Flashback fleet foot on rocks.

[Eridanus]

Day 4, Winter of 416 AV
Early Afternoon
Aylasa Caves

Movement in the bushes. A nervous twitch. Cautious atmosphere. A tense guard.

Eridanus lay in the grass, his body covered with various twigs and branches, most of his body shape obscured by the shrubbery around him. He could feel his lower body getting itchy, and he swore there was something crawling on top of his shoulder, but he could not move. Not now, not when his target was getting closer.

Ever since the rest of his team departed for their missions, there was no one else to grab food except him and Voodoo. Judging from the poisoner's sickly demeanor, the job was really up to him. Except that he sucked at it. There was a reason why Yeller often rather hunted alone than with Eridanus. Because he always slowed the group down.

Now there's no one to slow.

In order to improve efficiency, because there was in essence only two people to feed, since Middleman was just a rotting corpse and had no need for food, he decided to go for larger animals instead of the usual rabbit or hare. Since the cold had begun to strike proper, he could just bury the meat underneath the snow in order to preserve it. Sure, eating it the next day would not be as tasty, but it would not kill them. That was all that mattered.

Ever since he begun to get addicted to Malediction, the vantha realized that he might be suffering from an onset of "Malediction Vision", where one viewed everything as potential malediction products. Even as he camped silently in the shrubbery, mentally willing for the deer to get closer, he was already isolating the various attributes of the deer in his mind, wondering what he could make out of it.

Even recently he had found himself looking at Middleman with a strange glance, wondering what he could make out of a Nuit before shaking himself out of that particularly embarrassing stupor.

His prey padded closer, sniffing about the air in suspicion, then decided to take several more steps towards the shrubbery that he was hidden in. Eridanus stared at it intensely, focusing his vision on his target. While doing so, he began to concentrate the djed within his body. As he did so, he could feel an internal heat building up within his torso. Taking his cue from that build up of heat, he directed them to his arms and legs simultaneously, concentrating more of the djed within his thighs that would provide the burst power for a leap just like that of a frog.

Ooh a frog. I should probably secure one of those when I can. Okay, distracting thoughts over. Focus!

As he concentrated the flux strands within his jumping torsos the vantha exploded from the shrubbery, his body flying straight towards the deer like a projectile. Before the deer could react, he was already on top of the animal, and he quickly brought up the flux energies to his arms as he struck the deer several times on the neck, causing it to twitch several times before staying still.

That was one hell of an unorthodox hunting move.

Slumping the fresh carcass over his shoulders, the vantha began to trudge back to the cave where Voodoo should have been setting up a proper boiling pot so that they would not have to wait.

[Eridanus]

Half a Bell Later

Some of the flesh of the deer was in the stew, and Voodoo stirred it in the pot with an uncertain look.

"Is this really edible?" He murmured, and Eridanus shrugged. They had to cook within the depths of the cavern, filling the cave with the questionable stench of meet, since the snow falling outside kind of made it difficult to maintain a fire and heat for long. At least several floors into the depths of the earth formed some sort of a shelter against the cold.

While Voodoo took care of the cooking since Eridanus took care of the hunting, the vantha began to focus on the half-stripped remains of the deer. Having buried the other half of the carcass underneath a shelf of snow, he had a leg bone in his hands, having stripped and cleaned it of the unwanted bits of flesh and skin to isolate the bone.

This time, he wanted to go for something new and challenging, possibly to warm himself up for the more important task later on. Gathering some of the remains of his previous projects, he laid them out side by side to consider what he could do.

The leg bone of the deer, with hoof still attached. Bones that he believed belonged to the hind legs of the rabbit. And bones from the body of an eagle.

The deer can travel forth on rocky terrain, while the rabbit boasts a powerful hop with its hind legs. The eagle... can fly?

Alright, so that part might require a little fine-tuning. In any case, he had every intention to somehow combine the three. Perhaps an effect that may give improved mobility over uneven terrain?

First, though, he had to craft a proper combination of items. Since he was not a very capable equipment creating person - from what he experienced creating his crude weapons from previous sessions - he doubted that he wanted to wear something that he made. That meant that it had to be some sort of charm that he could carry about.

How can i combine three different sizes of bones together in one cohesive entity?

