10th of Frost, 120 AS
Over two days passed while Lyra contemplated the things she had learned during the initial experiments. One could substitute dragonshards with infused gems for construct cores, those cores could manipulate and use aether stored within themselves, and most importantly once a core was given instruction using a circle of minding then one could no longer purge it completely. That last fact was one that rang out to Lyra as the most profound, though she was not quite sure yet why that was.
A soul, by nature of its very being, was something that was not easily changed, or so Lyra suspected based on what she had discovered. Sentient races Lyra knew from experience were loath to bend, let alone allow themselves to be completely dissuaded from their previous thoughts and machinations. That said, she herself knew that it was possible. As a mesmer Lyra could bend the symphonies of other creatures, both sentient and none, to be more in line with what she desired them to be. She could even silence them completely if she wished, however... She had never considered fully unraveling a soul in its entirety. The symphonies were linked with emotions that was true, and even memories. Yet how tied were they to the soul itself? Long ago her friend had said....
Lyra frowned as she struggled to remember, a shooting pain passing through her chest which seemed so foreign to Lyra, yet it was unmistakably grief. This was a curios thing to Lyra, but as she pondered it the words suddenly returned to her.
"The symphonies are the voice of the soul." Lyra whispered as she ran a hand through her hair, "Through them you can hear the soul, and you can speak to it as well."
She had never quite understood the second part, save for how it tied to the memories. She could, with patience, alter what a person remembered of a situation. If she used a large amount of power she could even rearrange things in such a way that the affects lasted for years, but was that what was meant by 'speaking with the soul'? Now she wasn't so sure...
Once more Lyra found herself in her lab, staring at the circle of minding with a frown. What exactly WAS the circle of minding anyway? It connected the mage to the core, and allowed one to manipulate aether within a gem in order to make it... something. Awake? Conscious? No, if anything what she did was make the gem aware of itself in some limited fashion. Was that because of the circle? Or was it the pictographs on the gem?
No, it was definitely the pictographs on the gems Lyra decided with a nod. The gem, when infused, powered the pictographs which were designed to give a core a sense of self. If that was the case though, why was it that when a gemstone was infused did it not simply awaken as a core? Why did she need the circle of minding?
"Unless... " Lyra paused in her pacing, a finger tapping on her chin, "The circle of minding has nothing to do with awakening the gem at all. It is simply what it appears to be. A way to interact with a core."
Lyra's eyes widened and her head snapped around to stare at the circle, "With a Soul."
With a sudden burst of inspiration Lyra snatched the page off of the table, the stones that weighted its corners sent clattering against the stones of the floor as Lyra held the glyph up before her eyes for closer inspection.
"Link the mage to the core." Lyra whispered, her eyes scanning the markings, "Grasp the aether, manipulate it, impart the will. Bend and shape, confine and enclose..."
Lyra's expression grew still as she stared at the larger circle, thoughts spinning. There was something that had bothered Lyra about the entire design. If one simply needed to connect to the core, a series of simple lines and connector glyphs would have been sufficient. Yet the circle of minding that Phoma had showed her had a very specific design. A large ring, built with braided lies to contain... No, to create a space. But why?
"To house the construct? To contain it?" She asked to herself, tracing the lines with a finger, "Or perhaps to house it. Nurture it like a flower in a greenhouse."
Could it be a similar concept to a smiths forge? That, to, utilized containment which at first seemed to be merely to keep heat from escaping, but the true reason a forge was enchased was to house the energy inside and provide the best environment for nurturing the metal within. Repeated exposure to the forge, combined with strikes of the hammer on anvil, resulted in a material that was stronger than when it started, its impurities worked out. If she thought along those lines, Lyra wondered just what was the original purpose of artificing?
Walking slowly back to the table Lyra spread out the paper once more, picking up the tones to weigh down the corners once more. Taking up her quill Lyra dipped it into the spellwrights ink, holding it aloft at the edge of the larger circle. A container... A house, and a forge. She needed to create a space that would be more than a fence... She needed a design that would let her create a true 'space' for the soul. But to do that, she needed...
Lyra began to hum softly under her breath as she began to draw. Soft, waving lines that wound through the circle that was already there, edging lines and curves with a 2nd layer that she shaded in. As she worked Lyra opened up her own symphonies, and tuned her own melodies. To these she hummed as she worked, pressing the magic of her rune into each and every stroke.
She expanded the circle, drawing lines out in waving tendrils of smoke that wrapped vines and flames. A forest of bend trees, their branches encapsulating the the entirety of the design. Leaves burned with fire but did not crumble, and she hummed the music of her aether with each dip of her quill.
"A space for the soul. A place where the symphonies are born and collect. Where the intangible becomes visible, where minds melded and linked."
It was like that ancient technique of the Leh'anafel. When two mesmers willed it they could create a space between them of mutual understanding, of sensation that passed without words or thought. This old form of magic Lyra wove into her design, yet she expanded it. She did not merely wish to open a connection with the thing placed inside, she wanted to create for it a place where it could be fully open and free. The forest ablaze with the fires of magic, smoke that was two souls intermingling.
