[OWBotB] That's the spirit! [self-mod]

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Craft usage thread 'Lame spirit pun' thread titles, Episode 2

Late Kalendryas, Era 15 PF

From behind a steaming teacup, a bespectacled Amelia watched a tiny droplet of amber liquid forming on the downside of the spoon, eventually falling into the hot surface of the cup. Work had been boring lately, and the cage in the far corner of the room reminded her of that. Inside the container was the ghost of a black cat, pushing against the walls uselessly. "It's no use, Noir," Amelia sighed quietly, "you aren't nearly strong enough to break out of there." 'Noir' had been haunting the house of his own former mistress, apparently bent on revenge for her less-than-perfect behavior as an animal owner. When the woman had gotten tired of waking up in the dead of darkening to twisted fits of meowing, only to find her curtains and rugs horribly maimed by claw marks, she had called Amelia.

Not really her idea of fun, removing cat ghost infestations. Sure, she had enjoyed the moment of payment quite a bit, but now Amelia had no idea what to do with Noir. She could not keep him around, if only because he had a tendency to stare at Liosha's perch a bit too intently for the thing to appear random. Burying him somewhere did not appeal to her, either, for the animal had not put up any fight at all. Inflicting pain upon the helpless was not the girl's style.

It suddenly occurred to her that if she was leaving soon, visiting High Peak with Viskyia on the way of Demios, she could certainly stop in Trysvale to meet Straylor either en route to the island or on the way back. She had promised she would pay him a visit later in the season, after all, and the man given her an intriguing proposal - some kind of joint business venture linking his Arcana and her spiritism.

Truth told, Amelia found the idea of little spells locked inside glass orbs a bit silly, but this seemed to be the rage these brightenings. Hers was a different art - there was no concept of replication in Adjuration; each of her items was a work of art, a unique creation in its own right, no two of them being identical. Each had a name, each told a story. They were no mere numbered orbs, but separate creatures pulsing with power ready to be harnessed. The witch supposed there was no better way to convey that much to Straylor than with a practical demonstration... making a few specialty items as a sampler of what she could do.

The girl finished her tea and checked her notes, a small collection of ideas she wrote down as soon as she thought of them. She decided she would share a few of her ideas with the Trysvallian Druid to convince him about the value of her services, and even though the prospect of buying so many identical little orbs felt slightly tasteless and degrading, the appeal of some spells in the list was undeniable. Well then, time to show these Mages the power of an art practiced by mortals when the world was young and untamed.

Five items were checked off the list.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Amelia stood up, her skirts rustling softly against the chair, and set herself to work. The paper door of the room devoted to her craft slid open with a minimal amount of noise and she headed towards the row of shelves in front of the entrance. This was where she kept her spiritual zoo; each spirit she captured ended up on these shelves, trapped in a vial or some other small container. Cages being big and expensive, Amelia always transferred her prey from the cage into one of her blood-sealed vials; the process was fairly simple and involved maneuvering the vial through the bars of the cage using tongs. A minimal coating of tea-based Ambrosia in the vial and a little patience was all it took.

Each vial was carefully labeled with the entity's name and nature. As a rule, Amelia was loathe to store ghosts in these pieces of glassware, mostly because souls tended to be smarter and more proactive in seeking their freedom... and revenge, for that matter. Most of these entities were spirits that had uncatiously wandered into one of her traps. Their freedom lost, they were condemned to spend their time here until the girl found a suitable use for them. Some might have called this cruel, but to Amelia the spirits were no better than things, and she treated them like cattle. For a few among them, though, a day of change had come.

A pale finger caressed a particular vial. Its insides appeared to be wet and dripping liquid down the inner walls as Amelia picked it up. "Zallsteirn, dear, it is your turn," she spoke softly. The spirit addressed her in turn, little bubbling droplets hitting the insides of the vial. "Free me, witch! I long to see the sky once more, to be one with the clouds. Free me, I say!" Amelia shook the vial a little, causing the spirit to cry out in pain. "Tsk, tsk. If I had wanted your opinion, little rain spirit, I would have asked for it. The sky was yours for the taking; you could have had it all, and yet you were greedy and threw it away because you liked my Ambrosia better. You are merely enduring the consequences of your actions."

"Free me! Free me!" the spirit repeated obsessively, but Amelia would not listen. For a D-rank - the lowest rank in Amelia's own classification - this little guy sure made a lot of noise. Amelia ranked with the letter D those spirits and ghosts that, when put inside one of her charms, could not affect the world outside their cage. "Sorry, little one," the witch retorted, "the sky is already filled with rain spirits - you are much more interesting as a work of art."

