[Somewhere in Siona] A Visitor's Quarters

[Duncan Sythe]

Timestamp: Early Spring Immanis of Era II – End of Spring

Simple quarters, many tasks to get done. Unfortunately he couldn't get started until Raliric lived up to his word and brought the gems back with amulets and rings to match...but in the meantime he unpacked one lot of travel gear and set up a bed and similar.

Then he walked out to stand at the balcony, staring down at Siona. He'd be back and forth of course. Here, Paxia, Diana, Prime. But it was useful to have another place to be based from for a while.

OOC: More to come when Raliric pops in and i'll probably need an xGM

[Raliric Ered`Gard]

It did not take long for the amulets and rings to be crafted and the gems set and thusly when Duncan returned from one of his many forays outside of Siona via his teleportation ring, he returned to find the amulets and rings sitting upon a foldable campaign table. They were simple; unremarkable and that, in Raliric and no doubt, Duncan's opinion was a good thing in this brightening and age. Under the rings and amulets there was a letter, enclosed and sealed. A lump within the sealed container so that when the sealed container was opened and the letter removed another amulet would slide out to rest within Duncan's hand.

The letter read:

Duncan,

Your rings and amulets. They were crafted quite well though obviously made to look simple as per your request. The last amulet, which was contained next to this letter in its container, is for the enchantment that you offered to gift to me for your residence in Siona. I have studied my books and upon reflection I believe the Mystic's Awareness spell would benefit me most.

You know where to find me when it is ready.

Raliric.

The amulet that had been in the container and now rested within Duncan's hand was crafted with a bit more flare than the two sitting on the table, representing a dragon head with an onyx stone within its open jaws.

[Duncan Sythe]

Starting when the amulets arrived Duncan went to work over the proceeding brightenings and cycles. He had much to do and would, ironically, gather an even greater selection of 'jobs' to his list of enchantments as the time went on. His own work was merely part of it, he had Raliric's request to respond to, not to mention Alexis – although that could probably wait a season and required them meeting again – and the two rings he had agreed to trade with the Knight, although he had a suspicion he may need to add a modification to the Knight's ring to prevent it becoming...problematic.

After all, Duncan Sythe didn't want some savvy Mystic working it backward to his own brain now did he?

First though, something he'd denied himself during his Archmagery for thought it would not be needed – as he traditionally distrusted enchantments – and now needed: Absorb.

He just couldn't afford 30 seconds at most – a little less given his past abilities – to shape the spell, even 20 was too much. A trade off from Archmagery – grown rusty and inexperienced. It was just unacceptable. But then there would be Non-Corporeal as well. Physical was easier to defend though; so first, Absorb.

The Onyx had been set in a ring, suitably sized for a middle finger, inset into plain steel. Whilst the topaz had been set in the center of a simple silver amulet. It was teardrop shaped with a curved at the bottom tip, the topaz peaking out through an engraved wind. Both would serve their purposes.

Sitting at the provided desk in his quarters and having locked the door the very first session of the enchantment process proceeded the way the majority of the subsequent ones would. Very quietly and with very little obvious action. As the process was almost entirely mental except for the small parchment to the left of the object he was examining alongside a quill and ink well. Whilst it could not be said the Mystic could draw, he could certainly manage a fair enough diagram with annotations and notes to help his mental processes.

Therefore one enchantment a month, give or take a bit for other responsibilities and trouble. And so he began with the topaz for Immanis.

The first step in any enchantment was deciding what the spell would be that was placed into the item. Believe it or not to Duncan's mind every spell had to be subtly different from its kindred, native – cast – version. This was because the point of origin for the spell would always be different and so instead of expanding outward in the case of a protection spell, or 'originating' with the mage in the case of something like Reveal that gave back information the spell would originate from the item.

This proposed subtle technical changes in the formation of the spell, not exactly extra techniques to make it severely complicated enough to advance a level in apparent difficulty, just subtle tinkering that was bread and butter to an experienced Master.

That was why before he even began to study the arcane enchantment target that first brightening Duncan removed from his equipment a simple, small ring labeled with the sigil of 'House Fortune' in Nexus Prime. Placing it with a click away from the topaz and the parchment Duncan lent back in the simple chair and studied it in Clara, looking at its weave.

The weave of any item was integral not only for imbuement but also enchantment. Although the former was technically easier than the latter since the latter required the spell to be completely encased in the item and irrevocably combined with it to give the item its own magical properties. Imbuement meanwhile simply meant 'finding gaps'.

