The pooled blood inside the dish sitting on Kay’s desk slowly startled to furl up like a slowly drying leaf on the ground as it began encompassing the pendant sitting in the middle. In one smooth motion, the crimson flower of blood sealed itself closed and began to shrink inward. A few moments passed as the blood seemed to vanish, seeping into the pendant.

The enchanted piece of jewelry floated a few millimeters off of the dish before it dropped down to the bottom. Kay picked it up and used Identify to look over the description.

[————————————————————]

Plain Bronze Pendant of Brisk Blood Flow

- A plain-looking worked bronze pendant with a small carving of a running man in it. This pendant is enchanted with magic that makes the wearer’s blood flow cleanly and smoothly, eliminating problems such as blood clots and plaque in the veins and arteries.

[————————————————————]

Kay sighed and tossed the pendant into a box off to the side of his desk. The former “Plain Bronze Pendant of Minor Agility” landed with a clatter among the other enchanted objects that had been transformed from what they were originally into medical aids of some kind. The box holding items that had become enchanted to help Blood Manipulation or other Skills from Kay’s Class Line was a little more full than the medical items box, and the “I’m not sure what this could be for” box had only three items in it. The “successful results” box was empty.

“Why are you so sure that I’ll be able to meld something with blood and keep the enchantment the same as it was?” Kay asked/

Ahthia finished making notes about his most recent attempt before responding. “We’re really not sure at all; we’re just experimenting to see if it’s possible.”

“Then why do I have to do this so many times?” He groaned, looking at the pile of items opposite the boxes, waiting for him to meld with.

“So we can reliably say that it isn’t possible and that we really tested to make sure.” Ahthia grabbed a random ring from the pile, made some notes about it, then handed it to Kay. “Do this one next.”

“Fine, but I’m trying something different this time.” He turned a drop into a thing needle and floated it over to her. “Let me get a drop of your blood for a moment.”

“Sure,” She swiftly pricked herself with the needle and watched a drop of her own blood float off of her finger and hover over Kay’s palm. “What are you trying?”

“I’m changing tack. I want to see if using a specific person’s blood while I’m melding does anything. Focusing on the concept of “keeping the time the same” while I meld isn’t working, and honestly, I think it’s going to be a bust. Melding two things together is obviously going to result in some change to each.”

He checked the ring with Identify before starting.

[————————————————————]

Illuminating Gold Band

- A ring consisting of a single gold band, it is enchanted to let out a small glow from its surface when mana is fed to it.

[————————————————————]

Kay paused for a moment. “Have we tried anything with items like this before now?”

“Um, no, this is the first one with an enchantment that makes light.”

“Can we get some more? I think they could be useful when we start some of the other tests, like incorporating things into my simulacra.”

She flipped back a few pages, “Not a problem; we have several right now and more in storage.” She poked at the pile with her pen, shifting a few things aside while peering at them, “I think they’re just near the bottom.”

“Good.” Kay held up the ring in the palm of his free hand and dropped the bead of blood into the ring’s opening. Concentrating on his Skill, he focused on the connection between the drop of blood and Ahthia, the person it came from, as he infused the ring with the crimson liquid.

Things went a fairly standard path from there; every once in a while, one or more colors of an enchanted item that Kay melded with turned some shade of red, but this ring stayed its average gold color as the blood drained into it. Kay felt the ring’s magic shift a little bit as his Skill finished its work, which was also normal, but this time there was something a little extra to it. He felt a slight tug towards the dwarven woman sitting across from him as he completed melding the enchanted ring.

Curious, he Identified it to see what had happened.

[————————————————————]

Illuminating Gold Band

- A ring consisting of a single gold band, it is enchanted to let out a small glow from its surface when mana is fed to it. This ring has been magically blood-linked to Ahthia Felmoral and cannot be used by any other.

[————————————————————]

“Oh!” Kay pulled his hand close and stared at it. “That’s interesting!”

“What happened?”

“It says it’s magically blood-bound to you, and no one else can use it!”

“What!? Let me see!”

“Wait just a second,” Kay slipped on the ring and tried to send a thread of mana into it. It felt like his attempt bounced off a wall, and nothing happened. He held it out to her excitedly, “Here! See if you can use it!”

She snatched it from him excitedly and stared at it, obviously using Identify on it herself. Her eyes lit up with glee after reading the description, and she slipped it on. A moment later the ring lit up with a faint orange glow like a dim lantern. “Ooh!” She perked up in her chair. “I haven’t heard of something like this before!” She hopped out of her chair and jogged over to stick her head out the door. “Danni! Danni! Go fetch someone with a high-level Identify! Get someone that can get really detailed descriptions if you can! Quickly now!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She hurried back to her seat as her assistant took off out of the building.

