Closed [Dra-Kalinor Laboratory] Absolutely Enchanting

[Michael Kyber]

22nd Spring, 517AV

The clang of hammers meeting metal and sparks of djed sizzling through the air resounded throughout the corridors of the Dra-Kalinor laboratory, an ominous hallmark of the powerful weapons that were being created within in depths. It was a sound that had become familiar to Michael even since he’d become an apprentice here a short while ago, and in some ways the thrum of power that rang in the air whenever an enchanter’s hammer hit an object inspired him. He was still stuck performing the menial tasks around the laboratory for now, crafting the minor magecrafted tools the other laboratory members needed but didn’t have the time to make for themselves, but one day he’d be the one besides a pedestal making truly incredible items.

Michael pushed open a set of doors and walked into the workshop of the senior apprentice who was practically in charge of assigning him work in master Nightshade’s stead, Eugene Caldan. He had found a note from him waiting for him when he’d come into work, telling him to come to his workshop instead of the small one he normally used for his weekly tasks, and like a good junior apprentice Michael had headed straight there. Just like most of the other workshops in the laboratory Michael had seen Eugene’s space was sparsely decorated and contained rarely anything besides the equipment and materials used in magecrafting, however the squire’s attention was immediately drawn to the two pedestals he himself had carved laid out in the centre of the room, and the desk next to them on which two nondescript iron swords had been placed upon.

“Michael, good to see you. I have good news for you.” Eugene said, not looking up from the text he was reading by his desk. “I’ve received a commission to work some minor enchantments into those swords over there, a commission I want you to help with.” The corners of his usually expressionless lips curled up slightly. “It’s time you learnt to make a real enchanted weapon.”

Eugene closed his book and stood up, finally turning his full attention to Michael. “One of the steward knights wants to gift these swords to two of his subordinates as a reward for the loyalty they’ve shown him over the years. Each of these swords are to be imbued with an enchantment that’ll make them tougher than the average blade, a fairly easy enchantment to bestow even for a novice like yourself. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to learn about structural traits, so you’ll be responsible for enchanting one of these blades whilst I enchant the other. I’ll talk you through the process and the theory behind it, so essentially all you need to do is copy me and pay attention and you should be fine.”

Excitement welled up within Michael, breaking out across his face in the form of a grin. “Seriously?! I finally get to make a proper magical weapon?! Finally, I’ve been waiting for this for ages!”

Eugene moved over to one of the pedestals, trying to keep his face neutral despite the flicker of amusement in his eyes. “Focus your enthusiasm Michael. We’ve got a lot to do, so let’s get to work.”

Michael moved over to the other pedestal, picking up one of the swords from the desk as he passed by and laying in down in the centre of the pedestal’s glyph. Eugene took a pair of iron ingots from the shelf next to him and threw one over to Michael, smirking as the squire fumbled slightly before catching it.

“The enchantments that can be bestowed upon a weapon can be roughly divided into five categories based upon the effect they bestow. The first, and theoretically simplest, category is called structural, which encompasses effects that improve upon the items physical properties such as toughness, sharpness and weight. As I’m sure you know by now the djed within an object is what determines the properties that object possesses; water flows smoothly because the djed within it say that it does, and the toughness of a rock is determined by how much durability djed the rock has within it. Just as a skilled smith can fold metal in on itself to make a tougher sword, an enchanter can transfer the djed that determines the physical properties of an object from a material such as the iron ingot in your hand into another object, thus increasing the property of that item. However like a smith the enchanter needs to fold and shape that djed they transferred into the item correctly, otherwise it’ll become unstable and lead to disastrous effects. Lay that iron ingot on top of the sword, then focus your mind on the feeling of toughness and durability and strike down on the ingot with your hammer to begin transferring the djed."

Michael did as Eugene instructed, imagining the feeling of the toughness of metal and striking down hard on the iron bar with his hammer. A pulse of djed cracked through the air as the two items met, and to Michael’s surprise the area of the iron ingot he’d hit lost a touch of its colour and shine. He called upon his djed to enter his mind and focused on synchronising it with the sword, and after a few seconds of focusing the aura of the sword flickered into his focus. To his amazement the djed around the area he’d struck now had an increased concentration of metallic djed, the djed that he’d pushed into it from the iron ingot, although it was crude and ugly to look at compared to the structure of the rest of the sword.

