The time of idle words and questions of what lay beyond worlds had ended. An arrival had caused silence to wash across the dwarves, and a singular figure had arrived. The youngest of the three dwarves had not returned; instead, an elderly and regal dwarf had taken his place.

  The ritualist had entered with no qualms, and the other two remaining dwarves Borrin and Noc made distance between themselves and the new arrival. They bowed their heads slightly to acknowledge the man, yet spoke no words. With firm steps, he made his way to Ren at the back of the fine barrack.

  With a pure white beard and green eyes, he stepped in front of Ren. Much like the other dwarves, he carried various tools and instruments along a hefty belt. Though this dwarf possessed no weapons on his person, none besides the simple hammer and knife at his belt. Though such things were not designed to kill but to craft. Pulling free a node of an unrefined jew, the dwarf muttered softly to himself.

  Placing the unrefined gemstone onto the ground before Ren, shalk came free from his belt next. A great formation quickly came alive around Ren as the dwarf circled him. With long-honed and practiced movements, a network formation began to grow more and more complicated around Ren by the second.

  A rough stone came free from a pouch at the dwarf’s side. Pulling free a chisel, he shaped it masterfully with strikes that sheared off sections of stone with impossible precision. Within a few dozen strikes the stone was mostly spherical, though many edges of it were rough and unrefined.

  Pulling free a long flat plane of metal, the ritualist began rubbing in along the rough sides of the spherical stone. With long strokes, the stone became far closer to the ideal shape of a perfect sphere. A rough sheet was next pulled free from a tube on the dwarf’s belt. Without a wisp of magic the material began clearing off the smallest of imperfections along the stone’s surface.

  As the sphere of stone was made into its ideal form, it was placed behind Ren. During this process, Ren had stared fixated on the dwarf’s every action. There was a powerful and meaningful interaction between each and every piece of the process the dwarf took. It was incomprehensible to him, Ren assumed the ritualist was magnitudes more powerful than himself, and untold years his elder in the practice of ritualism.

  The knowledge Ren had was impractical and at best random. Small pieces of information at times would make sense to him, though other far more basic concepts in the craft would be utter mysteries.

  Relying on his patron’s gifted knowledge was a boon in one instance, yet a terrible and crippling setback in others. If he had the practical knowledge to make a ritual on his own, he may even learn something by watching the dwarf. With his current lack of knowledge besides the occasional spark of memory on behalf of his patron, he was unable to learn anything by studying the actions of the ritualist before him.

  Lacking magic, it was useless anyway. It would still be some time before his ability to use mana would return, perhaps even months or years. Without his magic, ritualism was a useless talent.

  “May I sit?” Ren spoke into the near-total quiet of the barracks.

  The small sounds of the ritualist ended as his chalk hovered above the symbol he was forming. Looking upwards into Ren’s eyes, the dwarf nodded before returning to his work. It took long moments of staring at his work before he seemed to remember where he was in the process.

  Noc made eye contact with Noc as the old dwarf gave him menacing eyes. Confused Ren flushed before Noc put two fingers over his own lips, clamping them. The gesture was new to Ren, but the implication was obvious. He should not speak in the presence of the ritualist. For whatever reason that may be, it did not matter. Ren promptly nodded slightly no Noc, acknowledging the elderly dwarf.

  Sitting still on the stone floor of the barracks, Ren closed his eyes and began to meditate. Part of him wished to disregard his inability to understand what the ritualist had been doing and try piecing it together anyhow. Another part of him told himself that it was better to ease himself for what could come next.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Opening his eyes gently, Ren burned a small amount of mana, stamina, and health in balance with one another to empower his Eldritch eyes. They were not an act of magic, and so it would not harm the damaged amber heart any further. Though, it did feel awkward using an eldritch power in front of the dwarves. Perhaps they would not have noticed.

  With the empowered eldritch eyes, the faintest trace of the dwarf’s work was made visible to Ren. No mana was being used, odd. Dwarves certainly did possess mana, unlike orks. It was obvious in them when he looked into one of their kind with his eyes.

  A key component of the dwarf’s ritual appeared to be the materials. An interaction between the nature of the materials is what would facilitate the process. What those components were, how they function, and how they interacted was far beyond him. He only could understand that the ritual was based on the interactions of the materials by how obvious it was that the dwarf used no mana in the crafting of his ritual.

  Surrounding Ren was a massive ritual crafted with materials that interacted like a giant chain of chemicals being mixed, diluted, separated, and changed into different states. Regardless of his great lack of knowledge, there was one key part of the ritual he now understood. Materials could be used to effect rituals or to be used for the entire process of a ritual.

  Perhaps the dwarf would still have to use some magic, but the entire structure so far was entirely based on physical materials. A door opened to Ren, the possibility of using his ritualism with a disregard for his lack of magic. If he could use material components instead of magic, he could again be a ritualist without ruining his amber heart any further.

  With a small sigil made around the perfected stone sphere, and another around the unrefined gem, the ritual began. Latent energy came free from the gemstone, the refined power within it drawn out by the materials within the sigil around it.

  As though operating as an electrical circuit, power flowed from the unrefined gemstone. The jew’s power was changed and morphed through a series of interactions with runes and syphilis surrounding the ritual. The movement of power was brief, only very noticeable due to Ren's eldritch eyes and faster reaction times.

  Though Ren could perceive some of the work happening, it was as if he was trying to always catch up to the next reaction occurring along the massive network of ritual script. His eyes always fell behind as a sudden and unexpected part of the ritual began a new process, sometimes even slowing down so he could see what was happening.

  Unable to understand in any meaningful way, he still got vague impressions. The energy at one point flared and became much more akin to magic, or the energy of mana, then rapidly the energy flow became much more akin to a raw energy that was neither mana, vitality, nor stamina.

  As the process continued it neared the stone sphere. Ren knew that once it reached the sphere, he would soon experience the odd sensation he had before. When Hollwin had done his reading on Ren, it was as if something was trying to rip away a part of him. Out of instinct, he had wanted to break away from the process, barely maintaining control of himself.

  Regardless of how he had reacted in the past, he was determined to go about this as gracefully as he could. It was not a good idea to struggle against what the dwarf had done, it would only dig him a deeper hole.

  The chain of reactions finally collided with the stone sphere. Ren felt nothing, not even the smallest hint of what had happened when he had a reading taken by Hollwin.

  It took long moments before Ren felt anything. Soon, the faint impression of something landing across him tickled at his sense of touch. Like the finest spider’s silk, tiny lines came across his body. They were impossible to see with the naked eye, but with Ren’s paranormal sense of sight, the faintest trace of them could be seen.

  A network of invisible strands of energy covered his body, all connecting back to the stone. Ren closed his eyes as the strands slowly moved across his form, seeming to measure his body.

  The stone behind him began to meld and shape itself to his form. Mirroring his image, the stone became an image of Ren sitting cross-legged with his eyes barely open. The small statue was nearly a foot tall and several inches wide.

  Feeling the same sensation as when Hollwin had taken a reading of him, Ren braced himself. Regardless of how he had felt before, no anxiety ran through him. Total calm had taken him, and the tiniest piece of his soul was extracted and planted within the statue of him.

  Far different from the process of the clerics where a metal sheet was inscribed, here the statue was now made perfectly in his image. A faint trace of his power emanated from the statue. Both the dormant power of the amber heart, as well as the eldritch affinity was made obvious.