[Inner Sanctum] Prototype

[Hadrian]

1st Fall, 510 A.V. "This is your cabinet, sir," said the novice knight guarding the Inner Sanctum, turning a key in the lock to show Hadrian everything he had requested of his contact within the Order. It was strange to be called sir by someone younger than him, but Hadrian supposed he was getting older everyday. That was a problem to be addressed later, but not too late. The old magecrafter of Syliras seemed to have managed to cheat Dira without becoming a Nuit, anyhow. Perhaps Hadrian too might stumble over the secret, or he could follow the man to Wind Reach and ask it of him. Arrayed before him was everything he would need for this, his first professional magecrafting contract. "Are those really..." the novice asked, reverent hand reaching out to brush a sealed glass jar with six dried leaves in it, but not quite touching it with unconcealed admiration. "Leaves from the Windoak, yes," Hadrian said. "Please don't touch. Your djed might unbalance everything. Well, I'm going to take care of ambient djed, but... better safe than sorry." The novice pulled his hand away. "I'll just... Do you mind if I watch?" he asked. Hadrian considered, then shook his head no. The lad's aura showed nothing magically inclined, so Hadrian knew he could trust that he would not steal any trade secrets. He was more worried about other magicians who might use the Inner Sanctum while the magecrafting was in progress, but the knights had not granted him exclusive access to the rooms. He would have to trust their guards and that magecrafting was a relatively uncommon practice. "You may watch," Hadrian said with extreme -- for him -- generosity. The lad nodded and stepped out of the way to watch, near the door in case he had to do any sort of crowd control later. The enchanter took a sheaf of papers out of his satchel and began pinning them to the walls in the area that had been allotted him. He wouldn't need all that much space, just a corner, really, but he would have to create an especially powerful barrier around his work to keep out any other influences. After perusing his notes and diagrams to refresh his memory, he took a pot of paint out of the cabinet and a brush that would have to do for this sort of magical calligraphy. A large round table whose top was a lazy Susan sat in his area and he began to paint his arcane patterns around it. A circle in the middle surrounded by a pentagon with circles at each angle, the which gradually became a complicated pentagram of runes, connecting lines, and other inert channels through which the djed would flow. His augmented eyes followed these channels, noticing for the first time how the ambient djed began to follow his glyphed instructions even as he laid them out. With a pleased smile he realized that he was becoming a more accomplished aurist everyday, which was to be expected given how often he practiced it. From the pentagram, he linked further outward, building a circle of protective glyphs that would turn away most outside influences and maintain an energetic environment within the circle. It was more complex a sigil than any he had ever drawn before, and he hoped that the old graphomancer would have been proud of his work. The collection of smaller glyphs flowed one into another with greater sophistication now, though of course that came as much from excessive planning as true skill. Hadrian was a perfectionist, which is what made him a good magecrafter. The larger focus, as well as the five smaller foci, remained empty for now, tied into a net of barriers, switches, triggers, and paths. Hadrian inspected his little painted masterpiece, then went around correcting mistakes. They always managed to crop up, despite his planning. He was not so great a glypher as he was at other things, but he was improving with time. As the paint began to dry, he resealed the paint and cleaned the paintbrush in a bucket of water. He wiped off his hands on a rag and stared at his work again, watching with his auristic eye how the djed was responding, already forming a bit of a bubble, its foci accumulating energy, at least, slightly more than elsewhere. A lot of magic had been practiced in this place, and echos of it battered silently and gently against his barrier. Out of the cabinet, he took six gems. The largest went into the center, the other five in their respective foci. With a delicate lead-headed hammer, he tapped the six gems and watched as ripples of energy began to move around, highlighting the paths he had constructed as the engine of enchantment began to wake. He watched for a while, his eyes tracking those subtle movements in the djed that presaged his work. These things were slow, and this would be his slowest project to date. But, like Semele's power, things that moved slowly were often the most powerful when all was said and done. After that quiet meditation, he began to put things away in the cabinet. "Is that it?" asked the novice. "For now," Hadrian said. "You may lock up. Please make sure nobody interferes with my work." "Yes, sir," he said, somewhat disappointed, as he fished out the key. "There really won't be all that much to see," he said. "Some of the best magic is the least flashy..."

