When she woke she was assaulted by a familiar and predictable pain. Her eye burned like never before, but she hadn’t been unprepared for it. She had been practicing for months just for this day, it would be her magnum opus. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, slowly turning off the part of her brain that processed pain. She smiled as she was left with cold nothing. She opened her eyes and was greeted by a plethora of information telling her what type of wood her floor was made of, the fact that the grain looked like the character for water in Miyam pictograms, and that it was 20.05 degrees Celsius. It was overwhelming, but she was intrigued by the last fact. It took her a few minutes to get the hang of it, but her ability to see heat was displayed visually to her through color, not numerically. Clearly her calculation boon was already interfacing with the new ones. She spent several minutes getting used to the information flowing into her and making the spectroscopic and translator’s eye less automatic. When she felt she had adjusted, she tried to use the daemonic ocularis. It was a strange sensation, as the vision in her left eye moved ever so slightly forward. In front of her face was a large glowing outline of her daemonic eye, although it had a few new markings and symbols around the perimeter, that she would have been tempted to believe were just there for the ocularis version, if she wasn’t now able to translate them. They were the boons she just took, they added characters to her eye.
“Curious…” She murmured. She took a mirror from her workbench and looked at herself. She almost gasped at seeing her eye, but she had actually been prepared for worse. She had been scared that using the ocularis would physically pop her eyeball out of her head, which thankfully didn’t seem to be the case, however what remained in her eye socket was a pitch black orb.
“All the more reason for an eyepatch.” She determined, moving on. Next she willed the eye to move. It was quite responsive, the red construct was flying around the room with quite a bit of agility, it could likely go even faster, but it was disorienting and would take Cece awhile to get used to. She continued testing it, willing it to turn invisible and visible, and finally using a simple scroll to test the magic link. She used a mercury scroll with a very short range, only a few centimeters at most, and used it from across the room to levitate a large book.
With everything confirmed she moved on walking out of her atelier expecting to see moonlight beaming through her windows, instead she found sunlight.
“It appears I’ve slept in.” Cece said calmly while throwing herself into the shower with the type of swift, jerking movement generally relegated to the insane. Based on the level of light in the room, it was roughly somewhere between eight and nine in the morning, which was very troublesome considering she had an appointment with Sigmund scheduled at ten. What ensued was a mad dash throughout her apartment to get ready, along with some hasty directions for Lotte to prepare. It was a struggle, but when the doorbell finally ringed, Sigmund was greeted with a presentable Cece.
“Sigmund! Come in, come in.” Cece said, ushering the man in.
“Good morning, Cecelia. How are you?”
“Oh I’ve been quite good, and you?”
“I’m glad to hear it, I’ve been good as well.” He said sitting down. He noted that there was no tea on the table, as was usual, but it was quickly remedied by Lotte walking into the room with a tray in hand. “Oh good, you’ve found a use for it!” Sigmund quickly cheered. He hadn’t actually expected Cece to use the golem, and it brought a certain anxiety out of the man’s heart to know that she wouldn’t be by herself.
“Oh yes, she’s been quite helpful, thank you again Sigmund, it truly was such a kind gift.”
“Of course, Cecelia. I’m happy you liked it.” He said with a smile.
“He just wants to make sure I don’t get a different financial advisor.” Cece thought, cynically, before replying. “Shall we get to business?”
“Yes, I suppose we should.” Sigmund said pulling out several papers from his briefcase. They went over her investments and prior sales before she sent him off with her merchandise.
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“Cecelia, this is far more than we agreed on.” Sigmund said, analyzing the crate of scrolls she intended to send him off with.
“Yes, I’ve decided I want to up production.”
“Oh, have you finally decided to take an apprentice!?” Sigmund said cheerily. She had always said she was too young for such a thing, but Cecelia was already respected as one of the best alchemetrixes in Astraeve, albeit just as “C.C.”, It was normal for an alchemetrix of her skill to take someone under her wing, both as a service to someone learning, but also so they can eventually make scrolls under the same name.
“No, I’ve just found a few tricks to speed up my work.”
“Cecelia, you aren’t pushing yourself too hard are you?” He asked plainly. The amount of scrolls in front of him were far too many to have been created just through a few tricks. He knew they were hers of course, he didn’t know all that much about alchemy, but he was an expert in Cecilia Silva’s work, and could recognize her scrolls anywhere. He couldn’t imagine how many days of the past month must have been consumed by the work.
“Of course not” She replied. “I’ve truly just found a few techniques that let me move a little faster.” She stated.
“Well if you say so, I have no choice to believe it. I’m sure I will be able to sell the extra, but do be sure to take breaks.”
“I will! Stop worrying about me, Sigmund.”
“I will endeavor to do so, but I make no promises.” The man admitted.
“I suppose that’s all I can ask.” Cece laughed.
With the merchandise handed off, and her affairs in order, Sigmund bid her adieu. Once he left Cece cracked her knuckled in anticipation for her next work. The design of a grimoire beyond anything she had ever made.
She had already obtained the technique and materials for transmuting rubies and she had prepared one for her use. She took the doppelganger blood and started refining it, going from the simplest to the most advanced techniques. She began by bringing out a flamel jar, a strange contraption with a glass shell, filled with disks of metal suspended in acid. It was the most efficient way to store large amounts of magic. She used scribe’s eye and used a cheap mercury ink to make a single line to connect the output of the jar to a large glass beaker of doppelgänger blood. She let the vast amount of magic contained within the jar to leak into the blood until it stopped gaining any more magic, about two hours. Then it was time to use more complex techniques. She was limited in that she didn’t want to use anything that would completely transform the ink, it was important for it to still retain some of the unique characteristics of the doppelgänger. She started with filtering off a few contaminants, then distillation, then adding the purified powder of a silver leaf flower, and finally adding a two percent solution of mercury and platinum in complete darkness. The last technique was one of the new ones that the serpent had given her. It had to be left for a few hours to coalesce, but Cece welcomed the break, needing to take care of a few household tasks.
When she came back she was pleased. She was hesitant about using a new technique, but it had worked. The normally pure silver of the doppelgänger’s blood was now slightly blue, while somehow being far more reflective. It looked like liquid moonlight, and when she looked at it with her daemonic eye, it absolutely radiated magic. With a grin on her face, she grabbed the ruby she had prepared and began to work.
She started with a layered illusion of one very specific person. Cece’s perfect memory allowed her to capture her form perfectly, more so it allowed her to capture several people’s forms just in case they would be more useful. The illusion would act just as she needed it to and would make slight changes to her body language as well. The grimoire could make her invisible, change her voice, muffle the noise she made, block her body heat, and stop people from feeling her touch. She designed it so that it would present a false image to gold detection magics as well, although those could be seen through with enough skill. However, Cece didn’t think that would be too much of a problem.
Alchemy was limited, it didn’t obey will, like magic, it obeyed design and that was all, but it did have one advantage. By using parts of strong alchemical beasts it was possible to copy parts of their magic, magics that had yet to be truly understood by mankind. The magic of a doppelgänger that seems to worm its way into the mind of a target is something that no Silva mage could replicate, but she would, at least for a night.
She held the ruby in her hand, it was even better work than the grimoire she used against the angel. She had chosen alchemy out of necessity at first, just so she could have some magic, her father had supported her which surprised her, he probably wanted her to build focuses for the family, as unorthodox as it was, but now she really did love it. She knew so much more about alchemy than she did the day before, and she resolved herself to learn even more. She slowly cleaned her workbench off, and began getting ready for bed. With the grimoire done, the first step of her plan was ready for action, and she could finally rest. She threw herself into her silk sheets, and let unconsciousness take her.