I sat on the floor, laying the gauntlet down flat on my “enchanting tile”, a square of wood that I used to center whatever I was working on. I laid down my enchanting book on the left side of the tile and my measuring implements on the right.
The exact size of a rune wasn’t important. You could make a tiny rune on the side of a jewel if you knew how. The proportions and angles of lines on each symbol were supposedly relevant to the function, though, so I’d have to measure those. I didn’t know how exact I needed to be, but I was going to take my time on this one.
Before I started, I used four clamps to attach the demi-gauntlet to the wooden board. It moved a little if I lifted the wood, but it was pretty steady once I put it down.
“I’m making a gauntlet that will serve as an emergency weapon. I don’t know what I’m calling it yet. Blasting gauntlet, maybe? Power glove?”
Sera snorted. “Power glove sounds pretty bad.”
“I’ll think of something better. Anyway, I’m going to try to give it two different functions: raw mana projection and kinetic energy projection. In theory, I’ll be able to use one at a time or both at once. This is going to make the enchanting process a bit complicated.”
“Okay.” She sat down across from me. “And I’m here to…?”
“Go get help if I explode?”
“Oh, got it. Can I laugh at you first?”
“Heh. You’ve never asked for permission before.”
“Right you are. Okay, let the fireworks begin.”
I rolled my eyes. It comforted me to have Sera around in case this went badly, even if she’d never let me forget about it. Bringing a Mender would have probably been more logical, but I didn’t know any of them very well yet. In retrospect, maybe “healing” should have been on my list of things to consider for enchantments, but I was committed by that point.
“All right, first thing I’m doing is setting up capacity runes for each type of mana. These prevent the gauntlet from containing more than a certain amount of mana of that type.”
I opened up a container of paint and dipped my brush in it. I’d write the runes out in paint first, verify the dimensions, and then etch into the metal using my other tools if the rune had been drawn correctly. More experienced Enchanters could jump straight to etching, but I was working with runes I’d only practiced on paper — the risk was too great.
I drew three capacity runes: one for gray mana; one for transference; and one for mind. I checked them, wiped the mind one, and redid it twice more before I was satisfied.
“What’s the third one for?”
I pointed at the mind one. “This one is going to connect to a rune that detects when I want the gauntlet to activate. If it was like a cane, it’d just activate whenever I was in contact with an activation rune. Which would be all the time, since I’m going to be wearing it.”
“It senses your thoughts? Isn’t that really advanced?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not sensing my thoughts exactly… it just waits for me to send a bit of mental mana into the rune, then it activates the other rune functions.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
I flashed her a quick smile, then refocused. “Going to have to be quiet for a second for this part, I need to concentrate while I engrave.”
I adjusted my clamps to make sure the gauntlet was going to stay where it was and picked up the engraving rod. It was one of the simplest Enchanter implements, and the first one I’d learned to use. It looked like an ink pen with a tiny gemstone on the tip and a few runes written on the side. I pressed the activation rune, which caused the tip of the rod to vibrate rapidly. When I pressed against the metal, the vibrating tip cut into the surface of the gauntlet.
Slowly, I traced the painted runes. It only took a few minutes, but I was sweating by the time I turned the engraver off.
“Okay, first step done.”
I set the engraver down and used a pair of wet and dry cloths to wipe off the remaining paint. After that, I reviewed the runes. The lengths and angles looked fine, as far as I could tell.
“Not bad. So, you can enchant it now?”
I chuckled. “That’s three runes out of twelve. Next, I put in the recharging runes. They’ll let it draw on ambient mana to refill each mana type up to the capacity over time. Then, I put in the function runes, the ones that actually make the item do anything. After that, it’s the activation runes, which tell it when to do it.”
Sera frowned. “Don’t you only need one activation rune? The mind one?”
I blinked. “I mean… I was going to make the mind rune activate the other two activation runes… but maybe I could skip that step?”
I paused for a minute, frowning as I considered. “I don’t actually know if one activation rune can trigger three functions or not. I could try—
“Wait,” I interrupted my own train of thought. “I’m doing this all wrong. I need two different mind runes either way, or I’m going to always activate the gray and the transference runes at the same time.”
Sera leaned forward, looking at the gauntlet. “Yeah, but I still don’t see why you’d need other activation runes. You’re only activating it one way, yeah? Can’t you connect one mind rune to each function rune?”
“I’m not sure. That’s never how they show it in the introductory book…but to be fair, I skipped the intermediate ones and most of this comes from a more advanced book.”
She side-eyed me. “Maybe you’re thinking too much about what the book says and not enough about what makes sense.”
“I could look it up, I suppose.” I shook my head. “But I’d never get back to it on time for the tests if I stop now. I’ll finish this one the way I was planning to, but that is an interesting idea. It’d save me time and materials if it works. I’ll look it up later.”
She grinned at me. “Maybe for when you make me one.”
I found myself smiling back. “Sure,” I said. That was the first indication she’d given me that she was interested in one of my items. It was kind of nice. I liked feeling like I could do something useful. “As soon as you can afford one.”
“Charging your family? You cut deep, Corin. Here I am, risking my life — my very existence — to help make sure you finish your first item properly…”
“It’s not my first item, it’s my first high risk item. But your point is taken, Sera. I’ll make you something.”
She made a gesture of victory and I grinned as I resumed my work.
“All right, time to test this thing out.”
Fortunately, there was a whole section of buildings dedicated to enchanting, and a number of “gray chambers” set aside for testing new equipment. I hadn’t bothered to use one before, since my previous enchantments were so simplistic, but this probably warranted a degree of caution. Even if the gauntlet worked correctly, it was going to fire a blast of mana that was more powerful than any weapon I’d used before. Firing off bursts of energy in random places wasn’t exactly wise.
I signed the paperwork to use one of the chambers, and Sera and I stepped inside. We were assured that the chambers were monitored and that Menders would be close by if anything went wrong.
We stepped inside the assigned room.
It was small, about the same size as a single dorm room. The walls were gray stone. I didn’t recognize the type of stone… maybe that was the source of the name of the rooms? I activated my attunement, noting that the stone had a soft glow, but I didn’t see any runes on the inside of the room. If it had them, they’d done the smart thing and put them outside of the chamber. Otherwise, I’d have to guess the stone had inherent magical properties. Possibly both.