Caedyrn stood there silently, eyes focused on the dirt beneath his feet, his oaken training staff slowly carving an intricate series of symbols into the earth as almost everyone else watched in confusion. Save for a single pair of eyes in the distance which almost appeared to burst, the surprise and shock clear upon Rafflesia’s glamoured form.
The runic scripts common among the cult of Almeira, yet wholly unknown to the rest of the world, or that is how it was believed to be. Their capture order of the Scholar was for his ability to invent and produce, as well as the threat he posed as feudal lord with an experienced army at his command. His elimination and removal from the equation would make a conquest of the entire eastern portion of the island significantly simpler, as the lands were divided and weak.
This discovery threatened to shift the risk factor into an entirely different league, the way in which the man inscribed the runic script demonstrated a level of detail an understanding known only by the Magarchs, the highest orders of the cult of Almeira. Yet, if such a figure was known to possess such skills, then it made little sense as to why the order for his elimination wasn’t given a higher status. In comparison the squabbling lords and court of the Archon meant little, they had no power to harness mana, no ability to threaten the cult. They could contain, throw bodies upon bodies, and deplete the cults strength through sheer attrition, but they could never truly threaten the third eye with sticks of iron and vials of poison.
Caedyrn to the creature’s surprise had almost completed the inscription, an outer circle whose purpose was to contain the energies of the formation. Within which were three overlapping swirling vortexes, these runes would absorb the power of the catalyst which would sit in the center and cycle their energy. Next was the triangle which sat within the circle and atop the vortexes, with the central core of each vortex acting as the point of the triangle. The triangular rune would absorb the converted mana through the catalyst and siphon it into its center within which sat a square. All four sides of the square had lines leading to its center, and it was there where all the energy would coagulate, concentrated into a single droplet of pure mana.
Rafflessia was no runic inscriptionist, even when she served the Magarchs, she lacked the mana sensitivity and potential required for such great tasks. A lowly slave and bottom feeder would best serve as a bottom feeder, struggling in the darkness below the roots, forced to feed on the filth and commit the dirty acts others were incapable or unwilling to do.
Now she stood here, watching, and observing as a non-believer, someone not even of their sect had completed what those who stood proudly within the upper boughs of Almeira’s embrace professed as their divine duty. How could they be infallible and basked within her glory when their task, the divine right they claimed could be so easily accomplished by those outside their ranks. These were all questions that Rafflessia had little option but to grapple with, what she believed to be true, at least a fraction of it had been proven false in that very moment.
“All right, the formation is complete. Bring me one of the prisoners!” Caedyrn called out to his people as they had begun to setup camp a little bit earlier. “Give us a second to finish up with coating the wheels and we’ll be right there!” Timeaus shouted back from the other side of camp, Maatilani was at his side wagon wheel in hand. The pair lifted the wheel over to several others piled next to the wagon; their outer edge coated in a thick gray substance.
“Maati, can you get the wyrm?” Maatilani didn’t answer Timeaus, instead simply walking over to a barrel sitting nearby and yanking out a stubby limbless creature. A creature which resembled the front part of bloated snake, possessing neither eyes nor nose, just two pairs of retractable jaws which were busy consuming the filth crusting around its mouth. The creature also appeared to lack any form of self-preservation, it had even stopped squirming, content with consuming its regurgitated leftovers.
Maatilani sneered at the thing, disgust clear in the slight twitch of her strong jaw. She didn’t have to wait long before she was relieved, as Timeaus grabbed his knife and stabbed it into the things belly. Slitting the wyrm in half, straight down the middle and allowing its guts to spill out. Yet rather than let the gray stone colored blood leech into the soil, another was there to capture the products of disembowelment.
As the wyrm stopped moving its body was delivered to the kitchens for processing, while its blood and organs were mashed into a fine grayish goop. This is what Timeaus and the others wanted, a substance that when solidified, and mixed with precise quantities of water and oil, produced a hard and springy surface material. Rubbar, originating from the word rub and bar.
Initially the poorer residents on the frontier had made use of the supposedly trash substance. Forming it into bars like how they produced clay into bricks and rubbing their bodies with it in the public baths to remove dirt and grime. A poor man’s solution to ash and animal fat soaps or floral bath oils, both of which were manufactured and sold in Temrenos. However, the substance was quickly noticed by the Scholar, from which he discovered significantly more use, making the wyrms a rare and useful commodity.
Not only did they consume human and animal waste as a food source, they digested and excreted pellets. Pellets that when ground could be used to revitalize fields of crops and increase agricultural output, that was in addition to the Rubbar created from their ground offal’s and blood.
Coating wagon wheels in Rubbar increased their long-term use and reduced overall stress on the wagon’s structure. Even cloaks could be coated in a very thin layer using a brush, which caused rain and water to slide off the surface, reducing the risk of colds and sickness to some extent. These waterproof cloaks and coats found an exceptionally receptive market outside Temrenos amongst the adventurers, explorers, and traveling merchants among many others.
“Are you two finally done with the wheels? Can you perhaps deliver one of the prisoners? Or should I come and get one myself?” Even though Caedyrn stopped working on the formation in front of a cross-legged Niko, before he could get up and walk over to the prison wagon, Maatilani headed inside, emerging a minute later with a dirty, ragged, and unwashed man. It was one of the bandits they had picked up along the way after Kallithene Hills, those that had stood in their path seeking to pillage the passing convoy. Now they were being dragged over and thrown into the center of the magic formation, right atop the square.
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“Will that be all my Lord?” Ever since the attack on the western district Leucena had been getting closer to the Scholar. Using the situation to ask for his assistance, specifically when it came to her treatments, minor bandages, and herbal paste application her daughter Mera was more than qualified to do. With both her and Maatilani getting into regular arguments over the subject.
