Fable - Ask Do You Wanna Build A Runesaber?

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Oh, that was actually pretty impressive. He had been worried that she was just going to give him a random pinecone, but at least there was some art to it. The creation of such a piece was certainly weird, but art was sometimes weird. Although, Alistair preferred the more traditional forms.

"Oh, thank you."

Alistair really hoped that she meant that the owl would be good intellectual company because it often symbolized intelligence and cunning. Otherwise, Chasmine had just compared his intellect to a pinecone...He was going to choose to believe the first suspicion because he could not afford to get into an argument with her at this moment. He needed her help.

Chasmine
 
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It was quiet over the next few days. Ralene was not so much scarce as she was busy. Classes. Study. Sparring. A meeting with Proctor Mars. More study. More sparring. Unlike Alistair, Ral did not shirk meals or sleep. Full days turned into the spent week, and by the time the weekend rolled around she could nearly taste the impatience on the initiate when she finally made herself available to him.

"Chasmine came through," she told him in the library where he found her, once again, thick in her catch-up work from her previous mission away.

"These are the items you need to pick up," Ralene handed him another sheet of folded parchment, bigger this time than the note to Chas. Some materials he would note were typical of forge requirements, others... were not. "The ones circled are for Chasmine. The last one underneath that is for me."
 
Alistair's sleeping had been...sporadic to say the least. His time spent on fine-tuning the runesaber had taken up most of his time. All the rest of his time was spent keeping up on his studies, which was the one thing he refused to let slip. His sword instructor's got irritated with him a few times through the week it wasn't like he was doing bad with the sword just lazy.

The main thing that had kept him awake was the excitement at the end of the week. His project could finally be complete. The excitement also made the reaction to seeing the list all the more powerful.

Most of the materials, he would be able to get. Even Chasmine's stuff he could get his hands on thanks to his dad...The problem was the Ralene's material and then one or two pieces for the runesaber...He definitely knew of some places where he could ask for these materials, but whether they would hand them over was a different story.

"I...think I can get all of this...maybe." The doubt in his voice was even noticed by Alistair.
 
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"I'll be getting the bulk of the metal ore," Ralene replied, gesturing to his list, "what you're getting is the specialty materials. It may take some hunting to find them, and I don't expect they'll be cheap. I've never had need for them in any of my previous work."

Alistair's project required more complexity of combining specific materials to get the desired outcome.

"All of Chas' requests can be found at the general store and apothecary. That last one on there is for me - I need it for what you'll be helping me with and I'll give you the money for it. I'll need you to get it because I'll be on the opposite side of the city for most of the day."
 
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"No problem then." He waved off Ralene when she explained Chas' materials, getting ahold of them would prove to be no problem. He could even find most of them at his family's storehouse.

The materials he would have to get would be...painful to say the least. Alistair had a few ideas where he might get them, but he would need to be careful, or he would accidentally push his money into financial ruin.

Alistair looked down at the special material for Ralene's work. "You know, you still haven't told me what or how I will be helping you...It does not matter much to me, but it would help me prepare for whatever we will be doing."

Ralene
 
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Ralene's sharp gaze shifted from her work to the other Initiate, considering him as though she might consider the target at the end of a shooting range with a crosswind. After a moment, she seemed to come to terms with the thoughts presently sifting through her mind and quickly closed her books, stored them in her leather bag, stood and motioned for him to follow her.

She lead him from the Library hall and down into the southern wing where more of the classrooms were located. Checking in through several doors until she found an empty room, Ral glanced up and down the hallway before stepping inside, "Close that behind you and lock it."

Her bag set on a desk, Ralene took off her jacket and then proceeded to take off her shirt.
 
Alistair did not exactly get why she was dragging everything out. He could understand the need for secrecy though. If someone tried to steal his runesaber design and then take credit for it then he would have to kill them. That would be annoying, mainly because he would have to spend more time cleaning up his inevitable blood blade and clothes.

So, he followed Ralene without a complaint. When he realized they were moving past the library and towards the classrooms, he first thought that maybe she had gotten permission for her own private research room. He closed and locked the door behind him, expecting to see research and forging supplies.

Instead, he saw Ralene stripping. He quickly turned back around, his face blushing. It finally happened. He had always known it was inevitable, but he had imagined that he had more time. A woman was finally just going to throw herself at him in order to get to his incredible intelligence.

Whatever blood that ran through his veins granting him good looks and his intelligence was truly a gift, and now someone wanted a piece. Alistair would never have thought it would be Ralene. He had thought she was better than that, but here she was proving him wrong.

