[Institute of Higher Learning]Magical Theories, and Thoughts

[Clyde Sullins]

20 Fall 511 Once more, Clyde was in a hurry, travelling through Ravok. He had another class today, and professor Lazarin was not the most understanding. He was almost to the institute, and quickly flashed his badge as he entered, just in time to not be run through by one of the guards... He really should be more careful about that, they were very specific about letting people in only if they had a badge... And the Ebonstryfe did not play around... Looking around, he recalled were his class was meeting, and raced over, losing a sheet of parchment on the way. Finally he got to were he was headed, and crashed into the room panting heavily. Two kids looked up, tensing, thinking it was the teacher. Clyde quickly went and found a seat, getting his parchments ready, along with preparing his ink and quill to be used. He glanced over, and noticed one of his class members was not here... He had been with him since his first class here... However He had made several mistakes the last time they met, and gotten on Professor Lazarin's nerves... Chances were he would not be coming back... And if he was lucky he had been sold as a slave for the ebonstryfe... If he was really lucky... If not... Well they might find his corpse floating in a canal in a few days... Clyde sorted out his things once more, sitting up straighter in his chair, making sure everything was perfect before his scary magecrafting teacher arrived. The door slammed open once more, as professor Lazarin arrived, with a sweep of his robes. He seemed to be in a particularly bad mood today, and noticing that one of the other students a bit younger than Clyde had a quill at a slight slant, and not perfectly settled. In a rage he swept one arm across the table sending it all against one wall, and yelling at him. "In my class I expect perfection, just like in my creations. Do you think anyone would pay for a magical item, if it did not work! Such lazy behavior will lead to mess ups in a items creation, making it all useless! now pick it up, and do it perfectly!"

[Clyde Sullins]

The frightened student quickly got down on his hands and knees, and started grabbing up his things as instructed. Professor Lazarin turned and walked away, as if he could care less about the boys troubles. Clyde could tell the boy was almost in tears, and was quite frightened. However he seemed to be fighting back a sob, and kept his face low so his teacher could not see. There was no telling what the professor might do if he saw the boys face then. Glaring once more at Clyde and the remaining student, he walked closer, obviously thinking up a question for them. "Today we will be going over practical applications for magecrafting. There is an endless way of approaches to any problem, and a magecrafter must think of the simplest and most efficient way to do whatever they are tasked with. Now my first situation is this: The Ebonstryfe needs a higher yield in fishing. They have asked for us to magecraft something, which will allow them to do so. So what is your solution?" Professor Lazarin turned away, and paced for a few seconds. Then judging they had had enough time, he turned to the other student near Clyde, ignoring the one finishing grabbing things off the floor. "So what is your solution?" The student cowered in his seat, and then recalled he needed to sit up straight and perfect. His voice quavering at first, he told the teacher his plan, speaking a little to fast. "Well I... I would imbue it with magic, to enable it to use shielding... Make a filter, so only fish could go through, but not come back out, trapping them inside.... That would mean... They would just be swimming, and be caught... " The teacher stared at him for a bit, before turning to Clyde. "And you, what is your solution?" Clyde thought for a few more seconds, and then decided to speak his idea. What the other boy had said gave him an idea, to make it much better.

[Clyde Sullins]

"I would not use enable it to shield. I would use a behavioral enhancement... I would create and then enhance the behavior for fish to be attracted to the item.... This would pull in fish easily, making them come by will, instead of randomly swimming in... Then you could simply have a shielder create a one way shield over it, so that fish could enter, but not leave out of the sides or bottom, letting fishermen scoop them out of the top when trapped... It would require a shielder to maintain the shield every so often, but would allow it to do much more..." Professor Lazarin rounded on the first student to answer, almost yelling at him, "Why did you not think of that? Of course any shielder could easily cast a shield to do as you said, so why would you need to waste magecrafting on it to do so? But in his project, the fish would be compelled to come to the item, by magic. His is the obvious way to go." As usual , Lazarin never said he had done well. He simply said that Clyde's way was obvious, and asked why the other student was not smart enough to say so. Though he was quick to put someone down for a failure, he never congratulated... Just expected perfection.... Though in reality, without the other student going first, Clyde would likely not have thought of the better way of doing it. Walking back across the class, professor Lazarin gave a quick glance at the student who was almost done resetting up his papers and quills. Walking by, he once more swept his arm across the table, sending it all flying, muttering something about it still not being perfect... This time there was a loud tinkling, as the students ink vial broke, sending shards of glass over the ground, along wit drops of ink flying through the air. Lazarin spun around in a rage, as a single drop of ink had spattered on his robes. He screamed at the boy to "get out", even though it was really his own fault for the ink being spilt on him. When the boy did not move fast enough, he grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, marched him to the door, and opening it, bodily shoved him out into the hallway. Turning he slammed the door shut, and looked at his two remaining students, as if he had never been interrupted by his tirade.

