10th of Searing, 121 AS
Location: Lyra's Lab
The twisted red root was warm to the touch, heavy and difficult to handle given its size was nearly twice the width of Lyra’s palm. The specimen was known as cinder root, once a part of a stout tree which grew in the 3rd deep of the Warrens. It was sturdy yet supple, its bark almost paper thin. On its own the wood from the cinder tree was not useful for much. The wood itself was far too soft to be used for lumber, and even if it were to be carved into arrows it was easily warped with age, and especially moisture. It did, however, give off a low level of heat, even once it was chopped down. It’s leaves were a fiery red and were often brewed into tea or pounded into paste to help treat sever burns. Most potent were its roots which when burned gave off no smoke, and did not wither within the flames. That was what Lyra was most interested in at this moment.
As she cut into the soft wood a charred smell filled the lab reminiscent of smoke from a fire. With a few quick strokes several log shavings lay on the bench, the inner wood slightly darker than the bark. These shavings were collected and deposited into a green tinted beaker made of Lyrethillum. From a shelf Lyra took down another bottle filled with a clear liquid, pouring a small amount into the beaker before corking and returning the bottle back to its place. The Alchemical acid was quick to perform its work, steadily eating through and breaking down the wood shavings over the course of several minutes. Lyra let the acid work while she prepared her next set of ingredients.
In another lyrethillum container sat a small pyrolyth dragonshard of greater quality. The process of working with dragonshards for alchemy was tricky, as small missteps could cause an erroneous reaction, or potentially make the shard itself explode. It was possible to completely break down a dragonshard just like any other material, but Lyra had found little need to take things to such an extreme. Instead she had discovered that aether from dragonshards could instead be extracted, much like color could be pulled from cloth if the right process was applied. The key to it was the pictographs used.
Tipping the vial upside down Lyra let the dragonshard fall into the center of a pictograph carved on the surface of a metallic plate. Alchemist used many such plates, each carved with pre-designed and purposed pictographs that could be pointed with stands or glassware and activated at different steps of the process. This one was carved with a pictograph similar to the Sigil of Isolation, but it was slightly modified. Normally Dragonshards gave off a small, yet constant, amount of aether much like how living creatures gave off auras. The volume and potency was miniscule at best, and it was only when actively being used to power either a mages spells or a work of scrivening that the full power of a dragonshard came to bear.
Well, that is true for most shards. Lyra thought with a smile. It was true. There were some dragonshards that did indeed give off a dangerous amount of ‘ambient’ aether. Those were of particular interest to Lyra, but that was for another time. Most dragonshards simply gave off a small amount of aether that simply faded or was absorbed by things nearby. In the Pyrolyth shards case that ambient aether often took the form of low grade heat and light.
Lyra wanted the aether that was inside of that dragonshard, but she did not wish to connect it to a complicated schema that would draw it out through lines of scripts. It was rarely considered, but whenever detailed or complex scrivening was utilized there was often some loss of aether, even when the schema was optimized. The result was a well controlled reaction of magic, which typically was what the scrivener desired when designing the schema in the first place. Lyra though did not need well controlled displays of magic. She needed raw aether. That was where the modified sigil came into play. Instead of isolation, the sigil was tweaked ever so slightly so that instead of isolating, it expelled the aether inside of whatever stood inside of its boundaries. The process wasn’t quick on its own, but that was where the lyrethillum became important.
The pictographs on the plate shimmered slightly as the dragonshard at the center dimmed. Lyra placed what could be described as an upside-down glass funnel over the top of the plate, completely incasing both the plate and dragonshard inside. The combination of pictograph and lyrethillum did its work, and steadily redish aether began to trickle, then stream from the dragonshard. The gaseous aether spiraled up through the glass tubing, arching down and into a chamber with was covered in another sigil which caused the aether to gather and condense, thickening slightly until it was like red fog instead of just gas. Lyra watched as the aether moved from that chamber and down through another set of rubber tubing, steadily collecting in a rounded flask flipped upside down with a nozzle at its end.