"What's happening?

Ralene
 
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"Get a grip Al, you've seen everything there is to see already."

It was true. Before the revolution the segregation between students was negligible to say the least. If anything, the only effort had been made to keep the older students from the younger, just so they wouldn't use them as easy targets or punching bags... outside of assignments. Which meant Ralene and Alistair's class had grown up together sharing communal spaces, including the bath hall. Nudity in the form of bathing had become as natural and blase as eating a meal or studying in the library.

But it had now been nearly a year since the overturning of the old ways and the newer rules that demanded separation of gender and not just age. Girls and boys had separate bathing hours. Modesty was becoming a thing ... for some, not for Ral.

If nothing else, Alistair hadn't seen all the new skin decor Ral had accrued over the last year. Runic symbols, alchemical circles and equations, linked patterns that created compound results. All very painstakingly tattood or scarified into her flesh. From what she presently bared, these markings covered a fair amount of her body. Shirt off and chest wraps still in place, there wasn't much to see in the way of private affairs.

"I need your attention to detail and your familiarity of runes to help me with enhancing some of these markings, like this one..." Ralene hooked her fingers on the bottom edge of her chest wrap and pulled up at the base of her ribcage to bare an alchemical circle the size of an orange located just over the liver. The tattoo was older and beginning to fade, "the guy I had do this one fucked up one of the runes in it, and didn't go deep enough. I don't trust him to fix it."
 
It was true that he knew Ralene's naked form well, along with many of the other students. He had no problem with looking over someone's nude figure, in fact. Alistair had always found Ralene's figure interesting. Many of the runes on her body were masterful and well thought out...It was just the context. The potential for the culmination of the obvious signs of sexual attraction was what always got to Alistair.

However, it did not look like that would be the problem for today. Alistair turned to look with one eye, and once it was clear that Ral was not throwing her body at him, he turned to fully look at her.

"Oh, sorry bout that."

He took out his classes and put them on as he moved over to get a closer look. All sense of embarrassment was gone. After all, this was just business. He could not help but admire some of the delicate runes, thinking of his own ways he would improve on the marks to better fit his own.

"Let's see. Yes, you're definitely right...I can't tell if he was just lazy or incompetent."

Alistair had finally focused on the rune in question. He lightly touched the rune, using his sense of touch to get a feel for how deep the rune had originally been inscribed. "Yes, definitely not deep enough...What was this rune for?"

He had moved to place his own runic tools onto a desk, along with a few bottles of arcane substances that he used for his ink mixing.

"We might be able to improve it while I help touch it up."

Ralene
 
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A lofted brown answered Al's quick switch from blushing virgin to competent scholar. Normally Ralene would have relished in pressing those particular buttons on one so inexperienced in the way of lust and intimacy as him, but another time, another place. Right now she wasn't in the mood. Much like Al wanted answered and progress on his project, she wanted the same for her own.

Ral stood there, keeping the chest wrap out of his way as best she could without having her own limbs or hands in the way as well.

"Blood," she replied, "that one was for blood. It's-" expression flat, Ralene rolled her jaw while she considered baring more than just her flesh to Alistair. They had all grown up learning to hunt and kill one another, and so revealing strengths, tactics, or skills to a fellow Initiate was just as dangerous as revealing weaknesses. Even if they were no longer one anothers own worst enemies, it paid to keep those things close to the chest.

In her case, literally speaking.

"It's an alchemical chart for the effusion and filtration of toxins from the body." Hence its location over her liver. "Since he fucked up the blood rune, it doesn't work as well as it should." Tip of the iceberg for the full system of runes connected with it, but the problem remained the same: one fudged rune symbol gummed up the process.
 
Alistair nodded right along with the explanation, as his inspection of the rune basically said the same thing. He even thought that he knew where things had gone wrong. He very carefully put away his alchemical vials and mixtures as soon as he got them out, putting them back in an exact manner.

Alistair was slightly OCD when it came to his tools, so things just had to be done in the proper order. He knew that he wouldn't be able to completely fix the rune until he got the materials that he and Ralene needed, but...he could go ahead and start.

The young rune mage simply stared at the rune for nearly a minute while mumbling under his breath. After a few seconds, he would shake his head in disagreement with himself and replace the tools he held in his head with another. He was going through a simulation in his head of how the process would work out.

"Well, your material makes sense then...I could add some Angel weed also. It had detoxifying properties that would mix well with something like this."

