Alright, but before we aim towards the sky like I am an overconfident rocket from the 1950s, let’s start with an enchantment I could do from memory, the Water Spout! Over my tracks through the lives of the Jwarahausa people, I saw this enchantment dozens of times. The things were everywhere! This makes sense considering the fact that infinite pure fresh water would be the most valuable enchantment of all.
Humanity damn near ran out of water before we started harvesting from icy comets, and these enchantments could have flat-out fixed the problem. So of course they were a staple. But because they were, I got a good look at their makeup.
I grab a prepared iron plate, and a modified steel nail that I have turned into the closest thing to a pen I could finagle, and I draw a rune of water the size of my hand in the center of the plate, at around the size of my hand. I pull out the book, plop it down on my table, and flip to the page about Water, making sure it’s just right. Satisfied, I flip to the Pure page, and to the bottom left of the water rune, I carefully draw a much smaller rune of purity, squinting as I scratch the surface of the plate.
Then, holding the doubt at bay, I scratched two lines connecting the two runes, curved as if the runes were forming a cycle. Hissing through my teeth, doubting my work, I quickly moved on to the next rune. I quickly scribbled a single line leading from the Water rune to the Permanent rune to the right of the Water rune.
But as I move on to the next remembered rune and flip to its page in the book, I am dismayed to find that the rune is Target/Spout, a rune specifically made to move the results of magic out of the shape of a spout. I quickly searched in the area looking for other targeting runes, eventually finding near the beginning of the section a rune titled Target/Channel, built to output magic out of a channel in the surrounding area.
I melt a rectangle out of the plate and scoop out the molten metal with a spoon, forming a shallow channel from the plate and seeing the solution on the horizon. I then inscribe a Target/Channel rune in the channel after invoking just a touch of sadness to cool the metal. With a steady hand, I connect the targeting spell to the others with a long, thick line, that I draw through the channel, reaching a rune of Fall that I draw below it altering the output of the water into a long stream of water.
I step back with a giddy smile on my face as I pull in the emotion of language that is so inherent to my spirit, and the enchantment flares to life, a steady stream of water appearing in the channel and falling out in a strong formation. An intoxicating energy runs through my veins in the wake of my achievement, but I slow down before running out of this place, and instead examine my work. Or more accurately, the lines in between.
So far from what I could tell the lines essentially do the inbetweeny stuff of the runes. Like the order or timing. You wouldn’t want to put the cart before the horse after all, you need to know what’s being done first, and lines are what do that. But they also seem to do other things namely these double lines, they seem to link together an effect to the victim in order to make it so that they output an already affected item. So instead of a purifying step, the water enchantment creates pure water with no need to purify it.
So if I want to make something, I basically have to write down what I want, which seems like it might work for my idea. So with that done, I grab some iron dust, my notebook, a steel stylus, and get working
—
Entry 19 Pg.531
I will attempt to create a durability enchantment similar to the one found on the door of the temple. The book says that the rune Earth can either summon earth or infuse the object with "earth" based on the enchantments it is paired with. They don’t say, beacuase most likely considered too soul-crushing for me to know and would destroy my delicate creative spirits. I scoff at such platitudes, saying that I'd rather know how to make useful enchantments right now than die because some dead people decided I couldn't have something yet.
Either way, I have also found the enchantments for Gather and Condense. And I plan to gather and condense the Earth inside the metal
Experiment Durability Enchantment
Experiment 1
Hypothesis: If I place the runes in the time of Earth, Gather, Condense. I will gather the earth energy and infuse it into the item.
Experiment Instructions
1. Make a plate of iron of the dimensions 1m by 1 meter and warm it until it is soft.
2. Then Scratch into its surface the Earth rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
3. Then Scratch into its surface the Gather rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
4. Then Scratch into its surface the Condense rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
5. Then activate the enchantment.from a safe distance
6. Test the surface with a steel nail.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 three times
8. Then Repeat steps 1-7 three times
Scratch Test
Yes
No
Attempt 1
0
1 Technically
Attempt 2
0
0
Attempt 3
0
0
Failure
Error:Well the error is quite obvious this time I screwed up the enchantment. I made it summon a bunch of dirt and then implode in on itself, blasting me with a bunch of dirt. It took forever to clean the dirt out of my hair without a proper shower. (Note to self: make a bathroom on new base)
In the next attempt, I will not include the Condense rune, considering that when combined with the Gather rune, it literally exploded in my face.
Experiment 2
Hypothesis: If I place the runes in the time of Earth, Gather. I will gather the earth's energy and infuse it into the item.
