‘Alliums best Engravers’ wasn’t much from the outside, it was a windowless two-story masonry building a quarter block in size that - from what his senses could tell - extended downwards in a basement. It was nestled between a tailor's shop and a cheesemonger a block away from the main street. A well made if a little aged sign above the doorway said:

  AnnouncementALLIUMS BEST ENGRAVERS

  All Welcome

  FREE QUOTES

  Vicktor looked questioningly at Ar and Nora, who both smiled and let out a shrug. So he continued towards the double doors, fnked by the other apprentices.

  As Vicktor got within a few feet of the doors, the doors instantly slid into recesses in the masonry. As they did so, an immense wave of energy stumbled him and he paused and looked down for a second to gather his bance.

  It wasn’t anything tangible that had caused him to lose his bance, no material wind or force magic, and immaterial magic like gravity or change in friction. His magical senses honed over his training at the Academy failed him utterly. The physical world in front of him was clear and stable, but three magical dimensions superimposed upon the mundane world were in utter chaos. Raw mana swirling alongside magics he hadn’t experienced before in his entire pitiful existence. Vicktor had never met a god, but this is what he imagined an encounter with a god would be like.

  “I’m not a god” A lovely feminine voice echoed from deeper in the building. “Princep Talia at your service, now come in you three, you’ll let the magic out.”

  Vicktor simply obeyed and stepped forwards, Ar and Nora followed behind. All three were slightly dazed but Ar and Nora were much better off. The doors slid shut after them and Vicktor could see that they were entirely coated in iron, he didn’t have mage-sight, but he could see the ambient magics push against the doors.

  Once the door was shut, the magical pressure equalized and all three felt much better. It was still an overwhelming pressure, but at least it was coming from all sides now.

  There were an uncountable number of objects, shapes, weapons, and books strewn across a great number of tables, walls and columns. On one column hung a sword of pure purple, a blue coif with silver patterns weaved all around it and a cloak seemingly made from the sky itself. On a small circur table next to the column was a pile of assorted tomes three feet high. Another shelf near where they had entered was an entire collection of beast skulls engraved in gold and copper. Overall, Vicktor thought it might take months to properly categorize all the strange items.

  A tall, blonde woman stood behind a long, deep counter in the back of the shop. Her top right arm up to the sleeve of her robe was entirely metal with seven digits. Her normal five in addition to two on the underside of her hand, they were longer than a middle finger but thicker like a thumb. She had two spindly robed arms underneath her original arms would be. Behind her were two sets of entirely metallic wings. Her wings gleamed bright in spirals of ptinum and some darker dull metal that might have been zinc or silicon.

  “Ar and Nora, I believe we have met before. Who might you be, my recently teleported friend? We will have to discuss that ter, something seems amiss with you and I can’t quite pce it.”

  “Good morning Princep Talia,” Vicktor said cautiously, “I am also apprenticed to Master Tosk.”

  “Ah that would expin it, I got a scroll from Master Tosk earlier this morning. Ar and Nora are still beginning and I knew well enough to craft something in advance. Here you go by the way,” She said while pulling out two small objects from underneath the counter.

  "Let me give these two their presents before we chat in depth about your curious fundamental principle."

  They walked over to the counter, trying not to bump sharp weapons or baskets of furs. Vicktor almost fell over when a statue of a toad “ribbeted” a little too close to his ear.

  “For you Ar, a ring of voice amplification. A little bit of mana and every creature within a thousand feet of you will be able to hear you as if you were across the table from them. This should help you communicate when you fly above everyone”

  Ar took the small band, pced it on his finger. “Thank you”

  “Thankfully this shop is insuted in iron my avian friend, or thousands of people would just have heard you speak. The mana is automatic as long as you wear it, you can adjust the projection distance if you need to though.”

  “OH“ he said, his owl eyes going wide and then quickly removed the ring from his hand.

  “Nora” the Princep handed over a palm sized “This is a spotting device attachment for your greatbow, it’s only a rangefinder, sextant, adjustable dial, and a mechanical mana multiplier. It will light up these four different areas. It will show you vertical and horizontal distance, angle off the horizon and proposed angle.”

  She paused, pointing out the 4 areas and the adjustable dial. “Use this dial to calibrate your bow strength when you draw your bow a known amount. It will be able to estimate the angle needed for long range shots. You will have to adjust for windage and a few other changes, but you’re a smart girl, you’ll be picking off unaware beasts from a thousand feet in no time.”

  “Thank you so much” Nora said, basically squealing, “The hunters guild has a range to practice up to 600 feet, but that might not be enough. It’ll be a start though.”

  “Nora and Ar, do you have anything to do while I chat with Vicktor? I’ll need over an hour to chat about his present and his trouble with teleporters, nothing life-threatening but it is both important and private.”

  “Uh sure… we’ll be at the nearby inscriptionist, Master Tosk is getting the Builder’s Guild to reimburse our first mage-sight.”

  “Go to Princep Tolly’s north four blocks and east 6 blocks. My sister won’t butcher you quite so bad and the Guild’s usually reimburse phantasmal needles. I will caution on having too many engraved items and active inscriptions at the same time, especially you Ar. With mage-sight that brings you up to five potential active magics. I’d highly recommend against doing more than eight unless they are specifically designed to interact with each other. There’s a more discreet and tuneable mage-sight equivalent, but that will only become possible if you become Rectors.”

