As they looked at each other they all had the same question, which Sariah asked.
"Can you do that Lyla?"
"Well yes, but how would I explain it to the church or the Goddess?"
"Say that it is an item used for punishment or for blindsight training, either of those could work. This could also be a good chance to find out what the limits of your abilities are." Chronos shrugged.
He didn't think this would violate any of the teachings of the Goddess of order, but he had never studied the rules of the gods in depth.
Lyla glared at him for his easygoing attitude then thought about it more. She doubted the Goddess would be offended as she was bringing order to something that didn't want to follow the rules, but the rest of the church would be harder to convince.
Some of the priests were just short of being fanatics and they would definitely have a fit when they found out. They would certainly try to make things difficult for her, even if she had succeeded in closing a tear with Chronos.
On the other hand, if she really could set rules for curses then what else could she set rules for?
"Ahh whatever, let's do it, but you can't blame me when the church complains."
"Alright, I'll even help you beat them up if they get too annoying." Chronos offered.
With that settled, Sariah started making a list of herbs she would need for the ritual. Luckily the nagas had nearly everything on hand and the ones they didn't could be acquired within the hour.
"Thank you for opening the naga's storehouse for us, Vessin. Now all that we need is a good cloth for the blindfold and some gold to shape the order sigils into." Sariah said.
"No problem. Is it fine for me to watch? As I said when inviting you to talk, I would like to expand my abilities outside of just alchemy and I think potions and curses have a good compatibility with each other."
"Of course, I always welcome new students on the path of curses." Sariah smiled at her new friend.
"For the cloth we can use dusk spider silk. Dusk spiders are practically everywhere, and their silk can hold most enchantments. If it wasn't so hard to collect everyone would use it, as for gold is there any around here Vessin?" Lyla said.
"There was some inside of the fort when we took over. We threw it into a storage room as it is mostly useless inside Dracon Fen, we prefer to barter instead of using coins or precious metals." Vessin stated.
"I'll go see what we can use, Chronos can you bring a smith and shaman to the ritual site? We will need their help to finish the blindfold." Lyla said.
Nodding Chronos went to the keep where most of the workers were gathered.
"Vessin needs a smith skilled with minor detail work and a shaman that has a dusk spider to come with me for an experiment." He called out to the foreman.
"Take these two with you." The foreman said, gesturing at two older lizardfolk that were resting. "We only have heavy work to finish at the moment, so they won't be of any help here."
"We need a dusk spider silk blindfold for the experiment and molten gold shaped into a sigil. Can you two do that?" They nodded.
"Then follow me."
Turning back to the ritual site they left the keep.
"Hello young Vessin, I'm glad you are learning to ask for help. You never wanted any help in the past." The shaman chuckled.
The elderly blacksmith had stopped at the edge of the group, waiting for an order from one of those with authority.
Within Dracon Fen's tribes the matriarchs and shamans had the highest authority, so it wasn't too strange for them to speak plainly with each other. On the other hand, blacksmiths held a relatively low position as most weapons and armor were made from leather and bones instead of metal.
Being unable to ply their trade properly made it hard to raise their position within the tribe even if they were needed for various works.
"Yes, we are planning to make a special type of cursed blindfold, and I hope to learn how to use some of the useless or unknown herbs in the swamp to make curse potions for use against the trolls." She responded.
"I see," he said with an indulgent smile. "Then I will do what I can to help."
Sitting down he called out his animal companion. A dusk spider the size of a plate came out from under his robe and began spinning silk to make a blindfold.
Sariah and Vessin got to work drawing out the ritual circle and placing the herbs in the right spots.
At this time Lyla approached the group with a broken golden statue in hand. It had a large fresh dent on the upper half.
"What did the statue do to make you angry?" Chronos teased.
"Nothing, I needed to make sure it was high quality gold all the way through before we melt it. I will use [Blessed Flame] as the forge fire to make it aligned with the power of order." She turned to the blacksmith who was looking a bit awkward.
"Are you the one who will shape the gold?"
He nodded.
"Good, come over here and we will start. These are the sigils we need, and they must stay connected over the length of the blindfold. Any ideas on how to do that?" She handed him a piece of paper with sigils written on it.
Looking at the paper he saw how they connected but if they were going on a blindfold they would need to curve around the forehead. Doing so might cause the sigil to fail, learning the right way to shape might take a few tries.
Bending over the flame that was already melting the statue he used his tongs to pull out the gold and test its elasticity.
Since the sigil is meant to rest on top of the blindfold a filigree type sigil would work best, the top edge would be a single line of gold with geometric triangles coming down from the line. The bridge of the nose would require additional shapes to pass over it without breaking the sigil at any point.
A diamond shape would work best while still keeping the meaning of order.
Drawing out the molten gold thinly he carefully shaped the sigils as he created the half circle.
Strangely, he kept getting ideas and inspiration for how it should look, weaving them into its design as it steadily took shape. The final result was much better than he had thought possible with his skills.
It looked like a single gold line going from temple to temple with lines coming down in front of the face to form triangles. The diamond over the nose bridge was perfectly shaped so as not to break any of the meanings within the sigil and even reinforced the whole structure.
All that was left was to keep it heated so they could meld it directly onto the cloth. With the support of order magic it would not fall off unless the curse vanished.
"I'm surprised that we could create this on our first try." He said to Lyla.
She had been continuously casting [Blessed Flame] while channeling holy power into the molten gold. They had used very little of the statue so maybe she could keep it for other items in the future.
"Indeed, but we can't tell if it will work until they are finished cursing the blindfold." She replied.
Looking at the ritual circle, it had a small pot in the center with several herbs placed on the circle outside of the pot. Inside of it were several more herbs being steamed and the blindfold was hanging over the pot absorbing the steam.
"I can see why you don't use this in battle. No enemy would stand still long enough for you to drench them with steam." Lyla teased Sariah.
"Originally the spell uses an item precious to the person you want to curse as an intermediary, that way the curse will transfer to the individual. But once it is sent, they will notice and go to a priest for uncursing. It's pretty much useless against anybody with even a bit of skill or wealth."
Watching the bubbling within the pot she prepared a pair of tongs to remove the blindfold. Seeing her prepare the shaman created a stone with the shape of a head between the ritual circle and the blacksmith.
"Have the filigree ready, once the black bubble rises and fuses with the blindfold we will need to put it on immediately or risk the curse going out of control." Sariah ordered them.
They had to wait 5 more minutes before a bubble as black as coal rose up from the cauldron. Slowly it touched and then fused with the blindfold.
Just as Sariah was about to grab it Nimsy darted forward and scooped it up. Sucking on the excess curse energy it flattened the blindfold against the stone before flying off.