Completed Safety First

[Annalisa Marin]

16th of Winter, 513 AV

The glint of the rubies was almost hypnotic, gleaming in the palm of her hand within the band of silver that made up the ring. Her grey eyes were transfixed by their allure, by their simple promise that was at the same time so very grand. A gift from Amaryllis, to show what was at stake in the next few days and how very much she would lose if she failed the coming trials. Despite this Anna still felt a vague homicidal rage towards the Embalmer for using Celeste.

Anna had always been a possessive individual, it probably stemmed from her lack off possessions growing up. That was what the girl was to Anna, a possession, something that rightfully belonged to her but was now in the hands of another. That burned her greatly, and no grand elegant robes or debt owed to the Embalmer would wash that grudge away anytime soon. Still, the ring was nice. A pity it wasn't around her finger at the moment, a crime really.

The tall woman sighed and placed the ring back in its box, placing it off to the side but making certain to keep it in sight. Amaryllis knew her too well, dangling this prize before her like the hungry animal the Nuit knew she was. The prospect of finally becoming someone of not just worth, but power and strength in her own right. It was her goal at the moment, to obtain power though her ends were her own thing to pursue.

Anna laid back on her mat and looked around the small room, her new domain since Amaryllis took exception to her mental instability. Honestly the Council seemed to make rules with the expressed interest of depriving people of fun. It was rather nice to be almost entirely self absorbed, made things so much more simple. Unfortunately it appeared she'd need to be more careful about having her fun, oh well such was the way of things. When she became a Wizard she'd have plenty of opportunity to have some fun, hopefully with some slaves.

A content smile graced her lips, she didn't need to pretend when she was in private. Anna thought back to how she had once been and chuckled, how she had changed from the normal girl. She had been so blinded back then, so fettered by the restraints of morality that she couldn't truly be free or actually be herself. It was simple really, she was an all powerful bitch of a Sorceress and nothing else really mattered. She sought power for herself, Rhysol, and to protect those she was fond of.

Her grey eyes looked upon barren walls, an algorithm of complex runic designs already coming into mind. Half mad she might be, but Anna fancied herself a genius of the Arcane. There were no upper limits to what she could accomplish in this world, only her own mortality held her back. 'Twas a pity, but who knew what wonders the Arcane could accomplish.

After a couple of chimes of staring at the walls the Sorceress slowly rose and looked around for something to start constructing her Wards on the walls. No doubt Amaryllis wouldn't appreciate the destruction of the Palsa Hydrasa due to the extreme exposure to Reimantic Para-Elements. Best to put her little mind at ease, fake the appearance of what was expected of her.

Her first Wards had actually revealed a lot about proper functionality. Barriers geared towards repulsion were certainly effective, however they only accomplished so much. No, she needed containment measures for her magic in case worse came to worse. So these Sigils would need to make use of repulsive and attractive forces in its construction, a lengthy design but within her abilities. Once the Wards were up... then it would be time to prepare a display that would amaze the Council and place any doubts regarding her ability to rest.

She padded on bare feet across the small room and to the far wall, dressed without shame in only her underclothes. Her fine robes were neatly folded off to the side, there was no one to impress and it made the act of pleasuring herself a simpler task. Sahova certainly didn't have many people around that were good for a petch or two, which was a pity. There was really only so much she could do alone.

The complex layout of the runes flashed through her mind, her hand already moving to take up the brush and start upon the Sigil. As soon as she picked it up and dipped it in ink, the world around her seemed to vanish as she started her work of art.

[Annalisa Marin]

Everything was gone from the world, there was no Amaryllis, no Council of Five, no Rhysol even. It was simply Annalisa and the wall she drew upon, and the artistry she brought about onto the world. Her brush flowed smoothly across the surface of the wall, the beauty of the Palsa Hydrasa was actually ugly in her eyes and was in fact a detractor from her art. The room lacked the careful order granted by her Glyphs, it was inelegant and without structure. Anna would give it what it needed.

The first Glyph was a large stylized inverted triangle, her strokes confident and sure like any experienced practitioners of her art. Her Focus Glyph, the Glyph which possessed the function of channeling or storing magic. It was in many way the most important Glyph in any Sigil, a crucial part of the whole design. It was the center point, the focus of everything.

Anna probably would have appeared a mad woman as she drew upon the walls, preparing this sequence. She was mad, though the madness was tempered by some form of structure as much as a paradox that was. Madness was the better part of genius, the two were interchangeable really and difficult to separate. Violent, erratic, but no one could contest her ability to form these connections.

The large Focus was complete, but rather than add more Glyphs to the same wall Anna turned her attention to another of her for walls. The Focus' came first in the whole layout, four large Focus' with smaller ones here or there as the sequence dictated. It was all about the balance of the overall layout, the ability to repulse and absorb into the designated sections based on what protection was needed.

