Ar'Kendrithyst

Back in his stone tower in his house, Erick held up a full-torus diamond ring to the afternoon light. The ring was, perhaps, one of the most precisely carved rings he had ever made, and a culmination of a great deal of experimentation. But it had also taken a lot of work. Grinding, measuring. Regrinding. More measuring. Breaking failures and creating specially made tools of his own designs in order to grind properly.

Erick had wanted to make a ‘[Perfect Cut]’ spell in order to automatically grind his gems in a perfect manner, but in the words of Phagar: ‘All versions already invented. You have to wait 3 months to buy or make that one.’

Then Erick had asked, ‘[Condense Particle], then [Condense Carbon], then [Create Diamond], and then [Cut Diamond]? Or maybe tier 5, [Special Gem Cut]?’

‘There are several ways to get there. It’s what you have up to [Create Diamond], then you take [Gemshape] from [Stoneshape] and try to create [Measured Diamond Cut]. Other gems would require other [Create Gem] spells. If you make it well, you’ll get [Perfect Diamond Cut]. You could actually make that spell now, if you wanted. You just need [Gemshape].’

‘What about a generalized gem creation spell? [Grow Crystal]?’

Phagar words had taken a mildly joyful tone, as he had said, ‘That spell has already been made. The implementation is very, very tricky, though. But if you started with [Condense Crystal], you could work up to [Perfect Crystal Cut].’

After that conversation, Erick had almost bought [Gemshape], right past [Stoneshape], just so that he could then attempt to make a '[Perfectly Cut Diamond Toroid]' spell at tier 3, but he wasn’t sure he needed to do that in order to create a ‘good enough’ cut, or that he even wanted to risk the failure of a tier 3 spell. It would be ten days to remake that spell if he failed, and he didn't feel like doing that. So Erick stared at his toroid, and thought.

And then he set that down, back onto the soft, blue cloth of the table, ensuring it would not be scratched upon any stray diamond dust in the room. He picked up another, as-perfect-as-he-could-cut-it enchanting-worthy gem from that cloth. This one was about two inches across, and rather unusual. It was the basic octahedral shape that naturally formed as the seed diamond grew under [Crystallize Diamond], but instead of having all the jumbled, raised growth planes that naturally occurred on every diamond Erick grew, Erick had cut this one down to its base, perfect octahedral shape. It looked like two perfect pyramids stacked to each other’s bottoms.

The ring was a culmination of all of Erick’s attempts at enchanting All-Stat rings, and a minor experiment. The octahedron was an experiment in odd perfection. Both were weird. Soon, they’d be even weirder, because of a slightly different conversation Erick had had with Phagar.

The God of Death and Time, had said, ‘That’s technically a Particle Spell… It certainly already exists as a normal spell… which goes along with what you’re planning next, in two months...’ There was a pause. ‘Go ahead and try for it.’

The way Phagar had answered Erick’s question left a lot to be desired, and left Erick feeling slightly concerned. But he was going to make the spell, anyway.

Erick took off his rings and set them into a strong box under and beside his work table. Then, he took the perfectly carved, unenchanted ring and hid it away, taking care to wrap it in soft blue cloth first, to protect it from scratches. Diamond was really hard, but scratches of micrometers were horrible to [Mend] and then buff out; Erick had learned his lesson about that nuisance a long time ago.

He looked down upon his octahedral experiment.

Diamond had a very large refractive index. Larger than most other gems suitable for enchanting. This meant that when light went in, it had a tendency to stay inside, until it came out in tiny, glittering, ‘fire’, as they used to call diamond sparkles, back on Earth. Diamonds were already great for basic enchanting, because in basic enchanting, Stat light went in, and bounced around quite a while, before degrading. That degrading was due to diamonds being clear, of course. Natural light would come in to any un-silvered diamonds and interfere with the Stat light. This was why pearls were best for enchanting almost any Stat; they repelled outside influence, but also trapped whatever was in them for a very long time. You just had to get through that outer layer without breaking that outer layer.

… Now that Erick had [Duplicate], and a lot of money, maybe he should buy a really, really good enchanting-grade pearl.

… Oh. This was what the Headmaster did, wasn’t it? Ha!

… Or maybe not? Erick had no idea about any of that.

Sapphires, and their counterparts, rubies, were great for enchanting their respective Stats, because blue or red light could stay inside and not be interfered with, while every other color got disrupted by the gem itself.

But Erick had solved the problem of contaminated light inside diamonds with a well made reflective outer coating, made of diamond itself. The hope today, though, was to allow other people to take his idea, and create rings themselves, using the spell he was about to make, right now.

Erick picked up the octahedral diamond, holding it in his right hand, as he loosened up, then gave a tiny ditty to the world,

“A twist guides wavelengths of bright

“in to this space, one way; erudite!

“It’s not darkness, not here

“it’s reflection, my dear.

“Internally, perfected, [Trapped Light].”

For a brief moment, everything was too bright, too real, and then waves of mana rolled through Erick, into every pore and down his right arm, through the whorls of his fingerprints, into the gem, twisting blood out of his surface veins as darkness, pure and utter, soaked into the octahedron. Erick flinched, yelped, and dropped the diamond to the table, to the cloth. The diamond continued to darken as Erick winced like knives had gone down his arm, as he grabbed the rod of [Treat Wounds] he kept on an open shelf under the workbench. Wielding the rod with his left hand, he tapped himself once, activating the spell within, as he looked down at his bloody right arm.

Bright red and bleeding lightning bolt wounds traced down from the tips of each finger of his right hand, joining together in jumbled messes across his skin, following paths laid down by the veins and bones and tendons under the surface, tracing toward his torso. None of the wounds got much past his elbow. As the healing magic went to work, those wounds faded over, first with angry scars, then with silver skin, before fading further, back to normal. He flexed his hand. It tingled, but even that tingle began to fade.

He was fine.

He had been wounded, but whatever. Erick turned his attention to the dark diamond on the blue cloth in front of him.

The object was darker than black, and yet, it seemed rimmed by light; like a hole cut in the world, made all the more strange by the world highlighting the oddity in saturation and hue. The only thing visible upon the empty space were floating, bloody fingerprints. Erick tossed a tiny [Cleanse] at the diamond, and at himself. Blood evaporated in thick twirls, fully transforming the black diamond to unreality, as flaking blood peeled away from his right arm, turning into thick air.

Some blue boxes appeared.