Completed Project: Help the Master

Even the Master calls for the Undrykas sometimes.

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An undead citadel created before the cataclysm, Sahova is devoted to all kinds of magical research. The living may visit the island, if they are willing to obey its rules. [Lore]

Project: Help the Master

Postby Luhrak Searunner on June 7th, 2013, 10:06 am

Present day,
Forest Floor, The Spires


Slowly but surely, the writer managed to sit himself down in the grass, between two roots of enormous trees, using them for shade from the light of the sun that managed to peer through the foliage above. Putting his staff down, the writer gave a short sigh and leaned back against the wood behind him, slowly pulling out his writing tools. With slow motions he placed the inkwell in front of him in the grass, next to the quill and the writing board. He usually never went out, but every now and then, fresh air was needed and the writer found himself here on the forest floor.
Spring, 26th, Year 465
Master Taren Alter's Lab, Sahova


The young man wiped at his brow, trying to prevent the sweat from dripping down onto his work. He took another deep breath to steady himself and bent over his work once more. Six hands, wrinkled because of the preservation were lying in front of him. Six hands in different stages of decay and preservation. In the middle of them, the remains of a hand without fingers. The hand was still intact, aside from the missing fingers. It had been preserved quite well, the skin was a little cracked and wrinkled, like parchment, but everything seemed to be in order. Carefully, the Undrykas lifted the hand up and studied it. All around him the buzzing of apprentices at work filled his ears and the young man had to struggle to remain in the 'Eye', to continue ignoring the things around him. When things were very busy, when the master was literrally drowning in his work, he called onto everybody, including the Undrykas, to help with his work. This was such an occassion.

In front of the young man, the six hands seemed to look up at him, accusing him. The Undrykas brushed the thought aside. Six hands belonging to six projectors, all of different skill leves but none higher than low level experts. Master Taren Alter had dropped the box on the work bench and had, quite literally, dragged the Undrykas to the table. It was obvious that he hated the next bit but he explained the process and the requested result for the project. A hand that could increase the user's control over their own spirit. It was an interesting project, especially for the Undrykas. If he could manage it, it would be something to remember for himself. But how to mix six hands together into one item. Without having to wear six hands on a chain around ones neck. The Undrykas sat on his chair as he stared down at the pieces in front of him. From here, he couldn't see any solution for it, nothing, besides the necklace idea. He tangled his hands together into a big fist and rested it on the edge of the workbench.

And then it hit him, right in front of him, the solution. But how to mix six hands into two? The Undrykas reached for and picked one of the hands up, observing it, turning it in his grasp and looking at it. For all purposes it was indeed a hand. Nothing special about it. He placed the hand on the table, pushing the others aside, making sure they were safe and stable, before picking up one of the many knives kept on the workbench. Carefully, the young man started to cut through the skin, cracking it along the cut as he made an incission between the middle and ring finger and dragged the knife all the way over the palm of the hand to the wrist, where it had been severed from the rest of the body. He did the same on the back of the hand, cutting through the skin down to the wrist. Ever so carefully, the Undrykas peeled the skin aside, observing the bones and how they interlocked with each other. For the most part it was straightforward bone, but near the wrist the bones started to become shards, mixed together like a puzzle.

Placing the hand aside he reached for another one and made the same cuts in the skin, observing the bones inside. They were the same, except for the length and bone puzzle near the wrist, which was completely different from the other hand. Looking back and forth between the two, the young man tried to determine if there was any way he could mix the two together. Slowly but surely, the Undrykas formed a pattern in his head of how to match them together. It could require quite a bit of filing to create the propper shapes but it would work. His lips curled up in a short smile as he picked the knife up once more and set to work, carefully peeling back the skin around the cut he had made, doing his very best not to crack or break it. It was difficult and patient work and, as he was working, the Undrykas could feel the drops of sweat forming on his head and the back of his neck, slowly trickling down.

