Back in her cell, Violet quickly jotted down a little bit of the information she was given about enchanting tonight in her Mental Notes. Enchants came in three varieties, permanent, semi-permanent, and temporary. She was unsure of how to even begin making a permanent enchant. For the semi-permanent enchants, she had plenty of examples of those with the enchanted objects the adults found. Temporary enchants erase or destroy themselves upon their use.

She was mentally exhausted from her trials to get new aspects. Her mana was also low from playing with Water Manipulation on her walk back to her room. As a result of this, she fell asleep quickly when her head finally hit her pillow. Amy had been quarantined for a week and she planned to take advantage of having so much alone time to practice.

The next morning, she was rudely awakened by the lights being turned on to their highest setting. Sitting up, she covered her eyes with her hand until her eyes could adjust to the light. By the time she was able to open her eyes and not be blinded, nobody was in the room and a tray was left on the floor in front of the door. She was really starting to question if she were in prison instead of quarantine.

There was porridge left for her on the tray that was not quite hot anymore but at least it wasn’t cold. She ate it quickly to avoid it getting any colder. As she was eating, she began to get excited about the events from last night. While she wouldn't have chosen water magic, she was going to make the best of it.

After her meal was consumed, she went up to the door and put her ear on it to listen for any activity. Just like last time, she did not hear anyone on the other side. There shouldn't be a reason for her door to need to be guarded so that made sense.

Going out to retrieve the enchanted objects that she had hidden, it took her a few minutes to reorient herself to find the right room. Once she found the correct room, she created a Decoy of herself so she could move the items twice as fast. Even at one or two objects a day, she had still managed to gather quite a few of them.

She chose a sampling of four different cubes to start experimenting on and then left the remainder of the objects in the dwelling connected to the secret door she was next to. Getting caught with these objects would lead to consequences for more than just her so she was careful to find a hiding place for the objects inside the room she was in. There were not many places so she settled for placing them under a spare blanket. If she fluffed it just right, you couldn't notice anything was under it.

The system was surprisingly unhelpful when it came to the information she received about enchanting. She knew about the three types and had a vague idea of what might be possible, but no manual to walk her through it. Not that any of her other aspects had a manual. Thinking about it, she also noted that she didn’t have a very good idea of how to use Hypnotize either. The third-tier aspects seem to be harder to just pick up and use.

Thankfully she had a lot of examples to help her on her way to understanding how to Enchant. Picking up the first cube, she started studying it. She was looking for some kind of mechanism to recharge it or even just understand what was going on with it. The symbol on the side of the cube she was currently looking at was for Dazzle.

Right next to the symbol, was a slight depression where a finger might fit. On a hunch, she pressed the depression while thinking about activating her Enchant aspect. Doing this brought up a simple menu.

View Enchant Recharge Enchant Salvage

Jumping a little bit at the sudden menu that popped up caused her to move her finger enough to lose the menu. After bringing the menu up once again, she decided the safest option would be for her to view the enchant. A voice in her head started speaking “Dazzle fifteen seconds after it has been touched.”

She immediately dropped the cube and looked around the room for the voice of the person who was just talking. Taking a moment to calm down and let her heart stop racing, she thought about what she just heard. ‘That sounded like what the enchanter wanted to happen.’

Hands shaking, she picked up the cube once again. To test her theory, she selected the option to view the enchant once again. Once again she could hear the voice in her head explaining what the enchant does. ‘Talk about false advertising! I view with my eyes, not my ears!’

She decided to view the other cubes she had brought in with her. There was a wide variety of things that the enchants could do. On one cube, it would cause her hair to turn black for two hours. On another, it created a small bird for a few minutes. The only thing the cubes had in common was that they all used aspects of Illusion. She thought it might be because these were all beginner enchanting cubes.

She was just sitting on her bed to think when the door opened a little bit earlier than expected. The enchanted objects were already safely placed on the other side of the secret door so she had nothing to hide. After a moment of delay, the lady doctor entered the room.

“My husband informed me that we have another rash case. I am here to verify if we have a serious problem or not. Please remove your dress so I may examine your rash.”

Where the doctor she had yesterday was cool and almost rude, this doctor was friendly and at least acted like she was worried about Violet. To her knowledge, there were only the two doctors who ended up staying with the research party.

After a thorough examination of her rash, the doctor spoke once again. “If I didn’t know any better I would think you were out playing in some bushes. We will keep an eye on it, but I don't believe this is something that will spread to others. To be safe we are going to keep you in here until your rash has cleared up. Don't itch it.”

“Do you know how long this will last?”

“Probably not longer than a week or two for it to fully clear up. I’ll have some cream brought up that will help with the itching and clear this up faster. If we don't see improvement in a few days, I will need to come back to run some tests.”

“Thank you miss… what should I call you?”

