The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

[The Library] Eridanus finds a mystery one night in the library.

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The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on November 23rd, 2011, 6:28 am

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Day 15, Fall of 511 AV
Close to Midnight
The Library, Stumble Alley


It was night time, and Eri found himself hidden in the dark corners of the library, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. He had arrived in the place since the third day of Fall, and decided to make this repository of knowledge his base of operations most of the time instead of camping it out in the tent city with the rest. The majority of the populace did not show any interest in this place which made it more or less quiet, with the exception of the librarian and a few regular members (unbeknownst to him, they were members of the Sunberth Vigilantes).

His constant appearance in the old building along with his considerate and helpful behaviour endeared him to the librarian, and this allowed him certain privileges such as not being harried by the woman as long as he made sure to tidy up after he was done. Books and knowledge was rare, and his upbringing in Sahova impressed upon him the importance of acquiring information. This made him quite the book-worm, for the ethaefal required little sleep compared to the rest of the mortal races, allowing him to have more time at night to devour the knowledge waiting in the numerous tomes aligned on the shelves.

Tonight, he had picked out a small but thick book on assessing landscapes in order to map out its geography. It was a journal-sized book and though he had not opened it, it lay in front of him as he proceeded with his frequent ritual to put himself in a suitable frame of mind for study.

The ethaefal slowly calmed his body, consciously slowing down his breathing. First focusing on his breathing, he slowly ignored other thoughts and sensations from the rest of his body bit by bit, his mind only on the sound of his slow and calm breathing and the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Next, he directed his attention to his thoughts, for once the body was settled the mind was next.

Peeling away all other thoughts one by one, he endeavoured to keep his mind free and calm, and he imagined himself as an empty sponge. The frame of mind played a great deal in helping one to absorb new knowledge, and so he did not want unnecessary clutter in his mind. Like a multi-layered onion, he calmly and slowly peeled away the layers of thought firmly and methodically, steeling his focus so as not to re-introduce distracting thoughts as he proceeded.

He continued doing so until the only thought he had was of trying to peel away more thoughts, and he knew that his mind was almost empty. Next, he unhurriedly directed his thoughts to nothing in particular, recalling the intensive meditation sessions he had while learning Voiding in Zeltiva where he had to literally think and visualize nothing. He was trying to achieve a similar thing, for he often felt well-rested and at ease whenever he entered one of those trances, and he began to mentally look deep within himself, focusing on his image of what his soul would look like, or his astral body that resided within his physical shell.
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Last edited by Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
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Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
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The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 10:46 am

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Eri knew that he was on the right track when a blurred image of red pulsing lines within a cloudy mist of blue began to appear in his mind as he focused his mind on visualizing his astral body. Since his arrival in the mortal plane more than two centuries ago he had always displayed an innate talent for flux which no doubt puzzled his nuit mentor and associates. Personally, Eri felt that it might have to do with his most recent vantha incarnation, and it was one of the leads that he was following up on while investigating his previous life.

All other thoughts and sensations began to fade as he stared at this image with his mind's eye, the picture becoming clearer as the red lines began to look sharper. The cloudy mist began to form some sort of shape and its texture hardened to resemble more of a body of liquid held together instead of a meandering gaseous substance. The blue liquid-like object then started to move, a depression here and a protrusion there, and soon Eri could see a rough humanoid mannequin formed by this blue liquid. The red lines inside the blue liquid were fluid as well, moving along and rearranging themselves as the outer body formed its shape, and soon Eri found himself mentally gazing at a rough representation of his astral body.

The red lines represented the djed streams within his body while the blue represented the entire mass of his astral body. He could generally only pull up this detailed and clear view of his astral body in his mind after some serious meditation and so he had adapted by memorizing certain parts of the astral body to allow him to pull off certain flux manoeuvres quickly when he did not have the luxury of time to sit and calm down, like during combat.

Certain parts of the blue blurred the gathering of red lines in the area, as if he was looking at it through smeared glasses, while in certain parts of his astral body the red lines were pulsing clearly and sharply. This represented his intimate knowledge with the exact distribution of the djed streams within his body, and the clear parts were where he had investigated and truly internalized its format, while the blur parts were where there were room for doubt and thus causing him to be unsure.

The ethaefal breathed slowly and deeply, gently nudging the flux streams in the lower part of his body upwards, taking the moment to savour and truly feel every sensation physically and mentally as he familiarized himself with the streams. He could feel a slight tingling in the parts of his physical body corresponding to where the djed streams were travelling in his astral body, and he took pains to remember every detail of it in order to internalize the process.

