Closed [Sullin's Residence]Enchanting Sticks[Amelia Cross]

[Clyde Sullins]

After Amelia asked what Clyde had just been doing, he took a moment to himself, glanced back at the staff, made a waving gesture at it, frowned, and looked back at her... "That... That was Magecrafting... What did you think you just glared at the stuff and paid it mizas to get enchanted? There is actual physical work and procedures involved." Clyde shook his head, and waved the hammer about for a moment, showing it to her. "Alright, clearly I will need to explain the actual procedure to you, before we get onto the types of enhancements." "First, we have the staff. It is the item, the vessel, upon which the enchantment is being enforced upon. It is the point of our work, the Magecrafting. It is being slowly altered and enhanced, to broaden and deepen its djed, and its djed pathways. For djed is in everything. That might not look like anything is going on, but if you could see its aura, you would see much is going on." "That staff in particular is of vian wood, something found on Konti isle which I brought back to Ravok. It is especially good for use in Magic Staffs, as it is naturally attuned to djed or... Resistant to it or... Something... Petch... Anyways, I also had it crafted by a isur type, so it is not even like a normal staff carved mundanely, it has been altered already by being Izentor Crafted. That thing is hardy, not like it was when I brought it in as a blue branch." Clyde paused for a moment, realizing he really needed to get some specifics on some things, such as terms, and reasons... Which until know he had not really considered or thought of. But it was certainly something he needed to recall for the future. Though he had heard of Vian Wood from his teacher at the institute, so he did not doubt him. But... "Anyways, that staff is now on the pedestal, were it will stay till the Magecrafting is done. Otherwise, it might get petched up, or ruin it, meaning the enchantment wont work... At the minimum. There are worse things to arise from a mistake here, than it simply not working. Which is why the entire thing is layered in ring upon ring of Glyphs. They keep out surges of djed, so that it can be infused at a constant and regulated rate, along with keeping out any interference from outside." "You do Magecrafting via various means, but one of the most common ways is that, to strike it with one of these special hammers. This increases its internal djed, adding more on, building it up beyond a normal mundane object should have, giving it new djed pathways and widening the existing ones. A thing that gets progressively harder to do, as the more you have added on, the harder it becomes to add new ones. But in the end, you are infusing it with djed, injecting it into its soul." Clyde paused for a moment again... Sometimes he learned as much by teaching, as he did by doing, and sometimes when he explained something to another person, new aspects of it came up. He had not really thought about souls before until the words came out, but souls were where auras came from... And when you enhanced an item, you were telling it how to change, how it was different, how it interacted with the world. He had known the random facts before, but until know he had not put it all together. "Since a object is stable, you can add onto it via Magecrafting, it won't work on a living thing that is unstable and changing... But that is what you are really doing, you are altering its soul, breaking the rules of the universe that say THIS is how THIS object should act and exist." Clyde grinned. He believe he had just stumbled himself upon a new philosophy of Magecrafting. It all made a clean logical sense, now that he had lined up the facts in the correct manner, connecting the dots between the various bits of info he knew. "When you are done, you cool it down in special water, and cap it off, solidifying the work, and making it final." Clyde gestured at the staff, and motioned for Amelia to proceed. "Alright, so here is your first test. I want you to try once. Take the powder, and rub a fine layer all around a small band at the very center of the staff. Maybe two or three inches wide of a band. Then just as I did, strike the staff with the hammer. But remember, it is not about strength, or hitting it hard physically. It is about intent. Focus on the power, on the staff, on the hammer, imagine it as full of energy and djed... Then imagine when you strike the staff the djed leaving the hammer and flowing into the staff on the spot were the mineral is. And think solid thoughts, since I am trying to enhance its durability right now." Clyde would stand by, perhaps giving an occasional pointer, a little bit more powder, over that way some more, careful, tap it... Concentrate on it... Otherwise, he would just stand there, waiting to hand her the hammer when she was ready.

