It took painstaking, slow effort to build the bones of the Sigil. Each circle, each set of points and lines like constellations, took a careful hand to grow from nothing. The concept of the Sigil was blazing inside his head, allowing him to stabilize his will and his Essence as they flowed down through his hand. Even so… His energy had to become a single, continuous thing, a river that poured into itself in a perfect circle. It was a balance even a single tremor of his will would destroy…

The ink spread across his canvas, outlining the skeletal structure. A circle that contained a winged, gazing eye…

He filled in the details slowly, the fractalized runes that branched outwards from the pupil. The birds that decorated the upper arch of the eye. His will flowed through all these things, the intent in his heart guiding the power of his Essence to suffuse the rune…

What was ‘will’?

Essence was the blood of the System, the refined power of heaven and earth.

Will…

It seemed to come from nowhere, and yet be everywhere. Why did Essence obey the will? Why was it alone, inexhaustible, a well which never ran dry until after the body failed and all aura was spent?

Nic didn’t know, really.

He worked on instinct, feeling that mysterious force flow through his movements as his pen made slashing downstrokes, sweeping lines, delicate letters. The pronged nib of the pen expanded slightly with the force of his hand, allowing each stroke to taper from thin beginnings to a bold, dark middle, then shrink away again.

He could feel the Essence he worked with beginning to connect with itself. The closer the rune drew to completion, the more it resembled the conceptualization in his head, the more easily the energy poured forth. It was like lightning filling a circuit- there was an almost magnetic attraction now.

Nic drew his pen away as the final stroke fell into place.

He sat back, panting, reaching for his gourd of water to wash his face clean and sooth his parched throat. As always…

Taking his runescribing to another level was exhausting.

But the work was worth it.

Sigil of the Fractured Wadjet

(102% Complete)

Unleashes a soul-destroying curse, trapping the enemy in a cycle of illusions. Can be turned inwards as a soul-strengthening technique.

Before him was a beautifully detailed symbol in the shape of an eye, surrounded by birds and the gentle lines of an ancient river, its winged shape staring out into the world with authority and power. The scroll radiated a mysterious power, a sense of ages contained within the spiral fractals that filled the eye’s inner curvatures. It was as if Nic’s soul was being drawn into an abyss the longer he looked upon it…

He could taste the sand blown on the wind against his tongue…

Feel the heat of the desert against his skin…

The soothing brush of the wind tangle through his hair…

He shook himself free, smiling. If it was this potent without being fed any aura, the scroll would be a perfect weapon against the weak-willed Ascended devils…

And maybe against the Ghost-Toll Legion as well.

Rolling it up, Nic refreshed himself from the water gourd and considered. There were two more Sigils that struck his interest. One was the Sigil of the River-Mother, which would conjure an illusionary river to protect him. The other was the Slaying Hawk, which would let him obtain the speed of flight for a heartbeat.

Both were worth adding to his arsenal, so he took out a pair of massive, blood-red fern leaves. They were waxy and smooth, perfect for drawing upon, and filled with a plentiful energy- natural treasures suited to serving as a runescribing canvas or being processed into armor.

Nic intended to do both.

Using spider silk, he rigged together a crude but effective harness. One leaf would sit over his heart, the other over his belly, armoring the two main points of weakness where his regeneration would struggle to restore his wounds. He’d have to figure out a solution for his neck and head later- a helmet of some kind, maybe.

Twisting his shoulders until his spine unbent and relaxed, Nic settled back in to continue his work…

Another two Sigils to arm and armor him.

---

Nic slid the completed armor into place. The two regal Sigils decorated the blood-red leaves, and he’d layered segments of bone across the straps that held them in place, giving the piece an imposing appearance that spoke of savagery. His real protection, of course, was Gwungo’s suit of silver scales, but this would offer a last line of protection where he needed it most.

The day was gone. Between his trips to the beacon, his time in the illusion, the hours spent in Kline’s garden and hard at work scribing…

Today seemed to be a day full of summer, rich and lasting just a little longer than the days that blurred by in fast succession. He felt divine as he settled into his meditation pose, bringing out the scroll of the Fractured Wadjet and the Portrait of Mount Aikon.

They both bore a strange sense of depth. The portrait almost seemed to move, the rich details of its maker’s brush implying motion in the leaves of the trees, while the regal eye was a drowning pit that invited his soul to fall into it forever.

Studying them, he began to meditate. The step forward in scribing had given him another advancement to ponder, letting him look a little deeper into his own soul. Runescribing, more than any of his other talents, was an expression of what Nic wanted to be-

Fighting came naturally to him, but scribing? Scribing had been a struggle, day after day, never knowing if it would bear fruit or if he was surrounding long, painful hours to no end…

He had chased the last hint of hope that he could break through and become a proper scribe, escaping City Layer d23…

And in a way, that fear and tension had crippled his fledgling arts. He was inexpressive, copying runes from memory rather than innovating, adjusting. His works lacked the ‘soul’ of the ones he had seen in the technique. While he was precise and effective, and could use his runeworks in clever ways, he was fundamentally not much of a creator…

It was bitter to acknowledge.

It was painful to acknowledge, but sometimes, throwing yourself against a problem with all your dedication and belief would only send you on the wrong path. The martial world was full of false starts, dead end roads that could only go so far…

That was the cruelty of the world.

If dedication and hard work always paid off, people would never slack, never tire. They’d chase the horizon knowing they’d be rewarded.

The reason so many people were lazy, or weak, was that there was no promise you’d ever achieve anything…

And Nic’s strength…

Nic’s strength was he didn’t care. If one day his strength came up short, and he was crushed in battle, if one day all his clever tricks and brutal ambitions meant nothing…

They’d still have meant something to him.

He was happy with the journey. He was happy to have set foot on this green planet, and beheld the sky, tasted victory, struggled with all his might. If these things weren’t enough, what would be?

And…

He loved the hours he had spent learning his imperfect, crude runescribing.

They had hurt. His eyes had ached and went blurry from hunching over his work, his spine had hurt, his hand had bruised where it gripped the pen. There was nothing in those hours but the dedication to simple, mundane work.

But that was enough.

It had given him hope, after he’d lost everything. It had been something to do with his body, a chance to feel himself grow day by day, even in the still and sterile concrete world. It had been a chance to feel some small escape from despair.

And even if it had led nowhere, even if he’d never completed a single true rune…

That would have been enough.

Nic felt something stir and brush his soul, like a wind that came from nowhere. It was an elusive, slippery feeling, as if he had forgotten the name of something and was struggling to piece together the fragments of the memory.

It was a Concept.

But not one he was ready to grasp.

He let it slip away, staring up into the sky. He was rewarded with the sight of the sun slowly rising above Winterhome. The entire night had passed in the slow, deep-reaching thoughts of meditation, flickering away in an instant…

Dawn was here.

Nic climbed to his feet, Gwungo snoring around his neck. He rolled the two scrolls back up and placed them in his bag. It was time to head out…

To do more Trials…

To keep his momentum rolling forward.