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

[Clyde Sullins]

14 Summer 513 Clyde had been anticipating this day for quite some time. It was not every day he got a chance to do Magecrafting, and while making a item funded by yourself was a possibly lucrative idea, it did not always go well. Which was why he kept things simple when wanting to sell such an item, not doing anything fancy or to theoretical. He hoped to use the proceeds from this endeavor, to later make an item for himself. Another staff, one even better than the one he planned to make and sell. That was another thing, surely a Magic Staff would be something anyone with the money would want to buy? His was special even more so than that, after all the time and money he had put into finding the wood on Mura, bringing it home, getting it Izentor crafted, which was not the same thing as being made of Isurian Steel... But still, once done this staff would be amazing, and very sturdy, especially since he planned to add a few additional steps of durability enhancement to it beyond the basic step to make it a Magic Staff. He had two stops to make, one was a quick one, stopping by to pick up the two staffs he had made earlier in the season, at 50 gm a pop. He inspected them, and they seemed well crafted, both to the dimensions he had desired. It had a simple design, with nothing fancy, but they were still both good staffs, and enhanced like that dagger he had bought a few seasons ago. The other was by Black Tar's, to purchase the ingredients he would need to do the actual Magecrafting of a MC 3 item. It was one of the few places that sold such magical items, and were he could get what he needed. It cost him a whopping 3,000 gm for what he needed for this project, but it would be well worth it when he tripled his investment. So he headed home, staffs in each hand, the ingredients in his pack. He walked into his lab, which was specially made for usage in Magecrafting, and began to prepare himself. He set the smaller of the two staffs on the pedestal, the one that was 4'1" long. The longer one that was an even 5', he would be using later for his own staff, and set it aside. He still had the inscribing paint he had bought at the start of the season, which he had gotten at the same time as buying the things needed for making Amelia's Grand Oath. He had bought more than enough to last him for awhile, so he would further use it now for Glyphing. Clyde spent a good 10 chimes in thought, simply thinking how he would Glyph the area, as this was a very important aspect of the project. Without proper Glyphing, the entire process would become exponentially more dangerous. But with it being ensconced in a series of high level Glyphing barriers to isolate the pedestal from unwanted external djed fluxes... It would be a degree safer.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde set to work, using the inscribing paint, planning out Glyphing a wide swathe of the stone floor of the lab. Really what he had planned was not terribly advanced, it was a simple enough application of a barrier sigil, in this case a series of them. Which was common enough a thing in Glyphing. You did not do new things, you simply scaled up what you knew initially, and used it more cleanly, compactly, with more skill filled into each inch of Glyphs. That would be the hard part, which could strain his skill, finding ways to combine Glyphs on such a broad scale together, so that none clashed and all worked together for a total result greater than the individual parts ability. He started off with a basic circle around the base of the pedestal, and would work his way outward with more layers. But it was not just a single circle, instead he made up the circle of slashes drawn, none touching. A diagonal slash, and then a widened U like symbol, were the two ends had been stretched apart almost like V, but with the base still curved like a U. Then he made a diagonal slash going downward, whereas the first one had been one sloping upward. He drew a pair of V's overlapping, one facing upward, the other down, but interlocked so that it formed a single symbol. The it was another diagonal slash sloping upward, followed by another widened U. In this way the first circle of the barrier would sweep up, peak with the U, sweep down, bottom with the doubled united V symbol, and then sweep back up to start over with another widened U. In this way a pattern would be set, sweeping up, sweeping down, until it encircled the entire base of the pedestal. Then it was on to the next layer. This one was made up of words, going through many different ones, linking them together and slowly curving it around the first circle of Glyphs. Block, ensconce, enforce, guide, shield, purify, cleanse, divide... All were words used on the second layer of the circle of barriers, along with a few others mixed in, but those were the ones to appear the most often, and most likely to be used more than once. Then he swept on to the third layer, which was simply a upside down copy of the first layer. Were the first one had been coming out of the base of the pedestal, and acted as the start of the Glyphs, this one flipped on its head acted as a cap of sorts, finishing it off. Clyde looked at the Glyphs, waiting a moment, before adding a few finishing touches. On each of the four cardinal points, North, South, West, and East, he painted a new sigil, one made up of curlicue lines and a single focus. The radiated out of the base of the outer capping barrier, on one of the upward sloping parts were it peaked out. The lines swept up symmetrically on either side, mirroring each other, before swooping back in and around each other. He drew inside of this set of curls a focus, a circle with a pair of lines drawn though it making an X, along with a curving wavy line going all around it, arcing up out of reach of each of the tips of the X's ends, were it would otherwise collide. Then he capped this focus off with more curlicues, drawing on a odd pattern that fully ensconced it in two layers on the outside farthest away from the pedestal, and acted as a sort of maze attaching it to the outer layer of the barriers.

