[Tarsin's Boarding House] Phase Two [Clyde]

[Hadrian]

"Well, I can show you how I do it," he said, agreeably enough. Of course, glyphs were different from magus to magus, but he quickly drew out a rather complex circle of glyphs on a fresh sheet of parchment, explaining what each glyph meant to him and how he was connecting them as he went along. Some were still similar to the script used to parse Nader-canoch, but a glypher who was widely studied would see where he had borrowed from several runic and even hieroglyphic systems to form his own personal visual language for magical engineering. Where Clyde might follow some of it intuitively, other parts were as alien to him as Hadrian's own mind. But there was enough commonality between the way they thought and the way that they had been taught, that Hadrian was relatively confident that Clyde would get the idea, even if it took him a long while to make it work himself. All one needed was the seed and the determination to make it grow. Also, Hadrian was getting a lot more practice at teaching others these days. When the impromptu lesson was through, they continued with the augmentation of the blade's structure, going through similar motions with hammer and flute, and the recalibration of their glyphs to accommodate those little flaws that they agreed could become greater problems if not dealt with immediately. Finally, weary, Hadrian smiled. "I think our work is done here for today. Tomorrow we should be able to work on the speed enhancement, and then it should just take a few days of monitoring the enchantment process before we set it. And then... we have to play merchant again." He rolled his eyes at the last, but shrugged. It would have to be part of their repertory of skills, the sales, until they were rich enough to have someone else do it for them.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde watched intently as Hadrian drew out his glyphs and such, and displayed the way he made his res-filter. Clyde did not have to much trouble with figuring it out, as he had learned long ago the trick to reading another glyphers glyphs. Instead of focusing on the individual glyphs and what they meant, it was best to look at the piece as a whole. Then patterns could be seen, and the purpose behind what they were doing was obvious, simply by watching the flow of sigils and how the magic would react to it as it traveled through and along it. Though he had no clue what the sigils themselves meant individually. Best to not focus on what you could not understand. Though some of it did seem a bit similar, as a bit like the way he did things. He himself used a combination of ancient tongue, along with bits of things from other places. And Hadrians style seemed vaguely similar in a few small ways. Though for the major part of it, his sigils appeared totally different from his own. Luckily Hadrian was there to help him along, as he explained what each part did as he drew them out. Which helped quite a bit, and sped up a process that might have taken hours to puzzle out. With that done, they both set back to work on the magecrafting, working a bit more on the enhancement. Clyde moved a bit of djed to his eyes, activating his very basic auristics abilities. He could see the aura surrounding the object, though he could not really tell much more. Though he could tell that the color of it had changed a bit from what it had been yesterday, though it was barely even enough to be thought of as different. He watched as he struck the hammer on the object, and was a bit startled by the way it reacted. Visibly there was nothing going on, but he could see through the aura an echo of djed entering and vibrating throughout the blade. As the vibrations slowed, the djed entered the framework of the item, deepening its aura by a hair, and sinking into its very essence. He looked over at Hadrian, and wondered what he could see, if Clyde could picture this with his base abilities in the magical skill.... "Amazing.... magic never ceases to amaze me..." Muttering this under his breath, more for himself than anyone else. Suddenly though, he felt very tired. At his level, it was best to be careful with reading an aura, even if only going to the very surface of it. And this experience had drained him. Feeling a bit week at the knees, he nodded, and did not even have the energy to reply as he walked out of the room. Going downstairs, he found his room, and threw himself down on his bed, sleeping soundly through the night without stirring.

[Hadrian]

66th Summer, 511 A.V. When Clyde had left him the day previous, he had looked haggard and so Hadrian wasn't surprised to be the first one to work that morning. Everything proceeded apace, so he simply refilled the focus glyph with raw Shield energy, producing it as quickly and steadily as he could, though he could still not manage a perfectly steady flow the way he could with res, but he knew he would get it in time, much as he had with reimancy. He was just slower to master the personal disciplines than others, but give him this -- world magic at its finest, if not most complex -- and he shone like a sunburst. Then he drew out the planned changes and additions to the magecrafting sigils in simple parchment and ink, wanting to get Clyde's opinion before they proceeded and keeping this a joint effort. Though his script was precise and his sketches careful, he still managed to blacken his fingers with ink, smudging his cheek with an errant brush of hair behind his ear.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde woke that morning feeling much better than he had when he had gone to sleep. Getting up, he had a small bite to eat, washed his face, and was ready to go. Soon he was up the stairs, and in the room to work some more on their project... He smiled inwardly, as he thought over all they were doing. It was not often one had a chance to do what they were doing, and here they were creating and selling things on their own... Hopefully all would turn out well, and they would be the richer for it.... He walked into the room, and took a quick look at the item, and then flickered for a moment to look at its aura. He did not want to do it to long and tire himself out. From his quick look, he thought it was different than last night, had developed a bit, but it was hard to tell even, especially with a cursory glance... Clyde walked over to Hadrian, and the two of them had a bit of banter talking of glyphs and sigils. "But won't that there counteract that?... Ah I see this here makes them combine better, making it even stronger... What of this?... Perhaps we could strengthen this weak point by adding this?... That bit there is genius, good job thinking of it, it really ties this whole side together..." After the two of them had talked for a while, exchanging ideas and thoughts to better the product, and talking it all out, they finally settled on what it would look like. Clyde Settled down with his chalk to work on it, adding the bits and altering what was needed for what was planned today, leaving Hadrian free to prepare the next bit of magecrafting enhancement. Once done with his work, he would join him to assist what he was doing, a smile coming over Clyde's face as he got excited by the prospect...

