[Flashback] Submitting a Special Assignment (Solo)

[Eridanus]

Day 15, Spring of 500 AV
18 Chimes after the 22th Bell
The Sunken Conumdrum

Eridanus stopped outside the library, a look of utter disbelief as he looked inside. He did not know if it was some sort of illusion or if this was serious magic, but the entire library was submerged in water, but yet defying the law of physics this water did not come crashing out when he opened the door. A sign beside gently minded visitors to breathe, though he wondered how on Mizahar was he supposed to breathe in water without drowning. Peering inside, he could vaguely make out shapes swimming about, and he stepped back when a figure stepped out of the doorway, still reading a book as if he did not just come out of water. No wetness, no drips, it was like he just came out of a normal room. Yet, Eri was sure that it was water, and he nervously touched the water, his senses telling him that his hand was indeed inside water, and he withdrew it, marvelling at how his hands remained dry. His senses screamed at him for this illogical consequence, and he dallied outside, building up the courage to make a decision.

After a while, a friendly citizen of Alvadas came out and addressed him, "Not local, aren't you? Just come on in, it's pretty much the same as any other building but with a little effect."

"But what about the water?" Eri demanded.

"Don't worry about it. As you can see I'm purely one hundred percent human, no special skills or anything. Just follow me", the man replied easily, turning around and walking into the gateway with a splash.

Eridanus sighed, then looked forward with a determined glare, before running in, a tidal splash sounding along when his body entered the body of water. Suddenly, the entire area became much more visible. While he was outside looking in, it was like trying to peer into the depths of an ocean, but now by just crossing that line, he could see everywhere quite clearly as if the surroundings were air instead of water. The library was brightly lit, with people whispering to each other so as not to create too much noise - the librarian would not like it - and people swimming along with books in their arms.

Wait a chime. Swimming?

The Ethaefal stared in disbelief again, for this could not be merely an illusion, or at least one of a level which he had understanding of. His every senses bombarded him with the fear that he was going to drown, yet he found himself breathing quite normally and he felt his throat to find gills. He tried saying a few things to himself, and found that he could speak quite normally like he was aboveground. This was mysterious indeed, and Eridanus felt quite dwarfed by the magnitude of this effect for he was still getting used to the City of Illusions and its ever changing streets and walk ways. This, though, was on a whole new level, and he walked - swam? - over to the librarian at the counter.

"Where would you find books regarding the arcane?" He began.

The librarian took one glance at him, then replied in a clipped tone that spoke of experience and efficiency, "Go down the shelves, take a right at the third junction, go down until you reach the end, turn right again at the next junction, and head upwards at the second junction. That is where you'll see a small clearing. Introductory books are at the lowest level, but you have to swim to the higher bits for parts on religion."

He tried to digest this information as he was used to manoeuvring in a two dimensional space. However, moving about in this library required the addition of one more dimension and his head swirled trying to grasp this concept. It was a much harder process than he imagined it would be. The librarian caught his look of confusion, and she quickly jotted down the directions on a piece of parchment as she repeated them once more.

Handing it to him, she added, "Non-residents have to pay a small fee for entrance."

"I am taking a course at the Asylum, Mistress Rihea has cleared me for resident entry for public facilities", the Ethaefal replied, reaching into his robes and fishing out a signed letter from his carving teacher that served as evidence of his claim. He was still not used to the fact that the library was completely submerged in water, and he internally marvelled at how his letter remained as dry as normal paper could be but yet his hands that handled the paper felt soaked and had to overcome water resistance while moving.

The librarian read through the letter quickly, then returned it to him, acknowledging his claim and indirectly dismissed him as she returned to the paperwork in front of her. Thanking the woman, who acknowledged it with a curt nod, Eridanus looked at the parchment that contained her directions and swam accordingly.

[Eridanus]

After quite a few chimes of getting lost and correcting his route, for his sense of direction felt completely bamboozled by the three dimensional space of the library, he finally reached a cosy opening that signified the end of his journey. There were very few people meandering about, and they all kept to their business, looking around only in furtive glances but generally keeping to themselves. It was not a stroke of luck, for Eridanus chose this timing on purpose when most people would be at home or somewhere else, certainly not at the library. It was not like he was about to do something illegal, but he did not wish to be questioned with curious glances and so felt better alone.