With the bones properly exposed, the Undrykas used the same knife to cut in the puzzle of bones near the base of the hand, trying to pry the pieces from each other. They loosened more easily than expected but it took a while to finish it, having to go back between all the piece one by one, trying to create the same space between them at the same time, without accidentally pulling the whole hand apart and ruining the entire project from the start. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the Undrykas pierced the last connection between the two parts of the hand, removing the pink and ringfinger from the rest of the hand. With a deep breath, the Undrykas pushed both parts away from each other, keeping the two pieces seperate. The two fingers were put aside while the other three were placed on the far end of the bench, with the unused parts.

The process was repeated with the other hand, painstakingly slow and very draining on the focus of the young Undrykas. Where the other apprentices could go on for days or perhaps even weeks without so much as blinking away from their job, the Undrykas had to take breaks between his work, had to flex the muscles of his hands, had to crack his back and wipe his head from all the sweat. He had to let go of his tools every now and then in order to let his hands relax, together with his mind. The second hand was split in the same way as the first, slowly but surely until both parts dislocated from each other. This time he put the two finger part away and kept the other three fingers. In vain he tried to connect the two parts he had kept, trying to recreate the full hand out of two different hands. The bones of the wrist wouldn't fit. Holding them together, the Undrykas saw which parts would need removing in order to allow a proper connection between the two.

With the file, the Undrykas sat to work, shaping the two halves in order to let them connect properly with each other. Patience was important for any malediction job and the Undrykas had been able to train himself in the application of it. As long as he really wanted something he could be as patient as needed. Little by little the workbench was covered by a thin layer of bone dust as the Undrykas filed away at the bones protruding from the two hands, allowing them to connect with each other. Neither one fit perfectly with the other but they went together well enough to let them be connected. Holding the two pieces together, the Undrykas managed to connect both pieces properly. Now he just needed to sew them together. From the extra seventh hand, the Undrykas cut off a patch of skin, slowly peeling it off from the rest of the hand. It was the same length as the other two hand combined. He did the same from the palm of the hand. With the two strips of skin on the workbench the young man reached for the paint and pencil.

With only limited space to paint on, the Undrykas used the thinnest brush he could find in the entire lab, having to borrow it off another apprentice who didn't need it for his current project. On the inside of the skin, he drew the first circle of the malediction. Without going into much detail, the Undrykas drew half a hand, containing three fingers, on the left side of the circle. Due to the difference in height and width of the skin, the circle was more a stretched out oval than a real circle. On the right side he drew the two fingered piece of hand. In between he left quite a bit of space. Putting the brush down, the Undrykas fished one of his, now, many notebooks out of his pocket. Flipping through the pages the young man searched through the lists of words until he found the right one. Lock, attach, connect. One Nadar-Canoch word with so many different meanings. Making sure to make no spelling mistake, the Undrykas half painted, half wrote the one word between the two other drawings he had just finished, completing the malediction circle.

The needle moved through the patch of skin and pierced the three fingered piece of hand, coming back up through the patch of skin and back down. The up and down motion of the needle, as it pulled the thread through the two seperate pieces of skin and slowly but surely sewed them together, continued on from top to bottom until the entire patch was connected. Lifting the skin up slightly the Undrykas managed to fit the two parts of the hand together. The needle immediately started again, sewing the two fingered hand to the three fingered hand through the patch of skin. The end result looked quite ridiculous, the different colors of skin mixing together to create a patchwork hand. On the inside he did the same, using the second piece of skin taken from the seventh hand to create close the cut between the two pieces of hand as well. After putting needle and thread aside, the Undrykas lifted the hand up, watching the patchwork skin as it held together both pieces of the hand. The first part of the whole was finished.

