I turned to him. “Light and fire?”
He nodded. “If we’re making this similar to Dawnbringer, her rays use both light and fire. And you’re going to want some enhancement and transference, too.”
“I can do the same thing for those, but just to be clear, these won’t actually do anything other than put mana in the weapon and store it. I’m not sure how to let it do Dawnbringer’s fire attack.”
Keras shook his head. “You won’t have to. Once it has all the right types of mana in it, I should be able to give the weapon the functions it needs.”
I frowned. “I thought you couldn’t make runes on your own, though.”
“That’s what the bond is for. Well, one element of it, anyway. Once there’s mana in there, I can work with it. And, to be clear, I can make runes. They just work somewhat differently.”
Okay, fair enough.
I started flipping through my books, finding all the relevant runes and thinking. “How high of a capacity do you want on these?”
Keras shrugged. “As high as you can go?”
I’d expected that. “Best I can handle is Sunstone, even if I’m just doing the containers. And the containers are only a tiny fraction of the total mana necessary for the enchantment.”
“Can you put multiple containment runes on it for a higher capacity?”
I raised a hand to my lips, considering how best to explain. “Yes, but any individual spell effect can only draw from one capacity rune at a time. That means the strongest spells an item can cast can’t take up more mana than what a single capacity rune would hold. Also, you need a separate recharging rune for each capacity rune, and that gets expensive and time consuming.”
“Okay, that’s good to know. I won’t put any spells on it that take up more than the mana capacity of one container, then. If you can handle the containers, I can handle the rest. We can upgrade the rune to a higher level when you get powerful enough to do that. At that point, I can enhance the sword’s other capabilities.”
“Where should I put the runes?”
Keras pointed at an empty section on the crossguard, just above the grip. “Here. You’re going to use that tool?”
I nodded.
“I’ll make it easier.”
He touched the crossguard. The metal softened.
“That’s a pretty amazing trick.”
With the softened metal, it was easy to etch the runes into the surface. When I was done, Keras waved his hand again, cleaning up any imperfections in my cuts and hardening the metal again.
I was a little jealous. Enchanting would be much easier if I could do that.
But etching was always the easy part, anyway. Now came the hard part.
I checked the exact amount of gray mana necessary to make a container for each rune, then got to work.
And for once, my work was easier than I expected.
Making the containers in the runes was very nearly identical to making a mana crystal, just in a rune shape instead of a prism shape. It was even easier in some respects, since the containers were designed to be hollow and extremely thin.
The total mana requirement for a Sunstone-level container was 7.2 mana, or one fiftieth of a Class 3 mana crystal. I’d only managed to make crystals that held three mana before, but I’d made them in droves without much effort once I’d gotten the hang of it.
This was harder, but within my capabilities. A Citrine-level shell would have been six times more, though, and I didn’t think I had a chance of handling that.
And certainly not twelve of them in a day.
I made six shells, took a break for an hour, and then made six more.
When I was done, Keras tried to charge one.
It shattered instantly.
There was a flicker of light in the rune, but fortunately, no explosion.
Keras muttered a curse I didn’t recognize, and I rebuilt it. Then he tried again. This time, a bit more slowly.
After a minute, his jaw had tensed, and he was breathing heavily…but the rune began to glow.
Keras pulled his hand away, taking a deep breath. “One down.”
Eleven to go.
I let Keras charge the other two light runes before I got an idea. “Hey, Patrick.”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you try charging one of the fire runes? I mean, at least part way. It’s going to be your sword.”
“C…can I?” He looked positively gleeful at the idea.
“Yeah, but to be clear, you’re not going to be able to fill it all the way up. These are Sunstone-level runes. I’m doing the easy part, which is only seven mana each. Keras has been putting three hundred and sixty mana into them.”
I didn’t say it, but Keras didn’t look any more tired than when he’d started. The only stress for him seemed to come from channeling the mana slowly enough to avoid breaking the runes or the weapon itself.
I handed Patrick the mana watch. “Check your total.”
“Uh, it says 49?”
“Okay, good. Just about the same as my attunement. We’ll get you stronger, but for now, let’s be safe. You’re going to channel 30 mana in there, then stop. Then Keras will handle the remaining 330.”
Patrick grinned. “Got it.”
Derek sat down across from us. “You know what? I can help, too. I’ll finish the fire runes so Keras can rest. Assuming you all want me to.”
Patrick clapped his hands together. “More the merrier!”
Keras gave Derek a nod. “I’d be grateful for your help. The fewer runes I have to handle myself, the fewer chances I have to break it.”
Patrick seemed to struggle to put enough mana into the rune at first. I couldn’t blame him, he’d probably never used more than a couple points to activate an item, and casting a spell probably felt completely different.
But, all told, it only took him a few minutes to get the thirty mana into the first fire rune.
Derek finished the rest of it in under a minute. And, of course, he didn’t look tired at all.
In spite of his usual attitude, though, I don’t think Derek was just trying to show off the fact that he could help as easily as Keras could. When he smiled afterward and shook Patrick’s hand, I saw true comradery there.
Making something, it seemed, brought out the best in all of us.
Transference mana was last. I was tempted to try to do some of it myself, but after thirteen runes at 7.2 mana each, my hand was burning pretty bad. Taking the break in the middle had been smart, but it hadn’t been long enough for me to completely recover from that level of strain. I could have drawn from my mental mana, but I didn’t want to.
So, I let Keras handle it. He seemed to have an easier time with these, going through them faster without breaking a single one.
And then it was done. Twelve runes glowing on the hilt.
“Okay, great.” Keras took a breath. “Now, let’s get the other side.”
I stared at him incredulously. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all. Need to make sure the sides of the sword match. And besides, I’m going to need more mana to work with.”
I sighed. “Fine, fine. But first, I need a break. Can you tell us what the rest of the items do?”
“Fine, fine. Let’s go.”
We headed back over to the item pile.
That foreboding looking dagger with the black aura?
It was gone.
I stared at the spot where it’d been lying last. Keras was staring right along with me.
“That’s bad,” I offered.
“Really bad,” he agreed.
We spent the next hour or so searching the house for the missing weapon, but with no success.
Patrick voiced what I suspected most of us were wondering. “How’d it disappear? Daggers don’t just get up and walk away…do they?”