Swimming forward, he noticed that the opening split into three further caverns, with signs that read "Arcana and Lore", "World Mysteries", and the last one simply "Religion". He took the middle path into the cavern that read "World Mysteries", and walked pass the sign, wondering if he was taking the correct path. He decided to turn around again to go out the opening to inspect the signs once again to ascertain his choice, and he was jolted with surprise as the signs changed wordings again to "Personal Choice", "Auxiliary and Support" and "Celestial Logic". He rubbed his eyes and surveyed the signs again and they still showed the second set. He was very sure that they were not there earlier.

Right, this is the City of Illusions after all.

He scolded himself for his stupidity, for if outside the city paths could change at any given moment, why should it be any different regarding signs here in the Sunken Conundrum? He continued down the middle path, now more sure of his choice for he had the two sets of wordings to match to, and the middle most fit the pattern. He was here to pick up a thing or two about glyphing, something that Mistress Rihea had accidentally let slip during class. The other students did not seem to notice, but he ears had picked up this anomaly, and a little investigation into the matter personally with his teacher afterwards resulted in her reluctantly telling him that it was a form of writing related to the Arcane, but refused to tell him more and directed him to the library.

He came to a shelf that read "Legacy, The", with the another sign reading "Magical Forging" to the right several shelves down. This meant that it should be arranged according to alphabetical order, and he headed left, eyes out for 'Glyping'. He reached the end of the wall with a small shelf labelled "Auristics Analysis", not finding anything and he doubled back in curiosity. Maybe he had gotten it wrong? As he neared the end of the other side, he found a small note tacked on the last few shelves with a simply word "Writing". Well, technically speaking glyphing was a form of writing, and he did not know whether to feel anger or humour as the illusions pulled another fast one on him.

Oh well, I was warned by other wanderers about this city. Guess I underestimated its capability to screw around with people.

Eridanus waded down the shelf, eyes on the lookout until he saw "Basic Glyphing by Riman Dontale". With a triumphant fist pump, he waded towards it and took out the book. Now he had to find somewhere quiet, and he proceeded towards the lowest corner on this side of the cavern, the position of the shelves making it such that no one could see him and he could see no one, unless they purposely wanted to go to his position as well. Settling down, he took out a small block of wood and a small knife that was loaned to the students in his class. Placing those beside him, he opened the book from the first page and read through a basic introduction. It was basically fluff, and if he summarized it it was generally what Mistress Rihea had told him.

He turned a page, finding a list of definitions, learning that Glyphing was actually what the layman would call a rune, and glyphs were made out of several Sigils. The book did not mention what sigils were at that point and had a page number next to it to refer to should he wish to. Choosing to continue reading, it cautioned against how it was not as durable or powerful like magecrafting, but unlike magecrafting it was much easier to use. The chapter ended with a line proclaiming that glyphing basically allowed one to circumvent certain limits in other branches of magic, though it claimed no responsibility should the reader meet with any mishaps.

This last bit caught the Ethaefal's attention, for as a Flux user he already knew one limitation of the art, especially to beginners: he could only work very vague flux with incantations on the spot, or slightly more specialized ones that control smaller muscles but only during meditation. The other limitation was that it only applied to himself, and as his mind wandered, he began to see more applications for it, with glyphing he could prepare more finely tuned flux spells during meditation that he could use in battle, and he could also cause this same effect in a non flux user, whether friendly or hostile. He appreciated the last line which basically summed up the advantage of glyphing, and his mind was suddenly opened up to a whole lot more combat options.

[Eridanus]

Turning to the next chapter, he found a list Sigil Types, and he ran his finger through them, making sure to understand them carefully and memorizing as much as he could. Focus, barrier, trigger, path, switch. Right. These five sigils were the building blocks of the glyph, or rune, and he tried to comprehend it all, at the current time managing only to absorb fully the part about the focus, barrier and trigger. It seemed that the last two were optional, but for safety purposes the first three should always be included especially if one wanted to store magic and find some way to access it any time he wanted to. He saw how the sigils were drawn, and his little understanding of the Ancient Language, helped him to understand the structure slightly more and this aided in his understanding.

