55th of Ash, 120 AS
The little rodent body lay on the stone table once more. The red stains were now cleaned and scrubbed away, leaving behind no traces thanks to the glyphs that covered the stone and the room as a whole. The white glow of the lights above ensured no shadows were cast anywhere in the room and gave the atmosphere a clinical tone.
Lyra smiled to herself as she ran fingers through the soft fur of the creature before her. It's body was still warm, but she felt no pulse. The heart did not beat, the chest did not rise and fall. It's eyes were open and vacant still, but as she tested its limbs she found that it had not stiffened. It was like it was in a deep, deep sleep.
"It worked..." the words were whispered almost surprised, but she grinned wider. After so many trials and failed attempts, finally, it worked. Inside of the little creature's chest was a soul gem, connected to the body through glyphs. In a living creature, the soul is what keeps the body alive, fueled by the food it consumes. The energy gains from eating and sleeping is used to power their body's movements, letting them do more than simply lie around. A living body though does not simply rest. Its internal organs are constantly in flux. The heartbeats, lungs expand, metabolism trains resources even when it is apparently inactive. Now, however, all those living processes had been stilled. That meant the energy provided directly from the soul was enough to maintain the body's 'living' state almost indefinitely, so long as no energy was used to move.
"A living corpse." Lyra mused, slowly removing the bandages to look at her stitching. She frowned slightly, seeing that they would be slowly healing, "Some of the body's processes continue, powered be soul. That will mean there will always be some loss." It was not perfect. Steadily over time, the soul gem would be used up unless another power source was provided. This was a start, however. She could supplement eating and drink with other fuel sources. Aetherite, special concoctions...
Picking the body up carefully Lyra flipped it onto its stomach, ensuring it would not roll. Then she leaned close, breathing out slowly. A thin tendril of smoke filtered from between her lips, slipping into the mouse's nose and mouth. For a moment nothing happened, and then Lyra 'flexed' and the body twitched. Tilting her head Lyra held her hand over the body, fingers moving in slow motions like she was stirring something. Closing her eyes she could feel her essence inside of the rodent, much like she could feel herself within her current vessel. With a bit of focus, she shifted her focus to that body. Darkness resolved itself and little eyes blinked open.
For a moment Lyra was disoriented, and the rat slumped once more as her human form stumbled. Frowning Lyra balanced herself, leaning forward once more and focusing. This time she did not move her consciousness. Instead, she simply felt for that piece of herself inside the rat. She twitched a finger, and one of the legs twitched in response. Brow furrowed in concentration Lyra breathed out once more, adding more of her essence to the 2nd vessel. It felt like she was slipping a hand deeper into a glove, giving her a bit more control. This time when she twitched a finger an entire leg bent in response.
Breathing out Lyra straightened, rolling her neck before focusing on the body. She raised both hands now, imagining strings leading from her fingers down to the rat. She tested each, twitching each limb in turn, flicking the tail, and making the eyes blinked. She closed her eyes and caught a glimpse through the rat's eyes, but quickly retreated before she lost herself. Slowly, steadily she maneuvered the rat, making it stand shakily and turn in a circle. It was an odd sensation, as she felt as if she was partially in two vessels at once, but the size of the 2nd vessel made it feel more like a minor addition to her current form that a new body entirely. The rat scuttled across the table, Lyra watching it curiously for a time before calling it back to her. Putting her hand down she made it step onto her outstretched palm, where it suddenly fell limp. Black smoke filtered from its mouth, flowing back into Lyra while she walked to set it back on its own pedestal. This was her first success, but there was still much more to do. Looking behind her at the shelf she looked at the small black serpent that lay curled in its cage. It had gorged itself on the rats over the last few days and was now laying content beneath a fire dragnonshard lamp. She had plans for that one, but there were some preparations that needed to be made.
Walking over to the workbench against the far wall Lyra took a small jar filled with various types of cut gems. She had these prepared some time ago by the local jeweler. All the gems were of similar quality, with a variety of cuts. It was said that different gems had different effects on the soul trapped within it. Lyra was not sure if that was true, but eventually, she intended to find out. As for what she was intending for her next creation...
