Day 53, Fall of 416 AV
Mid Afternoon
Aylasa Caves
Mid Afternoon
Aylasa Caves
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Middleman more or less figured out the rough effects of the maledicted snail shell that Eridanus handed him a few weeks earlier. That wiry old nuit was a quick one, and he soon figured out that something was wrong when he began to feel himself gradually getting listless and aimless. With that, he congratulated Eridanus for making a proper curse item, though his challenge this time was to create a positive effect from the snail. Somehow, the nuit managed to procure another snail shell, though this time it was of a more preserved state and seemed sparkly clean as if it had been treated before instead of picked from the ground.
"This one is carve worthy, though don't make too deep cuts, just ones slightly deeper than minute scratches would be fine," He said.
With that, the vantha accepted the challenge and headed to his spot in the caverns, his dagger placed on his left while his quill and ink set laid out prepared on his right. The issue this time was to take advantage of some characteristic attribute of the snail and turn it into a positive charm.
How can slowness be a good thing?!
As he racked his brains, he recalled another use of snails - as emergency food in desperate measures when food was scarce. Perhaps he could turn this shell into some sort of mini cup that makes soup poured into it tasty? He doubted Middleman would appreciate it though, since nuits generally did not appreciate cuisine. Since well, they're dead and everything. The shell was too small and was not a watertight container anyway, so that option was dead.
What other characteristics do snails have?
[Snails are slow in everything, but they are slow to die as well.]
That bit of trivia that he heard somewhere in some tavern from a man trying to boast his impressive knowledge to some simpering wench kicked in, and he wondered if that was the truth.
"Middleman, how long do snails live for?"
"Up to 15 years," Came the immediate reply.
Wow so that was true.
Evidently, these creatures lived longer than most other creatures of their types or size do, and he supposed it might have to do with the way they lived their lives. He had a personal hypothesis that because they lived through life slower, they take a longer time to burn through their allocated life essence as granted by Lhex, and therefore they lived longer.
And now it is the time to exploit that.
Since the previous method worked so well, he would use a similar template in doing so. However he had to design some sort of logical one-way process that would result in extending one's lifespan based on the slow attribute of the snail. Perhaps he would somehow utilize his personal hypothesis and see if it worked.
Dipping his quill into the ink vial, the crafter proceeded then with drawings before tracing over the ink with his dagger. Unlike carving, drawing was a reversible process, and this shell was a rather fine specimen. He prefered to work on this than on some random shell some dead snail left behind. It was a matter of quality.
In that case, the first circle would then be the obvious starting point of the snail's speed. In order to represent that sluggishness, instead of defining that concept through glyphs or symbols, there was nothing better than to draw from the characteristic attribute of the snail instead. Therefore, he used a form of recursive self-pointer, where he used the symbol of the snail to represent the identity of the snail. In that way he should be able to draw forth the prime characteristic of the animal.
The next would be to make some reference to the idea of living life, of time passing by. That would provide the context as to how the slowness derived from the first malediction circle could be applied. That part was easy, for he was a Son of Leth, one of the two gods that marked the passing of the day. Thus, he would represent that with shapes that symbolized the concept of living life. He drew a slash as if he was going to draw a divisor, then drew tiny pictures of universally recognized images of the holy representations of Syna and Leth - the orb of fire and the orb of ice.
Now that he had a context to apply the attribute, he had to then further impress his personal hypothesis upon the shell. That meant showing some sort of casual link to the burning up of djed and one's life essence as one lived life. Thus drawing from the context of the previous concept, he expanded on the next malediction circle, drawing the shape of a half-filled heart with an arrow pointing to the bottom of the heart. By itself it would have no meaning, but combined with the context of the previous malediction circle it would show the fact that as time passed and as one lived one's life, the amount of life one had decreased.
Finally, the logical consequence of the combination of these three circles pointed to the increase of one's time in the world. The first malediction circle spoke of slowness in attribute, the second placed it in the context of living life while the third clarified the second further by adding an elaboration that one's life reduced as time passes by. Therefore, if one's life reduced as time passes, slowly passing the time and slowly living life would then result in one's life reducing slowly. Hence, the amount of time one spent on the world would be greater, improving one's lifespan. The vantha represented that by drawing the symbol of Tanroa and time, adding an upwards arrow within to represent the directional vector of this variable.
Eridanus looked at his handiwork, quite pleased at his ingenious logic. He suspected that there might be side effects of slight sluggishness as a result of him invoking the prime attribute of the snail too many times to make his point, as well as a result of implementing his hypothesis onto the shell.
However, he frowned when he realize that he did not tie up the loose ends. There had to be some sort of link, though it was not the same four-to-one link he did in the previous format. This was more of a implication thing, and so he drew arrows pointing from one malediction circle to another. In order to make his intent clear, he used the plus sign in mathematics to indicate that the effects of the circles had to be added together, then used the equals sign in the last arrow to indicate the final consequence, the final result.
"This one is carve worthy, though don't make too deep cuts, just ones slightly deeper than minute scratches would be fine," He said.
With that, the vantha accepted the challenge and headed to his spot in the caverns, his dagger placed on his left while his quill and ink set laid out prepared on his right. The issue this time was to take advantage of some characteristic attribute of the snail and turn it into a positive charm.
