Dirk was waiting at the estate when Verdan arrived and was quick to hurry over when he saw him. “Master, glad I caught you. I’ve had that talk with Osran and we’ve come to an agreement.”

“Alright, and what have you agreed?” Verdan asked, cocking his head to one side questioningly.

“Osran is willing to throw his support in with us if you provide him with something tangible that he can send home. He just wants something he can show off and they can try to copy, I think.”

“Alright, I think we can do that,” Verdan said, nodding slowly. “What do you recommend we give him?”

“Well, I was thinking of those medallions I was helping Magnus with,” Dirk said, quickly continuing as he saw Verdan frown. “They’re easy to replace and make, but they are useful and hard to abuse. Not that I think they would, but it would be a lot safer than something like weapons.”

“Very good points,” Verdan said, giving Dirk an approving look. “Okay, make the deal. I’ll leave it down to you to negotiate how many medallions he takes. I expect you to make sure you replace whatever stock is used, however. We only have ten days and need to make the most of it.”

“Got it. I’ll make the deal today and then get started on the replacements straight away,” Dirk said, hurrying off immediately to get to work.

Verdan shook his head and laughed softly as he made his way over to the workshop. It had been a good idea on Dirk’s part, and he was doing well managing it all, but his expression had just been so earnest and excited.

Tim and Tom were just coming out of the workshop when Verdan got there and Tim caught his eye with a wave. “Hey, Boss, got a minute?”

“Sure, walk with me,” Verdan said, motioning for him to follow before continuing on inside.

Tim waved his brother off before following Verdan, letting out a whistle as he did that had brought Fenn running from around the corner.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Verdan asked as he headed to the room he’d been using to work on the Sigils.

“Well, I’m not quite sure how to really explain it,” Tim said hesitantly.

“Just start at the beginning and work your way through,” Verdan said, opening the door to the room and waving Tim inside. “I’ve got the time to listen.”

“Alright, well, it started when we were coming down out of the mountains…”

Verdan listened with growing fascination as Tim discussed his interaction with Fenn and then with the strange energy that had infused him.

This long after the fact, there was nothing that Verdan could do to give Tim any real detail beyond the one thing that he could tell from the description.

“The source of both energies you experienced is a type of magic called Parada,” Verdan said, tapping his fingers on the table thoughtfully as he considered what Tim had told him.

“I think I remember you mentioning that in the past, and you said it was what the Airta use.”

“That’s right, so they might be the best ones to talk to about this.” Verdan hated to say that, but he wasn’t so arrogant to think that he would be the one Wizard who could finally quantify and understand Parada.

“They don’t know what it is any more than you do.” Tim slumped in his chair with a frustrated sigh. “I just want to understand what’s happening to me.”

“Parada is all about intent, and it can clearly work on the soul as well,” Verdan said, trying to tie together everything he knew. “You said that you felt the start of this energy when you first met Sylvie, right?”

“Yes, when I defended her from the Darjee.”

“Okay, so perhaps that was enough to start you down this path of defending people, but it also formed the start of the bond with her, and now the two are linked?”

Tim didn’t look convinced, but neither was Verdan, and it was the best idea he could come up with right now.

“Sorry I can’t do better, Tim. This is a bit outside of my understanding,” Verdan said apologetically, wishing he could do more.

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“No, it’s fine. I know that this is weird. I just hoped that you’d come across something similar at some point.”

“Sadly not, but what I can tell you is that you can figure this out yourself. You already spotted the link to defending people, and I’m sure you can figure out the rest in time.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Tim said, perking up a little before nodding. “Thanks, Verdan.”

“No problem. Let me know what you figure out and if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Verdan walked Tim back to the corridor and waved him off before heading back into the room and fishing out his new testers. It was time to get to work.

He’d already bought some etching tools, and had originally planned to do it all by hand and without aid. Now, though, any benefit that gave him to understanding the Sigil was outweighed by the time crunch they were on.

“Torr gward,” Verdan said, creating a sharpening construct on the etching tool he’d acquired.

Testing it on the sphere, he watched with satisfaction as the tip of the tool cut into the metal with only a light amount of pressure from him.

Just enough resistance to prevent mistakes, but not so much that it would take him a long time.

