23rd of Frost, 120 AS
She had thought on how to proceed for several days, and her mind kept returning to her time in Phoma's workshop. She remembered the array of cores, intricate lines of scripts that connected dragonshard to gem to the mechanism, how each piece was interwoven and linked together in unexpected ways. Magic flowed through that place like blood in the veins, and when she had first seen it Lyra had felt her breath caught in her chest. It was art, it was efficiency incarnate. It was what she had never realized she desired.
In her workshop, Lyra stood over her table, on which was spread a large sheet of heavy parchment made of aether rich material. The sheets of paper which were present before were now neatly rolled and stacked on a nearby shelf, their contents already memorized and filed away for Lyra to use later. She held in her hand a pen made of dark wood wrapped in silver wife, its surface etched with glyphs that made one's grip steady and helped the flow of ink on paper. As for the ink, it was spellwright, a new batch made by Talon which he had delivered to her not long ago. The materials were ready.
She wanted to explore the possibilities. To see if what she envisioned was truly possible, and to try and emulate, at least in part, what she had seen that day in Phoma's workshop. Like with most schema this one began with a circle at the very center, about as wide as her forearm was long. The Core, Lyra had come to realize, was more than simply the center of a construct. It was also the beginning of everything that came after. She wanted to create a schema that would house that core, shelter it while at the same time make it modular so that she could move or exchange cores as she required. At the very center of the circle, she placed a smaller circle, a diamond inside of it to match the center of the Soul Space schema. This was how where the Core would interact with the circle and the mechanisms that connected to it. From the center circle, she made spirling pathways that made swirling patterns as they converged on one point at the edge of the larger circle. At this point, Lyra drew a smaller overlapping circle. Around it she added sigils that would allow the transfer to and from this point from the core to something else connected. She then created a braided line to another circle, rapped in runes to protect against ambient aether or outside interference, a common issue that Lyra saw in most labs she worked within the current age. In this far circle, Lyra drew another circle with a diamond inside of it. Here the gem she placed into it would connect, much like the Core interacted with the primary circle.
With that, it was finished, and Lyra stepped back. What she saw in Phoma's workshop was one primary core sending out instructions to smaller, ancillary cores. Lyra wished to determine if she could recreate that effect on a much smaller scale. It was simpler than Lyra had originally thought, though the true work would come with the Cores themselves.
Straightening with a sigh Lyra set down her pen and stretched. She then moved down the steps to her lab, stopping before the desk in the corner where the Soul Space diagram was located. It still required refinement, but what she saw when she looked at the schema made her smile. A forced connection between two points, or souls, through a combination of Necromancy's path of souls and the base principles of the circle of minding from Artificing. The connection was strengthened and given mental form using the powers of mesmer, a piece of the puzzle that was likely what others who might have tried in the past had missed.
"It looks like you were right." Lyra said to no one in particular as she turned and went into her necromancy lab, "Mesmer really is the voice of the soul."
As she passed the desk in this lab Lyra picked up the small lesser Aetherite shard. This would be the foundation of her core, her artificial soul. At the shard station, Lyra placed the shard down, the glyphs of protection glowing while Lyra picked up her carving tool. She then used careful strokes to begin etching the surface of the dragonshard, utilizing the glyph wards as well as the special tool to keep the gem stable while she worked. Like with her previous cores Lyra gave the gem the diamond inside of a circle pictograph, the way it interfaced with the circles it was inside of. She then began the slow and meticulous process of adding the series of pictographs that would allow the dragonshard to become a core. Consciousness, logic, and other similar elements were inscribed into the glyphs, giving the Core to be the ability to accept and understand the instructions presented to it. As she worked Lyra felt the pictographs activating in sequence, and a thought came to mind. Was the order of activation important to the art of Artificing? It certainly was in the highest levels of the Scripts, as this was the basis of rituals. Yet Lyra had not met any world mage yet that seemed to give much regard to the idea. Her current observations said that, at least at this scale, the order did not matter... but would that hold as she progressed further along this path?
When she had made the last of the basic inscriptions Lyra then progressed to the next, which would give the Core the ability to connect with and help generate the soul space. This was done through a series of runes that wrapped between and around dragonshard. Small, pinprick stars that linked with the larger glyph to help give shape to the soul space and stabilize it. The next set of spiraling glyphs Lyra had to connect with the pictographs centered around consciousness, those elements which represented the soul or manipulation of the soul. Spiraling, root-like fingers that grasped at the diamond design at the bottom that connected the core to the rest of the circle. The core would supply its own aether to help maintain the connection, as well as keep the Soul Space active. These glyphs would also help Lyra to connect more strongly with the Core, thus enabling her to be drawn into that space and interact with the core directly.
The last of the lines were made, and then Lyra stepped back and smiled at the finished product in her hand. It glowed with a soft blue tinted light, the glyphs along its surface settling as power ran through them and awakened them as a whole to their purpose. Now would be the true test. The time had come to try what she had been working on for so long.
With slow steps Lyra turned on her heel and walked back out to the main lab, stopping before her desk before gently setting the Core at the center of the diagram. As if on queue the entire design became awash in colors, pictographs activating in series one at a time as the glyphs of the circle read and interact with the ones on the core. It became brighter and brighter until with a flash everything faded to a soft steady white glow. Curiously Lyra knelt and examined the paper, and her eye widened slightly as she realized the dragonshard hovered ever so slightly above the paper itself. It was as if it was suspended in the air by invisible strings, not even the slightest shift in position.
It seemed to have worked... Or Lyr suspected it had. There was still one thing left to do to confirm it. She pressed her hand on the circle nearest to herself and closed her eyes. The world went dark, but in the distance, she could see a light.