"A Soul Forge." Lyra said as she breathed out, tendrils of black smoke trailing down her arm and alighting on the glyphs as she continued to draw. She added more and more of her aether to the design, adding glyphs of connection, growth and communication and links to the core gem that mimicked its properties to give a core gem its ability to accept instructions. Yet among these glyphs she laced in new pictographs, those used for soul gems. Capture, confine, expand and influence. A place that could hold a living thinking creature.
All of these concepts Lyra wrapped in one final layer, lines of power with star shaped designs that fully encapsulated everything on the page. This glyph Lyra gave the foundations of... A world, a zone, a designated place of power. As she sketched the glyph she imagined the dome of the sky above on a starry night, or the roof of a house that held things inside of it safely within. Yet like the house those within it could move freely inside, interact with things and each other, and add to and remove things at will.
When she was finished Lyra stepped back, quill still in hand as she stared at what she had made with a critical eye. It looked... Half finished. She shook her head, not disappointed but somehow she had expected the end product to be more refined somehow. Though this was still a first attempt. Now then...
From the table Lyra picked up the core she had created previously. It was infused once more, and she placed it in the center of the circle. When she placed the gem down the entire design shown brightly, surprising Lyra as she saw the gem itself pulse rhythmically with visible light. Curious Lyra placed her hands in the circles meant for her, and closed her eyes as she felt herself drawn in...
Then her eyes opened, and she stared around herself... Looked around at an open space that looked like a shattered green glass dome. It wasn't a simple mental tool. She could SEE as if she were truly there. Glancing down Lyra saw she had no body, yet she felt as if she could move as freely as ever before. Her gaze then was drawn upward to a bright glow overhead, and with a start Lyra saw it was the Core, the thing which saw itself as the core at least.
It looked like a larger floating replica of the gem on the table in the true realm, yet it glowed from within with an intense light. She could see the pictographs she carved on its surface, and she could... feel its purpose. It wasn't alive, it wasn't really sentient either, yet it felt that it was itself in some odd and extremely simple way.
Suddenly Lyra felt a jerk at her core and her eyes snapped open. She was in her lab once more, staring down at the paper with the larger circle of minding... The gem still rested at its center. What had happened?
Glancing down Lyra saw that the circles where her hands had been were flacked and cracked, the aether in the ink burned up from trying to maintain such a strong connection. Lyra ran a finger over the faint traces of the circles that remained, eyes distant as she began to process the implications.
Over two days passed while Lyra contemplated the things she had learned during the initial experiments. One could substitute dragonshards with infused gems for construct cores, those cores could manipulate and use aether stored within themselves, and most importantly once a core was given instruction using a circle of minding then one could no longer purge it completely. That last fact was one that rang out to Lyra as the most profound, though she was not quite sure yet why that was.
A soul, by nature of its very being, was something that was not easily changed, or so Lyra suspected based on what she had discovered. Sentient races Lyra knew from experience were loath to bend, let alone allow themselves to be completely dissuaded from their previous thoughts and machinations. That said, she herself knew that it was possible. As a mesmer Lyra could bend the symphonies of other creatures, both sentient and none, to be more in line with what she desired them to be. She could even silence them completely if she wished, however... She had never considered fully unraveling a soul in its entirety. The symphonies were linked with emotions that was true, and even memories. Yet how tied were they to the soul itself? Long ago her friend had said....
Lyra frowned as she struggled to remember, a shooting pain passing through her chest which seemed so foreign to Lyra, yet it was unmistakably grief. This was a curios thing to Lyra, but as she pondered it the words suddenly returned to her.
"The symphonies are the voice of the soul." Lyra whispered as she ran a hand through her hair, "Through them you can hear the soul, and you can speak to it as well."
She had never quite understood the second part, save for how it tied to the memories. She could, with patience, alter what a person remembered of a situation. If she used a large amount of power she could even rearrange things in such a way that the affects lasted for years, but was that what was meant by 'speaking with the soul'? Now she wasn't so sure...
Once more Lyra found herself in her lab, staring at the circle of minding with a frown. What exactly WAS the circle of minding anyway? It connected the mage to the core, and allowed one to manipulate aether within a gem in order to make it... something. Awake? Conscious? No, if anything what she did was make the gem aware of itself in some limited fashion. Was that because of the circle? Or was it the pictographs on the gem?
No, it was definitely the pictographs on the gems Lyra decided with a nod. The gem, when infused, powered the pictographs which were designed to give a core a sense of self. If that was the case though, why was it that when a gemstone was infused did it not simply awaken as a core? Why did she need the circle of minding?
"Unless... " Lyra paused in her pacing, a finger tapping on her chin, "The circle of minding has nothing to do with awakening the gem at all. It is simply what it appears to be. A way to interact with a core."
Lyra's eyes widened and her head snapped around to stare at the circle, "With a Soul."
