[Flashback] Light to Feather (Solo)

[Eridanus]

Day 41, Spring of 505 AV
MCL 4
Early Morning

Eridanus yawned as he pushed open the door sleepily. Surprisingly, Wejerx was already there, eating some sort of wrapped cabbage for his breakfast while perusing a thin but large book propped on one of the less cluttered tables. The vantha shook his head furiously and jumped up and down several times to make himself more awake, then approached his mentor, greeting him courteously.

"Oh Eridanus! Good to see you. Why don't you take the time to shake yourself awake more while I finish my breakfast?" Wejerx called, causing the chastised student to stutter an affirmative before going to a corner of the lab that was less occupied.

He performed a few jumping jacks, feeling the blood circulation improving throughout his body, and the weariness began fading away. Rotating his shoulders, he quickly went through a few of the stretching exercises that he learned back in Denval, then jumped a few more times to finish up.

Wejerx was still eating his cabbage-thing, and so he headed towards the pedestal, taking the familiar oversized magnifying glass with him as he did so. Focusing on the astral resource within his body, he called djed up into his eyes, feeling the rest of the world dim slightly as he focused primarily on the aura emanating from the item. Staring through the looking glass, he observed the internal djed pathways that glowed as they meandered steadily throughout the item, and recalled that the speed of the flow was much slower than the last session when they left it there.

That probably meant that it was much more stabilized than in the previous session.

"How's the speed of the pathways?" Wejerx called out, though his voice was slightly muffled from his chewing.

If the pathways were like raging rivers in the previous session, by now they had slowed down to be like molten lava. "Slow," Eridanus called out, and Wejerx grunted in response.

Shutting down the djed to his eyes, he returned the magnifying glass to the table, now directing his attention to the shield on the pedestal and around the huge hammer.

[Eridanus]

Or what was left of the shield anyway. The shield that he had thrown up two days ago started out strong, and because of the good combination of tasking against sound plus absorbing djed, the first session itself had strengthened the shield to last longer than it should. Still, two days of non-activity after that was a stretch, and environmental djed was barely enough to prevent the shield from dissipating altogether.

It had already lost its secondary tasking of blocking sound, and was merely surviving by absorbing djed. The glyphs were messed up and for all purposes rendered useless by the scattered elements throughout the shield.

Taking a moment to calm himself and clear his mind, Eridanus began to pull djed out from his soul. Like a magnet attracting metal from a pile of sand, he extracted the djed he wanted from his soul, pooling the formless substance between his hands, the djed settling like it was a clump of immaterial clay.

When it was sufficient, the vantha dropped the clay on the remnants of the shield, his hands busy at work. Filling in the spots where the weak shield had holes, and spreading the rest of the fresh djed to strengthen the shield, he worked to bring the djed level of the shield up to a more acceptable standard.

[Eridanus]

Next, he began to twist the djed threads within the now-strong shield. First he had to disseminate the original tasking of absorbing djed throughout the entire shield, for the default state of unpurposed djed was to bluntly block djed, which honestly was damaging to a shield.

Using his hands to sprawl out the tasking throughout the entire shield, he began to rework the tapestry of the pattern, and soon enough a familiar shape appeared that he knew corresponded to the task of absorbing djed.

There was still space in the tapestry, now that the shield had enough djed to support two instructions, and he added the pattern of tasking against sound. Carefully weaving the strands, he placed the additional tapestry side by side with the original tasking, sometimes interweaving the two and sometimes separating the two to maintain their identities. The idea was to integrate the two sufficiently yet not completely merging them.

The original glyphs were in a mess, and he first destroyed them, placing the djed threads into place that fitted the original vision of the shield. They were far too scattered to salvage them; it was easier to start from anew.

[Eridanus]

Using the very djed threads of the shield, he weaved a new pattern that formed the shape of sigils and glyphs. Arcane instructions put to written form, he created the pattern of a trigger sigil, using the same trigger of touch to disable the shield. Pursing his lips as he observed the shield, he added more glyphs to enhance and maintain the longevity of the shields.

It took slightly longer than he expected, for if he used the djed threads he was only limited to the 'excess' djed threads that did not play any major role in determining the tasking of the shield. He had to do so to avoid modifying the original taskings of the shield unwittingly.

The trigger sigil was simple enough, and he scoured the rest of the shields for such 'excess' djed threads, using them to form glyphs that optimized the djed usage rate of the shields. These would maintain the shields longer than he could task them at his current level at shielding, for glyphs bypassed the usual limitations of personal magic with precise and clear instructions.

When he was finally done, he placed the last thread into place, then stepped back while clasping his hands symbolically.

Only to find Wejerx standing very close by and looking curiously at the shield.

"Gah! Professor you scared me!" Eridanus cried.

Wejerx squinted at the shield again, mumbling, "Hmm... Interesting use of glyphs and shields there. Unnecessary, but interesting..."

The professor had evidently finished his breakfast, and he stood close to the pedestal, raising a finger in a sign that he was ready to prod the shield.

"What shall we do next?" He questioned the student. It was a test as usual.

[Eridanus]

Eridanus hesitated, then decided to go ahead anyway. "Prime it?"

Wejerx gestured for him to continue, and so he went ahead to pick up the same tuning fork that was usually used to prime items in Resonant Harmonics. He tested it by tapping it against the desk, hearing the clear and vibrant ringing, then put his hands on the Primer to stop the sound.

"Ready."

Wejerx prodded the shield, disabling its tasking against sound.

Eridanus tapped the desk with the Primer, the specially designed tuning fork ringing beautifully into the air, preparing the molten lava that was currently in the djed pathways on the Rock Crusher for a serious session of modification.

