wrote:Kala would use her knowledge in forging (weapon crafting) as well as in alchemy to try to find exactly how the alloy was made. She'll also ask other craftsmen and check the Godsmen records to get information on the actual techniques. She'll also try to decipher any possible enchantment or magic that could have been used in the process.
She'll also try to extract a part of the essence of one of the shards to carefully analyse it. Trying to see how it reacts to all the four elemental essences first, then to raw power essences. Making sure of course she was protected against any possible explosion.
She'll use a second shard, to directly try to see how they react to frost, electricity, fire and acid.
She finds nothing in the records about this kind of alloy. It seems too new, something some in her faction speculated about but no attempts to create it has been successful so far.
Indeed she finds some hints that the Doomguards are conducting some similar research but according to the lest reports delivered by her Faction's spies they have not yet succeeded.
There is magic involved- and perhaps it is this part that makes recreating this alloy so hard. It must be a custom spell, researched for just this purpose but with her experience she realizes that this spell must have been kept active during the whole process that led to the creation of said alloy- which hints it has been either made permanent somewhere or it was the effect of a magical item or artifact.
Her experiments on the two shards give her some results of course:
The shards are immune to normal acid, fire, cold or electricity but magically conjured forms can harm them normally- however the shards display a certain immunity to magic quite similar to that of a golem making most evocation magic useless in this kind of research.
All five essences can be used to regenerate and heal those shards it seems. Regardless if their strength they start to fade when brought in contact with the shard, the item itself looking almost rejuvenated afterwards.
That is- for a few minutes, depending on the essence's power. Then the effect fades again, the shard returning to normal.
She might see that each kind of essence has a different effect- different parts of the shard responding in different ways but the overall effect stays the same.
Kala will proceed on testing both negative and positive energy on the shards. Most of her attention will be focused on the interactions of both energies particularly focusing if at some point the created an "aera of neutrality" or if she could alter the dead part of the shard into a living one and vice-versa. In case of damages she'll use the essences to regenerate it.
As for the alloy, she'll try to recreate it herself, infusion both metals with a spell to protect the morguth iron from good and the solanian steel from evil, before they melded together.
Aiming small amounts of positive or negative energy at the shards always seems to heal them- but a greater amount has a destructive effect as it sems to disrupt the delicate balance needed to keep those pieces intact.
However the ability of clerics to channel those energies does nothing- turning or rebuking this creatures simply does not work.
Recreating the alloy is hard but her approach yields some usuable results. Those spells used indeed briefly the Aurorum and Morguth Iron to mix briefly- but as soon as they face or are displelled the alloy quicky deteriorates.
Kala would have tried to cast a detect alignment on the shards, then she would try to dispel one of the mixed alloys to see if it would actually deteriorate.
This time she would try to make sure, to cast a permanent spell on both alloyed before she molded them together once again.
If the experiment succeeded, she'll try to cast a druid spell called "transform metal to wood" checking if it actually worked or if it would consolidate the mix. She'll also try it on one the shard she had previously tried to dispel if it didn't succeeded.
She'd also inspect the golem core Siniope brought to her, trying to uncover how it working, knowing it was fueled by blood. She'd give her book about blood magic a check as she wasn't very knowledgeable in that area ((item possessed ingame)).
Once she was done, she'll send what she had discovered so far to the clergy of Wee Jas, as she had promised, expecting their letter in return.
The shards are all registering as true neutral- if there is evil or good or chaos or law it is in perfect balance.
Using Permanency with Protection from Good or Protection from Evil will require some extra research of course- but Kara is sure in time she can find a way.
((Is she going for this spell research? It will be 2 weeks and 2k to modify Permanency so it works with a Protection From Alignment Spell. Of course as a Factor can have a team research both at the same time so she can save some time.))
Examining the Core recovered from one of the guardian constructs she will find no traces of blood magic at all- it seems the blood was merely used to transfer some positive and negative energy, the core itself creating energy by somehow using the conflict between those opposing kinds of energy.
She has some time while the research is conducted and working with the core yields some results.
Spells do not work with this core but if a medium is used a mix of positive and negative energy should result in some steady but weak flow of arcane energy.
A researcher who frequently chats with the Gnome Mazey suggests to use potions of Cure and Inflict as the medium- an adventurer named Brogar who was assisted my Mazey has had some success with those fluids and his own research on those shards and devices.
Kala followed Mazey's discovery yet a bit reluctantly. She used the potions as a medium, carefully observing how it reacted, trying the keep the balance between positive and negative energy. The Factor would then try to access how much power this core could give in case she could re-purpose it later.
Then, she would try to make the thing dysfunction, hoping to find a way to neutralize the threat the twisted golems may pose. First the attempted to break the balance of energies by casting a healing spell on it. If it didn't worked, she would try to overcharge it by casting a more powerful healing spell, taking all the necessary measures to avoid any potential danger.
The potions work but their energy is spent quickly and erratically- it is their nature to spend all the energy stured in them in a quick blast of healing or harming energy- and they do the same in that core.
This results ub arcane energies recieved to be instable and violent- nevertheless they could be powerful enough to make a construct move or to power a charged or permanent item.
Destroying this thing proves to be rather easy- it is just a matter of disrupting the balance as she already suspected. The core burns out quickly, reduced to a clump of slag.
Expecting to find another core soon enough. Kala went to work hoping the research on the spell she previously had commissioned would work. She then used it to craft a spear using the odd combination of the two materials, with one specific detail: a magical rune that could allow the used to channel a powerful amount of positive energy through the wielder as long she or he knew how to cast these spells. As for the spear itself, she shaped it to be balanced enough to be thrown yet correctly used in hand to hand combat, making the tip as sharp as possible to pierce through the victims flesh before overcharging her with positive energry, expecting it to completely destroy the balance fueling the creature cores. She also work on a negative energy version.
The spells researched she now can start to work on that alloy- and indeed they suceed.
Making the weapons from this alloy is not hard but she soon realizes they have two weaknesses: The first is that a permanent spell can still be dispelled or disjoined- the balance of this alloy imposed on it by an outside source and it is not a property it has itself.
The second is that charging the weapon in this way will also destroy it, as the dpark of positive or negative energy will disrupt the umposed balance quite easily, making the weapon useful for only a single attack.
