[Solo] An Exercise in Morphing, Part II

[Veldrys]

Fall 40, 511 AV

It was nearly dark inside the small room. The sun had set a while ago, and the only source of light was a small candle that stood on the table now. Veldrys sat there, staring at it, almost as if he were hypnotized by it. He still remembered every detail of the conversation he had had with the human Seodai a little while ago.

He had revealed to him that there had been a time when he had tried to make himself look human, when he had wanted to be human to escape his responsbilities, to escape the knowledge that weighed so heavy on his heart. Humans didn’t have anything to do with the Harvest after all.

That had been the original reason why he had learned Morphing. There had been a time when he had wanted to run away to the surface, to disguise himself, to live the remainder of his days as a member of a different race. His attitude had long changed. For a while he had accepted his fate, worked at the Purging, taken care of the surrogates that were destined to bear their children because letting others die was the only way for his race to continue. For a while he had wondered if he could use his magic to change others, to make broken bodies whole again, but he had given up after the first few failures. He hadn’t even been able to heal himself.

He had concentrated on conventional medicine and his worship of Viratas instead. Sometimes it seemed to him as if asking priestesses of Viratas to bear the children of the Symenestra would be enough. But then again, maybe he still hadn’t tried hard enough? Maybe he still hadn’t practiced often enough? Would it help if he used his magic every day or would his body simply forget what it looked like, as it sometimes happened with mages that weren’t careful enough?

He thought about that for a while. Should he give it another try or was it better to abandon magic altogether? Magic was risky at the best of times. But what if there was no other way? What if magic was the solution?

He was still thinking about it when he heard a knock on the door. Somebody was in need of a healer, and neither Cian nor Jarret could be found. It seemed as if he would be able to delay the decision for another little while.

[Veldrys]

By the time that he returned it was already midnight. After she had felt a little better the woman he had treated had insisted that he take a look at all her grandchildren and cook up some kind of potion that would make her grand daughter – a dour looking eighteen year-old with warts and buck teeth – more appealing to a possible future husband.

He hadn’t made that potion – he didn’t know of any potion that made women better looking – but he’d taken care of scraped knees, a cough and runny noses even though it had been in the middle of the night because the old woman had been very convincing (she’d threatened him with her cane), and then he’d just dropped into his bed, too tired to think about his studies of magic.

Another knock on the door woke him up. As he opened, he could see one of his patient’s grandchildren – a man of about twenty with blonde hair and rosy cheeks – standing there, holding a covered basket. He didn’t look particularly happy to be there.

„My gran says she’s feeling much better, and you are a good doctor, so she decided to give you a gift“, the man told him. „She hopes you’ll enjoy it. She also asked me to tell you to stay the petch away from Nell. She’s noticed the looks you’ve given her, and she doesn’t want no Symenestra in her family and a dead grand daughter on top of it. She ...“ He blushed and hesitated a little. „... she said she’ll beat you up and skin you alive if you touch her!“

He said the last bit very quickly. Veldrys smirked a little – Nell had been the ugly girl – and then he assured him that he wasn’t in the least interested in the girl, bade him farewell and closed the door. Having that done, he put the basket on the table and removed the cloth. Looking back at him was a very dead bunny, complete with fur. He made a face – eating meat was always a little problematic and messy for a Symenestra – and then he decided that he would give the bunny to the Chaplain the next day. Maybe he could make a nice stew with it.

As he put the dead animal away, he cast a glance out of the window and could see how the young man was running away very quickly. Apparently something about Veldrys had scared him. The healer shook his head – he wasn’t that intimidating, was he? - and then he retrieved the book that contained the notes on his previous experiments with morphing. Maybe it would be best to read them first.

[Veldrys]

As Veldrys went over his notes it occured to him that it was a little unusual that his patient’s grandchildren had had scraped knees so late in the day. Why did their grandmother allow them to be outside and play when it was dark? In his opinion it was a little irresponsible. He decided that he would have to have a talk with the old woman sometimes, although he wasn’t sure if she would listen to him since she seemed to be so worried that he would harm her ugly granddaughter. But for the time being – back to his notes.

