Scrolls for the Wave Guard [Pt. 1]

by **Annalisa Marin** on June 17th, 2013, 5:02 pm

24th of Summer, 513 AV

Anna stared down at the parchment on the table in front of her, her eyes twitching slightly as her brush was poised above it frozen and with no ink. She couldn't believe that she was doing this, it seem extremely unlike her to consider doing something vaguely charitable. Yet here she sat in the comfort of her own home, preparing to create scrolls for the Wave Guard all without expecting compensation. Truly the world had gone mad if Annalisa Marin was doing such things.

Though charity made the act sound innocent, which it was decidedly not in the grander scheme of things. Anna was in fact doing this to gain support from the Wave Guard and favor from the Sailors Guild, all in preparation for her overall goal. No doubt Rhysol would approve of such methods, using charity to achieve a greater and more insidious purpose, which in this instance was the coveted position of Head of the Magic Department. It had been her goal for a while now, the means to achieve it had been lost on her until now.

Most everyone she knew and those she didn't know viewed her as the arrogant and prideful professor who thought she was better than everyone else. While it was true that she did think that, it was a mindset that tended to get people thinking negatively towards you. In Zeltiva it was important to be known as at least possessing a shred of nobility, right now Anna was viewed as possessing none.

So here she was, awake well after the 20th bell, poised to create a scroll and expect no payment in return for it. It was amazing the depths of sacrifice Anna was capable of going to, incredible even. The young professor stared down at the blank parchment with a searching gaze, still deciding on how to go about this and what spell to place inside of it once complete.

After staring for a little while Anna finally dipped her brush into her ink vial and started drawing the focus glyph. The process was delicate as perfection was the goal here, the focus needed to be as well made as possible so that the rest could fall into place nicely. The brush strokes were not fluid by any means but they were controlled and steady enough to where she didn't make any mistake that would be considered terrible. Focus glyphs were the easiest ones for her to draw considering how often she made them.

The woman was hunched over the parchment, her careful gaze making certain to note any possible imperfection in the glyph and correct it. This process added time to the creation of the focus about three chimes more meaning the whole thing took about nine chimes. Even after she was certain it was good the young woman checked over her handiwork for possible errors.

Satisfied with the large focus glyph in the center of the parchment Anna dipped her brush again and started on the barrier glyph, the next most crucial part in scroll making.

by **Annalisa Marin** on June 17th, 2013, 5:52 pm

The focus of a scroll could store her magic, but was the barrier that provided a sort of containment field around it to prevent dangerous magic from escaping. Barrier glyphs were easy enough to draw but were much more important to do correctly, if one had a poorly made barrier built around a focus then dangerous magic might escape before needed, resulting in deadly discharges. Anna started slowly in the creation of the barrier, drawing the first rune that made up the sigil with utmost care and patience. If there were any onlookers to her work they might have noticed the small beads of sweat forming on her brow that she occasionally paused to wipe off.

The young professor's narrow grey eyes were fixed upon the production of the barrier runes and her mind was blocking out everything that did not pertain to scroll creation. Her hand moved carefully around the focus as the barrier runes came closer and closer to creating a whole sigil. As she neared its completion Anna's hand slipped, resulting in a run off of her brush into the focus, ruining the whole scroll in a moments notice.

"Petch!" Anna shouted, growling in frustration as she threw her brush to the table. Fifteen chimes of work down the proverbial drain.

The angered professor snatched up the parchment and crumpled the thing up in anger and frustration, her eyes flashing with rage. She groaned slightly as she picked up a new fresh sheet of parchment, annoyed with having to start from the beginning all over again. This was unbelievable, how could she have made such an amateur slip up? It just didn't seem like her.

Sighing, she picked up her brush, slipped her feet from her boots and sitting cross-legged in her chair. Anna was certain by the time she was done she would possess a permanent hunch, making her look the part of the freakish wizard. The young wizard started again, brushing one of her dark bangs from her face as she started moving the brush over the paper in a more control fashion than usual. She was not going to make the same mistake again.

Her brush moved over the parchment with the same diligence she had displayed earlier, this time her eyes were carefully trained on looking for any imperfection or mistake, no matter how miniscule. It had to be perfect this time.

After ten chimes the focus was complete anew and her back was starting to feel sore from being in the same position all night. Anna ignored the soreness for now and started on the barrier, making sure to keep her hand stead as she moved her brush around the perimeter of the focus glyph, the runes drawn at a slow and ponderous pace. Again her eyes searched for any traces of imperfection and corrected them as soon as they were found. By the time the barrier was finally compete about eleven chimes later, Anna's back was starting to ache pretty badly.

The young woman place her brush carefully down to the side got out of her chair. Anna then stretched up as high as she could, sighing slightly as her back and body was grateful for the exercise after so long in the same hunched over position. The young wizard was slowly discovering that the body was just as important to train as her mind, finding an equilibrium between the two would make her a force to be reckoned with. Besides she needed some exercise after spending so long in her hunched position.

Anna sat on the floor with her legs out before her and reached her hands as far as they would go, managing to touch near her ankles but not nearly reaching her toes. She held this position for about a single chime before releasing and spreading her legs. She repeated this motion with each individual leg, feeling her muscles stretch.

The young woman stood and stretched her arms upwards as high as they would go again, her joints letting out tiny pops from the stretching. Anna then placed her right hand behind her head and reached down as through scratching her back, using her other arm to keep it down for another chime. She then reversed the motion and repeated it with her left arm.

