"So firstly I have to ask, how much do you know about Void in general?" Ellian questioned.

"I don't know much." Avakian confessed. "I know that it's omnipresent around us in low density, and I know that it can be damaging to certain people."

"Not the worst explanation I've ever heard, but still a very small portion of the actual truth." She cocked one leg over the other as she began her exposition.

"The exact nature of Void is argued over by many, but I will outline the basics agreed upon by most rational folk. Void is a substance that when formed into specific shapes, will output a corresponding phenomena, or effect."

"That's it?" He asked, disappointed. He was expecting a far deeper explanation.

"Yep." She assented. "That's the only thing you'll find that everyone will agree on. There are thousands more theories as to what Void actually IS. They range from Void being the combined weight of mortal sin, to it being a creation of God gifted to help us progress."

Ellian sneered slightly as she told him of those theories, Avakian could sense the lack of respect she had for people who held those views.

"Anyway. Glyphs." She said distractedly. "Glyphs are those aforementioned shapes I told you about. Infinite possible glyphs exist, along with infinite possible combinations. The six I am going to show you know are called Eskrimmer's Six; fuck knows why they're called that as Eskrimmer almost certainly didn't discover them."

Ellian muttered the last part as she reached into a box at the foot of the table, drawing out a tool that looked like a miniature ice-cream scoop.

"This is an etcher, a tool for drawing glyphs."

To affirm this she leaned over and pressed the tool down into the table itself, tracing a complicated series of swooping angles and turns until the rune in totality was set into the table itself. The entire process seemed to have taken place in under a minute, but Avakian could see the hundreds or even thousands of hours taken to perfect each stroke and flourish.

Looking at the glyph Avakian felt a longing nostalgia that he could not place, a warm feeling akin to a reunion with an old friend or a long-lost relative.

"Now." She handed him a similar looking scalpel. "Try to carve the same glyph as I did, if you're worried about getting the lines right just scale it up instead."

Avakian got to work carving, as Ellian began to give him a brief summary of the rune in question.

"This glyph is called Eskrimmer's First, it's an elementary storage rune that can keep a small packet of Void stored almost indefinitely. It's taught to amateurs precisely because it's very hard to fuck up."

She paused her speech to look over Avakian's work, and then gestured to a part of his rune where he had wavered slightly.

"And that's exactly why, even with subpar linework like this, the glyph will still function almost as well as a perfect glyph would. A more complicated glyph would require substantially better linework, unless you want to accidentally open a portal to the fuck dimension."

"The fuck dimension? Avakian asked incredulously. "Please tell me that's not a real thing."

"I dunno. Maybe it does exist." Ellian laughed. "With skills like that maybe you'll be the first to discover it someday."

---

The two worked for several hours; Avakian's memory was almost perfect, but he still needed help with some of the actual drawing of the glyphs. Help Ellian was happy to provide; unfortunately Ellian's help was often in the form of smarmy comments and witticisms.

"Left more, left more, left more... Nope that's too much left, start over. What did I tell you about going too far left?"

"I'm pretty sure you said 'left more'." Avakian sighed exasperatedly.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"I meant 'almond lattes and liberal leaning' left, not 'totalitarian socialism' left, start over man." She snickered.

Despite Ellian's comments, and although she would almost never admit it; she was quite impressed with the speed at which Avakian was picking up glyphcrafting. She could tell he had never touched a rune before and yet he had learned in two hours what many could not in months.

"Alright!" She announced with some finality, after Avakian had finished carving the glyph he was working on. "I think I can safely proclaim you 'not a total-fucking-retard' at glyphcrafting. Congratulations!"

"An honour I will cherish to my grave." Said Avakian, playing along. He had more or less grasped Eskrimmer's Six; a set of six runes that were perfect for elementary Void manipulation, something that was apparently the basis for the game he was attempting to learn.

"Alright, now we've affirmed your basic intelligence, I can teach you the rules to Sabat." Ellian's posture improved a modicum as she begun her speech.