On the other side of the table the acid had almost completed its work on the shavings. It looked like a mud-colored paste, and with a slight grimace at the caustic stench Lyra place the beaker on a metal stand and connected another upside-down funnel to its top. The stand sat on top of another metal plate, this one a more familiar one. The sigil of Dissolution was activated, the substance in the beaker erupting into gaseous form and flowing up through the spiraling tubing and horizontally toward another round bottom container. This set of tubing however had several branches that lead down from the main tube. Under each was a long, needle like nozzle that hung down into small flasks. At each point where the main too branched downward there was a sigil, a pictograph that filter out everything except for what Lyra desired: Fire and heat resistance. As the aether flowed through the tubing all of the other features of the root, its hardness, its medical uses, its innate heat, everything was extracted and condensed down into the nozzles where they dripped into the waiting flasks. What was left at the end was a single round bottom flask with a maroon-colored gas. This flask was removed, corked and carried over to where the dragonshard was finishing its extraction process.
This last part was simple. Lyra connected the extracted flask of heat and fire resistance to the glassware that held the extracted fire aether from the dragonshard. Both flowed downward once their individual nozzles were turned, the fire resistance aether moving faster than the pure fire aether. The two gasses mixed as they passed through the same centermost glass tube, the thicker fire aether mixing in with the resistance attributes at a rate of 1 part to 5 until the mixed gaseous aether completely filled a vial at the bottom. Through this process Lyra was able to collect 5 vials of Fire Infusion Drafts, which she condensed on a 3rd plate with a combination of sigils for stabilization and reconstitution.
Two vials of the liquid Fire Infusion Drafts were stored in a prepared box, while the 3rd was used to fill a small container with 10 sheets of thick parchment. The container itself was carved with pictographs for stabilization, as well as the Sigil of Infusion. With a prepared agitation rod Lyra dipped the tip into the liquid, causing a spark of magic as the liquid aether rippled and was absorbed by the parchment. One vial of Fire Infusion Drafts could be used to create up to 10 sheets of infused parchment. These were made specifically for creating scrolls of fire. Up to Journeyman level spells could be used on the parchment over and over again without fear of the paper burning or wearing out, only the pictographs would need to be repaired periodically if the ink itself was not infused to resist flame as well. She could create a work of expert level with this paper and use it perhaps 3 or 4 times before it would burn away, and Lyra thought she might be lucky to get a single use out of a master level scroll. Still, these would serve their purpose.
While she collected the newly infused parchment, off to the side the last of the pyrolyth shard’s aether condensed further, being drawn down into another vial where it dripped in liquid form into a waiting beaker. As each liquid drop hit the bottom of the glassware a sigil of reconstitution glowed, steadily hardening the pure aether into shards of crystal that could be reused later.
Location: Lyra's Lab
The twisted red root was warm to the touch, heavy and difficult to handle given its size was nearly twice the width of Lyra’s palm. The specimen was known as cinder root, once a part of a stout tree which grew in the 3rd deep of the Warrens. It was sturdy yet supple, its bark almost paper thin. On its own the wood from the cinder tree was not useful for much. The wood itself was far too soft to be used for lumber, and even if it were to be carved into arrows it was easily warped with age, and especially moisture. It did, however, give off a low level of heat, even once it was chopped down. It’s leaves were a fiery red and were often brewed into tea or pounded into paste to help treat sever burns. Most potent were its roots which when burned gave off no smoke, and did not wither within the flames. That was what Lyra was most interested in at this moment.
As she cut into the soft wood a charred smell filled the lab reminiscent of smoke from a fire. With a few quick strokes several log shavings lay on the bench, the inner wood slightly darker than the bark. These shavings were collected and deposited into a green tinted beaker made of Lyrethillum. From a shelf Lyra took down another bottle filled with a clear liquid, pouring a small amount into the beaker before corking and returning the bottle back to its place. The Alchemical acid was quick to perform its work, steadily eating through and breaking down the wood shavings over the course of several minutes. Lyra let the acid work while she prepared her next set of ingredients.
In another lyrethillum container sat a small pyrolyth dragonshard of greater quality. The process of working with dragonshards for alchemy was tricky, as small missteps could cause an erroneous reaction, or potentially make the shard itself explode. It was possible to completely break down a dragonshard just like any other material, but Lyra had found little need to take things to such an extreme. Instead she had discovered that aether from dragonshards could instead be extracted, much like color could be pulled from cloth if the right process was applied. The key to it was the pictographs used.
Tipping the vial upside down Lyra let the dragonshard fall into the center of a pictograph carved on the surface of a metallic plate. Alchemist used many such plates, each carved with pre-designed and purposed pictographs that could be pointed with stands or glassware and activated at different steps of the process. This one was carved with a pictograph similar to the Sigil of Isolation, but it was slightly modified. Normally Dragonshards gave off a small, yet constant, amount of aether much like how living creatures gave off auras. The volume and potency was miniscule at best, and it was only when actively being used to power either a mages spells or a work of scrivening that the full power of a dragonshard came to bear.
