While Oliver was very satisfied with his recent discovery of sigildry, as he had decided to name his hypothesis, he knew there to still be complications which needed to be resolved before he could attempt his dashing escape. Dashing in the literal sense alone, of course, as he severely doubted the degree of charm he would exude as his stick-thin body ran away wearing nought but short shorts, socks, and a single shoe.
But alas, before such a hilarious sight could be brought into existence, he needed to resolve the two complications of his escape.
The first problem was the utter lack of empirical testing he had performed to understand or even prove his hypothesis. While neither of the two would be particularly hard if he possessed a less time-consuming method for writing out the letters necessary to ascertain the functionality of his speculation, ripping the letters from his little sheet would be both slow and arduous.
The second issue was not so much an issue of its own making, rather than an issue birthed from the first. Namely that his weight was dwindling at an alarming rate for someone who primarily spent their time sitting and laying motionlessly, save for the occasional weaving session. He knew why, of course, as it was rather difficult to dismiss the pangs of hunger emanating from his stomach, and he knew that a single heart, an uncooked one at that, was nowhere near enough for a person his size, yet when he asked his guards who delivered his hearts for more they simply glanced and shrugged.
However, even if he suspected himself to only be physically capable of escape for perhaps another week or so, his days were not limited to the less-than-ideal. For instance, he knew there were many people in the old world aspiring for his exact semi-anorexic look. They were, of course, predominantly models, influencers, tweens and their like who spent time in a world of horrifically twisted body images. Beyond his new look, he could also confidently claim that he was relatively secure inside the lair, seeing as the delivery arachnoids, while still refusing to speak with him, were glancing at each other with ever more concern, presumably due to his diminished state.
Which brought him to where he now sat, gathering his thoughts on his very first script.
He knew what action he wanted the script he would attempt to create to perform, and to a certain extent how sigildry worked through his own deductions. It was essentially the equivalent of performing spells through describing what the spell would do in writing, in any writing system, as no system should logically be inherently better than any other. That, of course, raised the immediate question of the feasibility pertaining to the idea of single-character scripts, in which he would assign complex meanings to arbitrarily designated shapes to accomplish his desired effect.
He determined that there had to be one reasons for his thesis statement being disproved. Namely his inability to easily assign such a complex idea to a random shape on an ingrained level without weeks of concentration, possibly longer, which would make a more adaptable, if more cumbersome sigaldric language more efficient.
Which brought to mind another question, this time surrounding the exciting possibility of one-character scripts when at a higher level with greater stats. Which then led down the fascinating path of sigils as hand signs for simple, ingrained spells after much practice, with the aid of increasing dexterity to ensure that the hand signs were suitably complex as to not be performed without intent to do so. Which then brought up the interesting idea that perhaps hand signals should be categorized differently than scripts, perhaps as runes, or runic gestures with runes as the single characters, under the umbrella of sigildry, leading him to wonder what other fields of sigildry might hide out of sight for now.
But Oliver quickly regained control of his mind as he remembered his current task, namely breaking free before he lost the ability to do so, and longingly dismissed the thought of an entirely new field of study where he was quite possibly at the forefront of discovery. As best he could, at least, after all, he was still human.
“So, human” A voice sounded out, the hissing tone it used clear of any echoes due to the webs absorbing all the sound which hit them. Oliver looked up from where he sat upon his little section of wood with his sheet in hand as he considered what words to cut out, and above him he saw his most frequent point of social interaction in recent times, namely Khlop Edder, who held an undisclosed position of importance within the colony. “do you yet feel ready to enlighten us regarding the means you used to collapse our roof, twice, might I add? or perhaps on you ability to manoeuvre through our home on your then broken leg, even though any route you took went both up and down?”
As she spoke, she slowly lowered herself through the use of the strings of silk springing from the backs of her elbows and ancles. As she came closer, the orbs of flawless black enlarged, seeming like nothing else than pupils, and, to be fair, they weren’t. As she came closer, two more eyes, far smaller than the frontal pair, came into view, and he knew from his very limited expertise that they had eight arranged in a heptagon, with the frontal pair being the point. Their eyes were also the only part of their face visible when eye contact was held as proper decorum demanded, as their mouths were located on the underside of their chin, presumably to ensure that they kept a full range of vision while eating on all fours. The two other notable features they all shared were their blackened claws with paralytic venom, and the two hairy lumps hanging from where their neck met skull, and down around the neck over the shoulders on each side, till they reached around the point of human nipples, with the distinction of being more central. They were, as far as Oliver could tell, presumably the pedipalps which spiders made use of to smell and taste.