[Amelia Cross]

How Amelia had thought of it happening wasn’t exactly how Clyde had formed it, but it was still close enough to not make her want to argue, then again, she probably wouldn’t argue with him at all. Even if the idea of ‘physical work’ didn’t really appeal to her, everything about the girls appearance pretty much made it clear that most physical work she does is dancing and riding a horse.

She did listen carefully to his explanation, even if the words ‘Isur’ and ‘Izentor’ didn’t make any sense to her. The girl knew her way around the gods and races that were more common around Syliras, Ravok and a few others, but she had never heard anything about the Isur, their god Izurdian or his gift. You could say, this made her even more curios though. She had a bad habit of wanting to know what she didn’t, explore and find out things that were hidden from her, for good or for bad.

Everything else was seemingly simple and understandable, except the soul. She had trouble seeing an inanimate object as one that had its own soul. And the way Clyde chose to explain it, not that it confused her, it put her mind and thoughts off to a different topic, not magecrafting. It made her wonder off into the values of the soul and things that it did for a person and its role in the world. Isn’t it odd how such different things linked? Or where they not so different to begin with?All in all, this form of magic was as confusing as it was fascinating, and it was hard to decide upon a solid feeling towards it. But she was determined to do the best she could, for one or the other reasons.

The girl came closer to the pedestal, to the staff. It was clear in her manner of walking and eying the object, that she had a healthy bit of caution and worries in her mind. Once in front of it, she put her hand in the pouch. The powder was pleasant to the feel and to get used to it more she rubbed it in between her fingers, before taking some out. She was careful about how she coated the small portion of the staff in the mineral, almost as if the object was made of thin glass and could break under too much pressure. She tried to do it in a thin layer how she was told, but for a moment it felt like she had done it in a thinner layer than her teacher might have intended. Maybe she was just too distant with the staff?

”what exactly are, solid thoughts?”

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde was standing there, ready to hand Amelia the hammer, when she asked a question he was not expecting... What are solid thoughts? That honestly puzzled Clyde, as he was not totally sure... Also, he was unsure if it was strictly needed, to task a specific step of an enhancement, to visualize the change you wanted. But in general, Clyde always did it. If nothing else, it got one in the mindset required to do the Magecrafting. And besides, better safe than with a lump of useless Magecrafting. "Solid thoughts? You know... Just, think about solid things, visualize them as you do the Magecrafting. You want to imbibe your work with the intent of hardening, of becoming stronger, more durable, as that is the current step being worked on. I already said to visualize the flow of djed from the hammer to the staff. Now also visualize that djed being used to make the staff stronger and more hardy. Direct its intent at that." Clyde shrugged, he was uncertain if there was any more way to say it. "There are 5 kinds of enhancement you can do to an item. The simplest to explain would be gnosis and magic. They do pretty obvious things, the first allows the item to be marked by a God, the second gives a item access to personal magic. Albeit the personal magic is hard to do at more than a minimal level, and it progressively takes more and more steps to give it access to stronger magics. And the gnosis... Well, that depends on the God, but those are not easy to get..." Clyde rattled off the different types, going completely from memory, just giving a basic overview of his view of what each did. "Structural, which is what we are doing, allows you to enhance, what else but the actual physical structure of the item. You can make positive enhancements, like making it more hardy, as we are, or making a blade sharper. Or negative enhancements, to say, make an item lighter, or something. It all depends on the imagination of the Magecrafter, and what they can see as feasible for the item." "Behavioral enhances or reinforces a behavior of an item. When used with a personal magic step, this sort of can act as an instruction. Telling it the exact way to do it, the exact behavior. But it can also be more simple, like giving it an ability to do something itself. Like activating the ability, turning it on. Though that may require a step in intellect so it can process said stimulus... One behavior I have enhanced, was the swing of a blade. Its speed. The world says this item swings so fast, that is what it does. Well I made that enhancement, and told the world to petch off, because THIS was how fast it could swing." Clyde paused for a moment, before getting to the final one. "And lastly, is intelligence enhancement. This one is also pretty self explanatory, you give the item intelligence. Sort of like Animation, another magic I know. Except, different... Anyways, at lower levels, this is very simple. Like reacting to a stimuli and registering it, in order to allow a behavioral setting to go to work. But at higher levels... It could be as smart as you or me." Clyde looked back at the staff, still holding out the hammer, and then back at Amelia... "So, does that answer your question? Ready to do the step?" Clyde said this with a small bit of ire, but he was not really that aggravated or upset. But he did want her to get on with the step. He would be watching her auristically once she got going, to see how her work affected the item, or if it did so differently to when he did Magecrafting.