He took out another blank parchment and a pencil, and he decided to practice, writing a short series of glyphs, following the example of the book, that would form the focus that would absorb a little magical effect, a barrier that prevented this particular magic from being released, and a small trigger at the end that would lower the barrier. After referencing the book and scribbling some runes on the paper, he compared his result with the book and with disappointed found the two to be quite different. The one on the book looked neat and proper, the sigils clearly visible and annotated with its intended effect, while his... well... looked like a kid's drawing. He erased his first attempt with a bit of rubber that he kept in his front pocket, and he began again, this time deciding to visualize the entire rune first instead of drawing bit by bit.

Focusing on the bigger idea, he first began by printing the sigils that lay outside, creating some sort of outline for the rune. When he finished, he filled it in with sigils already inside, and he compared the two diagrams again. This time, there was some sort of satisfaction for this attempt was much better than the previous one. It was a far cry from the book's and he took an obscenely long time to do what the book called "The Basic Magic Storing Glyph", but still, he had done it and his inside buzzed with excitement as he began to try it out. Before he did so though, he added a trigger sigil with the trigger being a command word. He itched to add more options to the trigger, such as making it only him saying these words and no one else, or maybe only while he was within a certain distance from the parchment, but he held himself in and settled for a simple trigger in which anyone who said the trigger words would lower the barrier. He searched his mind for a nonsensical and meaningless word that no one would utter except him and settled on "Wingardium Leviosa".

After checking once more with the book to ensure that he did it correctly, he closed his eyes, channelling the streams of raw energy within him. Wanting to do this quickly to see if his glyph worked, he aided his focus by whispering the incantations that would help reinforce the imagery that redirected the concentration of djed from the lower torso to his upper torso. At the same time, he maintained contact with the center of the drawn focus on the parchment by pointing his finger on it, and he felt his djed being drawn from his legs, into his upper torso, and finally leaving his upper torso through his finger into parchment or so he assumed. He felt slightly fatigued, for he had underestimated the actual amount of djed that his usual flux would transfer, and so perhaps transferred a little more than he expected to. He focused deep within his astral body again, inspecting the various concentrations of the djed streams to certify that they were indeed still normal, albeit flowing at a weaker pace than before, and he held the parchment with reverence, aiming the written rune to himself and announcing the trigger word clearly.

"Wingardium Leviosa", he intoned. Nothing happened at first, and he first wondered if he had failed, and then he wondered where his djed had gone to. The next feeling he felt interrupted his thoughts as a crash of djed came flowing into his upper torso, his arms and chest feeling more robust than ever, and the flowing continued until it trickled to a stop. That took quite a while, but it did not matter for he was overjoyed at his success. He would definitely not use it for emergency applications yet, but given enough time and practice he was sure he would be able to put his plans into fruition. Keeping that idea tucked into the corner of his mind, he inspected the djed streams within him again and he noticed that the concentration of djed in his upper torso was not as much as it should be if he had activated his spell normally.

[Eridanus]

So there seemed to be some loss of djed while transferring between me and the parchment. Perhaps the efficiency of the runes was not up to standard.

He resolved to explore this matter of efficiency later on and he dissipated the unnatural strength in his body, willing the djed streams to resume their normal course, and his body felt more at ease having returned to normal, except slightly weaker due to the loss in djed due to glyphing inefficiencies.

Eridanus was more confident than earlier when he failed his first attempt, and now he picked up the knife and began to carve into the block of wood. He had spent the day after class to carve the block of wood into some sort of spherical shape, though it did not in anyway look like a ball. Mistress Rihea had suggested easy shapes with simple lines as they were still beginning, but the ambitious Ethaefal wanted to one-up the rest of his course mates, and so he painstakingly carved a multiple sided polygon. It was a far cry from an actual sphere of course, but if one squinted at it from afar it would give the impression of being a sphere. On it he had used his pencil to mark several design outlines, and now it would come into play as he inspected his outlines and flipped through the pages of the glyphing book to see how he could weave in runes with his artistic designs.