Experiment Instructions
1. Make a plate of iron of the dimensions 1m by 1 meter and warm it until it is soft.
2. Then Scratch into its surface the Earth rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
3. Then Scratch into its surface the Gather rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
4. Then activate the enchantment.from a safe sidtance
5. Test the surface with a steel nail.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 three times
7. Then repeat steps 1-6 three times
Scratch Test
Yes
No
Attempt 1
0
0
Attempt 2
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0
0
Attempt 3
0
0
Failure
Error: I just summoned a bunch of temporary dirt around the plate of iron. When you discard the Gather rune, the spell appears to become a summon spell.And it appears that the runes don't do anything unless you tell them to, which may seem obvious, but it does mean that the runes will be as dumb as hell.And don't do anything on their own, as you might expect from literal magic.
Experiment 3
Hypothesis:If I place the runes in the time of Earth, Condense. I will condense the earth in the item and make it denser, and thus much stronger without many drawbacks considering the lack of significant gravity here.
Experiment Instructions
1. Make a plate of iron of the dimensions 1m by 1 meter and warm it until it is soft.
2. Then Scratch into its surface the Earth rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
3. Then Scratch into its surface the Condense rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
4. Then activate the enchantment.from a safe distance
5. Measure the surface area of the plate in square meters.
6. Test the surface with a steel nail.
7. Repeat steps 1 -6 3 times and average the sizes together.
Scratch Test
Yes
No
Size(m^2)
Attempt 1
0
3
.5625
Attempt 2
0
3
.5721
Attempt 3
0
3
.5629
Partial Success
Error:It is only technically an error since it was my goal, but frankly, I shrank down the iron plates a little bit too much. They are damn near half the size they were before, and while the iron plates are stronger they aren’t so strong I’m impressed. And the prospects of the arduous ordeal of having to do mountains of math for any one of the plates I put up is ridiculous. Especially considering the error I found. Although I did find a bit of weird math in there no matter what I never went below .5625 m^2. My hypothesis is that the iron cannot squeeze any further, but I have no way of testing this, so the question will remain unanswered.
Experiment 4
Hypothesis:When I use a Condense rune it uses the surrounding materials to shrink the form of the object; thus, if I add iron around the plate, I can keep the plates at the same size and make them stronger.
1. Make a plate of iron of the dimensions 1m by 1 meter and warm it until it is soft.
2. Then Scratch into its surface the Earth rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
3. Then Scratch into its surface the Condense rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
4. Place another identical plate on top of them.
5. Then activate the enchantment. From a safe disance
6. Measure the surface area of the plate in square meters.
7. Test the surface with a steel nail.
8. Repeat steps 1 -7 3 times and average the sizes together.
Scratch Test
Yes
No
Size(m^2)
Attempt 1
0
3
.5701
Attempt 2
0
3
.5649
Attempt 3
0
3
.5819
Failure
Error: The condensing plates completely and utterly ignored the plates placed on top of them. The idea that the plates couldn’t condense past .5625 has been strengthened with nine more samples. My hypothesis has been quite thoroughly trashed, but many experiments have led to nothing but disappointment. Plus it really isn’t a problem considering that I am not going to use these dense plates for the base moving forward. But I do have the inkling that the enchantment only affected its own plate, considering that there are targeting runes inside the book. My guess is without a targeting rune it just affects whatevere item you put the runes on. I am thankful that I never tried to write any of the runes down, that could have been disastrous.
Experiment 5
Hypothesis:If I weld the plate that I place on top of the
1. Make a plate of iron of the dimensions 1m by 1 m across and 10 centimeters deep and warm it until it is soft.
2. Then Scratch into its surface the Earth rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
3. Then Scratch into its surface the Condense rune at the same exact size as the diagram.
4. Place another identical plate on top of them.
5. Weld the two plates together with the laser
6. Then activate the enchantment.from a safe distance
7. Measure the surface area of the plate in square centimeters
8. Measure the depth of the plate in square centimeters
9. Test the surface with a steel nail.
10. Repeat steps 1 -7 3 times and average the sizes together.
Scratch Test
Yes
No
Size(m^2)
Depth(cm^2
Attempt 1
0
3
.5650
5.650
Attempt 2
0
3
.5754
5.754
Attempt 3
0
3
.5627
5.627
Success
Assesment: I have not disproven the hypothesis that an enchanted item with no target, instead targets the material it’s on. I have not proven the hypothesis either but it does add some weight in its favor. It's also worth noting that the condensation appears to be consistent on all sides; if something is condensed by a specific ratio, the entire plate is condensed by that same ratio.
