Stone of the Earth

[Illuvia]

Type under here

Luvi didn’t feel the least bit comfortable as she sat hunched over the mountain stone that she had obtained a season ago. She was cleaning it thoroughly as Lumina had instructed her to and couldn’t shake the feeling that this experiment was going to go very badly.

“You missed a spot there,” Lumina said, pointing at the well with the end of her quill.

Luvi grumbled and cleaned it. She’d been learning about ensorcelling on and off for weeks now and still felt like she had little idea what she was doing. Though now that she was actually ensorcelling on a well instead of a rock, she appreciated the training Lumina had put her through.

Luvi lowered the brown well into a bucket of water and swirled it around before taking it out and examining it once more. The spot was still there, so she scrubbed away at it a little more until it was gone.

“Better,” Lumina said with a nod.

“Is that it?” Luvi asked as she narrowed her eyes and focused. She applied a rune of sight to her forehead which allowed her to pick up on smaller details than the human eye had any right to. She knew that there was a difference between being able to see something and being able to recognize its importance, so it was only helpful to finding one last speck that needed to be wiped off.

Lumina took it from her and looked it over while holding it up to the sunlight. “It looks fine to me. You can start the tapping now.”

[Goku]

Goku sat beside Luvi and Lumina, working quietly with a jewelry-making kit. He knew that the wells they were creating would eventually need to be incorporated into magical jewelry, so he patiently threaded beads onto a fine string while they worked. His fingers moved deftly, a stark contrast to the intensity and tension in the room as Luvi focused on her task.

Luvi hunched over the mountain stone she had obtained a season ago, meticulously cleaning it as Lumina had instructed. Goku could sense her unease, her movements careful but slightly shaky. He understood her frustration; learning something new, especially something as intricate as ensorcelling, was no easy feat.

Goku had little confidence in his ability to ensorcel his own mountain stone. He sometimes wondered whether he even wanted to go through the effort of learning the craft. He was usually risk averse.

He continued threading beads, listening to the exchange between Luvi and Lumina. Luvi's grumbles and Lumina's precise instructions formed a rhythm that filled the room.

“What kind of jewelry do you think you would want to affix a well to?” Goku asked. “I can’t do much more than this at the moment but with how hard ensorcelling seems to be I might just be able to make rings and earings by the time you make something usable.”

It was partly a joke but he thought it might be true. It sounded like ensorcelling took years to get a handle on. He remembered looking at classes in Scalvoris and there were years worth of coursework associated with it.

[Illuvia]

“I think I’d like some rings, earings, even a tiara or necklace,” Luvi said, “Basically whatever you can make.” She laughed. She didn’t often worry about her looks because she didn’t have the money to look her best… but if she had the choice then she would wear dozens of accessories.

“You thinking of becoming a jewelry maker? What happened to wanting to learn smithing?”

Luvi focused on the well and used the tools that Lumina handed her to tap away at the pressure points that she saw. She knew she needed to be gentle so she barely touched the well with the tool. There were times when she tapped a little too hard for comfort which drew a gasp from Lumina and earned Luvi a twap on the head.

“Be careful,” Lumina urged, “if you mess up, it’s going to hurt.”

Luvi blinked hard and took a deep breath. She asked, “isn’t that why I’m wearing my armor and these goggles?”

Lumina said, “yes, but there’s no telling if it will be enough to protect you fully. The physical damage is just one possible side effect. You can get mutations and other strange effects if things go wrong.”

“Mutations? Just another thing to worry about,” Luvi said as nervousness crept into her mind. She calmed herself with another deep breath. She was a tad scared, but that wouldn’t affect her work. Her mind was hard at work, having to multitask listening to instructions, actually performing said instructions, keeping her mental state in check, and talking to Goku all at once.

Luvi tapped on a handful more spots until there were no more obvious ones to work with. Lumina looked it over and gave her a thumbs up. It was now time to begin cutting it down into a usable shape.

[Goku]

“I'll do my best to learn all of those things,” Goku said, focusing on his jewelry-making kit. He threaded a few more beads, glancing at the tools and materials laid out before him. “I’m not entirely sure what I want to do yet, but learning smithing seems like a good idea, especially if it helps with making jewelry. Can’t hurt to have more skills, right?”

He paused, thinking about Lumina’s warnings. “Mutations sound dangerous,” he mused, looking around the room with a bit of concern. “Are we safe working in here? Shouldn’t we be doing this in another building or something? I’ve heard about wells exploding, but I don’t know how big an explosion can be.”

