Completed Switching Things Up

[Tsaba]

4th Fall, 513AV Tsaba couldn't exactly be unhappy with the progress she was making in the art of Glyphing. She was frustrated by her own lack of skill, of course, as any amateur was. But she knew that she was progressing steadily. She was fairly happy with her focuses, had a good handle on how barriers worked, and thought she understood the concept of triggers, although all three areas could be improved with practise. But there was still one area that she hadn't practised at all. Tsaba settled down at her new desk in her new house and ensured all her writing materials were laid out correctly. Then she opened the copy of The Basics of Glyphing that she'd borrowed from the library, located the section on switches, and began to read. A Switch is perhaps the most difficult of glyphs to understand, not least because the background necessary to understand its function requires magical theory beyond the knowledge of your standard Glyphing student. A Switch is normally differentiated from the rest of a sigil in some manner, often by varying the material or colour. It is an interfering rune, like a trigger, but where a trigger interferes with the activity of other runes, a Switch interferes directly with magic. For this reason, it is important for magic to be able to flow through a Switch. This adds difficulty to its construction not present in the trigger, which is the only element in glyphing that can be kept entirely separate from the flow of magic. A Switch interrupts the flow of magic in a way that either splits or combines it. A single spell can be split into two smaller, identical spells -- a large fireball released as two smaller ones, for example -- or smaller spells can be combined into bigger ones -- such as many tiny water spells combined to make a torrent. Tsaba frowned at the page. She hadn't even tried the glyph, and already she was learning. She'd always just assumed that making a path that split would also split the effect of the magic, like a river branching into two, and vice versa for just joining two paths. Evidently that was incorrect, or switches would not be necessary. So did the magic all choose an arbitrary path? Was there some kind of path-of-least-resistance effect at work? Or perhaps switches simply allowed a greater level of control over the effect? She'd have to try to be sure. She wasn't confident enough in her skill to mess about with such things, but if she didn't experiment, how would she improve her skill? It was frustrating. The function of the Switch goes beyond mere division of power. A more complex function is the use of switches to split the function of spells, such as separating the light and heat in a fire. Naturally, these Switches are often somewhat more difficult to draw, as they require careful definition of both input and output. Tsaba carefully studied the example Switches provided, each drawn with an extraneous line through them so as to prevent their use and subsequent erasure. Her work with glyphing so far had given her somewhat of an eye for identifying components, and while it probably wouldn't have occurred to her if she hadn't read the explanation, she could now clearly see that they were indeed glyphs for splitting magic. She could also tell that the author who had drawn them was not the author of any glyphs she could remember seeing in other books; his hand was different. The author had thoughtfully provided several examples of different Switches for different purposes, each clearly labelled. Tsaba carefully studied them for awhile before picking up her brush.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba started, as she always did, by looking for commonalities between the variations on the Switch. As she was looking at several variations by one author this time, it probably made more sense than such a method normally did. She quickly identified what she had come to call the 'skeleton', the core set of strokes that made up each of the author's Switches, and practised the strokes until she could draw them confidently and consistently. Only then did she begin copying the glyphs from the page. Tsaba's first attempts at a new glyph were always imitative by nature. It took some time to get a sense of what she was actually drawing. So her copies of the glyphs from the book were just that, copies; they weren't her glyphs. Would they function? If she could copy with perfect accuracy, that would be interesting to find out. But she couldn't, and had no intention of taking such a risk when a failed result could just as easily be a reflection of her own incompetence. She opened other books to other examples, and used them to modify her 'skeleton'. She'd long since abandoned the notion that all glyphs of a common type by all authors must have some kind of common core, but creating a core had proven an effective method for learning other glyphs, so she saw no reason to abandon it simply because the underlying philosophy was flawed. As the room darkened, she lit a candle and returned to work. The glyph, her glyph, was in there somewhere. If she sought, she'd find it.

[Tsaba]

There were a couple of things that seemed as if they should be necessary to a Switch. At least one input port and two output ports, or vice versa. And some kind of information to explain what kind of things to filter. Or if power was being filtered, how much to send where. Did the power have to be split into equal amounts? Of could a small amount be diverted one way, and a larger amount another way? Another thing to investigate. Judging by the greater level of symmetry in power-splitting examples than effect-splitting examples, Tsaba assumed that the power-splitting examples were of even power being split either way. But she didn't see any obvious reason why that had to be the only way to do it. Quite possibly, people didn't do it because they had no need for that sort of thing. Tsaba considered that to be a minor detail. Just because something had no use was no reason to ignore whether it was possible. She adapted her skeleton to incorporate obvious inlets and outlets, with space enough between them for paths to lead the magic to them. She didn't know whether they needed to be differentiated, to make sure that magic would only flow one way; she guessed she'd find out. It was starting to look more like a glyph already.

