Clyde was only half paying attention when Iceris spoke, already running his mind through the task at hand. However he did note the oddness of her speech, and knew something was off.
“Moderate skills in magecrafting and auristics. Iceris cannot imbue fire but Iceris was commanded to do anything to speed the process within her abilities. Iceris is temporarily authorized to secure supplies if Clyde Sullins requires more or replacements for materials used.”
Clyde nodded, her information clear and concise yet limited. Or perhaps focused was the better word, Clyde thought to himself. This was made abundently clear when she answered his question of her being able to Glyph, with a terse “Iceris cannot glyph.”
With that Clyde focused on inspecting the items Aura's, and Iceris set off to gather what he asked for.
As Clyde's Auristical sense fanned outward, he felt the three objects, a overimage of each of them floating in his djed vision. From this he felt minor details, the smooth touch of the medallion, which seemed finely made and without blemish. The hoof was a hoof, however as his focus trained on it he got the prickle of djed running down his back. Clearly he would need to inspect it further. The ichor though was a surprise, as when he looked upon it he could see it was heavily laden with djed. Clearly it had been a conduit for much magical forces, potent ones.
Done with the brief examinations, Clyde turned to the simplest one first, the medallion.
As he gazed at it its physical properties remained visible, the most obvious bit of its Aura. However as he looked deeper he noticed a strong layer of emotion attached to it. Ascertaining what this emotion was took much longer. It swam before him as a odd mix of yellow and orange. It had the tang of fear, but not quite. More like the tang of fear, but stretched out wide and thin. Like a blanket cloaking something. He was unsure why he saw it as such, but that was what he saw it as.
As he finished with the medallion, he turned to ascertain Iceris was there, and then spoke while returning his gaze to the next item.
“I'm done with the medallion, you can set it aside. And please remove the leather thong, we don't wont it to be a part of the final structural nature of the artifact. We will add it back later, when we are done, so bear that in mind in how you remove it.”
Next up was the hoof, which he had sensed djed upon. Clearly it should be potent in djed, since it was to act as a catalyst. When he gazed upon it, he got the vague impression of dryness, as if his tongue was parched and he needed a drink of water. Along with that he could sense residual djed upon it which meant it had either interacted heavily with magic around it, or had some kind of magic laced upon it. He also smelled a odd scent on it, one he could not recall or place. For a half moment he thought of the mouth-less monster whose filament he had used in another work of Magecrafting, one who he did not know a name for. He was unsure why reading this aura made such memories arise.
As he gazed deeply, Clyde once more got the sense of a parched tongue, but at the same time heard the swishing and swashing of water, and recalled a flash of memory of long ago making a wave of water with Reimancy, which he had used to knock down several men. The memories were not the thing, but the thing was of the memories. Clyde could not quite piece it together, but clearly there was some commonality between them he could not quite place.
With another sniff of the smell, he tried to place it but could not. It was familiar yet unfamiliar, wrong but right, a part of the hoof but distanced from himself.
Done with inspecting the hoof, Clyde called out for Iceris once more, telling her she could take it away. Then he turned to the final item, the ichor. He had long ago decided nothing would go into a item he worked on unless he first inspected it. There were far to much risk involved, to much uncertainty, such that he would always inspect each thing.
Inspecting the ichor, Clyde felt a wave of prickles run down his spine, a echo bouncing off and reverberating as his aura glanced across the periphery of the ichor's.
Clyde could not quite place the aura's, its colors flashing in rapid order, along with images flashing in his mind. For a moment his old apprentice flashed in his mind, a fluxer who had been trampled and mushed by a horde of Yukmen. One of the colors seemed to bleed into the image of him, a strand connecting the two.
Another image also flashed in his mind, that of the female wizard he had met not to long ago on Sahova, whose name escaped him. He had also inspected her aura, and had later learned that she practiced projection. Her aura, and the residual djed fragments clinging to it had a certain pitch, a certain color, a certain feeling. Vague similarities were felt between the two, as another one of the colors running off the ichor snaked through the image of the female projectionist, imbedding in her arms and billowing off in a rainbow.
