- Chosen One wrote:
- Here you can write up what it is your character does with the 2 month period before the next "big event" happens. While you guys will be able to choose to "wait along longer" if you'd like, 2 months is all you'll have before your activities are interrupted, so make use of what you got.
And Kalla drops the first textbomb!
Kalla sat back in her workshop with a smile. It had been a quick eight weeks, but she had been in motion all the time. Once the manse had been secured, new elementals summoned as an early warning system, and Dreadful had been placated regarding his now-inert portal device, Kalla had gotten to practical business.
The first order of business for Kalla was getting back into her workshop. Fortunately for her, the hearthstone and amulet both seem to be functioning normally still. This enables her to open the workshop and begin redoing her notes.
In redoing her notes from Autochon, especially her drawings, she began to see patterns that just weren't in the originals. It was peculiar, but she was smart enough to realize that it meant the Working would still affect the art that was recreated or redone in Creation, regardless of where the original had been made. A fascinating discovery indeed.
From her high perch at the Monument of The Unconquered Hero in Savo, she had seen the city shift and move, drifting through the wastes and reinventing itself, yet always going back to a basic structure. She also had drawings from Chiaroscuro, which required no such reworking to yield enlightenment From these notes, foggy memories of a past Age and her copies from Oadenol's Codex, she began puzzling together a new series of spell formula.
With speed that made Flickering Flame swear about Anathema, she developed four spell formulae using elaborate Theanoan mathematics and confirming it with Silurian observations. What Flame had trouble explaining to the sorceress was that from what HE knew about sorcerers and the Dragon-Blooded, that activity should have taken far longer.
Each new spell was encoded on a scroll and places on a shelf in the now-empty library. The thought made her cringe - an *empty* library was a horrible sin, and she would need to work much faster to correct this little issue. The four spells she rebuilt were elegantly simple works of utility.
At Deep tide's suggestion, prior to Holly's arrival and alliance with the Circle, she had been asked to develop spells that could influence people. All that work watching people had shown Kalla how many masks people wear. The gruff guard who had blocked her way in Chiaroscuro was hiding behind a mask, as had the historian who first belittled her. Masks of ignorance, masks of authority, without which a person could feel vulnerable. The spell Disguise of The New Face will let Kalla show different faces to the world as well, and help her use her powers while not drawing unwanted attention to herself.
The second spell was based on watching repairmen working in the marketplace, craftsmen and carpenters, and others. by seeing the patterns of repair and assembly, she could look into the past, to the future. The Incantation of Effective Restoration draws upon that link through time, restoring small items to functionality. It would help immensely with the needed repairs to the manse, safely restoring small sections of the structure and repairing the broken library window crystals. The spell's limits mean that she can't use it alone however.
She also uses it on the various sections of Dreadful's portal device, restoring it to the condition shown in her earlier sketch of the marvelous device, and re-establishing their link with the City of Savo. Kalla will also use the portal, trading from her stocks of magical materials to the citizens of Savo (or Administrator Trias) for supplies, food and other items, so she can remain in the Manse and handle the other tasks there. Although she would like to meditate further at the Monument to The Unconquered Hero, she strongly suspects that she will gain nothing further from doing so for a long time to come.
The need for far more power to fully restore the Manse lead Kalla to a greater spell, one that can easily handle the difficulties, since Kalla can repair all the minor damage first and already holds the hearthstone. The mighty spell called Raise the Puissant Sanctum benefits the group in more ways than one, as she can also return to the tainted Infernal Manse destroyed by the demons so long ago and now a demesnes, and raise a Manse there without needing any work crew, and (again), with a good idea of the powers associated with such a location. She cannot change the aspect of the tainted Demesnes, but she could claim it and raise a Manse that generates an appropriate hearthstone. That requires far more planning.
For her own Wood-aspect Manse, Kalla already has the plans and hearthstone, so she has no need to go through the elaborate design phase. With one magnificent spell, she repairs her manse and everything in it that was damaged from earlier neglect, their own initial battles for the structure, the Dragon-Blooded's sabotage and the geomantic attacks upon the Manse. she also incorporates safeguards against further geomantic attacks by making the Essence Vents function as a sort of safety valve to safely bleed off Wood essence into large swaths of date palms and other valuable food plants. It means that the groves will be destroyed if the Manse is geomantic ally assaulted - but it will protect the Manse itself. She also corrects the apparent defect that allowed the God-Blooded cretin to teleport out of the Manse - like every Manse in Creation, this one is now warded against such casual intrusions - and the wards work both ways.
