Memories of the Shield

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The shield is a different kind of knowledge than the dagger. Where the dagger taught quickness and concealment and the ability to move unseen through dangerous places, the shield teaches something that requires standing still - the disciplined, patient, deeply unglamorous art of not being hurt. It is the knowledge of those who have learned to put themselves between danger and the people behind them, who have mastered the particular skill of absorbing what the world throws rather than avoiding it.

The praeteriamancer reaches through Memory and finds someone who wore that knowledge the way they wore their armor, naturally, completely, as something inseparable from what they were. Every guard skill that person ever learned flows into the praeteriamancer for the duration, borrowed from Memory with the same fidelity that Memory brings to everything it holds. For the spell's duration all guard skills are available, fully functional, as if the praeteriamancer had spent years earning them. When it ends they return to whoever Memory borrowed them from, leaving the praeteriamancer once again without a shield bearer's instincts, though perhaps with a somewhat greater appreciation for what those instincts are actually worth.