Goku carefully selected another bead and threaded it onto the wire, his hands steady but his mind occupied with thoughts of safety. He was aware that Luvi was putting in a lot of effort to get everything right, and he didn’t want any of them to get hurt in the process.

As he worked, he noticed that his own creation wasn't doing very well. He had been pretty aimless, just mixing random beads together to see what would happen. It was ugly by any measure.

“Guess I need to be more careful with what I use,” he said to himself, wiping his hands on a cloth and looking over at the book he’d bought about basic jewelry crafts. It was fascinating how diverse the field was.

He turned back to his beads and continued threading them, thinking about how he could apply what he was learning to jewelry-making. The idea of combining different materials to create something both beautiful and functional was appealing to him. “I’ll need to get some more supplies for our next session,” he thought aloud.

[Illuvia]

“That makes sense to me. Who knows, with the runes that hone provides, you might be able to make things that regular people can’t,” Luvi noted.

Lumina said, “no need to worry, I think. If anyone gets hurt by an explosion it’ll be us two. This is about as weak a well as they get so you should be fine… I think.”

Luvi wasn’t expecting cutting to be as easy as it ended up being. Easy in the sense that the ensorcelled tools she used were able to remove parts of the well without much effort at all. It was a double edged sword because she had to be very careful not to remove too much at any given time.

“Yes, that’s right, try to aim for a spherical shape,” Lumina said.

“Anything special about a sphere?” Luvi asked as she shaved away.

“There are many shapes that you could make, but I’m most familiar with orbs and it will do just fine for your first time. Other common shapes are diamonds and ovals.”

“Wait!” Lumina said abruptly, causing Luvi to stop. Lumina took the well and inspected it then said, “you almost cut right into a pressure point. It’s time to go back to shallow tapping.”

Luvi nodded, knowing that the tapping and cutting process needed to be repeated, though it was time to switch a lot sooner than she expected.

“So, what are we going to do with the well after it’s all cut? I know there’s deep tapping – I mean after it’s all done?” Luvi asked as she went back to tapping.

“I haven’t decided yet. It’s your well so I suppose it’ll be up to you… but there are some options that are better than others,” Lumina explained.

[Goku]

Goku nodded in agreement, recognizing the potential benefits of hone's sensory enhancements for crafting more precise and flawless products. "Having those sensory enhancements could really help in making more perfect crafts," he remarked, a hint of enthusiasm in his voice. “There’s small details that I could pick up on.”

Despite feeling thankful that he wasn't in immediate danger from the ongoing work, Goku couldn't shake off a lingering sense of caution. He quietly scooted his chair a few feet further away from Luvi and Lumina, his gaze briefly flickering towards the tools and the carefully tended well they were working on. "Better safe than sorry," he thought to himself, keenly aware of the potential risks of an explosion.

Thinking ahead, Goku turned his attention back to Luvi, considering her need to eventually learn how to cut gems into intricate shapes like diamonds. "You might need to learn how to cut into a diamond shape," he suggested gently, aware of the complexity involved in such precise work. "I'm still in the dark about the basics of gem cutting myself," he admitted with a sheepish smile. "So unfortunately, I won't be much help on that front."

He thought about how big of a jump gems were from simple beaded bracelets. Having seen Luvi use the rune of sight he used it as well. It didn’t help with what he was doing, but he would take any excuse to practice runes that he didn’t use often. He appreciated how much detail the beads now seemed to have.

[Illuvia]

Luvi giggled when Goku moved a little further away. She said, “I think making a diamond shape would be nice, but… I’d like to focus on actually getting the well to work before getting fancy.”

“What are my options then?” Luvi asked, turning back to Lumina

“Well, the mountain stone can manipulate earth, I don’t think that should come as a surprise. It can also smother some other magics.” Lumina flipped some pages in her notebook and continued, “ah, yes, it smothers fire, water, wind, and lightning magic.”

“Hold on, what do you mean by smothering?” Luvi asked as she lowered the well and tools to give her hands a rest.

“Smothering. We went over that didn’t wel?” Lumina asked but after she searched her memories she shook her head and said, “I suppose we didn’t. Put simply, wells release smog and that tends to smother other magic.”

“Isn’t that bad?” Luvi asked while cracking her knuckles and flexing her fingers.

