Legend of Ransera

Some may call it a setback. That Shuai in his early days of scrivening had been forbidden from practicing it with the personal magics of others without the supervision of a much more senior scrivener who knew what he was doing and not only that, one with a good track record so the Chisuos could be sure their third son would not be at the risk of being exposed to another mishap. Finding both a practitioner of personal magics as well as getting the supervision of a senior scrivener at the same time and in the 'right manner' the family prescribed was a rarity in itself that it was no wonder Shuai's growth to be able to work personal magic into his scrivening had been stunted even though other apprentices his age started to work on more complicated pictographs and much bigger magics. However it was not entirely a bad thing as it would be wrong for the family to have someone who might lead it in the future unable to properly work the craftso as a compromise, while Shuai was unable to work with personal magic much, he had more opportunities to work with dragonshards. Much safer as even in its raw form, those unfamiliar with aether or magic like most commoners could still use them on their own.

And Shuai in his own interests found dragonshards most useful. Still active in martial arts, one reason the boy's persistence in scrivening despite his family holding him back was because he saw in it the potential of augmenting his style. Not now obviously, not even with dragonshards because his family still were scrutinizing him on its use but in the future definitely. He just had to find a way to regain his father's trust. That or immediately go independent once he comes of age but the latter seemed an extreme choice to make not to mention, it would be a long time until he could reach that point. Many years until he could once again work on pictographs under his own initiative. There was no way around it. He had to try and find some way, some opportunity to get on the cart again but whatever Shuai thought, he was overstating the extent of his limitations under the Chisuos. Even dragonshards were good enough for him to maintain his interests in the craft.

Regardless the presence of weapons Shuai still loved fights. He loved training for and watching the fights as well. It was lucky he was in Kalzasi with its own culture around duels, most times held in public too or, he would have to be in bars and taverns most of the time for the best seat in the house and, be there at the right time just as fights were about to break out. The duels gave the boy plenty of chances to watch and to learn although he found it rather difficult; if he did not pay enough attention or if there was something that day which had him unable to enjoy it properly like sickness, discomfort or him being in a mood, there was a lot which he could miss or not notice. If only there was a solution available to him, a way he could save the moment so he could study the fights at his own leisure. That would be great. Unfortunately even his training in scrivening did not make him an artist of any ability and his allowance was insufficient for an artist to draw out the fights- an artist able to capture the fights perfectly should be considerably expensive but even with any ability, the boy doubted they would be fast enough to make enough pictures of the whole fight. So, a team of artists? Even more expensive also, even more noticeable. While that may not be the case he had the sneaking suspicion the fighters would not take too kindly to being recorded especially with people like him all about waiting to study their strengths and weaknesses.

As though it was meant to be it was when Shuai continued in his studies that he found his solution. Mnemonosyte! Not the best solution but it was a solution. As a child, even one from a well to do noble house, his allowance would not be able to cover the good stones needed to record the fights as he wanted. Greater Lorestones were the bare minimum to record an entire fight seamlessly but he could never afford one even if he saved for an entire season. Not even a season. On his piddly allowance he may not be able to afford one even if he saved for a year! Maybe he could ask his parents for one as a birthday gift but just how many fights could it record? Not enough for that price. What about the inexpensive solution. A lesser lorestone? He could read a play by play of the fight into it and listen to whenever he wanted to but that would bring him to the same problems when he was at the fights, missing or not noticing what is going on and therefore not even having any mention of it in the lorestone. This means he would have to get a minor lorestone right? That captured images. But again the same problems as he suspects he would encounter with the painters. How fast would the lorestone be in capturing the images?

Then realizing these were the rules for lorestones, why not just change the rules to his advantage just as he did with plenty of other dragonstones? Through scrivening! But how was he going to do it? It was not like scrivening was something so powerful that it would be sufficient to turn a minor lorestone into a greater lorestone. However could he emulate the greater lorestone's function in the minor lorestone? This could be something worth pursuing even if it turned out a wash and Shuai went back through all his studies and notes pertaining dragonshards. There were patterns for more consistent activations, more efficient use of energy, limiting the strength of the dragonshard to a manageable amount, changing how it's properties were being used, outputs, inputs, and a whole lot of nothing he could use. He had reached a complete dead end and he could not figure out what else he could do about it. There was only so much scrivening could do and there was only so much he could do with scrivening even though he had progressed considerably far in the craft at his age.