“Don’t get too pleased with yourself Michael.” Eugene remarked. “Transferring the djed is easy, but now comes the hard part.”

[Michael Kyber]

“First let’s get some more of the ingot’s djed into the sword. Be sure to space it around as evenly as you can.”

Eugene struck down on the ingot on his pedestal, moving it across the surface of the sword slowly and evenly in a way that made sure Michael had a good view of how he was doing it. Michael copied his movements, pushing his iron bar around to the same areas as him and striking down with what he judged to be the same amount of force. They continued like that for about a chime until the iron bars were discoloured and so weak that, to Michael’s surprise, pushing down on them with some force was enough to make them crumble into an ash-like substance.

“The iron bars have lost most of the djed that makes them what they are, and without it they’re just a hairs breath away from crumbling into dust.” Eugene said, pushing his ingot off his pedestal and watching as it crumbled into a pile of ash upon hitting the floor. “This is why magecrafting tends to be so expensive; in order to make a powerful magical item you need to concentrate high amount of djed from other materials into it, and all those materials will cost you something but will crumble into dust by the time you’re done with them. Sadly a lot of the djed from those materials dissipates into the air when struck with a magecrafting hammer, hence the sparks of djed that result from a blow, so a single bar of iron will only grant a small amount of bonus djed to the item you want to enchant. In order to bestow a meaningful enhancement to these sword’s toughness we’re going to be going through 1000 miza’s worth of iron bars.”

“1000 mizas. Gods, that could buy you a whole crate of swords!” Michael exclaimed.

“It could. But even if every sword in that crate went up against one of these enchanted blades here they’d all be broken, because their greater quantity can’t hold up against our swords better quality.” Eugene replied. He walked over to a shelf and took another pair of iron ingots, throwing one over to Michael. “I hope this past chime hasn’t bored you, because we’ve got three days’ worth of iron ingots to get through before we move on to the next stage.”

[Michael Kyber]

For the past three days the time Michael had spent at Dra-Kalinor had consisted of the same movements over and over again; take an ingot, hammer at it for endless chimes until it crumbled to dust, then take another and repeat the process. Quite a few times he hit to hard or softly, misaligned the ingot with the right part of the sword or missed the part of the ingot he was supposed to strike altogether, meaning that he then had to waste time redoing them all over again, and each time he did Eugene would give him a sharp reminder to pay attention at all times no matter how repetitive the task. Apparently a more skilled enchanter could get the job done in far less time, owing to the fact that they made less mistakes and didn't spend so much time correcting them, but for now a novice like him would have to settle for the long and boring way.

It was halfway through the third day that they finally finished hammering at all the ingots they needed to use, and when Michael brought his djed up to his mind and resonated it with the sword he was working he saw in its aura that the blade was now highly concentrated with tough, metallic djed. However as packed full of meal djed as it was the sword didn’t seem at all stable, the djed in it was too raw and unfocused to seem to be having any real effect.

“Now that the swords have all the djed they need within them to become stronger, our next task is to put that djed to use by restructuring the djed pathways within it.” Eugene remarked, examining his own sword through a lens around the pedestal. “As I said before think of this like a weaponsmith folding metal into layers to make a stronger sword; what we’re going to do is flatten the djed into sheets and layer them on top of each other, folding them into a concentrated form that’ll have tangible effects on the structure of the blade itself."

Eugene took a different, smaller hammer from the workbench and hammered directly onto the surface of his blade, looking at it through his lens with clear concentration. Michael followed suit, changing hammers and experimentally hammering down onto the tip of his blade as he had done. Looking at it with his autistics Michael could see the djed around the area he’d hit flattening down into a thin sheet, and continued to hammer down on the rest of the surface of the sword until there was a thin sheet of djed stretching right across the centre of the sword.

Taking his tongs, Michael then copied Eugene as he turned the sword over onto its other side and repeated the hammering process. When he was done there were now two layers of djed in the centre, thin and tightly pushed together but so much more solid feeling than the rest of the chaotic djed within the sword.

“We’re going to be repeating this process until the entirety of our sword’s djed is comprised of layered sheets like this.” Eugene said, pretending not to notice the way that Michael’s face fell. “Weaken the strikes of your hammer and switch to smaller hammers to layer the parts closer to the outside of the sword, but try to work your way out from the inside for the best result. I hope you liked our work with the ingots, because this part is going to take equally as long.”

