Chapter 447: Chapter 444: The Intricacies of Sigil Equations

Chapter 444: The Intricacies of Sigil Equations

 

  22 years ago…

 

  Dozens of sheets of paper were sprawled on the temple’s marble floor. Each sheet was covered in scribbles of ink; blueprints of the temple’s defenses, arcane sigil equations, and schematics of magestone pathways and their mana node designs.

  At the center of the rings of papers sat two young acolytes, their fingers were covered in ink and they had dark bags under their eyes. They scribbled new notes and compared them with the old sheet records. 

  The Silver Mother had assigned the duo the task of designing a supporting mana-pathway system for the new defense arcane sigils that were being constructed all through the temple.

  It was difficult enough creating a mana-pathway for a structure as large as the Celestial Shrine, but having the entire structure be filled with defensive enchantments as well was nigh impossible.

  Aurelia gritted her teeth in frustration. She should have been in the archives, searching for a cure for her mother’s illness, not here, stuck with all of this.

  She tapped her quill on the floor. “...No matter how I see it, even with several high-grade minor magestones working in unison, the central primary magestone just isn’t strong enough to handle such a large load. It would burn out and shatter after a few weeks and that’s if we’re lucky.”

  “What if we find a primary magestone with higher purity? Say, 85 or 90% even?” Virella offered.

  “No, it still wouldn’t be enough, unless we had a magestone with true perfect clarity.”

  “In other words, it’s impossible,” Virella sighed. “Gods, why do we have to be the ones stuck with this stupid bullshi—”

  “Just be quiet and focus. The longer you complain the longer this will take,” Aurelia said.

  Virella grumbled something under her breath, but got back to work.

  Despite her own words, Aurelia agreed with her friend. The entire design was bullshit. The Silver Mother had personally tasked them with a job that would take a team of mageborns weeks if not months to do, but she had only given them ten days to figure it out.

  Aurelia rubbed her tired eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept. Had it been 2 days ago? Three? She didn’t know anymore. All she could think about were the endless patterns of sigils in front of her.

  The Silver Mother was testing them. Why? Aurelia wasn’t certain, but she couldn’t give up now.

  “...We’re going to have the builders construct pillars at each of the temple’s central defensive regions.”

  “Are you saying we should etch the enchantments into pillars instead of the walls?” Virella asked suspiciously. 

  “Yep.”

  Virella sighed heavily, “So what you’re really saying is that we should separate the entire defensive enchantment grid into smaller sections?”

  “Yep.”

  “But that would mean designing entirely new sigil patterns for the mana-pathways of each pillar! Not to mention having to find primary magestones for all those pillars!”

  “It’s still easier than trying to balance all the pathways under a single primary magestone.”

  “This is going to take us weeks to design!” Virella groaned. “The Silver Mother only gave us 10 days!”

  “There’s no way we can finish this in such a ridiculous timeframe. At least this way when we’re done the primary magestones won’t shatter on us.”

  A pair of footsteps resounded clearly from the hallway. Aurelia glanced up at the sudden noise and spotted Sabina walking by their chamber. And walking next to the temple’s First Mother was a dark-haired pale youth.

  “You…!?” Aurelia blurted out impulsively.

  The young man stopped in his tracks at the sound and peered into the room. “Hm, Aurelia? Hey!” he smiled and walked inside.

  Sabina followed him without a word, though her expression was clearly displeased. 

  Virella’s eyes widened in shock at the stranger’s appearance. She pointed at him with a shaky finger. “Th-that’s… That’s the intruder!” 

  “Visitor, actually, but a pleasure to meet you,” he corrected happily. “So, Aurelia, what are you even doing here with all these… schematics? Equations? Wow, you have a lot of interesting papers here.”

  “I am an acolyte of Lunae,” Aurelia answered the man’s question cautiously. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Sabina here was giving me a tour of the temple,” he pointed his thumb at the irritated goblin.