By happenstance Shuai reached what the professionals called an inspired moment. it was during one of those art exhibits at the museum of an upcoming artist. Word on the street was the artist had the ability 'to capture the moment'. How could the curious scrivener pass up on that opportunity? When he got to the exhibit he found the word on the street to be a mistake because the artist did not capture the moment but he captured the moments. Shuai was no artist but he felt the entire exhibit was off although not to ruin anyone's fun just went along with discussions of how novel it was and how this had never been done before in this particular style so it was very different- how enlightening. Was that all they could say about it, those very hollow comments. How about how nice it was to look at, breathtaking, pretty, all those positive words to describe them. Then another descriptive word he encountered. Sequential. "I don't understand, what is sequential?" How the entire piece seemed to be following one after another. Viewing it from that perspective as he walked along the aisle the paintings were on was how Shuai found his inspired moment.

Granted as a minor lorestone, it would not even be able to hold a candle to the greater lorestone's quality or be able to capture everything perfectly in a 3 dimensional view of the area like it or flow seamlessly from image to image but so what as long as it worked? Even if it worked like that artist's painting, her vision worked and Shuai could only hope he could reach his own vision just as well. Thus he went into his work with a whole bunch of those minor lorestones experimenting with various different pictographs drawn on their surface to study their effects on those dragonshards. The amount of work he put into it started to worry those around him but these were only lorestones. It was not possible to have another Aunt Kaylee incident with those... right? A pictograph on the lorestone and then a recording of its results in his notes, the same pictograph on the lorestone and yet another recording of its results in his notes, this process continued so he could compare their consistency and then he started with yet another new pattern before moving along the lorestones he had prepared.

A lot of work but it was worth it. The final product? A minor lorestone with a pictograph pattern he developed all by himself. Convergence paths were all over it dividing up the surface of the Mnemonosyte into partitions to more evenly and efficiently distribute the images that would be recorded into it. Some would say he should have used continuums instead but the use of lorestones were quite simple and the images recorded simpler still that there was no need for something which waste a lot of the lorestone's memory banks. A fight or duel would not last long enough to need any of those and for the sake of being able to manage and store his collection properly, Shuai preferred it that he could stick to one fight per one lorestone even if it would not be cost effective in the long run. Instead there was only one continuum in his design affixed to the Mnemonosyte to act as a timer of sorts. Activating the lorestone to record the images would have the continuum looping the activation in equal ticks so he could get all the frames in for one sequential arrangement of the fight at least until the last path was opened to let the energy out of the circuit. To replay the recorded images in order also worked on a similar concept so Shuai did not have to make much more pictographs as he could just reuse the old and that was because the functions worked exclusive to one another. That and with how often he felt he was going to rewatch these fights, he was going to have to keep making old paths and continuums.

Hmm maybe he should even put some permanent markings on the lorestone as a guide to know what pictograph went where if he was going to have to remake them that often...

Shuai finished his prototype right on time to test it in one of the most anticipated duelists' fight that year. While a duelist would take issue to a greater lorestone, a minor lorestone on comparison was a trifling since it would mean having them and their fights immortalized in libraries and the like for future generations to study, without giving away too much information. What would happen if they knew the changes Shuai made to his own lorestone to have a function they would not approve? Too bad they would never find out. Shuai activated his lorestone and let it work on its own while he enjoyed the fight. This was the best fight he ever saw. The neatest and smallest movements he could barely even see in the dodges. The deft movements for the parries and the split second decisions in turning retreats into attacks. He had learned a lot from this and when he got home, he was going to have to study his recordings a few more times because he still could not comprehend all those wild movements he saw.

And then, he would have to prepare more of these lorestones as future fights were announced. Ram Bo. Baby Arnie. The Sniper. Duke Damn. Juan Johnson and all those other famous duelists. He was going to have a collection of all their fights until he could study enough of them to be confident enough to add a fight of his own into his own collection without any shame or feeling he did not belong to that group.