[The Bronze Wood] Earth and Air. (Closed, Training)

[Sturlin]

Timestamp: 11th of Spring, 510 AV

The preparations required were many. On the previous day Sturlin had spent the evening seeking out a suitable test site for his experiment. He had learned through personal experience that one should not employ Reimancy without having carefully thought out the cause and effect of one's actions. Even as he began the day he was sure to eat well and maintain a state of calmness as he went about his chores and gathered up his backpack.

While he knew where he would be conducting the test he still did not know if it would function properly, and he was therefore required to take into account the possibility of failure. As he walked toward the stream he took several calming breaths, attempting to focus his attention inward on the task at hand. It was not until he reached the cool water and knelt to drink from it that he realized his left hand was shaking violently.

Before he could go on he would have to calm himself. Fear and haste were the enemy of focus. Remaining in his kneeling position he sat backward carefully on his calves and examined the forest around him. A small bird was trilling loudly nearby in an attempt to attract a mate. The recent drizzle had swollen the stream slightly and more than one fish could be seen searching for a larger body of water. Twigs cracked in the distance as a small animal thundered through the brush, probably in flight from a predator.

Taking his left knee in his left hand he gripped it firmly to calm the shaking, relaxing and reapplying his grip several times to work out the tension. His right hand rested gently on his right knee. Bowing his head he began to focus more on the sounds of the stream and the water than on the sounds of his surroundings. Of course, his first attempt at calming his mind were far from perfect. As he was in an unprotected watering area he found himself unable to resist searching his surroundings for danger every five or ten minutes.

Still, an hour later as he stood and hitched his pack up onto his back his breathing was easier and his hand was steady. It would be a good day. He would be successful this time. There was no way he could blow himself up. Of course this sort of thing was routine, what was he worried about? This stream of positive reinforcement repeated in his mind over and over was only half-genuine, and the other half was self pep-talk.

After awhile this string of encouragement was more of a distracting mantra than a help. His mind was becoming cluttered with words and thoughts, which no matter how he twisted them inevitably would lead back to his trepidation about the task at hand. Perhaps a bit of observation would clear his mind, he thought. Once again he focused on clearing his mind, but on this attempt he did it while inspecting the trail for tracks and evidence of nearby animals. Out here he had all the time in the world to reach his destination, and so he would pause to examine the scratched bark of a tree where some unknown creature had marked its territory, or the trampled leaves of a sapling where a large hoofed creature had fled from a predator he did not recognize.

This proved to be a far more effective tactic than before. Worries melted away from him as he occupied his mind with something useful, something he was interested in. There would be plenty of time to worry later. Today was a beautiful day, he was well fed, and he was in his domain. Even a city as grand as Syliras could hold no candle to the Bronze Woods surrounding it.

[Sturlin]

Where forests and mountains meet one can invariably find a defensible position when given enough time. The right collection of small boulders are eventually deposited on the forest floor by the rocky scree above. Sturlin was careful to choose such a place where many boulders would be able to protect him from the focal point of his experiments. In addition if his experiment were to draw any unwanted visitors the trees and rocks would grant him a significant advantage.

He took some time to search the area first, clearing away any loose rocks or small stones from the area as he did so. It wouldn't do for Mr. Pickles to have followed him here, nor was it advisable to be throwing things around in an otherwise occupied area. When his search was concluded he took a deep breath and ran his hands over his shaved head. “The key to power is focus. The key to focus is calm. The key to calm is peace. The key to peace is power.”

Once again seeking that inner peace he let his eyes slide closed and he envisioned the components for his spell. Shale: A rock of many layers, broken apart easily with proper force, which fragments into those separate layers when broken. Air: a constantly present but frequently underestimated force, volatile when compressed tightly or when unleashed with gale-force strength. Res: a translucent black gas which Sturlin most commonly expelled through his hands, and the source of his greatest achievements.

This spell was one which he had attempted before. When he had first discovered the mysteries of air he had been too eager to combine the elements. His first experiment had left him horribly scarred and had greatly undermined his confidence in himself. That monumental failure had cost him more than he would admit, and it was a large part of his self imposed exile in the forest. The stiffness in his face and hand as he opened his eyes was an ever-present reminder of the price of arrogance.

