[Flashback] Anti-Intrusion System (Solo)

[Eridanus]

Day 35, Summer of 509 AV
Just before nightfall
Simple Room

Eridanus trudged back into his room, a towel slung offhandedly around his neck. He was topless, clothed only in simple cloth shorts, and though his mortal seeming was young countless battle scars could be seen throughout his lean body. He had just finished a tiring day of work and had sufficiently refreshed himself in the baths. Fortunately, long time renters of rooms here are privileged enough to secure a discount in the baths which he was thankful for.

Closing the door and locking the room, he glanced around his room to observe if his things were still in place. The town criers had been warning everyone to make sure their rooms remained locked due to to a recent spate of robberies. Until the Syliran Knights found the perpetrator, everyone was encouraged to remain vigilant.

That gave him the idea of using shields to keep out others. His ability in shielding had increased quite a lot and he noticed that the duration of shields were beginning to last longer and longer. Perhaps it was time to try something out, it would not hurt if it failed, but it would definitely give him a little piece of mind if it succeeded.

[Eridanus]

Hanging the towel by the stand to let it dry, he proceeded to drape the curtains across his window to prevent others from outside looking in. He surveyed the room, deducing only two points of visible entry which was the window and the door. He placed a hand on his hips as he thought about the best way to do this, and decided to try a simple method first.

Standing before the draped curtains at the window, he closed his eyes as he called upon the dormant djed within him that was unused for quite a while already. Stirring up the raw energy within his soul, he directed the astral energy outwards, pooling the djed before his palms as the invisible material began forming.

Pushing his hands out towards the window, he flung the mass of djed onto the window edge, using the crossbar as the hinge that kept the shield in place. He patted the djed firmly into place, as if shaping soft clay to cover the entirety of the window, and made sure to spread the mass along the hinges to prevent the shield from drooping should it deteriorate.

[Eridanus]

He stared at the mass of djed, wondering how exactly should he word his tasking. To keep everyone except him out? Or perhaps to shield against unwanted entry? Perhaps it would be simpler to just allow access to him and him alone.

That's it!

It was far easier to mention the part with the least variables. After all there was always two part of the coin. If he wanted to block say, a person named John he could do it. But if he wanted to block John, Tom, Jack and the variety of arbitrary humans, it would be simpler to just block humans. If he wanted to block John, Tom, Jack and everyone else besides him, would it not be less insane to take the contrapositive and just allow himself instead of tasking the shield to block so many people at once?

How would he allow entry to himself then? Unlike light or sound or the other taskings that he was familiar with, he had no universal definition. It was simple enough to define a universal constant like light, but how would he describe himself?

That was a philosophical question and not one he wanted to delve into. He needed solutions.

Perhaps an example would work.

Plucking a tiny hair from his arm, he placed the hair within the confines of the shield, willing the djed to envelope and engulf the object.

[Eridanus]

Thinking quickly, he willed that piece of himself to be held by the djed, impressing upon the shield that the object was part of him, and therefore represented him.

It was a highly symbolic affair, but then again magic tended to be not purely scientific but also symbol. That was the lure of magic, to do what science and natural law cannot.

He focused on the idea of beings, for he did not want to make himself the sole entrant allowed. If he blocked out everything else including air and sound it would be quite disastrous. Instead, he began working on the wording of his tasking, specifying the template that would include the use of that tiny piece of hair at the end of it.

He created a template of sorts, a set of instructions only allowing access to beings like him. It was a tasking that allowed things with universal constants, such as light or sound, to enter, but objects with unique definitions such as himself or any other being with a unique soulcore would be barred.

[Eridanus]

He left a single variable unanswered within the template, focusing his attention now on the tiny hair that symbolized himself. The biological material that held the definition of himself, of his soulcore - the essence of his existence and individualism.

Pushing on the hair to be absorbed by the shield, he mentally entered the hair as the final data within the manual instructions he weaved within the shield.