[Clyde Sullins]

His reasoning was thus, the triple layers of barrier acted as a buffer, to keep out djed and unwanted energy during the process. But it had to go somewhere when it bounced off of the barrier, if it simply rebounded it would come back to come in again. This way, when it washed over the outer layer, it would swirl around and be caught in each of these four focus, going through the maze and slowly being siphoned inward. He would likely need to add in more as he went along, when these got full, and perhaps add in another enforcing layer to keep them from overloading once that occurred, but these should be good for a few days at least. Clyde went back and looked at the finished Glyph work, letting out a satisfied sigh. It was comprehensive, well done, and would stand up to anything short of a full on blast of pure djed, as unlikely as that was... Petch, it might even stand up to that, so high caliber was his work. He waited half a bell for the paint to dry, before going back to the pedestal. He re-situated the staff across the middle of the pedestal, taking his time, getting it just right. Now he was ready to commence. He went and got some of his tools, returning with a small hammer for usage in Magecrafting, and a pouch which held some special powders. He took out a pinch at a time, and slowly rubbed it into the surface of the staff, starting at the top, and working his way down. By the time the entire staff had a thin layer, he had gone through a surprising amount of the powder. Holding the hammer up high and dramatically, he flourished it, and then brought the hammer down three times with great speed. However when it did strike, it was not harshly, it was light enough to tap a egg without shattering its delicate shell. Once on the tip, about a inch away from it, once near the middle, and a third time near the base, also about a inch away. He paused for a moment, feeling the resonation inside of himself, ringing out of the item, in a way he could not explain. When it settled down in a few chimes, he let out another sigh, and replaced the hammer on the lab table. He only now realized he had been at his work for bells, upon bells, upon bells... The day was spent, and he needed to rest... Tomorrow, would be another day, and then he would really be able to focus on the work.

[Clyde Sullins]

