Day 36, Fall of 416 AV
Early Evening
Aylasa Caves
Early Evening
Aylasa Caves
Middleman had mentioned the importance of Malediction as a sort of assassination or sabotage device, for items made successfully with this dark art generally fell into three categories: a boon, a curse, or a varied combination of the two. Most advanced items tended to fall into the latter due to their complexity and thus unpredictability. It took one who knew the discipline extremely well to be able to properly guide the effects they desire in high level malediction attempts.
For this session of downtime, Eridanus decided to attempt a curse instead. In order to challenge his creativity, he had walked out into the opens from the caves, deciding to simply pick the first maledictable resource that he saw and attempt to draw forth a primary negative effect from it.
Interestingly, he found a drivelled snail upon the rocks, possibly dried to death by the sunlight and being too slow to escape the heat. With his dagger, he scraped out the unwanted organic bits, keeping the shell, and he brought it back to the caves.
Unfortunately, due to the exposure the shell had became too brittle to withstand rough carving attempts from a weapon, unlike the fortitude of bone, and so he would have to rely on quill and ink again.
The first thing to consider though, was what kind of curse he wanted to bring about, and how to emphasize that attribute from within the animal whom the remains belong to.
Slow.
That was the first thing that came to mind. In fact, that should be the first thing that would come to mind to anyone if they thought of the snail. It was famous in culture everywhere for it, though he supposed that in other cultures there might be some unknown references. In any case, it was slow, and it was famed for it. Thus, he could structure his curse around that attribute, which was a rather direct and primary attribute of the snail.
At a snail's pace.
Indeed, that was a common idiom that referred to anything slow. In addition, the snail was often associated with the vices of laziness and lethargy, due to the popular notion that viewed a correlation between a fault of the soul and a physical defect. Either way, an idea was beginning to form in his mind, and that would be the direction that he would be taking.
First he chose the surface of the shell that was the smoothest and provided the larger surface area, determining it to be his canvass. Using the natural swirls of the shell, he decided to follow the style already present and given by nature - perhaps that would improve the credibility of the malediction circles and might perhaps draw forth the sleeping energies within this part of the dead creature better.
As the swirls were one-way, it implied a sense of progress. More importantly, it was a form of an irreversible path, much like time where there was no turning back. In that effect, he would have to design his circles as a sort of logical progression that would link from Point A to Point B.
Thus, he first decided to start by drawing the shape of a spark, or what he thought a spark would look like. There was often the sayings that went "spark of creativity" or of "that spark" being required to activate a whole lot of processes. Similarly, there was always the saying of the "last fuse" that referred to the one activating event that led to the rest. Therefore, he would draw the symbol of a spark lighting up from the fuse to represent this logic, and then cancelling it out with a cross to represent a negation. That would be the first step - the death of creativity and burst energy of the mind.
The second symbol followed the swirls of the shell, and for that he drew the sword, a symbol of strength. It was also a symbol of leadership, and with a cross he negated that picture as well. That meant the death of not just physical strength, but also of one's charisma and ability to lead, therefore resulting in the crippling of the rest of one's mental faculties alongside that of one's physical conditioning.
The next symbol he drew was that of a heart. As the heart signified emotions, he sought to symbolize the death of emotions through negation. How would that link with the rest of the picture? Ultimately, his purpose was to curse an unfortunate bearer of this charm such that everything that motivated a person would be stripped away, leaving only the trademark lethargy of the snail in place. Thus, his next goal would be an inducement of apathy, and in order to do so he would then have to create a sort of destruction of emotions within the context of the snail's attribute of slowness.
Thus, so far he had induced the sluggishness of the mind, body and heart. The next logical step would be that of the soul. Thus, the best way to represent that would be to use the written form of the ancient language of the soul and of one's life essence. In other words, it would be to glyph the written manifestation of the word 'djed' - that from which all life is infused with, and that which all life stems from. Writing it down, then negating it with a cross would symbolize the death of spiritual motivation and drive and passion that drove people, pushing them into a lifeless slumber with no inspiration nor hope to achieve things.
Finally, the path of progression following the swirl in the shell, leading to the logical consequence; it resulted in the summation of the components of the malediction circles throughout. It could then be said that a person's identity and motivation stemmed from four sources - the body, the heart, the mind and the soul. By systematically denying everyone one of these aspects, he sought to create a curse that would essentially, over time, turn a person into a humanoid snail.
The accursed would be slow and fragile in movement, apathetic and nonchalant at heart, inspiration-less and monotonous in mind, and ambition-less and drive-less in motivation. It was worse than death, and it would, in theory, reduce a person to the mere shadow of their being. And thus, he completed the last symbol, a summation of the four and defining it with a final negation. This was represented by a square cut into four equal segments, then linking the four malediction circles to it to create a sense of connectedness and to emphasize that though there were separate malediction circles, they were all components that formed a greater entity.
For this session of downtime, Eridanus decided to attempt a curse instead. In order to challenge his creativity, he had walked out into the opens from the caves, deciding to simply pick the first maledictable resource that he saw and attempt to draw forth a primary negative effect from it.