Simultaneously, he felt a fleeting sense of strength and vitality as the djed streams passed by the various parts of his body on their way up as directed by his mind, and he mentally grinned, for it was an enjoyable sensation though he had to restrain himself from overdoing it. Flux was like a medicinal drug, great in small amounts but it tended to be addictive if one did not have the needed self-control and was devastating to oneself when overused. That was why he paid so much attention to meditation in order to calm and focus his mind, in order to build up his mental barriers against such an addiction.
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Last edited by Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
User avatar
Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
Posts: 1893
Words: 1312082
Joined roleplay: October 24th, 2011, 2:03 am
Location: Sylira
Race: Ethaefal
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Medals: 8
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Extreme Scrapbooker (1) 2012 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2011 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1) 2011 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 11:51 am

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The streams gradually travelled upwards, and Eri could feel a distant tug in his chest and arm muscles. He mentally travelled outwards, changing his attention back to the sensations of his physical body, putting him back in the reality of the physical world. He still kept his eyes closed in order to keep the mental image of his astral body there, and he could vaguely see it out of the corner of his 'eyes'. His breathing was still stable, but he could feel the fine hair on his skin standing, radiating from the new-found power that his upper torso was blessed with at the expense of wherever he drew the djed streams from.

He had not really realized this before, but he did now as he silently marvelled at the 'aura' (not Auristics-related, but more of a feeling) that seemed to be radiating out of his upper torso. He firmly kept his mind on maintaining this flow and did precisely so, disallowing himself from slipping in concentration or to channel more djed. It was a firm and measured step, and he kept it that way with his willpower.

Satisfied, Eri mentally travelled inwards again, dulling any physical sensations he was feeling as he focused again on his internal self, centering his attention squarely on his mental image of his astral body. The picture had been blurred when he directed his focus externally earlier, but as he brought his full focus on it it began to clear up again, the blue solidifying and the red achieving sharp clarity. He looked carefully at the concentration of red that was meandering about in the blue part corresponding to his upper torso, and he mentally zoomed in his focus as he made the image bigger so that he could see more detail.

The ethaefal brought his arms up mentally and began to sort out the red pulsing lines, nudging some towards areas where the red lines were poorly distributed while straightening creased lines in the blue cloud. This visualization resulted in a better distribution of djed streams within his upper torso as well as to optimize any streams that were not 'operating' at full efficiency due to being 'squashed' while being directed upwards or by the presence of the new streams.

After several chimes of smoothing over the red lines, Eri mentally took a step back and admired the mass of red within the blue square which represented his upper torso. The gathering of red in the blue square was much more aesthetically pleasing now, for the lines were more straight and squared and equally placed. Slowly allowing his vision of his astral form fade away, he gently surfaced his thoughts back up to his physical body, and as the sensations of his body began to return he felt even stronger than he felt normally and his upper torso felt more well-adjusted than ever.

He believed that it was because of the equal distribution of djed streams as well as his mental optimization that resulted in this, and so he paid special attention to this bit of realization, storing it away for future analysis and practice.
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Last edited by Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
User avatar
Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
Posts: 1893
Words: 1312082
Joined roleplay: October 24th, 2011, 2:03 am
Location: Sylira
Race: Ethaefal
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Scrapbook
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Medals: 8
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Extreme Scrapbooker (1) 2012 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2011 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1) 2011 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on December 6th, 2011, 1:54 pm

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Next it was time to return his djed streams to normal. Keeping his breathing steady, he slowly directed his djed streams back to where they were before he moved them, imagining his body as a waterfall and the djed like water as the excess energy travelled downwards back to his lower body and legs. He could feel a faint tickle down his body, almost as if there was really waterfall with water trickling down in his innards, and his breathing became more natural as his body felt at ease with itself.

No matter what people thought, Flux was never about 'achieving one's maximum potential'. It was an unnatural art that perverted the natural balance in the body in order to achieve whatever the wielder wanted, and his body responded appropriately. It took him years of meditation and practice to tune his body in harmony with his use of flux, but even so there always remained a slight feeling of unease whenever the djed streams were out of line. It was a manageable feeling, and he used this feeling of unease to tell him if he was unwittingly using flux and therefore draining his djed unknowingly. It was a good warning system.

As the last of the misplaced djed reached its proper destination, Eri felt a great calm spreading throughout his senses and he knew that his body was back to its natural state, though with a chunk of djed missing that was consumed in the process of his flux workings. That was fine, for it would return when he rested and ate and it was perfectly normal. His nightly ritual done, he opened his eyes in the partial darkness - with only beams of moonlight shining through the windows into the recesses of the library - and he grinned serenely to no one in particular. He loved this feeling of calm, with his mind devoid of distracting thoughts, and it was a perfect time for absorbing knowledge.

