Briox searched his notes, three days and the once clean workbench was now a mess of ink, paper and notes. He found and looked over the temperatures for the mud incubators yesterday. He was using heat as a catalyst followed by the everswallow flowers and then a mixture of a half dozen various mixtures imbued with mana. Any variance could affect the beings he was creating, but trying to control it too tightly would result in inferior creatures or failure as they were unable to survive once they emerged. He double checked the numbers and then walked over to the bubbling pits of steaming mud. Three days of magic, catalysts and base materials had been poured into this mud with the goal of shaping it to purpose. No vital materials had been used, but they didn't have time if this batch was wrong to determine a cause and correct it. Fourtunately goblins were hardy even before being created, the process that created them prone to mutation if there was errors, but almost guarenteed to succeed.

Briox turned from his workbench and walked to the incubators. Briox held his hand over the first incubator, extending a stream of mana from it he felt the energies within it. He pulled out a quill and carefully noted down a few key parts of what he felt, the temperature, the positive to negative energy flow, vital energies, and a few concentrated pockets that would need to be stirred out. He repeated this process down the line from the first one to the fifth. Each one would take a few adjustments to be on track but they would do. He wrote out the instructions for care for each pit and hung them on the stand beside them. The blue goblins would tend to the details later. Briox returned to his desk, this time shuffling through the papers to find the one he had specified his target parameters.

Briox took a good minute to find his goal, a paper titled "Red Goblins". He quickly scanned it comparing the notes of materials required, time and temperature. He ignored the sounds of the blue goblins returning from work and their efforts to ensure the incubators were tended. After a moments check he sighed in relief, the numbers were within parameter though number four was only just within limits. That alone wasn't the reason for his relief, but rather the preparation time for a red goblin incubator. Three days of preparation before the final catalyst. Then it was only a matter of waiting, sometime in the day or two after the final catalyst was completed they would rise from the mud full formed and alive. All that was left was only final tending by the blues and then the final catalyst.

Briox turned from his workbench and checked their progress. Some of the blues were stirring incubator one with giant paddles, others were rolling a giant cauldron with a fire beneath it from incubator to incubator, adding the required doses of water one ladel at a time. Smoke and steam were filling the lab and Briox waved a hand, a gentle wind springing up and pushing them up one of the chimneys. Briox slowly strode over to the incubators, standing before number three it had required the least work, only a small amount of water to replace lost moisture. The blues slowled there work, eventually coming to a stop, waiting, watching. Briox slowly exhaled, hesitant, it had been so long since he had done this. Two years since he had last cast a spell of creation. Back then he had created a companion, friends, allies and assisstants. Once he did this though...he would have created life not for beauty and utility, but for war.

Briox closed his eyes and raised his hands over the incubator, his mana probed it one last time confirming that everything was as it should be. And so he began "Erosa Piwar If Axostanca, Erose Piwar Wothon Ma, Goft Lofa On Mu Nema Es Craetir" as he spoke the ancient tongue he called forth the mana within him, pushing it beyond his body. He could feel weakness setting in as his power vanished pulled into the ritual. He had called upon the ancients, the first mages, gifting his mana to their spirits to shape and imbue life to his creations and they had taken their due. Briox stumbled back a number of goblins rushed forward to support him as he collapsed backwards. But then they simple stood, holding him as they all watched the incubators, a golden light dancing with mystic symbols imbueing them with power. Briox strove to commit as many symbols as he could to memory, this was the basis of his craft, the core of magic laid bare if only for the brief moments that the ancients worked.

As the light faded Briox sighed and waved the goblins away, slowly sinking onto the floor. He had not expected it to be so draining. Then again, looking over at the five catalyzed incubators, he hadn't expected to have enough mana for all five either. Briox closed his eyes and tried to remember what symbols the ancients had just used. No living mage could ever fully grasp the ancient language, the power and complexity alone would destroy a human mind. Thats why they had to rely on the spirits of the first magi, the first race of ancient beings who had managed to somehow become magic for many of the higher magics. The spirits used mana as fuel for themselves and in return acted as interpreters between magi and magic. But doing so required more mana than learning the specific symbols to cast the spell yourself. Briox slowly engraved the shape and meaning of the few symbols he had managed to gather and then crawled his way back to his bench.

"Magi are fueled by mana and without it they are even weaker than normal man, cast too much and see what the consequences are!" Briox grimaced as one of Proffessor Vandolheim's lecture echoed in his head. If he didn't need to note down the symbols while they were fresh he would just lay around and recover for a while. When he was in school he didn't have to worry about copying them, they had a whole library of symbols to study! Briox froze at that thought, then he grimaced Everseal was gone he had to do it himself, even if he had to eventually reconstruct the entire catalyst ritual himself. Briox forced his way onto his chair and then bent over the workbench forcing the slowly returning mana into his hands and arms first so they could be steady as he recorded the symbols. Right now nothing mattered more than recording them right, later he would give instructions to the blues about the incubators.