Devukrantz Manor
He'd been delving into the tome again. The reading was enlightening as it often was, revealing information that he'd scarcely imagined possible. Had Llyr Llywellyn only stayed long enough to teach him a thing or two about Becoming, perhaps he'd be that much more advanced by now. Not that a true master of Becoming could expand beyond the heights of such skill as Rakvald's, but there were always unexplored nooks and crannies. Fleshes to be explored and adopted into the whole, and totems to be fashioned.
What Rakvald had uncovered this time was the fact that totem creation and totem dedication were two distinct processes, and that not every step in the creation demanded the presence of the Sovereign substances even. It stood to logic, since the composite parts of a totem might very well be taken from external sources, apart from the creature the sovereign substances were derived of. However, it simply never occurred to him to employ the use of crafts to make a totem. He'd always been more concerned with efficiency and economy. It certainly didn't hurt that he could merely pluck the substances from sleeping creatures and form them into a neat hardened marble, and bosh he had a totem.
It was rather convenient being a Graft mage learning the ways of Becoming.
Yet he couldn't deny that the idea of dedicating an item wtih a sliver of his soul seemed to imply a greater sense of investment in the totem itself. He'd treasure the totem far more if it was a precious object, afterall, or one that he'd crafted and shaped himself.
So this is what brought him from study in the ritual room, down to toil in his Forge in the lower corner of his manor in Zynyx Village.
He selected a piece of embersteel, and of course felt the compulsion, encouraged by the Aurelian spark to identify its material. He slowly filled it with a trace amount of ether, and his eyes glowed golden as they beheld the glittering ferrous metal. Embersteel could rust, but it held an edge like no other metal. It had mass, but then Rakvald had strength to wield it, and mass wasn't always to the bad when dealing with tools or weapons. The weight could do half the work, depending of course on what that work was.
Having satisfied himself with the piece of metal's lack of flaws, he set out to work. He pulled the tools he'd need for the job, several differently shaped hammers, tongs, and so on. A foot petal was at the base of the furnace, which helped operate the great bellows that shot the exhaust out into the open air outside the manor. Once he'd gathered those things, he turned his attention inward.
He had a strong forge arm, but he'd need even more strength to shape embersteel. So with that in mind, he drew runes of strength along his right and left arms, and across his shoulders. Once he'd done that, he supposed he was ready. He set them to trigger upon a touch, as he didn't need their strength until the embersteel was hot for hammering.
The piece of embersteel slid into the furnace, and there it began to heat up. He observed its process of tempering. The Aurelian kept a close watch over the matrix of its metal grain, watching that flaws did not appear as a result of his forging.
Finally, when it appeared to glow yellow hot, he brought it out of the forge, and began hammering. He had in mind a specific weapon or tool. A small cleaver axe, good for chopping limbs at need, or large bits of flesh. He'd not handled such a weapon in a good while, not since he was a pig farmer. Usually his medical practice didn't involve amputations, but occasionally flesh removal was not optional but compulsory.
His magic, more often enough, was capable of salvaging flesh that had gone to bad, enough that he could infuse the living matter with enough vigor to revive it, even strengthen it. Infection was rarely a consideration at this stage in his career, but it wasn't totally unknown, as the episode with the workman he'd tended to earlier in Cylus attested.
His arms were beginning to tire from the beating of the metal, so he activated his strength runes then, and let them run their course as he drew the cleaver axe out. The piece had a broad blade, square and flat on the thick of it, with a steep taper to the tip and edge. He thought it was good work, at least in terms of his progress with the craft. The tang was a small strip of metal, that had been drawn out even more. He may need to pry some material off of it, in order to accomodate a smaller handle, but he hadn't yet made up his mind what kind of handle he'd go for. A longer one or a shorter one. So he left that task to later.
Sighing to himself, he set the blade aside, and decided to return to it at a later time. As he tossed his leather apron over a rack, and exited the forge, he heard a sharp scream and wailing coming from the foyer of the house.
The mage rushed to see what was causing the disturbance. Yet as he approached, he saw that whatever was going on, was outside of the house. He ran out the front door, and saw a very strange set of
creatures
, the likes of which he'd not seen before, attacking and harassing Renfreud."Aaaah! Leave me beasts!" Renfreud looked up at Rakvald, and clasped his hands together, wincing as another of the green things yanked at his hair. "Master, please... aaah help."
Rakvald almost considered this fair payback for Renfreud's assault the other day. He hesitated.
By then, Rayfin appeared at the courtyard of the manor, and stood next to Rakvald. "You want I should remove them?"
Rakvald thought on it a moment, enjoying the suffering of Renfreud for just a moment, before nodding to Rayfin. "Don't damage Renfreud though, just get the green ones.... And bring them inside when you smash their brains out."
Rakvald wanted to inspect these odd creatures for his own purposes.
Rayfin did just that, running out to sweep a meaty palm across the neck of the first problin to stick itself in Renfreud's hair, yanking at it. Rayfin squeezed, and there was a sickening crunch. Rakvald quirked the flesh of his brow at that, and wondered if the beast might not be worth studying afterall.
But then, he was still curious, curious to see if there was anything redeemable about these mischeivous pests. Rayfin handed the paralyzed creature to Rakvald, and then began helping Renfreud clear the rest of the problem creatures out of the yard.
Rakvald left them to it, trusting that they would see to the issue suitably.
Meanwhile, the mage brought the creature to his inner ritual room, where he kept much of his magical equipment. There, he laid it on the ground. There, he looked upon it, and wondered. Unexpectedly, the thing seemed to recover from its paralysis, and jumped up to grab at the arcane tome!
It cackled as it began tearing page after page from it, but of course the arcane tome being somewhat magical, the thing was not strong enough to truly damage it. So in spite, it began gnawing on the page, trying to tear at it with its teeth as it took glee in Rakvald's sense of disgust.
Rakvald tilted his head, and then with a swift motion, swept forward and wrapped his arm around the creature's head. WIth a mighty wrench and tug, he separated the thing's head from its body. The creature screamed as he made the effort, but was silenced when its flesh tore and ripped from the neck.
Deciding not to take any chances with this strange thing, he picked up its beheaded body as well, and brought it to the medical examination room. He thought to perform an autopsy, to figure out what made this thing tick.
A few bits later, he made it, and swiftly went to work, strapping the beheaded torso to the table, so that it couldn't get free if it suddenly decided it was too stupid to know it was dead. The head? Rakvald put in a jar, and sealed it shut, air-tight, then placed it on the corner of the autopsy table.
He swiftly went to work, slicing it from sternum to abdomen, and examining a most unusual process as he reached out to infuse it with ether. Not to rouse it, mind, but utilizing his mutation that allowed him to understand what made flesh work.
Trills passed, and he didn't even need to reveal its secrets before they demonstrated them to his eyes. The thing was beginning to reform and reshape, to spontaneously regenerate. While separated from the head no less. He could sense the enervations about it, it was not dead, but slowly regrowing the lost body part.
Rakvald brought a hand to his brow, and scratched. "Well... that's different."