[Amelia Cross]

For some reason, the way Clyde had explained the ‘solid thoughts’ didn’t sound as confident as the rest of his words. But she decided to shock it off as her own imagination and start wondering what would be the thoughts that would work well for this sort of task. Rocks, Mountains, the Syliras citadel…those were the things that came off as the strongest and most solid in her mind, but those could be broken too. Then there was the possibility of weapon smith, would that fit? ”much harder than I thought…” she had to admit to herself, before returning her full attention to Clyde and his further explanations.

Even if there was more to the craft than he would let her know, or think she is ready to know…the things he did explain, all linked together nicely and with a few exceptions of her own ‘guesses’ and ‘theories’, didn’t cause too many questions. In reality, the only question present in her mind was ‘what’s the limit?’ because so far, she saw nothing but open doors. And even if Amelia didn’t know how to go through them, she was sure there was someone who could…so does it make their power infinite? Limited only by the resources within their reach?

She smiled and turned to Clyde, handing him the pouch of powder, ready to accept the hammer. ”everything is clear….for now” Of course, she had a lightly lingering question regarding the risk of the discipline. Did overgiving apply? How could it pay off if one was too light-minded about it? Too aggressive? But she assumed it to be a question for a different time, maybe latter today or when she next faces this form of magic.

Once she received the hammer, she finally paid some attention to the structure of the tool. It felt odd to her, as she rarely held tools of this sort, any tools at all really, but she could evaluate its weight and the approximate strength she should use. She wasn’t afraid to hit too hard, since the girls strength didn’t allow her to do it without hurting herself in an awkward twist of her wrist. She turned her attention back to the pedestal, the staff. It toke her a few moments of calming herself down before she would try to follow Clyde’s instructions.

”djed…” she repeated once in her mind before she began concentrating on the hammer, focusing her own djed and visualizing the way djed was found in the hammer. The thoughts mixing with the visuals of strong matter. The first and foremost being the ironsmith, the way cold weapons are crafter, the second was a follow up of cliffs. A slow breath in through her nose, back out through her slightly parted lips and her attention came back to the hammer and its djed. ”everything consists of djed” and adjusting the hammer in her hand. The hit was to be steady, strong, but not aggressive.

Holding the hammer steady in her pale hand, she hit it down, on the middle part of the staff that she had covered with the thin coat of mineral. As she performed the action her thoughts where full of images. Djed travelling through the hammer and into the staff…deeper in its core, changing its spirit and making it sturdier. Strong thoughts, those were present, but not as vividly as the thoughts of energy entering the staff from her hit.

She removed the hammer from the staff, and now awaited judgment from Clyde, who’s observing eye she could never avoid.

[Clyde Sullins]