Kay glanced in the direction the assistant had run off in. “I hope she avoids the construction.”

“Eh,” Ahthia waved it off with one hand, “They’re already done with most of the big stuff; it’s just detailing and things now. She’ll be fine.”

“Oh, right…”

“Stop being weirded out about a palace being made for you, and focus more on this!” She held up her hand with the ring still on it, “A new discovery! Something we have no record of!”

Kay did as she ordered and let the sense of excitement and adventure in discovering something no one had known was possible sweep over him. “Let’s keep going!”

“Of course! No! Wait! We need more people; we can’t just do tests with my blood!”

“That can wait for Danni to get back with whoever she finds. Let’s see if I can blood-bind something to myself first!”

╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦╩╦

“So,” Ahthia tapped the bottoms of her papers against the table, “We’ve confirmed that you can use Meld Blood to change an enchantment into something similar to the original enchantment but also with some theme or effect related to blood, although I still think that powerful enough enchantments will probably resist you until you hit a certain Skill level-“

“Agreed.”

She ignored him and kept talking, “You can bind something to an individual or family line so only that person or another family member can use it, which can be dispelled like other enchantments but will also break when the individual dies, or the family line doesn’t exist anymore-”

“Thank goodness we had someone with a high enough level in Identify to see that because the only other way I can think of to figure that out would have been really fucked up.”

“Let me finish. You can infuse magical effects from items into blood and then use those effects while manipulating the blood or using other Skills on it, including but not limited to your simulacra-“

The faintly glowing simulacrum of Ahthia standing behind Kay waved at her.

“And you can make Skill boosting items by using mana-rich blood and the blood of a person whose Skill you want to boost.” She looked up at Kay, “What else do you want to test?”

“Well, first, we should probably clean up the room,” He gestured at the multiple piles of items that were cluttering his desk and the two more that were starting to creep out of the corners and consume more floor space. “Also, you should probably add that I can take enchantments from a preexisting item, put them in blood, and then make a new item from that blood with enchanted properties.”

“That’s just two of the effects we’ve identified, plus your Blood Shaping making it into an item. It isn’t an effect on its own.”

“Alright, well, I want to take a break. We’ve been at this for a few hours, and I’m getting hungry.”

“Can we continue for just a bit more? This is so invigorating!”

Kay gave her a look, “Don’t you have a job to be doing that’s not picking apart my Classes and Skills?”

“No? I mean, I have other duties, yes, but my deputies can handle most of the day-to-day tasks. Learning about our Lord’s Classes and Skills is very much part of my job as an archivist and researcher!”

“When did you become a researcher?”

“I’ve always been a researcher! But it became part of my official duties when it was decided that the Ministry of Schooling was to be focused entirely on teaching and not research, so our research divisions got moved over to the archives and my post as Minister of Study.”

“Right… I think I remember that session? Wait, yes, I do; there was that argument about whether the government should officially recognize certain businesses as ‘crown suppliers’ or whatever. Also,” He added, “While I’m asking questions, I should know the answer to, why are you the ‘Minster of Study’? As in, why are we using that title? I know why I gave you the job.”

“It was the only good option besides ‘Minister of Information,’ and you said that made you think of an authoritarian dystopia.”

“That was it! Sounded more like someone in charge of secret police and dungeons than an archivist and researcher..”

“Can we move back to the topic on hand instead of you trying to distract me?” She asked peevishly, “I’d like to try one more idea before we stop for the day.”

Kay puffed out a breath, “Sure, we can hit a good finishing point.”

“Great!” She got to her feet and headed to the door, “Come on! We can stop by the kitchens and grab you a snack on the way!”

He came around his desk and followed after her, “Where are we going?”

“The closest training grounds! It’ll probably be safer to do this somewhere more open!”

*********

Continuing a little of the big announcement, as part of the lovely publishing deal I got there will be a few changes. Nothing in terms of my writing or you guys as Patrons or anything, mostly just length of content. Basically my "book one" of the series is twice as long as it should be for effective publishing, so that's getting split into two books, and The Shatterplate War's original outline is going to get split into two books as well. So this current Arc that we're nearing the end of is actually going to be book 3, and book 4 will be titled "The Shatterplate War", since the titular war will happen then. All in all, my three book outline is turning into a six book outline with each arc being a book instead of two arcs per book.

So, in the future, titles of posts and chapters will get a little change, but probably not until I actualy get some more dates and do a reaveal to RR. So not for a bit, but as I said last post, y'all Partisans get early access to stuff!

The Shatterplate War