[Hadrian]

3rd Fall, 510 A.V. Once the guard had unlocked his cabinet, he got back to work. His face was still flushed with the heat of the Ironworks where he had been working with Eanos, and now he was galvanized to make sure that everything was perfect for the next day so the Isur would be duly impressed by his own work; not a novice study in smithing, but a delicate, intricate enchantment laid upon talismans for the Knights. After taking care of smalltalk with the interested young novice, Hadrian opened his Eyes to the delicate flows of energy on the table. It was interesting to work on a raised platform such as a table. Luckily this place had a long history of enchantment or else his own glyphs might not have been enough to maintain a magical environment within the circle for a successful enchantment of this magnitude. His trained auristic vision began to see more and more, both in detail and in depth, and he noted places were tiny, capillary-like lines of energy bent where they oughtn't, or tangled among themselves like yarn after a kitten's been at it. What once might have been a smudge of glowing in his enhanced vision was now more exact, and he examined the runic setup, just looking for slight variations in the geometry where he had miscalculated, or his skill with glyphing proved not quite up to snuff. Taking the paint out of the cabinet, he began to make slight adjustments to each glyph, thereby changing the character of the entire sigil charging the six gems with power. He made certain mathematical calculations upon a little chalkboard, nodding at how they aligned with what he was seeing, with what he had done to alter the enchantment in progress. He liked the chalkboard, because it was easy to erase, and few were the magi capable of seeing how his slight changes were effecting the whole, even with it available for view here. As he worked, he prayed. It was not uncommon for him to do so, but he had never invoked quite so many deities. He wished Semele would grant him her favor to pull the most out of these stones' potential. He wished Izurdin would grant him his favor to help him craft the perfect things he pictured in his head. He wished Qalaya would grant him her favor that his glyphs might achieve what they only did for her followers. There was a certain amount of quiet desperation to his pleas. He hated failure, and this was an important commission. As always, he prayed to Eyris for her guidance in this and in all things. Of course, when he had prayed to Ivak, it had backfired. And after all, why would the gods want to show him favor? No humans did; likely gods were even less likely to do so. Shaking his head, he tried to banish the negativity. Taking the lead-headed hammer, he chimed each of the stones thrice, suddenly beaming when his ear picked up the more perfect harmony. Success! at least on the short-term, but this boded well for all future enchantments. He was learning how to see what he was doing, even as the Flux helped him sometimes feel what he was doing. With a silent thanksgiving for any deity who might have been listening, he put his things away and bade the guard good day as he locked up behind the young enchanter, who was now more sanguine about showing Eanos his work.

[Hadrian]