[Michael Kyber]

It had been five days now since Michael had begun working on his sword enchanting project, and after repeated hammering and folding the end was in sight. The core of his sword was comprised of endless (admittedly slightly wonky) layers of djed, and each new hammer stroke brought him closer and closer to the surface.

“I didn’t think that enchanting was such a repetitive task. I always thought it’d be more… you know… flashy.” He admitted to Eugene as he turned over the sword for what felt like the hundredth time by now. “It feels a lot like regular smithing.”

“Structural enhancements were first created based off of normal smithing techniques, so that’s no surprise really.” Eugene replied. “There’s more to enchanting than just enhancing an item’s physical properties though; the other categories of enchantments all bestow different powers, and all use different techniques to create djed pathways within an item. Structural enchantments are the simplest to plan but most time consuming to imbue of the categories, whereas the others require less actual work but need to be carefully thought out in order to bestow the right effect.”

Michael briefly looked up from his work. “You mentioned there were five categories before, but the only one you’ve told me about is structural. What are the other categories?”

“Well there’re a few different names for them knocking about these days, but the most commonly accepted names for them are behavioural, intellectual, magical, and gnosis.” Eugene replied. “Behavioural is a broad category, but deals with imbuing the item with instructions to activate a certain behaviour by itself, usually in response to a certain stimuli. It could be a torch that lights by itself, or a lock that turns itself closed a few seconds after the key has been removed from it. Creating behavioural pathways varies depending on the effect you want to achieve, but tends to make pathways in the way an artist paints a picture or carves a sculpture.”

“Intellectual refers to effects that give an item some level of awareness, intelligence and communication skills. Normally used to give the item the intelligence to recognise certain stimuli, an intelligence step can make items that can read the intentions of their wielder and react to them, usually by activating other enchanted effects. A master enchanter can even make an item that can telepathically commune with its wielder, or work for its owners benefit without them even needing to ask it to. Pathways for intelligence steps tend to look like writing and lines linking them together.”

“Magical is perhaps the most interesting category, as it can imbue an item with the ability to use a form of personal magic much in the same way a magician can. How exactly this works is something you probably know more about than me, as you’d effectively be imbuing the item with the pathways to do whatever it is you do by itself, but obviously someone skilled in the form of magic you want to imbue an item with would need to be present during the items creation in order for it to work.”

“And finally there’s gnosis. This is rarest and arguably the most powerful category, but oddly enough is the one the enchanter themselves has the least input in. As you probably know a god can bestow a mark upon their followers that grants them a portion of that gods power, but did you also know that there is a fairly easy to create web of pathways that can grant item the ability to hold a mark bestowed by a god as well? What exactly this will do to the item depends on the mark, but suffice to say any item marked by a god is capable of something incredible, though not necessarily helpful.”

“What do you mean not necessarily helpful? Why would a god mark an item if not to help its owner?” Michael asked.

Eugene frowned. “Well the process to make an item capable of bearing a mark is fairly standard, but once it’s completed the item won’t be able to differentiate between gods and will simply accept the first mark bestowed onto it. Some gods might not like the purpose you have intended the item to be used for, and might curse the item with their mark to make it stand against the purpose you had intended. Tell me, have you ever heard the story of Raygust the Righteous?”

Michael frowned. “No, I haven’t.”

“It’s a story told among the magecrafters of Syliras as a warning of what their creations can do in the wrong hands. It is said that in the early days, when Syliras was no more than a village comprised of a few houses and fewer knights, that a knight named Raygust stood as Syliras’ chief defender. He was a great man; strong, kind, and always willing to protect those in need of help, and the people adored him for it.”

“Because he was so loved the villages only enchanter, Percivon, decided to make for him a shield of incredible strength that could faithfully protect him as he protected the weak. For nigh on half a year he toiled in his laboratory, blessing a shield with enchantments that would make it practically indestructible. However the night before his creation was due to be complete Percivon was visited by a being cloaked in light bearing the most beautiful set of wings he had ever seen; a being he immediately recognised as the god Yahal. Yahal told Percivon to imbue the shield with one final enchantment that would allow it to bear his mark and make it totally invincible so long as its wielders faith in it never wavered, and so Percivon did as he commanded and spent another month imbuing it the ability to bear he gods mark. When it was done Yahal blessed the shield, and the next day Percivon presented it to Raygust with pride.”

