Solo For Every Queen, Her Castle

[Elias Caldera]

22nd Day of Winter, 515 AV

The glint of the amaranthine stone was downright hypnotic. It gleamed in the palm of his hand like purple fire, igniting his inspirations with every wondrous glint and his studious gaze was positively transfixed by its allure and poignant potential. It had taken the magecrafter a little deception, a little bartering, and a shyke-ton of coin to finally get his hands on it and the others like it, but as inevitable as the sun rise, Elias had finally managed to snag himself enough ingredients to finally create an artifact of his own. ‘Now was the time!’

…Was what he had said back then. That glorious moment had come and gone seasons ago…

Now the stone, the particularly purple one he adored the most included, were just extra weight in his travel pack. A sack of untapped miracles that now seemed ever more doomed to never know the touch of his hammers nor the embrace of his djed. How cruel could fate be to deny him what he sought so fiercely now that he had the means to accomplish greatness within his very grasp?

No time. He reminded himself solemnly. Never any bloody time.

The wizard sighed and placed the geode back in its pouch with the others, pushing it off to the side but making certain to keep it in sight.

Elias laid back on his seat and looked around the noisy common room, his new domain since Alija took exception to his… oddities, and invited him in to stay. A wondrous girl that one, always so kind and giving. Too much so for the Caldera’s liking. It was a weakness many sought to exploit, the Caldera being one such villain himself as others might be quick to point out. She had needed his help though, and who was he to deny her, especially when he had craved for nothing but her acceptance after so long.

Distrust and animosity had been her initial greeting, but eventually desperation and the blood bond they shared had seen her walls broken down and the Ravokian back in her good graces, at least for the time being. As long as he was useful anyway. Now that he knew she had enemies, his worth to his cousin and her family –his family- could truly shine. He just needed to show her what he could do.

Blue eyes looked upon barren walls, an algorithm of complex runic designs already coming into mind. It was why he was out and about the forge today. He had planned to outfit Alija and Jaiden with as many means to defend themselves against those foolish enough to see them harmed as he could. One such line of defense would serve right here at the home front.

It had taken a great dealing of pleading, cajoling and apologizing to eventually get her to agree, but once she had, Elias wasted little time in getting to work. The plan called for a plethora of ungodly traps capable of annihilating the foes of the Caldera bloodline with such gruesome splendor it would leave the rest of Nyka trembling at the very notion of petching with any of them ever again.

Or at least that was the idea anyway.

Half mad as he might be, Elias still fancied himself a genius of the arcane. There were no upper limits to what he could accomplish in this world now that he had found his true path in life, only his own mortality held him back. Were once a life of regret had stymied his accent, now his only regret was that he had had but one life to give for his god. Then again, who knew what wonders the arcane could one day accomplish in that regard.

After a couple of chimes of staring at the walls, the reimancer slowly rose and looked around for something to start constructing his protective wards with. No doubt Alija would find it hard to appreciate the destruction of the Ocean’s Forge, her pride and joy, due to the extreme exposure to chaotic reimantic elements he intended to unleash. Best to put his cousin’s mind at ease, and at least give the appearance that her Ravokian kin was in control anyway.

His first set of wards had actually revealed a lot about proper functionality. Barriers geared towards repulsion were certainly effective, however they only accomplished so much. No, he needed containment measures for his magic in case worse came to pass. So these sigils would need to make use of repulsive and attractive forces in its construction, a lengthy design but well within his abilities. Once the defenses were up it would be time to prepare for the rest of his undertaking.

He padded on bare feet across the sweltering room and to the far wall, ignoring the wary and curious looks he would often receive from the others who shared his new home. He didn’t have time for them or their questions as the complex layout of the runes flashed through his mind, his hand already moving to take up the brush and start upon the sigil. As soon as he picked it up and dipped it in ink, the world around him seemed to vanish into a blank canvas.

Finally, he could begin his work of art.