15 Summer 513 Day 2 of MCing Clyde went into his lab, and looked at the pedestal in the middle of the room. On it lay the staff he had acquired, made of Vian Wood, and Izentor crafted. Admittedly he was a bit less than certain what crafting something with Izentor meant, he supposed it had something to do with the Isur, and in some way altered an item at a intrinsic level to make it more hardy... Similar in some ways to what Magecrafting could do, but different also. He stepped past his Glyphs from the day before, seeing they were all still intact. They were thoroughly dried now, and safe to walk across. He would probably need to make a few edits the next day, to fix a few small things that might crop up as the Glyphs inevitably decayed, and as the focus he had drawn to suck in ambient unwanted djed filled. For now though, his total focus would be on the staff, and examining it and its aura. He had given it a cursory examination the day before, to make sure it was intact and free of blemishes, which it seemed to be. Now he sat with the staff on the pedestal. Clyde closed his eyes, focusing his djed, feeling it inside of himself. It was something he was getting much better at in time. Before, it would have taken him chimes to awaken his aura vision, to get himself into a state were he could do it... Now, he simply closed his eyes, took in and let out a deep breath, and cleared his mind, focusing on the void, on black emptiness. As he opened his eyes, he imagined thrusting djed into his eyes, and saw a faint glimmer of light. He looked down and focused his eyes on the aura of the staff. It blossomed into life, a glowing deep blue aura exuding out of the staff, with the wooden stave at its core. Due to its shape, the aura was longer than it was wide. He delved into it, mentally picturing fingers sinking into the aura, like it was the surface of a pool of water, and pulling the color apart. As he did, his vision shifted. Instead of looking at the staff, he was looking at a flowing stream of deep blue. But in a moment, it broke apart, forking the river, one stream a light blue, the other a more normal blue. As he continued to stare, the fork was left behind, and there were two rivers flowing side by side, but not touching. He reached into the light blue stream of liquid, and realized he had seen it before. This light blue was the same as the dagger he had seen prior. Surely, this was the effect of the izentor crafting. He yanked at the staff with his mind, and a outline of it floated above the light blue waters. Then color began to spread throughout it, the entire staff turning a uniform light blue. Which to his mind told him the entire object was evenly affected by that color, so it was all Izentor enchanted, or crafted, or whatever one called it. He pushed the outline away, and watched as it faded back to a monochromatic outline. He shifted his gaze back to the twinned rivers, and now pushed aside the light blue river, its path arcing away, leaving him only looking at the blue river. However as he looked at it, he noticed a light glimmer deep inside, a single thread of bright silver flowing down the middle, inside of the blue. He broke the rivers apart, leaving him with a solid river of blue, with a tiny creek bed of bright silver traveling parallel, little more than a trickle in comparison. He pulled at the staff's outline, and once more it filled with color, first blue, as it hovered over the waters. Like with the light blue, it filled the outline totally, leaving it a uniform color, similar to the blue color it was with his normal vision. As he delved deeper into these waters, a few different sensations ran through him. He could feel the staff, as if he was rubbing it against his face. It was smooth and soft, pleasant to touch. He saw it, looking inside, the grains of the wood, checking for irregularities... But it appeared to be totally sound, and well crafted. And finally, he tasted the wood, a thing he did upon a total whim. That was certainly the oddest of all, and made him pull back a bit surprised. But its taste was oddly pleasant, or at least not bad.

[Clyde Sullins]

With that done, Clyde pulled the outline of the staff back out of the water, letting the color fade out of it. He pushed aside the blue river, letting it arc off, leaving him staring simply at the trickle of bright silver. He thrust the staff into it, and watched as it gained a small bit of color... But only a little... A gentle trickle of bright silver ran down the core of the staff, but that was all. As he gazed at it, he realized what this represented. His djed, his Magecrafting. This was his mark on the wood, on the staff. He had not done much yet, it was barely even colored or affected. And the color was still liquid, shifting, like a snake crawling across the ground, undulating. Not permanent or set. He pulled back, and arced the trickle over along the path the other rivers had taken. He was left with three streams in tandem, parallel. Bright silver, light blue, and blue. He mentally pushed them, and watched it shift all together, meeting up and the colors melding into one. And then they all flowed into the staff, leaving it a vibrant mix of deep blue, with the tiniest notion of a bit of silver. Ending his aura vision, he looked down with his real eyes at the staff. He went over to his work table, and took out the hammer, and a small rock like material. He went back to the staff, and set it on the staff, hammer held high with the other hand. He wanted the staff to be more durable, more hardy, so his first step was to do so, to make it tougher. That would be the first way he would deepen the item, to alter the item, to change it at an intrinsic level as only Magecrafting could... And perhaps to a lesser degree Izentor... The stone type thing was a low level reagent, one he had bought with the 3,000 gm. It was just one of many many such items, many and varied. He set the stone on the staff about a third of the way down, and tapped it with the hammer. The staff began to vibrate, giving off a deep resounding ping, which seemed to grow in intensity and pitch. He then set the stone on the other end, a third away from the other tip, and tapped the stone again, using the hammer. As he did, the peal grew even higher, he could feel his teeth vibrating, feel as his heart danced in response. It was like the striking of the hammer transferred through the stone, into the staff, and left its force deep inside of the item, awakening something, making it alive and moving... This was its djed pathways, and he could feel it on his skin, the tingle, as the woke and widened and soaked up the energy fed to them. With that, Clyde took a rest, and set down the hammer on the table, giving one last glance back at the staff... On to the next day...

[Amelia Cross]

[16th of summer]

The past days were highly eventful for the girl. Everything ranging from the people she met, the creatures she saw and the things she found out…it all seemed to make things even more confusing than they already were. They all caused her to remember things she would rather forget, and even the failed attempts at meditation didn’t help. And now, despite her being a bit tiered bout physically and mentally, she was looking forward to seeing Clyde as never before.