13th Fall, 510 A.V. Devan had left him in a quandary. He supposed the Symenestra ex-professor was right about his methods, not coddling Hadrian in Zeltiva and continuing to not coddle him here in Syliras. But now he was rethinking his design while in the midst of the enchantment and he had to decide what changes were possible at this point, and how best to go about making them without upsetting the delicate balance of the enchantment. Too much had been left behind in Zeltiva. He had planned to return shortly, but he was still stuck in Syliras after the death of his mother and then this contract. So there he was attempting to jerry-rig the res-filter he had made for Hrair's blood compass. It seemed that he would once again have to work with blood if Devan's assessment was correct, and it probably was. One day, he would surpass Devan. And Stonemiller. But for the time being, he would value their wisdom if they chose to share it. With the squire on duty peering curiously at him, he wove together some thin metal wires into a bit of rough mesh. It was nothing fancy, but it would do. He twisted the ends into a roughly circular shape and then braided them into it, forming a ring around the mesh. It was still nothing he would want to show Marcus or Eanos, but it would get the job done. Res could be made thick enough to work with this. He fumbled through the various odds and ends of junk he had picked up from the market and the Knights' stores and fiddled around until he had something that could hold the mesh disc in place and a weighted base for it. This involved a wooden rod that he wasn't happy about because of the trace djed patterns its dead tissue caused, a metal rod, a strange paperweight, and heavy use of adhesive glue. It wouldn't last for more than a few uses, but he would likely only need it twice for purposes here. Setting that aside for the time being, he got out the paint and paintbrush and began altering the runic structure around the master gem. It was mostly minor, but it would be important for what was coming. New glyphs were worked into the sigil, letting the weave know that blood was coming that would bind the master gem to a certain sergeant in the Syliran Knights. He painted a new circle that would encompass the odd bit of gadgeteering he had just done, adding glyphs to direct what would happen there. Putting the makeshift res-filter within the circle, he stood up on his tip toes to look over it and aim it properly over the master gem. Once satisfied, he held his finger up before his eyes, watching the fruits of his effort as he pushed djed up into his finger and then changed it with long practice into usable res as it welled up like blood from a pricked finger. It wasn't so much a matter of quantity, but precise work took its toll as well. He wiped the gelatinous res over the mesh until it was well and fully covered, but not dripping down onto the master gem. Watching it to make sure it didn't dissipate, he took a vial from out of his clothes. He unstoppered the vial, the blood inside still liquid from his body's heat, though viscous enough that it would work for what he wanted. The vial was turned over and smashed into the slowly drying glue on top of the res-filter. The blood slid turgidly down the side of the vial and gathered at its lip before dropping into the res on the mesh disc. There it reacted with the res, charging and changing, and dropping finally out of the bottom of the mesh to hit the master-gem. It didn't splash, but went directly into the gem to alter it from within. He waited then, switching to Auristic vision to watch the master-gem pulse a dull red as it accumulated the blood of the absent sergeant, in what Hadrian assumed was a heartbeat. One day he would make wonders that would be just for him to use.

[Hadrian]

