From Sol Invictus

Book02: The Red Dagger

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Summary: Cerin uses a laboratory in Rathess to investigate the strange weapon given to him by Lai.

XP:C1

Cerin is careful he is not followed as he slips towards the lab he found out about from Ssithumi, its in one of the more ruined areas, though the door, designed to protect the rest of the city from what happened within, had withstood the passing of the ages without being breeched/

Though dust gathers in the laboratory, it otherwise appears to be basically intact.

• Cerin enguages the safety locks on the doors, then carefully searches for the machinery he wants. After a short time he finds the set of Jade clamps he wants, then he calls the Cache egg to the table, opening it, and withdrawing the dagger, unwrapping it from the shirt it was placed in
• Cerin then secures the hilt of the dagger in the clamp, then starts to examine it very carefully with his sight, watching how the essence moves within it, and about it

The dagger gleams a dark, brick red under the lights of the laboratory.

The Essence of the blade does in fact match closely with Lai's, much like an orichalcum blade clearly belongs to a Solar Exalt. The Essence flows through the metal are unusually elaborate and curvy, compared to the simple straightforward lines of Orichalcum or the angular fractals of Starmetal.

The purpose of the artifact is frustratingly obfuscated -- a closer look would definitely be necessary to determine it's purpose.

• Cerin starts to search the lab for an essence focusing lense, and when he locates that, a pipette capable of driping measured amouts of essence.

After some rummaging through broken or mysterious materials, both can be located.

• Cerin fills the pipette with his essence, then moves the lense on his stand over to the dagger, examining the magnified essence flows through the lens

Through the lens, the true detail of the Essence flows can be seen. The weapon seems to bear an elaborate Essence inversion that's almost inperceptible at higher levels, but which can be clearly observed when each thread is traced separately. Such a construction is drastically abnormal.

• Cerin starts to sketch the flows and how they interact. Once he has mapped all the flows to paper, he puts his eye to the lens again, and watches as he drops a single mote of essence upon the metal of the blade

The dagger is about one foot long. The blade is a very slightly curved double-edged blade with a blood channel, made of smooth red metal; beneath that, there is a simple handguard which juts out to both sides. The handle is wrapped with a black leather, and bears a gemstone of brilliant blue in the hilt.

• Cerin will devote some time first to studying the gem then, is it a normal gem?

The gemstone seems to be utterly mundane, serving only as a placeholder to fill the space required by the specific construction of Essence flows.

• Cerin drips the first drop onto flat of the blade, away from the blood channel

The essence is absorbed by the channels within the blade and begins to be carried away by them -- its brilliant yellow still visible against the light rose of the blade's native channels -- but the channels in the hilt seem to be locked down, preventing the Solar essence from continuing its movement.

• Cerin frowns at the dagger, studying the mote to watch if it fades, and if it does not trying to tilt the dagger to see if it will fall out

The mote continues to push against the blockade, then slowly is absorbed.

• Cerin tilts the dagger onto its side, so that one of the edges is pointing up. Then he drips a mote onto the edge.

The mote is propelled with a much greater force through the path laid within the blade, but once again comes to a dead stop against the hilt.

• Cerin wonders if Ssithumi could make a trap to catch the essence of the stars
• Cerin moves the dagger so it is blade down, introducing a mote to the gemstone

A drop of Essence placed into the gemstone spreads out through the gem's facets and becomes absorbed by the hilt. It continues to spread until it has suffused the entire hilt with a pale yellow glow, filling various niches and cul-de-sacs prepared for that purpose. At the top of the hilt, the closed Essence gateways shift just a bit.... after about thirty seconds, the charge fades and all returns to normal.

• Cerin will repeat that, this time marking down the flows on a sheet of paper.

The Essence flows in the handle clearly seem to indicate pathways and containers for committed essence.

There are two sets of pathways in the hilt: one which control the attunement process, and one which connect with the pathways in the blade. Only the former been able to activate.

• Cerin will introduce some more motes to the blade, from himself this time.

As with previous motes, those introduced directly to the blade strike the gateways at the edge of the hilt and cannot advance further.

• Cerin will add them through the hilt then. attuning to it.
• Cerin watches the blade carefully as he does

After the careful introduction of 6 motes of Essence, the containers within the hilt are full, and the Essence gateways at the top of the hilt fully open; now, the pathways in the blade and the hilt fully connect to one another.

• Cerin smiles to himself, and drips a mote onto the blade

The mote begins to move through the circular pathway described through the dagger, easily clearing the Essence gateways, shooting through the hilt, and back through the blade again. It continues to pick up speed for several seconds until it gains enough momentum -- and is forcefully expelled out of the blade, striking the wall of the workshop and leaving a slight burn mark.

• Cerin repeats the experiment, but with a two mote drop

The motes race through the blade significantly more quickly, and explode out with more force -- enough to break the surface of the wall, several feet away.

Upon close inspection, the Essence channels in the blade seem to have frayed ever so slightly since the experiment began.

• Cerin needs less potent essence to experiment with.
• Cerin releases the dagger from the clamps, and very carefully deattunes to it, checking to ensure the gates at the base of the blade are closed. He then restores the blade to its position in his Cache egg, then he ventures to one of the libaries in Rathess, seeking a book on the concept behind the weapon. He finds one, though it is little more than an introduction.

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