She had thought on how to proceed for several days, and her mind kept returning to her time in Phoma's workshop. She remembered the array of cores, intricate lines of scripts that connected dragonshard to gem to the mechanism, how each piece was interwoven and linked together in unexpected ways. Magic flowed through that place like blood in the veins, and when she had first seen it Lyra had felt her breath caught in her chest. It was art, it was efficiency incarnate. It was what she had never realized she desired.
In her workshop, Lyra stood over her table, on which was spread a large sheet of heavy parchment made of aether rich material. The sheets of paper which were present before were now neatly rolled and stacked on a nearby shelf, their contents already memorized and filed away for Lyra to use later. She held in her hand a pen made of dark wood wrapped in silver wife, its surface etched with glyphs that made one's grip steady and helped the flow of ink on paper. As for the ink, it was spellwright, a new batch made by Talon which he had delivered to her not long ago. The materials were ready.
She wanted to explore the possibilities. To see if what she envisioned was truly possible, and to try and emulate, at least in part, what she had seen that day in Phoma's workshop. Like with most schema this one began with a circle at the very center, about as wide as her forearm was long. The Core, Lyra had come to realize, was more than simply the center of a construct. It was also the beginning of everything that came after. She wanted to create a schema that would house that core, shelter it while at the same time make it modular so that she could move or exchange cores as she required. At the very center of the circle, she placed a smaller circle, a diamond inside of it to match the center of the Soul Space schema. This was how where the Core would interact with the circle and the mechanisms that connected to it. From the center circle, she made spirling pathways that made swirling patterns as they converged on one point at the edge of the larger circle. At this point, Lyra drew a smaller overlapping circle. Around it she added sigils that would allow the transfer to and from this point from the core to something else connected. She then created a braided line to another circle, rapped in runes to protect against ambient aether or outside interference, a common issue that Lyra saw in most labs she worked within the current age. In this far circle, Lyra drew another circle with a diamond inside of it. Here the gem she placed into it would connect, much like the Core interacted with the primary circle.
With that, it was finished, and Lyra stepped back. What she saw in Phoma's workshop was one primary core sending out instructions to smaller, ancillary cores. Lyra wished to determine if she could recreate that effect on a much smaller scale. It was simpler than Lyra had originally thought, though the true work would come with the Cores themselves.
Straightening with a sigh Lyra set down her pen and stretched. She then moved down the steps to her lab, stopping before the desk in the corner where the Soul Space diagram was located. It still required refinement, but what she saw when she looked at the schema made her smile. A forced connection between two points, or souls, through a combination of Necromancy's path of souls and the base principles of the circle of minding from Artificing. The connection was strengthened and given mental form using the powers of mesmer, a piece of the puzzle that was likely what others who might have tried in the past had missed.
"It looks like you were right." Lyra said to no one in particular as she turned and went into her necromancy lab, "Mesmer really is the voice of the soul."
As she passed the desk in this lab Lyra picked up the small lesser Aetherite shard. This would be the foundation of her core, her artificial soul. At the shard station, Lyra placed the shard down, the glyphs of protection glowing while Lyra picked up her carving tool. She then used careful strokes to begin etching the surface of the dragonshard, utilizing the glyph wards as well as the special tool to keep the gem stable while she worked. Like with her previous cores Lyra gave the gem the diamond inside of a circle pictograph, the way it interfaced with the circles it was inside of. She then began the slow and meticulous process of adding the series of pictographs that would allow the dragonshard to become a core. Consciousness, logic, and other similar elements were inscribed into the glyphs, giving the Core to be the ability to accept and understand the instructions presented to it. As she worked Lyra felt the pictographs activating in sequence, and a thought came to mind. Was the order of activation important to the art of Artificing? It certainly was in the highest levels of the Scripts, as this was the basis of rituals. Yet Lyra had not met any world mage yet that seemed to give much regard to the idea. Her current observations said that, at least at this scale, the order did not matter... but would that hold as she progressed further along this path?
When she had made the last of the basic inscriptions Lyra then progressed to the next, which would give the Core the ability to connect with and help generate the soul space. This was done through a series of runes that wrapped between and around dragonshard. Small, pinprick stars that linked with the larger glyph to help give shape to the soul space and stabilize it. The next set of spiraling glyphs Lyra had to connect with the pictographs centered around consciousness, those elements which represented the soul or manipulation of the soul. Spiraling, root-like fingers that grasped at the diamond design at the bottom that connected the core to the rest of the circle. The core would supply its own aether to help maintain the connection, as well as keep the Soul Space active. These glyphs would also help Lyra to connect more strongly with the Core, thus enabling her to be drawn into that space and interact with the core directly.
The last of the lines were made, and then Lyra stepped back and smiled at the finished product in her hand. It glowed with a soft blue tinted light, the glyphs along its surface settling as power ran through them and awakened them as a whole to their purpose. Now would be the true test. The time had come to try what she had been working on for so long.
With slow steps Lyra turned on her heel and walked back out to the main lab, stopping before her desk before gently setting the Core at the center of the diagram. As if on queue the entire design became awash in colors, pictographs activating in series one at a time as the glyphs of the circle read and interact with the ones on the core. It became brighter and brighter until with a flash everything faded to a soft steady white glow. Curiously Lyra knelt and examined the paper, and her eye widened slightly as she realized the dragonshard hovered ever so slightly above the paper itself. It was as if it was suspended in the air by invisible strings, not even the slightest shift in position.
It seemed to have worked... Or Lyr suspected it had. There was still one thing left to do to confirm it. She pressed her hand on the circle nearest to herself and closed her eyes. The world went dark, but in the distance, she could see a light.