With one hand finished, the Undrykas looked over the remaining pieces and full hands and set himself to work once more. Candles were replaced, the paint was refilled twice, the knife was picked up and put down a hundred times. The different piece he cut and created where picked up and put down a hundred times, where looked at even more times. The entire project was observed constantly. The needle and thread pierced skin almost fifty times per hand, resulting in almost three hundred stitches for the entire project. Time came and went and the Undrykas spent almost an entire week in the lab, sleeping in the lab on a makeshift matress as often as possible, barely spending ten hours in his own room for the entire week. During all that time, the other apprentices continued to work, never leaving their stations never needing rest or breaks. Twelve malediction circles were created on the inside of the skin patches, the same images and word painted over and over again to succesfully create the six hands. The difference in detail from the first to the last circle was obvious but nobody would ever see it. Twelve drops of the Undrykas's blood had activated them.

Spring, 34th, Year 465
Master Taren Alter's Lab, Sahova


Six hands, each created from two seperate pieces of hand, were lying in front of the Undrykas, covering most of the workbench that had been assigned to him for the project. Each hand consisted of parts of two different hands. No hand was a combination of the same two hands. Now all that was left was to create the malediction circle for each hand and determine their positions. Absently dipping the brush in the paint, the Undrykas tried to visualize the command, tried to visualize the intended effect. He put two hands in front of him, pushing the other four aside for now. These would form the booster, the two hands that would channel out the power of all six hands. Slowly but surely, the image was created in his mind. The proper place, the proper method, everything. He lifted one of the two hands up and placed it on the back of his own hand. Carefully, he curled the fingers between his own, the hand seemingly grasping at his. It was a strange feeling, to have a dead hand hold ones own.

The first circle was painted on the inside of the hand. Two words, one already painted so many times, the other only slightly different, filled the circle: Lock and Unlock. The circle was easily big enough for the word, but the intended effect lay on the other side. On the back of the hand, the Undrykas carefully plotted and painted three circles so that they were equal in size and overlapped the circle on the palm. As with all things malediction, the Undrykas took his time, patiently moving the brush over the back of the hand, staining the patchwork skin with the paint. The three circles were positioned with two on top and one at the bottom, in the middle of the two, carrying both others. The top left circle was first as the Undrykas dipped the brush in the paint. Once more, without much detail, the young man started painting a simple hand. Five fingers extended from the hand but curled up near the end, as if the hand was holding onto something. The back of the hand, as the hand was drawn as seen from the back, had a line in it, near the middle, seperating the hand in two parts, like the hands on the table. Above the hand, in very small letters, the Undrykas paint-wrote the same word as on the inside, connecting the state of the hand to the word of command.

In the top right circle, the Undrykas painted the same hand but with stretched out fingers. The difference was minimal between the two images, the lack of detail not allowing for a lot of obvious difference between the two. Both hands had the line on the back, where the real hands had the cut, but the second hand had straight fingers, which seemed longer in comparison. The first hand had shorter fingers, due to their curled up state. Above the second hand, the Undrykas painted a different word from the first, linking the second command word to the second state of the hand. Having finished with the two easy bits, the Undrykas leaned back, leaning back over the chair and cracking his back. He let the brush drop on the table and flexed his fingers, groaning softly as their tensed up state was forced to relax. Wiping away the sweat of his forehead, the Undrykas bent forward again and picked up the brush for his last painting of the day.

The brush moved in the third circle, larger than the other two but smaller than both combined. Holding the hand with his left, he moved the brush with his right, slowly painting the right side of a human in the right half of the circle. The face was blank, no eyes or mouth or nose. The top of the head was bald. The body had no distinctive features but was naked. The arm was stretched to the side, horizontally, almost touching the circle. The leg was stretched out as well but diagonally downwards, almost touching the circle as well. The foot was nondescript and without detail or toes. In the middle, the body just stopped halfway. Satisfied with the result, the Undrykas dipped the brush in a cup of water, squeezing the remaining paint out as best he could. For the last part, he would need a different color. Not because he had to but by personal choice and opinion.