On this occasion he was wiser to the dangers inherent in this experiment. He would be conducting it in miniature, and from behind the protection of solid rock. With this in mind he cracked his knuckles and began to re-arrange the largest stones and smallest boulders. As the sweat ran down his arms and his back he felt a sense of accomplishment. Forgetting the pleasure of working with one's hands was the mistake of all the magicians he had known in the past, few though they were. His uncle had known. As he gazed upon his waist high wall of stacked stone some time later he rested his hands on his hips. He could almost feel the hand of Kardeg resting comfortingly on his shoulder, as it did when he had completed a difficult chore in his childhood.

The birds and animals were now silent in the trees and the underbrush. The clack of stone on stone and the grunting and sweating of man had long since alerted them of his presence. If they were fortunate then their fear of him would keep them safe from the explosion to come. An explosion without fire. A spell that, once completed, would shake the roots of the trees and the bones of his enemies. As he knelt behind the barricade he had constructed he shifted his weight until all but the top of his head and the sliver of his eyes was concealed.

Looking into the small clearing he opened his left hand slowly. Angling it so that the palm was face up, he brought his attention into sharp focus on the here and the now. With great slowness and deliberation the magician began to fill his palm with a translucent black gas. “The key to power is focus. The key to focus is calm...They key to calm is peace...”

[Sturlin]

The translucent black gas that was his Res began to fill his palm. Every ounce that left his body emerged with a focused and calm slowness. There would be a time for rapid action in the future. Where every second meant the difference between life, death, or a failed spell. At that time he would have to have complete control and a deadly swiftness, but that time was not now. In a training environment, in an experimental environment, it was always best to learn control first and speed second. If there was an exception to that rule, it would certainly not be Reimancy.

Once he had expelled barely enough to fill the palm of his hand he began rolling it there slowly. Successful manipulation of one's Res was the key to any accurate casting, and in spite of his personal skill level he was going to approach this as would a novice. Were he only intent upon manipulating earth he could accomplish this task with relative ease and confidence, but he was combining two elements in a way that he had not seen done before. And so, the early afternoon sun found Sturlin in a carefully prepared clearing, behind a wall, moving his Res within the palm of his hand as if learning to manipulate it for the first time.

The gaseous substance shifted itself, forced by the formidable will of the magician, into a small sphere above the palm of his hand. Very carefully he began testing its movements and causing it to circle around him several times. As a carnival performer would test the weight of his juggling knives, or a swordsman would evaluate the heft of his sword before a sparring match, he tested the weight and heft of his Res as well as his mastery of it. Like a tiny bird of blackness and air it flitted in and around him, this close to his body and mind the substance followed his every whim, before returning to him and the task at hand. The risk in this venture had always been the loss of control at further distances, and upon the transformation of the Res.

He could not spend any more time. He had been taught that Res was to be used swiftly, and he would follow that teaching. Sitting up so that he was able to see and reach over the wall he extended his hand toward his target. The ball of Res hovered over his palm for but a moment before it began to rocket away from him. It zipped through the air one meter, two meters...as it reached what he gaged to be two and one half meters he transformed the outer layer of the ball of Res into a razor thin covering of shale. His confidence grew as it hardened and moved with the core of gas to which it was still attached.

To the casual observer the transition from two and one half meters to three meters would have been swift and difficult to follow. Just as an archer at tournament would see his arrow slowly approach the red mark of his target, so this transition seemed to take an eternity for the carefully waiting magician. Speed and accuracy both began to trouble him at this distance. He had not been prepared for his limitations before, but now he had a clearer eye for his own skill. There was little fear that he would miss. He had carefully examined the clearing several times and had chosen a boulder only slightly further than three meters away. Just before the fragile looking ball the size of a chicken's egg struck he converted the Res it contained into the largest concentration of air he could muster. "The key to peace is power..."

Anticlimactic would be a poor description of what followed for Sturlin. The ball of shale and its compressed contents struck the boulder with a pleasant sounding click. Boulders are made of tougher stuff than the outside of his creation, and immediately the shale cracked with the force of the blow. Fragmentation is a weakness of this breed of rock, but Sturlin had turned it into a strength. Air is meant to be free, and the more air you force into a tight space the harder it struggles to free itself. Compressed air violently forced the fragments of shale in every direction. Rattling bits of razor thin shale struck stone and crumbled to nothing. In the area around the rock the grass was shredded in several areas and some of the brush collapsed.