Interestingly, he found a drivelled snail upon the rocks, possibly dried to death by the sunlight and being too slow to escape the heat. With his dagger, he scraped out the unwanted organic bits, keeping the shell, and he brought it back to the caves.
Unfortunately, due to the exposure the shell had became too brittle to withstand rough carving attempts from a weapon, unlike the fortitude of bone, and so he would have to rely on quill and ink again.
The first thing to consider though, was what kind of curse he wanted to bring about, and how to emphasize that attribute from within the animal whom the remains belong to.
Slow.
That was the first thing that came to mind. In fact, that should be the first thing that would come to mind to anyone if they thought of the snail. It was famous in culture everywhere for it, though he supposed that in other cultures there might be some unknown references. In any case, it was slow, and it was famed for it. Thus, he could structure his curse around that attribute, which was a rather direct and primary attribute of the snail.
At a snail's pace.
Indeed, that was a common idiom that referred to anything slow. In addition, the snail was often associated with the vices of laziness and lethargy, due to the popular notion that viewed a correlation between a fault of the soul and a physical defect. Either way, an idea was beginning to form in his mind, and that would be the direction that he would be taking.
First he chose the surface of the shell that was the smoothest and provided the larger surface area, determining it to be his canvass. Using the natural swirls of the shell, he decided to follow the style already present and given by nature - perhaps that would improve the credibility of the malediction circles and might perhaps draw forth the sleeping energies within this part of the dead creature better.
As the swirls were one-way, it implied a sense of progress. More importantly, it was a form of an irreversible path, much like time where there was no turning back. In that effect, he would have to design his circles as a sort of logical progression that would link from Point A to Point B.
Thus, he first decided to start by drawing the shape of a spark, or what he thought a spark would look like. There was often the sayings that went "spark of creativity" or of "that spark" being required to activate a whole lot of processes. Similarly, there was always the saying of the "last fuse" that referred to the one activating event that led to the rest. Therefore, he would draw the symbol of a spark lighting up from the fuse to represent this logic, and then cancelling it out with a cross to represent a negation. That would be the first step - the death of creativity and burst energy of the mind.
The second symbol followed the swirls of the shell, and for that he drew the sword, a symbol of strength. It was also a symbol of leadership, and with a cross he negated that picture as well. That meant the death of not just physical strength, but also of one's charisma and ability to lead, therefore resulting in the crippling of the rest of one's mental faculties alongside that of one's physical conditioning.
The next symbol he drew was that of a heart. As the heart signified emotions, he sought to symbolize the death of emotions through negation. How would that link with the rest of the picture? Ultimately, his purpose was to curse an unfortunate bearer of this charm such that everything that motivated a person would be stripped away, leaving only the trademark lethargy of the snail in place. Thus, his next goal would be an inducement of apathy, and in order to do so he would then have to create a sort of destruction of emotions within the context of the snail's attribute of slowness.
Thus, so far he had induced the sluggishness of the mind, body and heart. The next logical step would be that of the soul. Thus, the best way to represent that would be to use the written form of the ancient language of the soul and of one's life essence. In other words, it would be to glyph the written manifestation of the word 'djed' - that from which all life is infused with, and that which all life stems from. Writing it down, then negating it with a cross would symbolize the death of spiritual motivation and drive and passion that drove people, pushing them into a lifeless slumber with no inspiration nor hope to achieve things.
Finally, the path of progression following the swirl in the shell, leading to the logical consequence; it resulted in the summation of the components of the malediction circles throughout. It could then be said that a person's identity and motivation stemmed from four sources - the body, the heart, the mind and the soul. By systematically denying everyone one of these aspects, he sought to create a curse that would essentially, over time, turn a person into a humanoid snail.
The accursed would be slow and fragile in movement, apathetic and nonchalant at heart, inspiration-less and monotonous in mind, and ambition-less and drive-less in motivation. It was worse than death, and it would, in theory, reduce a person to the mere shadow of their being. And thus, he completed the last symbol, a summation of the four and defining it with a final negation. This was represented by a square cut into four equal segments, then linking the four malediction circles to it to create a sense of connectedness and to emphasize that though there were separate malediction circles, they were all components that formed a greater entity.
Malediction Circles :
In the final phase of his creation, the crafty vantha then pricked his thumb, allowing blood that contained his own, creative djed to infuse the circles, granting the spark of energy needed to jump start the activation of the sleeping magic contained within the dead snail's shell. Thus, it was done, and he gazed at his destructive new product in wonder.
Perhaps he should gift it to Middleman and see what the old, rotting nuit did with it. Whether he would be smart enough to understand that it was a cursed object and to use it appropriately, or to let it rot his existence away. Either way, it was a benefit to the scheming man, for the former can be viewed as the perspective of a gift for utility's sake, and the latter be seen as a sort of personal revenge.
Either way, it was good.
Perhaps he should gift it to Middleman and see what the old, rotting nuit did with it. Whether he would be smart enough to understand that it was a cursed object and to use it appropriately, or to let it rot his existence away. Either way, it was a benefit to the scheming man, for the former can be viewed as the perspective of a gift for utility's sake, and the latter be seen as a sort of personal revenge.
Either way, it was good.