Everything was gone from the world, there was no Nyka, no mission from Ravok, not even the crackling of the forge’s flame nearby. It was simply Elias and the wall he drew upon -the artistry he brought about onto the world. He had chosen somewhere in the shop easy to disguise, yet still capable of controlling the entire room from its point of vantage. His brush flowed smoothly across the surface of the wall, letting the chaos roiling within him take control of his hands. His instructors would like claimed the room lacked the careful order granted by his glyphs, inelegant and without structure. What did they know? Old, doddery fools. Chaos was the only way and Elias would give this place exactly what it needed.

[Elias Caldera]

The first glyph was a large stylized triangle, his forming strokes confident and sure like any experienced practitioners of his art. This was his focus, the glyph which possessed the function of channeling or storing magic. It was in many ways the most important piece in any sigil, a crucial necessity to the whole design. It was the center point, the 'focus' of everything. He giggled.

Elias probably would have appeared a mad man as he drew upon the walls, preparing this sequence. There were times where he felt as if he was indeed going insane, though if truly that, the madness was something tempered and given purpose for the greater good, as much as a paradox that was. Then again, madness was the better part of genius he had heard once, the two were interchangeable and difficult to separate. Violent, erratic at times, sure, but no one could contest his abilities and skill.

The large focus was complete, but rather than add more glyphs to the same wall, Elias turned his attention to another. The foci came first in the whole layout, four large nexus points with smaller ones here or there as the sequence dictated. It was all about the balance of the overall layout, the ability to unleash and absorb into the designated sections based on what spell was required.

So he started on the next inverted triangle, cold blue eyes slightly distant as his 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 paltry things in appearance but held so much power in the hands of an experienced user. The ability to change the rules of magic as they existed was a phenomenal one to say the least. It shouldn't have been possible to store fire in paper, yet these mundane drawings could make such impossibilities possible. Oh, that reminds me. Gotta make some scrolls for the gang too. So busy, busy, busy.

Elias finished the next glyph and moved on to the third. To an observer these precautions might have seemed a little extreme, but in a city like this, who knew what kind of crazy could come walking through that door at any moment; an enraged monk, an aperture nightmare? It could be one of the petching celestials for all he knew, but if it was, the bastard would be in for one nasty surprise, that was all Elias intended to achieve here.

It never hurt to be prepared.

The newest focus was brought into existence easily enough and his next goal quickly lashed his attention to a new wall. He placed the final, larger focus on the last barren wall, his task made even more difficult in his attempt to keep as much of the glyphic structure hidden and camouflaged behind any natural obstacles the smithy could afford him.

Elias 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 could turn what was supposed to be an impenetrable fortress into a smoldering hole in the ground if he wasn’t careful.

Careful I’ll be then.

It took a while, but eventually satisfaction found him as he finished the last of the foci. Stepping back to the center of the room and rotating in place, his scrutinizing eyes took in the entirety of the smithy. The sight beyond sight, auristics, came to life within him as djed flowed up and into his senses. He looked deep into the few places where the dark drawings were clearly visible and from there studied each section meticulously, hidden and not so hidden, with detailed efficiency.

Satisfied nothing was going to blow up, he readied his brush once again.

[Elias Caldera]

Unlike starting with a barrier, the focal points he had scattered all across his cousin’s place of business would provide the foundations to build up from, rather like 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 he needed to add in barriers, but only around the nexus location where the spells were stored. From there he could connect them to a number of smaller focuses via a few simple paths.

Among other things, most of the smaller foci would be there merely to recapture the magical backlash from the initial triggering of the traps and then move their destructive remnants along the paths and back into another 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 as well.

Essentially, and quite brilliantly he might add, each trap fired off in such a way that every one of them was aimed at a repository that not only absorbed, but also harnessed the destructive energy, sparing the space on either side –i.e. the smithy’s walls- from any actual damage, while also restoring the devastating attack for a second or sometimes even third use. While the smithy would be mostly spared, anything caught in between was another story.

