Side Story: The Bases of Magic 5 – Enchantment

“The Argument can be made that Enchantment is NOT its own school of magic.” Uklag says, “But instead a third kind of Transmutation, magical Transmutation to be exact.” He takes the wooden block and looks at it for a few seconds. “Absolute fucking nonsense of you ask me.” He slams it on the table. “Enchantment is the master discipline of all magic schools. Period. To be a good enchanter you need to understand the theories of all magic and the materials you work with. But enough rambling let’s talk about what Enchantment really is.”

He grabs a small knife and carves runes into the block. “Enchantment is the art to give an object a magical property via transmutation and another magical school. Most people use Evocation as the added property and indeed most if not all legendary weapons of our time have been enchanted with Evocation. Swords that burn once certain works are spoke, spears that call upon thunder or bows that fire frozen arrows, never running out of ammunition and freezing opponents from the inside. Personally I have a lot of fun with Alteration, collars that provoke lust in whoever wears them foe example. I even heard of amulets with demons bound to them, allowing even non-magicians to call them. Another use is to pair Transmutation with Transmutation, producing things like Alratha’s near indestructible glass weapons. But how exactly does it work?”

Uklag blows away a few pieces of wood and looks at the block again, every side has a single rune carved into it. “Enchantment works in three steps: Infusion, Source and Condition. The very first step is to transmute the object.” He puts the block in the middle of the chalk drawn runes again. “And instead of changing its form, albeit you can do that in the same moment as well, you change its magical matrix. Every inanimate object has no magical matrix by nature, but different materials hold a different structure of groundworks you can abuse or you have to work around, wood is a generally very easy material to enchant while higher metals tend to be harder to work with but can hold more power in return.” Catherine looks as Uklag touches the cube, the rune on the upper side suddenly flickers.

“I have infused it now with the magical matrix of fire Evocation, but where does the enchantment takes it power from? That is the second step, Source. The usual idea is that mages charge the item with their own magical power so that everyone can use it without drawbacks. Of course that power will deplete eventually and the enchanter has to recharge it, but with the right materials you can put enough power into an items to sustain it for near infinity. Another idea is to have the item work only when a magician puts power into it. The advantage is that mages could use schools of magic they were not taught in with the use of these items, the drawback of course being that ONLY mages can use these items. Lastly there is the method of absorption, it uses the wielder’s stamina and energy to cast. This can lead to many problems as the lesser minds call these items ‘cursed’, but it is the method I use most of the time. To be fair my items are also not exactly orthodox so maybe cursed is a fitting description.” Uklag laughs as he thinks about all the different torture items that he will never have to worry about. “These three ideas or methods are called, Charged Source, Cast Source and Parasitic Source.”

Catherine raises her hand and Uklag allows her to speak. “Can you use the Parasitic Source to make a sword that steals the opponent’s strength to keep itself burning for example?” Uklag shakes his head, “The theory has been tested before and while it is possible there are two problems with it. First you would need prolonged contact with the victim and if you manage to stab somebody chances are that you have won anyway, second is that even if you manage to stab them and find usage for it items will always consume their primary source, that being the wielder, before going over to the next one. You can make things like a collar that burns whoever wears it and fuel it by the wearer’s stamina, but that is the normal Parasitic Source again.”

Catherine understands and Uklag continues. He leans his staff against his shoulder to put his second hand on the rune that had flickered earlier. “I have now given it the Charge Source and the only thing missing is the condition. Condition is always up to your imagination and to this day there are items that are clearly magical but which’s condition has yet to be discovered.” He raises his hand and suddenly a small flame flickers above the rune. “I made the condition ‘The rune must be in the open’ so it activated once my hand was no longer blocking it.”

Uklag puts both of his hands on the chalk runes. “You can enchant something multiple times as well, but you can never change Source or Condition, only add Infusions. You might want to take a step back.” Catherine obeys and watches as one rune after another starts to glow and spew out some kind of magic, weak but clearly visible. Uklag takes a step back as well and waits. Then the cube explodes into a small elemental storm adding small pieces of frozen or burnt wood to the other waste on the table. “Many materials can’t hold to many infusions.” He explains. “Especially not if the enchanter doesn’t know how to correctly place magical matrixes next to each other. If an object is Over-Infused the matrixes collapse and consume all of the energy provided to them at once. Not particularly dangerous when you only use small amounts of Charge Source but when a powerful human dies through that effect and is dumb enough to let his whole life force be consumed the resulting explosion can go up to 20 metres in diameter.”

The witch has stepped back to the explosion site and looks at the remains of the block. “Can this be weaponized?” she asks with great interest. “To unstable, the matrix can collapse at any given second or take a few days, it will always explode over the span of a week though.” Uklag says. “Usually you can feel it when the process sets in, just drop the thing and get a good amount of distance between you.”

Catherine nods as Uklag takes his staff back into his hands. “These are the basics. Of course that is not everything magic has to offer, there is fun like Duplicated Evocation, Group Conjuration, Matrix Extraction, Thought Transplantation, Mass Transmutation or Link Enchantments. But these are the advanced classes and we will have enough to do with the basics in the coming months.” He yawns, “Also before I teach you any more techniques we should probably talk about Demons, Dragons and legendary Items next. But first: Sleep, how does that sound?”

A lewd smile, “Honestly I think I could stay awake for another few hours.” Uklag returns the smile. “Well let’s do that then.”

Author’s Note: And they lived happily ever after. On a serious note I hope you liked the details, I might do another one of these when I feel the need arises. Until then, see you.