[Inner Sanctum] The Next Generation; New Blood [Vizyous]

[Hadrian]

18th Spring, 511 A.V. "He's with me," Hadrian told the squire on guard at the door to the Inner Sanctum. Any magus was allowed to use the place, but the squire kept the Order's order, and Hadrian was glad that there was always someone on duty to be sure nobody was tampering with his work. He led Vizyous inside, and there did seem to be projects going on in various corners, though Hadrian's work took up two tables on the far side of the room, a large supply cabinet locked between them. The squire followed them over so he could unlock the cabinet for Hadrian and then returned to standing by the door. The two tables would look identical to most people. Even most wizards would not be able to tell the two apart, though to Hadrian's Auristic eye, one of the tables' enchantments was slightly more advanced than the other. He had attempted to save himself from doing too much hard work in one day by staggering his enchantments, allowing him to run two concurrently without overgiving. Each table was covered by a thin, invisible shield that didn't stop the flow of djed in or out entirely, but mitigated any great effects, and kept things relatively calm. "Feel free to ask questions," he urged his blood-bonded companion. "I know its not your area of expertise, but..." He shrugged and smiled, happy with the way things were going for once.

[Vizyous Aconitum]

As Hadrian led Vizyous into what appeared to be an empty room used by magecrafters, he began to understand even further that this certainly wasn't his area of expertise. The various projects being watched and tinkered with both intrigued and baffled him, the Symenestra not able to understand what they were doing at all. He continued following his companion, for some reason not so surprised that the human's work took up an extra table compared to the others. Considering that the guard had opened up the supply cabinet in between without being asked, he figured that Hadrian must have been a frequent and well known user of the workshop. An amused smile settled on his lips, and although he was completely unaware of what anything on the table was, he tried not to let that overwhelm him. "I'd take you up on that offer," he replied with a hint of confusion and jest, eyes roaming over the identical tables, "however I feel like any answer you give me will just lead to more questions." Vizyous shrugged but his smile remained, "How about we start with the basics of what's happening here?"

[Hadrian]

"Well, feel free to ask questions," he said, glancing at the door. Luckily the squire on duty was outside the door now, perhaps one of the ones who had heard of Hadrian's mistreatment of animals to further the purposes of their Order, but that was just a rumor, right? Nobody else was there and he felt that of anyone in the world, Vizyous was the least likely to spill his secrets. They had, after all, shared blood and come through Ionu's crucible together. Not unscathed, but alive. "Well, anyway, both tables are basically the same so if you look here, the rim of the table is lined with glyphs that are shielding the enchanting process from the outer world, keeping what's in in and keeping what's out out." That said, he held his hands over a particular glyph, the focus of the larger sigil, and closed his eyes for a moment or two before djed began to pour from his hands, that particular pattern of djed that one could form into Shields. This one needed a bit more energy for whatever reason. "This," he said, pointing to a gem in its own circle, "is the master gem. These," he pointed to five smaller gems in another circle, "are the slave gems. The terms are misleading, I suppose, because the one grants no power over the others. It's merely the one that receives the most information from those holding the slave gems. I've already primed the master gem with the blood of the one who will wield it." He tapped a hastily scrapped together bit of gadgeteering that was mostly just a housing for a disc of mesh. "I cover this disc with undifferentiated res, and then let the blood drip through it. The res and the sigil help to phase the blood slightly out of sync with reality so that when it hits the gem, it's absorbed rather than repelled. "Anyway," he said, not sure Vizyous wanted an accounting for each glyph that made up the super-sigil. "Today we have to do a tandem phase thingie... I'm going to burn Windoak leaves to key the enchantment to the Order, and I'm going to use your blood," he pulled a familiar vial out of his coat, "to power the enchantment. Since it's the blood of a sentient creature freely given, it's especially powerful." He smiled, grateful to Vizyous for his donation and glad that Vizyous would get to see it put into action. "Ah, any other questions so far?"

[Vizyous Aconitum]