  “The temple’s First Mother is giving you… a tour?” Aurelia blinked in disbelief.

  “Yeah, turns out the Elects pardoned me after they realized the whole ‘breaking-in thing’ was a hilarious misunderstanding,” he said.

  “It seems he is a long-time visitor of Evenfall,” Sabina said begrudgingly. “The Silver Mother asked me to give him a personal tour of our Celestial Shrine and its artworks at his request.”

  “Beautiful stuff really, the Lunisian folk truly are gifted,” he nodded.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” Sabina asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I want to know too!” Virella chirped in.

  Aurelia blanched, “Well, that’s…”

  “Oh, I was having a stroll around the Silver Keep a couple of nights ago and Aurelia was gracious enough to share with me her drink while we engaged in a deep conversation,” he explained.

  Virella squeaked in salacious delight, “Auri, you didn’t!”

  She frowned, “It wasn’t like that.”

  “I still owe you for that drink by the way,” he added.

  “Oooh, please tell me more!” Virella said excitedly.

  “Enough with the chit-chat,” Sabina admonished. “Aurelia, I heard the Silver Mother handed you a difficult task. How are you two faring so far?”

  “Not great,” she admitted. “This job requires ten times the workforce. It’d be great if we could have more mage acolytes or shamans working with us.”

  “We can’t spare the acolytes with the upcoming ceremonies closing in. As for the shamans, well…” Sabina trailed off.

  Aurelia furrowed her brow in suspicion, “What happened?”

  “I don’t know the exact details but it seems the Silver Mother and Shaman Elect had a falling out. This entire defensive enchantment grid was meant to be taken care of by the Shaman Elect and his archmages, but now, well, it falls to us. The Silver Mother thought our Ebon Aspirant’s insight could help speed things along so here you are.”

  “Just like that? The Shaman Elect refuses to help our goddess’ temple because of some stupid politics!?” Aurelia laughed incredulously.

  “The Shaman Elect has always been an ass,” Sabina responded dryly.

  “And what about the Silver Mother? She just leaves us with a job that not even an entire circle’s worth of mages could do and she expects us to have it done by the end of the week!?”

  “The Silver Mother has never been one for the intricacies of magic. I’m certain she is not even aware of the amount of time this task would take,” Sabina said sympathetically. “I’ll talk with her and get her to give you more time at the very least. If I can, I’ll find more acolytes to help you as well.”

  Aurelia sighed. “Thank you, Mother Sabina,” she said begrudgingly.

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  “Oooh, this really does seem difficult,” the young man said, hunched over a few of the papers on the ground.

  “Hey, don’t touch that!” Aurelia snapped.

  He stepped back and raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I was just curious.”

  “Keep your curiosity to yourself,” she hissed.

  He smiled wryly, “It looks like you and your friend have got your hands full. Maybe I can lend a hand?”

  “Do you know how to connect all these enchantment nodes and mana-pathways together to a primary magestone without burning it out?” Aurelia asked coldly.

  “Well— no,” he admitted.

  “Then leave me alone. We have work to do.”

  He nodded respectfully, “Right, well, I suppose I should get going. I still really haven’t had a chance to get a good look at the city.”

  “The Silver Mother only asked me to give you a tour of the temple, I will not do more than that,” Sabina warned him and walked away.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else, thank you for the tour!” he called out politely. “Hey, actually, Auri,” he turned to her, as if an idea had just popped into his mind. “Could I interest you in being my guide for the evening? I’ll even pay for dinner, I promise.”

  “It’s Aurelia to you, and the answer is no,” she said flatly.

  “Aw, why?”

  “Because I’m clearly busy.”

  “Ah, I see.” He glanced at the dozens of sheets on the ground and tilted his head to the side, “Hey… why not connect each of the enchantments to lesser magestones, instead of having them all directly connected to one primary stone? That way, even a primary magestone of 80 or 90% purity could handle the diminished load.” 

