Altha slowly made her through the estate hallways, slowly dragging her feet from exhaustion. Not only had she had to lug that heavy shield out of the ruins while running for her life, but she had spent the past few days pulling all-nighters studying the samples she had managed to save from their excursion.
To her disgust so far she hadn't managed to find anything regarding the strange phenomena that had been encountered that night. On the other hand however, she had made progress on her lifting charm, and even unraveled an interesting property of the shield she had retrieved. If her analysis of the enchantment's thaumaturgic weavings were correct, with the right ritual it would be possible to life the spell right off the shield and attach it to a person without risk to its underlying structures. It was a very simple matter actually. The shield itself however... likely wouldn't survive the process. It seemed that skeletons weren't the keenest when it came to maintenance of their equipment. The enchantment was likely the only thing keeping the piece of metal from falling apart as it is.
As Altha's study of the item had progressed she was actually beginning to suspect that the transitiveness of the enchantment was a deliberate property. Far too much care had been put into ensuring its continued stability to be a coincidence, especially when some off its focal-points could easily have been sacrificed in exchange for increasing the potency of its defensive attributes. Magical items which could be sacrificed in exchange for power... she had heard rumors of such things being found in the Overseasland, but she had always dismissed them as mere fantasy and folk tales. After all, from her brief experiences outside the walls, the people of this land were incredibly backwards in their treatment of the magical arts. With those attitudes it was no wonder that they hadn't even discovered Geomancy until the coming of the Reich! For them to have made these kinds of artifacts, something which had been considered to be such a difficult task during her days at the academy. It seemed that their tumultuous history had caused much magical knowledge to be lost over time. If more of these things were out there, perhaps she should be considering going outside more... how annoying.
The growling of Altha's stomach interrupted her sleep deprived musing. Entering the long vacated dining hall she grabbed a bowl of now lukewarm soup and took a seat, paying no mind to the mess which was splashed all over the other end of the table. Whatever idiocy had taken place here, she wanted no part of it.
"..."