Freth brought Castus over to a unique looking set up. A shimmering metallic metal was oozing around in a large glass jar. Freth placed the knife before it and reached to a tab on the side of the jar. The tab resembled one of those drink dispensers you would see at a buffet. Freth used this to pour the metallic metal over the carved sigil in the knife.
Castus then watched in amazement as it filled in the sigil perfectly and then morphed into a solid metal. Freth then handed to knife to Castus and began the explaination. "This is mimicry metal. It's an alchemy product and is the main component in why enchantments work. The earlier fluid you used is a marker for the mimicry metal. The mana you inserted is similar to a temper. Reinforcing the marker and improving the merging rate of the mimicry metal. The higher the mana and better quality the marker, the better and stronger an enchantment can be. This last step is super simple. Pour the mimicry metal into the slot and it will follow your marker and merge with the piece your working on."
Castus barely caught Ferth's words as he stared at the magic metal that made the knife smooth, like all the carving done before never happened. Freth took the knife back and then handed over Castus' blade. "Now you try."
Castus approached the jar and slowly opened the tab. He let the metal flow evenly into the groove he had made. It slowly filled and eventually hardened over the sigil. Leaving a smooth finished surface. Castus stared and watched the entire process with anticipation. It was truly something beyond anything he could imagine. As the metal finished hardening Castus felt the knife begin to warble. Familiar feelings of mana being displace brushed against his hand and then he felt his mana being drained.
Freth noticed this and slapped the knife out of Castus hand. It slammed into the floor and bounced into the corner of the room. Freth seemed genuinely panicked. "Castus step back. You created a cursed item." Castus backed away. Fearful, but still curious. He watched around Freth as it used one of the four arms to morph into a shield and the other into a blade. With a fluid movement Freth bashed the knife with the shield and backed up. The blade has been cracked and a reddish smoke emitted from the crack. It slowly dissipated leaving only the cracked knife in the corner.
Freth turned around to Castus. "What did you do???" Rage seemed to be flaring up in Ferth voice. "How did you create a cursed item???" Freth, still armed took a step towards Castus. Castus was now terrified. He backed up to the far wall of the room. "I…I don't know! I just did what you said!" Freth was now a few feet from him. The purple skin tone has turned black. The blade was inches from his throat. He could feel the sharp edge on his skin. Gulping and praying Castus looked for an escape. He paused though. The blade has clinked against the slave collar.
'Fuck I cant run even if I want to' Castus surrendered to Freth, holding both hands high in the air. "I swear I didn't do anything!" Freth looked deeply at him for a moment. Then the blade retracted and the color of Freth's skin returned to purple. "I believe you, but what could have caused a cursed weapon to appear." Freth seemed to be in contemplation. "Were you emotional during the rendering process?" Castus seemed perplexed by the question.
"Well I was a little angry before I blacked out." He half lied, scared to say he was borderline deliriously angry. Freth thought for a moment. "It's said that those extremely talented can imbue equipment with remnant emotions during enchantment, but I've never seen it before. Castus try to remain emotionally neutral next time you render and I believe this won't happen again. But if it does and you can't handle the weapon, it may cause a serious backlash and permanent damage even I couldn't fix."
Freth sighed. "Alright, head back and rest up. We will continue tomorrow." With that Castus was sent back. He spent a long time considering what he had learned. Enchantments fit into his designs for a gun, but he needed the required knowledge of the right sigils to make use of it. He fell asleep and dreamed of escape and helping his sisters and now his two stranded comrades. The next day he returned to Freth's lab, ready to learn more about enchantments. Freth started that day off with first letting Castus analyze the mimicry metal and then delving into different sigils for enchantments. "Now look here at this sigil. This is one that is commonly used for armor. Its called resistance. It provides the armor the ability to better resist damage and corrosion from the elements. We inscribe it on most armor." Castus nodded along, following Freth's fingers on the pages of sigils that were kept stored on shelves. As Freth did this, Castus realized he would be unable to remember or replicate the sigils that Freth flew through. It was clearly only supposed to be for a cursory introduction, but Castus never planned to stay within the church long enough to learn them all.
Castus instead opted to use an ingenious plan while Freth pointed out the symbols. He would use the cheap wood materials in his analyzed materials to serve as a base and then using the manipulation ability he would transcribe the symbol quickly and crudely on the wood, with a simple description, then save it as a blueprint and the destroy the wood. If Castus had still been level 3 this would have been impossible, but at level 10 the mana cost and speed he could manipulate the materials at gave him just enough speed to create blueprints of sigils he deemed useful. He couldn't copy them all, but he could get enough to reference later. Freth also set aside a couple of the more common sigils and instructed Castus to memorize them. Freth finished and stood tall. "These couple of sigils will serve you well in the coming weeks." Castus wrongly assumed Freth's words were about learning enchantments. He would soon learn of a different story.
He got to work practicing the sigils and making enchantments. The more he learned, the better of a chance he would have for escape. Castus also firmly believed that enchantments would be the key to escaping the slave collars.
Meanwhile in the Umbral.
"Rys stay down. We can't get spotted in here. Especially not with your injuries." Shi spoke softly, lightly tugging Rys down from a squatting position, back to a laying one. It had been a few days in the umbral at this point. Water was easy enough to find in this wet labyrinth and while food wasn't a huge concern yet, it was going to become one soon.
Rys and Shi had been instructed to quickly and stealthily enter the umbral while the church suspected the Mordens were attempting a subjugation of the umbral. Their goal was to observe it happen and report back on the size and who received the boost to the church. It had all been going smoothly as they trailed the squad of Mordens. Shi's transformation ability coupled with Rys' ability to manipulate natural cover allowed them to remain unseen. The squad met with something horrendous though. Twelve hours after they entered the squad was completely decimated and not in a long, drawn-out battle. The aftermath of two beasts utterly obliterated the squad in under a second. If Shi and Rys weren't so far back, they would have been caught by it. They didn't even get the chance to glimpse the beast and now the only option for the two children was to hide. They had been decently successful so far, but a day ago something spotted them. A rapidly moving ball of sharp legs had detected them and gave chase. Rys had taken a heavy blow to his right leg, but they managed to escape when a second monster engaged with it. Since then, they have been hiding. That was six hours ago.
Currently they laid flat in a recess in the floor far away from any main paths. Rys was attempting to conjure up some medicinal herbs currently using some seeds he kept in a pouch. Shi had used her powers of transformation to cloak them and help them blend into the murky damp rocks around them.
"Shi what are we gonna do. We can't last forever like this. We get ignored by the big stuff here but…" Rys hesitated, remembering the desperate struggle to escape earlier. "How long are we going to have to survive in this cave system. The umbral has been going on for a while and based on the power of those creatures earlier I don't think the Mordens are going to handle it anytime soon."
Shi sat slumped against the wall of the recess they were hiding in. "Even if they don't come, Darius said umbrals eventually collapse on themselves after a creature gains control. We just have to last that long." Rys didn't seem particularly convinced but Shi was right. It was their best hope. Neither of them were ready to die again.
Rys focused on making the herb to try to patch himself up, trying to bring his mind away from the impending doom that threatened to destroy them.