She set the vial aside and looked for the next specimen. Any spirit would do for this task, so Amelia chose one that had no particular affiliation. "Ewelieke, was it?" She removed a small vial from the back of the shelf and set it aside. "I am going to part with you; simply put, you are a waste of space. We will seal a contract later, and maybe we can find a use even for your worthless self." A little spirit stirred, seemingly protesting against the harsh review, but Amelia was completely uninterested. Two down, two to go.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The remaining two spirits enjoyed a slightly better standing with the girl, meaning that she was not going to mock their uselessness right away. Yuboess and Vrigdell. The latter's vial was quickly identified as the only one that seemed to emanate a low, buzzing sound, perhaps more like a whisper of sorts. Amelia took the container and put it aside with the others, knowing that she was going to enjoy this one. Vrigdell was a Sound spirit, and one that had not been easily caught. For a D-rank, the little one was quite smart indeed. It always seemed to linger near one of her cages, but let some other spirit enter first, and figured out that it was a trap.

After the third night of this, Amelia's interest in this little spirit that eluded her baits had been piqued and she had set out to capture it personally. It had taken her a two-candlemark pursuit to finally trap the entity in a single room. Vrigdell's major weakness was that it had no mechanisms of aggression, unlike its larger and more powerful brethren that could emit piercing hisses and other deafening sounds. Amelia had simply saturated the room with Hagstones, forcing the infuriated spirit to flee to the only place that was not plagued with these hollowed rocks - her cage. And that that been the one fatal mistake it had made.

The other spirit Amelia was looking for, Yuboess, was definitely the most powerful out of the four she had selected. In fact, it was the only one that had been given a larger container than the tiny vials reserved for D-rank spirits. It was still a small box, but roughly three times as large... and Amelia could not find it, despite knowing that it had to be on the shelves.

"Interesting..." she murmured, the realization dawning on her. This litte one was smart. It had hidden itself from view - how intriguing.

Having concluded that her eyes were being deceived, Amelia began to explore the shelves with her hands, even parts that looked empty in the half-darkness of the windowless room. And finally, her fingers came across something that had merged with the shadows themselves, tricking her sight. Yuboess, a Darkness spirit... and one smart enough to affect its own cage with its power. Once removed from the shelves, the box became fully visible once more and Amelia set it aside for later use, the item casting shadows that were longer than anything should have been able to in this room. "The four of you and the ghost of Noir will do just fine," said the girl, "now, to find suitable containers..."

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The four spirits set aside for later use, Amelia gathered her supplies and readied the future containers. She started with the lowliest among the five she wanted to craft, the 'waste of space' Ewelieke. Some spirits were the epitome of the quality they represented - others were not so fortunate. It was said that a feeling, an emotion, an abundance of something was enough to generate one of these creatures, but much like mortals, they were not born equal. Some could give pause to the mightiest of adventurers with their abilities, and some could do little more than float around with the breeze, without an ability, without a purpose.

Ewelieke happened to be one such spirit. Without any special skills to its name, the spirit simply existed and carried itself around. This was not to say that these creatures were totally useless - they just had to be employed as unskilled labor and given the simplest of tasks, as Amelia intended to do. This was why she had brought the bell. Not a brass bell, of course, as those would hurt the spirit continuously, and the girl did not wish to torture it. Weakness was something the girl despised, but not something she punished.

It was an ornate bell, pleasing to the eye. An interesting piece she had eyed one day at the Kirin market and purchased specifically for this. The girl sat at her table and placed a chicken cage on it - one converted into a spirit cage, of course, with the addition of blood markings and various other small wicker fetishes. Having put on her special silk gloves, she inserted Ewelieke's vial in the cage and closed it. Around that time the water for her tea had reached its boiling point. Amelia had learned to use strong spiced tea as Ambrosia, its major advantage being that it took little space and evaporated quickly, so that one could use it as bait inside an item and it would dry in a matter of minutes.

Next, the girl indulged in some artistry as she picked up her brush and dipped it in goat's blood, drawing a small blood ring on the inside of the bell. She did not close the ring, though, and instead poured a few drops of hot Ambrosia tea into the silver trinket. She placed it inside the cage and closed it once again. At this point, maneuvering small metal tongs through the bars of the cage, Amelia uncorked Ewelieke's vial. The spirit immediately flew out of its prison, only to find itself in another, bigger prison. After a few failed attempts at breaking through, the lure of Ambrosia proved too difficult to resist for the spirit, which drifted inside the bell.