18th Fall, 510 A.V. Today was the day that Hadrian was least looking forward to for this project. Not thinking on that, he put certain things out of his mind and began to construct another res-filter gadget. "They have to be simultaneous," he mumbled to himself as he altered the design of the setup somewhat, gluing three rods together at perpendicular angles and then to a brick that would act as the base. He wove a larger panel of mesh from the collection of wire he had acquired from the knights for this purpose. It was slightly frustrating work, as his skills at gadgeteering were not quite that advanced, but he got it done and glued it into the frame. While the glue on his apparatus was drying, he found a blank area within the larger sigil on the table and began a new sub-sigil. There was a circle for the new res-filter and another, smaller circle, linked by a chain of glyphs. The glyphs took some time to paint onto the smooth wood of the tabletop. He wasn't an expert for one thing, but he tried to make up for this with extra care and precision. Those glyphs comprised mainly of a matrix to induce movement from the smaller circle to the larger circle, whose outer rim had six destination glyphs that matched those marking the master-gem and the five subordinate gems. Next, he built a sub-sigil that comprised of a circle whose glyphs spoke of thirst, offering, and power. Auxiliary glyphs spoke of augmentation and transmutation. Intent. Vigor. His eyes teared up several times as he drew the glyphs, and he angrily wiped them away in order that he might continue. His stomach was growling by the time he had the glyphs just right, but he ignored that for the time being as there was yet a bit of work to be done. He placed the new res-filter in the larger circle and peered at it through his Auristic vision, making sure it lined up properly with the angles he had calculated for best effect. He was beginning to see when things were 'right' merely by their auras, which was a helpful accomplishment. Next he placed a simple ceramic dish in the smaller circle. From the cabinet, he took out the mason jar full of Windoak leaves, which were drying beautifully, neither brittle nor rotting. With the jar tucked in the crook of his elbow, he took the paintbrush and painted a simple sigil of transmutation and augmentation, similar to that he had painted on the table, on the skin of his hand. He blew on the paint to dry it, peering at the arcana of his palm. It was worth a try. Nothing felt different as he drew his energies down his arm and into his hand, not until he pushed it out of the pores of his hand as res, which reacted with the glyph, multiplying. It was no great feat, but with the effort to produce a thin sheen of res, the glyphs had created a thick film over his hand, which he ran across the mesh in the res-filter. Following the dictates of his will, the gelatinous res clung to the mesh screen, glowing dimly and waiting. Hadrian took out the first of six leaves and lit it over a taper candle. When he set the burning leaf in the dish, the flame flared and danced, its color not quite definable. It quickly settled into smoking, the fire and magic yoked by the ring of glyphs. One by one, he lit the leaves and added them to the first in the dish. When they were all smoldering there, he blew gently and the smoke began to drift toward the res filter like a thick, sinuous snake. With the naked eye, it seemed that the smoke disappeared into the res, but his his Auristic eye, it continued beyond, separating into six strings of energy that found each of the six gems, and poured into them. Glyphs that surrounded those gems began to glow, almost smugly, the glyphs for Tyveth, for Sylir, for the pantheon of the Knights. 'They have to be simultaneous,' he reminded himself, or the part of him that was driven to create reminded the part that was loathe to destroy. He sighed and dug into his satchel, pulling forth a ball of fur, which he set in the empty sub-sigil. "What the...?" It was the novice who stood guard at the door, a youth who paid careful attention to what he was doing as if he would become a mage knight or some such. Hadrian ignored him and pulled a cold wrought iron dagger from the cabinet. Sighing, he returned to the table where the djed was cooking, changing those six gems. Steeling himself to get it over with quickly, he bared the neck of the half-starved cat, whispered an apology, and cut its neck. As its lifeblood flowed into the sigil, igniting it with the power of hot blood sacrifice, he recalled how he had charmed it out of the alley with bits of fish over the course of several days since Devan had suggested blood sacrifice, how he had taken care of it out of some guilty need to make its last few days more comfortable than the rest of its life, to somehow pay for what he would demand of it. To his Auristic eye, the entire table seemed to acquire a circulatory system itself, the sultry red glow following all the paths the djed had formed due to his glyphs and harmonic attunements, until the entire thing was full and blazed with borrowed energy. When the cat poured out the last of its drugged blood, he cleaned the knife, wrapped the corpse, and put it in his satchel. He locked up the cabinet and, hands clenched into pale fists to hide the blood, he walked out of there, not daring to look in the squire's eyes.

[Hadrian]