(note): The Infernal Manse-wreckage rebuild will be delayed by the need to make detailed plans and find an appropriate use for the Infernal-aspect Hearthstone that will result. After all, knowing how to direct the Essence to get the result she desires is a prudent act, and will require a great deal of study. she won't even begin that project until many other problems have been resolved.
To help her further in her investigations, she looks again to her studies of change over time, only this time, in reverse. There, different patterns emerge with frightening speed, coalescing into a way to study the past. That spell, Shadows of the Ancient Past, lets her see exactly how the Manses and their structures looked before their damage, and helps her fill in her plans for both structures - her manse first. Although the spells have been listed out of order, it is this spell that lets her look over the shoulder of the original geomancer and see his original plans in each case. Then, she can copy them exactly, make what minor alterations must be made, and go from there. It is this plan that will determine what sort of power the infernal-aspect stone will have. Perhaps it will grant her bonuses when dealing with demons either verbally or as a weapon against them. That plan will take months to analyze, as the original aspect of the Infernal manse (whatever it once was) will be a good clue as to what an Infernal-aspect Hearthstone would be like should it use this Manse design.
All this took about six weeks, discounting the work on the Infernal demesnes, which hasn't begun yet. Over the course of two more weeks, followed on the heels of her spectacular sorcery successes. she proceeded to focus on a few other key factors. She spent several days in the workshop using the tools and trying to work sheets of common metal like steel and copper into useful forms, gradually building up her Crafting skills with the metal. At first it seemed hopeless, but with a surprising knack for making stuff, she soon became reasonably proficient at the whole thing - considering that at no time did she stop to consult a teacher, because the activities seemed natural - and she could beat on the copper sheets whenever Flame or someone else interrupted her studies. The poor copper never had a chance.
When she tired of hammering copper into interesting shapes (which also revealed new and intriguing patterns within the Working), and with even her phenomenal speed at creating sorcery strained by the time constraints, she turned to her dog-eared and well-worn martial arts scroll detailing the fighting style of Savant Mantis Wise, and finally forced her Essence to flow into the unnatural shape of the very first charm in the Tree. Her encounter with the immaculate and her inability to defeat him when she had him cornered and wrapped in chains leads her to seek this personal ability, in spite of how hard Charms are to learn. She finds herself almost on the verge of understanding the precepts behind the next charm the ancient Master speaks of, but not just yet. Odds are, she blows her stack completely at least one day during the 2 months and locks herself in her workshop until the next morning, when she falls into bed triumphantly exhausted. (No, not trying to sneak a Limit Break in here on the cheap to get my E5 - but she's probably right back on the edge of it as she was previously - with 7 Limit still and studies for people to interrupt it's all but inevitable. :D ))
(Short version)
Purchased the following
Terrestrial Circle
Incantation of Effective Restoration (4 xp)
Disguise of The New Face (4 Xp) (8)
Celestial Circle
Shadows of The Ancient Past (4 XP) (12)
Raise the Puissant sanctum (4 XP) (16)
Abilities
Craft (metal) First dot 3 XP, 2nd dot 1 XP, 3rd dot 2 XP, 6 XP total (22 Points)
Charms
Martial Arts
Mantis Style
Leaping Mantis Technique (16 XP) (38)
48 XP availible to spend, leaving 10 which (for now) remains unassigned.
Again, I am pushing the spell abilities for Raising the Puissant Sanctum, but it should allow one to restore a Manse. Incantation of effective restoration lets her repair small things like the guard automatons, the damaged carvings and areas of collapse and so forth, and the shattered window in the Library Dome. It should also restore Dreadful's portal, since it can substitute for or reduce the maintenance time. it can't completely replace maintenance though...
Disguise of The New face is a useful spell that Kalla can use to appear as an older Dragon-Blooded and even affects her anima banner. This is the same spell Siderials use to hide their auras.
The Craft skills link to repairing stuff so she can eventually get Craft Magitech, Craft Fate and Craft Glamor, all good goals for a solar (because they are all so damn hard to learn).
The MA style charm is the first in the Charm Tree and helps Kalla move with greater speed when she must. That is always useful. and when coupled with IBA makes her even faster. Maybe the next monk she fights won't be able to flee so efficiently. it's also required before i can advance further up the Mantis style tree.
let me know if this sort of thing is excessive again, as I think I have a good idea of what i am doing here. Puissant Sanctum might not be the ideal way to restore a Manse, but I really couldn't find another spell that did the same level of work.