  “What happens if you have more than 8 separate active magics,” Vicktor said, worrying despite knowing he was only going to have 2 at the end of the day.

  “There a few notable exceptions to the rule of eight, usually if the items are exceptionally simir or paired, Hover boots or these wings generally count as one.” pointing to Talia’s own wings “another fairly common set exception is magic devices that are self-contained -magic crossbows or Nora’s Spotter- however, if Nora likes this little gadget, we may find a way to bind it to her magics.”

  Talia paused, looking at Nora again, seeming to look through her...

  “Although the more I look at you, I have a feeling only one or two of your active magics will be from engraved items. I’ve done this a while and you don’t seem to trust the strength and certainty of steel. Shame. Still come back soon, that bow won’t be able keep up with your for long”

  Talia snapped her finger and Nora and Ar were suddenly at the double door “Ta-Ta”, the two were obviously startled but look at each other, shrugged and departed through the sliding doors. The pressure differential of the mana flow was still noticeable from this distance but not nearly as intense.

  “Are you aware of what's happened to you, Vicktor?” Talia stared directly between his eyes.

  “Maybe? I had a particurly nasty teleporter experience, someone mentioned it was probably because of my bespoke foundational principle?” Vicktor said uncertainly.

  “Part of that is true. Except that your soul is far too unstable for that, and that doesn’t expin the boon of a chaos god currently branding your soul, as well as a second ruakh. I assume Master Tosk wanted to ease your into that, but given his immediate departure of indeterminate length, he wanted me to tell and monitor you.”

  “Chaos God?” Vicktor started his hands

  “Oh it's not one of the main four, that's the only reason you are still alive, or rather, allowed to reside in the cities. You have been permanently barred from ever using teleporter services again by the way. There is no appeal and no clemency if you fraudulently teleport, everything except your soul is forfeit.” She waved an apathetic hand. ”it’s pretty much only good for fresh Academy students and mundanes anyway”

  Talia paused once more, seeming to stare into his head again.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t notice, although being a virgin helps.”

  “Hey what now? Vicktor blushed HARD.

  “There’s only one god that would change your penis while also altering your memories to think you had that ridiculous penis the whole time. The most accurate name for them is the letter J, but you’ll probably end up using a name that makes you feel more connected with them”

  “You can see my penis?”

  “Don’t feel too bad kid, I can see quite a bit more of you, you get used to it. There are only a few dozen people in Allium who are probably able to detect your little oddity. They are all aware of your ‘condition’, you’ve been making waves and you’ve only been here a week. Congratutions! We’ve just met, but I’m proud, it took me two years before I caught some serious fk, in more ways than one actually.“ She reminisced on something fondly before continuing.

  “You’ve have the boon of a chaos god, you are now technically a Chosen even if you have no tier or divine blessing. Congratutions Vicktor, you're an Arcane Theurge. It won’t be announced until you become a Rector or Tier 2 Chosen, but it will happen. If you don’t get killed in battle, you’ll become quite powerful, but you’ll discover that in your own time.”

  Talia reached under her enormous counter and pulled out several items in quick succession. First was a freshly cquered pine staff engraved primarily of thin aluminum lines, but there were some silver-gray lines from tip to tail spike. The crown of the staff was a series of small bands of aluminum, the tail spike ended in a blunt silver point. The smell of the cquer and pine wafted up at him.

  'Sometimes magic did have a smell'

  “This is a training staff, the aluminum will help you recover mana from the ambient weave. Aluminum only stores mana for a short time before dissipating it as light, heat and sound.”

  Next, she handed over a rge empty book, “Write your notes in here, you will have questions and observations. You’ll need many of these, but for now just one will suffice”

  Finally, she handed over a neckce with a symbolic but incredibly obvious effigy of a phallus.

  “This is the holy symbol of J, you might be able to commune with them before your divine blessing. It will also help you regenerate divine energy faster. Oh and J might teach you new techniques for both your new chaos divinity and your fundamental principle, they won’t be inherently dangerous, but have a high potential to wildly disruptive.”

  "Wait, don't the primary chaos gods have names? Growth, Entropy, Enthalpy, Probability?"

  "Oh right, you are too young to remember. The chaos gods routinely change their names. Probability used to be Possibility some hundred years ago. They change often enough. Although Entropy and Enthalpy might never change again. Hmmm, ask Master Tosk about it when you returns. That story is hard to tell without giving too many hints away. But–"

  She paused. Using one of the mechanical digits to rub her chin.

  "You will be a Chosen of Juxtaposition. Their focus is almost entirely on self-transformation as opposed to the usual spread of offensive and defensive boons. He wouldn't have picked you if you weren't amenable to it though."

  The two spoke a quarter hour more about small tips for activation timings and dealing with mana overflows from aborting a spell. Suddenly, the metallic angel snapped, Vicktor was by the iron double doors. An unfamiliar dimensional storage hung at his shoulder and the symbol of J was on around his neck. “Ta-ta, it's been fun, come back when you break that staff!”

  Vicktor was going to say something before a strong force picked him up and set him outside the building. The door shut abruptly.

  “Anything you wanna say J?”

  The symbol did not respond.