He had to go far to find the right color. Finding a light blue paint in Sahova was much harder than expected but eventually he managed to get some, although Master Taren Alter had promised pain when the Undrykas had shown him the paper he had to sign in order for the young man to get his hands on the blue paint. Proudly holding his single well of light blue paint, the Undrykas entered the lab once more. Carefully placing the well on the workbench, the Undrykas sat himself down and picked up his brush once more, dipping it into the blue color this time. A personal choice, the Undrykas found that it was important to depict the spirit the way he saw it, as a pale blue, half tangible extension of oneself. He started from the left side of the circle this time, filling it with an image as well. Constantly looking to the right side, the Undrykas started to paint. The same human, mirrorred to the right half, just much bigger. The arm and leg were as long as the right side, but they were thicker, bigger than the right side. The head was bigger as well and didn't connect properly to the right side, all in blue. When he finished, the Undrykas had painted two sides of a person, one side in black and thin, the other side blue and bigger, without increasing the size too much and without an increase in length.

To finish it off, the young man paint-wrote a single word above the image. Spirit. He put the brush aside and looked at his latest creation. Carefully he turned the hand over, without touching the paint on the outside, giving it time to dry. The circle on the inside was still intact and the two words inside of it where just as fine. Putting the hand back down, the Undrykas stretched out, cracking nearly every bone in his body as he yawned. Sitting up straight he looked at the images on the back of the patchwork hand, determining if they looked sensible enough or not. To him they looked perfectly obvious. Placing the six hands in a row on the table once more, the Undrykas left his work bench and made his way out of the lab, slowly walking to his own room, trying to keep his mind from falling asleep halfway.

Spring, 35th, Year 465
Master Taren Alter's Lab, Sahova


The Undrykas placed the second hand aside, the three circles on the back of the hand still wet. The recently added images to the second hand almost matched the ones on the first hand, shaky hands creating slightly different images but the general image was the same. The same curled fingers in one circle, the same stretched fingers in the other circle. The same half black, half blue person painted in the third circle. The same words above each image in each circle. He carefully put it aside, leaving it to dry. Sipping from his self made cup fo tea, the Undrykas picked up a third hand. He already had two catalysts, one for each hand, now he needed to create a proper connection between the hands. He had already thought of a place to put them. The first circle was drawn in black on the inside of the hand, covering the palm. Two words, were paint-written on the inside, quickly and readable, although with a different meaning than before. Lock and Unlock, but instead of the meaning Lock and Unlock he had given to it in the first two hands, these two words meant Attach and Unattach. Nader-Canoch did not give a different word for these meanings but he had drawn them with that word in mind, creating the same letters in Nader-Canoch when written but a different meaning when spoken.

On the back of the hand, the same three circles were drawn, overlapping the circle on the inside of the hand like before. Each hand was painted with the same principle in mind, the same attempt at control over the item. The top left circle was painted with the command in mind. But instead of the grasping fingers from the first two hands, this one contained a cupped hand, the palm upwards, drawn from the side, giving it a V-shape. The hand had the fingers and the wrist upwards, while the middle of the hand was down, creating a sharp V shape. Above it, the same word but with a different meaning. Lock. For a moment the Undrykas smiled ever so slightly. The word had so many different meanings, yet in the language it had only one sequence of letters to create it. The smile faded almost as quickly as the thought as the Undrykas brushed over his forehead once more, leaving paint stains on his skin. With tiny lines, barely visible, he managed to copy some of the break lines in his own skin onto the image, holding his own hand in exactly the same position, modeling the malediction circle after the real thing, right in front of his eyes.

The top right circle showed the same image as the other two hands, only viewed from the side. A hand, stretched out, flat, the palm upwards. It was slightly curled but barely noticeable. The brush moved quickly in the circle, creating from nothing the required image for the unlocking. Above it the same word, Unlock, written with the same letter but spoken with a different meaning. Due to the simplicity of the painted hand there was limited, if no, detail to the image and it showed only the basic outline of a hand. With the tip of his tongue trapped between his lips, the Undrykas focused on the task at hand, unaware of any changes around him. As time passed, he slowly worked his way through the entire process, taking small but sure steps towards the final goal. The letters of the word appeared from under his brush as he moved it over the skin of the hand. Having to write so small, it made it difficult to read what was written but the amount of times he had already written the word made it easier for him to continue.

