A Quiet Rune Scribe

SEP 25 Wednesday, it's been two weeks and after all this time I've finally found what is wrong with my spell, to explain I have to talk about the runic language and how it works and why it's used over other languages, the first thing is that the runic language is made up of only symbols.

That may not sound important from a human perspective, but this language wasn't made by humans, the language itself is all different symbols each one meaning a different word as the language doesn't use letters only symbols and nothing else, this is the reason it's used in a spell's matrix as instead of using your limited space to spell out a word in a spell matrix you only need to use one symbol.

The downside to this is obvious as trying to actually use it for anything else is hard as hell compared to a normal language, if you want to read a runic sentence you need to learn all the unique complex symbols to understand anything, this brings me to the other thing about the runic language and also why my spell failed.

The other thing about the runic language is the meaning behind the words, this is why my spell failed as I didn't take this into account when creating the spell matrix, a good example of this is why my spell failed the symbol I used was the light symbol.

When you think of light, what comes to mind for a modern human, that might be light waves along with visible and nonvisible light, but what does a pony think of, well the only thing they really know about light is that when it's there they can see and when it's not it goes dark.

So, when I tried to use a symbol representing the ability to see to make something you can't see the spell worked but was horribly inefficient and even a little unstable, this also left me at an impasse as I can't make this spell with only math without using knowledge from my old world that could be misused.

And I don't have the magical knowledge necessary to create a spell like this without making it use far too much power to be practical, so I'm going to change focus from trying to make this spell to something else as I don't have the skill or knowledge necessary right now.

I'm going to try something simple but practical anti-pest crop protection, that may seem a little out of nowhere but many farms in Equestria have problems with pests that eat and kill crops causing failed harvests mostly because of their lack of things like pesticides and while Equestria and its citizens don't starve it's still a big problem.

With this in mind I'm going to be trying to create some enchantments that will help, and with my new outlook on how to use runes I have a few ideas as while the runes having meaning closes some doors it opens others, like the runic word for protection in the past, I didn't see much of a use for it.

But now I do, the idea of protecting something or somepony is vague but also malleable it can mean protecting a box from being opened or it can mean protecting somepony in a certain area from anything dangerous to them, runes may be vague, but they allow me to give a spell broad instructions for a wide variety of scenarios.

My idea is to use this rune to make the spell slowly freeze anything trying to eat the crops this will kill and slow pests while driving them away and anything larger will flee the cold while any pests big enough to stay warm will be much easier to find and catch.

It will take me a few days to create the spell and even then, I don't know how large I can make the area of effect for the spell, I have to be careful because if the spell takes too much magic to maintain as the more, it takes the bigger the gem needed to keep it active and if it uses too much it will be useless, this is why I'm trying to make it freeze pests very slowly to lower the magical cost for upkeep.

Right now, it's looking like the spell will be very slow it'll be so slow that it would take over an hour to freeze even a slug, but most bugs and other small pests don't like the cold so after a few days any in range of the spell should die off and I'm hoping other bugs won't try to move into the empty area as it's too cold for them.

The other part of the spell I'll have to make is something to keep the temperature from dropping too much as to harm the plants themselves as that would just cause a new problem for the farmers, I'm hoping to have this enchantment use the same type of gem as the light but that's not looking likely right now.

Beyond all that I've been busy testing my new type of wood, the Iron Oak wood is proving to be a good choice as not only is it tough and with a little help from my enchanted knife usable it's also a decent magic conductor not as good as the blood wood but still decent enough, I've also learned that unlike regular oak the Iron Oak wood doesn't crack if it has enough life magic in it when it's being grown.

This makes it a very stable material for magic and regular use, I've run some tests to see what the limits of the wood are and I've yet to find any limit to how tough it can get although it does have a steep magic cost the stronger you make it, the Companion Vine is also proving useful as while it doesn't make magic rich plants grow faster it does help keep them alive in an area without much life magic without me having to help them let me use my magic on other things.