Next, he switched the Primer for the tiny glyphed drums, otherwise known as the Initial Pusher for Structural Enhancements. Pounding on the tiny drum, he accidentally missed the cover due to his enthusiasm and struck the his thumb that was propped on top while holding it. Nevertheless, he winced but continued, not daring to make a sound for fear of messing up the project.

After a few powerful waves sent to the Rock Crusher, Wejerx observed that the djed pathways were beginning to speed up in the acceptable direction meant for structural enhancements, and nodded for his student to stop, removing his finger from the shield to bring up the anti-noise tasking again.

[Eridanus]

"Eridanus," The professor addressed his student. "Keep up with the same thing, but since this is the ending shaping we need to differentiate it from the first one. There will be no Transitioning after this, you understand?"

Tapping his finger against his palm to demonstrate what he meant, Wejerx continued, "This an optional step, but one necessary for greater stabilization. Resonant Harmonicians call it the Shaping Close, where you finalize the further shaping and bring the pathways of the item to the desired destination."

As he varied the tapping, he explained, "This means that you must leave no doubt as to where you want the item to go. As you keep up the rhythm, slow down the heavy beats as much as you can while quickening the lighter beats. This means that you must begin at a manageable pace, and plan the ending speed for both rhythm. Do you understand?"

Eridanus hesitated again. This seemed like it was a task that proved to be heavy on the mind in terms of multi-tasking, but he was not one to shy from challenge.

"Yes sir. Ready."

Wejerx prodded the shield while picking up a looking glass to supervise the vantha's actions.

Eridanus began with a slow and steady pace first.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

thud..thud..thud..

The heavy beats were only a tad slower than the lighter beats which were a tad faster. The difference was small enough to differentiate the two, and using this as a beginning he would decrease and increase the speeds respectively.

[Eridanus]

Before he continued, it was time to separate his mind. It was similar in a way to dual wielding, where each hand had to act on its own, unfettered by the other. This time, however, both hands worked together. Instead, the two separate entities applied to his mind rather than his hands.

There were two rhythms he had to keep track of mentally. While he increased or decreased the speed of the beats of each one, he had to remember the exact speed he left it at, so as to approximate the speed up or slow down at the right one. If his rhythm ended up jagged the purpose of this exercise would be rendered invalid.

Still, it was difficult to anticipate and keep track, and though the speeds of his two rhythms moved on a general path, the precise beat of each switch was irregular. Soon, Wejerx shook his head and released his hand from the shield.

"No, no, no. Precision! Remember the rhythm and work from there! Don't jump all over the place!" The professor shouted.

Chastised, the vantha calmed down his anxious heart, forcing himself to stop worrying about consequences. Focusing only on himself and the drums, he closed his eyes, placing his hands in front of him at the drum to gauge its position.

"Ready... Begin," Wejerx warned, prodding his finger at the shield again.

[Eridanus]

Entering a meditative state, Eridanus visualized the two rhythms as a race. The running route was a single line, while the line represented the speed of the beats, with the extreme left signifying turtle-slow speeds while the extreme right represented hare-fast beats. The powerful swings started slightly left from the centre while the soft thwacks started slightly right from the centre.

Using this form of visualization in addition to his artificially calm state, Eridanus found it easier to mentally keep track of his speeds, and he began alternating between the two rhythms, modifying their speeds accordingly.

Wejerx nodded to himself, but Eridanus was far too engrossed to pay attention. He was 'in the zone', so to speak, and to him there was only himself, the drum, and his two rhythms. Half a bell passed by with only the sounds of the glyphed war drum, and at this point the ratio of light beats to heavy beats was at least ten-to-one.

The heavy pounding that represented the current weight of item was slumbering to a stop, while the feverish light thuds on the drum that signified the ideal destination weight hurried along.

[Eridanus]

Soon, the ratio turned into a twenty-to-one, and finally Wejerx removed his finger from the shield, shouting at his student to stop.

Exhausted, the vantha placed the drumstick on top of the drum, leaning against a table that was bolted to the ground. Placing his entire weight on it, he released a long sigh as he rested his sore body.

"Eridanus. Why do we have to leave it overnight?" Wejerx called out mercilessly, remembering the homework he assigned the vantha.

Fortunately, the student had remembered revising the Magecraft Handbook given to him by Professor Stonemiller, and it was mentioned there.

"The waiting applies to all Paradigms, not just Resonant Harmonics," Eridanus enchanted monotonously. "It is to allow stabilization of modified pathways to prevent the item from breaking due to over application of stress."

Wejerx grunted in satisfaction, beckoning for the student to go over to help him.

"Cooldown stage," He stated simply.

[Eridanus]

As magecrafted items only exhibit their properties physically after the entire operation was over, including the cooldown, it was still a very heavy item. Wejerx passed him a pair of specially crafted gloves, for they could not possibly hope to use the tongs. The sheer weight of the weapon nullified any magical effects the tongs had, and they did not want to break a tool due to laziness.

The gloves would nullify any exterior contact and thus maintain the currently unstable weapon in status quo. Together, they hauled the Rock Crusher from the pedestal, and struggled as they lifted it up and placed it in an extra large bucket of djed-charged water that Wejerx had requisitioned even earlier in the morning.

There was a sizzle, and Wejerx placed a lid over the bucket, enclosing the cooling down item in a closed system. They both stood for a moment, rubbing their arm muscles, and then proceeded to tidy up the lab, putting everything back to their original positions. Wejerx neatened the clutter on the desks while Eridanus pushed the war drum back to its position against the wall.

"For homework... read up on Treongi's explanation on enhancing sharpness. You will receive the date of your next practical session in five days' time," Wejerx wheezed, catching his breath while sitting on the chair.

"Dismissed."