It had reached a point that Maatilani was even giving Caedyrn the cold shoulder due to his refusal to put his foot down. Yet the man had no time to deal with such things at the moment, he was currently inscribing a double-sided arrow from the earlier formation to a simpler one across from it holding the young Niko in a cross-legged lotus position.
“To succeed in this experiment, I need you to focus the prana within your body to a single point. Same as you did in your fight against the puppet creature, the prana in your core is yours, naturally your body has begun to absorb more from the air around you. These are however mere fragments, as the magical formation keeping the taint from your heart should be absorbing the majority, theoretically.” Caedyrn abruptly stopped, his eyes gazing in the distance while his mouth continued moving. Whispers revolving crystals, mana, and formations could be heard every so often, followed by a string of unintelligible words and sentences, all the while the Scholar was doodling what appeared to be equations into the dirt.
Just as quickly as he started, he also stopped, stalking over to the prisoner in the formation. Taking no heed of the man’s vicious glare, he tied thick ropes around his iron shackles. Placing four bronze stakes into the formations outer circle, keeping them equidistant from one another, then running the ropes through the stakes before pulling hard. The prisoner was brought to the ground hard, cursing loudly as he was bound in place, but lacking in strength from the long stretches of extended starvation and dehydration.
“Niko, focus the prana the way you would your aural defenses. Focus it on one point, but this time I want you to take use only a fraction, as if you were tearing off a piece of bread. Allow that fraction to flow through the arrow formation before you until it hits the bronze stake. At that point you can release your hold and allow the formation to take over.” Niko looked at the Scholar, then to the formation and the man tied down on the other end.
“Is it really necessary to go that far. We don’t even know if it will unlock his core, it doesn’t resemble anything that teacher Vishna taught me? Even if it does work and that prisoner gains power, it is not as if he could make use of it to threaten any of us.” Caedyrn who was observing the inscriptions carved onto the prisoner’s back turned to the boy. After placing three multicolored stones upon each spiral vortex, he calmly walked over and placed his hand on Niko’s shoulder, crouching so that the two were speaking at eye level.
“This method boy, it’s theoretical. A design of my own making after analyzing my years of experience with my old friend and extensive knowledge of my own. It will be combining mana and prana, your power will provide the spark, the mana stones the core energy. The formation will extract that and force it into the subject. I am unaware of what will happen, if they gain power, it could be a completely unknown and dangerous deviation, it is best we be prepared for any irregularities. Do you understand?” Niko nodded in reply, closing his eyes, and pressing his finger the arrow. A second or two later a dim light formed upon the tip of his finger, slowly inching along before puttering out.
These first few attempts proved to be unsuccessful, yet with each try the glob of energy managed to inch further along. After around an hour this first hurdle had been defeated, the ball of copper energy had slowly changed as it proceeded along the arrow. Losing its dirty copper hue and becoming purer more ethereal and ephemeral as it proceeded, remaining tied to the formation as if bound by an invisible force. Then this bright ball of prana touched the bronze stake, dissipating and being absorbed into it.
Almost as soon as the ball of light disappeared the stake burned with light, a light which then expanded, following the formation upon the ground, tracing the circle, and igniting the other three stakes. Then as the light attempted to cross the ropes towards the now terrified prisoner, they were stopped cold by a wall of multicolored energy, the mana stones in the vortex responding to the outside power. As these two forces competed against one another, the spiral vortexes began to absorb the cast away energy, both sides weakening in the process.
The now neutral and gray lines of power were concentrated from the vortexes into the three points of the triangle. Their power and light cooling the air around it, producing a thin layer of ice along the dirt. Now the power headed to its final point, the central foci located at the pit of the prisoner’s stomach, his solar plexus, and the location of his core.
Now abjectly terrified and sensing the inherent danger, the shackled and bound bandit tried desperately to get free. Yet the bonds held firm, even if in his prime state, his attempts would have been met with a similar level of success. As the energy reached its end point the prisoner jerked upwards, screaming in pain as the freezing cold energy entered his body. Lances of energy spreading against the surface of his skin.
He wriggled and squirmed, screaming and crying, begging for the pain to stop. The crowd watched in horror, even the ever-stoic Maatilani inching away from the dome of energy. Then, just as the man’s screams began to die down, and his body appeared to calm, he burst. The prisoner exploded in a sudden blast of blood and flesh, everyone screaming except for a select few, among them the Scholar who merely clicked his tongue in irritation.
“My Lord! What the hell just happened! Did you know?” Niko was in shock, taking the full brunt of the blast, gore covering both he and the Scholar who was at his side.
“I told you I didn’t know what would happen, I did however foresee that this particular outcome could happen. Was not a particularly slight chance, but that’s what we are doing here… increasing our chances at a successful method of enhancement. If we want more people like yourself, Enhanced humans, then we must take risks. But why take risks with our own people, when we have perfectly healthy Guinea pigs right here.” Caedyrn pointed at the prisoner wagon, indicating the purpose that they had retained the bandits and war prisoners captured along the way. Many of whom had attacked their caravan, resulting in their defeat and subsequent capture.
Niko watched in shocked silence as the Scholar got back to work, casually inscribing a new formation while others got about cleaning the mess left behind. The next time someone was sent to retrieve a prisoner, they would fight back tooth and nail, desperate to not end up within the death formation.
“Come along Niko, we have much work to do. We will need to lower the energy amount from the mana stones, reduce the conflicting energies. Help me make some modifications to the formation, you never know, we may need it to contain something much larger one day. Progress boy is a bumpy road to follow, after all, we must crack a few eggs if we wish to cook an omelet.” Niko silently agreed, assisting the Scholar in his work, his eyes always drifting over to the grisly remains lying smoldering nearby.