"Okay, it is not a rune," Eldrian confirmed, instructing Myropsis on what to envision next. How she should envision the water forming a thin film of water droplets that would reflect light like polished metal or a mirror.
Nodding, Myropsis repeated the test. This time it took far longer as her focus was more split, but in the end, it succeeded.
"It worked! It worked!!!" Jumping up and down in excitement, Myropsis only barely managed to contain herself. Nodding, Eldrian smiled watching her. As he did he wondered how Vivian was doing and a part of him even felt slightly guilty.
Shaking off these unnecessary feelings, he mumbled while clasping his hand in victory, 'Now, I have a way!'
For the rest of the day, Eldrian repeated the same with his wish for how recording should work. Since he lacked true scientific understanding, he made his own through intuition and trial and error.
Taking a small piece of Mithril, Eldrian worked the metal a bit with the little forge they had brought into the room for just this. He turned it into a small ball shape with a crystal slot at the bottom the size of the smallest mana crystals.
Adding the mirror symbol to the ball, Eldrian connected it with a simple pathway to the crystal where he made the dot rune. The idea was that when activated that the crystal would supply the mana and when exhausted it would break the circuit if someone forgot the disable it after. Saving the Mithril at least.
The reason he wanted to do it this way was that the normal runes normally required a form of authentication. He had this feeling that this one would be able to skip that irritating requirement.
"Why don't we use quartz?" Myropsis asked as she saw Eldrian's design.
"Quartz?"
"Yeah, they're like very lacking mana crystals."
Eldrian smiled, that was perfect! "Sure! Let's test it." With this change, the failsafe would only cost a couple of coppers instead of five gold!
Once they had made the change, and after multiple repeats to get the appearing mirror's location in the right location through playing with a couple of runes, they finally succeeded. With the ball on the table, when activated it appeared around a hand's length above the ball.
"Is this the next part?" Myropsis asked, handing Eldrian the flowchart they had made, showing that from here the visual and audio should be saved in the Mov Crystal.
"Yes, any ideas?"
"There are some air spells that are used to funnel. And what of Epignosi?"
Diving into a discussion, the two tried to decipher how Epignosi returned feedback to the caster of the environment it scouted. Also linking other spells and skills such as Observe, Inspect, Mana Examination, and so forth.
After a productive day, Eldrian had a clear image of what he needed to envision for the spell to work. He now needed to find a form that he could represent it as. However, as they were brainstorming Maia knocked on the door. Pausing what he was doing, Eldrian smiled and told her to come in.
Maia entered the room while filled with awe, most of what was scattered around the room made no sense to her but she felt that it all contained boundless knowledge.
"Maia, Maia. Maia. Maia!" Eldrian repeated for the fourth time and finally, she snapped out of her daze. Turning red, she seek a place to hide but sadly there was none.
Pushing back her shoulders, determined to face the shame of being caught in her own thoughts before her lord, she looked at Eldrian... And faltered.
"Is Vivian awake?" Eldrian asked, giving her a lifeboat which she grabbed at light speed.
"Yes, she finally exited her meditation a few hours ago. She's eaten and is resting and asked me to tell you that she was fine."
"That's a relief." Eldrian could feel one of the many weights being lifted from his shoulders, "How is she?"
Maia paused, unsure if she should say more. Seeing Eldrian's gaze she continued, "She's lost a lot of weight, but she appears to be well... Oh, right! Remember that tomorrow the refugees will be here!"
'Oh, shit, I almost forgot.' Turning to the mess of drawings, failed tries, and so much more, Eldrian sighed. He had hoped he would be able to finish before their arrival. 'No, if we push on then we should be able to finish today!'
"Myropsis," Nodding, she smiled as she dived back into work. "Maia, can you get us some refreshments, we are going to be pulling an all-nighter."
...
Watching as Maia poured the tea, Myropsis's eyes flashed with inspiration. "Eldrian! Look!" Her shout caused poor Maia to spill, but neither of them even noticed as Eldrian immediately grasped what Myropsis was thinking.
"Brilliant!" Eldrian quickly turned to the air and what he did caused the rest of the tea to end up on abandoned notes as Maia simply couldn't look away.
Eldrian activated the first ball he had made, showing himself drawing streams of ethereal mists towards something. He then activated the second ball and made the connection himself for this attempt.
The streams seemingly came to life, taking on a rainbow of colors as the second ball that Myropsis had made started showing the same visuals as the first.
Smiling, Eldrian disconnected the two and instead moved the streams of 'data' to the Mov Crystal. They had yet to add any permanent runes to it, so for now it shouldn't do anything. However, as Eldrian sent the 'data' to it, it started to glow in a soft purple.
Eldrian lost focus seeing the glow, pausing, he wondered if he had been overthinking things. 'How do the dimensional storages work?'
Sadly, there was no way he could get his hands on documents that were so valuable. There wasn't even someone who knew in the city, so of course, he couldn't even ask anyone. However, Myropsis had a dimensional ring.
"No, don't look at me like that!" Myropsis shouted, running to hide behind Maia who became completely flustered as she finally realized the mess she had made.
"Stop being like that, I just want your neckless."
"My- No way! I know what your thinking, there's no way!"
"Come on, this is for progress!" Eldrian countered, slowly moving closer like some kind of creep. This finally caused Maia to be unable to contain herself, picking up the half-filled cup of tea she threw this at Eldrian who was too stunned to even move.
The scalding hot tea splashed over his face as Maia turned ashen from her actions. Falling to the ground and completely messing up her dress in all the spilled tea and scattered, she begged for forgiveness.
"It's okay," Eldrian said, smiling. His skin turned red yet he showed no sign of recognizing the pain he should be in at the moment. "I'm sorry for scaring you, are you hurt?" Eldrian asked, offering her his hand as he hoped that the spilled tea hadn't burned her.
Maia turned beet red but sheepishly accept the offered hand, only to turn even redder as she realized that her dress was now completely clinging to her.
Smack!
Stunned, Eldrian touched his cheek and looked at Myropsis questioningly. She however had quickly covered Maia and was taking the poor girl out of the room to get changed.
"What did I do?" Eldrian asked, rubbing his cheek and wondering why it didn't hurt.
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