64th of Ash, 120 AS
The last piece Lyra was to create was a pen to go with the tome. It needed to be something that would complement what it was Finn required from the book as a whole. He mentioned he was unsure with his hand when it came to pulling things from the mind to paper, thus Lyra would create a stylus which would, at least in part, ease the burdens for him. She had selected a medium length pen made of wood with a slightly larger metal tip. The tip itself was lightly curved, and when pressed on the paper it gave just enough to make flowing lines ease to draw. The wood itself was of fine quality, and a small aetherite shard had been added to its hilt. The shard itself was of lesser quality, but it served the purpose Lyra intended.
From her tools Lyra selected a small carving hook no bigger than the nail of her pinky. She used this tool to carefully scrape at the wood of the pen, etching into its surface a series of pictographs. She started from the end of the pen where the shard rested. Lines pulled aether from the shard, directing it down toward the first set of pictographs. She did not complete this set, however, and instead moved toward the other end of the pen.
At the positions where one would normally grip a pen Lyra drew faint swirling lines, reminiscent of thumbprints. She connected these pictographs with lines that doubled back on one another, circling the prints before racing down toward the tip of the pen.
"Guide and steady." Lyra whispered as she worked, "Ease the burden, relieve the stress." She breathed out, waving in compulsion with the smoke as it wrapped and woke the pictographs as she worked. Lyra could not directly influence a person's ability, however, what she COULD do was affect the way they perceived themselves. When touched the pictographs would activate, sending a sense of calmness and confidence in the act of writing or drawing. This, Lyra believed, would help to steady the hand, and make it easier to create works with sure and confident strokes.
She finished the designs on the pictographs she was working on and moved up the pen. Here Lyra created a design reminiscent of a well, or at least it looked like small bricks going around the entire circumference of the pen. She drew small flowing lines down past the fingerprints, touching the edges of the pen's metal tip where she made small scraps in the shapes of ovals. She then moved lines down to the very tip of the pen before tracing her path back up. Breathing out Lyra wove in this second pictograph the will of containment. Aether could be moved and stored using pictographs, and she had seen with her bone stylus that something similar could be done with ink if the right connections were made. In this case, she wished for the pen to be able to take up some of the ink from the ink well, store it a short time before releasing it. From a small vial Lira took several drops of infused in, not spellwrights in, and let the drops fall on the well like the design. The glyph glowed slightly before growing dark, the ink is absorbed. Nodding Lyra moved on and added a few drops of spellwrights ink, and finally normal untreated ink. Lyra believed this would allow the pen to take in and store any form of ink, though the amount of time it could hold it would only be long enough to move from the ink well to the page.
With that design complete Lyra moved to the final glyph set, the one she had started before. This one was perhaps a bit more complex, which was why she had saved it for last. Before she began however she drew connecting pathways down to her other glyphs, ensuring that those designs would be empowered when the time came. Her attention then returned to the final pictograph set. This one would have a special function, one that Lyra wished she had thought of ages ago. She carved the shape of a droplet, an ink drop in her mind's eye. She then drew a series of lines from it which turned to dotted lines, then scattered dots before disappearing entirely on the other side of the pen. Lyra carefully drew a pathway from the ink droplet to the aetherite shard and added additional lines leading out from it. She repeated this design on the other side of the pen. As she worked Lyra pictured the ink on a page, dry and stable. She imagined it rising from the surface of whatever paper it was on, breaking apart and disappearing like dust.
Smoke fell from Lyra's lips as she whispered soft words to the tune of 'be rid of' and 'to scour." As the aether was taken in and the glyph awoke Lyra began a final set of glyphs. These she placed in the small space between the droplet and the brick design. It was a harp, its strings flowing into music bars that wrapped the pen. As she created this last pictograph Lyra took in mind the image of Finn himself. From the vial of blood, Lyra let several drops of Finn's essence fall onto this pictograph in particular. She then had the music bars break apart, their lines wrapping up and down the pen, weaving between the other pictographs. Most importantly Lyra had the lines pass between the shard and the pathways that lead to the rest of the pictographs. With this act, Lyra ensured that this pen's full functionality could only be used by Finn himself. Finn, and of course Lyra. Once more she had added her own symbol, the snake with no eyes, near the very top of the pen almost hidden by the gem itself.
With a sigh, the smoke dissipated, and Lyra looked at her work. It was done. Her eyes skimmed over the Grimoire that still sat on the workbench. Moving toward it Lyra brought the pen to it. The matching pictographs glowed in unison, and Lyra was able to open the tome with no issues. This made Lyra smile. This even if Finn were not present, if someone DID happen to have the pen they would be able to open the grimoire as well. One always needed a failsafe with such devices.
Flipping to a page near the back Lyra dipped the pen in a small ink vial of normal ink. She watched as black lines traced up the glyphs, filling the brick-like pictograph slowly. She moved the pen over to the page, and the moment she pressed the pen to paper it began to release the ink. She quickly scrawled a few designs and random pictures onto the page. When all of the ink was gone from the glyph Lyra wiped the tip with a cloth, repeating this process with both a vial of infused ink as well as spellwrights ink. She then flipped the pen in her hands, running the edge of the aetherite shard over the ink] and watched with a satisfied smirk as the dry ink slowly lifted from the page and disintegrated.
"Excellent." Lyra said, looking at the pen. It was a first iteration, a prototype of sorts, but the implications of such a creation were exciting to Lyra. If she could make the ink erase itself from the page, could she perhaps do other things to it? What if instead of just the bookbinding and the pen, she used infused paper? What if all of the items and the reagents were created utilizing a person's blood, hair, and other parts of their body? Could she perhaps make a book that could only be read by the owner? Could she create hidden messages that only she could see? What about those that used the magic of semblance? The thoughts raced through her mind as she slowly closed the book, resting the pen on top of it.
"The little singer should be pleased." Lyra said, her hand still resting on the book's cover. Her fingers lingered on the dragonshard, feeling its cut surface. So Finn was seeking patronage to House Zatrian? He planned to show them a portfolio of his works. He would, of course, use this as it was of proper make and impressive to look at. To Finn it might simply be a journal, but what about to the leaders of House Zatrian?
They will likely see it for what it is. Lyra thought, picking up the book and pen and carrying it out of the workshop, I have seen few true Grimoire in Kalzasi, though I am sure they exist somewhere. This, while not a perfected work, is enough to suggest the scope of what I can provide.
House Zatrian, House Senue and House Novalys. House Briathos of course. There was something there that Lyra had just started to comprehend. The city of Kalzasi was under pressure from the inside, the powers of the Houses unbalanced as each attempt to discern just where the chips will fall. What's more, this season had shown itself to be... interesting to say the least. Lyra had found herself freed, the undead walked and spoke like the living, the Heir of the ruling House was a mere owner of a forge in the city. There was this Iron Queen which so many spoke of with either reverence or fear, and there was a Necromancer somewhere in this city that was of greater skill than even Lyra herself.
Lyra needed to be closer to events. She had realized that. She had realized it as soon as the darkness had spoken to her that night in her lab, the night she had been shaken and reminded that she was supposed to be something more. Lyra still did not care to think about it, but she knew. If powers were moving she needed to know. She needed to be guiding those movements.
"Whispers..." Lyra breathed, setting the Grimoire on her desk. Her golden eyes glazed slightly as she fell back in contemplation, "Kalzasi... Such a small place, but it is time that the Whispers started here as they did in days past."
Back in the days when she was known as Lyrielle, the Lady of Whispers.