Like the black egg which beyond the amount of life magic in it which is still growing hasn't done anything, the only other difference is its color which at this point absorbs almost all light even when I place a magic light next to it, I can only barely make out some texture and at this point I'm starting to wonder if it will ever hatch.

I've tried looking for any information on the egg but much like the auction house has come up with nothing, I'm also starting to wonder if it's a good idea to let whatever it is hatch but after some thought my curiosity won out and I will keep trying to hatch it, but I will use one of my spare gems to make a small magic shield around it just to be safe.

But today I'm spending some time making a better sharpening spell for my wood carving knife, the one I'm using now was slapped together in two hours from a less-than-perfect spell it isn't that great it works just not well, and if I'm going to be using even tougher Iron Oak wood, I'm going to need something better.

And after a few hours of work, I have a much-improved spell, I grab my knife and undo the enchantment by carefully pulling the spell out of the knife with the counter spell, the enchantment spell binds spells to objects and the counter spell undoes the bindings you do have to be careful though, so you don't destroy the item in the process.

After removing the old spell, I enchant the knife with my new one, I grab a piece of oak to test it on and the knife glides through it like butter offering no resistance and a clean cut, I expected the spell to be better but not to this degree although I made this spell for only me, so I made it with only numbers.

With this new spell on my knife, my carving speed went through the roof, right now, I don't have anything I need to carve but I still have several small wood blocks and I don't really need them, so I grab one and start carving not to make something for a project or an experiment but simply for fun.

And after an hour or so I'm done having carved a small hourglass out of the wood it's simple and crude, but I found myself really enjoying the process, I do many things, but most are projects or learning and training I do have some things that I do for fun but not many and I've been thinking of getting a hobby and wood carving sounds like a decent one.

It's just past noon, so I grab my bags and head for the door, I make my way to the upper city markets looking for a crafts shop or something similar I end up finding a hobby shop so that will have to work, as I enter the shop, I see rows of shelves next to each other all filled with different small tools.

I spend some time looking through the shelves and after some looking, I found the perfect thing a wood carving kit, it's expensive like most metal things as anything made from metal needs a blacksmith to make it, the kit itself has sixteen small different blades along with a beginner's guide to wood carving.

I buy the kit for one hundred and twenty bits before I move onto another shop, this one a blacksmith, I'm here looking for a decent saw to cut up the wood I grow as cutting the thicker branches with a knife won't work well and after buying a basic hoof saw I head back home.

After getting home I lay all my new tools on my desk make some tea and start the process of enchanting all the new blades along with the saw, after I'm done, I grab my new saw and my knife before moving to my oak tree and start by removing the Companion Vine from the tree letting it lay on the ground.

After moving the vine out of the way, I take my saw and start cutting the main tree trunk a few inches from the soil, I fell the entire small tree and moved the fallen tree to the side before cutting off branches from the trunk and placing all the extra bits into the pot.

After some time, I render the trunk down removing all the bark and branches placing them all in the pot, and decomposing it all back into soil before I start regrowing the Iron Oak from its stump, after a few minutes, and adding some more soil from what I bought, I have a new tree that I place the vine back onto.

I take my new small log several inches thick at its base before thinning out quickly to only an inch or so thick, I cut the log down into several wood blocks before stacking them near my desk and placing the scrap wood into the pot, I sit at my desk and start using my new kit to slowly carve down a block of wood.

As I cut small bits of wood off the block slowly with different tools chipping away at the wood for several hours, as the room goes dark, I use my light to continue carving and at this point, I've carved out a rough pony shape it has no detail just a blank wood model with a horn and wings.

The toughness of the wood makes it possible to have a very small link of wood that does not snap or crack while working the wood letting me make wings that hold onto the rest of the carving without it breaking, I'm far from done with it but I have a rough model.

But I have work tomorrow and it's getting late, so I put down my tools down and go to the kitchen making myself a sandwich without meat, just vegetables and some mustard and after enjoying my dinner I take a shower and make my way to bed.