[Hadrian]

"What do you think of this?" Hadrian asked, not peremptorily, but knowing his idea might require a bit more work. He sketched out a series of glyphs upon the parchment, then scrawled some rudimentary sketches to outline the idea. "If we use your aeromancy... like this... it wouldn't necessarily impart any aeromantic abilities, not like our pyromantic dagger, but it would offer an alternative means to the same effect, speeding the blade through the air... Or maybe this glyph would be better here. The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is to Flux the blade for speed, but I'm not sure how effective that would be unless we gave the blade a power reservoir, which would run out much more quickly unless we made this much more complicated. But if we take the aeromantic route, make the edge almost air repellant, then it would slit through the air with less friction, thus moving faster..." He did some quick mathematical calculations. "This much faster."

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde listened as Hadrian gave his propositions, and he did his best to work them out, and to think on them... He had offered two very different routes to attain the same goal..... And yet.... The process by which they worked were both magical in nature... The one with the flux... Well he did not know that to well... That magic was foreign to him... And the prospect of it being another magical spell ingrained in the item.... That did not seem as good as imbuing it with an effect that would be permanent and no upkeep.... "I am not sure about the flux... But I do see how the aeromancy might work.... Though it would not be done in the usual sense... Normally you control air to pull it to a point and then fire it off at a target.... But with this, you are pulling the air on either side of the blade, so as to speed it up... And the blade would travel in that area which has no air.... A void of air...." "You are right that a spell is not the answer... Being called upon and using energy... No it must be done know, so as that it will always cause this effect... Without needing to call upon energy... Not a spell... But an enhancement to the djed structure of the item so as to make this to happen.... So that the effect will be as if such a spell is being used...." "It will have to be 'taught' to do it.... And done so much that its pathways are altered so it does it naturally by existing...." The math was lost on him, Clyde was not that good with numbers, and though he tried to figure it out, it would take far to long to explain it to him.... He thought the process out in his head, and made a few small adjustments to the glyphs... Then thought of what glyphs would be needed to be used on him so as to channel the aeromancy in the unusual way... Finally, Clyde was pretty sure he had it all worked out, and he nodded. "Yes.... I think it can be done.... Though it will take some considerable reimancy and djed for it to be accomplished..."

[Hadrian]