Once Amelia took the hammer, Clyde began to open up his aura vision, picturing djed shifting into his eyes. As he did, light began to bloom around the staff. It was like it was seething with vibrant worm trails, digging its way through the staff, pushing the worm trails wider as they went. That was the djed in his eyes when he first looked at it. Or apparently, it was how his mind was initially registering the expanding and fluid nature of the Magecrafting djed. There was a layer of it throughout the staff, low, dim, weak. But on the two ends were he had struck so recently, a bright shine was still going. As he watched, the light was dimming almost visibly, but as it did, the sheen of the light inside of the staff in that area seemed to grow brighter. Sort of like it was sapping the light to invigorate and strengthen itself. He glanced back at Amelia, and only just kept himself from flinching. An odd sensation came over him, sort of like out of the corner of his eye he saw the staffs aura, and could still see it, even though it was no longer in his sight range. At the same time, Amelia's aura was blooming around her. Stronger and bigger than that of the staff. It was a bit disconcerting looking at two auras at once, something he had never tried before... But he assumed it was possible. And he was only looking at the basic aura of the two, was not going any deeper. He turned back to the staff, focusing mainly on it, but in the same way before he could still sense the staff, he could now sense the aura of Amelia... He watched as she bent down, and struck the staff, and saw another bloom of light similar to the ones at the two ends he had struck, but slightly different. He could not explain it right away, but after a moment he realized the hue of the light was different. Perhaps his minds way of differentiating his work and others? Or perhaps every different person to Magecraft on an item, would have a visible color/impression their work would leave. He could already see the light of the effect seeping into the staff... Like... Like... Water into soil... Yes, that was a good way to see it. Clyde shrugged, it did not seem immediately like she had done anything wrong, but such things were hard to tell. He would need to make sure to pay attention to the spot later on in the process. "Not bad... Not bad... Oh, and you can sleep here if you want, same room as last time. We will be up early to work on the process that imbues the staff with the ability to hold personal magic. But I will explain that more tomorrow."

[Amelia Cross]

[17th of summer]
[4th day of Magecrafting]

To Amelia this morning came a bit more different than usual. She was well rested, but the lack of Syna’s light seemed to have gotten to her and she felt a bit more moody and displeased than usual. She still didn’t see why Clyde didn’t like to have a lot of big windows in his home. The lack of them made this place seem creepy and uninviting. Sure, he was not the man who she would see holding a huge social gathering, inviting someone over for tea or…inviting someone over at all if he was not in the need of it. But that didn’t mean he had to live in a dungeon, right?

As she finished getting ready…she couldn’t help but wonder about her lack of makeup on her face, it was silly but it was how Amelia lived. For the girl her painted face was the only way to keep a distance between herself and the people around her. She had so rarely walked without it, pretty much only in the wilds, sometimes she thought that she had forgotten how she looked without it. Pale pink lips that barely had any definition from her pale skin, a pink tint on her cheeks that was not perfectly even in coloration and she had no tools with her to cover it all up with white powder. It felt like half of her confidence and grace had been washed away with her makeup. But there was nothing she could really do about it…even her hair was up in a braid, rather than the usual sheet of black along her back.

Taking a calm breath, she tried to shake off the thoughts about it, labeling them meaningless...what they really were.She tried to act as confident as she could. After all, her teacher had said she was ‘Not bad’ yesterday, it didn’t stand for ‘good’, but it meant she hadn’t messed up, and for a first attempt at anything, that was a good sign. Another shake of her head and she entered the lab. Ready to face Clyde and her new task, new knowledge.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde rose early the next day, ready to continue with the process of Magecrafting. He headed over to the staff, and looked over the Glyphs. He had to do some light work, closing off another of the focus, adding a new one identical to the prior ones in between the two that were locked, making sure all the attachments and blockages were functioning properly... He went over to the worktable and picked up a hammer, and headed back to the pedestal. Then it was back to auristics. He pushed djed into his eyes, and focused on the staff, taking a deep calming breath. In... Out... Closing out all else, he focused in on the aura of the staff. It took a few moments, but then they began to worm to life across his vision, the surge of the aura as it became visible, and the worm trails of the djed pathways infused with new djed. He looked at them, comparing the ones at the two ends, with the one in the middle. The earlier ones at the ends had lost all of the light shining from it, the energies totally soaked in and spreading outward within the staff. Those were his. He could see them spreading, flowing towards the middle. He could also see the work of Amelia, with her strike in the middle. It was flowing outward, and had only the tiniest wisp of light around it, which had not soaked in... However... While he work had not been in error, it had also not been totally in synch with his own work... He could see the resonance of the djed within, how it was spreading out like the ripples from a stone dropped into the surface of a lake... When his two ripples on the ends met with the outward ripple of Amelia's, they would clash, and might cause some issues. Or, it might have no effect at all. it was hard to say. So to be on the safe side, he would try to balance out its overall resonance, by placing another strike in between each of his own and Amelias. It would act as a sort of buffer, one that was specifically aimed in order to meld with the two opposing wave-fronts, making the entire thing become a cohesive whole... He held the hammer up high, judging distance, speed, angle, tilting the hammer slightly to the right, so that the hammer on the left strike in between the two earlier disparate strikes would send the ripple out in a precise pattern... Then down it went, lightly tapping the staff, sending out a vibration of sound across his skin, giving a slight tingle as the wave of sound slid across his aura. Not actual sound, most likely, nothing audible, simply how his auristics interpreted the djed and ripple. Of course, the ripple itself was another unique way of his mind viewing the djed work... He made a second strike, on the right side between the other two disparate zones, this time tilting the hammer slightly to the left, and making another strike. He could see the echo flowing throughout the djed pathways, feel it on his skin, the vibration as the staff flowed into a new resonance, one which he believed would flow it in the direction of synchronization. Clyde pulled back from viewing the aura, to look about the room, only now realizing Amelia was standing there, for how long he could not say. Perhaps for chimes, perhaps the entire time he had been looking at the aura... But how long had that been? A bell? He had no idea. "Ah, you are up? I was just making some adjustments, to try and meld our different strikes together. " Clyde gestured at the staff, and headed back to the lab table, placing the hammer back, and looking through the other equipment. "Today, we are going to do the step to make this a magic staff, a tricky little thing I learned awhile back. It makes the staff more or less an extension of the mage holding it. Like another arm, or something, part of you. At least, once you are attuned to it. Which means you can flow your magic through it, and out of it, just like it was said limb. So, while I get the needed things together, do you have any questions about anything we covered before? Any at all?"