The third and final circle on the back of the hand required some additional thinking. He knew what he wanted from it but he wasn't sure how to image it on the skin. And he only had one chance to do it correctly. The Undrykas put all his tools down for a moment, giving himself a moment to step back from the entire project, to step back from all the focus, the intense concentration required. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself time to breathe, allowing himself to relax and let his mind wander. He could see long plains of grass all around him, he could smell it. As he opened his eyes, the grass was gone.

The young Undrykas applied himself to his work once more, picking up the brush to finish off the work he had set out for that morning. He quite enjoyed it, on the inside, working for a project, trying to get to a certain something before the time was up. Time was starting to run out, of course, but if he managed to stick to his mental plan he wouldn't have a problem with any of it. Dipping the brush in the paint once more, the Undrykas bent over the third circle on the hand. He tried to paint but hesitated a few times, drawing the brush back from the hand. Something was holding him back, nagging on the inside of his brain as he tried to find the right way to depict what he wanted. A link, a way to connect the wishes of the user to his skill. Two things that had no physical place, no physical appearance, and he was trying to connect them with one another, using one to strengthen the other. How could they work together? How could he paint that connection?

He placed the tip of the brush on the skin, staining it with the black ink. He closed his mind from the questions and thoughts he had and just let it guide his hand. A connection. How do you connect something? He shook his head and pushed the question away. A connection. A link. His hand started moving as something surfaced from his mind, an image. His hand quickly worked to paint it on the skin of the hand. A chain of rings, each ring -linked- together with the next one, unbroken, running along the inside of the malediction circle, creating an unending chain of linked parts. Inside of it, he paint-wrote a single word, one that he would use later on again. Lock, in the meaning of connected. With a smile, he finished the last letter of the word and looked at his image. Drawn from somewhere in his mind, without knowing how he had linked them together, the chain in the circle fit perfectly for what he wanted.

The fourth hand was a complete copy of the third one, albeit with a few tiny differences due to shaking hands at different times. He focused and tried his best to create the same image but there were certain things you just couldn't stop. But at a single glance both hands were identical, showing the same images in the same circles. Proudly, he placed the fourth hand down as well, next to the other three. Two more to go, two hands and he would be finished with his project. Whether it would work or not remained to be seen. If it worked, however... The Undrykas couldnt help but smile at the prospect.

Although it was dulled now, after having spent all this time inside, the Undrykas could feel night falling outside, unseen by his eyes but felt by his mind and spirit. For the Sahovans, there was no real purpose to it, since they spent almost all of their time inside their labs, trying new things. The candles providing light in the laboratory were often replaced by the Golems and the Undrykas had learned to keep track of time using the amount of times the candles were changed. He rubbed his eyes and sitffled another yawn, trying to focus on the task at hand. The entire afternoon had been for the purpose of completing the last two hands. He had managed to paint the four circles and the two command in the top two circles. The palm circles had the two words of command in them, Lock and Unlock. But the bottem circle on the back of both hands were empty, devoid of any paint. He couldn't get his mind around it, couldn't find the answer to the unvoiced question. How did you paint command, paint a wish, paint a desire? But was that really the purpose of the item? Because the Undrykas knew the desire for the item, knew it's supposed purpose.

The brush moved over the skin for the final time, painting the last image for the project. All that was left afterwards was the 24 drops of blood needed to activate the project. He dipped the brush in the paint once more and placed it on the skin. With quick, jagged motions, the Undrykas started to pain, creating a weird looking cloud near the top of the lowest circle. Undearneath it he started to draw something he had created already so many times. A fist pointing downwards. The fingers interlocked, the thumb disappearing behind the fist, clenched around the other fingers, invisible in the image. The knuckles almost touched the lower side of the circle the painting was in. With the fist finished, the Undrykas focused back on the image above it, drawing lines in it, giving it more detail, shaping it away from the cloud shape it had started off as. Power from the mind, strength from the mind. It all came down to that. Creating strength, flowing down from the mind and into the fists, the primary tool used for fighting by humanoids and creatures like it.