Ralene
 
"Angel weed in tattoo ink?" Ralene wasn't entirely certain she followed his thought process, but she wasn't opposed to thinking outside the usual methods. If there was any other Initiate she trusted to have a firm grasp of said processes where runes were concerned, it was Al.

"I'll read up on it, otherwise, there are a few others I'd like you to redo. Scars that require recutting and inking in locations I can't reach. And if I can find what I need in the city tomorrow, I will have a new big piece for you to put on my back."
 
Oh, the excitement. Alistair always did love a good challenge so the possibility of creating a whole new tattoo for Ralene did put a smile on his face. Her hesitation at his suggestion of Angel weed was not surprising. The methods for making ink at the Academy were pretty standardized, even the official dreadlords that practiced rune magic had archaic thinking in Alistair's opinion.

"Yeah, you can add anything into ink if you pulverize, grind, or reduce it down enough. It's not as strong as the normal property, but certain magical properties can transfer over and synergize well with tattoos."

This theory of tattoo development had been the majority of his own research at the academy. It had certainly taken some trial and error which more than once resulted in small animals going feral or growing strange mutations. The first few tattoos on animals had made Alistair feel sick, so he had convinced the Academy to give him a few prisoners set for execution to continue his experiments on. After a few years, he was confident in the process.

Ralene
 
Interesting. She'd taken the ink a step further by adding dragonbone meal to the pigments which greatly enhanced the results of her own mana in activating the runes. She'd only used it on her newest pieces though, and that was where Alistair came in. He'd be adding it to the older ones, refreshing and cleaning them up. Some of them were well over a dozen years old now - remnants of her youth spent under the knives of the Proctors as they sought to understand Ralene's particular magical talents.

"Right, well - the dragonbone meal is essential to my pieces but the woman who I get it from is sketchy. Her name is Maziri and I can usually find her in one of three places; down by the docks on a boat called The Salty Maiden. The Captain's name is Hassar, and if you tell him I sent you to speak to her he'll let you on board. Maziri's wares are legit, but she won't take money, only barter. Normally I trade her blood iron ingots but it's hard to say if she'll want that. She likes odd things... weird things. Just watch your back with her. If she's not on the ship, she's usually in the portside tavern Urchin's Call or near the entrance to the sewer tunnels."

Ral took up her shirt and pulled it back on, followed by her jacket, "I'll get you a bag of blood iron ingots tomorrow. If you're lucky, she'll take that and be done with you."
 
What would happen if Maziri did not take the blood iron ingots?... He might need to bring something else along just in case. Alistair did not want to ruin whatever business relationship Ralene had by getting into a fight or something. Not to mention, he had to make sure he got what Ral needed because he needed to move his own plans ahead.

"I know two of those places. I can also ask around for the ship, so it should be fine...Is there anything I can go ahead and help with today?"

He could not start the big project or some of the runes that he wanted to help improve, but he could go ahead and finish some of the simpler runes that Ralene just wanted to be fixed up.

Ralene
 
"Not until I get more dragonbone meal," Ral replied as she straightened her jacket and took up her bag again, "and I have some other things I need to take care of. I'll meet you at the stables tomorrow at dawn."
 
"Fair enough...Apologies if I am a little late tomorrow. I think I am actually going to try and get a good nights sleep tonight."

Alistair picked up his tools quickly and made his way to the door and unlocked it for him to leave. He looked around the room one last time.

"Maybe I can get you to take a look at my runes some other time." He never waited for a response as he moved out the door and headed off to either continue his studies or maybe finally get some sleep.

Ralene
 
Alistair would not get the opportunity to sleep in.

Ralene was an early riser - typically up before the sun - and made a point to get herself and the horses ready by dawn, then went straight to the boys dormitory hall. Upon reaching Alistair's door, she calmly composed herself, straightened her jacket and hair, ran a pink over her eyebrows, and then promptly lifted her boot to kick in his door.

"Alistair Krixus, get the fuck out of bed!" He was burning daylight and that was not a good way to start the day.
 
Alistair had not in fact slept in like he had said he would. The truth was that his body just wouldn't let him. He had gotten used to waking up at ungodly hours of the morning. This was why Ralene broke into his room and the sight of Alistair performing yoga.

It was a new morning routine that the school therapist had suggested to him. He had been told that focusing his mind in the morning would keep the 'stress" of the Academy from encroaching on his well-ordered mind.

"Thanks for the door...I'll fix it later," Alistair said with a sigh as he got up to grab his bag and his sword.

"Let's go."