So she started on the next inverted triangle, her grey eyes slightly distant as her broad strokes flowed across the smooth walls. These Glyphs were just simple drawings until they interacted with magic, then they had power to change and warp the ways of magic. They were such simple things in appearance but held so much power in the hands of an experienced user, to change the rules of magic as they existed. It shouldn't have been possible to store fire in paper, yet these Glyphs made such impossibilities possible.

Anna finished the next Glyph and moved on to the third one, this one upon the surface of the door. To an observer these precautions might have seemed a little extreme, however it was all part of what was expected of her. What was expected was that she would prevent the Palsa Hydrasa from being blown sky high via destructive experiments. Amaryllis knew what she was taking in when she had ordered Anna to remain in the Palsa Hydrasa, a destructive wreaking ball. Likely she had also known that Anna would place these Wards up, it was expected. So rather than not she did as expected, all part of playing the part of a halfway sane individual.

The Focus was brought into existence easily enough, her next goal was the last wall from there. She placed the final larger Focus on the last barren wall, her tongue placed in her cheek. Anna paused mid stroke, thinking pondering the design for a moment to go over any last minute flaws. Glyphing was a delicate thing, if the wrong balance was put in place who could say what might happen. It could cause a chain reaction that might create a bomb rather than a safety net.

Satisfied she finished the last Focus, stepping back to the center of the room and rotating in place. Her grey eyes observed the four large Glyphs, making certain that they were in place. Satisfied to readied her brush once again.

[Annalisa Marin]

The Focus' would provide the base to build up from, rather like the foundation to a building to be constructed or a skeleton to a body. From there the next logical step would be to add substance to the foundation, which could then be built upon for the entire design layout. So she needed to add in Barriers around the Focus' and from there connect them to a number of smaller Focus's via Paths. The smaller Focus would be there to capture magical backlash and move it along the Paths into the Larger Focus'. A number of smaller Barriers would be put in place at controlled intervals, these designed to reflect and repulse in order to lead the magic into the Focus'.

It was a convoluted design and would likely take her most of her day to accomplish, even with her comfort with the art of Glyphing. Wards as extensive as the ones she was going to layout took time, a lot of time actually. Anna started on her Barrier around the first Focus, the stylized geometric shapes looking highly refined and certainly made from the brush of an advanced user. She was better than the common rung apprentices, probably better than many Wizards and she'd prove it in these coming days. Goron Silverheart be damned, she wasn't going to fail because some jumped up sub-human filth tried to hold her back.

The ring of Glyphs around the large Focus were possessed of the function like 'contain', or 'hold within' so as to contain any potentially hazardous magic that might go awry. Not that Anna doubted her abilities to control the destructive forces of Reimancy, she could call upon the strength of lightning and fire and bend them to her will. Soon enough she'd be as strong as Maelstrom, perhaps even stronger.

Anna finished the first Barrier and padded across the room to the next Focus, her grey eyes wide and alert as she worked. Though she was very experienced with the art of Glyphing, Anna was always careful not to make a mistake in her Glyphing. The Barrier and her Paths were rather easy to mess up in making, they were best to grant a discerning eye. Her Focus Glyphs were simply and required little attention on her part to make, luckily this design wouldn't require a Trigger.

As she worked, forming the containing Barrier in a ring around the inverted triangle, she thought about the possibility of actually turning this room into a bomb. Theoretically Anna could charge each Focus here with enough destructive force to blow out a good portion of the Palsa Hydrasa, all she needed was the right Trigger. Well, then again Amaryllis might have hidden defenses against that kind of thing. It wouldn't surprise Anna, knowing who she was.

As she finished the last rune in the Glyph she gave it a keen glance over before moving on to the door. The door was going to be separate from the whole thing, because once it was opened and it possessed connections to other Glyphs along the walls it would cause a disruption along the whole ward. So she would work around it while giving it its own separate additions. Her brush flowed across its surface, ringing the Focus in its protective Barrier. She was an artist and this whole room was her canvas, to be given host to the powers of the universe itself.

At last she moved to the last Focus, her brush moving just as confidently as before as she ringed the symbols around the large inverted triangle. It was all a language really, Glyphing was the codex for the language of magic itself or at least each dialect. Magic itself was the same language, the different magic disciplines represented the separate dialects. Voiding and Reimancy possessed the same bases, but their finer points were different from one another. An experienced Glypher could begin to unravel the interconnectivity of it all, to understand how everything was actually the same and how then it could be changed. Glyphing was knowledge, and knowledge was power.

What then was Djed itself? Magic was the manipulation of Djed, but Djed and magic were not interchangeable. Glyphing effected the flow of Djed, not just magic so did that mean that Glyphing was actually more than just the codex for magic? Did it hold the key to understanding the very nature of existence itself? Could one change the very laws of reality beyond what magic was capable of? Could one become something more or discover magic's long thought lost to the stream of time?

