Battle Hymn of the Republic

The application of the shock rune to the unworn chain provided the result of looking like Drysi had just applied electricity to a standard inanimate metal chain. Upon putting the chain back on her wrist and applying mana to it once more, the results were more or less the same; except that this time she was wearing the metal chain, and upon receiving a jolt the teenager’s mana flicked a bit causing the dispersed mana to flicker as well.

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Drysi waggled her hand, cursing gently. She shed the bracelet off and laid it flat with the rune. Then, she started to pace in her room, thinking of potential things to subject the item to. She didn't have the best grasp on how much would be too much for the links. Chief had told her expressly not to damage it, so applying physical trauma was out of the question and probably not recommended.

"I could probably try and go looking up a reference for the runes. It's still early though..." Drysi started to nibble on her lip, "I wanna' see what I can find out without gettin' lost in a library."

Then, the rune and chain caught her eyes again, and she went over to grab one end of it. She finely set the rune's orientation and touched the other end of to it. This loose bit of contact made, she started to channel more mana from the other end.

Bracelet in hand, Drysi once more felt mana channel into the chain, and once more it filled the chain before dissipating outward. This time however, as she was so focused on directionality, she could faintly feel the dispersed mana coalesce a short distance in front of her on the downstream side of the chain; like a cloud, denser than the surrounding area if just slightly.

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"It can be directed," Drysi's eyes widened as she lifted the sample up to eye level, and inspected it further. She paused there to go back to her notebook and write down mote of the reactions. Given the circumstances, she was finding the object to be consistently responsive. Magic flowed through it easily, but it did not disperse magic going into it, it dispersed energy.

Reflecting on this for a moment, she clasped the chain around her wrist again. This time she set her pencil upright in her cup and clenched her fist. With a little focus she directed her energy through the object.

"Adhmad mar chré." The initiate chanted the warp wood spell on the pencil, trying to use the chain as a focus. If the didn't work, she'd try unhooking it and aiming it like a rail at the target.

With clear direction, and focusing a larger amount of mana into the chain, Drysi would find the pencil warping; along with everything else in view directly in front of her. Like looking at things through rippling water. The cloud of mana was denser now as it coalesced into a distorted dome that filled much of Drysi's view, starting about six inches in front of the bracelet. The pencil, and everything else around it, were unchanged.

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"Ha- HA! Haha! I'm getting somewhere..." Drysi bounced left and right, celebrating a small success in producing an almost recognizable effect. She had an idea of what the process was, at the very least, she had enough for maybe a C-. That was enough for her, of course, but she was nearly overcome by the sight of success.

Back at her desk, she began writing down the notes, annotating the time she produced the effect and tried to write everything she experienced. Then, she tapped her pencil back up on her notes, trying to review before moving on to the next step. At this point, she was faced with a decision of either finding out everything it didn’t do, or pursuing this line of thought. On one hand, she had a lead, on the other, the effect could potentially be secondary to the actual purpose.

She thought a little more on it, and was determined to chase the proverbial rabbit down its proverbial hole. The shock rune was still on the table, she’d use that, and then perhaps see what sort of bubble this bracelet produced. Snapping it with some lightning might help produce some results. Again, she’d use the pencil as a focus.

Everything set in place, she clenched her fist and focused the energies through the bracelet on the pencil. She tested the solidity of the bubble, by pressing her knuckles on it. Then, feeling remarkably cool, used the shock rune in her off hand to send a small bolt towards it once the bubble formed.

The more Drysi focused on a direction and output of force the more stable the dome seemed to become. It still looked as though she were looking at her desk through the surface of water, doubly so as the concentrated manifestation of her will took on a bluish tint, and once she pressed against the dome she found it had some give to it; like a dense slurry of corn starch and water. Upon applying the shock rune, Drysi would see the small jolt of electricity dissipate as it passed into the field. The young magical engineer would also note that her time stamps were paced in such a way that somehow during her trials that just shy of four hours had passed since she began.

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“Ah-ha– ha ha ah! Fookin’ brilliant!”