Sturlin leaped to his feet and left the safety of his wall to examine the devastation he had wrought, in his own mind at least. One small bush had lost most of its leaves and there were some shallow gashes in the earth around the boulder. None of the stones around the blast point had been damaged of course, they were far too sturdy for that. It was time for the magician to put his skilled memory to work. Each damage inflicted by his casting was inspected in depth and repeated aloud, recited as he attempted to memorize the results of his first marginally successful use of this principle.

The greatest area of damage was limited to one half of a meter around the point of impact. The grass this close was sliced to bits and that had been the location of the bush before it was sliced to ribbons. All of the thickest branches of the bush were intact, though some were gashed lightly by the thin rock. Anything of less thickness than a writing quill had been completely severed. What he had not accounted for was the distance that his weapon could travel beyond the optimal range. Sweeping the clearing showed him that even at this scale the experiment could launch shale as far as six meters. Hardly a danger when the rock was barely as dangerous as a swiftly moving splinter of wood, but that was a severe drawback were he to utilize it at greater size.

While the damage to the surrounding area had been minimal and a dangerous flaw had been discovered Sturlin still felt his heart soar with joy. He had created his weapon. The road ahead was a long one, there was thickness to consider and distance to worry about, but he had taken his first step upon it without so much as a scratch upon his skin. As he gathered up several shards for later examination he hummed a merry tune.

[Sturlin]

Looking down on the slivers of shale in his hand Sturlin felt rather than heard the Sweet Whisper urging him to continue immediately. With the spell fresh in his mind surely he would be able to perfect it in a matter of hours. The rush of success and the thrill of Reimancy coursed through him as he imagined himself executing the next phase of the experiment so far ahead of schedule. Almost, he began to gather himself to release more Res. His self control exerted itself in time to avert potential disaster. Looking down in surprise at his hand he closed it carefully around the rock and turned his back on the glade, walking away purposefully.

With each step he found it easier to keep his back toward that temptation. Deep, calming breaths moved in and out of his chest as he focused not on accomplishing more, but on satisfaction with what he had already accomplished. Over the coming days he would review today's events in his mind until he was satisfied that he was mentally prepared for the next step. Surely before winter he would have perfected the technique and would be ready to move fully on to other pursuits.

The shapes of animal prints on the trails returning to his campsite provided a welcome diversion from the multitude of thoughts and plans rattling around inside of his head. It looked as though there was a family of deer in the area. He would have to locate them in the future, before they moved on, and collect some meat and hides for the market. His use of snares and traps had been working out as well as could be expected so far, given the limited amount of time they had been laid out, but larger game would fetch a better price. “I should check those before I return. Mr. Pickles will be grumpy if I don't present him with a treat when I get back.”

Bending low on occasion the hunter took this opportunity to further familiarize himself with the hoof prints of the herd of deer. Easily spotted on the dirt of the trail, he was more interested in their appearance upon the crushed grass or the scrapes they left behind when their hoofs grazed a tree root. As it was upon his arrival to the site, so his departure was spent with his nose near the ground and his ears perked for any sign of danger. He would have to remember to bathe in the stream, as unpleasant as cold water was, to remove the droppings that had rubbed off on his fingers during his investigation of a particularly interesting bit of underbrush.

An so he traveled from snare to trap and back again, examining his prey and the evidence they left of their many forays through the area. While his haul was not substantial it would be enough to keep him busy while he rested his body for the remainder of the day. After carefully killing the small forest animals which were only wounded, he scooped them all up and approached his campsite. With one pouch full of shale, two hands full of dead animals, and a spring in his step, Sturlin woke Mr. Pickles with a nudge of his foot and joined him beside the empty fire pit.

The cat was unimpressed by the greeting and showed every sign of ignoring the hunter, but melted when he was gently hand fed squirrel meat a few minutes later. Even among cats the way to a man's heart rested deep within his stomach.

~Finished

[Dusk]

XP Award! Sturlin XP Award Meditation: 2 XP Bodybuilding: 1 XP Reimancy: 2 XP Tracking: 2 XP Wilderness Survival: 1 XP Lore Award Spellcrafting: (Name Your Spell Here!) Cautious Optimism Additional Note So that's what he's working on! Nicely done. You'll need to come up with a name for your spell (even if it's just out of character) and you can use that for your Lore. Can't wait to see more magical experiments!