Blood and Shadows I
Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:50 am
46th of Ash, 124 AS
Her prison seemed different when viewed from the outside. She stood now, in the Nyxus, examining her surroundings with a calm and steady eye for detail. She looked at the walls where the scripts traced lines up to the ceiling, at the pedestal where she knew her prison sat in the Prime Material realm. She also glanced toward the alcove where the bones would sit in the other realm, but here it was nothing more than an empty pocket of stone.
Ever since her first foray into the Void Lyra had begun to plan what would come next. It would not be an easy process, but she felt confident that, given time, she would be able to free herself from confinement. That is what lead her to taking more trips into the Nyxus to examine the wards from the outside... or rather, a version of them. The mirror realm did odd things to the reflections of the material realm. At times it was a true and completely one for one reflection, but at others things were slightly different. A door in the material might be missing in the mirror, or a great structure would stand in the mirror that did not exist in the material. This variation grew even more stark when one began to examine the smaller details of the two realms. Objects were not always there in either realm, materials would at times change, and glyphs carved into the walls... Well, Lyra could see similarities but there was some notable differences. It was not simply cracks in the stone that broke the pictographs, but rather at times whole passages would be slightly altered. She was reminded of her own dark demesne reflected in the Nyxus, which was so familiar yet unknown to her.
It was not an impossible challenge to overcome, but it did force Lyra to examine the structure in its entirety line by line. She would then need to peer into the material realm through the alcove, and then compare what she saw to what was there. Thankfully she had all but memorized the structure of the wards within the demonstone itself, which made the task of comparison significantly easier. She could quickly determine if a line of pictographs would align with some purpose in the demonstone, and if it did not she would look into the material realm and attempt to view the physical version of it instead. It was certainly doable, but it was not the way Lyra normally preferred to work.
Throughout her examination she was not alone. Off in a corner of the lab a large shape was curled up with its head resting on its paws. It's large amethyst eyes would occasionally open to watch her work, but often Lyra saw it napping lazily, content to let her concentrate in silence. The cat was a constant within the Nyxus. No matter when she stepped through into the Void, it would be there, waiting for her. It was comforting in a way, as if her love was watching over her as she worked to escape, yet she could not shake the feeling that it was not all for her sake. There were times when she thought she saw the tiger's eyes shift from unconcerned, to judgmental. Almost as if it were weighing her actions on some scale she could not see. It was never aggressive, and in fact Lyra quite enjoyed its company, but it was clear that it was not here solely to be her guide and aid in her escape. That was not to say it, or rather he, was not helpful. He understood her words and though he did not speak, the intelligence in his eyes and body language showed a clear understanding of both her words and intent.
From time to time he would disappear, only to reappear some time later with something to present to her. Most often it was a severed limb of some kind, which Lyra eagerly accepted to consume the blood. Over the last two days she could practically feel her body coming alive again as fresh blood replenished her old reserves. The fog had lifted from her thoughts, and when she looked at the wards she saw them with fresh eyes as new ideas began to propagate in her mind. One of the first things she had done was to bolster the scrivening on the blood crystal within the demonstone itself. With the additional strength the blood provided she was able to store more aether inside of it, and with the excess she was able to create a few new features.
With a mixture of nyxus and vitalis she had reshaped the scripts on the outside of the stone, slowly shaving away its manual components to be replaced with glyphs which would respond to specific triggers within the demonstone. The passive wards were simple enough to modify for. She simply created a series of branch like triggers that would sense the draw on her aether and open a small channel on one side of the stone. A set amount of aether would be released through the channel, while the rest of the stone was obscured. This allowed for the blood crystal to allow a set amount of aether to be released during the passive draw from the wards, without Lyra needing to be there to make it function.
The more complex mechanism was the active draining wards. Due to the random nature of their activation, as well as the indeterminate amount of aether it would draw, it was difficult to fully separate herself from the mechanisms. Instead, Lyra chose to adapt. It was clear that the single blood crystal itself would not be able to resist the active draining affects of the ward without her presence to redirect attention away from it... So she simply did not try. Instead Lyra found every Foci across the entirety of the wards, every place where the active draining effect would occur. She then created smaller, more compact versions of her blood crystals and wove them into the wards themselves. They became something like stoppers in the wards, not fully blocking the Foci but ensuring that the drain would focus on them first. It had been difficult to circumvent the wards without alerting her captors... but then, what sort of grand master would she be if she could not mislead a few upstarts.