“Not necessarily. They don’t have to release hardly any smog if you don’t want them to. You can also make them release a lot of smog. It’s something that you as the ensorceller decide during the wellcrafting process. We won’t focus on that this time, I think there are other options you’d enjoy more.”

Luvi leaned back in her chair and thought about that for a moment. “That might be useful. I don’t know all the specifics, but if you could stop a mage from using magic then you might not even need a magic like abrogation on your side. Then again, I still think the ability to conjure barriers to be useful.”

Lumina nodded, “I know little about magic but I would think that having a magic like defiance would be much more useful than having a couple firestones in your arsenal.”

[Goku]

Goku listened intently to the discussion between Luvi and Lumina, absorbing the new information about the smothering properties of mountain stone. He found the concept fascinating and a little alarming, thinking about the implications of such a magic-suppressing material. As they talked, he felt the need to stretch his legs and clear his mind. Standing up, he announced, "I'm going to take a quick break."

As he walked around the room, he mulled over the potential applications and limitations of smothering magic. The idea of a well-crafted with the ability to suppress other magics intrigued him. His mind started racing with possibilities. "I guess wells are like having a tool that can be both a shield and a weapon, depending on how you use it. It could be really handy in situations where you need to neutralize other magics."

He turned back to Lumina and asked, "So, this smothering magic you mentioned; could it stop me from using runes or maybe even stop me from using defiance magic?"

Goku returned to his seat, feeling a bit more at ease after his short break. He was honestly tired of messing around with beads. He felt like anyone could get the hang of this within a few hours and he wanted to do something a little more complicated. He also felt like going to the nearby forge to get another smithing lesson. Maybe on the next day, but he was getting low on cash and would need to do some work.

“I should get the smith to hire me as a part time worker.” He told himself.

[Illuvia]

Lumina said to Goku, “yes, I’m sure there is some well out there that can counteract even hone magic. It would prevent you from making runes just as this mountain stone well could possibly prevent you from moving flames.”

Luvi frowned and said, “I wonder if banks use them to make sure mages don’t break in.”

Lumina shrugged, “they might. On top of that, I think any notable bank would have mages hired to handle that sort of thing.”

Luvi rested for a time longer until her fingers stopped throbbing. Then she went back to shaving and tapping. Lumina told her that she would probably be done after a couple more cycles. When she was finally done crafting the well into a sphere, Luvi handed it off for inspection.

“Not bad. Not a perfect sphere, but you’ve done as well as you ought to have,” Lumina said with an inclination of her head.

“Now, we do deep tapping. This is probably the most dangerous part,” Lumina reminded, “so be forceful but not too forceful.”

Luvi’s nervousness from earlier returned and intensified as she held the larger tools in her hands. She felt a bead of sweat make its way down her cheek. This was it – if she messed up now she would have thrown away a considerable amount of time and effort, not to mention what she’d had to go through to obtain the well in the first place.

“What are you doing?” Lumina asked.

“Just give me a minute,” Luvi said with a glare.

“No, I mean your hands. What’s wrong with them?”

Luvi looked and sure enough her hands looked a little off. “I… I don’t know.” She then felt it, the sensation of ether leaving her body. It was subtle but noticeable once she focused on it. “I’m using magic,” she realized. She focused on stopping the flow of ether then starting it up again. This time the effect spread to her whole body for a moment before dying out.

“I think I was creating some kind of abrogative barrier,” Luvi said, “I was nervous about getting hurt and it just… happened.”

[Goku]

Goku absorbed the information Lumina provided, mulling over the implications of wells that could counteract various magics. The concept of a smothering well, capable of nullifying powerful spells, was both intriguing and intimidating. As he pondered this, he walked over to see what was happening with Luvi's hands.

"It probably is Abrogation magic," Goku remarked, observing the subtle magical effect around her fingers. "We should test it out to see how reliable it is. It would help you decide if it's something you can depend on in a fight. It might even be a good idea to use this when you’re working with wells. If you could protect yourself from an explosion you might not have to wear all that equipment." He knew that Luvi was probably used to wearing that armor all the time when she was doing soldier business but he didn’t think he would ever want to wear it more than required. Also if the explosion damaged her armor that would cost a lot of money to repair.

"But how should we test it?" he thought then he grinned, offering a practical solution. "I can punch you softly at first, then gradually harder until your barrier fails. It’s a controlled way to gauge its strength and your limits."

Goku moved to a clear space and gestured for Luvi to join him. If she stood before him, he would ask “Ready?” Then he would start punching her in the stomach. Gently at first but then harder and harder.