In the past he had changed himself into a half Symenestra and a Lhavitian male. Both had been relatively easy. He had seen the occasional halfblood in Kalinor, and he was familiar with the people of Lhavit from his previous stay there. Today he decided that he would do something a little more complicated. He still wasn’t experienced enough to stray far from his original form, but with any luck he would be able to achieve a look that wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows if he ever decided to try it out in public.

He had come to the decision that he would attempt to replicate some of the traits of the Vantha. Syllke, Skyglow, the man who had told him the legend of the dolphin and shared his soup with him, had had fascinating eyes that seemed to change color depending on his mood. He wanted to see if he could do that as well. He retrieved the mirror he had used to aid him in his previous morphing experiments. He needed to be able to see his face. If he couldn’t see himself, he would likely end up horribly disfigured rather than a man who looked like he came from Avanthal.

He took a deep breath, and then he began.

[Veldrys]

The first thing he changed were his hands. Turning Symenestra hands into human hands was fairly easy for him by now. He touched his fingers and envisioned them becoming slightly shorter. His black claws turned into soft, pink nails. He also envisioned his arms becoming shorter, short enough that they looked human. Next came his hair. It changed from its usual silver color to a deep black, with a hint of dark blue here and there.

Having that done he decided to take a short break. He took another couple of deep breaths before he bent his head over the mirror. Cool blue slowly replaced the usual amethyst of his eyes, and his skin began to darken slightly.

The man that looked back at him after a while still had the same facial features, almost too fine and slightly too pretty for a human. It was still recognizably him, a human or half human version of himself, but if he ever visited Syllke’s home while he looked like this people wouldn’t come chasing after him with pitchforks at least - or whatever people used instead of pitchforks in this frozen wasteland.

He didn’t exactly look Symenestra anymore.

He brought his face closer to the mirror and examined his eyes. He didn’t know if they worked the way Vantha eyes worked. For a moment it seemed to him as if he could see a hint of something, a shimmer, but that was probably just wishful thinking. He tried to make himself angry, he tried to make himself sad, but forcing an emotion just didn’t work. He wouldn’t be able to find out if he could give himself Vantha eyes until he was among other people – and he wasn’t ready for that, not in Denval where all people knew each other. There would be gossip, the kind of gossip that he didn’t want.

With a sigh he pulled his gaze away from the mirror, and then he changed back. He didn’t want to stay in a different form too long. He was afraid that if he spent too much time as a human or half human his body wouldn’t remember what it really looked like anymore. It was better to be as careful as possible.

Looking like a Vantha didn’t help if you didn’t know the language though. If he ever wanted to play the part of a human in front of others, if there ever was the need for him to pretend to be somebody else, he would have to learn to speak like one as well. When he had been a boy in Kalinor he had often talked with the traders. One of them had taught him a few words of Vani, and he’d written them down in one of his notebooks. He took that notebook now and tried to read them aloud, but the foreign words sounded strange to him, and his mouth refused to form some of the sounds. Learning a new language he decided would be a slow process.

One of the words in particular caught his attention: quean. He said it, and then he shook his head and decided that it probably wasn’t a real word. It sounded too strange.

All that morphing and his attempts to learn a new language had made him tired. He decided to go back to sleep for a while, but his dreams were filled with the strangest images. In one of his dreams he entered the Chapel, but the Chaplain was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a strange creature with completely black eyes standing there, something that he had never seen before. A Charcoda was looking at him. The creature announced that he was the new Chaplain and that he would fill the Chapel with water so that he would be more comfortable, no matter whether all those humans and the single Symenestra drowned or not.

[Paragon]

Veldrys : Veldrys Skill XP Reward Morphing +3 Observation +1 Medicine +1 Lore: Lost in Translation, A Dream of Charoda Other: N/A Great little thread, loved your writing as always - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.