“I quite honestly have no idea what to tell you, my favorite guest” Oliver shrugged as he began to count on his fingers “I have attempted to explain to you that it did it through willpower” which was technically true, even if he did not believe that the truth was something all that important when in regards to you wardens “I have more than once tried to explain it away as human heat vision, which, to be fair, is a rather weak lie from my end seeing as there was no indication of heat having any involvement with the ceiling falling down” Oliver threw his hands into the air in apparent surrender with a joking smile on his sunken cheeks “Honestly Khlop, I have given you countless options, but if you aren’t willing to pick one of my many, many fabricated stories and then move to other subjects, then where is our relationship headed? Oh, and Khlop, I would appreciate if the subject of our next discussion might possibly be the nutritional needs of us larger creatures”
Khlop stared at him for a moment longer, as she always did, staring being a rather obvious consequence of her lack of eyelids, before she spoke. “No, I do not think I can accept your lies, and until you tell the truth we cannot move on to other subjects, so for now, I fear you will simply remain as you are. You have no need to worry about explaining your food needs, we did, after all, have five prisoners before you freed them, all of whom were not starved.” She then bent her legs as far as she could behind herself, her ankle webs lodged between her toes, bending far enough to allow for her hands to reach her hind strings, and pull herself out of his cell.
Oliver was left behind staring after her as she disappeared, slightly stupefied at the revelation that he was being starved into obedience. Which was, admittedly, less than a paragon act of moral goodness, yet it was not as though they would let him die from starvation, he was sure. And while he would legitimately tell them of magic if they simply greeted him as a guest rather than a prisoner, they were not aware of said stance he had taken, which made them imprisoning him more… understandable? He supposed? After all, they had to be good on a certain level, perhaps only at the core, buried so deeply that it was reflected in none of their actions, perhaps, yet they had to.
No matter his position on the issue, it was for another time with greater leverage over the situation, or any leverage, really. And leverage could now only be gained through escape. Which left the matter, once more, of his first script. He came with the qualified guess that he could incorporate geometric symbols into his script, such as, ‘pull acorns in line with the triangle towards the triangle’ which would theoretically do exactly that, so long as he connected a path for the mana to reach the triangle. That would be an essential aspect of his escape, as his idea involved creating handholds, which would be vastly more difficult to accomplish should it be necessary to weave a script for each handhold. He had already poked as far into the web as he could manage, which confirmed that it possessed the necessary elasticity to function with his plan of pulling points on one wall towards his script on the opposite side until he had horizontal stalactites to clamber up.
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And while it was perhaps not foolproof, with one significant hazard being that any arachnoid who found themselves inside of the pantry at the time of his escape would see the walls bulge inwards, it was the best he could come up with, the best plausible one at least. Yet even with a plan, he had to carefully consider what he wrote, as he knew neither the ramifications of not properly fueling a script, nor if a script could make the distinction between ‘pull on spider silk in line with the circle’ and ‘pull on the first spider silk in line with the circle. Which was an important consideration, as he had a rather certain feeling that there were significant differences between the act of pulling on one web and pulling upon every web which happened to cross his circle's path of terror.
Which brought back the concern surrounding whether a failed script would quietly fail, explode, or simply drain him until he had nothing left to give.
Oh well, it would presumably turn out all right in the end, besides, he probably would not fail to such a degree either way, so really, the concern was laughable. The only thing to do now was to do something.
So, after a slight period of consideration, and a far, far longer period filled with careful ripping and meticulous planning to ensure the smallest characters possible, with no form of demarcation to indicate where he could and could not rip, he had his very first script. It was as simple as he dared make it without risking any obvious flaws which could lead to a jump in mana consumption, reading exactly ‘From every circle there will come a straight tether of mana, that tether will reach forwards until it comes into contact with arachnoid silk. When it first touches arachnoid silk, it will grip it, and then pull until the tether has retracted 30 centimeters of its total length’. It was as well thought out as he could manage, with only some minor rephrasing which he luckily caught early, such as when he wrote ‘pull until the arachnoid silk has moved 30 centimeters, then stop’ rather than what he settled on, which would be problematic if planetary rotation was accepted by the script as movement.
Now only the problem of relocation remained, as he would need to both place the circles onto the wall, and move the small, delicate letters he had made onto the wall without distorting their form. And they were very prone to clinging to themselves, which, as an avid concocter of pancakes, the thin kind, not the American ones, he knew that should they stick together, they would rather die than come apart.
