Completed To Impress the Dead II: Preparations of the Magical

[Aedifalse]

Previous episode here.

515-SPRING-76
Communal Lab 18B, Gug Andjak

Aedi held his treasured dagger protectively as he opened the doors of the unused communal laboratory. This would be the base item for the enchanting that he would perform in a bid to qualify for the apprenticeship program. Due to his natural talent in the art, as well as the tireless refinement of effort back in Sultros, he estimated that he would be able to complete a single enchantment in three days rather than the five when he first started.

Inquiries about had informed him that the materials required for a single step enchantment would be freely available within the wizarding laboratories in the Gug Andjak, and so his mind could be put at rest with regards to the procurement of the necessary goods. The Isur's eyes surveyed the room as he wondered what sort of enchantments should he use his single, precious, step on

Something that would fit this weapon more easily.

Strength? It was not needed for a steel weapon that could easily puncture skin and pierce soft areas it was meant to pierce. Weight? It was a light enough weapon, and like knuckledusters, a minimal amount of weight was beneficial to add power to a punch. Aedi ruminated deeply and he realized that he probably had to strike off structural enhancements off the list.

He swung the weapon about, attempting to gain inspiration, and then he realized that a light weapon such as the punch dagger would benefit from speed. Yes, that's it. It would be speed that would best benefit this type of weapon and it's combat style, and in a way it would give the benefit of a weight reduction enhancement while maintaining the power behind its weight.

Rubbing his hands, the Isur began the process of preparing the stage. First he began by placing both arms onto the pedestal, slowly sparking it with astral flames to familiarize it with his djed. It would be his mystic force that would lead the following operation, and it was important that he synchronize well with the pedestal.

Taking the brush and jar of inscribing paint provided, he drew a large sweeping circle around the sole pedestal at the center of the room. Having limited information in glyphing, instead of trying for anything fancy he simply painted the runes he knew. The shapes were simple and made use of connecting lines, he slowly created several glyphs throughout the pedestal to stabilize the magecrafting operation and to reign in any leaking djed.

As he completed the four quarters of glyphs and connected them to the pedestal, he positioned the various optical inspection tools, placed his handcrafted weapon upon the pedestal and began the process in earnest. Closing his eyes as he gave himself a few moments of silent meditation, the Isur took a deep breath and summoned the djed within his body, throwing his focus upon the pedestal and charging it with djed.

The pedestal began warming up as a faint hum begun to emerge, and the hairs on Aedi's body stood as it felt the electrical charge of magical energy envelop the pedestal, enhanced but stabilized by the various glyphs about the center of the room. Aedi opened his eyes as he finished communing with the pedestal, and the last of the initiating djed left his body to spark the weapon before him.

It was time to magecraft!

[Aedifalse]

Picking up the magecraft hammer, Aedi made the obvious comparison between this and the forging hammer that he had been using the day before. While in the previous case he was physically shaping the material, this time he was shaping the internal djed of the dagger. Or shaping its soul, if one wanted to be all spiritual and philosophical about it.

This time, intention was of the utmost importance, and Aedi charged the djed within his body, focusing his mind onto a single attribute which was that of speed. Keeping the thought firmly in mind, he swung the hammer at the dagger. There was a flash of light, a low zooming sound, and the hammer rebounded off as a charge of djed exploded, leaving the surface of the dagger unscratched.

This was probably the biggest difference in his style of magecrafting. Squinting at the object, he continued raining blows on the weapon atop the pedestal in both action and thoughts, showers of djed residue exploding throughout accompanied by flashes of light with each blow.

With the aid of the optical rings, Aedi channeled energy to his eyes to aid him in inspecting the weapon, and noted with glee that the aura of the weapon was beginning to glow in some areas, though remaining dull in others. It was part of the process of charging an item with magical force.

Keeping the intention clear in his mind, he took a deep breath, then honed onto the dagger with single-minded precision. There were more showers of sparks and flashes of light, which made the Isur grumble quite a lot. He had not been doing any magecrafting since he left Sultros, and had gotten quite used to the mundane profession of smithing.