[Amelia Cross]

When the girl had entered, she saw that Clyde had begun working without really waiting for her. That didn’t surprise her, as he did come off as a man who liked important things done fast and likely by himself, after all, if you want something done right than you should do it yourself. And she didn’t really dare interrupt him. She just stood there and looked at what he was doing, it was pretty much the same thing he had done yesterday as far as she could tell. The same thing she had done, but he was a lot more confident in his actions, what was quite understandable taking into account that he was her teacher.

Standing in silence, she waited until he noticed her, what wasn’t half as late as she expected. ”Good morning” was her first response, and only then did she evaluate what he had said ”so, our strikes were really that different then? Could that have caused trouble…?” she didn’t doubt that her attempt was different than the experienced one of Clyde’s, but she didn’t really understand a few things ”How did you see? And how did you fix that?” she asked while coming closer.

What they were going to be doing today seemed clear enough, at least until he would explain the process in detail. Despite his invitation to ask questions, she was uncertain about it. Should she? Probably, but she still had that little feeling of her questions being silly ”I guess the questions are more theoretical about the art in general, for example, overgiving….it occurs when you use too much djed, magecrafting uses djed…so can overgiving occur? Or is it impossible to overgive and I’m just being silly? But there must be some way that it may harm you…right? What if something goes wrong while crafting? Is it ‘not working’ the most risk you take?” she felt like she was rambling around the same thing, but she couldn’t seem to put it together in one simple sentence. And while she was speaking of that, the second question reminded of itself ”also, this discipline, as far as my mind goes, it can create some amazing tools, weapons…but what are the limitations? Or is the only limitation, obtaining the resources?”

[Clyde Sullins]

