• Solo • Omnivision II

[Doran]

Previous threads in this series

I Found You!
Learning by Doing
Paid in Blood
Omnivision I

It is not necessary to read those threads. I just added the links for the sake of completion.

Ymiden 42, Arc 720

But a break after he had returned from the Prime Atheneum where he had consulted a few books on Attunement, the son of Ziell was standing in his private laboratory in his apartment in the Obsidian Prism, looking at the alchemical apparatuses that he had arranged on the worktable in front of him somewhat thoughtfully. Next to him was Plia Yishnai Velanar, a young woman of mixed Ellune and Eidisi descent, one of his research assistants who was garbed in a white lab coat and wore protective gloves, just like he did.

The trial before, he had met an old acquaintance, Balthazar Black, a mage of considerable skill, again. The human had offered him a vial of his blood in exchange for a lesson in alchemy, and he had of course agreed. Balthazar had been a pleasure to teach – he had already been somewhat familiar with the basics - and their conversations about magic and mutations had been quite interesting. He had decided to try and imbue an item with Omnivision, an ability that granted you a sixth sense of sorts and that he found especially interesting.

Balthazar had suggested that he create a blindfold as he found that Omnivision worked best when he wasn’t hindered by his sight, and Doran had agreed that it would be an interesting idea. He was curious about how Attuners experienced the world; besides, a blindfold such as the one that Balthazar had proposed might help hone his other senses.

With that thought in mind, he took the broad, long piece of shiny black silk that was lying on the worktable, unfolded it and let his hands that were covered with crimson markings – one of his awakenings - run across it for a moment before he set it down again. He had thought about which fabric would work best for some time and ultimately decided to use something that was of high quality as it might last longer; besides, the quality of the item that you imbued could possibly have an effect on the final result.

“Plia, can you hand the bowl to me, please – the large metal one that you can see over there?” he asked his assistant and pointed at a smooth, shiny silver bowl that stood a little left of the young woman. The quality of the various containers that he would use for the reagents would likely not have any effect on the finished item, unlike that of the reagents as well as the item itself. He decided to use a bowl that was of high quality nevertheless though as anything else just seemed to be a little bit strange to him.

He preferred every aspect of his alchemy to be like that.

“Of course, professor”, Plia replied and inclined her head slightly, grasped the bowl and set it down in front of Doran before she retrieved a large glass bottle that was filled with a transparent liquid from one of the cabinets. The young woman had learned enough about alchemy in the cycles that she had been working for him that she was familiar with the various steps of imbuing an item and knew what the first step was – treating the piece of cloth with a primer in order to prepare it for receiving the enchantment.

[Doran]

Once he had poured a carefully measured amount of priming liquid into the bowl and submerged the cloth in it, Doran moved on to the second step – the preparation of the alchemical solution itself which was the trickiest and most complex part (he had not worked with Attuner blood before, although he had of course already used other kinds of mage blood).

“Plia, could you hand me the second bowl now, please?” he asked his young assistant who immediately did as she had been told. “And could you prepare the binder while I work on the other reagents?” he continued before he poured the liquid that the alchemical solution would be based on into the bowl that was some sort of bronze color rather than silver.

When he crafted potions, Doran usually decided on alcohol as that extended the shelf life of his creations greatly (not all potions were being drunk immediately after they had been made); in that case, he had opted for water that he had added a small amount of salt to though.

He had found such to be useful when it came to working with magical reagents.

Of course, he had purified the water before he had decided to use it. He did not want to risk anything and end up with a useless item. He only had a limited amount of Attuner blood, and he was not sure if he would or should get more. Balthazar might be willing to donate blood again; taking too much blood from the same mage was not always a good idea though.

It could irritate the spark.

[Doran]

While Doran had filled his bowl with salt water and retrieved the vial with Balthazar’s blood that he had stored in a cold place, Plia had ground a bit of Barkskin, a wood-like material that came from the Snäytu Kanna, into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle – the binder that Doran had decided on using. Unlike Frageon crystals, Barkskin left traces that a medical examiner could clearly identify after the alchemical reaction had run its course. Such was inconvenient when one planned on poisoning someone, for example. Doran did not plan on using his alchemical creations for any nefarious purposes though, and thus it didn’t matter.

“Is there anything else that I can do?” Plia asked as she handed the ground Barkskin to him and smiled shyly. The young woman had turned out to be quite a skilled alchemist – and she was not entirely talentless when it came to swordsmanship either (he had taught her to fight in the hope that such would improve her self-confidence), but she still struggled to come out of her shell and was somewhat reluctant to ask questions.

“You could tell me what you would do next if you were the one making this item”, Doran told her in a calm tone of voice. “Would you use an accelerator when replicating a domain magic ability?” he wanted to know and raised an eyebrow slightly. She had helped him often enough when he had crafted one of his potions; he wanted to see if she had any idea how to handle something that was based on domain magic though.

