Chapter 23 : Partial success

Hey, guys ! Enjoy the chapter !

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It's now been… I don't know. A while ? When you live on a space station orbiting a star, there's not really the concept of day and night. Moreover, different worlds have different ways of counting the time. As they do distance or have different languages. It's only natural as it pertains to how their culture developed. Still, I think it's been about a month or two since I've landed on Nidavellir.

I've been mindlessly working on my enchantment works and, let's just say I've become pretty good at it ! Perhaps not a master, since I don't think I can become one with only a few hundreds hours working at it, but definitely good. I've also determined what works and doesn't to enchant equipment and weapons. Theoretically, pretty much anything can work with my ink, I think. But the materials, the way the writings is done and its functions all has more or less impact. For example, with Gagna's help, with can make an armor with capabilities similar to the Iron Man armor when it come to flight. But then, if I want to had things to make it sturdier, shock absorbent or storing kinetic energy and transfer it to a weapon, it becomes harder. There's these synergy effects - or on the contrary, dissonance - that occur naturally when I enchant with my ink and that can be both bad or good. The kinetic energy absorption can overload the armor because of air friction… or they can lower or cancel each other's effects. That kind of thing.

When I'm not too tired, mentally or physically spent by producing ink and weaving magic, I work on my future ring's enchantment… Which won't be a ring, in the end. It's too small for me to write everything I want on it. Besides, although I hope with all my heart it won't happen, what if my hand or ring finger gets chopped off ? I'll be left with one less weapon in my arsenal, that's what ! It's actually the same problem with the sorcerer's sling ring… If they start a fight in the mirror dimension and lose their rings somehow, they'll be trapped forever… unless someone comes to retrieve them - and it's actually not something that's easy to do : it's a dimension !

After consulting with Gagna, who agreed with me that it wasn't the safest choice to carry such an artifact on one of my extremities, we narrowed down our ideas to two choices : an amulet I'd carry around my neck, or a belt buckle. These days, I think it's better if I go with the buckle. Even with the fantastic metal the dwarves make, the chain link of an amulet are generally small and rather easily torn off. And although a belt can be cut, it's much more difficult. Especially since Gagna promised she'd forge the belt in something similar to scale mail that she'll then have another craftman cover in one of the toughest leather. It'll be a bit cumbersome and heavy, but she promised it'd be worth it.

In-between me helping Gagna with her job, we've started working on prototypes and… well, I can't say it's going well, but it's progressing. Slowly. We've made a bunch of prototypes that either didn't work at all, some that worked a bit, and some which self-destructed in a variety of flashy ways. Melted, blown up, turned to dust.

I keep the few that work in order to study the enchantment and tweak the program little by little. It's a lot of work and I often have to change the symbols or how they're positioned trying to find the best association. Kind of like language… Which it kind of is, I guess. Well, I mean, it's coding but with an arcane component added to it. And when it comes to magic, and my power for that matter, things don't always work how I expect them to. It's enlightening, though.

Here we are again, working in the infernal heat of Gagna's forge. At first, I really believed I would never get used to how hot it was… Now, it's still very uncomfortable but I can manage. It's surprising really, since they use the heat of their own star…

She shapes the belt buckle with her tools and hammer before she starts to chisel the symbols according to my designs. Then, when the thing cools down enough for me, I use to ink to follow the small grooves. Ink on metal isn't exactly the best combination if you want things to last, but that's why there's a second part to the buckle that's supposed to protect it. And between those two parts, that's where I'll store my ink. Since one of the enchantments is supposed to act as a kind of pocket dimension, I'll be able to store quite a lot of it. If it works, that is…

The final quenching process is also supposed to set the ink permanently, but… Well, I'm not exactly certain how permanent it's supposed to be. Even on paper, ink fades over time or gets erased. On metal, even with magic involved ? I don't want to take any chances.

After a few hours, the buckle is finally done. It's quite beautifully detailed, with the engraving of an octopus on it, formed out of tribal shapes. I don't want it to look like the Hydra logo after all… I look at it for a while before I say :

« Now, to test this one… »

At least, this one hasn't destroyed itself, so that's a good thing ! One of the enchantment is supposed to read and act on my intent… So, I spit a little bit of ink on a piece of paper off a nearby table. First time I did that, I hadn't thought things through and Gagna yelled at me because I made a bit of a mess. Live and learn, right ?

The drop of ink splashes on the paper, like blood on a wall. I close my eyes and try to will it to move… When I open my eyes, I see that it worked if only slightly. I don't really if it's because I'm not using the artifact well, or simply because of a - still - faulty enchantment. Guess I'll play with it for a while. You know… to try and test out all of its functions !

As I think so, I try to have my ink rise in the air, forming a small sphere. Although it does, rise, the sphere is wobbly and doesn't actually look much like a sphere. I then try to change the shape successively : a sword, a dog, a human etc… Each and every time, even if the ink reacted and tried to fulfill my will, the end results left much to be desired. The sword looked more like a stick, the dog looked like he had been run over by a truck a hundred times, and the human would have fit right out of a Lovecraft story.

The more I use it, the more I realize that it's starting to react better so perhaps I'm indeed getting better at using the artifact. Nevertheless, I'm not satisfied with it. I don't think it's powerful enough right now. The ink construct I had in mind were supposed to act like shields or weapons for me to protect myself with. Right now, even if I turn it into the most fearsome looking weapon, it'll end as a blotch on the wall as soon as I launch it there.

Also, the precision leaves to be desired. I can't write anything like this : if the constructs look like shit, my writing's worse than a newborn wiping his dirty fingers on a wall. If it's like this, I might as well use my dip pen… Then again, the belt buckle not meant to be used constantly. Already, I can feel the mental toll it's taking to exercise my will on the ink through the artifact. Although I'm not proficient in using it and that's part of the reason why I'm starting to feel exhausted, it's always something I expected.

I stop using the buckle, laying it on the table with a sigh of both content and relief. I'm happy because with this success, I'm getting closer to going back to Earth ! Sure, I would have preferred it if the artifact was completed. Meaning that I was satisfied with it. Unfortunately, that's not nearly the case here ! I expect to work on it perhaps one or two more weeks.