Eridanus first considered the various parts of a human. The corpse had been rotting long enough due to the fact that it had been inhabited by a nuit, and the nuit having gone through overgiving and battle made the condition of the body quite bad. Fortunately, it did not matter for the ethaefal was more interested in the bones, which remained in a generally good state. There were four things he had to craft and enchant. The sword, the darts, the gauntlet studs and the spear. First, it was probably a good idea to begin with the darts, since those did not require any additional materials.
Turning his gaze to the torso of the corpse, the craftsman removed the cracked tunic from the man, then dug his hands into the decomposing flesh, revealing the ribcage. Counting ten ribs on each side, he decided that he would create twenty of such darts made from the pointed ends of the ribcage. That should be sufficient for Medal to deal some damage from afar even taking into account accuracy penalties.
First, he took his assassin's dagger, and began to chop off the ribs at the end. Channeling flux into his wrist, he flicked the dagger, chopping down like a butcher and severing a sharp piece of rib bone with each strike. Cutting down many more times, he stopped only when he had the pointy ends of twenty pieces of bones. He knew that he did not have to design them to be aerodynamic, since Medal was not technically going to throw them. Instead, it was meant for him to use projection to shove these bone shrapnel into Horac Ageless, in the event that his astral arms were too weak to penetrate the wizard's arcane protection.
Taking his time to shape each rib bone, the craftsman narrowed each piece down to a constant size such that they would have a short length but piercing sharp end. It took him some time to do it, especially with his shivering, gloved hands. He honestly preferred to work without the gloves, but it was likely that his hands would turn blue and freeze in this cold. The fire was doing what it could to not let him die to exposure, and the shelter of the run-down house was the little that stood between them and the harsh environment.
Taking into account the trembling of the hands and the multitude of bones to narrow down and sharpen, it took at least a bell before he was done with the twentieth piece. The next step would be to ensure that these shrapnel bullets would be able to deal paranormal damage to their ageless target. By now, he was sufficiently confident enough in Malediction and Carving to not use the quill and ink combo first. Okay, actually he was just lazy. Besides, there was twenty pieces, it did not really matter if he screwed up. If he had been working on the longsword he would have used the ink first since he could not afford to screw
that up.
Imagining the surface of the bone bullets as a blank canvass, the ethaefal began to carve. Then he stopped.
It's too small, and my dagger's edge is too large.Well, it seemed that he had to use his quill and ink instead. The bullets were too small, and he could not carve anything other than basic shapes due to the unwieldy size of his dagger.
It should be fine anyway, it's not like these bullets were meant to last.Fortunately it was meant as a consumable, so longevity of the malediction circles were not an issue. Taking out his writing set, he placed the vial of ink closer to the fire so that it would not simply just freeze up into solid in the cold.
Next, he dipped the quill and drew two circles on the surface of one of the bullets. In the first, using the written form of the ancient language that were glyphs, he carefully printed the word that represented life - "DJED". It represented life, backbone, magic, essence, and the beginning of creation. It was, in essence, the core concept that represented a being's living identity and self. In the second circle, he printed the glyph that spoke of the morbid term - "ROZA". That which represented death, termination and an end to things. Next, he drew the end of an arrow, pointing from the "ROZA" circle towards the "DJED" circle. The end of the arrow was large such that it threatened to consume the "DJED" circle should it continue. The symbolism was clear here. The "DJED" circle summoned the life essence of what remained in the body, and with its link to magic it brought forth the remnant of the nuit's remnant djed. The arrow that consumed this circle that originated from the "ROZA" circle spoke of death and destruction, and it signaled an end to this life.
And here lie my anti-Horac bone shards.Grinning to himself in satisfaction at this simple but pragmatic design, the ethaefal proceeded to do the same for the rest of the nineteen bullets, drawing the two circles and printing the glyphs accordingly. It was a repetitive task, and it took him the better part of another bell to do so. When it was finally done, he looked around to see Middleman rose from his meditation and was observing him with interest.
"Your talent in this art have grown tremendously since the last time I taught you, Redeemer," Middleman remarked in a content tone.
"It's necessary," Eridanus shrugged. "Was that why you taught it to me?"
"I have hoped that you might be able to contribute since you were hopeless in contributing to hunting or cooking. Yet, I did not expect such skyrocketing growth. It is a truly joyful affair. Now I must refrain from talking; my jaw feels like it may drop out any time."
"Uh... yeah. Just hold on to your jaw. Medal should be returning soon," Eridanus replied gingerly, returning his attention to the splayed open corpse, considering which other part he should use next. Now that he thought about it, the bullets could be inserted into the chain links of Coinsmith's gauntlets. It would probably require three in each gauntlet for a total of six.
Luckily I made twenty, even without the six Medal will still have fourteen bullets to play with.It was time to work with the spear. He would have to design a spear head. He intended to use the tree bark resin that he requested Voodoo to procure to stick the spear head onto the wooden stem, but he could not simply stick it like that. He would need to design some sort of insertion to keep it in place, and possibly use the rope for added security as well.
The calf bone seemed like a reasonable good place to start due to its size and density. That would have to do. Channeling flux to his sore arms from bells of carving, he drew his longsword instead so that he would not dull the dagger's edge unnecessarily. Slamming down the weapon twice, he separated the desired part of the calf bone from the shell of a corpse. Recalling the design of the spearhead of Yeller's spear, the ethaefal began to chisel and scrape away at the bone with his dagger.
In an effort to make the repetitive task go faster, he redirected flux energies throughout the length of his arm, from wrist to fingers to forearm. The quick jumping djed threads relieved the deadened exhaustion in his hands somewhat, and introduced internal heat when doing so, helping to reduce the shivering and numbness of his fingers. That helped tremendously in increasing his productivity.
After half a bell, he whittled the calf bone into a smaller, triangular shaped piece that resembled the spear head. First, he sharpened the edge of the spear in order to make it deadly, then he turned his attention to the base of the spearhead. He planned to make it a sort of cross that could be inserted into the folds of the wooden stem. In order to do so, he marked out a cross at the base, then began to flick and shave away at the parts of the bone not within the cross. The result was a base that had a cross-shape protruded out, facing downwards.
Next, he focused his attentions to the smooth base of the spear. This time the spear was not a consumable and so he had to make sure that the circles do not fade... or they would all be screwed. Using the knife, he carved several circles throughout the smooth surface of the base, excluding the protruded cross since he had a different plan for that. Within each of these circles, he printed the single glyph "ROZA" in every of them. Repeated mentions of these damning words would enhance the effect that he wanted to bring, which was important for a weapon meant to be used repetitively.
On the raised cross, he carved a single circle at the center. Within that, he wrote the word "DJED". Its function was identical to that of the one used for the bone shards, so there was no need to further elaborate on its effect. The difference lay in what he drew
outside the circle. Designing it such that it would look like a target cross-hair, the markings were meant to show the djed and life of their target as the main, central target. Adding several path sigils throughout the empty surface of the cross that connected the "ROZA" circles to the single "DJED" circle, he directed the energies of the "ROZA" circles towards this central "DJED" circle. With the addition of the glyphs the meaning was clear. Besides acting as an anti-Horac weapon, it was meant to increase the precision of the weapon towards the mage, possibly giving it a sort of magical attraction to striking the nuit's body and making it harder for him to dodge.
Yeller would most definitely appreciate that.