[Tsaba]

Once Tsaba had the general shape that she wanted, she started adding paths to make sure that the spacing was usable. She'd settles on an overall skeleton that looked like a hollow Y shape, made from three angles like triangles missing a side each. The shape was quickly obscured by peripheral strokes and not really noticeable in the overall glyph, but it indicated the position of inlets and outlets. She was working with the one inlet, two outlet design like the examples in the book. How much would the glyph change if she altered the basic shape to allow for more inlets and outlets? Time to experiment with that sort of thing later, when she had the basics down. Well, whatever she had was at least adequately spaced. She could fit the paths in around it with no trouble. It didn't seem complete yet, though, and she wasn't certain why. Tsaba accepted that glyphing required more instinct than memorisation. But she didn't like it. Instinct and feeling wasn't Tsaba's strong point, it wasn't something she trusted. That had, of course, been a serious drawback in her Auristics education, since Craun insisted on emphasising instincts when he was teaching. She'd dealt with that because she'd had to, but she was new to the concept of glyphing for... Except she wasn't, was she? Tsaba glanced down at her hands and, almost subconsciously, traced a very simple rune on each palm with the opposite index finger. Tsaba wasn't new to writing glyphs on instinct. Tsaba had been writing glyphs on instinct for seventy five years.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba had been drawing runes on instinct since the first time she'd crawled onto a lifeless body, traced shapes upon it in ink with a shaky finger, and dripped her own vital fluid into its mouth. She'd done it more times than she could remember, and she hadn't failed once. If she had, she'd be dead. She had done it without apprehension, without fear of failure. She had done it in perfect health and with help, and alone with broken arms. She'd known what she was doing and how to do it every time. And she'd never read, never learned, never practised. Proper glyphing was a little more advanced than that. But that just meant more practise. Tsaba picked up her brush once more. She imagined the body transfer ritual, the need to change, and as she did so, the urge to paint the transfer runes rose. She knew every stroke of those runes. She had for seventy five years. She imagined flowing magic in a straight line between a pair of barriers. She imagined splitting the paths into two, a hollow Y made of barriers, cleaving the power in half. She imagined splitting the spell into two. There was some hesitation in her movement of the brush. But not much. She sketched out the core of the glyph, more from memory and practice than instinct. But when instinct gripped her, she let it. She imagined that she was drawing the transfer runes, and she followed her brush where it went.

[Tsaba]

There was something wrong with the overall shape of Tsaba's Switch. She fixed it on the next one. Only when that glaring error was gone did she notice more subtle errors in the interior lines. Her ability to recognise and alter problems in glyph was improving, which could only be good news for the glyphs themselves. She kept working. She drew switch after switch, and when she was pretty sure that she had it right, she got out a fresh piece of paper. She painted a focus, a barrier circling it, a trigger. The painted a path leading to a switch, and two paths leading away. It all seemed to space out alright, the positioning of the glyphs well-spaced and aesthetically pleasing. Would it work? For several chimes, Tsaba considered pulling djed through her sight and into that focus. She didn't know exactly how auristics would split through a switch or how to be sure that it had without a better handle on how good she was at storing magic in scrolls in the first place, but she wanted to try. She wanted to start to pull apart the mysteries of all the glyphs, and the switch, with its endless possibilities, was one of the most intriguing. She didn't. Auristics was probably the safest magic for such experimentation, but things could still go wrong. And her glyphs weren't good enough to make it worth the risk, yet. Reluctantly, she added her clumsy makeshift scroll to the pile of practice glyphs without imbuing it with magic. There would be time to try that sort of thing later. There was always time.

[Taylani]

XP Award!

Tsaba:

XP Award:

• +4 glyphing

Lore:

• Glyphing: An interfering rune like a trigger
• Glyphing: Copies of glyphs not her glyphs

Notes:.

Comments :

. Please feel free to PM me any concerns with your grade, and don’t forget to delete/edit your post in the grade request.

TAYLANI