The young woman sighed after completing the stretches, glancing back to the table. The last part was the trigger, the final and most essential part of the scroll.

by **Annalisa Marin** on June 25th, 2013, 10:49 pm

Without a trigger the scroll was just a sheet of parchment with colorful markings that could hold a spell but it would be unable to release it. The trigger made that release possible and created a usable device rather than just a containment for existing spells, meaning that it needed to be perfect in its creation. One mistake could render the scroll completely unusable, Anna also needed to make sure to provide instructions in common below the trigger so the Wave Guards who received these wouldn't get themselves killed.

Anna readied her brush and began drawing a series of small runes to create the trigger Glyph as well as to link them to the barrier. Once the trigger was activated it would bring down the barrier and release the magic within it, in effect a portable spell. Anna had a number of theories as to other ways one could use Glyphing to contain an release dangerous magic, however these were at a stand still at the moment until she acquired a better testing site.

Carefully she applied the runes to the corner of the parchment, the action less stressful and more easy due to her stretching earlier. Her brush strokes were carefully controlled and as precise as she could possibly make them, this part could make or break the whole scroll. She intended to make the scroll voice activated, a simple key word would activate the trigger which would lower the barrier.

The word she decided on was 'serendipity', it was a rarely used word and seemed appropriate enough for the scroll. After the runes were complete she scrawled instructions below it in common as to the trigger and safety precautions.

This scroll contains a fair bit a fire reimancy, as such exercise extreme caution in handling it. Tampering with the Glyph could release it, so handle it delicately, in a scrollcase preferable before using it. Aim it at the intended target when in use. NEVER point it at yourself. Only say the trigger word when you are ready to release the magic, the key word is serendipity.

Anna looked over the scroll and nodded with satisfaction, it looked perfectly functional. Now she just had to finish up another one and place a firebolt in each one.

Carefully the young professor placed the scroll to the side and pulled out another piece of parchment, inking her brush once more for drawing. The focus was first, by this point she had already drawn it twice before tonight so this was much more simple. The focus quickly took shape and was finished in eight chimes, looking just as good as the one on her already completed scroll. Anna nodded in satisfaction and crossed her legs in the chair again, hunching over as she readied herself to draw the barrier glyph.

Anna carefully approached the individual runes in the barrier with care and diligence, building up her barrier to be perfect and without flaws the sequence of runes surrounded the focus and when the last rune was finished the Glyph was finally complete. Now it was time to draw the trigger.

Anna drew the trigger differently this time, the word couldn't be the same as that would be highly inefficient and dangerous. If the scrolls were close to one another then the word would cause them both to go off. So Anna chose a specific phrase for this one, making it longer but more safe. She opted for a vague one, "Spirit of Flame".

The young wizard recorded the same instructions below the trigger and nodded to herself, she was satisfied with the finished product. Now she just needed to fill both of them.

by **Annalisa Marin** on June 25th, 2013, 11:22 pm

The only thing really left for Anna to do was to create her spells, the young wizard stood her hands out before her. She was not going to Glyph her hand for this task, she trusted that she could remain in control long enough to cast two simple firebolt spells and place them into two scrolls with incantations alone. Besides, she was already weary as it was, she just wanted to finish these scrolls to deliver to the Wave Guards in the morning. To that end she started up a low chant in Nader Carnoch, her eyes focused upon her hands. It took longer for res to generate out of her hand without the focus' there to aid her and the casting was not nearly as smooth. Djed was focused outward into her hands, ready to be expended.

Anna felt the euphoria send pleasurable shivers down her spine, filling her with the near irresistible desire to cast more and place more res into the spell but she held back the desire. The translucent liquid sheathed her hands and Anna willed it to move to the space in between her poised hands, eventually creating a ball of res roughly the size of a human skull. She willed the outer layer to ignite and flames soon were created around the ball of res. Slowly she lowered the ball into the Glyph, transmuting more and more layers as it was placed into the Glyph. The flames licked the glyph but instead of setting it aflame it was absorbed slowly by the focus until it was completely engulfed.

The young wizard sighed, slightly exhausted by the act of casting. The spell was nothing major for her at this junction, but all res expenditure was certainly taxing none the less. On a good day she could manage about eight such constructs but that was with preparations, such as focus Glyphs and it pushed her very near to overgiving territory. At the moment, considering her lack of preparation, she was certainly not prepared for the massive use of res. Still two spells was not too bad, it would likely just leave her even more exhausted than before and make her sleep like the dead.

The young wizard chanted again as she focused her Djed and drew yet more res into her hands, sheathing them in the translucent liquid once more before slowly creating a similarly sized ball of liquid res. Anna could feel the urge crawling under the surface of her mind, scratching at her will power and desire to resist and retain control. There was really no feeling that came close to the euphoria of casting, it was a primal form of pleasure that came from seeing ones self as all powerful.

Again she formed another ball of the translucent liquid in the air before her, the res shimmering and shifting slight to her will. It was a piece of herself she was putting out, part of her very being.

Anna willed the outer layer of the ball to ignite and slowly lowered it into the other scroll, igniting more layers as she moved it closer to the Focus Glyph. As before the ball of flame was absorbed into the Glyph, completing her task for the night.

The young professor let out a sigh of relief and put both of her arms down at her side. Her whole body ached with weariness and she desired nothing more than to lay her head down on her pillow a rest for the night. Carefully Anna rolled up the scrolls set them down carefully apart on the table. She would deliver them to the Wave Guards on the morrow, tonight she needed rest and a lot of it.

by **Cloud** on August 19th, 2013, 12:57 pm

From the sky falls your reward!

Anna :

Misc:X :

Question marks to be made? Exclamations to declare? Feel free to send me a pm and we can tend to any concerns you have.

Solo Scrolls for the Wave Guard [Pt. 1]