The hair disappeared as its very essence was incorporated into the shield's djed, the physical object being disintegrated into its basic elements of characteristic djed and integrating into the shield. Giving a final blue sheen it signaled the finalization of the shield, and Eri poked a finger through it.

His finger went through, but it did not really mean anything. He might have succeeded, he might not have. At least he knew that he did not accidentally task against himself, which would be a pretty embarrassing thing to do.

[Eridanus]

Still, there was something about the shield that looked a little... incomplete. Eridanus squinted at the shield, noticing that there was still a blank space in the tapestry.

Could it be...

There was another space? Did that mean that he had somehow unlocked the ability to fit in another tasking into the shield?

Glancing at the shield pensively, the ethaefal dug his hands into the spare part of the tapestry, prodding the djed threads within it. The shield did not flicker nor lose its tasking, which meant that this empty spot was indeed an empty spot and not related to the original tasking he had placed.

Grinning in excitement, he wondered what he should do. Blocking light or smell was a good experiment, but probably not something he wanted to implement in a functional shield like this one.

The basic and most fundamental purpose of a shield is to block djed.

Of course! He realized that an untasked shield would block djed, but by setting an instruction for its tasking he redirected that default task to do something else.

[Eridanus]

Theoretically, an untasked shield should automatically block djed. Yet, he needed to make sure. Poking around in the empty spot in the tapestry, he began weaving the djed threads, forming them so that they would block djed. It was a simple enough weave for it was a fundamental purpose of all shields, and he stepped back, nodding to himself.

The shield finally looked complete.

Smiling, he turned around for the door way, and produced more djed. This time, he intended to cover the entire door frame, and thus this would require at least three times more djed than what he used for the window.

Taking the large clump of djed, he dumped it on the top of the door frame, securing it as an anchor as he let the rest of the intangible substance drip down to cover the area of the frame. Next, he spread out the substance on the sides of the frames, anchoring them securely onto the three edges of the door frame, with the fourth edge being the floor.

Plucking out another fine hair from his arm, he placed it on the shield as he willed for the djed to hold it in place. Remembering the tasking he did only seconds ago, he began forming the template, this time weaving the pattern much faster than before.

Just now, he was manually creating and thinking. Now, he was merely familiarizing and revising. As an extra exercise, he copied inverted the pattern of the tasking. Black became white, and white became black. The shield shimmered a brief dark blue, and Eridanus poked his finger through the shield, finding himself unable to push his finger through it.

That meant that he succeeded in tasking the shield against himself, but it did not mean that the shield was only tasked against himself, not unless he had further experimental data.

Shrugging, he reversed the tasking once again to its original form, poking it again ensuring that his finger could go through.

[Eridanus]

Finally, he entered that hair as the final entry into his tasking, and the shield shimmered briefly before disappearing from visible view. He could still see his own shield though, in a translucent way, but he knew that other normal people would not be able to do so without the aid of magic or divine assistance.

Yawning, Eridanus jumped and sprawled onto his bed, making a soft 'oomf' as he hit the quilt. There was nothing more comfortable than a good rest after a hard day's work.

Just a little something before I sleep...

Tuning in to the djed within him, he made a final effort to push the astral resource to his eyes, scrutinizing the aura of his shield properly. Pushing into the details embedded within the shield's aura, he took in and processed more information until he found that his shield would perform reasonably well. He could not be entirely sure, but at least he was somewhat assured to a degree that his tasking would work as he expected.

Turning his view to the other shield at his door, he repeated the process, finally shutting down the djed and mumbling to himself as the fatigue brought him into a deep slumber.

[Emblem]

Congratulations! You Get Glorious Experience! Eridanus Skills Shielding- 4 XP Observation- 2 XP Auristics- 1 XP Philosophy- 1 XP Lores Biological Tasking: Granting Access Biological Tasking: Denying Access (shielding) Dual Tasking Comments : Nice thread as usual Eri! I didn't see enough to warrant any meditation, but if you disagree with that, or anything else, shoot me a PM!