"What do you think about the city, Fluffy?" "Meor!" I don't see any fish around. Remember… or else. Fluffy then proceeded to slice her paw across her neck in a "menacing" manner, but Ran was unperturbed by her behavior. After walking for a while, they stopped by a corner. Why? Because they smelled something. For Ran, he could see a gold colored wind flow from an old shack and into his nose. Divine! Running straight into the shop, they were greeted by an old woman sweeping the dust covered floor.
The old woman saw them come in and was immediately tipped off. A hooded man and a big cat? What could they want? She thought. Nobody comes to my old shop anymore.
"I'm sorry, good sir, but my humble shop doesn't have the means to support your travels." Meaning she doesn't have any money to give to the "good sirs". She obviously thinks our Ran Ran is a two-timing thug! Shame on her, off with her head! lets read her last rites. As we commend her soul to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon her, for she is the salt and earth of Nirn, our beloved…
With a low growl, Ran responded, "food…" Fluffy also responded with her stomach growling. "Oh my." Though she was old, she could guess the purpose of their visit now. Going into the kitchen she came out with a platter filled with… meat. In fact, it was just plain chicken, but clearly ner cooking skills were divine as its golden brown crust sizzles. The plate seems to be sparkling, with fireworks of oil crackling and popping every now and then. "This was supposed to be my lunch, but I suppose you can have it." Ah, seems I've misjudged her. Take her off the chopping block quickly, before a dragon comes!
Hearing her words, Ran looked straight at her, his face visible, and teared up a little. "Thank… you." This was his first real contact with other humans in 3 months! Humans are social animals after all, so being treated like a human after so long touched his heart… I mean… f**k. I messed up that line didn't I? Sigh.
The old woman staggered and accidentally tripped. Looking at his wondrous face, her gaze fell upon his eyes. Looking at them was akin to seeing a galaxy being encased in amber. The richness of the blue and shimmery lights (tiny, tiny lights) in the inner iris, coupled with the reflective and translucent amber color of his eyes, sent the old woman through a loop. She had never seen such beautiful, perfect eyes before!
Of course, they're perfect! I cant have our MC be a "ugly bas***d" after all.
"Y-your-your welcome." She quickly got up and left in a hurry with a red face. Soon, she came back with two buckets filled with raw fish. Clearly, this was meant for Fluffy over here and she jumped with joy. Chomping with her jaws, she finished the first bucket in under ten seconds and had already moved onto the second bucket! Ran too was similarly chowing down on his food to the point where he almost choked himself. The old woman was pleased to see her food land in the stomach of such a handsome young man, and ultimately just stood there, patiently waiting for them to finish. No one else was in the shop anyways so she had nothing else to do, except that she forgot that he's literally eating her lunch!
After finishing their food, Ran fished for something in his pocket. Taking out what seemed to be a pendant, it started to shine with a mysterious light before runes surfaced on the pendant. The runes started to light up until, out of nowhere, a marble came into existence. A beast core! She thought. Beast cores, a core that comes from spiritual beasts, were the hard currency of this world. Not just spiritual beasts, but humans as well have cores that are stored in the brain. A beast core's main usage beside being a currency, is to purify one's own soul juice, allowing for the increase in power and rank; which is what quantifies its value in the first place. But the reason she was surprised was because of the color of the beast core in Rans hand.
A rank 10 beast core, the lowest of the low, is jet black in color. A beast cores value increases by a factor of 100 for every rank. So a rank 9 core would have a white strip that covers a ninth of the core. It would be worth 100 rank 10 beast cores and so on and so forth. But this beast core was half white and half black. It was a rank 5 beast core! Although they aren't rarest, at least in this part of the world, they are for this old woman and her rickety shack.
"Good sir, I can't possibly accept such generosity. I-I-" she was cut off by Ran before she could finish however, "Its fine. I have plenty more of them." Ran knew of the value of what he was giving, but he truly had Tons more of those. The treasury in the second path had given numerous of these cores and plenty more stuff, though some had to be left behind because of the extreme amounts of time that had passed; ridding them of their previous value. In fact this pendant was also something that he had gotten from the treasury.
These pendants are actually connected to a separate, small, dimension the runes had created. Using one's soul juice, one could activate a sort of passageway between the dimension and the amulet, allowing for the transfer of items. These pendants are very widespread, but the populace only gets the worst because the dimension the runes can create only has about a square foot or so; basically acting as a purse. Naturally, his pendant is a heck of a lot better, having over 1000 square feet of space! This is definitely a treasure.
Leaving the store, Ran and Fluffy just left the old woman standing there, bewildered. He had given one to her for two reasons. One he had way to many of these anyway so it doesn't really matter much. Two, he hoped she could live the rest of her life in peace as he was moved by her selfless action earlier. Sigh… I must have really messed up this time. Our Ran Ran is just giving free money to people. She just gave you her lunch man, calm down! No need to be this sensitive.
