9th of Ashan 721
Kisaik took off his hunter's cap, with the etchwing feather still stuck in it. With a simple shake of the hat, it became a tall wizard's cap, with a wide brim. The hat-band still held the feather easily and gave it a very magical-looking flare. Kisaik plopped the hat on his head. He also had a green and gray robe over his armor. Thus was he made ready to do magic!
In his domain bag was a trio of small stones. One, the largest, was a territe mined from a mini fracture in Yaralon. Well, if by mined Kisaik meant exchanged for a tooth. The tooth fairy had left him with the territe, in exchange for the boy's teeth that had fallen out. Kisaik kept some of these territe shards, these wells, for himself. Including a full raw territe. He hadn't done anything with them since then, as he wasn't quite sure what could be done with them. Yet as he grew as a wizard and a magician, and also an alchemist, certain things became clearer to him. While he was no great sorcerer yet, he knew well enough that something could be made from the territe. He only needed to prepare the materials. That was what he'd decided to set out doing today!
There were freshwater sources nearby, thanks to Vega's forming of a fountain. Kisaik carefully gathered a measure of water from this fountain and placed it into a bowl made of macadamia shell. Once that was done, he began slow walking out of the settlement, doffing his hat at the gate guard. He had to be careful. Playing with raw wells was dangerous, and he couldn't risk harming his friends' hard work at the settlement. Certainly using rupture magic to transport wells was a foolish proposition. He didn’t want to waste them, either!
So, once he'd made the slow walk to the outside of the wall, he began heading north, into the forested areas where the Charwoods grew. There, he found a nice flat rocky surface, where he could ply his craft.
He set aside the bowl of water and placed one of the two small territe shards on the smooth stone. Now it was time to bring out his tools...
Kisaik removed his wizard hat and shook out some of the things he'd need. A protective mask with see-through lenses. Then some cleaning utensils. He would also need an ensorcelling kit but could pull that out of the hat later when he was ready to start his magic making.
But magic didn’t happen by accident, or without a lot of hard and ponderous steps between the formation of an idea, and the actual execution of miracles. Alchemy had taught him that much, and he suspected that ensorcelling, for all its promise, was no different. So he’d procured a few notes collected from the various books in Saoire’s dream. He’d written them down swiftly, in Xanthean, taking down the very basics of what he’d need to know in order to make the wells safe for crafting. In order to refine them.
And that was the hope, that he would find himself with a refined well, and stop the bleeding of the raw well before it evaporated in a puff of earthy ether entirely. Raw wells gave off a sort of miasma that dampened other forms of magical phenomenon. Territe, or the earth well, predictably dampened elemental forms that were not of the earth or stone. But could theoretically also be tasked to act upon other forms of arcana.
Already, Kisaik could think of many novel and interesting uses for a regalia formed from territe. Perhaps he could use it to reshape the land, with far less effort than one so small would have to spend.
Perhaps he could create a spade that was able to carve large swathes of landscape, or a rake that could level the earth with a mere graze of its tines. The possibilities made Kisaik a bit dizzy.
But for the moment, it was very important to make sure the proper processes were followed. He had to make sure the well itself was safe for use. So using his sense of ether as a mage, he began to explore the surface of the stone. Not yet daring to tap the well. But merely scouting out the pressure points.
Once he was confident that there weren’t any that would complicate his attempts to rinse the raw well, he began submerging it in the macademia shell bowl. The water inside began to sluice off the little bits of debris and dust that had gathered upon the surface of the well. Idly, Kisaik wondered if territe wells, by their nature, were dirtier than other forms of wells. But then, he had the kinds of wells he had, unless he sought out others. He’d have to make do with the dirtier wells, in such a case!
He used a soft cloth to carefully dab the bits of dust and dirt off of the surface of the well after removing it from the water. Now, it was beginning to show its luster, and Kisaik smiled. But they were far from done. Refining was the next step, after the ablution of the well, and he had one other well to wash before he could even think about refining it.
So he took the well, placing it in a clean cloth, and setting it far aside. In case an explosion of one well didn’t catch on the other, and double its explosive output. Kisaik thought he was sturdy enough to withstand one well’s explosion, but doubted he could withstand the concurrent destruction of two of the things.
Not that he doubted his ability!
He consulted his notes, as he brought a measure of clean water into a second macademia shell bowl. This was done carefully, as the other bowl was discarded. It wouldn’t do to have a dirty bowl to wash the second well!
He washed the other territes, the pair of fragments, dabbing their surface until they too showed its luster and the pressure points were all but evident on its surface.
That done, he began the next stage, after drying the second well. He took several paces and placed the second well apart from his work area. Then walked all the way back for the first well. Once it was on his work area, he began taking his hammers and tuning fork. Carefully, he sussed out the nearest pressure point that was evident on the well. Near the surface. He tapped it, bringing it further out of the well, carefully carefully.
The tuning forks worked their magic. It was a bit fiddly at first, but eventually Kisaik got the hang of it, until he managed to isolate the pressure points and draw them out of the well entirely, easing its pressure and reducing the smog evident on the air around the freshly cleaned well.
Once all of the shallow tapping (and there didn’t need to be too much of that, truth be told, as the well was fairly tiny!), he repeated the process with the second well. Thus the pressure was releived enough that he could begin reducing and cutting into the well.
The ensorcelling chisels and hammers were ready for deployment. Now, Kisaik was no sculptor, but he had some experience knapping rock back in Desnind, for the weapons of his people. So it wasn’t entirely new to him. The only difference, was that the flint rocks he’d knapped back home while they were fiddly, weren’t liable to blow up in his face!
Thus he began the process of cutting the full raw well as well as the fragments, removing the rough material until they resembled three polished gems. One larger and two smaller.
Once that was done he took the larger fork and hammer, and tapped the wells once more, for the final time. It was time to remove the deep pressure points within the well, drawing them out slowly but surely.
He once again separated the well and two fragments by several paces, and then went to work with his forks. He began drawing out the pressure points, imagining they were like knots in so much wood. Having a frame of reference for drawing out pressure points, he found, helped him visualize all the better.
A half a break later, he finished with the second well, having deep tapped the pressure points out of both of the wells, and reducing the decay-rate of the shiny territe gems.
Thus, he had one shiny refined well and two clean fragments. He just had little in the way of ideas of what to do with them yet. But he was sure in time he’d think of something. For now, it was enough that he’d stopped their decay entirely!