《Foreststorm》Chapter 41 - Enchanting
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Ves'ra was up bright and early, happily entering the enchanter’s guild a few minutes before her appointment. She was approached by an elderly man before she could sit down.
“Hello young lady, are you Ves'ra?” He asked.
“I am. Who are you?”
“I'm Estrum, your enchanting teacher. I will teach you the basics of enchanting until I'm sure you can fulfill the minimum standard of the guild, which can be done in a few hours to a few days.
Afterwards you’ll be able to use any unoccupied room in the guild for your enchanting, take commissions on the novice level and use all elemental mana we have stored for a small fee. I will still be available should you have some questions and I will teach you advanced enchanting should you ever reach a point where the guild deems you worthy. If you’ll follow me we can start immediately.”
“Let's go.” She answered, happy to learn something new, there was nothing that beat learning new stuff about magic.
They entered one of the concealed doors, walking down a set of expensive looking stairs.
“We will start with your elemental mana, producing it without a spell is the single most important thing for enchanting. The theory behind creating it is relatively easy, but most people take quite some time to manage it.” He explained her, creating a sphere of energy in his palm and somehow transforming it into something different, burning.
They arrived at the bottom of the stairs before he could elaborate though. And the sight in front of her took her breath away and banished the teacher’s words from her mind.
Thousands of small crystal spheres adorned hundreds of shelves, all filled with spheres.
There were several counters, all staffed with someone. Estrum went to one of the free counters with her following him, silently marvelling the sight in front of them.
“We need two unattuned spheres.” He said, voice gruff but friendly.
“Sure thing master Estrum.” The lady said with a chipper, friendly voice. She took out two of the crystal spheres, giving it to the mage. After he received it he thanked the lady and mentioned Ves’ra to follow him.
“Now, where was I?” He asked.
“Attuned energy.”
“Right, creating it is relatively simple, if you form a sphere of mana you have to impart it with the same feeling you had when awakening. There is no reason to hurry though, you're a self taught mage and creating elemental mana is easier for those, though everyone gets it in time.”
“Can't I just cast a spell? My energy will transform on its own as I do.” She asked.
“That's not possible sadly, but if you already know that then you won't take long.” Estrum didn't actually tell her why it didn't work, she’d just have to find out herself then.
Her teacher stopped talking as they climbed more expensive stairs, passing the lobby and another three floors before stopping. For one reason or another he was breathing heavily, he must be hurt. After a short break they entered the long, branching hallway in front of them. They didn't take long to reach a door with her teacher’s name on it, a door he entered without hesitation.
“Welcome to my workshop, you sit down over there and start trying to attune your mana. I will be working, call me once you are finished, we will proceed then. Starting now wouldn't do you any good - enchanting needs attuned mana, so we will start with that afterwards.” He explained, before leaving her and sitting down in an expensive chair, smoothing his robes in the process.
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“Ok.” Ves'ra sat down too, repeating the process in her mind once again.
Once she sat down Ves'ra immediately created a big sphere of energy, something way easier ever since her evolution. She thought back to the moment she hatched the second time, remembering the awe she felt at the storm raging outside, the sheer power of the wind, rain, ice and lightning. She also remembered the fear she felt as the storm was raging against her, stealing all of her energy and nearly toppling their hut. She pushed all those feelings through her body and into the sphere hovering above her palm.
She knew she had succeeded as the energy became extremely volatile all of a sudden, fighting her control, wanting to spread out as well as cooling the air around it. She cried out in surprise, she had no idea that attuned energy would have such an effect.
Her teacher looked up, clearly hearing her shout and came over as he saw the energy under her control was now an icey blue.
“Very good, you only took an hour - that's a little better than average. Let's see how long you’ll be able to hold it, attuned mana isn't nearly as easy to control as unattuned mana.”
She could feel that, it took all of her will to stop the usually docile energy from leaving its shape. She was pretty sure she’d have a serious problem if not for her evolution, the greater amount of energy as well as the bigger veins enabled her to barely keep control over it. She could see Estram come over, deliberately slowing down before reaching her.
He observed her for a few minutes, until it was obvious she wouldn't lose control.