“Doctor Amelia is my name”

“Thank you, Doctor Amelia. I’ll try not to scratch it.”

The doctor left with a wave and a smile on her face. Now all Violet needed to do was wait for dinner to arrive before she could go back to experimenting with enchanting. She hoped all of her future interactions with a doctor were with Amelia.

Not too long after Doctor Amelia left, her father was escorted into her room holding her dinner tray. She jumped up wanting to give him a hug but she stopped herself before she got too close. Seeing a parent at least once a day will make this self-imposed isolation easier. She never realized how much she craved social interaction. Poor Amy must have been bored and lonely when she was in quarantine.

“Hi daddy! Doctor Amelia said I should get better soon and then you and mom don't have to worry anymore.”

“Hello sweetie that is good news! How are you feeling? Your mom sends her love”

“I’m still itchy but I don't think the rash has spread any further.”

They chatted back and forth about what had happened since yesterday until the escort got tired of waiting and forced her dad to leave. Violet ate her dinner and got ready for a long night of enchanting. She hoped she could find a way to make a timer or a way to tell time while she was practicing her enchanting.

The first thing she did when she got tired of waiting for everyone to fall asleep was to find the most harmless enchanted object to recharge. She decided on an object with dazzle on it set to go off a few seconds after it was touched. It was easy enough for her to close her eyes right after touching the cube to see the effect. This was where she found her first roadblock.

Do you wish to recharge this item for 650 mana?

She only had a total of 740 mana. There was no way she would be able to get quality practice tonight if she recharged that item. The enchant she had chosen to recharge was one of the most basic ones she had access to. A normal person her age would likely have a lot less mana than she did. It was clear that enchanting was an advanced skill that required people to have their stat points unlocked.

Level

32

Age

7

Experience

(49600/52800)

Health

250/250

Mana

740/740

Stat Points

155

Skill Points

6

Strength

18

Constitution

25

Dexterity

20

Intelligence

77

Wisdom

74

[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]

Not wanting to lose all of her mana right away, she decided to try the other option available to her. She wasn’t sure what salvage did but it sounded destructive. If the item did get destroyed she wanted to do it on one of the duplicates she had. Setting Dazzle on a delay timer was a very popular enchant so she had quite a few of them. She selected the option and waited for the message to appear.

*WARNING* You are not the owner of this enchant. You may only receive a partial synchronization percentage back if you salvage your own enchants.

*WARNING* This enchant does not have any charged mana left to be refunded.

Do you wish to salvage this enchant? You will receive 0% synchronization for Dazzle and 0 mana back as a result.

Y/N?

This was an interesting development. Clicking “Y” she was left with an unblemished stone cube in her hands. The symbol that had once been displayed on one side of the cube was now gone. Even the depression where she put her finger was smooth and flush with the side of the cube. It looked like the only benefit for her to salvage the cubes she had was to gain an object to place her own enchant on.

The next logical thing for her to try was to create her own enchant. She decided to keep things simple and use the Dazzle delay option for her first try. Holding the now empty cube and thinking of enchanting it brought up a menu.

Enchanting Menu

Designate aspect Designate sacrifice Define action Infuse mana Finalize enchant

The bottom four options were not selectable so she decided to tackle the list from top to bottom. Clicking the top option, she received another list to choose from.

Dazzle Disguise Self Shadow Blade Cloaking Decoy Fear Hypnotize Water Manipulation

The options available to her were all of her current aspects. She chose Dazzle and it brought her back to the initial screen. Selecting the next option on her list gave her a simple prompt.

Designate the percentage of Dazzle you wish to sacrifice.

She selected 1% not wanting to lose any more of her synchronization if things went wrong. Selecting the next option on the list brought up the next prompt.

Define the action you wish to take.

Delay up to 5 seconds On touch On movement On command word

She got the impression that if she would have sacrificed more of her synchronization, she would have gotten more options and longer delay options. Sacrificing synchronization for her other aspects was going to make it difficult to gain synchronization with enchanting very quickly. She hoped it was like the other aspects and when she increased her synchronization the cost would be lowered. Selecting the next option on her enchanting list, she got a prompt of how much mana this would cost.

Charge enchant for 500 mana?

Y/N?

Selecting yes did not immediately drain her of mana. When she clicked on the final option to finalize the enchant, she felt a huge drop in her mana causing her to get light-headed. Pulling up her status sheet, she verified that she was missing the correct amount of mana. She had also dropped a percentage of synchronization from her Dazzle aspect.

Picking her newly enchanted item up caused an unexpected menu to pop up. Mainly unexpected because she was not using her enchant skill this time, she was just picking it up like a normal person would look at it.

Activate Dazzle with a delay of 5 seconds?

Y/N?

It looked like she was able to create enchants for people without an enchanting skill to use. She couldn’t wait to experiment with this!