I woke up the next morning feeling horribly sore and bruised. Looked to see the sunlight through my window, my process of actually getting up was slow and always slightly painful through each step. Eventually, though I find myself awake and sitting up. Both swords were haphazardly stored in a corner, I hadn’t taken much care stowing them the previous night. I could smell my singed hair, an annoyance of fighting someone who used fire.
I managed to get out of bed with an equal measure of difficulty as sitting up, needing to get on my feet. Wincing, I headed to the door to my chambers, and opened it. The untended to cooking area and sitting room were covered in clutter, and the door to my training room was ajar. I’d deal with that later, I decided, moving for the pantry. Picking out a set of rations to eat, though the choice didn’t really matter, since they all tasted horrible. But they were cheap, and effective, so I’d stocked up in troves. I walked over to a table, pain in each step, before I made it to a sitting position, letting out an involuntary sigh of relief as I did, to my slight annoyance. I disliked being injured, especially this badly. It meant being weak, and it meant I had been weak, to be hurt this badly. A vicious cycle of belittlement focused on myself that I hadn’t managed to force myself to shake yet.
After eating, I decided to try something to stave off my thoughts for a bit. I walked over to my room once more, grabbing the two swords which laid in the corner of my room, looking them over. Mine was the same as always, a bit chipped and dirtied from the previous nights battle. Tali’s was only slightly better in terms of condition, but that was only because he ended up just using his flames in the battle for the most part as opposed to trying to stab me like I had tried to do to him. They also seemingly had different makes, with my blade being more flat and straight, with a basic hilt and guard, meanwhile the other Sigilist’s sword was more…fancy, though I was unsure if that was the right word. Slightly curved for a longsword, but not quite a scimitar either. The hilt and cross guard were also odd, seemingly made from some kind of golden metal, or some other metal plated with gold. I doubt he was dumb enough to actually use pure gold all the way through. That would be both expensive and ultimately foolish if he used a flame sigil. The blade itself also had some writing etched into it that wasn’t runes, that I couldn’t read. It looked like elvish however, so I made a note to ask someone about it. I knew a few people who knew the language and hadn’t left the city yet on account of the fighting, so I could hopefully arrange something, if only to satisfy my own curiosity on the matter. Tali seemed like a smart enough person, so him knowing that language wasn’t out of the question, and like a lot of stronger Sigilists, he probably knew how to forge his own equipment. I knew that it was easier to enchant things you’d made yourself, but at the same time, it was an expensive craft to buy into, not to mention the trial and error aspect of it. I had tossed the idea around of getting into the practice eventually when I’d established myself a bit more, but that was really nothing more then idle planning for the future. Sighing, I took both swords over to my workroom, laying them out side by side on station, a sturdy wooden table littered with scratches, dents, and scorch marks from various experimentations with my own sigils. Tucked underneath it were three securely bound books, one an introduction to Sigilism you could likely find at most libraries with any form of magical tomes, the second a more specialized one which discussed theories and the practice of Sigilism throughout most of more modern history, and finally, a book I’d been lucky to pick up through some sources that likely wouldn’t be approved of by Kingdom officials, a book discussing the five most commonly used sigils. Those were Protection, Strength, Speed, Flames and Water. I had made use of four of those, only skipping out on water because generally you couldn’t use both flames and water together on the same weapon, due to one usually superseding the other in some form. Too powerful a water sigil, and you just had warm water to throw at people. Too powerful a fire sigil and you were just giving off steam whenever you used it. Maybe circumstantially useful, but it likely would be a hinderance more then a benefit in an actual fight without a way to reliably see or sense through it. I had however, heard of people combining the two somewhat successfully, creating steam based weapons which would boil people, or boiling water which could cause serious damage. Or just having a separation to use both elements equally in tandem. I wasn’t skilled enough for any of those, so I’d left water alone for now, out of the ones in that book.
Now with Tali’s sword in front of me, I have a lot of the same, speed, flames, but one I didn’t recognize as well, that being lightning. Not extraordinary by any means, from what I’d read it was a natural progression from studying flame and speed sigils, a pseudo combination of the two which could both pack a punch and theoretically provide speed in and of itself. I’d figured I’d get there eventually, but having it sooner was certainly a boon I wasn’t going to turn down. The only problem as of currently was the process of transference.