Spring, 36th, Year 465
Master Taren Alter's Lab, Sahova


Carefully, the Undrykas lifted the first hand up and placed it on the back of his own hand. A single command, more thought than speech, entered his mind and passed through his lips. Lock. "Lock". The hand grasped close, tangled its fingers with the Undrykas'. He jumped in surprise and cringed slightly, the grip of the dead hand quite strong. But not uncomfortably so. The Undrykas focused again. The hand didn't do much to impede his movements as he grasped at the second one and did the same with his left hand. Lock. "Lock". The sound appeared only a bare moment after the thought and the hand closed around his. He raised both hands, looking at the new coverings they had. Two severed hands, stitched together near the middle, grasping on his hands, covereing them like someone was holding them. He wiggled his fingers and tried to determine to extent of their interference with his own motions. Except for a small space between his fingertips due to the fingers squeezed between his own, the Undrykas didn't have much problems with them.

He raised his elbow as much as he could and picked up the third hand, placing it against the elbow, the palm pressing against his skin. Lock. "Lock". The thought was combined with a different meaning this time, the word still the same. Although still spoken as Lock the word meant connect, rather than the previous word used as Lock for the hands. The hand clung to his elbow, sticking to it like it was glued in place. He stretched his arm, slowly and carefully. The hand moved with his elbow, constantly sticking against it. He bent his arm and turned it, trying to see the hand holding onto him. He did the same for his right arm, once more speaking the word, commanding the thought. A little unnerved by the dead hands moving around and holding him, the Undrykas couldn't help but smile at his project working. So far.

Almost like a piece of armor, the Undrykas lifted the fifth hand up to his shoulder and placed it on there, the fingers pointing towards his back, the severed wrist pointing forwards. Lock. "Lock". Once more the same word was thought of and once more the meaning was changed. Not Lock, nor Connect but Attach. The hand clenched and cupped his shoulder. He tried to shrug, carefully, in an attempt to test the connection. Like the four other hands before, this one stuck to his body as well. Quickly, anxious to see th result, the Undrykas put the last hand in place and thought the command, spoke the word. Lock. "Lock". The final of the six hands grabbed onto his body and held itself in place. Although severely lacking practical protection, the Undrykas felt like a warrior. A mighty knight in mighty armor, ready for a fight. He flexed and shrugged, bent his arms and wiggled his fingers, all at the same time, trying to determine the extent of his movements. Well placed, the hands did nothing to impede his movements, except for the minor lacking ability to close his finger all the way due to the dead bony ones sticking between them.
Present day,
Forest Floor, The Spires


The writer read over the last part again. Like so often, the text just stopped, as if it had conveyed what needed to be conveyed and then ended. Only the necessary parts were conveyed. The writer grunted and sprinkled the sand over the ink, letting it soak up the rest of it. Slowly but surely, heavily leaning on his staff, the writer managed to help himself up straight again, after quite a bit of grumbling and cursing at himself. He hadn't expected such a long memory himself and wished he hadn't decided to write out here in the forest. With all his tools back where they belonged and the newly written scroll safely stored away in the scrollcase, the writer carried himself back up to The Spires.
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Luhrak Searunner
Geronima! Yowzah! Fantastic! Run!
 
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Project: Help the Master

Postby Radiant on October 25th, 2013, 7:15 am

Image

Notes :
Luhrak, you have issues in your CS. Please fix the issues first, PM me, then I will give you your grades. :)

Also, you need to put the exact date on your "Present Day". Which "Present Day" was it?


My radiance is not bright enough?
If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out. :)
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Radiant
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