"Sabat is a game played by two contestants, oft called Sabath, and is usually played over a board or table, as we have here." She explained, gesturing to the table. "Both contestants have two crystals on their side of the board, one filled with Void, and one empty. The aim of the game is to use glyphcrafting to fill the opponents crystal with Void, while attempting to avoid having your own crystal filled with Void."

Avakian looked at the two semi-spherical crystals on his side of the table; as Ellian had said, one was filled with a dark Void in the centre, whereas the other one was clear.

"There are generally hundreds of other rules; but they all have to do with cheating, and since I haven't actually taught you to cheat yet..." She smirked. "I think we're ready for a game."

Ellian called over a third party to oversee the game; an older man of considerable stature with badly gelled hair. As soon as he arrived the man pulled a lever on the side of the table, which somehow reset the carvings until the table was as plain as when they started.

"Both Sabath ready?" He asked, to which Avakian and Ellian nodded.

"Declare any and all instruments now." He said next, to which Ellian pulled out a off-black etcher from a pocket. The man then looked at Avakian expectantly, to which he held up his practice etcher he was using earlier.

"God guide your hand. Begin." He called as he flipped over a fancy looking hourglass.

Avakian pressed his etcher down into the table and begun to draw Eskrimmer's First, his strategy being the most basic possible; he would simply draw Void directly from his crystal and project it straight at Ellian's.

Ellian for her part was simply relaxing in her chair, eyes not even close to the table in question.

Avakian finished the first rune in record time, and started on the core of his runic structure, Eskrimmer's Second, which would give the Void its speed required to travel across the board. He then used Eskrimmer's Third, Fourth, and Fifth to give the Void the exact direction he needed. He finished as the hourglass was three-quarters of the way through its cycle, and looked up to find that Ellian hadn't even begun yet.

Ellian finally started as the hourglass began its last few minutes. She gave a brief glance at what Avakian had drawn, before picking up her etcher and started carving in her sweeping, curving style he had grown used to. She finished her rune, which was a spiralling triskellion type thing Avakian was unfamiliar with, exactly as the man announced the end of the timer.

"Time's up. Hands flat." Ellian laid her hands flat on the armrests of her chair, Avakian copied her.

The man made certain that neither contestant was still carving before he moved the game onto the next stage. He then prepared to pull a different lever on the side of the table.

"Pay attention now. He's going to open up the crystals and release the Void; this is the fun part." Her eyes gleamed in anticipation as she studied the board.

Looking at the two sides of the board, Avakian couldn't help but feel confident. His side was populated by a litany of glyphs, even if they were basic, whilst her side only had one. Looking closer he noticed Ellian's rune wasn't even connected to the crystal! He had no idea how she thought she was going to win.

The man had his eyes locked on the table as he pulled down the lever, sending the Void out of Avakian's crystal and into his glyphs. He watched closely as the Void oozed and dripped into place, reminiscent of a mudslide played in reverse. As he suspected, Ellian's glyphs did absolutely nothing, as she hadn't connected them to the crystal. Still she looked perplexingly confident, even if Avakian couldn't fathom why.

He discovered seconds later when his Void shot out of his glyphs towards Ellian's crystal. Instead of winning him the game it was instead absorbed into her rune, where it cycled three times, somehow building speed, before being fired back much faster towards Avakian's own crystal.

Since he had created no defensive glyphs in favour of an all-out-attack, Avakian could only watch miserably as his crystal filled with the inky blackness of the Void. A different light then flashed on Ellian's side of the table.

"Win, Ellian!" The middle-aged man announced. "Immaturely as it was done." He fixed the young woman with a look, to which she just smiled, then walked back to his companions, who were sharing drinks and discussing theories on a different table.

"Well I hope to have imparted some of my immense wisdom onto your tragically underdeveloped mind, and now my contractual obligation has been completed!" Ellian rose to her feet dramatically, before departing as quickly as possible to avoid any other jobs being hoisted upon her.

Avakian was left seated, thoroughly entrenched in his own thoughts, possible Sabat strategies and glyphs at the forefront of his mind.