Well, that is true for most shards. Lyra thought with a smile. It was true. There were some dragonshards that did indeed give off a dangerous amount of ‘ambient’ aether. Those were of particular interest to Lyra, but that was for another time. Most dragonshards simply gave off a small amount of aether that simply faded or was absorbed by things nearby. In the Pyrolyth shards case that ambient aether often took the form of low grade heat and light.
Lyra wanted the aether that was inside of that dragonshard, but she did not wish to connect it to a complicated schema that would draw it out through lines of scripts. It was rarely considered, but whenever detailed or complex scrivening was utilized there was often some loss of aether, even when the schema was optimized. The result was a well controlled reaction of magic, which typically was what the scrivener desired when designing the schema in the first place. Lyra though did not need well controlled displays of magic. She needed raw aether. That was where the modified sigil came into play. Instead of isolation, the sigil was tweaked ever so slightly so that instead of isolating, it expelled the aether inside of whatever stood inside of its boundaries. The process wasn’t quick on its own, but that was where the lyrethillum became important.
The pictographs on the plate shimmered slightly as the dragonshard at the center dimmed. Lyra placed what could be described as an upside-down glass funnel over the top of the plate, completely incasing both the plate and dragonshard inside. The combination of pictograph and lyrethillum did its work, and steadily redish aether began to trickle, then stream from the dragonshard. The gaseous aether spiraled up through the glass tubing, arching down and into a chamber with was covered in another sigil which caused the aether to gather and condense, thickening slightly until it was like red fog instead of just gas. Lyra watched as the aether moved from that chamber and down through another set of rubber tubing, steadily collecting in a rounded flask flipped upside down with a nozzle at its end.
On the other side of the table the acid had almost completed its work on the shavings. It looked like a mud-colored paste, and with a slight grimace at the caustic stench Lyra place the beaker on a metal stand and connected another upside-down funnel to its top. The stand sat on top of another metal plate, this one a more familiar one. The sigil of Dissolution was activated, the substance in the beaker erupting into gaseous form and flowing up through the spiraling tubing and horizontally toward another round bottom container. This set of tubing however had several branches that lead down from the main tube. Under each was a long, needle like nozzle that hung down into small flasks. At each point where the main too branched downward there was a sigil, a pictograph that filter out everything except for what Lyra desired: Fire and heat resistance. As the aether flowed through the tubing all of the other features of the root, its hardness, its medical uses, its innate heat, everything was extracted and condensed down into the nozzles where they dripped into the waiting flasks. What was left at the end was a single round bottom flask with a maroon-colored gas. This flask was removed, corked and carried over to where the dragonshard was finishing its extraction process.
This last part was simple. Lyra connected the extracted flask of heat and fire resistance to the glassware that held the extracted fire aether from the dragonshard. Both flowed downward once their individual nozzles were turned, the fire resistance aether moving faster than the pure fire aether. The two gasses mixed as they passed through the same centermost glass tube, the thicker fire aether mixing in with the resistance attributes at a rate of 1 part to 5 until the mixed gaseous aether completely filled a vial at the bottom. Through this process Lyra was able to collect 5 vials of Fire Infusion Drafts, which she condensed on a 3rd plate with a combination of sigils for stabilization and reconstitution.
Two vials of the liquid Fire Infusion Drafts were stored in a prepared box, while the 3rd was used to fill a small container with 10 sheets of thick parchment. The container itself was carved with pictographs for stabilization, as well as the Sigil of Infusion. With a prepared agitation rod Lyra dipped the tip into the liquid, causing a spark of magic as the liquid aether rippled and was absorbed by the parchment. One vial of Fire Infusion Drafts could be used to create up to 10 sheets of infused parchment. These were made specifically for creating scrolls of fire. Up to Journeyman level spells could be used on the parchment over and over again without fear of the paper burning or wearing out, only the pictographs would need to be repaired periodically if the ink itself was not infused to resist flame as well. She could create a work of expert level with this paper and use it perhaps 3 or 4 times before it would burn away, and Lyra thought she might be lucky to get a single use out of a master level scroll. Still, these would serve their purpose.
While she collected the newly infused parchment, off to the side the last of the pyrolyth shard’s aether condensed further, being drawn down into another vial where it dripped in liquid form into a waiting beaker. As each liquid drop hit the bottom of the glassware a sigil of reconstitution glowed, steadily hardening the pure aether into shards of crystal that could be reused later.