The blood crystals were not meant to resist the active drain. No, in fact they were were meant to focus it on themselves. Lyra created an open channel between the Foci and these lesser blood crystals, which made it easier for the Foci to pull aether from them than from the rest of the demonstone. She then created a link between these lesser crystals and the aether storage blood crystal. The mechanism was simple. When the active drain began the foci crystals, embedded into the Foci of the wards, would activate. They would draw in aether from the storage crystal and slowly release the aether into the Foci for the duration of the active drain. There was a built in means to adjust the amount of aether pulled from the storage crystal depending on the power of the active drain, meaning it would adjust based on how much was required by the wards themselves. She did not build in disruptions through the power of chaos, though she had plans to incorporate such things later, but Lyra DID include a method to restrict the amount of aether that was draw out of the foci crystals. She could carefully modulate how much was allowed into the Foci by controlling the 'resistance' the foci crystals put on the wards themselves. That way she could limit the drain to only JUST above what was strictly required to prevent the Foci from trying to dismantle her crystals to draw out additional aether.
Simple in concept, yet it was complex in execution. What it meant for Lyra was that, so long as she continued to push aether into the storage crystal, it could be her stand in inside of the demonstone while she explored the Nyxus. It was not perfect of course, and there were times when she would be forced to return both to recuperate as well as defend her storage crystal, but it greatly expanded her freedom of movement. This allowed her to step into the Void more often, where she was able to gather more aether through the blood brought to her by the tiger, as well as conserve more of her aether in the second storage crystal located in her demesne.
There was still many preparations that needed to be made. To start, she needed a faster, and more reliable, method to gather blood. What the tiger brought her was certainly helpful, but she needed much more if she was going to regain her full strength in time to escape. There was also the matter of the ambient souls scattered across the Nyxus. Souls of those who died in the void, unable to escape back into the cycle of reincarnation. Some had begun to gather in her demesne, as it naturally called out to wayward souls, but there were still many, many more across the mirrored version of Zaichaer alone. Given the extent of the Eclipse and the damage it had route, Lyra suspected the number of souls in the Nyxus was far greater than simply a few thousand. Likely more than she had collected during her ritual to gain her current form. It seemed as if souls did not disperse as quickly in the Void as they did in the Prime Material realm, but they would all begin to unravel if nothing were done... And Lyra wanted those souls.
Somehow she needed to draw in the souls from across the Nyxus, gathering them into her demesne where she could utilize the ambient aether they produced. She was not certain how to do that just yet, but Lyra knew an idea would come in time.
Her prison seemed different when viewed from the outside. She stood now, in the Nyxus, examining her surroundings with a calm and steady eye for detail. She looked at the walls where the scripts traced lines up to the ceiling, at the pedestal where she knew her prison sat in the Prime Material realm. She also glanced toward the alcove where the bones would sit in the other realm, but here it was nothing more than an empty pocket of stone.
Ever since her first foray into the Void Lyra had begun to plan what would come next. It would not be an easy process, but she felt confident that, given time, she would be able to free herself from confinement. That is what lead her to taking more trips into the Nyxus to examine the wards from the outside... or rather, a version of them. The mirror realm did odd things to the reflections of the material realm. At times it was a true and completely one for one reflection, but at others things were slightly different. A door in the material might be missing in the mirror, or a great structure would stand in the mirror that did not exist in the material. This variation grew even more stark when one began to examine the smaller details of the two realms. Objects were not always there in either realm, materials would at times change, and glyphs carved into the walls... Well, Lyra could see similarities but there was some notable differences. It was not simply cracks in the stone that broke the pictographs, but rather at times whole passages would be slightly altered. She was reminded of her own dark demesne reflected in the Nyxus, which was so familiar yet unknown to her.
It was not an impossible challenge to overcome, but it did force Lyra to examine the structure in its entirety line by line. She would then need to peer into the material realm through the alcove, and then compare what she saw to what was there. Thankfully she had all but memorized the structure of the wards within the demonstone itself, which made the task of comparison significantly easier. She could quickly determine if a line of pictographs would align with some purpose in the demonstone, and if it did not she would look into the material realm and attempt to view the physical version of it instead. It was certainly doable, but it was not the way Lyra normally preferred to work.
Throughout her examination she was not alone. Off in a corner of the lab a large shape was curled up with its head resting on its paws. It's large amethyst eyes would occasionally open to watch her work, but often Lyra saw it napping lazily, content to let her concentrate in silence. The cat was a constant within the Nyxus. No matter when she stepped through into the Void, it would be there, waiting for her. It was comforting in a way, as if her love was watching over her as she worked to escape, yet she could not shake the feeling that it was not all for her sake. There were times when she thought she saw the tiger's eyes shift from unconcerned, to judgmental. Almost as if it were weighing her actions on some scale she could not see. It was never aggressive, and in fact Lyra quite enjoyed its company, but it was clear that it was not here solely to be her guide and aid in her escape. That was not to say it, or rather he, was not helpful. He understood her words and though he did not speak, the intelligence in his eyes and body language showed a clear understanding of both her words and intent.
