[Inner Sanctum] The Next Generation [Closed]

[Hadrian]

1st Spring, 511 A.V. It was a new year and Hadrian had new work. Well, to be entirely fair, it was a rehashing of work he had done the year previous, but now he had more experience, more trust from his employers, and more of a chance to make money as well as better product. There was a new squire guarding the door of the workspace now, or at least one that he didn't recognize. He wondered if the last one had told stories about cat sacrifices and such, giving Hadrian a bloodthirsty reputation. Octavius hadn't said anything about it, of course, but he was probably just being polite. In any case, Hadrian walked over to the table where he had performed his last enchantment for the Order. He had painted over the sigil, so he would be starting over again, but he didn't mind. The more he practiced, the better he would get. When the squire had unlocked the supply cabinet for him, he thanked the lad quietly and set about checking his inventory. Humming to himself, he took out the bucket of paint, unsealed it and took a brush. The design of his sigil was more elegant this time, circles within circles, and one could see that he had been studying summoning theory if one were an expert in such matters. Glyphs traveled in arcs and lines, preparing each circle for its later use. Glyphs for shielding, glyphs for direction and sensing, and glyphs that made sense only to Hadrian, who would be casting the enchantment in any case, so they only had to make sense to him. The sigil was drawn from memory. He had sheafs of notes from his previous work, as well as page after page of new ideas that he had pored over for the past few days in preparation. It was always good to start such a thing on the first day of a season. A beginning marked another beginning. When the painted sigil was drying, he took a hunk of fluorite crystals out of the cabinet and placed it in one of the circles. Then he began to concentrate, Fluxing djed down his arms to pour out of the pores of his palms, gathering in his hands. This wasn't the usual res, but the stuff of which Shields were made, and when he had a goodly supply (as well as a faint sheen of sweat upon his brow), he poured it over the fluorite. The liquid energy flowed over the crystal cluster and onto the table and one might have expected Hadrian to exclaim with dismay as it approached his carefully painted borders, but the lines of paint merely burned with borrowed energy, sucking up the stuff he fed it, highlighting a specific section of glyphs. A bubble of shield-like energy arose over that little circle within the circle, and he coaxed it with his hands until it arose over the entire table. It sparkled with a crystalline clarity to his Auristic vision, though it would not show to unknowing eyes. The gods only knew what the young squire thought he was doing with the air above the table. But the shield-stuff, gossamer thin, was a semi-permeable thing, more a membrane than a true shield, and only the careful glyphing kept it active once he released it from his will. This would shunt out damaging influences in the local djed without cutting his enchantment off entirely from the natural flows. At least, that was the theory. The fluorite was dry, all that energy soaked into the glyphs. It keyed the nature of the shield, purifying the energy that flowed in and out. From the cabinet he took the first round of stones. The second would begin the next day, hopefully giving Hadrian enough time to rest between each enchantment's harder phases. The master gem went in one circle, the five slave gems into another. This was a streamlining improvement upon his previous effort: no need for five separate circles; they would merely share equally of the effects of his glyphs. Observing his work, he nodded and put everything away. "You may lock up," he said to the squire. "Thank you." As he walked out, intent upon lunch, he could hear the lock turning in the supply cabinet.

[Hadrian]

2nd Spring, 511 A.V. Hadrian was still spry and energetic, which would pass, he knew. The amount of personal energies he poured into his magecrafting projects were higher than most magecrafters he knew, but everyone of any skill developed a style and his was a makeshift come-as-you-are, pouring every new bit of knowledge and skill into his work. As the squire unlocked his supply cabinet, he stopped to peer at his work with his eyes enhanced by his Auristic vision. What the naked eye could see counted for all but naught. Now he could actually see the flows of energy as they were directed by his sigil and somewhat bounded by his shield. His hand reached right through the shield and he Fluxed djed down his arm until he could pour it through his skin into a certain receptive cluster of glyphs, willing the structure of that djed to align with the Shield. As the energy poured into the sub-sigil, the Shield was strengthened, not that it spent a great deal of energy, supported as it was by his glyphs. That done, he retrieved a lead-headed hammer that might have been used to play a dulcimer, and delicately struck each of the six gems in the two major circles. The tinkling sound send ripples through the energy on the table, but it didn't pass outside of the Shield. New lines of power began to weave themselves along the lines of paint he had provided the day before. Taking the paint again, he replicated the greater sigil of the one table onto the blank other. This table was slightly smaller -- this was an open workroom, after all, not Devan's impressive-sounding laboratory. But while he had made some on the fly adjustments to the glyphs on the first table, this second one was made with all due deliberation, each line a bit more delicate and elegant for the practice, and so he was able to fit everything into the smaller space. There were only a few times where he had to pause to do the math in his head, imagining how certain ratios would effect the geometry of his work. He set a second hunk of fluorite crystals into the Shield focus and began baptizing it with undifferentiated Shield djed, which again flowed over it and into the bounds of the focus sigil, forming a bubble-like Shield over the fluorite that Hadrian again stretched and pulled until it guarded the entire table's contents. The second round of stones to be enchanted were next, the master stone in its focus sigil, the slave stones in theirs. He glanced then from one table to the next, both on the visible and the Auristic spectrum, trying to be sure that everything was aligned properly, wanting his product to be similar so the squadron commanders could compare notes favorably. That done, he knelt down to observe, and as he brought his breath into conscious control, he imagined each inhale bringing natural energies back into his aura, each exhale ridding him of whatever pollution might reside within. As everything expanded with a soft focus as he fell into a recuperative half-trance, he became aware of the minutiae of what he was doing.

[Hadrian]

30th Spring, 511 A.V. His Spring endeavor had been a different sort of a trial. The first, last autumn, had been a prototype, truth to tell, and he had been relieved when the gems worked properly in testing. There had been no way to be absolutely certain they would work despite his calculations and careful execution, not until the blooded Knights themselves held the finished products. Now he knew that he could duplicate the process, but it had become an opportunity rare in his work: the ability to innovate upon a theme previously explored. This iteration of his blood-compasses was created without undue cruelty to animals, which made him feel better, and he hoped that the willing sacrifice of sentient blood, that of Vizyous, his Symenestra friend, would increase the power and efficacy of his work. If the Knights wanted yet another iteration, he was certain that he could make a more advanced prototype, this one granting a higher degree of intelligence from his creations, which would make them of more use to the Knights. As he waited for the candle marking the time the gems had rested in the charged water to set the enchantment, he ticked off the list of changes in his mind: Symenestra blood, streamlined sigils, a different technique for philtering water. And now, the moment of truth... The candle fizzled out, its alloted time spent, and the painted glyphs on both tables suddenly curled up as if in a fire and then exploded in an insane display of paint dust. Hadrian covered his mouth with a handkerchief so as not to inhale too much as it settled to the floor. When it was safe to breathe, he reached out his hand over the bowl containing the special water and his prizes, pouring res out to swirl over the it. The water reacted, skirling and whorling up out of the bowl to spin like the clouds of an imminent tornado, leaving the gems dry at the bottom of the bowl. Hadrian fished them out, wrapping each in a soft silk handkerchief, and tucking them away to present to the Knights. "Now to clean up," he said, and sighed, because this was not the fun part.

[Secret]

THREAD AWARDS Hadrian   Skills Skill Gain Notes Magecrafting 3 Flux 1 Glyphing 1 Shielding 1 Painting 1 Mathematics 1 Organization 1   Lores A New Season Brings New Development Magecrafting: Duplication Magecrafting: Minor Improvements   Notes Nothing says fun on a bun like theoretical magic. Well done.