Chapter 57: Inner Flame
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"What's wrong?" Luna asked as Thane fell silent, staring at the still-glowing ritual over the course of a few minutes until it eventually began to dim before going dark, signaling that it had run out of mana. Placing his hand back on the ritual, Thane didn't respond as he counted in his head until the drain on his mana suddenly cut off. Then Thane counted again as the ritual circle slowly dimmed before turning off. Over and over, Thane repeated the two steps, counting each time and keeping track in his head.
After a few trials, Thane suddenly stood up. His fingertips started to glow with a silver light, and he began writing in the air.
Luna watched with rapt attention as Thane created a formula, comparing the size of the two ritual circles, their maximum capacities, transfer rates, and void life, which was how long it took for the store mana to be released back into the surroundings. Taking a step back, Thane looked at his work and muttered a curse, "The ratio is all wrong; the transfer rate stayed the same, but the capacity and the void life..."
"Are you sure that you're converting months to seconds correctly? " Luna asked as she stood up and walked over to Thane, who stared wordlessly at his calculations, "It took me three months to fill the first ritual...but the second one...I was able to fill in three seconds. That's a massive difference compared to decreasing the ritual size by 90%."
"Isn't that a good thing," Luna asked, "That means even if you make a ritual slightly bigger than the one we already have, our capacity will grow exponentially."
Thane shook his head, "That by itself isn't a problem. The problem is that the void life increased while the transfer rate remained unchanged. The small ritual took nearly ten minutes to use up all its mana. But from what we measured, the void life of the regular ritual is around ten days. As you increase the ritual's size, the capacity grows linearly. At the same time, the void life decreases exponentially. With the transfer rate presumably capped at 1 Flux every minute, that means even doubling the size of the ritual would have the void life be higher than the transfer rate, meaning we could channel mana into the ritual for all of time and still not manage to transfer a single Flux."
"So what's the solution?" Luna asked as she stared at the equation floating in the air. There has to be something we're not considering."
"We already considered it; you brought it up, in fact," Thane corrected, "There's a strong chance that changing the materials used to create the ritual will affect its performance."
"I said that?" Luna asked as she looked up to the sky and tapped her chin, trying to recall something. "It doesn't sound like something I would say. But I did see a Mistwisp today, so there's a chance it may have altered my memory."
"Well, I remember it, and it makes sense. Just look at wands; each wood and core type is associated with a different nature or specializes in certain branches of magic." Thane replied, "The tricky part is figuring out what materials to use and how to shape them precisely enough for the ritual to function."
"That's going to take a while," Luna commented, pointing out the obvious, "Should we start asking the room for supplies."
Thane shook his head. "Hopefully not. If we're lucky, by tomorrow, I'll have all the answers we need."
"How come," Luna asked as she fidgeted with the hem of her robe and started to hum absentmindedly.
"Oh, a Snargledoaf will visit me in my dreams," Thane replied with mock sincerity.
"I thought they're usually in Norway by this time of year?" Luna asked as she glanced up at Thane, who could only stare back at her helplessly and shake his head.
---
"I was wondering when you would show up here," Elara's voice reached Thane's ears as he opened his eyes, though just barely as the sound of clanging metal rang through the air.
Looking around, Thane found himself in a traditional blacksmithing forge with tool racks driven into the blackened stone of the room, and a heat others would find oppressive radiating from the massive furnace flared with a dark red flame that made Thane's eyebrows jump in surprise.
"Is that-"
"Fiendfyre," Elara answered before Thane could finish his question. She continued hammering away at a white-hot piece of metal using an anvil roughly three feet tall and two feet wide. Instead of her traditional training garb, Elara wore only a cloth wrap around her chest, a pair of leather pants split down the side for airflow, and an apron made out of what Thane assumed was dragon's leather.
"I guess that if I'm here, that means Luna and I were right in our guess about different materials being able to absorb mana better," Thane asked, only for a surprisingly tender smile to spread across Elara's dark lips.
"Within less than a week of knowing each other, you two are already rediscovering lost magic...history repeats itself. Just make sure you make time for poor Rose," Elara advised with a smirk before grabbing her piece of metalwork with a pair of tongs and quenching it in a nearby bucket of oil, "Now stop standing there and get changed; I can tell you've increased the time dilation so I assume you want to learn as much as possible."
Thane nodded, and a second later, his clothing was replaced by a heavy apron and slitted pants, "By the end of the week, I want to be at least able to make a half-decent ritual."
"A week?" Elara asked skeptically, "Had anyone else uttered such words, I would have thrown them out of my forge for saying something so foolish."
"You think I can do it?" Thane asked as he stared into Elara's dark eyes.
Instead of responding, the Fae queen pulled out the now-cooled piece of metal, revealing a bright silver ingot that gleamed like a mirror. "There are two categories that all rituals fall into. Those made using impermanent methods such as etching and chalk are called Arrays. They are quick, easy to deploy, and extremely useful if you know what you're doing, but they are limited in their scale and output. Formations are the opposite. They can take years to build and can span entire cities, but the power they can display is second to none."
Thane nodded, hanging onto Elara's every word. "But regardless, both Arrays and Formations follow the same core principles. Precision and preparation are vital. Countless factors can influence a ritual's performance for better or worse, primarily the materials used to make them and the craftsmanship put into their creation. Eventually, you'll have to memorize these factors, but for now, learning to create a proper formation will serve you better."
Elara then waved her hand, snuffing out fiendfyre before placing the silver ingot onto the anvil, "Every formation starts with a base plate, where the ritual pattern will be etched before being cast with a conduit. The base plate also grounds the ritual, making it harder for external fluctuations to disturb the formation. Make one using this ingot."
Thane glanced down at the piece of metal before looking back at Elara, wondering if there were any other instructions. When the Fae queen simply raised an eyebrow, Thane took that as a sign to get to work.
Using context clues and reasoning, Thane first walked over to the forge and held out his hand, ready to summon his own Fiendfyre, when a slight nudge from his gut intervened. Pausing, Thane was about to ignore it when a powerful heartbeat reverberated through his chest in protest. Taking the hint, Thane inhaled, filling his lungs with air as his body temperature skyrocketed.
As he exhaled, a pillar of silver flames lept between Thane's lips, instantly igniting the furnace and bathing the entire forge in a chilling light. Staring into the fire, Thane felt an immediate kinship with the silver flame that rolled across the coals like water, and he could tell they possessed an awareness.
Thane looked back to Elara to see if she disapproved, only to find the same distant mask his mentor always kept when instructing him.
Realizing that she wouldn't stop him, Thane could only shrug as he grabbed a pair of tongs before picking up the ingot and plunging it into the furnace.
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