Details are Always a Bitch

Rashan was seated in the study—one of the few places in the estate that truly felt like his.

His father had given it to him years ago, not so much as a gift, but a quiet acknowledgment: the boy was building things that needed space.

The room had grown with him. Now it looked more like a war room crossed with a scholar's archive.

One side was covered in tactical maps and drawn layouts—chalk, ink, charcoal scrawled across mounted boards. Threaded lines showed strike paths. Colored pins marked old raids. Nearby shelves held coded journals, operation logs, and mock stratagems built from old Legion field manuals and his own corrections.

Another corner was devoted entirely to alchemy.

A sturdy oaken table sat beneath the open window, where light spilled across racks of labeled vials and cutting trays. A mortar and pestle. Steel tongs. A flameplate burner. Distillation coils he'd modified himself from broken Dwemer scraps. Behind it, sealed drawers stored his ingredients—powdered salts, bone dust, dried roots, crushed gems, preserved organs.

Even with perfect recall, he kept notes. Pages of them. Not because he forgot, but because the act of organizing kept his thoughts from stacking over one another. Rewriting stabilized the flood.

Next to that was his enchanting section.

Books stacked waist-high. Scrolls. Loose parchment. Diagrams of soul matrices, crystal harmonics, and rune channels—most marked with dense scribbles and red ink. A side table held empty soul gems, silver chisels, measuring rods, and fragmentary etching tools.

He'd been at it for years.

Then came the magic archive—neatly divided: Restoration, Mysticism, Alteration, Conjuration.

Each school had its own shelf. Its own paper trail. Rashan's handwriting ran thick across the margins—notes, corrections, speculations, cross-references between theory and practice. Folded diagrams showed spell lattices, aura flow, and spell layering. Some of it borrowed from Adrien. Most of it—he built himself.

At the center of the study, two chairs faced each other over a wide table scattered with scrolls, sketches, and half-finished calculations. A chalkboard stood behind them—already filled with spellwork matrices, geometric diagrams, and stray notes in both their handwriting.

Rashan leaned forward, eyes sharp, hands animated.

"I'm not saying we throw out the spell. I'm saying the spell doesn't have to wrap the body. It can anchor to the armor itself. If Alteration can reinforce flesh, then why can't it reinforce material? Lightweight armor, mage robes, doesn't matter."

Across from him, Adrien exhaled through his nose, arms crossed.

"It's Mage Armor, Rashan. Not Armor Mage." He gestured loosely at the board. "The spell works with your body's aura. You layer the energy over the flesh, strengthen the form. Trying to attach that field to a physical object is like tying wind to a rope."

"But the field doesn't care what it's anchoring to," Rashan said. "It's responding to structural pressure, not biology. If I use the same principle and tune the field to the surface of my cuirass—just the outer shell—I'm not layering protection on me, I'm altering the impact path before it ever reaches me."

Adrien's brow creased. "You're trying to engineer Alteration."

Rashan shrugged. "Why not?"

He stood, crossed to the chalkboard, and underlined a runic formation drawn across a schematic of leather and metal armor plates.

"I've already tested the weave. It doesn't reject the anchor. It holds for about six seconds. Not stable yet, but it's a start."

Adrien stared at him for a long moment.

"Do you even hear yourself?" he said. "This isn't some game where you enchant a helmet and suddenly you're invincible. Mage Armor is supposed to be simple. Fluid. You're trying to hardwire it into gear."

"Because I wear gear," Rashan said, tone cool. "And I'm not planning to walk into battle in a robe. You trained me better than that."

That stopped Adrien. Just for a beat.

Rashan softened slightly and added, "Look, I'm not trying to replace anything. But if I can layer a dynamic shield over my armor instead of trying to double-cast Flesh spells every fight, that gives me back time, energy—and options."

Adrien didn't answer right away. He stepped forward instead, picked up the page Rashan had been annotating.

"You'll need a more stable binding matrix," he muttered. "Otherwise it'll rip the aura as soon as the armor flexes."

Rashan grinned.

"I already thought of that," he said, flipping another page over. "Top left."

Adrien read. Then muttered under his breath, "Bloody show-off."