With a sudden burst of inspiration Lyra snatched the page off of the table, the stones that weighted its corners sent clattering against the stones of the floor as Lyra held the glyph up before her eyes for closer inspection.
"Link the mage to the core." Lyra whispered, her eyes scanning the markings, "Grasp the aether, manipulate it, impart the will. Bend and shape, confine and enclose..."
Lyra's expression grew still as she stared at the larger circle, thoughts spinning. There was something that had bothered Lyra about the entire design. If one simply needed to connect to the core, a series of simple lines and connector glyphs would have been sufficient. Yet the circle of minding that Phoma had showed her had a very specific design. A large ring, built with braided lies to contain... No, to create a space. But why?
"To house the construct? To contain it?" She asked to herself, tracing the lines with a finger, "Or perhaps to house it. Nurture it like a flower in a greenhouse."
Could it be a similar concept to a smiths forge? That, to, utilized containment which at first seemed to be merely to keep heat from escaping, but the true reason a forge was enchased was to house the energy inside and provide the best environment for nurturing the metal within. Repeated exposure to the forge, combined with strikes of the hammer on anvil, resulted in a material that was stronger than when it started, its impurities worked out. If she thought along those lines, Lyra wondered just what was the original purpose of artificing?
Walking slowly back to the table Lyra spread out the paper once more, picking up the tones to weigh down the corners once more. Taking up her quill Lyra dipped it into the spellwrights ink, holding it aloft at the edge of the larger circle. A container... A house, and a forge. She needed to create a space that would be more than a fence... She needed a design that would let her create a true 'space' for the soul. But to do that, she needed...
Lyra began to hum softly under her breath as she began to draw. Soft, waving lines that wound through the circle that was already there, edging lines and curves with a 2nd layer that she shaded in. As she worked Lyra opened up her own symphonies, and tuned her own melodies. To these she hummed as she worked, pressing the magic of her rune into each and every stroke.
She expanded the circle, drawing lines out in waving tendrils of smoke that wrapped vines and flames. A forest of bend trees, their branches encapsulating the the entirety of the design. Leaves burned with fire but did not crumble, and she hummed the music of her aether with each dip of her quill.
"A space for the soul. A place where the symphonies are born and collect. Where the intangible becomes visible, where minds melded and linked."
It was like that ancient technique of the Leh'anafel. When two mesmers willed it they could create a space between them of mutual understanding, of sensation that passed without words or thought. This old form of magic Lyra wove into her design, yet she expanded it. She did not merely wish to open a connection with the thing placed inside, she wanted to create for it a place where it could be fully open and free. The forest ablaze with the fires of magic, smoke that was two souls intermingling.
"A Soul Forge." Lyra said as she breathed out, tendrils of black smoke trailing down her arm and alighting on the glyphs as she continued to draw. She added more and more of her aether to the design, adding glyphs of connection, growth and communication and links to the core gem that mimicked its properties to give a core gem its ability to accept instructions. Yet among these glyphs she laced in new pictographs, those used for soul gems. Capture, confine, expand and influence. A place that could hold a living thinking creature.
All of these concepts Lyra wrapped in one final layer, lines of power with star shaped designs that fully encapsulated everything on the page. This glyph Lyra gave the foundations of... A world, a zone, a designated place of power. As she sketched the glyph she imagined the dome of the sky above on a starry night, or the roof of a house that held things inside of it safely within. Yet like the house those within it could move freely inside, interact with things and each other, and add to and remove things at will.
When she was finished Lyra stepped back, quill still in hand as she stared at what she had made with a critical eye. It looked... Half finished. She shook her head, not disappointed but somehow she had expected the end product to be more refined somehow. Though this was still a first attempt. Now then...
From the table Lyra picked up the core she had created previously. It was infused once more, and she placed it in the center of the circle. When she placed the gem down the entire design shown brightly, surprising Lyra as she saw the gem itself pulse rhythmically with visible light. Curious Lyra placed her hands in the circles meant for her, and closed her eyes as she felt herself drawn in...
Then her eyes opened, and she stared around herself... Looked around at an open space that looked like a shattered green glass dome. It wasn't a simple mental tool. She could SEE as if she were truly there. Glancing down Lyra saw she had no body, yet she felt as if she could move as freely as ever before. Her gaze then was drawn upward to a bright glow overhead, and with a start Lyra saw it was the Core, the thing which saw itself as the core at least.
It looked like a larger floating replica of the gem on the table in the true realm, yet it glowed from within with an intense light. She could see the pictographs she carved on its surface, and she could... feel its purpose. It wasn't alive, it wasn't really sentient either, yet it felt that it was itself in some odd and extremely simple way.
Suddenly Lyra felt a jerk at her core and her eyes snapped open. She was in her lab once more, staring down at the paper with the larger circle of minding... The gem still rested at its center. What had happened?
Glancing down Lyra saw that the circles where her hands had been were flacked and cracked, the aether in the ink burned up from trying to maintain such a strong connection. Lyra ran a finger over the faint traces of the circles that remained, eyes distant as she began to process the implications.