Oliver sighed wistfully, thinking of how pleasant it would be to dine on something different, something distinct from his usual feasting upon the hearts of his enemies.
He eventually found a solution, in the form of pulling his short nylon shorts over his mouth in an attempt to ward away the green spores of the mushroom in his cell. He did so as he attempted to gather a handful of the spores it emitted which, when poured onto his uneven letters, made the web stiff and brittle.
He then did the same to his circles, bound a thread of silk to them before gently flinging them to differing places upon the walls, in a loose and semi-successful attempt to create a ladder.
His setup complete, Oliver looked it over one last time, before beginning to guide his mana into the script. He felt the welcome storm of butterflies swarm through him as his mana moved, from brain, to spine, to arm, to hand, and then through his hand further into the F his script began with. He guided his mana around throughout the entirety of the F until he concluded it sufficient and attempted to proceed into the next letter. Except he couldn’t, and he swiftly realized that until he learned to manipulate mana at a distance, he would not be capable of scripts that were not interconnected.
He then attempted to sense his mana level independently of the system and felt as though a tenth had been used, before he looked and saw that it was far closer to a fifth. Granted, most simply dissipated as he had intended to fill the script to its entirety, yet had been forced to relinquish a vast majority to the world.
He also came to the interesting conclusion that while English could function as a sigaldric language, it did not thrive as one. Quite a portion of his mana had been lost during the process, and while some could be retained with greater control and mana conductivity, a facet of the world whose importance Oliver was quickly recognizing, yet still, a more looping language would be preferred. Oliver smiled as he decided to take a vacation at some undefined point in time, and spend it constructing a sigaldric language.
Oliver swiftly connected the many letters as needed, his at this point inhuman dexterity making the process effortless, before he then looked at the green letters and white strings of his first sigildry script and let the mana flow.
Oliver felt the same fluttering feeling as he always did when mana flowed from him, and channelled it through letter after letter, even if sending mana through the strings was the equivalent of having a marathon route include a rope bridge. Eventually, after using two hundred mana or so, the script was filled, and the mana understood its purpose, and he felt the tethers of his own mana move from every circle, and latch onto the web… including periods, lowercase I’s, and o’s, creating quite the jagged formation at the bottom of his ladder.
But there was a ladder, so Oliver judged it to be a complete and utter success.
Oliver quickly inserted five hundred or so points of mana for maintenance and ran to his finicky ladder, clambering up as swiftly as he could manage. After climbing the seven meters between himself and freedom, and attempting some rather difficult jumps from spike to spike due to the less-than-ideal tossing showcased by him, he scrambled over the edge, desperate to escape before the mana fueling his script lapsed.
“I must say, That proceeded quite excellently, if I were to evaluate myself.” Oliver said with a smile as he called forth his ‘class-related skills’ in curiosity.
Skills
Skill ranks
Newbie - Poor - Unskilled - Beginner - Novice - Apprentice - Qualified - Competent - Adept - Experienced - Proficient - Great - Impressive - Inspiring - Advanced - Expert - Exceptional - Amazing - Incredible - Marvelous - Master - Grand Master - Arch Master - Sage
Sigildry Scripts - Newbie
The Art of turning the written word into magical effects.
Of course, while your singular effect may technically be magical, in appearance it was more akin to people poking a sheet. Which may have been excusable, should you have at least had a decent script, rather than the excuse of a script you chose, which looked as though it had been sneezed upon by a hundred particularly snotty elephants.
Mana Manipulation - Poor
The art of manipulating the energy of mana.
Your willingness to sit still for frankly worrying periods of time, as through supreme dedication, you reached beyond your limits and scuttled into the hallowed halls of being poor at something so essential. Hopefully it is all you imagined it to be and more, because if this is where you have reached at the age of seven-teen, it probably is your new home.
Mana Sensing - Poor
The art of sensing the mana of the world.
After for once feeling the sensation of only being a slight disappointment, you cling to the feeling as though it were what held up the sky. Understandable, given the dephts of disappointment you seem to revel in pushing people into. Well, perhaps you don't revel in it, yet you do it so often that it would be an understandable assumption that you did so on purpose.
"GET HIM!" Oliver was quickly dragged from chuckling at his screens as Khlop's voice resounded in the cave, and turned to see twenty arachnoids charging towards him upon every surface available.
Oliver blinked; muttered that, perhaps, his plan was less than ideal concerning execution, before he quickly embraced cowardice, and ran away on far longer legs.