Ralene
 
"I said at the stables at dawn," Ralene eyed her fellow Initiate, "and you're in here stretching."

For what? It wasn't as though Alistair was big on the physical aspect of challenges. There was a time and place for aligning one's spiritual chakra or finding center or whatever the fuck it was Alistair was doing. It wasn't now - not when they both had a very long two days ahead of them. She felt zero regret for the state of his dorm door.

Chewing impatiently on the inside of her cheek, Ralene tore her gaze away from the boot-print she'd left behind (they'd have to sand that fucker down real good to get rid of that) and lead off down the hallway to retrace her route back to the stables. With nimble hands she untied her horse from the waiting post and lead it out into the paddock, swinging up into the saddle and after a moment to situate herself, turned the horse toward the norther road.

"I have word from a contact that there's a foreign merchant named Lemarque at the village of Wiston just outside of the city proper. We're going to stop there first - he just might have a few of those harder to find items."
 
Oh, she was right. Alistair looked towards his window with a small frown. He had not noticed the introduction of a new source of light that wasn't a magical candle in the corner. Losing track of time was his mistake, so he could not blame Ralene. Although, a knock may have sufficed.

"Sorry, it was added as a requirement for my morning routine."

Alistair explained as he followed after Ralene. The door would just have to be a problem for another day. He made sure to keep up with her as they made their way to the stables. His own preferred horse was already prepared, so he swung himself into his riding position and looked over with a grin.

"That's perfect then. They are coming in at just the right time. It seems luck is really on our side."

Ralene
 
"Your optimism is annoying but admirable," Ral replied with a half grin, reining her horse down along the cobble path and nudging it into an easy lope. They made good time traveling at a steady pace throughout the morning hours, hitting the main trade route once they'd left the limits of the Academy grounds. They passed various travelers all along the way - as ever, Vel Anir was a hub of activity, incoming and outgoing.

At half-eleven, Ralene stopped before a tall sign pole, reading down the list of various locales and their distances until she found Wiston. She'd not been there before, but according to the signpost it wasn't much farther. Down the left fork they went, riding into open countryside for a short while before entering into a forested region. The city proper was off on the eastern horizon, they could spot its glimmering sliver atop the hillside just before the trees. Another hour's ride past Wiston and they'd be in the thick of it - but for now...

Ral pulled her horse up quite suddenly, watching as it's ears pricked in the direction of the village, and motioned for Al to do the same.

Silence, then a drifting lull of wind brought the sound of clattering metal. She exchanged a glance with Alistair, "Sounds like something's up..."
 
"Well, you know. If I'm going to do something, then I might as well believe I can do it." Alistair explained with a noncommittal shrug and then followed after Ralene.

The early morning ride was rather nice in all regards. They had a few hours of cool weather before the sun really got into the sky. Any Anirians that they passed on their ride tended to give them a wide birth. Alistair looked like a noble, while Ralene looked like a dreadlord. Neither was one that any normal citizens would dare attempt to interact with unless Alistair or Ralene initiated it.

Alistair's luck must have not been as good as he thought, because he pulled to a stop beside Ralene. He was quick to notice sounds of metal, along with Ralene...the sound of battle. He unsheathed the sword as he hip and gestured to Ralene

"Feel like taking a short break to have some fun?"

With any luck, it was just some poor bandits who had the horrible luck to run into not one but two dreadlord initiates that were out running errands.

Ralene
 
Well wasn't he just a swarthy mother fucker. Ralene eyed his drawn sword with a snort. Academy Initiates weren't specifically allowed to enact justice on n'er'do'wells unless on a mission that required it. They were supposed to leave these sorts of dealings to the Anirian Guard.

That was their job.

But it was on the way and who could deny Fancy Pants McGee over here his hour of noble honor?

Ralene gestured back at him with a sweep of her armored arm along the roadway, "Ladies first." Grinned, and nudged her horse to follow off his flank as he dashed ahead.
 
"How original. If this doesn't work out then I'm sure someone could use a court jester."

Alistair shot back with an eye roll as he spurred his horse forward. He was aware of the rules for initiates, but he was also aware that this rule was rarely upheld. After all, on one hand, the initiates would be practicing combat which is what an old school official would value. On the other hand, the initiate was upholding the peace and justice of the land, which sounded like some shit the republic supporters would love.

His horse carried Alistair quickly down the road, his sword held carefully in his hand expecting to see some sort of battle the closer he got to the sound of combat. How did he want to do this? He could use magic and probably end things pretty quickly, or he could keep it normal and get in some practice with the sword.

Ralene
 
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