It was a convoluted design and would likely take most of his day to accomplish, especially considering the now admittedly absurd goal he had set for himself in hiding most, if not all of his glyphs from common eyes. Wards as extensive as the ones he was going to lay out took time and space. A great deal of time and space actually. It was growing more and more difficult to find things like crates or display racks in which he could hide them all behind. He’d try his best, but Alija and her father would just have to assist him where and when they could.

Almost as important as the traps themselves was the task of making the Ocean’s Forge looked just as normal and un-magically booby trapped as ever.

Elias started on his barrier, the stylized geometric shapes looking highly refined and certainly made from the brush of a more than competent practitioner. Well, he was better than the common rung apprentices at least, that much he could admit without wincing.


The ring of glyphs around the large focus possessed words of nader-canoch scripted into it that read things like 'capture', or 'hold within' so as to contain any potentially hazardous magic that might go awry. Not that Elias doubted his abilities to control the destructive forces of reimancy, he could call upon the strength of lightning, water and fire and bend them all to his will with ease, which obviously had to mean he had been doing something right. He doubted now of all times would be the moment he somehow lost control.

Regardless, safety first as they said.

Elias finished the first barrier and strode across the room to the next focus, his blue eyes now wide and alert as he worked. Though he was experienced with the art, the mage was always careful not to grow too arrogant and careless. He had read and studied enough books to know that hubris alone had claimed more sorcerers and sorceresses than any war or calamity in history. The barrier and his paths were rather easy to mess up in making, so they were best to grant a discerning eye. His focus glyphs were simple for the most part and had required relatively little attention, but this part required all of him to be fully alert and aware.

[Elias Caldera]

As he doodled, a stray thought about the possibility of actually turning this room into a bomb wandered into his head. Theoretically Elias could charge each focus here with enough destructive force to turn this entire forge and the surrounding buildings into a cataclysmic failsafe weapon of its own, and all he needed was the right trigger. Perhaps one day he would have the opportunity to create such a devilishly destructive contraption, but it definitely wasn’t going to be today. His Zeltivan hosts would be beside themselves if they ever discovered his plan, and he much preferred sleeping here than he did at that ratty shykehole of a hostel the Nykans herded all their outsiders into.

As he finished the last rune in the network he gave it a keen glance over before moving on to another. His brush flowed across its surface, ringing the focus in its protective barrier.

At last he moved to the final focus, his brush moving just as confidently as before as he wrapped the symbols around the large triangle. It was all a language really, and it surprised most people didn’t realize that. Glyphing was the codex for the language of while magic itself was the same language, the different disciplines representing different dialects. Arts like reimancy and say, voiding, possessed the same bases, but their finer points were utterly different from one another. An experienced glypher could begin to unravel the interconnectivity of it all however, to understand how everything was in actuality. Auristics helped in understanding things like that. The ability to see how the djed moved and morphed along the contours of your work was sometimes paramount to understanding.

Glyphing was knowledge, and everyone knew knowledge was power.

That gave rise to another question however; what then was djed? 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?

God’s I’m hungry… When did she say lunch was at again?

The starved and slightly confused mage shook the annoyingly complex thoughts from his mind as he finished his barrier and stepped back to the center of the room again, spinning in place to look at the glyphs once more. His senses accepted the gift of his djed and his auristic sight allowed him to navigate the increasingly intricate web-ways of lines and sigils that had begun to take shape after only a few bells of work. Everything looked set, so now it was time to add in the branches to this tree of glyphs and place the fruits of his labor upon them.

He just needed more structure to properly call these designs finished, but once this task was done, Elias could actually begin laying his traps.

[Elias Caldera]

The pale swordsmen stood on the tips of his toes as he struggled to keep his balance upon the chair he was straddling. This time the target of his graffiti was the ceiling. Luckily he was done with it before Thegan or Kial could muster up enough courage to inquire just what the hell he was doing and whether or not he could get down from there anytime soon. Apparently he had been scaring off customers…

They wouldn’t understand, they couldn't; slowly but surely Elias Caldera was bringing arcane excellence to this room. He was making it something more than it would have ever been before, something magnificent really, and it was ungrateful endeavor that was slowly draining the life from him with each passing tick.