Why do this? To perfect the spell to be enchanted. To Duncan's mind for the sake of an evening's work – imbuements didn't take long – only a few minutes ranging to a few candlemarks for an Adept...and Duncan was far from that. Whilst not a scholar his familiarity with planar mechanics was...oddly extensive given his experience with the subtler aspects of Mystic survival.

Locate, Store, Cover.

At least someone called it that. Duncan didn't, he had no real idea about the technicalities. He just knew that imbuement was a simpler form of Enchantment where you didn't rip apart the thing you were fiddling with to shove the spell in. Crass language but none the less coming from someone whose finesse was his trademark in the majority of his exploits.

After half a candlemark of studying the ring it picked it up and turned it around, another ten minutes satisfied him as to its form and the gap he wanted. All that remained then was the spell. The difficulty lay not in forming it but in containing it; containing something that wished to expand and fulfill its purpose and then retaining a tiny scrap of mana with which to cover it and conceal it.
Soaring to the planes he Focused and Channeled essence back into the material plane. Bread and butter steps, the longest period coming next as he had the raw energy in his possession as mana.

Contained the spell would expand when released, the difference of the trick was in the alteration and abjuration, along with the conjuration element of the four part Master spell Absorb. The divination elements remained the same and by and large so did the abjuration and alteration but the trick was in it arriving from the ring to encompass the body of the person wearing the object; not expanding outwards to encompass the person casting the spell.

Because of that Duncan shaped the alteration and abjuration to surround and cover and the conjuration to conjure outward along the line of the ring, following the contours of body and covering cloth. The rest of the spell was relatively the same as usual; divination linked the mage and the shield whilst it reached outward to sense and adapt the shield to the sphere of the incoming spell. Abjuration and Conjuration caustically dissolved the spell as it arrived, dissembling it to innocent mana which was conjured back as usable energy. The exact trick of how that was then transferred to energy to power the shield was simple in the shield's caustic nature, it didn't matter what energy was powering it so long as it was brutal, any excess was then trickled back to the Mage's Vis reserves.

It was a magical life-leech. Only most bluntly; Mana leeching from anyone who bothered to attack someone using it.

As subtle as it might seem Duncan had never seen Absorb as a very finely honed spell. It was brute force destruction of everything that came at it and then reuse.

With the spell shaped though he did not release it, instead beginning to thread it into the ring of House Fortune on the table, caressing threads of mana through holes in essence and Vis, tucking here and there, bending, concealing a form ready to explode and expand out to action in a moment's notice as, finally, with the threads compressed and concealed, he prevented its explosion through the route he'd used to enter the ring by covering it in mana that would not dissipate any more than the spell would by placing it within the ring's Vis, its personal energy and space.

And thus; Absorb was Imbued.

This brightening all Duncan would do was test it and move on to the study of the topaz window amulet for the enchantment process to come in around a month's time; he suspected he'd be ready to start just before the end of Immanis if he took the amulet and his notes everywhere he went and took spare time to study it further.

But before he began doing that he slipped the ring on his finger, confident to his ability not to blow himself up; and Activated it. He had not attuned it with any special command or extra divination as such was a simple modification compared to the one he'd just practiced and one he was familiar with from prior enchantments. Instead he regained Meditation, concentrating, and simple pushed the mana 'plate' over the spell with a little energy of his own.

If all went well then the spell burst free and covered him, a perfectly intact Absorb shield.

All that was left was to Dispel it neatly, picking apart the strands and letting them dissipate in small, harmless amounts into the air around him and begin his study of the amulet. Going outside and collecting a jug of watered wine from the kitchens along with a goblet Duncan began to do just that as he would all through Immanis in his spare moments; Turning the item over and over, studying and memorizing its Arcane consistency and making notes thereof. Until he was utterly convinced he could re-form the thing with a spell in the middle of it.

[Duncan Sythe]

Last Cycle of Immanis, Era II:

The chain fell taut. He felt the weight of the amulet with its inset gem in his hand, knew what had to be done. Yet his eyes were not on the amulet as he gathered it into his other palm. The chain coiled snakelike about itself as he let it free from his fingers like gossamer thread. No, his entire attention was elsewhere, for now. On the fading light of the suns.

As final waves of light swept across Siona and his window Duncan watched the darkness overcome the planes of Centripax and wondered just how long it would be before a far more metaphorical darkness crossed the ground of the entire Empire. Had it already?

That was why he was doing this after all, doing what he'd promised he would never do for himself...become the tinkering scholar that created magical items that might one brightening find their way into someone else's hands. But he was going to have to, or he was going to lose...and he couldn't lose, there was so much yet to be done.

Dressed simply in a tunic and breeches, belted at the waist, he headed across the room to the table lit by firelight where he'd placed his notes. With the last vestiges of the brightening fading and the month of Immanis passing he began his work, now satisfied he knew all he could know.

