Despite my mom's advice to lay low, I went back into my room and started digging around for supplies to make my next rune. Permanency was the big advantage of runes, which was why drawing on my skin with a sharpie hadn't been the best idea. I already had a mental shopping list. As soon as I scraped together the money I was buying a dremel for engraving on metal and a tattoo gun that I'm sure my mother will be thrilled about.

As I rooted around my bedroom hoping to find inspiration, I didn't see much. Pretty soon my search had spiraled out into the apt at large and I started piling options on my homework station. Needle and thread from my mom's sewing kit. I didn't know how to do cross stitch, but I had the internet, and it couldn't be that hard, right? The trusty sharpie made the cutoff, although some bright purple nail polish I'd stolen from my sister gave it a run for it's money. If you put it on cardboard, which would be more permanent? Then I found a winner.

In the junk drawer next to the fridge I found a soldering iron still in the packaging. One corner of the blister pack was torn and the little coil of solder was missing, leading to a frustrating twenty minutes ransacking the drawer looking for the wire. Finally I mentally relabeled the soldering iron as a woodburning kit and took it into my room to practice.

The particle board shelf I'd displayed wrestling trophies on gave up its life in pursuit of my art. A half hour later I'd learned a few things. First, that this was way harder than drawing with a magic marker. I started drawing with marker first and then going over it with the hot tip. If I went slow enough that worked well enough for proof of concept.

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The big discovery came when I set the iron down momentarily to readjust the shelf. I melted a nice dark line in the plastic tabletop, and suddenly I want forced to repurpose the few wooden items in our house. I had a ton of cap made out of high impact plastic. After a little thought I picked a phone case from about 2 models of phone ago. It had been one of those knockoffs of the otterbox, but was still guaranteed unbreakable. Plus, if anyone saw me with it, it would look like I just had two phones, way less suspicious than carrying around a shelf.

I'd gathered materials, practiced, and picked a rune, the only thing left was to actually do it. I started up 4square breathing, just like I used to do to calm my nerves before a match. When my heartbeat had slowed, my focus dropped inward like I was trying to reach my soul space for a trial reward, but stopping when I felt my anima.

It was just there, inside me but not, and I flexed my whatever it was that let me call on the power. It pulled and stretched like taffy, and I focused as I drew it out from my body and down my right arm. I almost lost it as the pull became a push into the soldering iron, and I could feel the Anima pulse as I bobbled.

It continued to flow though as I carefully etched the rune into the phone case as I visualized the outcome I wanted. The mental image was just as important as the physical representation of the rune, putting in limits and structuring the magic in a useful way.

When I finished I looked down with a fair amount of pride. A good 2 hours into the process and I had my first permanent rune, and the start of a plan that would push me to the forefront of the changes to this world.