Southside Coven: Path To Power (Pt. 5)

--- Jon ---

“She needs something focused on Defense.” He told Artemis flipping through her notebook for something that would work towards that objective. “Right now she’s all Offense, she needs something to balance that out. Preferably without being reliant on the rest of her kit.”

“Meaning you think we should try to create something new?” Artemis figured, sounding extremely interested.

“Yeah…” He frowned going over the Arcane’s various brainstorming sketches. “How hard is it to change the arm’s shape?”

Artemis made something between a grimace and an unsure expression. “Not too hard, but not extremely easy either. We can cut it up easily enough, or flatten it down, but if we’re not breaking it down, molding it into new shapes is probably beyond my alchemy…”

That made him pause, as he frowned in thought. “Wouldn’t it be flesh sculpting?”

“Well you could use Flesh Sculpting in theory, but given how the arm has sort of… crystalized for lack of a better word, it’s not really organic enough for me to work with since I only know a couple of cheap healing spells and… beauty tricks.” Artemis coughed. “Um, unless you’re secretly a Flesh Sculptor or have some pretty advanced and obscure dark arts books.”

“Yeah… Demonology ‘s all I can bring to the table, and that’s only because my… mentors’ hometown had a Demon problem.” Given what he knew, he was pretty sure there were more Demons in Blackwell than just The Corrupting Beast, but… (they’re DeSade’s problem.)

“Like with the Horror?” Artemis asked.

“Sort of…” He nodded, trying very hard not to think about the actual similarities between the two, or more importantly the differences that marked the Beast as something distinctly other.

Artemis winced. “R-right… Um, what, what exactly were you thinking… for Val?”

He took a breath before pausing on a page with a bracer of sorts that had been crossed out with a note saying, ‘Redundant waste.’ “What’s this?”

“Oh, that.” Artemis frowned. “I had an idea for sealing Spell Scripts in the arm as a sort of inventory to be drawn quickly, but realized that was kind of pointless when Val could easily set up some Spell Script Bandages instead. Pretty sure the only reason she hasn’t is because it’s too much of a hassle to set them up and wear them when she can just quickly fill a notepad instead.”

“An equipable inventory can still be useful.” He told her, thinking about his own pack which would only be improved if it was worn on his arm rather than his back. (Wouldn’t have to worry about my axe or arrows catching on the zipper anymore.) “Still if you think she wouldn’t be interested I’ve got a couple other ideas.”

“Such as?” Artemis prodded curiously.

“Now this inventory idea means you can release anything you seal right?” He asked, trying to find an empty page in the notebook to write on.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yeah, easily. While [Seal] is the core concept, you can’t actually use it unless you have a ‘release’ of sorts or it weakens the entire conceptual integrity of the spell.” Artemis explained, before smirking as she continued. “In fact having multiple ‘releases’ ironically strengthens the power of the core seal, if at the cost of more points of failure.”

“I see…” He nodded. “And what exactly can you [Seal]?”

“Depending on the strength of the seal, theoretically anything.” Artemis shrugged. “I mean, while my personal seals are limited to like two kilograms at most, with the arm we could seal a small building.”

“Uh-huh…” He bit his lip in though. “What about something more… esoteric? Like say… fire or… electricity?”

“Yeah, admittedly it’d be less the flames or sparks themselves and more the energy from them. And then because it’s energy instead of physical mass the conversion formula is completely different, actually inverting the law where sealing a physical object takes more energy than releasing it. This excess energy cost is the main reason why the released fire becomes flames rather than just a raw burst of heat energy.” Artemis helpfully lectured.

“Perfect.” He grinned, drawing out his idea. “What if we create a… a shield is too big and unwieldy, maybe a bracer? Yeah, a bracer or gauntlet, and set it up to seal in any energy from the impacts it takes. Similar to how her bat absorbs kinetic energy to power itself but for defense rather than offense.”

“You… want to make a Royal Guard?” Artemis blinked as he showed her his sketch.

“A what?” He blinked back.

“Royal Guard? The style?” Artemis explained. “The one where you block an attack to build up power before throwing it back out in a devastating blow?”

“That’s… that’s an actual fighting style?” He knew he shouldn’t be surprised given all that could be accomplished with magic, but (the fact that it’s so common she can name it is…)

Artemis stared at him for a moment. “You… don’t play many video games do you?”

“Not really…” He admitted. “I mean my Ma likes to play them on her days off, so I’ve played some of hers and I guess I’ve played a lot of minecraft with my cousins.” (Though we haven’t really done that recently… Not since I got back from Blackwell…) “But I don’t think I count as a ‘gamer’.”

“I see… Well the point is I think I understand what you’re going for.” Artemis assured him. “There’s still a few things we might want to double check but I think we can get started on actually putting everything together.”

The other teen glanced around a bit. “That said, whenever we actually do this we’ll probably want to do it somewhere other than a very public library.”

“Any ideas for where?” He asked, his only offer being his house or the woods. The latter of which he doubted Artemis would consider a ‘work space’ and the first of which involved introducing Miss Edna to the younger Arcane which, (No. Just, no.)

Artemis gnawed on her lip for a moment. “Maybe but…” She gave him a look before shaking her head. “Just, uh, just let me think on it for a bit. You… you just look into whatever you think you need to know for this. I’ll find you once I’ve got something set up.”

Scene Consequences

-For studying with Artemis gained 2XP to Occult. (Reduced due to event focus.)

--Currently: Lv. 8 (8/18)

-Jon and Artemis have settled on a project for Val, this project will take multiple actions with their own skill checks based on both Artemis and Jon’s skill level in each. Depending on how well each goes we’ll gain different bonuses to the overall project, and possibly future projects. These steps are:

--Cutting up and altering the arm’s form. (Alchemy, Flesh Sculpting, and Spell Craft.)

--Binding the arm’s magic correctly. (Enchanting, Occult, and Demonology)

--Fine tuning. (Combat, Flesh Sculpting, and Enchanting)

Note: Excluding Occult itself, Jon adds his Occult Level as a flat value to any Magic Skill check, so even if he has no skill he still won’t roll a 0. (Though lower is still worse.)