  He pointed at the freshly inked sheet in Aurelia’s hand, “Plus, it would be a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than constructing a bunch of pillars and inserting almost two dozen more primary magestones.”

  Aurelia frowned, “That won’t work. The temple is too large, there’d be too many pathway connections between the lesser stones. You’d have to calibrate each of those stones separately based on the enchantments they’d be directly connected to.”

  “You were already going to design new pathways and nodes for over twenty more primary stones with your pillar design. A set of lesser-enchantment pathways would at least be more efficient.”

  “Like I said, it won’t work,” Aurelia shook her head in annoyance. “Besides the several extra weeks of design it would take to calibrate the lesser magestones, you still run into the problem of creating a steady mana flow; a flow which would have to be equalized between all the stones connected to the primary, lessers included. And when working with a structure as large as this temple, creating that kind of steady flow between them all is practically impossible, which is why I wanted to build separate pillars to function independently.”

  “Which still ends up being several weeks of work…” Virella added glumly.

  Aurelia threw her arms up into the air in frustration, “Dammit, this whole thing is just a big clusterfuck!”

  “Okay, well, what if we just design each of the enchantments to have a flow only between their lesser magestones instead of being also connected directly to the primary?” he suggested.

  “That would require us to design even more pathways which would require even more mana, more than any of the current stones could handle. In other words, it would require more magestones, which lands us in the same problem that we started with.”

  “Not if you design looped pathways between each of the enchantments. It would strengthen the overall flow, which would eliminate the need for more mana and magestones.”

  “That! That— actually could work…” Aurelia suddenly frowned and shook her head, “Except that looped pathways are incredibly difficult to fine-tune. You’d have to design different loops for each of the 22 clusters of enchantments. It’s already hard enough to design a single looped pathway, let alone that many. Even with a full team of mageborns it could take months, even years!”

  “It can’t be that long.”

  Aurelia blinked and stared at him with a deadpan expression. “For a second I thought you were actually smart, but you’re really just an idiot, aren’t you?”

  He smiled at her words, then turned to Virella and grabbed the quill from her hand, “May I?”

  Virella blushed at their close proximity and nodded, “S-Sure.”

  “Thanks.” He grabbed several sheets of clean paper, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began to scribble on each sheet with rapid movements.

  Aurelia walked over, her hands on her hips. “What are you doing—?” her voice caught in her throat and her eyes widened in shock.

  “Here are the designs for the primary and lesser stones, along with each pathway loop for the 22 clusters of enchantments,” he said as he wrote quickly. “I’ve marked down which sigil equation corresponds to which cluster at the bottom of each page.”

  “Holy shit…!” Virella gasped in excitement.

  Aurelia stared at the intricate yet clearly explained designs in dumbfounded awe. “How did you…?”

  “I figured out the designs while we were talking,” he said casually.

  “But you haven’t even seen the temple’s blueprints, nor the enchantments or sigil equations…” Aurelia muttered.

  “Yes, I did. When I walked over here, remember?”

  “You figured it all out from a single glance…?” Aurelia mumbled in disbelief.

  “Well, I’m used to this sort of thing.”

  “Used to being a fucking genius?” Virella muttered.

  He chuckled, “I’m just good with intricate designs is all.” He spread the papers out to dry and handed Virella back her quill. “There, all done. I admit, sigil design is not my forte, so it may not be as clean as any of Parathyan’s sigil work, but like his it should stand the test of time.”

  Aurelia glanced at the sheets of paper, her surprise only growing. “Wow… you really did it…”

  He smirked, “Now, you’re no longer busy, right?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said you couldn’t be my guide because you were busy.”

  “Uh, I mean—”

  “You ready to go then?”

  “W-Well…” she mumbled.

  “Great! Let’s get something to eat first, I’m starving.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

  Aurelia looked at Virella and pleaded silently for help.

  Virella grinned wide and gave her two thumbs up.

 

 

 

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