“However too late did Percival realise that he’d been tricked, for as soon as Raygust held the shield the mark of Rhysol, god of evil and lies, flared upon its surface. Who Percival had thought to be Yahal was in fact Rhysol in disguise, who had seen the creation of this shield as a threat to his cause and decided to corrupt it. The shield fused itself to Raygust’s arm and refused to part from it, warning the knight that if he ever tried to defend another person again it would turn him into a terrifying monster that would destroy that which he tried to protect.”

“Even so Raygust refused to give up on his duty, and a few days later stood to protect the village from a group of raiders that’d come to pillage it. During the battle the power of the shield took effect, turning him into a rampaging monster that, after devouring the raiders, turned on Syliras. Thankfully the other knights were able to drive it away into the wilds, but even now they say that the monster Raygust was turned into lurks out there, unable to be destroyed by any man or beast because of the nigh invincible shield still fused to its arm.”

Michael looked at Eugene with a mix of shock and scepticism. “That story can’t be true. Rhysol is just a myth, a fairytale parents tell their children to stop them from misbehaving. My father told me that no creature, man or monster, truly believes itself to be evil.”

Eugene’s expression turned grim. “Oh Rhysol’s real alright, and more powerful that most of the other gods out there.” He seemed like he was about to continue, but visibly decided against it. “You should probably talk to your sire about him when you have the time, but for now we really should be focusing on our work. Come on, let’s get back to it.”

[Michael Kyber]

It was nearing the middle of the night when finally, after five days of work, Michael finally finished the durability enhancement he’d been working into the sword. From its core right to its surface the djed within the blade had been layered into a structure that would make it harder to break than a normal sword of its kind, and though parts of his work had been patchy and had needed a bit of redoing Eugene had soon declared that his sword was of high enough quality to be called a product of Dra-Kalinor.

“You’ve done well these past few days Michael.” Eugene said with a smirk, giving the squire a quick pat on the back. “Now there’s only one step left in order to complete the work.”

Taking his enchanted tongs Eugene picked up his sword and dunked it into a nearby basin with a glyph on it that charged the water within it. “Pick up your sword and cool it in this basin. Once you do the djed pathways you’ve been creating will set, and your very first enchanted item will finally be complete. Savour this moment; it’s a good feeling, and it only happens once.”

Michael grasped his sword between his tongs and copied Eugene, bathing the blade within the basin’s water. The sound of djed crackling and cooling filled the air for a few seconds, but quickly faded into simple silence. Following Eugene’s lead Michael lifted his sword out of the basin, and set aside his tongs to examine the item with his own hands.

The sword physically looked the same as it had before; plain and basic. However something about it felt a little bit different from every other iron sword of its type he’d seen before, it seemed to carry a slight weight of importance to it, a gravitas that Michael couldn’t be sure wasn’t just an illusion of his own mind brought on by his own knowledge of what the sword really was.

Eugene took the sword Michael had made and, along with his own, placed it in a wooden box stuffed with a thin pillow lining that to Michael didn’t seem nearly important enough to hold the items that lay inside it. “Congratulations Michael, you’ve just completed your first enchanting commission. There was the odd mistake here and there but nothing seriously problematic, so I reckon it won’t be too long before a commission for an item you can help me with comes my way again.”

He shut the box and tucked in under his arm. “Now then, I’d better get these weapons to their new owners. Take tomorrow night off to rest Michael, you’ve earnt that much, and come back the day after ready for work. A nice big pile of pedestals in need of glyphing has built up for you these past five days.”

[Samuel Longwell]

Grading Complete Please edit your grade request thread so that it's obvious that it's been graded. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions/problems with your grade. Name: Micahel XP Award: Magecraft 4 Auristics 2 Observation 2 Lore: Finally getting to magecraft a weapon. Magecraft: Five traits Magecraft: The structural trait Magecraft: Very expensive Magecraft: Extremely time consuming Magecraft: The behavioural trait Magecraft: The intellectual trait Magecraft: The magical trait Magecraft: The gnosis trait Legend of Raygust the Righteous Religion: Rhysol is not just a story Notes: Plenty of detail, a good thread for grabbing lores. I enjoyed reading it. Enjoy your grades.