The most obvious way that he could think of was a sort of a key-ring or necklace type of object. Stringing the bones together, and creating a sort of stop at the ends so they did not fall off. Taking into consideration the resources available, he decided that he would create a smaller charm. The various eagle bones would hang as pieces from a narrowed down deer leg bone. The rabbit legs would serve as a sort of stopper at the two ends, while he would use the hooves as a final stopper to prevent the pieces within from falling out. What resulted would be a morbid object that looked like an abacus made of bone.

Taking his trusty carving dagger - it was actually a weapon meant to fatally cause excruciating pain but relegated to his maledicting work - Eridanus took up the various bones and began to carve them into shape.

Bells passed by as he whittled down the bones to their desired shape. The deer leg was narrowed down to a thinner and shorter rod, with its two ends smaller in radius and sharper. The eagle bones and rabbit legs he bore holes onto their top in order to slide them through the length of the deer leg. The rabbit legs he angled them such that they twisted inwards where they could connect at the bottom, and to which he used simple twine to tie that bit together. And finally, he bore tiny holes in the hooves so that he could jam them at the end of the device to prevent the bones from falling out. While the resulting object looked like some sort of tribal fetish created for a gruesome ritual involving bones and sacrifice.

Next he prepared the ink and quill set for the real part of the job which was to create the appropriate malediction circles that could drill down into the sleeping djed and to summon their energies. More crucially, he had to design them so that they could coexist harmoniously and bring forth a complementary effect rather than a conflicting one.

[Eridanus]

First, he decided to focus on the hoofs. They were the base of a deer, the first contact it had with the ground. The foundation that made it possible for the deer to traverse treacherous terrain. Thus, on one of the hoofs he drew a small circle and wrote the glyph that stood for "Surefooted" in the ancient language. The other hoof, he drew another circle and placed the written form of Nader-Canoch that meant "Steadiness". Just as how the hooves acted as a base for the mobility of the deer, so would these hooves act as the base for the hybrid power that he was going to draw forth from his strange looking apparatus.

Next, he had a length of the narrowed leg bone that he could work on. This would serve as the main indicator of his desired effect. Along the length of the leg bone he drew several circles, spacing them equally to denote the equal preference of each of the symbols within.

In the first circle, he drew a two sided arrow, pointing alongside the length of the bone. This represented land-bound mobility - since he used arrows to the left and right instead of up or down - and the bidirectional attribute of the arrow further emphasized the flexibility in the mobility, unlike the connotations the more specific unidirectional arrow would hint at. Using a bidirectional arrow instead of two opposite pointing unidirectional arrows placed side by side also dispelled any notions of any associated importance or significance of either directions. It was in this way that symbolism was highly important in malediction so as to not misrepresent one's objective.

In the second circle, he drew the shape of a mountain, though making sure that it kept with the theme of the length of the bone being parallel to the placement of the ground. The mountain signified the context of which this mobility was placed, as well as the backdrop of the deer's traveling abilities. The mountain also signified rocky and treacherous terrain, as he did not drew a simple shape but purposely made his drawing craggy and uneven to represent this element with the picture as well.

In the fifth circle, he drew the symbol of time - the hourglass. Above it, he placed a squiggly line, and above that a shorter but straight line. This showed that travel in such abnormal terrain would tend to make one's traveling time longer - hence the reference to the hourglass and to the squiggly line which represented detouring and not getting to the point. The straight line above the symbols represented the effect of this artifact negating the difficulty in traversing abnormal terrain, thus taking shorter time. By placing it above the symbols, he guaranteed a sort of superiority of shapes, and thus elevating it to being the desired effect.

In the fourth circle, he drew a unidirectional arrow pointing upwards. In the context of the source that he was drawing power from, this arrow would point to the ability of the deer to quickly hop from rock to rock. Thus, the symbol referred to the light-footed and aspect and nimble agility of the deer that would be required in order to make this work.

Finally, in the middle circle he drew the glyph that spelled "Unity" in Nader-Canoch. It also meant harmony, and cooperation, and basically meant bringing together separate and possibly dissonant elements into a cohesive whole. What he intended for this to achieve was not only bringing the various circles together, but also to bring the different sources of power that he was drawing from throughout the whole object, concentrating them into that single circle and uniting them in power. This circle would be the central, coordinating piece of his experimental attempt of hybridizing the different sources of power.