It was often hard for Clyde not to break into "teacher mode", as he sometimes called it. Especially when talking about theoretical magic, or world magics, which he particularly enjoyed debating and speaking on. Regardless, Clyde had over time gotten pretty good at instructing and teaching, and it was arguably one of his better skills, up there with his various magics he was so fluent in. Clyde gestured at the staff, with a small smile across his lips. "Well... I looked at it, and listened. Not in the literal sense, I highly doubt you would see or hear anything, but that is just how I interpret its aura, as sounds and sights as I gaze at it during the procedures of Magecrafting, and in between. Auristics does come in handy, when one is Magecrafting." "Perhaps it is a bit odd, but one way I look at Magecrafting, is as resonance. When you strike the staff, the hammer sends these waves of sound and vibrations through it full of djed, and as they sweep inside delving deeper, they create this ripple of change over time. Of course, perhaps the metaphor does not carry completely as such... Since it is not one ripple that does it all at once, instead it is a series of ripples spreading throughout the item over time, slowly changing the item in the way you are guiding it." "As you strike more, and add more locations of injection of sound and djed, more wavefronts are sweeping throughout. If they are in harmony, it grows to a peak, saturating the entire item equally. But if they are out of harmony, it may cause it to do so unevenly. You might end up with more alterations in one place, less in another, patches of disparate djed. Which would be bad. So I made my strikes in an attempt to equalize this, to make our different strikes mesh together better, and to all resonate at the same power and energy level. For symmetry and continuity is very important in this craft." Much of this Clyde had never voiced, though he had been considering much of this for a long time, from the lessons long ago that Hadrian had given him, when they worked together. And it often had shown in his other works, in his theory and methods. For Hadrian also, sound was an important aspect of their craft. Clyde had simply taken this in a slightly different path than that of Hadrian. But then it was on to more questions, new questions, and he turned to the new subject to answer them. "Overgiving only applies when the djed for the magic comes from oneself, such as in Reimancy. However, these are world magics. You do recall back to when I explained the various types of magic? World magic gets its djed from the world, not the mage himself, so their is no chance of you overgiving. Since you personally give nothing, instead the world itself is the source of the energy, that along with the various items and reagents used in the process, they also give the djed." "Magecrafting is actually exceedingly dangerous, and possibly fatal, if not done correctly or carefully. Why do you think I spent so much time on these Glyphs, adding layer after layer of redundancy? To do my best to avoid any such possible mistake or problem from developing. But the higher level the item gets, the higher the chance for such a error or problem occurring becomes, especially if you do not keep the enchantment stable and even. And also the higher its level, the worse a backlash can become. If you are lucky, the item will simply not work... If not so lucky, it might explode, destroying the item, possibly us, along with possibly the lab to, maybe more. It is hard to say exactly. But right now the item is balanced, and under control, so there is little to no chance of that occurring." "The only limits to Magecrafting are three fold. Time, resources, and the Magecrafters own skill. If you had enough of each of those, any level of enchantment could be done."

[Amelia Cross]

Amelia looked back and forth from the pedestal and Clyde as she was trying to gasp the idea of seeing and hearing, feeling and sensing the aura of an inanimate object. What was an aura anyway? She had heard some vogue descriptions of the discipline known as Auristics, but most she found out from it was that it was pretty much the most harmless form of personal magic, and if she was asked to give even a brief description of it now…she would have nothing to say, because she just didn't understand it ”Clyde, what exactly are Auristics?” quite the natural question, in the given setting.

Personal magic, world magic and djed usage. It all seemed to be so simple to understand, but she always forgot what world and personal magic was, because so far, she was exposed mainly to personal magic and constantly reminded about overgiving and how it exhausted her. She reminded herself that she should be careful, and it seemed to link further on to world magic and make her believe that it was possible to harm yourself with it as well. What wasn’t necessarily wrong, she just interpreted it in the wrong ways. Since to her, most damage in magic was linked with the so dreaded word, overgiving, not anything else.

The craft was so tempting, with such little things limiting you on the long run…skill you can gain, if you don’t explode on the way, just by selling lesser items you can gain money for the resources to create something spectacular…time was a relative understanding to the Cross, so she didn’t bother thinking it over. But those risks, she wondered, where they worth it? The best case scenarios of failure were already bad enough to make the calm Amelia, possibly lose more than her temper… losing her life because of magic, seemed to be a pathetic way to die. At this point, it seemed like Magecrafting was something she was much more eager to understand on a theoretical level, than perform. That being said, she didn't really understand just how much skill she would need to obtain before it would even be possible to Magecraft on her own. It wasn't even said she would ever obtain that kind of knowledge and skill at all.

”So, back to the staff…how are we going to be making it into a magic staff? Will it need one of the 5 enchantments, or something else?”