From time to time he would disappear, only to reappear some time later with something to present to her. Most often it was a severed limb of some kind, which Lyra eagerly accepted to consume the blood. Over the last two days she could practically feel her body coming alive again as fresh blood replenished her old reserves. The fog had lifted from her thoughts, and when she looked at the wards she saw them with fresh eyes as new ideas began to propagate in her mind. One of the first things she had done was to bolster the scrivening on the blood crystal within the demonstone itself. With the additional strength the blood provided she was able to store more aether inside of it, and with the excess she was able to create a few new features.
With a mixture of nyxus and vitalis she had reshaped the scripts on the outside of the stone, slowly shaving away its manual components to be replaced with glyphs which would respond to specific triggers within the demonstone. The passive wards were simple enough to modify for. She simply created a series of branch like triggers that would sense the draw on her aether and open a small channel on one side of the stone. A set amount of aether would be released through the channel, while the rest of the stone was obscured. This allowed for the blood crystal to allow a set amount of aether to be released during the passive draw from the wards, without Lyra needing to be there to make it function.
The more complex mechanism was the active draining wards. Due to the random nature of their activation, as well as the indeterminate amount of aether it would draw, it was difficult to fully separate herself from the mechanisms. Instead, Lyra chose to adapt. It was clear that the single blood crystal itself would not be able to resist the active draining affects of the ward without her presence to redirect attention away from it... So she simply did not try. Instead Lyra found every Foci across the entirety of the wards, every place where the active draining effect would occur. She then created smaller, more compact versions of her blood crystals and wove them into the wards themselves. They became something like stoppers in the wards, not fully blocking the Foci but ensuring that the drain would focus on them first. It had been difficult to circumvent the wards without alerting her captors... but then, what sort of grand master would she be if she could not mislead a few upstarts.
The blood crystals were not meant to resist the active drain. No, in fact they were were meant to focus it on themselves. Lyra created an open channel between the Foci and these lesser blood crystals, which made it easier for the Foci to pull aether from them than from the rest of the demonstone. She then created a link between these lesser crystals and the aether storage blood crystal. The mechanism was simple. When the active drain began the foci crystals, embedded into the Foci of the wards, would activate. They would draw in aether from the storage crystal and slowly release the aether into the Foci for the duration of the active drain. There was a built in means to adjust the amount of aether pulled from the storage crystal depending on the power of the active drain, meaning it would adjust based on how much was required by the wards themselves. She did not build in disruptions through the power of chaos, though she had plans to incorporate such things later, but Lyra DID include a method to restrict the amount of aether that was draw out of the foci crystals. She could carefully modulate how much was allowed into the Foci by controlling the 'resistance' the foci crystals put on the wards themselves. That way she could limit the drain to only JUST above what was strictly required to prevent the Foci from trying to dismantle her crystals to draw out additional aether.
Simple in concept, yet it was complex in execution. What it meant for Lyra was that, so long as she continued to push aether into the storage crystal, it could be her stand in inside of the demonstone while she explored the Nyxus. It was not perfect of course, and there were times when she would be forced to return both to recuperate as well as defend her storage crystal, but it greatly expanded her freedom of movement. This allowed her to step into the Void more often, where she was able to gather more aether through the blood brought to her by the tiger, as well as conserve more of her aether in the second storage crystal located in her demesne.
There was still many preparations that needed to be made. To start, she needed a faster, and more reliable, method to gather blood. What the tiger brought her was certainly helpful, but she needed much more if she was going to regain her full strength in time to escape. There was also the matter of the ambient souls scattered across the Nyxus. Souls of those who died in the void, unable to escape back into the cycle of reincarnation. Some had begun to gather in her demesne, as it naturally called out to wayward souls, but there were still many, many more across the mirrored version of Zaichaer alone. Given the extent of the Eclipse and the damage it had route, Lyra suspected the number of souls in the Nyxus was far greater than simply a few thousand. Likely more than she had collected during her ritual to gain her current form. It seemed as if souls did not disperse as quickly in the Void as they did in the Prime Material realm, but they would all begin to unravel if nothing were done... And Lyra wanted those souls.
Somehow she needed to draw in the souls from across the Nyxus, gathering them into her demesne where she could utilize the ambient aether they produced. She was not certain how to do that just yet, but Lyra knew an idea would come in time.