Spotting a glyph that was almost similar to the one he drew as practice, except that it had four trigger sigils at its four corners to allow for multiple command words, he used his pencil to carefully draw the runes on the sphere-like timber, his job made harder by the fact that it was now a curvy object than the flat parchment he worked on. After a few tries of drawing, erasing and redrawing, he decided that it was good enough, and he picked up his carving knife to trace the outline. It was hard work, and many chimes passed as he slowly etched the rune deeper into his assignment, careful to make measured and slow adjustments to avoid cutting out of the outline and messing up the picture.

After three quarter of a bell passed, he looked at his piece of work, which was the rough outline picture of the Mizaharian continent that he had seen on a poster pasted behind the classroom. That was reason behind the globe, for he had basically wrapped the flat continent into a spherical shape as the design on the wood. However, a special addition was his personal signature, which was placed at the center of the continent where water should be. Instead of smooth undisturbed wood signifying water, it held the small focus sigil of his chosen rune, and instead of straight lines around it showing the borders of the continent to the sea were instead tiny sigils etched in place of the lines, forming the shape of the shorelines from afar. One would not really notice the sigils unless one held the globe of wood up to the nose, instead from normal distance assuming that the shoreline was unevenly carved. At the four various parts of the globe inside the continent would be the location of the four trigger sigils that completed the entire rune.

He could have used any other normal signature, but he wanted one that would have some sort of special meaning to him, and of course to Mistress Rihea for she surely would know of it. The other students probably would not, and this would be their little secret between them. Excited, he gathered up his things, and looking at the time-keeping gadget at the ceiling he realized that it was close to the dawn of the next day.

Wow, I spent that much time on it, huh?"

Standing up, or standing up as much as one could in the middle of an ocean, he had momentarily forgotten about his surroundings having been so engrossed in his carving and glyphing that the shock of his surroundings suddenly hit him, and he struggled to breathe. After a while, he realized that he was indeed not drowning, and felt glad that no one could see him acting like an idiot. With a sheepish grin, he stored his things and waded out to the foyer of the Sunken Conundrum, book in hand.

Reaching the librarian, who seemed like she was a permanent fixture there regardless of time, he went to the counter and pointed at his book indicating his intention to borrow. She nodded, reaching below her desk to pull out a thick file, flipping it to the latest entry and pointed at it. It was some form of records to track books being brought in and out, and he handed her the book as she studied it for some kind of marking that he was unaware of, and she wrote a series of numbers on the first column of the latest row. Following the pattern of the other entries above, he filled in his name, residence, Mistress Rihea's name (for he was not a local) and finally he signed at the last column. She kept the file and motioned that he was in the clear to leave.

He swam towards the exit, hearing a splash as he left the body of water, and stumbled slightly as his body adjusted to the fact that gravity existed and that he was now on land. The many bells he spent inside had caused him to momentarily forgotten how to move on land, and he took a moment to orientate himself, putting the book safely into a storage compartment in his robes. He would be returning to the Cubacious Inn, where he had negotiated with the owners for a long-term deal, and he left in what he thought was the correct direction, the key to his room in the inn exhibiting some sort of weak pull towards its current location.

Eridanus whistled as he strolled, excited for tomorrow's class to come and he could not wait to see what Mistress Rihea's expression would be when she saw his handiwork.

[Macabre]

Thread Complete!
“Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here].”

Eridanus

XP gains Glyphing 3, Writing 2, Flux 1, Carving 1, Swimming 1

Lore of The Sunken Conundrum, of Book: Basic Glyphing by Riman Dontale, of the Anatomy of a Glyph

Notes Guest grading for Fallacy and Bedlam. Nice solo. Be mindful of your spelling and grammar, and try not to dry out your story with long-winded summarizations of wiki articles. Sometimes, less is more! Also, try to stay away from pop culture references like wingardium leviosa; I don’t know if this was an inside joke or a nod towards someone, but please, keep it original.