How can slowness be a good thing?!
As he racked his brains, he recalled another use of snails - as emergency food in desperate measures when food was scarce. Perhaps he could turn this shell into some sort of mini cup that makes soup poured into it tasty? He doubted Middleman would appreciate it though, since nuits generally did not appreciate cuisine. Since well, they're dead and everything. The shell was too small and was not a watertight container anyway, so that option was dead.
What other characteristics do snails have?
[Snails are slow in everything, but they are slow to die as well.]
That bit of trivia that he heard somewhere in some tavern from a man trying to boast his impressive knowledge to some simpering wench kicked in, and he wondered if that was the truth.
"Middleman, how long do snails live for?"
"Up to 15 years," Came the immediate reply.
Wow so that was true.
Evidently, these creatures lived longer than most other creatures of their types or size do, and he supposed it might have to do with the way they lived their lives. He had a personal hypothesis that because they lived through life slower, they take a longer time to burn through their allocated life essence as granted by Lhex, and therefore they lived longer.
And now it is the time to exploit that.
Since the previous method worked so well, he would use a similar template in doing so. However he had to design some sort of logical one-way process that would result in extending one's lifespan based on the slow attribute of the snail. Perhaps he would somehow utilize his personal hypothesis and see if it worked.
Dipping his quill into the ink vial, the crafter proceeded then with drawings before tracing over the ink with his dagger. Unlike carving, drawing was a reversible process, and this shell was a rather fine specimen. He prefered to work on this than on some random shell some dead snail left behind. It was a matter of quality.
In that case, the first circle would then be the obvious starting point of the snail's speed. In order to represent that sluggishness, instead of defining that concept through glyphs or symbols, there was nothing better than to draw from the characteristic attribute of the snail instead. Therefore, he used a form of recursive self-pointer, where he used the symbol of the snail to represent the identity of the snail. In that way he should be able to draw forth the prime characteristic of the animal.
The next would be to make some reference to the idea of living life, of time passing by. That would provide the context as to how the slowness derived from the first malediction circle could be applied. That part was easy, for he was a Son of Leth, one of the two gods that marked the passing of the day. Thus, he would represent that with shapes that symbolized the concept of living life. He drew a slash as if he was going to draw a divisor, then drew tiny pictures of universally recognized images of the holy representations of Syna and Leth - the orb of fire and the orb of ice.
Now that he had a context to apply the attribute, he had to then further impress his personal hypothesis upon the shell. That meant showing some sort of casual link to the burning up of djed and one's life essence as one lived life. Thus drawing from the context of the previous concept, he expanded on the next malediction circle, drawing the shape of a half-filled heart with an arrow pointing to the bottom of the heart. By itself it would have no meaning, but combined with the context of the previous malediction circle it would show the fact that as time passed and as one lived one's life, the amount of life one had decreased.
Finally, the logical consequence of the combination of these three circles pointed to the increase of one's time in the world. The first malediction circle spoke of slowness in attribute, the second placed it in the context of living life while the third clarified the second further by adding an elaboration that one's life reduced as time passes by. Therefore, if one's life reduced as time passes, slowly passing the time and slowly living life would then result in one's life reducing slowly. Hence, the amount of time one spent on the world would be greater, improving one's lifespan. The vantha represented that by drawing the symbol of Tanroa and time, adding an upwards arrow within to represent the directional vector of this variable.
Eridanus looked at his handiwork, quite pleased at his ingenious logic. He suspected that there might be side effects of slight sluggishness as a result of him invoking the prime attribute of the snail too many times to make his point, as well as a result of implementing his hypothesis onto the shell.
However, he frowned when he realize that he did not tie up the loose ends. There had to be some sort of link, though it was not the same four-to-one link he did in the previous format. This was more of a implication thing, and so he drew arrows pointing from one malediction circle to another. In order to make his intent clear, he used the plus sign in mathematics to indicate that the effects of the circles had to be added together, then used the equals sign in the last arrow to indicate the final consequence, the final result.
"Malediction Circles" :
The penultimate step would be to follow his drawings, and he carefully took up his dagger, tracing and carving a slight gash into the shell. He had to use the tip of his knife so that he would not accidentally split or crush into the item, and so he used the sharp tip of the metal edge to flick away bits of the shell at a time, creating a shallow ravine that would follow the marks. It was a primitive form of chiselling, and one of the tiring methods of carving when it came to bone or substances that could not handle too much stress or force.
Finally, when he was done he added a drop of his blood, watching the red substance disappear as it expended its energies bringing forth the latent djed of the shell.
Looks like it was time for Middleman to get a nice present for once. Though if this shell happened to curse him with some sort of sluggishness in return for an added lifespan Eridanus did not mind too. That old corpse needed to suffer a bit anyway.
Finally, when he was done he added a drop of his blood, watching the red substance disappear as it expended its energies bringing forth the latent djed of the shell.
Looks like it was time for Middleman to get a nice present for once. Though if this shell happened to curse him with some sort of sluggishness in return for an added lifespan Eridanus did not mind too. That old corpse needed to suffer a bit anyway.