His fingers deftly turned aside several pages of parchment until he got to the one he wanted. Tugging it free of the pack he gathered the others and put them aside, leaving only the result of brightening upon brightening of notes; the result of all the rest. A hundred notes, over two dozen pages, diagrams, analysis, consideration.

Now the amulet slid free from the hand with that singular parchment to clatter to the wood, firelight dancing across the wall ahead of him as he seated himself. There was something important about this one; something special. The first for himself.

He had done others in training, created Imbuement and Enchantment. Then he had created several for other people, for special purposes with a rashness and lack of care that now frightened him. But now as blue eyes fixed upon the black opal at the center of the teardrop he knew this one would be different; just as the sword would be. Poetic? Ironic? One or the other, he couldn't decide which.

With the desk now empty except for amulet, note parchment and a cup of tea he set to work; clearing his mind of all things, of all distractions.

Meditation.

Sought, found. So far nothing. He glanced down at the diagrams, the notes, the scrawl, breathed out then in. Both hands were gripping the table on either side of the amulet as he looked down at what was about to become an Enchantment. To any observer – not that there was one – all seemed completely normal, if slightly odd. That would not be the same for much longer.

For within Duncan's mind everything changed as power crackled, unseen, unheeded, around him. Ara, the power about was drawn inward to the Vis, the power within; concentration peaked as he sought each stage to be careful and scripted, book-perfect. Why? Because without the care at first the rest would not follow. A rare thing for him to take so much care when he was usually so instinctive...but then this was different.

Arcalysis. The connection. His mind soared.

Ara and Vis together created the energy to shatter the barriers of material existence as he took to the planes and Focused with the care and self assurance of an expert upon the Psionic energies. He opened the way and drew them forth then, essence became mana; became power upon the material plane. He then slowly focused upon the amulet and in his mind, began to pick it apart.

Following his drawings; the pictures in his mind's eye, Duncan began to unpick the material fabric of the gem and the silver around it. Before his very eyes; had they been upon, he would have seen the amulet rise into the air, slowly growing smaller and smaller as its essence was removed, threads of all kinds shifted apart from one another to a place where they were no longer visible as anything except a distortion in the air.

He worked slowly, carefully, organizing the elements as he had decided in his studies of the item, moving aside the 'sides' of the amulet and above and below it the gem's essences, leaving him with a shell.

A candlemark later? More? Less? He had no way of telling the time and wasn't paying attention; it was completely denatured, as the scholars would call it. Now came the spell.

It was the mana he'd held in reserve that he then shaped swiftly, the pattern already known. Absorb. Alteration, the shape to expand outward to cover the form upon which the amulet rested...Abjuration, the flow of energy through the spell designed to be combined with divination and conjuration. Energy would enter and be tested, divined, neutralized – abjured – and then conjured back into existence as power to feed the shield...or himself.

Not however shaped within him though...but shaped within the shell he had created. The distortion invisible to him grew greater as power was manifest in enormous amounts within it; even as the former Imperial Mage began to reconstruct the amulet around the spell and within it; the two became one whole.

It was not a quick process; paths already decided upon were taken as the spell was carefully bound to the amulet, within it...and a Mana Shape, the act of changing the spell at the last second, was needed to tell it how it would activate. However unlike the traditional mana shape this process meant shaping the entire amulet to respond. It was almost like tuning an instrument, setting it up to respond to a cue.

The cue in this case was a divination, a call – the mental call of Absorb combined with a focus on the amulet itself. It was an extension of the divined element of the spell now bound to the teardrop shaped amulet that was beginning to re-emerge into the material plane from its resting place. For not only was the spell bound to itself but it had to be bound to recreate itself. A most difficult task, to ensure it regenerated...the difference between a mere Imbuement and an Enchantment: It would last a long time.

Not constant of course, he wasn't powerful enough for that. But if it worked as intended the amulet would be able to provide a single Absorb spell once per brightening when called upon to last the traditionally fair amount of time that a Master's Absorb would. Enough usually to finish a brightenings work or be destroyed...and anyway, if he lost that kind of protection Duncan would usually have far more to worry about than the enchantment.

All that remained was to release it though, to bring it all together...finished and complete; he dropped from Meditation in exhaustion and examined his work, testing it once with a thought before being satisfied and Dispelling the effect.

[Gossamer]

*peers around*
*pops in to throw some GM approval type stuff on a sad lonely modless region*

Approved: One amulet that provides a single Absorb spell once per brightening (once every 29 candlemarks) when called upon which will continuously function for three eras. It looks pretty elegant to boot.