If a book falls from a shelf, and no one hears it...

[FoamBats4All]

... it's still annoying to have to pick up. Also, I'll kill the bastard what done it.

Crafting RP is just about the most boring thing ever. To boot, no one ever actually reads it. In some hope of making it more entertaining for myself, I decided to change to a more literary format, and post some of it to the ALFA Library.

As normal, there's meta goodness here. Please be mature.

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Lightstone

Late into the night, as most of the students are weary, aching, and off to bed, the elf Aislinn sits down at her cleared-off workstation, smiling. She had been hunting for just the right crystal since she had come back to Luruar. On her last trip to Felbar, she had finally found it. Taking the preciously wrapped object from her bag, she delicately removes its cloth covering, exposing the item.

Pure, crystalline beauty rests on the dark cloth, its intricate interior just faint enough to be noticed, without detracting from crisp, sharp nature of the material. Light dances from the nearby candle, casting reflections through the perfectly clean, perfectly clear object, sending highlights through its shallow depths.

For the longest time, Aislinn had worked on gem-themed enchantments, and this isn't an entirely different beast. The poison of choice tonight is corstal -- also known as petalite. Corstal, like many materials found throughout the realms, has very specific uses when plicked and plucked by a learned hand. Even now Aislinn could feel the faint, almost invisible reaction that the item has with the nearby flame, only experience allowing her to notice the tell-tale signs of a mystical catalyst. For corstal, so commonly found on the necks of commoners, despite its rarity, has a distinct and potent correlation for lights -- particularly magic lights.

As she works, placing layer upon layer of preparatory wards over herself, her workstation, and the crystal itself, her mind drifts to a lesson given some moons ago. It was within the halls of the Silver Spires of Lion's Way that she had last demonstrated corstal's unique properties. There, in the dark, poorly lit cathedral library, she had sat with her apprentice, a piece of the crystal -- large but crude in comparison to her current specimen -- on the floor between them.

"The first time I had heard of corstal was from an aged dwarven jeweler -- competition at the time," she had explained to her apprentice, drawing out small pouches from her bag. From each of the minor pouches, she takes a pinch of dyed sand, one part red, one part blue, and one part yellow. She places the trio of pinches of sand in her apprentice's palm, then holds a second trio in her own. "When I heard of what beauty the gem contained, unknown by many, I rushed home to study this spell. Watch, and do as I do; try your best, remember the theory I taught you, and focus the cone tightly, into the crystal."

That day, between them, they had created dazzling displays of light in the dusky library, their spells of colored light reflecting and holding inside the crystal, causing it to radiate the light spectrum back at them for several long seconds at a time. The look of focus, of effort, then of enjoyment on her friend's face had made the purchase and lecture well worth it -- the exceptional light show a certain bonus.

Now, today, her face warmed with a smile at the memory, Aislinn completes her strengthening foundation, exploiting the naturally found magic that is rooted so deeply into the natural material. It isn't so different, now, from that day. It is a pinch of phosphorescent moss instead, that she takes between her fingers, her lips quietly mouthing the required incantation. A tiny bead of sweat, of concentrated effort, works its way over her jaw, hanging there -- until it suddenly shines with bright reflected light, and falls.