The Anatomy of Magic
“In order to understand current Aetheric
Theory, we must understand its component parts.”
-Fin Myastin, excerpt from Notes on Aether
Fin worked well into the night, as was usual for any young mage existing on the edge of new theory. He was a theorist, yes, but his desire to better understand the foundations of his work drove him to test and experiment.
That night, he found himself with a collection of freshly gathered animal bones, a desiccated grizzly bear liver, and a set of well-preserved eyes claimed from an unfortunate giant spider. His goal was simple: test these bodily materials and derive as many fundamental elements as possible.
The headmaster adjusted his spectacles and selected a set of hind femurs as the first volunteer. He took a cold chisel, ran a whetstone over the edge a few times, then honed it with a strap of fine bear leather. He set the sharp edge against the bone where it met the stone table below and gently struck the chisel from above with a wooden maul. The bone had little fight left and gave way easily to his first blow. A few shards splintered from the bottom, but the first break was clean.
He repeated the cycle, sharpening, honing, and striking, moving from the anterior to the medial, then the posterior to the lateral, until he had 16 bone pieces, each about 2 inches long.
“This is why I need an apprentice.” Fin thought to himself. Or did he say it out loud? After so many hours being isolated in his office, he wasn’t so sure. Regardless, every passing hour spent preparing objects for his experiments entrenched that belief.
He took an oddly shaped section of femur and, with a fine, flexible blade and surgeon-like precision, outlined the marrow against the bone's interior surface before scraping it into a bowl with several small holes in the bottom. He placed the now-hollow bone in a marble mortar and pestle and began grinding it to dust. At first, he worked carefully, though with a bit of barbarism, and picked up the pace as the process went on. Each bone was placed into its own bottle after it became powder, and the bottles were sorted neatly into a rack.
After placing a small golden bowl beneath the colander-like marrow receptacle, he set a heavy stone on top, its weight squeezing the contents. He bent down to watch the stone do its work, placing a hand on top to add a bit of pressure. After some time, a small amount of pink liquid began to flow, then drip, into the golden bowl. Not much, but enough to prove a point. He gave the liquid a home in its own vial, then squeezed a cork onto the top and melted a small amount of wax over it to seal it fully.
He sighed, turning and looking at the dried liver and the bottle of floating spider’s eyes. What time was it? He walked to his desk, pulled off a glove, and took a long drink from a goblet. After a brief pause to review his notes on the following procedure, he set the goblet down and slipped his glove back on.
Back to work.