Finally, instead of drawing the usual lines of power connecting the circles to each other, the craftsman went for a different approach. That method would work in a single object made from the remains of a single animal, but in cases such as these he had to go for a more collaborative approach. The "Unity" circle serving as the centerpiece for gathering and collaborating djed, he drew a variety of path sigils to augment this in the spaces available throughout the length of the bone. These sigils were in all directions and were meant to capture and direct the djed coming in from all the sources and to direct them towards the main malediction circle that directed the entire device.

[Eridanus]

The deer was the main actor of this malediction piece, with the eagle and the rabbit serving as supporting actors. With the main part done, he had to streamline the effects of the supporting pieces so as to further boost the effect he wished to portray. On the rabbit's hind legs he wrote a variety of words relating to the ability of the rabbit. At the center he drew a circle and wrote the glyphed word for "Djed", which would specifically identify the rabbit's core identity and bring it forth. In order to filter away the attributes he was not interested in in order to isolate the desired one, he drew small switch sigils and path sigils pointing away from the bone to bring away the parts of the undesired djed. Next, he connected this circle with several path sigils connecting the the variety of words he wrote. "Strength", "Jump", "Power", "Leap", were a few examples that he used to home in on the powerful hind legs of the rabbit. Combined with the source - which were actual hind legs - he hoped to connect this power with the part of the deer that mentioned the agility of the deer; the circle where he drew the upwards pointing arrow. This was what he believed to be a key part of harmonizing differing elements - providing a similar point where the two objects could be synchronized for better chances of unifying djed.

In the variety of the small eagle bones hanging throughout, he decided to emphasize the flight of the eagle. Since jumping and leaping were a sort of limited flight, he believed that by emphasizing these characteristics of the eagle he could lend some of these abilities over. As the hanging bones had little space, he could only write a tiny word on each. "Flight", "Soar", "Speed", "Fly", "Agility" were the words he wrote on each of the hanging eagle bones.

Next, he drew more path sigils throughout the entire object to create the similar theme as that of the deer's bone. By doing so, he used the concept of an oozing mass - an ocean of information - rather than specific wiring conduits that path sigils were often used for. This allowed for flexibility in information transfer. By adding switch sigils throughout the central circle in the deer's bone, he placed an attractive quality to that circle that would eventually direct all the energies scattered throughout the mass of path sigils towards that circle for the final collaborative effort.

"And now, for the final test," Eridanus whispered in anticipation, as he followed through the drawings by carving a shallow engraving throughout the charm carefully before dropping his blood onto the middle "Unity" circle on the deer bone.

What great object would he create this time?

[Eridanus]

Skill Requests

• Camouflage/Stealth
• Flux
• Hunting/Wilderness Survival
• Butchering
• Malediction
• Carving
• Drawing
• Glyphing

Lore Requests

• Malediction: Hybridization of Different Sources
• Crafting: The Pathfinder's Charm of Express Mobility

Item Requests
The Pathfinder's Charm of Express Mobility
Primary Effect: No mobility penalties when traveling on treacherous terrain (such as the mountainous land of The Unforgiving in Kalea)
Secondary Effect: Increased Jumping Ability (+x% jump strength/height)
Secondary Effect: Increased Movement Speed (+y% walking/running stride and speed)
Secondary Effect: Better Balance (minor/moderate/greater/major/superior sense of balance, such as when traversing from rock to rock in uneven terrain)
Other Effects: as per ST decision (x and y values to be derived per ST's judgement from Malediction Skill and content/effort/quality of thread content)

[Emblem]

Congratulations! You Get Glorious Experience! Eridanus Skill Points Earned Malediction 4 XP Drawing 3 XP Carving 3 XP Stealth 1 XP Butchering 1 XP Flux 1 XP Glyphing 1 XP Lore Earned Malediction: Hybridization of Different Sources Crafting: The Pathfinder's Charm of Express Mobility Malediction Vision Other Shenanigans:The Pathfinder's Charm of Express Mobility Primary Effect: Decreased mobility penalties when traveling on treacherous terrain Secondary Effect: Increased Jumping Ability (+3% jump strength/height) Secondary Effect: Increased Movement Speed (+3% walking/running stride and speed) Secondary Effect: Better Balance (moderate) Comments : Nice thread Eri! Once again go ahead and PM me with any concerns regarding the effects of the item. PM me for anything else as well.