By comparison, the rare showers of embers and the metallic clang of the forging hammer seemed rather tame when contrasted against the flashy visual effects that magecrafting had. Gradually, the slumbering passion within him began to awaken, and helped him to rediscover once again the excitement of this ancient art.

With the aid of his limited proficiency in Auristics, he focused upon the aura of the weapon in intermittent intervals through the optical tools, keeping track of the areas that were glowing with charged djed and the areas that were not. Similarly, he constantly refreshed the fading glyphs of enhancements and stabilization throughout the area as they literally faded by a shade with every flash of light and every strike of the arcane hammer.

[Aedifalse]

515-SPRING-77

Aiming for the areas that were not yet glowing with energy was not a simple matter of geometric precision, but required spiritual navigation and awareness as well. Physically speaking, the hammer was striking at the same location every time, but the intricacy of the djed that powered each strike, as well as the intention of the wizard's soul, made all of the difference. The magecraft lenses combined with the gaze of aura-seeking helped to pinpoint the spiritual coordinates of the areas that required attention, and it was up to Aedi to execute the strike.

It was early morning the next day and Lab 18B was already awash with intermittent flashes of bright bluish light accompanied by the constant low hum of energy. Aedi had already worked up a sweat, flitting between the aura detection tools and the glyphed pedestal as he incrementally converted every dull, mundane part of the dagger's djed into one buzzing of supernatural activity.

The day before he had already planned for the addition of three reagents that would help differentiate his offering and place it into a more unique area when compared to the other Judgement candidates. However, the equipment had to be sufficiently charged to allow it to accept additional modifications to its djed structure.

When it was in the phase that Aedi was waiting for, he decided to proceed with the first part of his plan. With his sharp nail from his left fingers, he drew a bit of blood and let it drip into a small stone mortar. With the inscribing paint, he drew upon the mortar a set of ancient instructions that sought to zoom out and abstract upon the blood's properties. While his unfamiliarity with glyphing only allowed for simple phrases, he intended to combine this with his greater knowledge in magecrafting to produce the effect he wanted.

Grasping the magecraft hammer once more, he charged the intention of imbuing additional properties, and swung it towards the dagger, careful to avoid overturning the stone mortar that he placed upon the pedestal beside the dagger. This was the introductory strike to make the item amenable to the following modifications.

With the aid of the glyphs, he placed the thought firmly in his mind as he gripped and swung the hammer once more. His blood would no longer be just interpreted as the residue of an Isur. Instead, the idea was to go even further up the categorization chain to encompass sentient beings. To that end, the blood represented the single spark of sentience and the representation of the conscience.

There was another flash of light, and the set of instructions was inscribed into the weapon's soul. It would prove to be more damaging against other sentient beings.

[Aedifalse]

With a tone of finality, Aedi struck the dagger's soul once more, and completed the first phase of his plan. Taking a brief rest, he glanced into the optical lenses, this time opting not to use Auristics since he was beginning to spiritually tire. He would only use it to check on milestone moments to ensure that everything was on track.

The enchanted rings proved to be sufficient to give a brief estimation of the item's aura, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction. So far, everything was going according to plan. He took the opportunity of the lull period to remove the stone mortar from the pedestal, leaving the dagger as the sole equipment atop it.

He also took the chance to refresh the painted glyphs about the room. He thought to himself that he really had to get better at glyphing to avoid having to refresh them so many times, since they quite literally dried up and disappeared in great force whenever the internal pathways of the item changed.

After a number of chimes of rest and meditation, Aedi stood up once more and continued to strike the dagger. He resumed the original thought of speed, and asserted his will upon the dagger as he gradually converted yet more of the dull, unenchanted aura of the item into a working, glowing version of it. Several more strikes had to be done in order to stabilize the process so that he could essentially wrap up the meanderings of the first optional step and return to the main pathway of enchanting.