They were still grinning as they drifted back toward the center of the study, the last of their argument giving way to the comfortable quiet of shared space.

Adrien exhaled slowly, rubbing his face with one hand before letting his gaze wander the room.

He paused at the enchanting section.

Something in the corner of the table caught his eye. He walked over without saying anything, fingers brushing a half-covered page.

Then he stopped.

Rashan stayed where he was, leaning against the table, watching.

Adrien pulled the page closer. Then another. Then frowned.

"Sharpness?" he muttered. "No… this isn't sharpness…"

Rashan grinned. "Vibration."

Adrien's head turned. "You're applying resonance?"

"To a blade," Rashan said. "Carefully."

Adrien looked back at the notes, flipping a few more pages. "You're serious."

"I am."

"How do you plan to keep the structure intact? Vibrational resonance can crack the weapon just as fast as the target if the frequency's off by even a margin."

"That's the hard part," Rashan admitted. "But if it's done right…"

He stepped forward and laid the full schematic flat on the table—etching pattern, energy matrix, soul amplification path.

Then he explained:

"A traditional sharpness enchantment enhances the physical edge of a blade. Keeps it honed, clean, and razor-sharp no matter how much wear it sees. It resists chipping, dulling—sometimes even guides the wielder's strikes toward weaker points in armor or anatomy. It's about preservation. Precision. It's for finesse fighters who care about technique and clean execution."

Adrien nodded once. "And this isn't that."

"No," Rashan said. "A vibrating edge—resonant blade—works off a completely different principle."

He tapped the central glyph.

"It pushes magical energy into the edge itself. Not to keep it sharp—but to make it move. Micro-vibrations. High frequency. Controlled. Those vibrations weaken the bonds of whatever the blade touches—right at the point of contact. Bone. Plate. Shell. Doesn't matter."

Adrien's eyes narrowed, reading faster now.

"You're trying to break cohesion on impact…"

"Exactly. The cut doesn't feel sharper. But it moves through things like they're softer. It's unsettling to feel—devastating to face. But it burns soul energy faster than sharpness. And if the matrix isn't precise, it can tear your weapon apart."

Adrien let out a long breath.

"…Maker's breath," he muttered. "You really are a lunatic."

Rashan smirked. "Takes one to teach one."

Adrien didn't deny it. He just kept reading.

Adrien skimmed another few pages, then stopped and set them down with a faint grunt.

"So," he asked, "what materials don't work?"

Rashan scratched the back of his neck. "Iron's a no-go. Doesn't hold the frequency. Just vibrates itself into scrap."

Adrien nodded like he'd expected that.

"Tried dwarven. Nothing. Structure's too dense. The field can't penetrate it—just bounces back."

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "So…?"

"I found a tome. Materials study based on the research of Scholar Givré—Evermore school, old Restoration and Thaumaturgy scholar. Obsessed with crystalline resonance."

"Name rings a bell," Adrien muttered.

"I think glass will work," Rashan said.

Adrien let out a low whistle.

"Expensive stuff," he said. "Rare as hell."

"Yeah," Rashan said. "Especially now with the war. Most smiths are working in iron or steel. Dwarven, orcish, and elven gear still turns up, but it's scattered. You basically have to know someone. And actual glass?"

He shook his head.

"Good luck finding that without contacts. And even if I get the ingots," Rashan said, "I still need a smith willing to work with them."

Adrien gave him a look. "Most glass armor smiths are elves—High Elf, Bosmer… maybe a few Dunmer."

"Yeah," Rashan said. "The Dunmer are the best shot, but half the ones with that level of skill aren't exactly taking commissions right now. And the others? They don't trust anyone outside their circles."

"With good reason," Adrien said quietly.

Rashan nodded. "Exactly. And with the current political climate… let's just say nobody's sending out friendly invitations."

Adrien smirked. "So step one: get rare, war-inflated material."

"Step two: find a master-tier glass smith who doesn't hate Redguards or outsiders in general."

"Step three," Adrien added, laughing, "don't get stabbed in the neck for asking."

Rashan chuckled, leaned back in his chair. "Details," he said, grinning. "The details are always the bitch."