Runic Arrays: Static Cloud

Notation: Transmute Humans into Air if Humans are present and apply the effect of Created Lightning to Air.

Class: Offence

Description: A handy array for both taking down a single enemy as well as incapacitating anyone around him.

The true power from this array comes from its smaller, secondary array. Without this, it would simply be an array to transmute humans into air, which while useful, is not any different than transmuting humans into anything else. By putting the secondary array into it, what you are telling the array to do is to apply the effect (not the individual runes) onto all of whatever rune is in the centre of the array. So for this array, the effect would be created lightning, so simply just lightning. The array would apply this to all of the air around it, meaning that all the air around the array would now be filled with electricity trying to find the quickest way down to earth.

But merely electrifying the air around the array isn’t enough for this array. No, that would be too simple. The other trick with this array is to remember that when dealing with runes and the materials they represent, the arrays work in mass and not volume. So if you transmute a person into air, you won’t just have as much air as can fill up the space that person left behind. Instead, you will have as much mass (or weight) of air to deal with stuck in that space the person just vacated. For other things, this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but air isn’t very dense.

1 cubic metre of air weighs only 1.23 kg. So if you transmuted a chap weighing 80kgs into air, you would end up with 61.9 cubic metres worth of air in an area of around 0.8 cubic metres. This just won’t do, and with nothing to stop the air moving it will immediately rush out of that space to find some equilibrium with the atmosphere around it. 61.9 cubic metres is enough to fill up a room and it will be expanding at an alarming rate.

All of this means that everyone around the poor chap who just died will be knocked off their feet by the sudden gale of wind around them and then electrocuted by the electricity flowing through that wind.

So with one array engraved onto a bullet, you can kill one man and keep all his allies convulsing on the floor.

And if you are new to the runes and arrays, here is a playlist we made to explain exactly how they work.