“That's surprising, most novices can't control elemental mana for more than a minute, especially mana as volatile as yours. How do you do that?” He asked with interest.
“That's easy, I evolved about a month ago, and that improved my energy control.”
“You did? How can you stand eating raw meat?” He asked, his voice filled with equal parts interest and disgust.
“How can't you, fresh meat just tastes the best, the more energy the better!”
“Huh, what were you born as?”
“A kobold.”
Estram looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “That was one hell of an evolution then, if not two. Well, not that it matters to me, though it will make teaching you a lot easier. Now take the sphere and fill it with your elemental mana.” She did, and asked him the question that had been in her mind ever since yesterday.
“How does enchanting work? The shaman in my home village taught me how to enchant stuff, but these always stop working when they run out of energy.”
“That's not enchanting but imbuing. It’s an advanced form of spellcasting. Imbuing only charges a material with mana, while enchanting changes it on a fundamental level. There can only be so many enchantments in a material and how many is dependant on the material itself. Almost all metals and inorganic materials are only able to hold a single enchantment while even the most basic organic material will be able to hold two. There are some very precious metals that can hold more, but you won't be using those for quite a while.”
She stopped him before he could continue, giving him the filled sphere. “So, what are these spheres good for?” She asked with interest.
“They are the most important part of enchanting, only the most talented enchanters are able to both create attuned mana and enchant a material at the same time. We use these spheres instead, they are filled with a certain type of attuned mana and store it. If you thread your mana through a sphere it will attune it to the mana, enabling us to enchant with any element saved by the guild. Now these spheres are the most important secret of the guild, as they allow novice mages to enchant.
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You can actually use other elemental mana, but it's inordinately harder to use foreign elemental mana than your own, but it’s possible which is why you are required to submit a probe of your elemental mana to the guild as you join.
Now, fill that second sphere and I can actually start teaching you.” She did as he continued, giving her a few wooden blocks. “Very good. If you have any questions you just have to ask, I like to lose myself in the theory. The most important thing for any enchanter is the material they have to work with, the lesser a material is the harder it is to anchor the enchantment.
Furthermore higher quality materials will be able to hold more enchantments. Organic materials are able to hold more enchantments than inorganic ones, but they break significantly faster. Even the most basic enchantment will eventually break a material, but the speed of deterioration depends on several factors.
First is the quality of a material as well as its compatibility with the enchantment itself.
Secondly is the amount of enchantments on a material, generally the more enchantments there are the faster a material will break.
Thirdly is the interaction of the different enchantments - if you enchant a material to be resistant to both fire and water the different types of elemental mana will constantly fight each other, slowly destroying the material.
The skill of the enchanter is important too, the better you are at containing the enchantment when creating it the longer a material will hold
Last but not least is the power of the enchantments, basic enchantments will create the wanted effect as long as they have mana, and have to be refilled once they are empty. The higher the energy needed for an enchantment is, the faster the material will deteriorate.
Now, pick up your sphere and we can start. Enchanting is a little like imbuing, you can't enchant a material with raw mana to use mana-sorcery. That's simply not possible as raw mana will always diffuse without anything living to hold it together, so don't bother.” Estrum took several colorful books out of a shelf above her, setting them down in front of her. “These book contain most of the theory you need, the rest can be found in the library, let's get to actual enchanting.”
The teacher fetched several cubes of wood, all about fifteen centimeters long.
“These are simple oak cubes, so there isn't anything to worry about when enchanting them. Oak is a very poor material to enchant and will destroy itself after a few dozen uses even if the most talented enchanter were to use it, so you don't have to worry about destroying it. You’ll be able to get any number of these cubes on the first floor once you run out.
To start any enchantment you’ll have to start with filling the material with elemental mana; there is an upper limit to all materials which will limit the total power of the enchantment. You will notice once a material is filled with mana as any more will simply leave it.
For now start to completely saturate a material before enchanting it, as that will allow the longest use.” Ves'ra stopped him for the first time, something didn't add up.
“Wouldn't it be better to limit the energy you use to as little as possible? If a material will deteriorate with more energy filling it shouldn't it be as limited as possible?” She asked.
