Alexandre Gustneau is an Artisan. An esteemed scholar of more than thirty years, he has advanced the field of Conjuration into the modern age—largely through his methodology of stripped molecules— essentially on his own. He is reserved yet friendly, prone to avoiding large gatherings (save for those held in his honor), and hopelessly dependent on a small fleet of assistants to keep him from either starving or scheduling himself to death.
Since becoming directeur d'études, Gustneau has spent his time tirelessly pursuing the frontier of his specialization. The board has reduced his lectures to twice weekly: a decision which he believes to be unnecessary, but has begrudgingly accepted for health reasons.
Recently he asked you, one of his most diligent students, to assist with the qualitative portion of a novel research paper. He is offering co-authorship, along with a sizeable sum for the week's work. Seeing as you are a respectable Artisan-in-training (and also broke), the decision was not a difficult one.
Can You Keep A Secret?
You await the professor's arrival outside of your dormitory, armed (to his specifications) with nothing but your writing utensils. He appears suddenly in the dead of night, hands you an envelope full of molten coin and, with a flourish of cane and cloak, beckons you to follow. The two of you pass through the twisting halls of D'Aimboise Polytechnique, down one of the many corridors made defunct by the catastrophe, and crawl through a (charred) fountain-relief depicting the Imp Magician Keryllion. Beneath all of this lies a sealed ritual chamber, whose locks only open for Gustneau himself, and wherein belongs the source of your recruitment.
He calls it his "jardin de vérité" — a garden of truth. Several years and countless budgets have been lost in the construction of this interior, which is about the size of a tennis court. Trees and grass, rocks and flowers, stretch as far as the eye can see, all smuggled here for the purpose of complete and utter imitation. The details are fine enough to produce an aneurysm; You could bury a body here and never see brick, swim in the stream and never question where its water flowed from. There is even a lunar cycle! Its only flaw, as far as realism is concerned, is that the garden's sky is limpid—hardly a cloud in sight. You ask if this was all made from conjured material, but the professor only laughs at you. "All of it is real," he whispers, unable to restrain the look of pride on his face. "for them."
 |
Hello There! |
You don't notice at first, silhouette half-buried within the thicket some thirty feet away, until Gustneau's finger draws your gaze to it: a doe. A charming, lanky little thing. It seems unperturbed by your presence, more interested in chomping away at whatever leafy texture has incidentally brushed itself against the creature's snout. Suddenly, the question of legality buries itself into your mind. A private terrarium of this stature is scandalous, sure, but it hardly qualifies as a crime. Professor Gustneau is a professional, an admired academic! Even if the academy didn't know about this place, would they dare punish him for it? Is it even worth the trouble?
Then there is the other matter: how exactly he got the creature in here to begin with. Did he smuggle it in as a baby? Convince one of the nourricière to grow it for him? If this is a potential safety risk, why haven't the Lolea been notified? Do they know? Should they know?
...Can I pet it?
Before any one of these questions can be uttered amongst the swarm, Alexandre Gustneau approaches the brush. The deer does not run as the professor approaches it, and struggles little as his arm wraps around the creature's neck. He guides it to the nearest clearing with a gentle tug, fingers stroking its chin with the tenderness of a beloved farm animal.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Gustneau coos, coming to a stop in front of you. "One of a kind, really."
His fingers lock in place along the deer's jaw. Your eyes widen as the professor lifts his cane with their free hand and places its anvil-shaped handle against its forehead. He mimics a striking motion two or three times, as if gauging a hammer against a nail.
"A true marvel of engineering..."
A trill escapes from his throat at the sheer exertion of the act, as he plunges his cane into the deer's forehead. In an instant, thick globules of wine-red blood begin rushing from the gash in its head. Its eyes roll backward the moment it is struck, revealing gray pearls; stones twinkling bright from crimson and sunlight. Soon after, its blood takes on a rose-like hue. Then pink. Then pink and brown. Within minutes, what oozes from the crack is a thin, off-white fluid with the color and viscosity of paint. The thing lets out a tepid sputtering noise, as if a fuel tank could be unsatisfied with it being drained, and then tilts its head to look at you. Your heart shifts in your chest.
"They said it couldn't be done, you know." Professor Gustneau looks up at you. "That it was hardly worth the hassle."
You can see now, from beneath the shadows of the treetops, that familiar glint of genius within his eyes. Though perhaps that was always madness.
"How wrong they are."
Trismegistus
While the school of Transmutation has worked diligently over the centuries to study the construction of all objects, including the meticulous reproduction of their material properties, some conjurers — whether dissatisfied with their cousin's sluggishness or in pursuit of their own goals — have begun to experiment with alternative resources. "Stripping" involves the practice of removing atoms from a stable compound and replacing them with an inert magical equivalent, or "dummy" particle. These chimeras, formed from both natural and Occult material, are then used as building blocks for the conjurer's desired form. Such material has proven invaluable in matters such as recycling or (to a limited degree) restoration, where the necessity of a thing sometimes outweighs the desire for authenticity.
As projects grow deeper in complexity, however, the program has shown more limited success, resulting in a copy which, at higher
levels, visually resembles the original, but is obviously artificial. Besides the instability inherent within a largely magical construct, these imperfections commonly manifest as "doll-like" features: glossy textures, poorly articulated parts, an illusion-like appearance under different light-sources, and 'empty' eyes. Conjurers have historically avoided the construction of organic beings for this reason—among others—and have thus persevered in the realm of material sciences. Stripping has become something of a recent fad among Architects, as well as other artisans engaged in the art of golem-making, where cheap building materials are often in high demand.
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