The Patriot Act

[The Butcher]

Dark circles marked Ramza's visage. The Red Wizard had been slaving away through the night to perfect his designs in the seclusion of the enclave's laboratory. It was not that he was pressed for time, but his ambitious nature in combination to his perfectionist demeanor drove him to this point. Scrolls painted with failed and inefficient theories were thrown and discarded about his desk, and half-full vials and failed experiments were raked into piles at the side, all giving way to the final, grand schematic at the workbench's center that held the single most important component of the device at its center: a gem, blacker than night itself.

Ramza gazed into the dark, seemingly endless depths of the well polished black star sapphire that he gently took within his hand. Its mesmerizing features distracted from the faint humming of the tanks behind him, holding the imprisoned dryad, or the clockwork disturbance through the air when a Thayan knight eased open the door to check on Ramza's well being. The most fascinating feature of the gem was how it captured the dim candle lights around it in a tiny star, as if sucking all light into the blackened depths of the gem's core. However, this was merely an illusion -- but this was also what made the gem valuable.

Ramza levitated a distant crystal orb towards himself with a beckoning motion of his finger. The crystal ball itself was traditional, but the elaborate arcane runes and markings dressing its entirety were all Ramza's work. Every rune and symbol were precisely calculated for this perfect transmutation. Ramza took the orb firmly within the grasp of his soft and pale right hand before pressing the black star sapphire gem against the crystal ball's surface with his left. The runes on the crystal orb burned as bright, phosphorescent yellow lights while the gem was forcefully devoured into the orb with brilliant sparks of magical resistance. Eventually, there was nothing left of the sapphire, and the orb that was once clear became murky with shadow, as if injecting ink into water. The 'ink' continued to spread and consume the clarity of the orb, making it as black as the gem once was. However, its depths glistened with brilliant, tiny white lights swirling madly inside of it, like a miniature, contained galaxy.

"Humans will do and say the funniest of things when they think nobody is watching," Ramza mused aloud, "yet few ever realize how priceless these actions and words truly are, in these moments." The young Red Wizard turned to the corner, carrying the newly crafted device over towards the silhouette of a figure who was overseeing Ramza the entire time, offering to him.

"Let us hope that they never do."

[Kangleton]

"Information is an undervalued commodity, certainly. And the selling of information - the trading of secrets - is a very, very open market." Comes Pyras' response, revealing himself as the silhouette to which Ramza had been speaking.

As the delicate, black orb changes hands from Ramza to Pyras, a smile flashes across the face of the master illusionist. Moving toward a pedestal on which he sets the orb, Pyras produces his notebook to a specific page which he presents to his colleague.

"The preliminary studies have affirmed my hypothesis, you will find. It's inconclusive as of yet, though it would seem that the compressed sound-waves can be manipulated by the application of a comparable, calculated wavelength." Pyras continues, turning back to the orb, measuring it with the laboratory instruments.

"This will do."

[The Butcher]

"Demathos' and my calculations were precise," the young Red Wizard remarked to himself. He focused his attention on the ebony crystal ball resting in front of him on his finely crafted wooden desk, void of any knot or imperfection, but cluttered with many scrolls, vials, and components. Millions of white speckled lights continued to swirl into the depthless void at the sphere's center, testament to the potent magics that still work through it.

"This artifact will be an example of what can be accomplished when two masters of their respective schools work together to consolidate a single, perfect product."

Ramza splays his soft, slender fingertips, placing all ten evenly around the surface of the orb; the white lights are excited, being pulled more violently towards its center.

"The school of illusion and transmutation -- the art of manipulating the tangible and the art of manipulating the intangible -- converging on one perfect catalyst, this sphere. Now we shall test your hypothesis, Demathos."