As tired as he was though, the mage was not yet finished. Countless little details had to be made just right before he could move on, and each one demanded his undivided attention. He was stuffing himself into cramped corners and dancing across walls in desperate, harried attempts to mend every single one that he could, his brush damn near destroyed in the harrowing process. He was just thankful for the drawing supplies he had thought to bring with him from Ravok.

Despite how trying and tiring it all was, the mage was not surprised to discover he had been smiling as he worked, even humming to himself while imagining the more pleasant things his laborious work induced. Things like how sweet it had been when he had killed that first knight on the bridge, or how much sweeter it was going to feel when he eventually killed the rest of that fool’s friends too.

It was the little things, you know.

Feeling blessedly finished, Elias dared to step back from the walls and looked it over one last time, cocking his head this way and that to get a better grasp at the entire design.

It looked good.

It looked really good in fact.

He nodded to himself in congratulation and tried his best to ignore the unholy agony his arm’s cramping was causing him. He merely grinned as if in defiance of the pain, for he knew, now came the fun part.

The reimancer clapped his hands together with a resounding bang, pulling them apart a moment later to reveal static, lashing lines of lighting dancing between his shuddering fingers. Lightning, unlike ice, had come to the mage purely by chance. He hadn’t realized in all his time as a reimancer how miraculous or relatively easy the para-element would be to control, nor that it had merely required the combination of air and fire to produce. It was funny really, before his third element of air, Elias had been relegated to merely a combination of fire and water. Steam had its uses, sure, but with air, the caldera felt as if he had been granted to the key to a whole new world of reimancy. Ice, lightning, mist, and who knew what else was now within his grasp now, each one of them eager to serve like their predecessors before them.

The storm between his hands raged mightily, rivets of electricity bouncing with unfettered ferocity between the minuscule heads of res that Elias used to contain them. The Ravokian continued to produce more and more of the raging storm until its wildness and power threaten to overwhelm even his control. It was at that point that the mage directed the maelstrom at the glyph, unleashing the storm into the arcane runes with all of his ability and blessing. The glyphs devoured the lighting eagerly, craving more and more until Elias could satiate their potentially endless appetite no longer.

With a heaving sigh, he caught himself against the wall and rested there for a while as the glow of the sigil dimmed and eventually died.

“One down.” He said with a smile.

[Elias Caldera]

An insurmountable burst of lighting was a rather… permanent solution to any problem that may have strolled its way into the Ocean’s Forge, and knowing what he did of his particularly squeamish and unbloodied cousin, Elias surmised that perhaps his kinswoman would have benefited from, if not appreciated, a less fatal alternative.

Ice it was then.

This would prove even more harrowing than conjuring the storm had unfortunately, not to mention that unlike the lightning which would ping pong between he glyphs he had set up on the opposite wall across from it and therefore could be reused again and again, his ice trap could only be effective once, and that was it.

Perhaps its limited use would encourage Alija to be more definitive in achieving her results from now on, which was to say she’d lean more on the lightning and the murderous efficiency it offeren when given the chance. He could only hope, he supposed.

Elias summoned to him all the res he could muster so soon after the great display earlier and cast upon it the combined forces of air and water, willing their essences to bond and evolve into something new and frigid. Once he felt he had enough of it under his command, he poured it all into a second sigil in waiting. Like before, the runes absorbed the reimancy with a voraciousness that tempted the mage to further strain himself beyond what he knew was safe and practical. He resisted, if only barely, and with a wave of his hand, ended the spell before its siren call could lure him any further.

This latest demonstration of arcane glory was effectively a snare. Once unleashed, the ice would pour across the floor of the smithy, ensnaring anyone who stood in its path in ice thick enough to reach up to most people’s shins. Ultimately harmless save for the frozen toes one might suffer, but formidable in the obstacle it provided none the less.