Saying she missed him, was highly exaggerating the matter, Amelia missed the training. She missed it because there, she wasn’t really given time to think of other things, to bother her mind with events she couldn’t fix and memories she couldn’t erase. When she was in that lab, she was free of those thoughts; there was just herself, Clyde and djed.

Today, as she made her way to the house of Clyde, she guessed it all would be the same. Concentration and res, a few more teaching from her mentor and then some more concentration and potentially a few more tasks that would seem too hard for her, too hard at the beginning of things.

And as she opened the front door of the house, followed the same patterns form before as she walked through the living area to the door of the lab that was always kept locked, as she knocked and waited for her teacher to open it and let her in. As she did all of it, not even once did it cross her mind, that she would be doing something much different than her usual training.

[Clyde Sullins]

16 Summer 513 Day 3 of MCing It was hard to believe Clyde was already on the third day of work Magecrafting... When he was deep in work, it was easy to lose track of time. Bells seemed like minutes, and quickly flew by. He had little time to stop for meals, and spent more or less the entire day at work. The first day of course had been used to acquire the needed things, and to make the initial Glyphs. Plus he had begun the Magecrafting process. The second day, he had deeply inspected its aura, and continued on with the enchantment. Now, he had to decide what he should do for the third day. So far Amelia had not come, though he had invited her to come anytime while he worked starting the day before. Perhaps she would show up today, perhaps not. Either way, he decided to do the actual step to infuse the staff with the ability to convey magic, particularly personal magic, the next day. For now, he looked over the Glyphs, and spent a few chimes doing some light repairs. Add in a small detail, reinforcing a point he could tell was weakening. He also had to box in one of the focus, which seemed full, adding a curling pattern around it, along with a solid barrier of words similar to the middle layer of the main barrier. Just as he was about to begin, he heard a knock at the door. It appeared Amelia had come after all. He went over to it, and unlocked and opened the door, but did not allow Amelia in just yet. "Alright, I think I told you before, that I would have you assist me on some projects. Well, this is one of those times. I am doing an enchantment, Magecrafting an item. But first, some ground rules. Do exactly what I say, exactly, do not deviate. Do not touch the staff on the pedestal unless told specifically to do so... And above all else NEVER! Never, remove the staff from the pedestal, were it is safely held inside of the layers of Glyphing. Never." With that, Clyde stood aside to allow Amelia in, closing and locking the door behind her. Once she entered, she would see that the pedestal held a blue staff across it, and the entire thing was ensconced in a wide swathe of Glyphing, many layers, much more complex than anything she had seen him do before. "Now, I suppose I will need to go over the basics... What, if anything, do you know of Magecrafting? It is a world magic, like Glyphing, however it is very different to it."

[Amelia Cross]

Her short attention span and bothered head, she had forgotten about the mentions of those projects. None the less she was excited and ready to do her best, to learn from mistakes. That is, until she heard the rest of his words. His voice seemed to be scary, just how much he emphasized certain words and parts of his speech. It got to the girl, she was scared. She had no idea what a catastrophe she could make by disobeying Clyde, she had no knowledge about this form of magic. She was scared not from the outcome of this project or its failure, she thought that it would be her mentor who would make sure she didn’t see Syna’s light if she disobeyed.

Finally, when she was let into the lab, the girl couldn’t really help but look over the complex Glyphing, saying it was complex was pretty much just scratching the surface. But since Amelia was new to magic as a whole, she had little understanding just how strong and complex in reality they were. She awed, but just a slight bit, not wanting to seem even more oblivious than she already was .Surprisingly, the staff as a whole, didn’t seem to be that much of an interest, that is, for now.

