Obtaining Magic
Your thane can have magic of two classes, natural and temporary. A natural magical ability is one that you can use indefinitely, that never depletes. The ability you pick or that Grendel picks for you when you create a new thane is the thane's first natural magical ability. You can use the ability as many times as you want and it will never deplete.
When you visit the Witch and click on her one of the things she may do is give you a new or add to an existing magical ability. If this happens the ability with most likely not be natural. It will have a given number of charges, or number of times you can use the ability before you lose it. For example, suppose the Witch gives you Protection from Paralysis (7). In this case, you have seven charges of Protection from Paralysis and you can use it seven times before you lose it. Let us suppose that later you are in the cave fighting a Wraith which happens to have Paralyzing Touch. The Wraith hits you. Normally the Wraith would paralyze you but because you have Protection from Paralysis, it does not. However, if you inspected yourself you would notice that you now have Protection from Paralysis (6). You have used one of your charges. If you continue to fight the Wraith and he hits you six more times, he still would not paralyze you, but now, upon inspection, you would notice that your Protection from Paralysis is gone and not listed in your list of magical abilities. The next time the Wraith hits you he would paralyze you.
Another common way you can gain magical abilities is by reading magical books. The number of charges you gain by reading a book depends on how high your magical stat is and how difficult it is to learn the subject of the book. When you get a book, inspect it. This will tell you how many pages the book has. The more pages the more difficult it is to learn the spell. If your magical stat is at or higher than the number of pages then you should be able to learn the book in one reading. To read the book, select Read from the Use Item select field and click on the book. If your magic is high enough, you should see the message “now understand the magic”. Now, inspect yourself. You should see your new magical ability listed with the number of charges you have gained. When you read the book again, your charges should increase.
You can convert temporary magical abilities into natural ones by increasing the number of charges greater than 32,767.