Mythran's Master Of All

Ren woke up in the same spot next to Lucy's phantom form. Ren saw that he was a bit early and Donan's shop was still closed. Ren walked over to Sally's and it was still in darkness, too. Ren kept going down the street and noticed that Issac's light was on. Ren knocked, just to be polite, and entered Issac's shop. Issac had his back turned to the door again. Ren didn't want to disturb Issac, since Ren's knock hadn't gotten Issac's attention, and activated Sneak. Ren creeped across the floor; careful of where the boards looked to be weaker, and avoided stepping on them. Ren saw that Issac was enchanting something and slid around the side of the table and just stood there. The item was a gauntlet. Issac leaned in close to the intricate glyph that was etched onto the back of the metal hand.

“Activate.” Issac said. The gauntlet glowed for a moment... and then imploded as if it was a soda can and all the air had been sucked out of it.

“Ah, dammit.” Issac crumpled up the sheet of parchment he had in his hand and threw it across the room and into a pile of similarly crumpled balls of parchment.

“I didn't think Dark Magic could be imbued like that.” Ren said and poked the collapsed metal glove with a finger.

“Ahhhhh!” Issac jumped away from the table and clutched his chest. “By the love of...” Issac shook his head. “Ren! What the hell are you doing?”

“I came to visit.” Ren said and smiled. “It's been a while since I've been here.”

Teepo chittered in delight because he always enjoyed when Ren unintentionally scared people.

Issac calmed down and came back to the table. “Just a visit?” Issac asked. “You don't have any questions?”

Ren thought about it.“Actually... I do.” Something had been nagging at Ren for a while, now. “When you first told me about enchanting, you said that the enchanment was permanent. I figured out how to activate them without hitting them on something, but how do you turn them off?” Ren remembered that he and Aimus had worked really hard to soak every tree with water and then disenchant each rune Ren had placed. It seemed like a difficult thing to do... especially if it had to be done each time. The same thing for at the campsite and when Ren was waiting for Lucy. It was a waste of mana, too. You only get back a fraction of what was put into an enchantment when it was absorbed again.

“Oh, that? Just say 'Deactivate'.” Issac said and took out another sheet of parchment.

Ren just stared at Issac as Issac drew another intricate glyph on the paper. “You... you're not kidding, right? Just saying 'Deactivate' will stop the enchantment?”

Issac nodded and kept drawing.

Ren thought about it some more. Well, I guess that would make sense if 'Activate' starts the enchantment without having to touch it. Ren laughed. I should have known it would be that simple.