Carving in the basic number of Sigils, like he had with the first wooden tester, Verdan eagerly set aside his tools before introducing a mote of Aether into the metal orb.

Immediately, the Sigils lit up around where he touched it, and as he fed more Aether in, those nearby lit up as well. It wasn’t as smooth and easy as the original, but it was incomparable to using the wood.

Following the same pattern as last time, Verdan spent an hour carving in the next set of Sigils, eventually getting a workable second test.

The higher amount of Sigils meant it took more Aether to work, but the light was brighter, and not just because of the number of Sigils in place.

Eagerly setting that orb aside, Verdan started work on the third straight away, stopping only to fetch some coffee to help keep him focused as he carved each Sigil in.

Hours passed, but Verdan was filled with a singular determination and barely even noticed until he had the last piece finished and glowing brightly in his hands.

Like the original, all of this one began to glow when the Sigils were all activated, not just the Sigils themselves.

“Each Sigil glows, but each one increases the effects of the others as well,” Verdan muttered to himself as he turned it over in his hands.

The process was still much harder than it was with the original, but he was fairly confident that was down to the metal used. The ones that Elliot had made were iron, but the original looked almost like it was made of silver.

Paying strict attention to the movement of Aether, Verdan activated the original once more and nodded to himself. It was flowing through the artifact with an ease he’d never seen.

That meant that he was right, it was the base material that was making the difference. In turn, that meant that he’d cracked the process for making these Sigils work.

Sitting back in his chair, Verdan allowed himself to revel in the victory for a moment. He’d put a lot of time and effort into studying this, and it was oh so very satisfying to have it pay off.

Truthfully, normal Sigils were so esoteric and odd that Verdan had never expected to make this work, and especially not for something as straightforward as replicating the original.

Chuckling to himself, Verdan realised that if he’d been less set on understanding the underlying principles involved, he could have solved it within a few hours by just copying the Sigils onto something else.

Still, he understood the principles better now, and that meant he could experiment a bit more.

Using the scraps from some of his earlier attempts, Verdan tested how many Sigils were needed and what difference it made.

By the end of the afternoon he had been forced to go get more materials, but was now confident that Sigils had to be done in groups of three to work, as he already knew, but those Sigils could be any size.

Smaller ones were weaker, but held Aether better than their large variants. There was also a threshold for the item to be directly changed by the Sigils being active.

That was why the orbs with less Sigils hadn’t glowed themselves, but the fully inscribed ones did.

Unfortunately, that didn’t fully solve Verdan’s issue, but he had two ideas for what to do next. The first was to tinker more with the Automaton, but he was loath to do that until he knew more.

The other was to take apart one of the two activation wands he’d brought south with him.

Grabbing one of them out from where he’d locked them away, Verdan tapped it on the original artifact.

One of the Sigil trios on the artifact lit up immediately, though it faded quickly after he pulled the wand away.

Intrigued, Verdan left the wand touching the artifact and watched with growing excitement as several more trios of Sigils lit up.

Taking the wand away, Verdan tapped it on his metal testers, grinning as they lit up as well.

That meant that whatever Aether delivery was happening was universal, not somehow linked to the artifact.

Going back to the original, Verdan left it on the orb this time and waited patiently until the Sigils began to fade on their own as whatever source of Aether was in the wand was used up.

Just to make sure, he used it on the other orbs to ensure there wasn’t some other issue.

Leaving it aside, Verdan consulted his notes for a few minutes, wondering about what other Sigils he could try to use, and how to make them a practical benefit.

Coming back to the wand some time later, Verdan tapped the artifact once more and clapped his hands excitedly as the Sigils lit up dimly.

It had stood to reason that whatever design this was, it couldn’t have lasted this long without some way to capture Aether.

Taking a deep breath to control himself, Verdan set the activation wand on the table and very slowly began to examine it for how to take it apart.

He had two, but getting an intact way to gather Aether was worth doing this slowly.

A knock came at the door before Verdan could do anything further and he heard Magnus call in from the hallway. “Master? I’ve come as you asked.”

“Right, of course, come in,” Verdan said, reluctantly putting the wand aside for the moment. He’d help Magnus first, like he promised, but then he was taking that thing apart.