Experiment 6
Success
Assesment: While I am not certain, I can confidently say, going further, that the default target of an enchantment is itself. When I used the target rune called touch the plate, it condensed the plate on top of it instead, along with the pencil that was touching it. I promptly took care to dispose of the item by melting it considering the dangers that could happen if I were to touch it as I ordered it to condense something. But the possibility of such an enchantment is interesting for both offense and utility it should just be handled carefully.
—
I stare with tired eyes at the now-crowded room filled with a bunch of iron plates in various states of dirt, and shrinkage. Ugh, I need to get out of here and do something other than ineffectively shrinking metal plates for posterity.
I leap from my chair and float for a few moments in the light gravity.
"Fuck this annoying ass math bullshit! I’m making a gun!" I declare as I storm out of the cramped room, supplies in hand.
I plop my ass down on the cold ice and flip through the book, gravitating to a page I saw earlier with the fascinating rune Blast. According to the description, it violently moves the enchantment's target in a great big spray, so it should be simple enough to make essentially a blaster wand.
I grab some dust and pat it into a cone shape before melting it together with a heat beam. It sinks into the ice as it cools before I carefully pick it out, it wobbled into a kind of flat shape but it was good enough for me.
Grabbing a steel nail, I inscribe an Earth rune near the bottom of the wand, then, with a line leading to the top, I inscribe a really small Target/point and drag a line from the tip to the other side. On the other side, I inscribe Blast, and with my scribbling done, I soak the enchantment in the blood of language and its first blast rockets out with the flow of magic.
I wince, holding back a bit of laughter, as the wand keeps on blasting, the tip spewing out blast after blast of temporary rock. I slowly stop the flow of the floodgates stopping the blasts, as I examine the wand in my hand.
I laugh as I gesture with my crude wand in a rod-meet-hole sort of way before heading to the section of naked meat, wand in hand. I blast the enchantment yet again before erupting in laughter as I realize the dream of anyone with a wand beating meat!
With that I collapse to the floor in unstoppable laughter nearly choking on my own spit from the hilarity of it all but as I laugh and wipe away an imaginary tear I start to truly take in the sheer ease of making this thing. I put the wand down as I think this through, because the more I think about this the more I realize that I might have been going about this the wrong way.
Because why the hell am I going about this in a modern way? The scientific method is a method, not a religion, and in different situations, I should use methods other than what I've learned so far.
When I work according to the tools I have instead of the tools I want, I will get a lot more work done. So what are my tools? Well, most likely all these runes came from techniques like the one I made for my Shiver technique. So what are the baseline techniques? Red adds energy, Blue depletes it, Orange aids in discovery, Pink and Purple seem to affect the emotions of others, and Green either goes slow and stiff, or quick and dirty.
That’s it green! Surely there’s something in here that heals considering the healing emotion, and why wouldn’t that work on metal? And if there isn’t a healing spell, there are at least the component runes to do so; what society wouldn’t want a healing enchantment?
I go through the rune book, mostly finding pages upon pages of concepts, and then modifiers like Speed or Stream, and try to find some runes that I could possibly use.I find the runes for Metal, Change/Shape, Speed, Imbue, Replace, Fix, Delete, and Heal, with Imbue being the main star because it is the key to magically charging up a material. But Heal the rune I'm using to you know do the entire point of this is apparently quite dangerous to use because it messes with your biology and should be avoided, but the thing is, what I'm trying to heal is metal, which has no biology to mess with.
And I know that creating a two-way circuit for stuff changes the property because of the water spout, so if I create a Heal=Metal circuit, the output changes into instead of metal, Healing Metal, and from all the material concepts I know that Imbue can essentially place concepts into materials. So, if I imbue with Healing-Metal, I should make the metal a healing metal!
I quickly go back inside and grab one of the many empty iron plates and put my idea into the metal, revealing the enchantment of Imbue-Healing=Metal and then quenching it in the fires of Language.
I activate the enchantment in that strange yet quite natural way, and I see the metal shine with a green light as it falls into itself the expended magic burrowing deep into the metal. And I scratch the metal with a hesitant smile... only for nothing to happen, or at least nothing significant, as the metal slowly closes together, barely moving.
I sigh and laugh before grabbing a new plate, having forgotten a crucial modifier rune, Speed. The rune alters the output so that it moves at a regulated speed instead of whatever the magic feels like doing that particular day.
So with my glorious moment soiled, I remake the enchantment this time with a Speed/Absurd rune (it’s not like I have to wonder about running out of Language magic) and recreate the enchantment. I place the plate on the table and pull out my laser and fire it full blast at the dark iron plate, only for it to do nothing, the plate fixing it so quickly that the laser turns into a glorified light show, and so I smile triumphantly as I hold aloft the plate and say to it
"I’m going to plaster the entire base with you so that I will never have to deal with living in a box for days on end ever again."