An Unexpected Gift
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2024 6:44 pm
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75th of Searing, Year 124 of Steel
Tavárinoikos, Silfanore
Tavárinoikos, Silfanore
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
everything in its right place.
Today was the day. Today he would see whether his cleverness had paid off.
While he wasn't senior enough to have the secrets of mithril's creation safeguarded with him yet, he had assisted the alchemists with their part. He had noticed that a minuscule portion was always lost, and took it upon himself to investigate. It hadn't taken much effort to find a metal elemental willing to work with him; they were all eager to work where mithril was concerned.
Deep in meditation, his senses embedded in the fabric of the workshop's aether, his mind and Pewter—the shorthand nickname he gave the elemental—traveled the halls, the work rooms, the storage rooms, collecting priceless detritus. Their communication lacked words. Pewter magnetized herself, carefully attuning to mithril and pulling each particle possible out of wood grain, air, and anywhere else.
There wasn't much, all told, and some of it had degraded without proper treatment or storage. Some of it had changed, the which he would study if he could put it in stasis. Pewter told him it was more alive than other metals in the material plane, and he could sort of intuit what she meant by that. What he knew was useless for creating or study, he gave to Pewter as a sort of present. It was always better to give a little more than he got when it came to spirits; they might not recognize debt, but they were more likely to work for him and work well if they knew he would treat them well.
The elemental spirit lingered to watch him work in his workshop. Sivan didn't mind the audience. Spirits were still easier to be around than people for him.
In Sivan's private work space—while among the most advanced apprentices, he was still considered an apprentice until he satisfied the chief arcanists of the house—he used every trick he knew and several that were purely experimental to bring his motes of mithril together, separating them out per their state, salvaging as much as he could for use, and preserving what he couldn't for study, both his own and the other apprentices.
Finally, he had a pearl of liquid mithril floating in aerosol metallurium in a stasis vial.
"Fyraea's teats," the chief alchemist had blasphemed when she held the vial in a careful hand. But there was a flicker of newfound respect in her eyes when she could pull them away from his offering, and she had told him to prepare his notes on the process to share within the week. He hadn't expected her to hand back the mithril and tell him that he should plan a use for it.
And so he had worked with master alchemists to prepare the mithril for fabrication and the process was both exhilarating and frustrating as he was overseeing the project, but parts of the process were kept from him. He understood. As a traveler, he would be a target if people thought he held one of the keys to mithril. He wondered if that was why the king had called him to the palace...
"Sivan."
His use name being used by a Maker startled him out of his reverie.
Today was the day. Today he would see whether his cleverness had paid off.
He stood immediately from the beautifully carved bench in the hallway, smiled nervously. At the Maker's gesture, he preceded them into the meeting room.
Later that day
Royal Palace, Silfanore
Royal Palace, Silfanore
A courier from Tavárinoikos was treated with respect even in the highest echelons of elven society. A note had begged the briefest of audiences not from His Royal Majesty, but from his nightshade knight. The Len'Hytori apprentice arrived early, cooling his heels until the prince deigned to see him.