Runes... There was runes on their souls. No, the runes were completely entangled into their souls as if it was the very story of their life. It was an amazing discovery, a wonderful innovation, a revolutionary revelation! A revelation that Seth could do... absolutely nothing with. Well, not at this moment at least.

Whilst he was able to identify that there were in fact runes, but he couldn't decipher what the meaning of even one percent of the ones he had unknowingly sketched meant. The only rune he could identify was, according to his teachings, something to do with metal.

There was emphasis on the something because even that one identifiable rune was actually just a small section of a larger rune in itself, like a string of words cobbled together in the most beautiful poetry, whilst he only understood a single word of it.

It was like trying to decipher how to pronounce the name of a Welsh town, or the name of a celebrities new baby that has an inexplicably idiotic name that had letters, numbers, dashes and an exclamation point thrown in their for shits and giggles. Sure, you can see that some letters are there, but that doesn't mean that you know what the entire thing means, especially if none of it is pronounced anything like how you'd expect.

The entire string could mean anything from metallic skin, to control over metal to bones as strong as iron or anything really. It could even be metaphorical or simply a tale from the dwarves childhood about him finding a particularly nice hunk of metal.

The possibilities were... well okay they weren't infinite, but there were lots of them. More than Seth could be bothered to count or imagine. It was just unknowable what this rune meant, but it opened the door to a new realm of possibilities.

It gave Seth a new reason to pursue his studies of the runes. If he became an expert in them, he could literally unravel the secrets of the soul. Perhaps, if his teacher had lived long enough, he would already have some of those mysteries unlocked.

Alas, even with his fantastical powers, he could still not change the past. But it had steeled his resolve to bend the future to his will. These runes, after all, were more than just some magic words. He suspected, that if one were to harness the power of every rune in existence, that they would be akin to a god.

Able to shift reality to their whim by simply writing it to be so. However, it was unlikely such a being even existed, and if they did... well there is no doubt that they would be anything but mad to create such a world as this.

The lazy, blasphemous wretch otherwise known as Seth shook his head slightly, losing his train of thought and forgetting what it was that he had just been thinking about. He had no idea why the phrase 'Lazy' nor 'Blasphemous' was drifting around his mind, but whatever reason it must have been serious and definitely not the vindictive spite of a madman.

What was he thinking about again? Ah yes, he was going to create his next living puppet. An Anima, as he was going to call them.

Thankfully, this process took much less time than the last, since Seth already had a body prepared for his enchanter, now that he had remembered that was the original goal, and he didn't need to wait around for his puppet to bring him the crystal cores needed for their creation.

While he would have loved to delve more into the subject of using others souls to power them, in conjunction with his own, he wouldn't explore that avenue until he was sure that he could control the outcome, or at-least supress it if it was his enemy from birth.

Most of his time was spent trickle charging the core, and making copies of his runic knowledge to feed to the process, so that he didn't lose his original copies like he did with his forging knowledge. Honestly though, it wasn't too much of a heartache to lose that knowledge to Titus, since he was much better at making use of it. But the runic knowledge was too important to Seth to lose and his teachers writings on it were simply irreplaceable. Not including the replacement copy he was currently making of it. That doesn't count.

Really, creating the copies wasn't that hard, it was thankfully a feature that was part of his journal, with the purpose of sharing knowledge between one another. It wasn't dissimilar to how Seth gained his teachers bequeathment, but this was limited to certain knowledge instead of offering another his entire journal.

This lax period of time was also taken advantage of by Titus, the new master of the forge. Once he had completed the creation of his new tools, which Seth honestly didn't see how they were better than his original ones other than looks, Titus was eager to put his new tools to the test. Creating the perfect tools for his new brother, in case his Fathers tools for enchanting was just as bad as his forging tools, was a wonderful use. Actually... Maybe he should make two sets, just to be sure.

It took two hours, and five more cups of tea, before Seth was finally prepared. He stood before the puppet known as the Spider, which was responsible for the name of his little hobbit hole of a lab. This puppet was tall, over 7 foot tall, with gangly legs and skinny arms. Four sets of arms in fact, making 8 arms in total that had been a pain to figure out how to use effectively but also acted to push his abilities forwards a step. The body itself was built from various bones from a wide assortment of creatures, although most of it did in fact come from a spider monster.

It was a wicked thing that itself was made entirely of bones, as if it was some necromantic experiment brought to life despite the fact that spiders have exoskeletons, not inner ones to resurrect.

All Seth had to do was add some legs, turn its previous legs into arms, give those new arms some hands and plop a suitably creepy head on top to complete the look. Previously, it's hands had, to fit the rest of the creatures look, been created out of bones, mostly taken from various humanoid monsters.

However now, its lower two sets had been replaced by metallic, gauntlet like hands with a variety of blades in place of its fingers, most of them resembling scalpels or craft blades. Blades made for precision over excessive damage to flesh, like a sword.

In front of this body was a stack of papers, the copies from Seth's journal, and the crystal core that was brimming with power.

Reviewing the components once more, Seth nodded his head and delved into his Abyss once more to start the process. It was smoother this time, easier now that he knew what he was doing. It wasn't easy, in fact when he coaxed the fragment of his soul away from the core, he almost passed out. Something that hadn't happened the last time, but thankfully it only lasted for a brief second before passing on as quick as it came. Odd, but probably not cause for concern.

As he pulled the fragment out, constantly barraging it with his will, Seth had the puppet pluck the crystal core from the ground and place it within its own chest. When the azure fireball flared in his hand once more, Seth glanced at Titus curiously. He couldn't help but wonder what the infant Anima was thinking of this entire process.

Seeing nothing but wonder and awe plastered across Titus' obsidian face, Seth chuckled before casting the fireball forward and into the core of the Spider.

The pages before it fluttered eagerly, lifting themselves from the ground and wrapping around the core, layer upon layer, as they were quickly consumed by the flame of the growing soul. Yet unlike Titus, who's soul flame was a brilliant gold. This new flame was melancholic, morbid and grey, like the ash of a recently deceased relative.

Thankfully, he didn't have to look upon this flame for long, as the bones that made up the Spiders body started to grow. A pale white film began to stretch itself out, clinging tight to the bones and closing the gaps between them, as if the bones had developed their own skin.

It was like watching a long dead corpse be miraculously brought back to life, the ravages of time being rapidly undone by the divine grace of a new life. It would have been a wonderful sight to experience.

Unfortunately, Seth would never get to experience it. The moment he had cast out that flame and begun the process, the fatigue that had brushed against him previously came back with a rageful vengeance. It quickly clouded his mind, turning his eyelids to lead and forcing them to close before he fell backwards, collapsing to the ground like a puppet who's strings had been cut.

His mind already dark before his back had even hit the floor.