The Sorceress finished her Barrier and stepped back to the center of the room again, spinning in place to look at the Glyphs. Everything looked set, so now it was time to add in the branches to this tree of Glyphs. She needed more structure to properly call these designs wards, once this task was done Anna could actually begin her preparations.

[Annalisa Marin]

The tall woman stood on the tips of her toes as she made a smaller Focus Glyph a little ways away from the main one on the wall, her tongue peeking out from her mouth to lick her lips. The small Focus was completed in short order and Anna moved from that one to make another, the stylized inverted triangle coming to life with each stroke of her brush. Slowly but surely she was bringing arcane beauty to this room. She was making it something more than it would have ever been before, something magnificent really.

Six small Focus's were placed on the surface of the wall by the end of it, and once they were up Anna added a ring of Barriers around each one and connected them together via a series of Paths. It rather looked like a circle was surrounding that larger Focus, which was the goal all along really. From here Anna connected each Focus to the Barrier around the central Focus via Paths, making the connection strong.

Anna then moved her brush to the outside of the array, silently thankful for the supplies provided to her for this presentation. She started up on a number of Barriers placed all along the walls, placing them in certain areas deliberately. The layout was designed to direct any magic into the array, as the small Barriers were made with the purpose of repulsion rather than containment. They would nudge the magic to the desired area, containing it safely within the central Focus.

She smiled as she worked, humming slightly to herself and imagining pleasant things like bathing in a pool of Daren's blood or ripping Goron Silverheart's arm off and tossing it into the lava of the Forge. Ah, happy thoughts for a hopefully pleasant future. Violence was always a pleasant way to put people in their place, to remind them who they are dealing with. The Sorceress intended to make that sub human magecrafter regret not having let those golem's kill her, even if it took years to do it.

Anna stepped back from the wall and looked over it, cocking her head this way and that to get a good look at the whole design. It looked rather good so she nodded to herself and moved on to the next wall, the same design already bleeding off of her brush and onto its smooth surface. As with all of her previous Glyphs they weren't so much symbols as the work of an experienced artist. Let lesser wizard have their delusions of power, Anna could manipulate the very laws of magic itself with these little symbols.

The Sorceress repeated her work from the previous wall, six Focus' bound by Barriers and connected by Paths. Paths were then added to the central Glyph, completing the sequence. Anna liked to think of the awe a lesser Glypher might have if they walked in on this work, their sheer amazement at the complex and refined layouts across the walls. It was rather like a Mathematician placing refined equations all over a room, each one more brilliant than the last. It wasn't so much impressive as it boarded on art itself.

The small Barriers were added around the layout just as before in order to direct the necessary magic to the wards. Anna worked quickly but efficiently, her arms starting to feel a little bit tired at all of this work. How long had she been at this? At least a bell, perhaps even longer but without the sun as her guide she didn't know. Time didn't matter here, it was just her and her Glyphs to guide her attention. She needed to keep working, even when her eyes would start to feel heavy and her arm tired. Not for the first time, Anna cursed the limits of her own mortality. She still hated most Nuit, but she envied their ability to work tirelessly for days on end.

Anna finished this wall and moved on to the door. This process was going to be a little different for the door and the wall surrounding it. The door itself Anna placed the same layout upon, only a little more bunched together. It was nothing overly different that what she had done the previous two times. However the walls around the door were going be different. Here she placed a number of small Focus and ringed them with Barriers. She stood on the tips of her toes to reach above the door frame and place some above it so she got all of the wall.

From here she connected each of them via Glyphs, creating a web work of Glyphs across the walls and strengthening the whole thing by making certain that everything was connected together. The Sorceress took a bit longer on this one, but once it was finished it looked rather good and possessed the same balance as the others did. It actually looked a bit more pretty to Anna's eyes, perhaps a basic design for later.

She shrugged it off and moved onto the last wall, this time repeating the normal process of placing six Focus Glyph ringed in Barriers around the central Glyph. The repetition was actually good, it would help her get a feel for future Glyphing experiments and ward placement. When the whole layout was complete Anna moved to the center of the room to drink it all in.

It looked glorious, certainly it attested to just how very experienced she was and it was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. So much more was to come in the next few days, designs and weapons that would hopefully net her a Wizard rank. Her gaze fell upon the box on the ground, the item inside reminding her just what was at stake. She wasn't going to fail, not when she had come so very far. She would see this through to the end and beyond and petch whatever her enemies tried to do to slow her down.

[Thomas Cosa]

Character Name

Glyphing	+4
Drawing	+3

• The Lure of a Wizard's Ring
• Rhysol Allows True Freedom

Grade Notes :

Again, I love the detail! I know that drawing isn't always given with glyphing, but you did such a good job of describing Anna's technique and brush strokes. Keep on writing!

Inquiries can be directed to one Thomas Cosa via PM and will be sorted out in short order.