After seeing this situation, Ran realized… he was too beautiful! In the end, he walked around the city, until he found a rune smith. A rune smith is exactly what you think it is. They are experts in enchanting equipment or other accessories with runes, it's as simple as that.
Upon entering the shop, with a soft jingle, Ran was immediately caught off guard. Weapons of every kind were found, scattered about in a disorganized manner. While humans have fetal organs, those aren't necessarily always weapons, plus a weapon like a crossbow can still be useful if you use a sword. Anyways, that wasn't even what caught his attention. In the center of a shop was a giant smoldering forge! It wasn't like your typical forge of molten metal and fire spewing everywhere. Inside the crucible is what can only be described as a light purple sludge. Sparks would fly about in an erratic manner as a man would stir the sludge around with an iron rod. Suddenly, he blew onto it and a burst of light purple flames covered the entire sludge. Hearing the door jingle, the man turned around.
The man was fairly ordinary in terms of looks, but had a multitude of burn marks on his hands and face. Looking at the young man in front of him, the man had kept his hood way down to the point where he himself couldn't see in front of him.
Ran chose this solution to cover his eyes apparently. Honestly, I probably couldn't think of anything better beside just looking down all the time.
Though he was bemused by Rans behavior, Ran ended up speaking first. Taking out his most precious fully white sweater from his pendant, he tossed it to the man. "I need a darkness spell enchanted on it." Ran said spell for one reason. No it isn't an actual spell, but it is the effect of the runes it's been enchanted with. Because a single rune can't cause a specific effect, most of the time, many different runes are needed. Hence, the term.
The smith grabbed the sweater and inspected it. It was just an ordinary white sweater with a hood. "Ah, I see." The smith thought. He clearly wants me to put a darkness spell on his hood so that it covers his face! The smith was slightly suspicious towards this request and eyed the robed man, Ran, cautiously. People who want to hide themselves are never up to good! He thought to himself. Maybe because he was a smith, but he seemed more prejudiced towards these kinds of people than he should be otherwise. After all, robed people who want to hide themselves isn't the rarest thing in the world. In fact, it is more common than you would think. "Hmm, it's going to take at least an hour or two to complete the enchantment." "Mhm." Ran thought he would like to stay here and look around to pass the time. Inside his robe, his face smiled a bit as he said, "Do you mind if I watch?"
The smith was momentarily stunned by the exceedingly odd request. Hearing his tone of voice, the man could guess he was dealing with a young man, so you just chalked it up to the hot bloodedness of youth. After all, he was a smith! This isn't something you can just learn from seeing it once!
Indeed he was right. Ran had no idea of copying this smith, he was just curious and wanted to pass the time. The process of making enchantments was interesting to say the least, however. The sludge wasn't even the material used, instead being the fuel. The fire was what was actually needed. After stirring for a bit, the smith took out what seemed like a fountain pen. It was actually pretty small and thin being only 2 inches in length and half an inch in width. It was just enough to allow a person to pinch it between two fingers. It was all blue in color and gave a faint smell of metal.
This was interesting but what happened next was really surprising for Ran. The smith reached into the fire and just… scooped a piece of the flame! The light purple flame in his hands didn't even burn him. Actually Ran had noticed earlier that the forge wasn't radiating any heat. But as soon as the flame touched the tip of the pen, it started to heat it up! Clearly, both the pen and the flame aren't ordinary things. It seems they were made for each other, or at least that the material that made up the pen is only affected by this specific fire.
After heating up so much, the blue tip of the pen glowed a pure white. This means it was ready! Pinching the pen with his two big fingers was actually quite funny, like a giant grabbing a teacup. After picking it up, he twirled it in his hands a bit (to impress Ran of course) and brought the hood onto a workbench. The workbench itself was pretty ordinary except for some pitch black inkwells. Before working, he carefully examined the cloth that made up the sweater with a monocle as the material that made up the clothing can and will interfere with the process. You see, enchanting isn't as easy as it might first seem.
First you need to know the majority of runes the rune system has incorporated and many different possible combinations they can make. Then you need to know the materials you're going to use the runes on, be it metal, clothing or even organic material because runes aren't something static. Just as how they can affect things within their influence (i.e spells), they are also affected by things within their influence.
After an extensive investigation, the smith finally got started with the enchanting. Dipping his pen in black ink, it started to sizzle, another sign of the unique composition of the ink, and he began drawing runes in a seemingly erratic manner all over the hood. The black runes after being drawn would also sizzle, as If they were boring themselves into the very material they were placed on.
After drying, the runes would glow a purple light before they connected themselves with lines of purple light. Afterwards, they just disappeared, a sign that the process is complete!
Spell of Darkness, complete!