29th Fall, 510 A.V. It was very nearly the moment of truth so far as this experiment, and it was not without trepidation that he returned to his makeshift laboratory. He nodded to the squire guarding the door, a different one who looked at him strangely. Apparently word had got out about the blood sacrifice, which hadn't called down the wrath of the Knights, but had certainly made guard duty of the old Inner Sanctum difficult to fill with all those squeamish squires. Hadrian looked over the table-wide sigil with his Auristic vision, assuring himself that everything 'looked' right, in any case. Only the end of the experiment would show whether it was, in fact, right or not. He was growing more skillful at interpreting what he saw magically, and now he saw no reason to alter the glyphs in any case. They would not be doing much of anything from now on. There only remained one more sub-sigil to draw out, the which he began once he had opened the cabinet and taking out the paint and brush. The glyphs ran in an arc, speaking of permanence, crystallization, settling, purpose, and the arc became a circle, mathematically precise after all his geometric calculations, the which he had to double-check now. When it was drawn to his plotted specifications, he set up a small burner within the circle and placed a metal pot atop the flame. From his satchel he pulled several herbs, the which he crushed and crumbled into the pot, philtering his charging water from scratch. He checked his palm, but it seemed that the paint wasn't as permanent on skin as it was on wood, so he took the more delicate paintbrush and redrew the lines of the augmenting glyph. All this work took its toll on him and this seemed a viable shortcut that was not what he might have called cheating. The glyph laid, he held his palm over the warming pot, not wanting the herbs to smoke and ruin before he wet them to steep. He felt the energy pulling on the insides of his arm as he shunted his djed toward his hand, willing the transmutation to res as it pooled out of his pores, and thence to water. With the glyph aiding him, water all but poured out of his hand with the slightest of energy requirements on his part, quickly filling the pot. Turning off the faucet, he sat in a chair and waited for the water to boil, steeping the melange of herbs. While waiting, he pulled something white out of his satchel: a small cat's skull, boiled down to bone and bleached. If the squire was watching, let him carry back more rumors of his gruesome work. It was better to be feared than loved, he supposed, and Devan seemed content to be so. Taking out a paring knife, he began to carve the Circle into the skull, beginning his grisly Malediction. Taking a cue from his Magecrafting sigils, he was always experimenting in other world magics. Unfortunately, it was difficult to say what a Maledicted item might do, whereas a Magecrafted item, unless botched, was more predictable in function, but required more resources and thought. It took longer than he thought to carve the Circle into the bone; his 'apprenticeship' on Sahova had been a sort of time warp in his mind. The water boiled and boiled, and by the time the smell was correct and the aura of the charged water looked right to his Auristic eye, he had only just completed the Malediction Circle. Setting the skull and paring knife aside, he stood up and turned off the fire. As the water began to cool, he picked up the paring knife, scored the pad of his thumb, and rubbed bead of crimson vitae into the circle. He put his thumb into his mouth, putting pressure on it with his tongue as he watched the minute acceptance of his offering. The blood quickly flowed through the glyphed channels in the bone until the entire sigil Circle was full of his essence. There was a dull red pulse to it, and then the blood quickly blackened as if with age, dry and stained. It almost seemed that the hollow eyes were staring at him, and he quickly put the fetish in his satchel and the paring knife away so he wouldn't have to look at it while he waited. Deciding the water would take a time to cool, he sat back down, leaning back in the chair, and tried to calm his mind toward a meditative trance. There was no need for a full trance, but he needed a quiet mind to Flux properly, as it was not truly his bailiwick yet. He concentrated on his reserves of energy, tapping them and spreading it out among the rest of the energy matrix that made up his aura as well as his physical person. All the while he promised his body that he would rest after today, allow it to renew itself without constant demands of magical energy and even mental exercise. It would be nice to vegetate for a few days, and only then start doing things. Of course, he would have to present the gems to the Knights, but other than that... His fingers and toes began to tingle with energy, and he felt energized in general, though perhaps a bit less... full. It was no wonder he was so skinny, no fat being allowed to accumulate as his energy so quickly burned through. The guard was changing when he became fully aware of his surroundings again, emerging from his interior world. The water had cooled, and he stood to drop each of the gems into it, starting with the master-gem. By the morrow, the enchantment would have set and he would have completed his task. "And then we'll know," he mused quietly to himself.

[Dusk]

XP Award! Hadrian XP Award: Glyphing: 4 XP, Magecraft: 3 XP, Auristics: 1 XP, Mathematics: 1 XP, Gadgeteering: 2 XP, Reimancy: 2 XP, Philtering: 1 XP, Carving (Bone): 1 XP, Malediction: 1 XP, Meditation: 1 XP Lore Award: A new place to work, a captive audience, Attention to detail, Building a res-filter, Improvisational Magecrafting, The turmoil of blood sacrifice Ledger: +1 Master Windoak Gem, +5 Minor Windoak Gems, +1 Maledicted cat skull Additional Note Lovely work, darling! Hadrian took the advice given him by a more experienced mage, while still using a derth of his own skills. In order to find out if the gems work, you and I will run a moderated thread where you turn the gems over to the Knights. Start the thread, and PM me the link and I will run that scene with you. The cat skull allows the bearer to posess more alert senses, granting slightly better night vision and a hyperalertness to anyone who might be trying to sneak up on them. It also makes one a little paranoid that someone is always sneaking up on them, and imbues the bearer with a gnawing hunger that is never assuaged no matter what is eaten.