“That depends. If you want a continuous effect then you’ll want to to be as much mana as possible, but if the enchantment simply casts a spell then you are right, of course it takes a lot more skill than just filling the material to its limit.
In time you’ll be able to gauge the amount of mana needed for an enchantment, but that will take a lot of practice.
Where was I? … Yes, filling the material with elemental mana. After you are done with that you have to hold the mana in place while you concentrate on the effect you want to achieve and transfer that into the material. You will then feel the enchantment take hold. Unlike casting spells that will take a lot of time and you will be able to feel once the enchantment is complete as the mana will shake off your control once it’s filled. Now use one of your weakest spells for the practice, and please use something that's not destructive - I had to repair my workshop a few times already.
I’ll look at your results in the evening, don't interrupt me please, just leave them on the table, I’ll look at them tomorrow.”
Before she had a chance to respond the mage had already turned around and sat down on his comfy chair again, concentrating on a strange contraption on one of the tables in the room. The teacher was obviously more skilled than he let on as she didn't see him using a sphere.
Ves'ra look at the cubes of wood in front of her and took one of them. They all had a handy dent on top of them, a perfect fit for one of the spheres.
She was excited, a completely new field of magic ripe for her to explore it! She filled the block of wood with energy filtered through the crystal sphere, until she felt the block was full. Once done she thought about what spell she wanted to use.
Something not destructive.
Most of her magic was harmful by design, but there was one spell that she had always active - the spell she imbued into her water skin.
Ves'ra concentrated on holding the energy within the cube as she created the spell in her mind. The warning that she’d have no control over the enchantments once it was cast firmly within her mind she adapted the spell slightly, limiting the speed it drew water out of the air by a few orders of magnitude and having the water put into the depression for the crystal.
She imparted the spell onto the energy within the wood, and just as the teacher said she could feel it changing the material itself. What he didn't say was that her energy would be even harder to control, and she lost control over the energy a few moments after she started enchanting.
The energy ran rampant, freezing the block of wood as it escaped her control. She cried out in surprise, and quickly took the crystal out of its socket, taking another block of wood.
---
Enchanting was immensely frustrating. Ves'ra had already destroyed all but two of the cubes and had yet to make any significant progress and she was already beginning to feel a serious headache approaching, warning her to stop using magic for today.
Sure, she managed to hold the energy in place for a little longer every try, but the longer she took the harder it was to control it. Everytime she lost control something different happened to the wood - it froze, immediately cracked as all of its heat or water was drawn into one point, one time it was pushed off the table by a random gust of wind!
Ves'ra eyed the second last block with an evil eye, she was a mage and no simple block of wood would defeat her! Fueled by her anger the wood was filled in record time and she started creating the now familiar spell in her mind, slowly pushing it into the wood.
She felt the energy change again, rampaging throughout the wood, changing it on a fundamental level.
She tried to slow that reaction down, the energy got increasingly hard to control the faster the material changed. As so many times before the energy obeyed her, easily at first and fighting her control the longer it took for the material to change. She managed to slow the reaction ever so slowly, but still rampaging through the wood. She managed to slow it down more than before as always - she felt she could manage in a few more tries.
Ves'ra fought with all she was, she wouldn't submit to a simple block of wood!
Suddenly she lost her connection to the wood. She looked at the cube with interest, the failures had been interesting so far and she wanted to see what her energy would do this time.
Ves'ra grew concerned as nothing happened for quite some time, until she noticed that the crystal sphere was shaking ever so slightly. With a cry of joy she lifted the crystal out of the depression, seeing it slowly filling with water. It filled slowly, very slowly - perhaps she dumped the spell down a little too much.
She looked at the teacher, happy to see her involuntary cry had not disturbed him.
Still, Ves'ra was elated - she had finished her first enchantment! She looked at the last block of wood and thought a little, but in the end she decided to end the day with a victory, her head was already killing her and she wasn't sure she had enough mental energy to enchant another block of wood left.
She made sure not to disturb the old human as she left, now that she did some enchanting herself she could understand the concentration and absolute silence one needed. She left the guild in a good mood, making her way home without paying much attention to the humans around her, otherwise she’d have noticed the tense atmosphere that had seemingly gripped the whole city.
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