“I … I would, professor. Magic can be quite fast sometimes, but we want the enchantment to immediately take effect when the wearer uses the blindfold”, she replied and looked at him.

He nodded.

For a while after that, he worked quietly. He mixed the binder with Balthazar’s blood, a look of utter concentration on his face and infused the resulting substance into the cloth before he submerged it into a bowl filled with an ice-cold solution that Plia had prepared in the meantime.

The magical effect would not be infinite – it would eventually expire – and Doran did not want to spend it all at once. He wanted to be able to use it in increments of a few bits; in order to achieve that effect it would be necessary to add an additional step in between adding the various reagents that one usually needed in order to imbue an object with a magical effect.

He did not rush things, but worked slowly, carefully and meticulously, and he was utterly focused; as a Mortalborn who had already several centuries come and go and who had seen entire kingdoms rise and fall during that period, he had all the time in the world, anyway.

[Doran]

Once he had combined the binder and Balthazar’s blood and infused the resulting mixture into the blindfold, Doran turned to the next step – the accelerator. He had decided that he would be using Naf-rush, a reagent that was derived from the spinal fluid of the Nafinju, an odd bird-like creature that was native to Southern Idalos. When allowed to dry in an air-tight chamber, said spinal fluid became a potent powdered reagent.

He did not simply infuse the blindfold with the accelerator though, but blended it with a metabolizer first – such was necessary for the blood and the accelerator to react effectively and render the item more powerful. His metabolizer of choice was Swiftweb. Contrary to one might assume due to its name, it was not derived from some sort of arachnid. Instead, Swiftweb was made from the runners of the Spider Cactus, an aggressive carnivorous plant.

He had just infused that mixture into the blindfold when he heard Plia’s soft voice again. “Professor”, the young woman wanted to know as he put the now empty bowl where he had mixed accelerator and metabolizer away and looked at him. “Have you ever encountered a Nafinju during your travels? If I remember correctly, you got as far as Etzos and Augiery and lived in Rymere for a time”, she remarked, sounding impressed.

He had actually gotten much further than that – he had seen a lot and experienced a lot during the past four centuries – but not all of it was public knowledge. Only a handful of people were familiar with his longevity and his mortalborn nature so far. Plia was not one of them.

“No, I haven’t”, he replied. “While I briefly passed through the region where the Nafinju can be found, I never saw one with my own eyes. I do not think that the like people very much”, he mused and shrugged his shoulders slightly before he turned to the next step. He was almost done now. The cloth had accepted Balthazar’s blood, and the remaining couple of steps would be comparatively easy and not particularly time-consuming.

[Doran]

The next step, after the accelerator, involved blending a sealer, the triggering reagent and the recombing reagent. For the sealer, he picked another reagent that was derived from an animal, from the Rock Turtle to be exact. It possessed a gland from which it formed its shell – which was what the sealer was made from. The triggering reagent on the other hand was quite simple and straight-forward. It was the ash from the burnt remains of a flower that grew some distance south of Viden. Infusing the mixture of those three reagents into the blindfold would seal the previous steps, but still allow triggering.

Once he had infused the mixture into the blindfold, he infused another sealer, an outer sealer into every part of the blindfold apart from the part where the trigger would be attached. Said trigger was a small piece of metal that had been treated with the triggering reagent and that would connect the various layers of the imbuement. The spell would activate when you touched it. If everything went according to plan, he would have several bits of Omnivsion at a time before he would have to touch the trigger again which should be enough.

He was not sure how much Omnivision he would get out of the item in total – it depended on how powerful the spell that Balthazar had cast had been among other things – but it should be possible to recharge the item, either way.

There was just one thing that was left to do now. Doran carefully placed the blindfold on a rack where he would let it rest for the next break or so before he turned to Plia who had watched him closely all the time and handed the various regents to him and spoke, “Once we’ve cleaned up here, would you like to come with me and watch while I try the blindfold out for the first time? You assisted me when I made it, after all.”

Plia smiled at him and nodded.

She was quite looking forward to seeing the finished blindfold in action.

[Pig Boy]

Doran

Experience: 10 no magic xp

Knowledge:

Alchemy: Attunement: Omnivision: Imbuing a blindfold with Omnivision
Alchemy: Attunement: Omnivision: Saltwater works well
Alchemy x3
Leadership x1

Renown: 0 He was alone with his assistant, I think she knows not to blab too much by now.

Skill Usage: none

Loot/Losses: A blindfold imbued with Omnivision

Injuries/Conditions: none

Consequences: none

Comments: Doran has quite a meticulous process when it comes to the creation of blood magic items. I was pretty enthralled as he went through the motions, going very carefully about adding each potion and ingredient without getting lost in the process. I found the reference to ingredients from southern Idalos to be very educational. You made the process of alchemy very convincing with the way you included such potent reagents with the blood of a mage.

I look forward to seeing the blindfold in action.

Good job and enjoy the rewards.

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