Reaching forward with his hand, the book-worm picked up the journal-sized tome and he patted the dust off it, wrinkling his nose as he waved the air around him with his other hand. He had found it while checking up on books deep inside the library where even the librarian herself rarely went. He had been engrossed in several titles of fictional adventurers and their journeys throughout imagined dimensional worlds when he found a small opening in one of the shelves after taking out several of these stories to peruse.

Out of curiosity, he had stuck his hands into this hole which apparently served as an opening to the internal structure of the shelf, which turned out to be hollow after he knocked on the wooden panelling. He had knocked on other shelves to check, but found that this one was unique in its hollowness. Intrigued, he had reached down with his arm into the hole, finally finding the dusty book with the words "Multidisciplinary Cartography" which he took to be map-making. It was clearly not one of the books in the library, from the way it was hidden and the years of accumulated dust and nothing interested the ethaefal more than a mystery.

Despite his calm state, his heart was pounding in anticipation at what he found find, maybe to see if he could discover the secret behind the book being hidden. Did the author of the book explored a new land but somehow had to hide his discovery to prevent persecution long ago? Perhaps he hid it here with the intention of coming back but never being able to? The book definitely looked post-Valterrian, and Eri wondered if the book had been written before he landed on Mizahar or after.
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NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
User avatar
Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
Posts: 1893
Words: 1312082
Joined roleplay: October 24th, 2011, 2:03 am
Location: Sylira
Race: Ethaefal
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Medals: 8
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Extreme Scrapbooker (1) 2012 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2011 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1) 2011 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on December 8th, 2011, 8:01 am

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The curious ethaefal propped the book and flipped the cover, skipping the first few pages until he found a bunch of words that signified the start of a real content in books. He brought the book up slightly so that it could catch more of the sliver of moonlight peeping in, and simply stared at the book when the words on the page became clear. His mind struggled to comprehend the mess of symbols and squiggles, but he could vaguely recall it as glyphing, a form of writing for Nader-Canoch and more importantly a more precise way to manipulate djed.

What are glyphs doing in a book on cartography?

Eri frowned as he tried to recall what he could from his centuries of existence that had anything to do with these symbols, and the basic foundation blocks of glyphing came to mind. Staring at that page again, he slowly traced his finger on a symbol while trying to his best to translate the ancient language as accurately as he could. The symbol led to another, and his eyes and finger followed the trail of runes, finally recognizing it as the most common of all glyphs - the focus sigil. Its basic premise was the ability to store djed, though of course it could be modified if the glypher was skilled enough.

He could not be sure what this focus sigil on the page actually did, for though he could more or less pigeonhole the glyph into that particular category of sigils, his lack of full understanding of all the symbols meant that he would not know the exact detail of what it would actually do. He shifted his glance around the general borders of this focus sigil to search for the next most common glyph that would appear after the focus, which was the barrier sigil. Humming to himself, he patiently traced his finger around the borders of the focus sigil until he stumbled on a more familiar (relatively speaking) symbol that meant protection in Nader-Canoch. This word was more commonly found in barrier sigils (duh!) and he knew that he was on the right track.

Looking around that single word, he further traced his way through several possible directions, eliminating some when he ended up against a figurative wall. Finally he came to the end of what he thought to be the barrier sigil, and he eye-balled the result dubiously. It did not look right, and so, pursing his lips, he placed the book back on the floor.

He headed outside of the library quickly, looking around for any pieces of rock or wood he could use, for he did not wish to deface the books nor vandalize the library, it would be be a poor way to repay the kind librarian. After a short moment of searching he found a small but thick enough branch that was in the courtyard and he picked it up, returning to his spot in the corner of the library.
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NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
User avatar
Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
Posts: 1893
Words: 1312082
Joined roleplay: October 24th, 2011, 2:03 am
Location: Sylira
Race: Ethaefal
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Plotnotes
Medals: 8
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Extreme Scrapbooker (1) 2012 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2011 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1) 2011 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Eridanus on December 8th, 2011, 8:40 am

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Eri placed his finger back on the spot where the focus sigil started and used his other hand to take out the assassin's dagger he kept hidden against his sash. Gripping the bone handle firmly, he carefully carved the glyphs on the piece of wood. He did not copy the entire page, for that would be pointless. What he did was to only copy select glyphs, starting with collection of runes that formed the focus. He concentrated quite deeply on his task, unwilling to even make a single mistake for he did not want to repeat all over again, and so he took even longer to slowly carve out the focus sigil rune for rune.