Vizyous' smile only grew more amused as Hadrian began explaining, finding his words both helpful and confusing. He appreciated that the magecrafter was taking the time to let him understand more fully what was going on, and decided against asking anymore questions for the moment. "Lets get this.. uhm, tandem phase thingie started, then!" The vial of blood contraption was easy enough for the Symenestra, but considering he had no grasp on the mechanics of Djed, the gems and glyphs didn't make too much sense as far as how they worked. He trusted Hadrian's word though, especially considering the morphing magic the human had showed him, and quietly waited for him to continue. The significance of the word 'sentient' didn't pass over Vizyous' mind without notice, though, the Symenestra well aware of how haunted the human was by his crime against felines. The House of Mirrors had proven just how much, but not wanting to bring back bad memories, he didn't say much about it, simply smiling in excitement at the prospect of his freely given blood being extra powerful.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian smiled back, comfortable with Vizyous as he was with few others despite his alien mien. Appearances mattered little after surviving Alvadas, and since Vizyous had seen some of the ugly things that hid inside him and still deemed him suitable enough a companion to follow him to Syliras, well, there was something comforting in that. He began puttering around with his gadgets, fixing the odd bit that had fallen off or gone wonky in his absence. His work was inexpert at best, so everything was jerry-rigged until it worked, and was therefore the least elegant of his work. But that hardly mattered. It was the end result that mattered most. "Let me just..." but his attention returned to the gadget-y things before he could finish communicating his thought. All the mesh discs were in fairly good shape, but the makeshift stands he had put together were sagging, and certain things he just propped up because actually fixing them were beyond his ken. "All right, so..." but then he was readjusting one of the stands until it was just so, rising above the glyphed madness of the table. Then he placed the vial of blood in Vizyous' hand. "This will be your job, since it's your blood." He grinned, blue eyes flashing with excitement, though his blood-bonded friend would be able to see the brief flicker of old guilt in his eyes, quick but not entirely worked through. "When I light the lucifer and light the leaves under the res-filter, you pour half the blood onto this focus glyph... Then as the Windoak's power gets absorbed by the gems, your blood will kick up the energy to make the enchantment more powerful. Then we'll do the same with the second table. I started it a day later, but it seems to have caught up from time to time. There are some variables I'm not taking into account, but I won't bore you with the mathematics of it..." He pointed his finger at one of the res-filters, careful to put his hand across the barrier of the Shield, and a thin, short snake of silvery res slowly poured out, undulating over to settle among the mesh, clinging there in wait. Moving over to the other table and piercing its Shield, he did the same thing. He had found that undifferentiated res coupled with some heavy duty glyphing allowed him to phase certain things, such as smoke and blood, into solid objects for magical purposes. "The smoke will pass through the res-filter and its essence will then enter the gems. You will see. Are you ready?"

[Vizyous Aconitum]

Vizyous stood and watched as Hadrian began fixing things on the table, the strange man beginning to speak every now and then but his attention always going back to his work. It wasn't until the familiar vial was placed in Vizyous' hand that his intense eyes were on the Symenestra. "Me?" Was his surprised response before Hadrian began telling him instructions that seemed complicated, the variables that the magecrafter did mention distracting Vizyous and making his eyes glaze over. It didn't bore him, no, but the amount of information that the human had put into those few sentences was a bit much. "So, to make this clear," He started, not wanting to give Hadrian the impression that he wasn't interested, "When you light the lucifer and the leaves, I pour half of this onto that glyph." He gestured to the strange, intricate drawing, "The gems will absorb the... power, and my blood will add strength to it... right?" He gave an embarrassed smile, "Sorry I'm a bit slow on this, but I don't want to mess up your work. If that's correct, then I'm ready!" Unlike Hadrian's show of excitement, Vizyous' only portrayed how much he was looking forward to this and no guilt. It had been a decent wait before Hadrian had been ready to finally use the vial in his work, and he was eager to see what would happen.

[Hadrian]

"Yes, you. And yes, that's what the plan is. But no, it's all right. There are so many variables involved, I've tried to whittle it down to the essential things, but without all the context I'm sure it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But that is the simplistic version. Your blood, freely sacrificed, adds power to the enchantment. It should boost the strength of the signal exchanged between these stones. All right, then..." He took the lucifer stick, struck the sulphur end of it until it snapped into a flame, the which he held against the edge of the dried Windoak leaves. He nodded to Vizyous as the edges of the remains of the holy tree curled up, smoke rising in an elegant curl until it was caught suddenly by the boundaries of his glyphs. The smoke then coiled into the res-filter, changing the color of the res lingering there at Hadrian's behest, and the smoke that came through was changed, a different color, but also slightly out of phase with reality. It curled and snaked toward the gems as his glyphs directed and crashed into them, impregnating the stones with the essence of the Windoak, binding them to the Order of Syliran knights.

[Secret]

THREAD AWARDS Hadrian   Skills Skill Gain Notes Teaching 1 Gadgeteering 1 Magecrafting 1 Congratulations on Expert in this Skill   Lores Not Overwhelming a Student with Data The Ends Justify the Wonky Means   Notes Nice simple thread, would have liked to have seen more. Vizyous   Skills Skill Gain Notes Observation 1 Magecrafting 1   Lores Magecrafting: Blood Equals Power Hadrian is not Your Average Mage   Notes Nice simple thread, would have liked to have seen more.