As he cleared up yet another fifth of the weapon, he proceeded onto the second phase of his reagents plan. Taking a piece of cloth that he had appropriated from the raw materials tray in a nearby communal workshop, he held it in his left arm and hovered over the pedestal. In his right he grasped the arcane hammer, and as he struck he tore the fabric and the tiny pieces floated down gently on about the pedestal.

The frequency of the humming lowered slightly, and the flash of blue light darkened as that happened, and Aedi understood from experience that it signaled the start of the diversion from the main magecrafting path. The brief foray into viewing the blurred aura of the weapon confirmed his thoughts, and gave him the confidence to continue.

Focusing the thought of offense in his mind, he struck the dagger once for each piece of torn fabric that lay on the pedestal. The flashes of dark blue light enveloped the room with each strike, and a piece of the fabric flashed white and disappeared, seemingly absorbed into the mesh of djed that vibrated within the partially-enchanted dagger.

With the last strike that wrapped up the process, the instructions passed by the fabric was clear. Just as the typical use of a type of blood in a magecraft operation enhanced the weapon's effectiveness against that type, the same held true for materials.

When completed, this weapon would be able to perform more effectively on cloth, tearing through it as if it were nothing to seek the uncovered flesh beneath.

[Aedifalse]

515-SPRING-78

The weapon was mostly completed, and the magecrafter could have actually finished the weapon soon if he wanted to. However, there was a little twist that he wished to place upon it, and if his bet on the rumors surrounding a certain Isur Master Wizard was true, he hoped that it would gain favors with that person if he existed.

He cut his hand again, allowing a few drops of blood to fall over the dagger. However, this time there was no need of glyphs or mortars since the process was straight forward enough. The crimson liquid strewn about the seemingly mundane dagger, and before it began to congeal he moved djed into his arms as he struck the dagger with spiritual force.

The flash of usual blue light rang out, but it had a tinge of purple with the introduction of some redness. He was relying on the most basic use of blood, but instead held thoughts of negation and inversion. Ideas of contradiction and reversed actions filled the forefront of his mental landscape, and with that he flipped the hammer over and struck the dagger with the other end.

The reason for applying all these methods was to invoke the time-honored use of blood as an indicator, but offering a more defensive stance towards it. The use of blood in such a case would cause the weapon to be more effective against Isurs, due to the origin of the blood and in the absence of any glyphed abstractions. However, because of his actions, the dagger would become less effective when used against Isurs, which was what he banked on to gain the favor of the rumored Isur Wizard.

The drops of blood flashed red briefly, then winked out of existence as they were assimilated by the invisible djed tapestry within the dagger. Aedi viewed briefly the aura with the aid of his novice aura-viewing sorcery, and nodded to himself in satisfaction at the success of his attempt.

With the completion of the phase of what he hoped would be the distinguishing factor of his project, he switched the glyphs on the ground and pedestal to one that spoke of convergence. It was time to bring the whole process back to the beginning, and to redirect it to its main path of the single magecrafting step.

Speed.

With that simple and single-minded thought, Aedi demanded the item to return to its original purpose, and with it he brought it a full circle back to the beginning after quite a number of detours in the astral neighborhood. Letting the sense of purpose and completion flow through his arm and into the enchanted hammer, he gave a final strike to impart these values upon the dagger.

As he quickly inspected the pedestal through the assortment of magical lenses, he pushed more djed into his vision to get a clearer shape of the aura. At the same time, the weapon began emanating a myriad of blue flashes and the low humming sound was replaced by a keening tone of increasing intensity.

On the aura-map, the dagger's soul was sorting itself as it incorporated its original properties along with the additional properties demanded of it. The light was cut off together with the rumble of noise, and it sat humming comfortably as its aura sparkled with arcane intensity.

Aedi shut off his astral vision and smiled to himself even as he doused the dagger into a heavily glyphed water basin. He had confidence that he would do well.

Next episode here.