All too easy. Amelia picked up the bell with the tong and added the last, tiny stroke of blood that completed the ring, thus trapping Ewelieke inside the item. "Done," she said. "Now let me append your signature so this bell becomes one with you." The witch removed the bell from the cage, now that the spirit was bound to it, and went about designing a unique sigil that would serve as Ewelieke's signature. She used her tiniest brush and drew the sigil on the inside of the bell, thus declaring that the spirit and its prison were one and the same.

"Now, this is what I want you to do. This bell comes with a box. When outside the box, you will shake the bell and make it ring whenever someone approaches you at one arm's length. It is a pretty simple task, and it should not be too much trouble. In exchange for this service, you will be free ten patterns from now. Will you accept these terms?" The spirit, offered freedom after a term of service, immediately expressed its agreement. Ten patterns was better than... mostly anything else in its current state.

"So it shall be written, so it shall be done," Amelia gave a tiny smile and placed the bell on the table. It immediately began to ring, signaling her presence. She stored it in its box, and the chiming stopped, as it was supposed to. One down, four to go.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Having dealt with Ewelieke, it was now Zallsteirn's turn. The rain spirit was growing restless, moisture dancing inside its vial. Nothing worrisome or enough to threaten the integrity of its prison, but annoying enough for Amelia to select it as the next specimen. Now, rain spirits came in many forms and guises, and the most powerful among them could no doubt change the weather and bring down heavy precipitation and monsoons. Yet, Zallsteirn was nowhere as powerful, and a much more modest, yet still useful, task would have to be chosen for it.

Amelia repeated the same process as before, except this time it was no silver bell being used, but a green emerald. This one had not been very expensive to purchase because the jeweler had made a mistake in the cutting, and there were a couple unnecessary facets to the square cut, thus diminishing the value of the stone. It would still serve Amelia's purpose to perfection.

The only difference was that this time, she used older and thicker blood, mixed with a small amount of glue so that it would better adhere to the surface of the gem. She applied the blood with a tiny brush, which would have to be discarded afterwards. Zallsteirn did not immediately bite on the Ambrosia bait, and instead tried to escape the cage as a small ball of concentrated fog. It failed. Amelia had been taught too well to be fooled by such low-level spirits. In the end, it succumbed to the call of Ambrosia and Amelia finished painting the small sigil upon the gem. There, trapped.

She opened the cage and examined the emerald through her golden-framed pince-nez. "Zallsteirn, this is the deal I wish to strike with you. For the next ten patterns, you will reside within this emerald, longing to see the sky, to feel the rain, to be one with it. I hereby give you permission to shed tears of rain. I am asking you to cry moisture whenever you feel the rain approaching the next brightening." "Oh witch, it is a cruel thing you demand of me," the spirit moaned, "do you value my tears so?"

"Your tears are of no consequences to me. You are paying for a mistake you made, and will do so for the next ten patterns. But there are those among the living who are interested in predicting a rainfall. Cry then, and yearn for what you no longer have." Reluctantly, the spirit agreed to the deal. Amelia could feel the gem becoming wet with water exuding from the emerald - it was going to rain soon.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The next spirit, she was going to have some fun with. The smart one, Vrigdell. A Sound spirit, whose ilk was often born from places of abundant noise and commotion filling the air... whether from human activity or natural forces. The most powerful among them could easily pierce a man's ears with a tremendous scream, but Vrigdell had probably been generated by the activity of quieter sentient minds. While a minor spirit, it had displayed good intellectual properties, which Amelia was going to leverage on.

The binding part was pretty much identical to the other two spirits before it. This time, the girl picked a beautiful seashell as its prison, a truly pretty specimen with white-to-brown coils and even some orange veins. Once the spirit was bound inside the shell, Amelia retrieved it from the cage and went about instructing it on its future mode of operation. Of all the spirits she was going to make functional today, Vrigdell would have the most complex behavior by far.

"Well then, Vrigdell, what I am asking of you is to memorize sounds and replay them at a later time. Should not be too difficult for one with your abilities. Can you repeat what I am saying?"

The spirit was silent for a few seconds. "How long would I have to do this?" "Ten pattens, like everyone else," Amelia answered promptly. "Now show me what you can do - you will stay in that shell indefinitely if you cannot prove useful to me." Amelia's patience with the spirits was quite short these days. Really, these beings were just things, or cattle if one was feeling more generous.