Next, it was time for the weirdly positioned barrier sigil, and he started with the word in Nader-Canoch that meant protection. Carefully etching it into an approximate position in the wood, he followed the trail of runes, taking care to carve each glyph as accurately as he could while making sure that the position relative to the focus sigil was as precise as he could.

Finally, he was done, and he looked at his handiwork on the wood. Usually a focus sigil were surrounded by a barrier which formed a circle around it. This time, however, was puzzling for the barrier was not actually forming a literal barrier but instead, the barrier had glyph arranged in an 'S' shape, with the small circle of the focus sigil inside the semi-circle of the top half of the shape. As far as he knew this glyph would not even work, for the arrangements were all wrong. He could not be sure, though, for he had no idea exactly how these glyphs work.

Eri was slightly confused as to what all of this meant, and he returned his gaze on the page. He looked at the piece of bark that he carved on, and looked again at the page. He was beginning to see some sort of pattern. His instinct was telling him something, that this warrants further investigation, but his conscious mind could not figure it out. He continued shifting his gaze between the wood and the book, and slowly he began to see what was written on the book without the glyph.

They were glyphs as well, but as far as he knew they formed no other purpose than to either obfuscate the reader from the original glyph, or were used simply to express meaning as a written form of Nader-Canoch. He had seen an example of the latter in Professor Stonemiller's door back at Zeltiva University. He was pretty sure that it was the latter and not the former, and he began to suspect some sort of encryption.

Unfortunately, he also knew that he was nowhere near to solving this mystery for he was far from equipped to do so. Firstly, he had no real knowledge on cryptography. Secondly, he was not an expert on glyphs as well and probably could not understand the subtle nuances of the code. Thirdly, he was not familiar enough in Nader-Canoch to understand all the symbols and the contexts of the words used. He knew when an investigation was a lost cause, but his curiosity as to what this all meant nagged at him, and he wished that he had the necessary knowledge to solve it. He knew that he would have to consult a more experienced authority, but he did not know any of which he could trust in Sunberth. This mysterious book might end up to hold more precious contents than he knew of and so he had to find an established authority he could trust more than the backstabbing scum in this vile city.

He would have to assess the situation and pick out any trust-worthy people he knew could help him out on this, or waiting until he got the hell out of this crime-ridden town. He only came to Sunberth for a specific reason, and he would be more than happy to leave it after he got what he came to achieve. Wherever he was pointed to next when he found what he came for would be better than Sunberth, and so he would probably direct his inquiries there.

Flipping the next few pages, he found his eyes aching as there were more and more intricate patterns of runes and symbols. More glyphs, more code. It was an encryption nightmare to those lacking the skills to decrypt the secrets hidden within the pages, and Eri found his curiosity and interest in this book growing. For now, it was getting late and he needed that bit of sleep if he wanted to function properly the next day, and so he tucked the book inside his robes, for it was clear that it was not property of the library. Returning his dagger to its proper spot in his sash, he took the piece of wood out of the library and flung it back into the bunch of trees overlooking the courtyard.

The ethaefal returned to his shady corner and leaned against the wall, his eyes closed and his curious mind trying its best to solve this problem even though it was probably a futile task. It rattled him that there was an intriguing puzzle resting against his chest in his robes and he could not figure it out. Eri had to remind himself that unlike mortals what he had was time, and he would solve it one day. The book was the last thing in his thoughts as he drifted off to sleep, the collection of glyphs and sigils floating around in his mind.
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NOTICE: I am currently mostly inactive til August. As such, guild activities are temporarily halted (watch out for major revamps, changes and organizations when I'm back in full force). Any activity with Eri will be rather slow as well, but I am slowly readjusting back to "Mizahar life", so to speak, so do PM me if we have a thread that I left hanging and we'll talk.



"You must be one hardcore scholar, Eri." (Laszlo)
First winner of the prestigious Mirage's No Kill Medal.
User avatar
Eridanus
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
 
Posts: 1893
Words: 1312082
Joined roleplay: October 24th, 2011, 2:03 am
Location: Sylira
Race: Ethaefal
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Plotnotes
Medals: 8
Featured Character (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Extreme Scrapbooker (1) 2012 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2011 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1) 2011 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

The Cartography Mystery (Solo)

Postby Ink on December 17th, 2011, 7:14 pm

And in the Aftermath . . .

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The Rewards are Revealed.

Eridanus :
Carving 1
Flux 3
Glyphing 2
Investigation 2
Meditation 3

Lore: Library (Average)
Lore: Glyphing (Basic)

Note About the Book: Eri returns the book to it's hidden nook, to be stolen at a later date. :)




Written in the ink :
If there are any concerns or problems with my grading please feel free to toss me a PM. I am more than happy to explain my reasons or reevaluate them if you feel I've been unfair.


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