Measure Twice, Scribe Once
Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:12 pm
S U C H • W O N D R O U S • W O R K
Ash 32, 121 Age of Steel
Avamande was rather good at their job, better than their years of experience would suggest at least. This was not due to any special aptitude or prodigal abilities, indeed there were hundreds of Scriveners within Kalzasi who could put their work to shame, and did so on a daily basis. They weren't even the best Scrivener working for Lyra, put bluntly they were one of the worst in that esteemed company. No, what made them good at their job was neither ability nor experience, but instead a stubborn thoroughness, a dedication to the most minute of details that ensured everything was properly in its place.
Previously this level of attention was kept in check by economics, the formerly freelance Scrivener's desire to redo their work needing to be balanced against the cost of materials. Spellwright's ink was not free after all, and if enough runes that a less diligent sort would consider good enough were instead rejected they would end up taking a loss on their orders. This was no longer the case. With the effectively unlimited resources of Ale'Epherium at their disposal, and their own work all but a rounding error on the firm's total work, that constraint was now gone. Certainly, they took far longer than most would for the relatively simple tasks they were assigned, but only because they took every effort to make the product immaculate.
Which is how Avamande found themselves surrounded by discarded copies of the same system of runes, each of them almost perfect. Each of them almost what they wanted them to be. Each of them almost worthy of the name Ale'Epherium. They still weren't entirely certain why Lyra had agreed to hire them, but their own perfectionism and a refusal to shame their new employer ensured that they refused to give them anything but the best. Besides, they were woefully unskilled compared to the other Scriveners in the house, and only by such mind numbing repetition would they achieve anything close to the greatness of the others.
And so they tried again, and again, and again. The merest mistake was enough for them to discard the work, the Hytori taking great pains to control their breathing as they etched each line upon the parchment. Holding the feather quill delicately in their hand, the other obsessively held the writing surface as still as possible, refusing to permit anything so mundane as scrunched paper sully their work. This piece felt... right. They thought it would finally, finally meet their standards, and it was well and good that anxiety was as deadened as the rest of their emotions for even so they could feel their heart beating in their chest.
In their defense, the request that they had been given was highly unusual. A mere apprentice at the craft, only weak magics could be reliably harnessed by their pictographs, and most that called for such were relatively straightforward affairs. Typically assigned to the crafting of wands and the like for those newly given Cardinal Runes, toys good for little else than training, they were now dealing with a large expanse of vellum. working upon a request that made very little sense. The details were so clear that the order had to come from someone who was themselves at least as accomplished in Scrivening as Avamande themselves were, and the Hytori had initially assumed that this was some sort of test assigned to them by their superiors in the House. In the end, they decided it didn't matter why they had been asked to make such, only that they had.
Looking down at their work, they had already completed the framework. A ring of mirrors from which sprang eightfold Paths, all entering into a central Convergence where the collected power would pool. From there, it split again, twin Paths sending the energy to twin Continuums, the sheer amount of aether divided between them instead of simply being sent to a Continuum to begin with in order to avoid overloading the parchment. At best, if such a thing were to occur the scroll would burst into flames. At worst, well... at worst there would not be a repeat customer, to put it lightly. After the aether had gathered and gained the required momentum, it was sent off on yet another Path, the two meeting one another a central apex - a final Mirror, this one not merely accepting and transmitting aether but finally releasing it.
In theory, the mechanics were simple. Accept magical energy from multiple sources, combine them into one central mass of power, and direct it all upon a central egress point in an even and orderly fashion. With this, a collection of magical novices could potentially make works far beyond their station, but for the life of them Avamande could not figure out why someone would wish to do that. They were, however, quietly proud of the Continuums they had drawn. These had been an early stumbling block for them when they had first begun this project, the pictographs requiring a very precise formulation to be valid, and they had felt rather clever when they had found and copied the design for a release valve in the pictograph from deep in the archives.
They had gotten past that particular issue several attempts back, the strokes having become muscle memory after so much rote repetition. Now they were focusing on the final pictograph in the glyph, the one that had stymied them so many times now. This many moving parts, this many sources of aether, flowing through this many pictographs was guaranteed to have spillage. Not only was it wasteful to have the limited amount of power a novice could create leave the intended bounds of the work, but frankly dangerous. Even small amounts of rogue magical energy could prove catastrophic, especially if the intended users of the final product were as unpracticed and fresh as Avamande had suspected. Assuming that there were, indeed, meant to be any such users, but they had already promised themselves not to focus on such rabbit holes.
No, instead they once again forced themselves to focus upon their work. Vortex was a stabilizing sign, a pictograph designed to absorb and redirect the errant energies that could prove so disastrous. The symbol itself was not particularly problematic, the mage having practiced it for years with regular ink upon cheap paper. No, the issue was not simply a matter of correctly drawing Vortex on a blank page. It was fitting the pictograph correctly upon all points of transference and loss that may sully the greater glyph, requiring far more than just one scribing of it. For the safety of novices, Avamande estimated that they would need to create no more than four pictographs. Whoever had sent the request had insisted however on less than twelve such pictographs situated among the others, a level of surety beyond anything that a novice's work could possibly require.
With a sigh, Avamande set down their stylus and rubbed in between their eyes. They had allowed themselves to become distracted once again, the prospect of solving the mystery of the glyph far more intriguing than actually creating it. This was how the failures always occurred, they at last admitted to themselves. They had scribed more instances of Vortex this time than they had managed before without error, and dared not risk a failure with distractions so petty as to who placed such an order or why they had done so. As petty as such thoughts were, they needed to be exercised and expunged, not ignored and repressed. A test of their abilities was the most straightforward and logical explanation at first blush, the inconsistencies and incongruities of the requested glyph - as well as the level of detail put into the request - could be ignored as simply part of inventing a worthy challenge.
But... if Lyra or one of her employees had sought to test them, why not simply say so? Perhaps it was thought that they would try harder if they knew it was a test, a thought that they found somewhat insulting. If it were not intended as a test however, and was a legitimate order sent by a client, then all of those ignored concerns must now be considered. This was a focus for multiple mages, individually far too weak and unused to their powers to do much with their power, and create a meaningful effect. But why? The Circle had no need of such, their requests were always focused upon the cultivation of those newly marked by Runes, not finding profitable usage of them. Unless...
A thought occurred to them, too terrible to dwell long upon, and Avamande threw themselves into finishing this commission as quickly as they may. Focus beyond mere interest drove them onward, a fire lit under the feet of the ordinarily meticulous mage. If they were correct, then they would have as little to do with this as possible, and if they were wrong, they had spent far too much time on it already. Their pen flew across the parchment, marking the last Vortices faster than they had drawn any single pictograph before. Finished, and astonished at the quality of the work they had managed in their furious writing, they threw the quill down as if it were a viper, and after had nothing to do with the glyph they had made.
One that, were the Gods cruel enough for their thought to be true, would one day be a weapon.