The dishes were still sitting at the end of her desk, and Drysi was starting to sense the creeping feeling of hunger starting to settle in again. She had paced around so much in her room, she felt like she had walked the Keep all over again in the waxing hours. Her mouth was dry, and she was starting to get tired from the solid four hours she had tore into the work.

Yet, she did not want to stop. She had seen the effects of the shock rune dissipate, and it only made her want to dig deeper. Things like this defied her usual nature in getting frustrated, happy and sad in fierce mood-swings. In this there was only an obsession to know more about the object, there was no frustration in failed tests, just the calculation of the next step. Solving this problem made the gears in her mind click into place and spin all at once.

She loved it. She had a goal; a purpose.

“Okay… Okay, I think…” Drysi added her next time stamped note on the recent success, and went back to arranging a few spare reactions to test. She had a few runes in front of her, most of them with visual effects she could test. “An illusion…”

She picked up the small illusion rune, and projected an image of Gideon over it. Then, set enough energy in it for it to run for about a minute.

”Drysi, do you think it’s time to take a break? You’ve been in here for a long time,” asked Gideon, staring at the image of himself.

“Almost done,” was Drysi’s answer, as she powered up the bracelet again, and set the field over the illusion. She continued, testing every kind of rune and spell she could to see what the field would disperse.

”You said that an hour ago…”

Drysi found that the more she focused on creating a set field, the more stable and solid the field became. That said, she also found that the dome of energy was a little unwieldy as she bumped into the desk and chair a couple times while testing the various runes. Each runes’ effect dissipated as it crossed into the field, like Gideon’s illusory form turning to mist and disappearing.

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"An anti-magic field? Just like that?" Drysi's brain swam with possibilities, but it also swam because she was expanding her mana more and more with each test. This was starting to feel like a marathon, but the runner's high would not settle. She needed to know more. She had to know more. This was now about more than just satisfying Mastrogiacomo's challenge, now she wondered what she could observe and if she could reproduce the runes so she could make it for Mr. Flynn and her projects. Could she do it better? She bet she could do it better. She had to do it better.

Feeling a bit woozy, she eased herself down back into her chair, and 'took a break' by circuiting a passive flow of mana through the chain. With a quill and ink, she drew the runes next to her notes, observing any potential differences from one link to another. She started sketching out a link in intricate detail, but then she began to draw out the whole thing, noting everything she had learned. There were small lines drawn to the segments for purpose or detail, and a figure to indicate the flow of mana when applied.

After a certain point, she began to zone out, and her eyes just followed along with her sketches. She flipped a fresh page, to start another section of notes, but instead she just kept drawing. The lines formed the features of people she had met through the day. One of the first was the Ard Rhys, a flattering composition of his sharp face hidden under an affable, deceptive softness. Then there was Roan, the gate-guard, his hard features defined in heavy ink, shirtless. Then came Mastrogiacomo, a swirling figure whose discerning gaze was focused in on by the carefully lined frames of her glasses, shirtless. Finally, an idealized, older Willow made an appearance, with her silly smile, heaving something like a hay bale after a long day’s work, shirtle–...

”Er-... Drysi, aren’t you going to show these notes to other people at one point?” interrupted Gideon, who had slithered up to the desk to see what she was doing.

“Huh–...? WHA– WOU–GH!” Drysi exploded out of her chair and ripped the page out of her note book. Realizing what she had wrought, she began tearing it up into the smallest pieces she could, furiously burning red.

”You’re a very talented artist,” Gideon tried to assuage her, ”but I think now you really do need a break.”

The triclops had just finished destroying her evidence as much as she could before snatching up the chain again.

“Are you kiddin’? I feel great. Perfect. Excellent. Just bangin’.” Drysi avoided Gideon’s gaze as she went back to her tests. The snake could only watch as she went through metric testing, judging just how small or big she could make the bubble. Could the bubble move? She’d try to direct it around the room, if she could. Just how strong of an effect could you force through the bubble? The shock rune had been pretty reliable, why not see how much it would take to see about getting the effect through to the other side? She’d try increasingly strong applications of the shock rune to the back wall, through various sized bubbles and see what would get through.

All the while, she’d take down notes, partly to get past the one page she had ripped out. Small time-stamps, rough sizes of the bubble, effects on the bubble and observations of any secondary effects.