled with jealous anger at the idea of a soldier being blessed in such a way.

  "Not entirely, no. She wanted to give Travis a gift: her temple. When we broke into it, I felt compelled to enter."

  "Because you are already a Priest of hers?"

  Nodding, Astrid tried to brush aside her irritation at being interrupted for what was a meaningless detail to her. "When I entered, Bookkeeper manifested on this plane. The power she carries with her, according to her account, destroyed my soul utterly." She held up her palm to forestall another interruption. "She was able to remake my soul from a pattern, so I am still me, but she remade my soul with her power. That changed me."

  "I'm not exactly sure what that would mean, not being a priest, but it sounds significant to your ability to read books. Back to the topic, that makes two paths we can take here, and we can walk them both at once.

  "First, I can teach you arcane magic. It will include focusing your mind to a point as sharp as your sword and learning the concepts behind magic. We will build on this until you can understand the book and you can learn from it.

  "Second, I would very much enjoy it if you could teach me how to read it."

  For a moment Astrid wasn't sure if she would be able to, but the look of excitement in Katelyn's eyes reminded her of every young wolf eager for battle. Katelyn's battles, she realized, won the wizard knowledge itself. It was a path Astrid was honor-bound to take. "I will do my best."

  "Then why don't we start from the start." Closing the book, Katelyn picked it up and passed it back to Astrid. "This can be a treat for later. For now, let's go to the Library and we can begin."

  "I'll take a guess at that being a lot of exercises and training before I get to look at a spell?" Astrid asked, taking the book back.

  Raising her eyebrow ridge at the accuracy of Astrid's guess, Katelyn nodded. "Yeah. You can't work magic until you have knowledge of how it works and the ability to make it work."

  "And you can't swing a sword until you can hold it and know when to swing it." It seemed to Astrid that using magic was exactly like swordcraft.

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