Her eyes drifted over to a sketched out schema. It was a long, winding thing with several parts. A prototype, something she planned to refine over time. For now though...
Lyra rummaged through the gems, selecting a green emerald that a bit smaller in width than her pinky, and just as long. It was cut with faces, each of with creating a 4 sided pyramid at each end. A standard cut for this sort of gem, and one that would work for Lyra's own uses. From a panel on the back of the workbench, Lyra took a wooden instrument with a curved blade at the end that hooked into a sharp point. It looked like a little pickaxe, without the prong on the backside. Pictographs were etched into the handle and wrapped around the metallic head. Stability, sharpness, and tasked to not slip against smooth surfaces were what infused this pictograph. The aether in it was faint, but it was a minor tool and required very little to power it.
She created the typical pictographs first. Capture, hold, contain, imprison. The primary pictographs of a soul gem Lyra placed on the largest sides. She connected these pictographs together with a wring that wrapped the width of the gem, and then began to work out from there. Around each of the capture pictographs Lyra drew a circle, with lines extending like little claws outward as if to grasp something outside the gem. Connector glyphs that would match the glyph work inside of the vessel itself. Moving upward Lyra continued to extend the lines, linking the glyph together and ending a pictograph that looked like a small flame with a spiral inside of it. This symbol was repeated on each of the 4 surfaces of the pyramid on one side, linking back to the rest of the glyph. On the other side Lyra made a similar pattern, a flame with a jagged line inside of it, linking it back as well.
Blowing off any shavings that came off the gem, Lyra turned the emerald over in her hand, nodding slowly at her work. The connection with the rat was tenuous at best, so Lyra would need to make some adjustments to what she planned next. From a shelf over the workbench, Lyra took down a flask of ichor, a small jar of fresh blood ichor, and a single vial of her own condensed aether. She also rummaged in a drawer and withdrew a shallow bowl made of wood.
The bowl itself was nothing special. A simple and cheap thing that Lyra had no issue carving into, which she did now. It was a simple pictograph. At the bottom of the bowl was placed the symbol of the no-eyed serpent. Lines branched out, like tendrils of smoke to wrap around the entire inside of the bowl, creating a swirling pattern that leads to the center image. In each of the eye sockets, Lyra placed a symbol. One was two vortexes on top of each other. Mix, combine, agitate. In the 2nd socket was a series of lines leading to a small circle. Pull in, take inside. With a breath the glyph shimmered to life, its purpose being etched into the wood.
Picking up the jar of blood ichor Lyra poured enough to cover the bottom of the bowl, the redish liquid beginning to spin slowly in the bowl. Lyra then uncorked the vial of condensed aether, pouring the entirety of its contents into the bowl. There was a faint shimmer as her condensed aether touched the glyph, the script activating completely now as the blood inchor began to absorbed and take in her essence. This would ensure that the blood ichor held as much of 'her' as possible, as it had begun to become diluted as she began to stray from her original batch of blood she prepared some time ago. The red blood steadily turned darker and darker until it was almost black, at which point Lyra took the contents and poured the entire mixture into the flask of aether.
Ichor was an interesting substance. It was by its very nature malleable and could be used and altered in almost endless ways. Swirling the flask several times Lyra watched as the white ichor grew darker and darker. For good measure, Lyra set it on her mixing podium by her workbench, the one she used to create ichor in the first place. Within the white ichor had turned almost grey, and the faint white mist had turned black.
"Infused Ichor." Lyra called it, studying the substance. It was ichor still, with all its usual properties, but now it was wholly and fully of Lyra. It made the old elf wonder what would happen if someone else tried to use it on themselves like normal ichor?
Without ceremony Lyra dropped the carved emerald into the flask, corking it and setting it inside of the pictograph on the pedestal that connected it with her soul totem. The contents of the flask began to shift slightly, rippling before growing still. The white glow of the soul totem dimmed somewhat as the glyph activated, beginning to funnel the power of the totem into the forming soul gem inside the flask.
Glancing back at the snake on the shelf Lyra turned, back to her workbench, staring on the next preparations for what she had in mind.