With that done, the young man could finally move on to the last of his reimanantic displays. This final one wasn’t a trap at all actually, but instead something his time as a firefighter had taught him would be very beneficial to a woman in Alija's trade. A sprinkler system! It was the glyph on the ceiling that would house it, and, with Elias’s first element being water, it proved mere child's play to create great quantities of the liquid for his purposes. He drove the water into the sigil, filling it to its brim so when the day came that a fire broke out in the forge, as they always did in places like this, Alija and her folks could easily suppress it with a mere phrase or two.

After he was satisfied with his work, Elias took the time to rest. At that point he wasn’t sure the lack of strain on his body after so many grand performances was either a testament to his growing abilities, or a lie conjured by his own arcane cravings to keep him going so as to test their own limits. Over giving was a terrible thing, but it was the fact that the sweet whispers were often the ones that led a mage to that point that truly terrified Elias at times. He decided to err on the side of caution.

That said, it was only about a bell or two later when the Caldera returned, antsy as ever and quite perturbed by the idea that he had left his business in the shop unfinished. Hypnostism! How could I forget that. This was a business after all, wasn’t it. How could his cousin not benefit from a little added persuasiveness behind her words now and again? He should have rested a little longer, he knew, but being so close to finishing had driven him out of his agitated attempt at slumber. There were a pair focuses left unused upon the counter where Alija had informed him most of her transactions and haggling was done. It was there they would find the most use.

Taking up what remained of his poor brush, the pale magic user began by putting the finishing touches on the sigils, completing their barriers and triggers within the hour. Once his sight beyond sight told him all was ready for his spell, Elias began to call upon the djed still remaining deep within his core.

He demanded and taunted, cajoled and cavorted, and in the end the power relented to his beckoning. It came to him slowly at first, unsure, but with his charm and threats the djed flowed through his mind and then immediately slipped into the humming glow of the glyphs at his fingers. The suggestions were simple things, and despite his pride, not the strongest either, but still powerfully compelling regardless. Their tempered promises whispered encouragements like ’that’s a great deal, I should take it! or they're right. Coupled with this was a general sense of acceptance and victory, something to please and distract the mind being contorted to the hypnotist’s will. If Elias’s calculations were correct, it would prove an exceptional method of closing any deal should Alija find herself in dire need of doing so… Then again, in retrospect Elias always had a bad habit of talking up his own abilities .

Ah, it’ll be fine. She’ll love it, and she’ll love me even more for it!

With that thought permeating throughout his addled brain, the Caldera quickly set off to find the cousin in question. He would need to explain in great detail what he had done for her forge and what she’d need to know in order to understand and control it all lest she accidentally blew herself up.

Ohoho, she’s going to be so petching excited. I can’t wait!

What The Glyphs Do1. The primary trap is the lightning one. The glyphs act kind of like two pylons bouncing electricity back and forth between one another. Once activated the trap floods the room with a surge of lightning that lasts only as long as it takes for the opposite glyph on the other side of the wall to absorb it all up again for reuse. Anything caught between the two pylon glyphs in the meantime gets toasted. I wanna say it could be used 3 times before its completely done.

2. The second trap uses ice reimancy to flood across the floor and freezes anyone standing there up to their shins, snaring them in place. Its a one time deal.

3. Third one is a plain ol' water sprinkler system on the ceiling in case a fire breaks out. One time use.

4. Unlike the others which are all reimancy, the last glyphs house a pair of competent level hypnotic suggestions to help someone seal a deal or persuade them into agreeing. There are two of these.

[Dove Brown]

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Elias Caldera

Skills

• Planning 1
• Drawing 2
• Glyphing 3
• Auristics 2
• Endurance 1
• Hypnotism 1
• Reimancy 2

Lores

• Barriers to contain, not just repel
• Defences for the Ocean's Forge
• Glyphing is knowledge: Knowledge is Power
• Creating a lightning trap
• Creating an icy trap
• Creating a sprinkler against fires

Miscellaneous

• Item lost | - 1 paint brush (worn out)

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