Vrigdell fell silent once more, but suddenly one could hear a faint sound coming from the shell. "... prove useful to me." Amelia gave a pleased smile upon hearing her own voice streaming from the inside of the shell. "Excellent. Now let me explain your mode of operation. People will be able to speak into the shell or bring their ear near it to listen. Before they can do either, however, they will have to speak your name into the shell." This would make the shell into a safe communication device. No written words, just a spirit's sound memory - pun intended. And only those who knew Vrigdell's name would be able to record and listen to a message.

"After they have prounounced your name, they will be able to leave a message with you by speaking into the shell, or listen to the last message. Do you understand that, Vrigdell? Do you agree to do this in exchange for your freedom in ten patterns?" As predicted, the spirit gave its agreement. Amelia tested the shell, recording a short message and then bringing her ear near the shell to listen to the sound of her own voice. What a cute accessory.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Next came Yuboess, the most powerful out of the spirits she had selected. Darkness spirits came in many forms and shapes, and some could be downright deadly, like two Amelia had faced in the past and then later used to survive a bloody battle in the Nexian forests. Yuboess had not originated in a particularly cold area, though, and as such it lacked the heat-draining abilities that those spirits had. This did not make it useless, though. If anything, it made the creature safer to handle.

Amelia's strange sense of irony showed in the choice of container for the spirit - a lantern. She had found an ornate metal design at the Kirin Bazaar, a hexagonal shape with amber-colored opaque glass windows for candlelight to filter through. All in all, a somewhat gloomy shape, which made it perfect for its intended use. Besides, Amelia liked gloomy things.

Yuboess' ability to affect the shadows even outside its container had been proved just minutes earlier. Now it was being stored in a new prison made for that very purpose. Amelia was pleased with the result - runes of blood painted on the underside and inner walls of the lantern kept the Darkness spirit in and unable to leave. Also, it was unable to touch the candle because of a Simple Circle the witch painted around it in blood. Since the candle being lit was the trigger for Yuboess' activation, having the spirit be able to affect the candle could give it some form of control. While it was a harmless one, it was not a stupid one.

The terms of the contract were very simple - for the next ten patterns, every time the candle inside was lit, Yuboess was to cast shadows around itself. A shadow lantern. Amelia immediately proceeded to test it thoroughly. It indeed projected shadows and darkness in all directions; not enough to completely hide what was around it, but acting as an anti-light source to be sure. In a well-lit room, Yuboess was able to make the carrier like they were standing in the shadow of a wall. In a dark or dimly illuminated one, it acted like a cloak of shadows, and it could probably make someone stealthy enough to pass through such areas much more safely.

And that only left the ghost to deal with.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

It was now Noir's turn. Amelia had to put the cat's ghost to good use, but ghosts offered very different challenges from spirits... especially animals' ghosts. Because her style focused on verbal contracts, Amelia was not particularly specialized in animal communication and as such, she would have to keep things extremely simple with Noir. Basically letting him follow his nature and instinct, though in a way that would not harm anyone. The cat had demonstrated a certain mischievous character that made him somewhat unreliable, after all.

Amelia decided that Noir's hunter instinct would make him an ideal guardian against rodents and other typical cat's preys. With that in mind, she procured a beautiful golden pin in the shape of a cat, and used that as the cage to hold him in. The process for trapping the ghost inside the pin was slightly more complicated, since the animal had a larger spiritual mass. Amelia had to progressively shrink the cat by moving him through several cages of smaller and smaller size, to which he had to adapt. In the end, she performed the last step much like with the four spirits, applying Ambrosia and luring him into the pin, and then painting it with blood. The sigils were intentionally left incomplete, a single stroke missing from the script, thus loosening the barrier. Amelia had mastered the language to a proficiency level where she could voluntarily weaken the spirit script. Weaker, but still functional.

And thus, the result was pretty much what she had expected it would be. Noir was able to leave the pin for a very short amount of time, during which he roamed the yard of her Lorka curiously, and then flew back with an ethereal meow into his golden prison, which he seemed to enjoy, after all. Spirits and ghosts had different tastes, after all. Amelia was ready to bet that he would make a good guardian for granaries and other storage sites for delicate wares. She picked up the pin and put it with the rest of the item.

It had been a nice brightening's work for the witch, who was now looking forward to the best part of the trade - getting paid, of course.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

[Gossamer]

Approved! + 1 Adjuration! Items fully approved.