As Clyde pressed deeper the images and colors became more clear, and he felt a sense of emotion as something clicked into place about the memories. In both cases the colors had highlighted the mages arms in the memories. The color was some of the fragments left on the ichor, and was also shining on the memories. Since he knew the one fragment was from a projectionist, and the residues left from it, it seemed to reason that he was seeing the same thing now. Likewise he had seen a fluxer before, his apprentice, and was making a connection there in color and intensity. Clearly the owner of this ichor was a fluxer and projectionist.
Judging by their intensities the projection was the more powerful, the more deeply inlaid of the two magics. Along with that the color shining in the memory of the projectionist shone much brighter than the squall of color in the memory of his apprentice. Both were strong, but the projection was deeper and stronger.
Of course this only told so much, as it could mean great bits of usage of djed recently in these arts, or sustained usage at a smaller level over a broader time, or something in between.
Focusing one final time, Clyde felt a sense of something, saw a flash of Rhysol the one time Clyde had seen him, saw a flash of blackness creeping up, and of a loud sound. From the way the image resonated, he did not think it was directly tied to Rhysol, but perhaps his mind was interpreting something within his domain or related to him, and that was what resonated in the memory. Considering what Rhysol so commonly stood for in general, this did not elecit a sense of trust or of comradery. Instead, it did quite the opposite.
Done with his inspections, Clyde let his Aura vision fade. For a moment his eyes fell on the slave Iceris, and a few vague faint impressions fell across him. But nothing deep, nothing not more or less obvious or not potent.
By then he was already withdrawing his Aura vision, cutting off the flow of djed, and turning to the pedestal were they would work.
“Alright, that's all of the items, I'll go ahead and prepare the Glyphing. Triple layered and enforced. Bear in mind we are going to be at this for awhile, you might want to try and scrape together some food. I don't think we will have much time to stop and acquire some once we begin, and this will take days optimally, if not more. At least five or six.”
Grabbing up the inscribing paint, Clyde would set about doing his Glyphing, warding and inlaying the pedestal with layer after layer of Glyphs surrounding it.
Once he began it was in a flash of motion, the Glyphs almost appearing on the stone floor of their own volition, or seeming to by the raw speed at which Clyde drew them out. In ticks Clyde did what would take others chimes. He did in a few chimes what would take a lesser Glypher bells or even most of a day.
The innermost layer was the swirly whirly bits, churning and coughing around the pedestal's base, a series of sweeping curving pathways pulling in with a focus at the center of each. This was repeated all the way around the base, not quite the same, but with a similar pattern of inwardly spiraling arms of pathways ending at a focus. This was to absorb and pull in any excess djed that might not integrate properly, or that might run off from their work.
Outside of this was a double layer of barrier words, set on their sides and with their bottom layers facing downward. Words such as: Enforce, constrict, constrain, withhold, block, shield, and stop. These were set one upon another, with the same words never touching above or next to each other.
Falling back, Clyde made a series of smaller runoff focus, which would come into effect should the initial swirly inlets be filled. These were wedged tightly in between the double layered barriers, and the swirly whirly bits.
Outside of the double layer of focus, Clyde drew out a series of focus equally spaced around the barrier, sixteen in all starting at the four compass points and then filling in between them, and then between each of these betweens. Around these a maze of barriers were filled in with swirling curving lines, a complex and confusing maze for the magic to meander through. Clyde then capped this off with a second dual layered barrier of words. outside of this, Clyde stretched out more Glyphing, a jagged array of sweeping patterns that did not offer any flat surfaces to the outer side of the Glyphs. This part was intended to ward off external sources of djed, and any djed to crash upon it would not do so directly, but in a long sweeping pattern with much washing back off of the curve.
In the inset of each curve Clyde enlayed another Glyph, a focus to absorb djed as the djed swept around and along. The outer side was capped off so that only the djed within the sweep pattern would be absorbed.
Finally, Clyde finished it off with another cap, a final dual layer of words, sweeping up and down with the rhythm of the outer Glyphs, not making a perfect circle as most would do, but instead a confusing mess of Glyphs that appeared somewhat random, but in actuality were purpose built for this unique circumstance, melding synergy and precision with a Chaotic seeming.
Letting out a deep breath, Clyde turned to the slave, and stood up.
“Alright, so Ice, I suppose we begin. Set the item upon the pedestal. We begin with intelligence as the first step.”
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