[Clyde Sullins]

Lazarin paced in front of the two remaining students, and Clyde recalled once more what he had realized long ago, why there were so few students that lasted in the magecrafting school... If he was not so determined, he would have long since quite, and as he recalled the excitement of creating a item through magecrafting... The process all culminating to make the item better and more powerful... And then the let down as he was done, and could not wait to start the next... He new why he was still there... But he did wonder... Was he perhaps addicted to the excitement and and joy he could only get through such an amazing branch of magic as magecrafting? Was it even possible to become addicted to magecrafting, a worldmagic? He was not certain... But maybe it was all in his head.... "Next I would like to go more in depth into understanding the underlying nature of a magecrafting enhancement. More than what it appears to basically do, but how it actually does it. If you understand by what process the enhancement is done, then you can better understand what you are creating, and foresee possible problems in the final product." "For example structural enhancement... It enhances one of the mundane physical abilities of the item, to something much better than what a normal object of its sort can do. But this can lead to issues... If you are increasing a blades sharpness, be sure to only do so to the blade, not the handle." "Long ago one of my students was not careful to only enhance the sharpness of the blade, and used the enhancement on the entire weapon... Only to have the blunt handle cut into his palm every time it was held... Who would want to buy such a malformed creation? Precision is needed, and careful planning if you want to achieve ones goal..."

[Clyde Sullins]

For quite some time, Lazarin went on in such a fashion, speaking of different examples of past failures. Finally he seemed to realize there were students in front of him, and he moved to question them. Clyde let out a sigh, he had almost been hoping he would make it through the rest of the class, without being addressed or harassed by his professor... No such luck apparently... "Now, another common enhancement is that of durability. Can either of you tell me why you must be careful when enhancing this attribute, the longer the blade or weapon? No? No one? Incompetents, how can neither of you know? Well I will tell you..." "What happens when you increase an items durability? It makes it give less, more solid and stronger. But it also becomes more rigid and unyielding. It tries through magic to keep its form, to stop from being damaged. But a normal blade, when it strikes, the longer ones often bend, but do not break. With short things, like a dagger it is not an issue. But with full length swords, if they cannot bend, you run the risk of shattering the blade into a million pieces." "This is why the longer the blade, the higher level of durability enhancement is needed, so as to not risk letting this destroy the blade when it hits something to hard. A dagger could be fine with one level... But a full length sword? It easily needs 2 to 3 levels of enhancement... And if you do not do enough... You never know when the blade will simply snap in half, ruining it..." Clyde listened to this, furiously trying to scribble down as much of the information as he could. He had long since made a deal with the other students to compare notes when finished with a class, in case the teacher kicked them out, or was harassing them and they missed an opportunity to write something down. Such things happened so often, they were prepared for it, and so none of them would miss anything important. And this last bit had been very interesting... Obviously Lazarin had either seen it happen previously, or had gone through extensive talks with a weapon smith to better understand what he was using. Either way, such insights were invaluable to a burgeoning magecrafter such as the ones here.

[Clyde Sullins]

After going on a bit longer, apparently Lazarin was done. He finished off his current sentence, and turned on the spot. He quickly walked out, as if they had previously planned for the class to end at that exact moment. Clyde slowly got up, and walked over to the bits of paper and quills. He took what was salvageable, and put them away in his pack, and then left along with his classmate that was still remaining. The two of them would try and find the third member of the class, and go over what had been spoken of today. Then the three of them would combine and copy there notes, and go there separate ways, till they met again for there next class. Maybe in the next one, all of the students would still be left at the end. Maybe... -exit-

[Cantrip]

Did you want something? Clyde Sullins: XP Award: None Lores: Professor Lazarin; Theory of Arcane Fish Traps; The Importance of Durability in Magecrafting Additional Notes: ONly lores, I’m afraid, for enduring the lecture. Clyde should really try out his concept, see if he can cure world hunger.