”I’ve just heard the name in the institute, but it doesn’t seem to be a favorite practice, or at least one that is talked about a lot, so no...I don't know anything about it other than it sound to be a form of...maybe magical crafting? If that makes any sense...”she was there ready to listen to the descriptions, that might as well be continued with instructions she would have to memorize and follow as closely as ever.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde nodded in response to her words. It was more or less as he expected, he would need to start from scratch and teach her of Magecrafting from the basics. First of course, he needed to impress upon her the need for precision, and how costly it could all be... "Well, more or less all world magics, to varying degrees, are a form of magical crafting. That is true enough. But Magecrafting is special in the way it does it, and what it does. For instance, Glyphing can be useful, but its effects are always temporary. Glyphs must be replaced or refilled, spells stored inside must be replenished. It is always in a moment, and then gone." Clyde turned to Amelia, and then gestured at the setup, the stone pedestal with the object on it, the Glyphing, the tools of his trade laid out across the lab table on the back wall, including several small hammers. "Magecrafting, the specific art of it, is a science. Furthermore, its creations are permanent, forever, so long as it is done correctly. Any changes you make by enchanting the item, by Magecrafting it, will always exist for the item, as long as it remains whole and intact. It is also one of the most costly of World magics, in time and resources. Even the most minor of enchantments, costs at least a thousand gold mizas in materials." "Magecrafting itself works in steps. Each step you take adds to the enchantment, and then makes the next one progressively more and more difficult and costly. An items MC, or Magecraft Coefficient, marks how many of these steps is done on it. So as I said a item with the most minor enhancements, a MC 1, would cost 1,000 gm... We are making today a MC 3 Magic Staff." Clyde took a moment to go over to the lab table, and take out a small pouch, along with a small hammer. He returned to Amelia before the pedestal, and handed her the hammer, keeping the pouch. "The last thing you need to know, to cover the extreme basics, is what an enhancement can enhance in an item. There are five types: Structural, Behavioral, intellectual, Magical, and adding Gnosis." Clyde went over to the staff, took out a pinch of powder, and rubbed it into the flesh of the wood near the base, and near the tip, rotating the staff to get a even glistening coating all around it. He then went back to Amelia and handed her the pouch, and took the hammer. Heading back to the staff, he held it high, winding himself up, judging distance, speed needed, and also expanded out his auristical sight. He could feel a tingle of anticipatory djed across his skin... The aura of the item shone brightly, the same bluish hue he had seen last time, albeit with a tiny bit more bright silver. He then brought down the hammer, and with a quick practiced motion tapped the hammer on each end of the staff, were the powder had been. As he brought the hammer back, the powder vanished, and the aura of it momentarily flared, before subsiding to an even glow... A small bit deeper than it had been before. Clyde turned back to Amelia. "So... That's the basics. And I will go into more detail on the 5 types of enhancements in a moment. Along with explaining the particular thing I mean, when I say a Magic Staff in particular. But besides that, any questions?"

[Amelia Cross]

Everything seemed to be simple so far, and she sucked up the bits of information like a fresh sponge. Until she almost gaged at the mention of how much a ‘simple’ Magecrafted item could cost to make. If that was simple, and just for the cost of creating, then how much could it possibly cost to make…That magic staff? Her mind had trouble swallowing that sort of information, she had a good guess she had never seen that amount of gold in her life. She didn’t even want to go into the possibility of how for how much an item like that could be sold for…since Clyde was horribly serious, what made it clear that creating such things was not an easy task. Maybe she would have been better off not knowing the expenses…

Amelia made a few steps forward, but avoided coming close to the pedestal, just holding the hammer quite awkwardly as she listened, looked and thought over what was said. All of the words said, they made sense and she understood them, but she couldn’t fully apply them to the art, she just couldn’t imagine them being good to inanimate objects. While ‘Magical’ and ‘Structure’ made sense, she didn’t see how an object could have words like ‘behavior’ or ‘intellectual’ applied to them, and she didn’t even want to go into the Gnosis. Gnosis is a gift from a god, how on earth do they even grant something like that to an object? Saying she was lost and confused, was saying nothing at all.

None the less, she kept quiet and looked at just how carefully Clyde covered the ends of the staff with powder. The action was simple, but what made her curios was the reason behind it, a reason she had yet to understand. She was about to ask about those actions, about the Magic staff, but it seemed her teacher had either planned to explain it, or saw in her eyes she was confused and decided to explain it. ”so far, everything is clear…except…what were you doing just now?”