Between the two of them, they tweaked the pre-existing glyphs into something that would support the sort of enchantment they were after, and then Hadrian inscribed more runes up and down Clyde's forearms after rolling up his sleeves, the better to augment his aeromantic casting. While Clyde prepared for that, Hadrian reached a bare hand through the Shields to hover over his little portal to the Void that sucked in any excess djed in order to maintain a steady and stable flow into and out of the sword. It bore a lot of double- and triple-checking as he was new to the manipulation of the Void, especially with regard to magecrafting. But as that was not causing problems, he pulled his hand back and poured Shield energy into the focus glyph upon that outermost ring of glyphs, strengthening the Shields until such time as the enchantment could be set, solidified, crystallized and permanent. "You'll have to put your hands through the Shield," he reminded him, possibly without needing to, but he always figured better safe than sorry with these things. "You'll want to pour equal measures into this, this, and this glyph." This too was possibly redundant, but gylphs changed from person to person and he didn't want any mistakes at all if he could help it, and he would have expected such thoroughness from Clyde too, especially if he studied under Stonemiller or Nightshade.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde stood ready, visualizing what he wanted. He prepared his arms, and worked out the bits on his hands, but left his arms for Hadrian, since it would be easier and faster for him to do it on that part of his body. He went through his head over and over what he needed to do, and started to chant a incantation in the ancient tongue to help center and guide his djeds... "Roza Daeqt...." He said this over and over, concentrating and letting the meaning of the words help guide what his goal was.... Roughly translated, it meant to shape an interruption... Which seemed fitting... Though several of the other translations also seemed to go quite well with what he was doing... In a more morbid sense.... But Clyde did not dwell on those other ways of reading it, and focused on his goal, ever professional... Clyde nodded as Hadrian reminded him to go through the shield before starting.... Best to say things twice, an error would be to costly right now, and so he did not mind if he reminded him seven times.... He watched the different glyphs he pointed out, which he had thought, but once more it was best to be sure... he did not want to be the one to ruin what they were doing... Finally, he was ready, and he pushed his hands through the surface of the shield, and over the glyphs surrounding the weapon.... The res he had been building up suddenly spurted out, and he lost his breath for a moment at the sudden dip in his energy... Then continuing to chant, he moved his hands to the right place, and held them absolutely still as he spoke his incantation.... His res continued to pour out, and swirled around his hands.... Then with a slight deviation in his tone, he split the res into equal piles, with trails of fresh djed coming from his hands and adding to each of them equally... Finally he pushed on the res with his mind, bringing it closer to the glyphs, and shaping them... He took a stream of the res out of each of the gathering of it, and brought it into the glyphs... And just as it reached it, he transmuted it into what he wanted... The magic surged into the glyphs, with energy going through them in an instant, and then running into the blade, deeper and deeper... Then he repeated the process, each time shaping and transmuting the magic to what he wanted, and it going into the structure of the blade through the glyphs, deepening it and shaping its djed structure to what they wanted... Finally.... after the fourth time of doing so, all of the res had been brought into the glyphs and through them into the blade.... Stopping his words, he removed his hands, and took a step back.... Once out, he flickered his auristics for a moment, and smiled when he saw the blade.... It was definitely different to what it had been when they started today... And he could see that the structure deep down was slowly changing in the areas the glyphs had directed the aeromancy... As he ended his magic, he smiled wondering what he would see tomorrow... And he looked down to see his entire body was drenched in sweat from the strain of what he had done.... Exhausted, his vision blacked for a moment, and the world seemed to tilt... And then he fell back passing out... Maybe he had done a bit to much... And the days magic had taken its toll.... He was lucky he was only tired, and had not also overgiven.... This was just normal tiredness from using magic.... He managed to wake up a few minutes later, and would try to stumble down to his room.... Though he might not make it far without help...

[Hadrian]

Hadrian's Auristics had grown to the point where he didn't need to See magic, or Hear its harmonics. Now his Sense was entirely its own, not needing to piggyback upon a more mundane sense for his mind to understand what it noted in the auras, souls, and djed around him. All the same, he watched Clyde carefully throughout his casting, knowing that the glyphs on his arms, drawn in wax pencil, would help focus his work, but would draw a lot out of him. And so Hadrian caught his colleague when he fell. The tall enchanter was not strong, but Clyde was not unduly heavy. He managed to manhandle his inert form into the bed they had pushed into the corner and then caught his breath. Perhaps he should have Fluxed strength into his slender limbs, but it seemed a waste of energy when so much of what they had within them was going into this work. Peeling back an eyelid, he noted the signs he had learned from Caelum: exhaustion, but not likely overgiving. The other mage's aura did not seem damaged, merely depleted. That was fortunate. Clyde seen to for the time being, he went back to finish what they had started. A practiced hand found the right places to chime the hammer against the blade, the enchanting metal ringing with magically amplified bell tones. He quickly picked up his ashwood flute and played a careful series of tones that augmented those of the blade. It was simple work so far as his fingers went, so his lack of skill did not get in the way of their work, but he was glad he could play the pure tones and harmonize the enchantment. Finally he sat back on his heels, sensing how the vibrations nudged the aeromantic working up to a new level. Smiling, he looked back to see Clyde's eyes opening and closing with that confusion of the newly awakened. Hadrian wasn't the most comforting fellow, but he crouched beside the bed. "You will be all right, just tired. I took care of the rest for today, and I'm going to go get you some food, but you're a mess." He laughed a little. "Just sleep here tonight. That way the neighbors won't ask questions."

[Clyde Sullins]

For a moment when he awoke, Clyde started to panic. But he soon got his bearings, and calmed down, slowing his breathing. His entire body seemed to be weak from his magic usage. To be honest he had not expected that magic to take so much out of him. But he seemed to have put more into it than he had realized... He tried to get up for a moment, and rose a fraction of an inch, only to fall back down. He would not be getting up for the rest of the night, and would probably not wake till late in the morning tomorrow. He was just too weak right now... The item they were making seemed to have almost sucked the energy right out of him.... When Hadrian did bring some food, he would weekly chew and swallow it, even that effort being almost to much for him..... Having eaten, he would pass out once more, though this time into a deep sleep, not to rise for quite some time. Luckily they were more or less done for know, and would not have to do anything until tomorrow... His dreams though.... Would be filled with many odd things, as he struggled to make his way through the memories he usually tried to forget... The thoughts he tried to not think of... Clyde usually tried to keep his past were it belonged, but in his weakened state he could not stop them from resurfacing.... Eventually he would fall into a deep slumber, and would remember none of it when he awoke in the morning, still a little weak, but able to walk and do as normal. Though he would be a bit slower than usual as his body tried to make up for the energy it had lost.