28th of Frost, 119th Year of the Age of Steel
Talon’s workbench was again covered in the dust of sorcerer’s sand. He was quietly mapping out the shapes and intent behind the pictography he would need to complete the work he had in mind for the day ahead. His fingers ghosted over the sand drawing the necessary shapes that he had in mind with careful precision he finished the spirals of the last vortex needed to catch latent aether that might slip away from his efforts. He glanced over to one end of the workbench where the blood dragonshard that he had spent a considerable amount of time working to purify now rest. It was being housed in a glass container resting lightly on the surface of the workbench, waiting for when he finished working on the other reagents so that it could be broken down into viscerite.
The runesmith’s goal for that day was a considerably simpler one. He would be working toward evening out the aether pathways within the piece of the earth elemental that he had collected. Following that he would be purging it of any corrupted aether that he could find though his initial inspection of it with his Semblance hadn’t revealed very much of it. As Talon finished his pictograph he reached into the pack that contained the piece of the elemental. It still emit a verdant shimmer as he rotated it in the light of his workshop. Setting it in the center of his pictograph, Talon assembled his aura glass stands and peered at the hunk of rock now resting on his workbench.
He let out a low sigh through his nose. The good news was that there were only trace amounts of corruption in the piece of rock. The bad news was that the aether pathways within the stone were completely broken or jagged. Each one of them would have to be reworked in order to flow at the peak that Talon required for use in his forging. Some runesmiths might have simply lumped all of their reagents into the runeforge and worked on siphoning out the corruption or tending to broken pathways only after the viscerite was formed. Talon was not those runesmiths. He refused to cut corners and was committed to drawing out the highest level of quality in anything he used before it even touched the actual forge. The Avialae pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment as he thought through the steps that needed to take place. He wouldn’t even bother bringing out a tuning fork just yet. The pathways in the stone were far too broken.
Assembling his tools, Talon got right to work. He tapped upon the surface of the rock with one of his hammers, charging the aether within the elemental stone. Using a pair of forceps he grabbed one of the broken aether pathways and began the slow, tedious process of trying to piece them all back together. He alternated between tapping down jagged edges and linking together two pathways. On occasion he had to set down his forceps and simply had to chisel out a new pathways altogether, the old ones being far too damaged to make any use of. It was a repetitive form of work but he did not mind it. While tedious, it gave him time to think on what lay ahead of him.
Runeforging was not a widely popular form of world magic. Its practitioners were decidedly uncommon with Talon being the only established runesmith in all of Kalzasi. There were a few other wizards in the city who dabbled in the art, if only to improve some of the baubles they came across in their travels. The amount of time and patience it took to craft truly wondrous enchanted objects was extensive and thus most wizards found they didn’t have the patience. Especially when it came to the variety of mages found in Kalzasi, who were all focused more on battle and protection magic than they were on the lengthy mechanics of world magic.
While he had no apprentices and wasn’t entirely certain whether he wanted one or not, Talon had been asked by a handful of the mages who’d petitioned him why he went about things the way he did. His reasoning was simple, the purer and more refined the reagents he used before breaking them down into viscerite, the less likely his intended enchantments were to fail. It also had the noticeable effect of making them more powerful. Added to the fact that he personally forged or crafted all of the objects he made as opposed to pre-fabricated ones, made the items that he sold that much more exquisite. It was a mark of personal pride, really and it was the trademark of the Skyforge.
Talon finished chiseling a new pathway for aether to flow within the elemental rock. Using a pair of tongs he picked up the stone so that he could examine the rock from all angles through the aura glass. More than once he was forced to set the rock down, hammer out a new pathway or work on smoothing out one that hadn’t quite flowed in the manner he desired. When he was satisfied, only then did he bring out the tuning fork. Striking the surface of the rock, Talon winced. The sound was awful. It was a keening screech likened to nails on a chalkboard. That was to be expected but still, his ears were never thankful for the noise of a poorly refined reagent whose aether needed tuning.
With slow diligence, Talon got to work on tuning each of the aether pathways so that they flowed seamlessly. He gently guided the unusable paths toward the ones that he had hammered out. Little by little, the tuning fork went from emitting what Talon could only describe as an aggravated wail to a low humming. It was a deeper tune that he couldn’t say he was surprised to hear. The earth represented the foundation of all they stood on. For it to be emitting a low chime was only natural. Turning the rock this way and that using a pair of tongs, Talon finally managed to get the rock into proper alignment. He gave it a final strike of the fork and listened as a much less harsh noise resonated within his workshop. Tension that he hadn’t realized had been building in his shoulders, relaxed.
With the aether pathways repaired and finely tuned, Talon set about removing as much of what little corruption he could make out within the stone. When selecting the piece of rock, Talon had sifted through the remains of the earth elemental and grabbed a piece that had shown as little corruption as possible. Still, a mad elemental was bound to have traces of it across the whole of its being and Talon found slivers of the black and violet wisps wrapped around the aether in the rock. Using a pair of forceps and a hammer, he tapped the aether where he found it so that it could be properly worked. Then using the forceps he pulled the slivers of corruption down to an area on the rock where he could eventually break it off.
When as much of the corruption as he could get a hold of was firmly gathered in one area, Talon used a chisel to create a containment band in the aether. He blocked it off from spreading back into the rest of the rock then began chipping away at the stone itself. He took his time, being careful to watch the new pathways that he had created throughout the stone, avoiding them as much as possible. While not completely avoidable, he did manage to keep most of them intact. After several minutes, he chipped off the corrupted piece. As with the corrupted shard sliver, he deposited it in a container that was designed to house runeforged refuse.
Returning to the workbench, Talon reworked the pathways that had been interrupted by his chiseling. When he was finally satisfied with the state of the elemental rock, Talon picked it up with a pair of tongs. He rotated it at different angles, viewing it through the aura glass to be absolutely sure that it was in a usable state. The gentle shimmer of the verdant green that lined the edge of the stone seemed brighter and less dead when viewed outside the aura glass. That was signal enough for Talon. He set the elemental stone aside, content that it was in as quality a state as he was going to be able to manage. The rest of the work would come down to how its aether was woven into the viscerite when it came to that part.
Standing up straight, Talon rubbed at the back of his neck. He peered at the clock. There was enough time left in the day that he could work on the rage wraith’s ashes. Taelian had said that he was a fire mage, giving the sword the imperviousness to fire would be invaluable to someone of such skill. He was just about to turn and retrieve the ashes when he heard the bell signaling a customer ring upstairs. Righting himself, Talon glanced back at his workbench.
Maybe he should get an apprentice. That would at least allow him to devote his entire focus to his work.
