How to use the Maintain Spell spell?

[Mirtai]

We have a bit of a rules dilemma.

In this case, a caster with the Delay spell at level 20 and Maintain Spell at level 20 is using Maintain spell to maintain Delay for 12 hours.

One person thinks that this costs 3 fatigue (for the Maintain spell, obviously the initial casting of Delay also costs 1). The other is certain it costs 5 (6 if you include casting Delay).

Who is correct?

[ericbsmith]

Delay at skill 20 costs 1 to cast and 1 to maintain. The caster does not, as Maintain Spell requires to get the special benefit, have a high enough skill level to maintain Delay indefinitely. Thus to cast Maintain Spell he must pay the normal maintenance cost for the extra 10 hours of Delay, which would normally cost him 5 energy - so the base cost to cast Maintain Spell is 5 energy.

However, he also has a high enough skill with Maintain Spell to reduce that cost by 2 (the last line of the cost description for Maintain Spell states as much). So the final cost of casting Maintain Spell is 5-2= 3. That means that the total cost is 1 to cast Delay and 3 to cast Maintain Spell, for a final cost of 4. Plus the casting cost of the underlying spell, of course.