Three days later Calen and his companions were finally ready to leave.
"Are you sure your shoulder is okay Isa?" Calen questioned. "It was basically destroyed four days ago."
"Says the guy who healed a hole in his chest in two days." Isara raised an eyebrow. "I’m fine Cal, Ellie’s care and the weird powers of the altar sped up the process exponentially."
"Speaking of healing..." Elira interjected. "We’re out of medical supplies, we’ll need to restock at the Order - provided they’ll even have what we need."
"I think the settlement full of warriors and knights will have a decent amount of everything needed for healing."
"You’ll be able to get everything you need - provided we don’t get caught, because you’re with me." Alfred chuckled. "Have you thought of a way to smuggle me inside yet?"
"Well, the invisibility robe is pointless since aura users would be able to sense you anyway." Calen clicked his tongue. "Same goes for the disillusionment charm, they would recognise your aura through it."
"There’s something from the Fool’s book we could try..."
"You don’t sound to confident."
"Because I’m not sure I entirely understand the principle behind the enchantment - if the tricks I’ve been using so far are considered simple, then this one is somewhat complex."
"The trick relies on creating a physical illusion, but with a magical basis. It’s effects aren’t fully described, but at its very core it’s supposed to change a person to be unrecognisable by any means, aura included."
"Sounds like it’s exactly what we need - what do you need to make it?"
"A mask, a plain one preferably, and some blood from Alfred."
The knight narrowed his eyes.
"You’re not planning on using blood magic on me, are you?"
"Blood magic doesn’t exist." Isara rolled her eyes. "The blood will be used to bind the spell to your body and make it last longer - and I don’t even need much, just a few drops."
Alfred sighed, pulled out a massive hunting knife and held it to his palm.
"Whoa, stop there." Isara stopped him before the blade cut his skin. "I will need it at the very end of the process, once the mask is complete."
"I think I can help you with getting a mask." Elira stated. "Just give me a few minutes."
The alchemist ran down the stairs and disappeared.
Just like she said, she returned a few minutes later.
"Here." Elira handed Isara a simple wooden mask - its surface was slightly uneven, and there were only two narrow slits for eyes, but it was enough.
Or it would be enough if it was made of regular wood - when Isara took it her eyes widened.
"This is rune-oak! How the hell did you get this?"
"Lady Sylara gave me a lot of seeds to practice shaping plants - among them were three seeds for rune-oak." Elira frowned a little. "Was it a bad call to use one for this mask?"
"No, absolutely not, don’t worry - now I can make the mask reusable, it’ll be very useful." Isara paused. "But consult us before you use the other two seeds please - even if Sylara has hundreds of them we won’t always be near Mountainfall to get more."
"Sure, it’s not like I’m going to carelessly use something like that."
"Do you need any help with enchanting?" Calen asked.
"I know you just want to use my new enchantment tools, but yeah sure you can come, maybe you’ll help me figure out the unclear parts."
To work on the mask the two of them moved to Isara’s room - the only downside of that location was a lack of table, but then again there wasn’t a single table in the entire temple
As a result they ended up working on the floor, but it wasn’t a huge inconvenience.
"So, what part of all of this is unclear? I hope it’s not runes because I’m worse at those than you."
"If it was about runes I would have just checked in the book - no, it’s about the structure of the magic circle."
"Yes, for the spell to work the enchantment must be integrated into the mask. The thing is, I have no clue what ’integrating a spell into an object’ means."
"Isn’t that just enchanting?"
"Obviously not, otherwise this would be a regular magic item, and not a secret technique from a legacy of an archmage."
"Fair point..." Calen hummed thoughtfully. "What if instead of just just enchanting it and using the object border principle, we instead treat the entire mask as a magic circle?"
"Like cover the entire thing while changing the placement of runes and pathways? Wouldn’t that be unstable?"
"It should be fine as long as we properly close the circuit. We’ll still be making a fully functional magic circle, just in three dimensions instead of two."
"Exactly, except instead of multilayered command logic it will be just a single spell."
"It’s not a bad idea, but..."
"...You’re scared of ruining a piece of rune-oak."
"Not really, rune-oak is a very valuable substance and we have only one shot at it. Under normal circumstances I would be advocating for making a prototype with a regular piece of wood first... Actually, what am I talking about, we have Ellie, we can get something for a prototype. I’ll be back in a moment."
A couple minutes later Calen returned with an exact copy of the mask they already had, but this time made from regular oak.
"Ellie said we can have as many as we want, as long as we don’t mind that the type of wood will be different each time." He grinned. "Now pull up that book of yours, we have a sketch to make before we start carving."
"We won’t be carving, I have professional tools, remember?" She pulled out a pen-like tool with a deep blue crystal on one end, and a metal spike on the other. "This will be so much easier than carving shit with a knife."