Nodding, Keene stepped forward, taking the quill and dipping it into the ink as he leaned over the surface, eyes flicking over the parchment. Focuses were supposed to be a larger glyph, central in nature to contain the magic meant to be absorbed or altered. It contained, suppressed, but kept things static, a field to trap and hold the magic. The quill moved along the parchment, catching in places, but moving steady enough that the lines were fairly steady. He started in the middle of the paper, drawing a straight line that started about an inch and a half from the top to stop a few inches beyond the mid point of the paper the long ways down. The first line drawn, Keene drew another at about a forty-five degree angle from the first, forming an acute angle on the right of the middle above the intersection and on the left below. He carried the line out so that it was at a slight angle to the bottom of the middle line. Keene pulled a second line, this one mirroring the other to create a narrower "x" across the first line.
From that point, he connected the endpoints of each the lines to those adjacent, closing the figure into a jewel-esque shape. Moving in his steady, deliberate pace, Keene continued, adding in another hexagon at about the halfway point from the middle of the "x" to the endpoints of the lines. With that done, Keene drew smaller lines from the contour of the inner hexagon to the outer, staring in about the middle of the individual seconds to break them up further. When he was done, Keene gently tapped the quill four times, moving down in a vertical line in both sides of the smaller hexagon's right and left quadrants. The result were four dots of ink, a slight variation in size due to the uneven pressure placed during their creation. With the focus finished, Keene paused, setting the quill down that had had to revisit the well a myriad of times to accomplish the single rune. "The focus serves as the largest rune. It is what absorbs and affects a spell." He stared down at it, finding it more messy in application than it had been in his head.
Moving on, Keene started on the barrier. He drew a box around the hexagons, the walls leaving a small amount of space along the parallel edges and almost brushing against the points of the hexagons. With the first box complete, Keene started on the second, this one angled to flow parallel to the lines of the points of the hexagon at the top and bottom. In the larger triangles on either side of the barrier, Keene drew small circles, only closing the top most on both sides. While less complex, the lines were much longer, and it took him about the same amount of time as it did to finish the focus. Staring down at it, Keene added supplementary "l"s around the corners of the right triangles, endpoints stopping before they connected with the other piece of the barrier. "The barrier contains the static power of the focus." Noticing several parts of the line where the ink had thinned, Keene dipped the quill for what must have been the hundredth time, filling them in. He checked the focus as well and found it satisfactory.
With that done, he created the trigger. It was smaller and less complicated, taking about half the time as the other two glyphs. Drawing a small diamond with its right point connected to the end of the "l" around the upper left of the right triangle of the barrier, its edges following the angle of the hexagon. Drawing a straight line that starting a small amount above the diamond's middle, Keene pulled it down to the bottom point of the diamond, bisecting in. Drawing another intersecting line perpendicular to the first, Keene spearated the interior of the diamond into four triangles, making two small circles along the upper left outer line of the diamond as a whole. Trigger finished, Keene used the then empty quill to suck some of the ink that had gone on a bit too thick back up into the pen's well. "The trigger reacts to a specific condition, allowing for the barrier to be released.
Dipping the quill again, Keene extended a line down from the bottom most "l"s endpoints closest to the bottom point of the barrier's diamond. Carrying the lines out about an inch or so from the focus, Keene drew a wide "x", connecting the endpoints. After that, he drew a box to connect the endpoints of the "x", skipping the line that would have crossed at the top. Once that was done, Keene drew a diamond around that, its lines touching each corner of the three sided box. He moved the quill up to connect the tops of the bottom most "l"s to the rest of the main barrier. "A path connects two glyphs; a switch can split or join a spell." Drawing three small circles along both sides of the bottom of the switch's diamond, Keene stared down at the sigil. Frowning slightly, he made another trigger to the bottom right of the barrier, connecting it to where the endpoint of the "l" had once been before drawing three small circles along the lower right edge of the quadrasected diamond. "This sigil denotes a spell that can be released as either the way it was cast or split into two."
Setting the quill down, Keene stepped back from the table, allowing Master Rayage to view it closer if she wished. In the small amount of time he'd had to practice his glyphing, Keene had only really memorized what he'd been told. The experimental trial and error was still in the making, and his supplies to do so lacking. He imagined the media of glyphing to be of relative importance, not due to a magically inherent property of medium, but rather the medium's resistance to tampering and change. A perfect sigil crafted out of salt would quickly become useless or worse at the smallest breeze. Thus, he wanted to have reliable tools to work with if he were to be experimenting on himself. Magic was dangerous enough without making it more so with impatience and a lack of preparedness. However, he was confident that he had not forgotten the lesson that Master Rayage had given him. Glyphing had the potential to become an incredibly powerful tool if it was properly utilized. On the island, power was hardly something one lost to forgetfulness.
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