Transference was hard. It was the practice of basically stealing another Sigilists work. It wasn’t uncommon, and in fact when two Sigilists fought in times long past, they generally would barter one of their pieces of empowered equipment to be lost or won during the battle. Those days, however, were long past, with most of the time a repossession coming with the death of the previous wielder. That, naturally got me down the track of thought that I would have all of Tali’s equipment, including his boots, which I would have loved to have looked at, just in general.
Shaking myself out of that vein of thought, I focused on the task at hand. I knew that I could likely and easily use Tali’s sword as is, it would be potentially risky long term, and I risked intertwining our wells of power, which would be potentially catastrophic for both of us. Better to transfer what power I could to my own equipment, and reduce Tali’s power while increasing my own. Wholly better, and just requiring a bit effort, rather then taking the lazy way out.
I sat down, and looked between both swords. I took a deep breath, knowing that I’d done this over a dozen times before, just now, I was risking my entire two years of work on my sword with the potential to also light my house on fire. No pressure. I picked up my first tool, the preliminary marker, simple charcoal. Carefully, I drew an outline. Tali’s flame sigil style, slightly bolder then mine, now traced out on top of my existing flame sigil. I then carefully traced mine, softer, but I’d like to think more elegant, on top of Tali’s. After double checking a dozen times to be sure that I’d done it well enough, I began the second step of the process, that being actually doing the engraving. Taking out the metal tool needed for such, I began the process of engraving over the charcoal sketches, making sure to be incredibly precise in the marking, to avoid messing even a single part of it. I only did this on Tali’s sword to start, but once I was sure and confident enough, I started on mine, managing to keep my hand steady as I went through the ordeal. Each mark in the metal was crucial if I wanted the work to truly be, well, mine. Sigilism inherently was about channeling power into the existing. Into the material. Everyone did it differently, mostly through sigils, hence the name. Which meant this process was important, and mistakes all the more devastating if they were to occur.
Thankfully for me, I got through flames easily enough, and without setting my house into an inferno. From there, I moved onto speed, being most familiar with it out of the two which remained, and having put the most effort into my own speed sigil out of any of my current sigils. I found the process ironically, a bit slower then the flames sigil, mostly because Tali’s did his far different then mine. While with flames, we had followed the same core design, with different linework and a few other small differences here and there, with speed, we’d seemingly differed greatly, with Tali opting for something far more triangular compared to my squared sigil which was mostly drawn from recommendations the basics book had informed me of. I was reminded of how quick Tali moved compared to me, especially when he went on the offensive…a bigger risk, bigger reward? Either way, I had to take special care with this one, making sure they were overlaid appropriately and with care to the details Tali had put into his design. Eventually, though, I got it to work, and finished the process for the speed sigil. Giving it a look over, it wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked, but I thought that for my experience level it was more then suitable for the process.
It was then on to lightning. The transference process was slightly different when it was one to one, a rune being effectively switched over to a piece which didn’t currently have it, and it was thankfully a difference of difficulty. I only had to carve one thing, and then do some…changes to Tali’s version of it. Smudges, chips, lines through it intended to destabilize and make it a hard association between his craft and mine. In reverse, I practically got to design my own lightning sigil. Not as exciting as it sounded in my head in practice, as I mostly took Tali’s design and converted it more into my squared, and still hopefully more elegant design, and making a few touch ups I thought would be suitable, and more importantly, safe. Thankfully, this one was quicker overall, and after hours of work, the two swords were ready to start transference.
I stood back for a moment, paced the room for a minute or two thinking about how I’d handle it. Each sigilist had a different style of transference. It didn’t really matter how, as long as you willed the magic to work the way you wanted, but generally you wanted something vocal, and something somatic. An exclamation to punctuate the magic, as a mental trick to will it to work…better. Or so I’d read. Eventually, though, I came up with something, standing before the blades again.
I took one more deep breath, and exclaimed “Transfer!” in the same breath as I’d clapped my hands together as hard as I could, the point where they stung. There was a brief burst of light from each sigil, and when it cleared, I saw the final work. Tali’s sword was bare of any sigils, except for vague outlines and etchings, now powerless. While my sword, in the meantime, had more complex patterns on the flame and speed runes, and a brand new sigil among them in the form of lightning.
Granted, it would take much, much more work to more truly make the sigils permanent, mine, and powerful, likely days, if not weeks per sigil, but for now, I’d made Tali weaker, and myself just that bit more stronger.
That was enough for me.
Kindling And Miscellany 