[Flashback] Reasons for Risking (Solo)

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 4:35 pm

Day 31, Summer of 509 AV
Afternoon
Simple Single Room

There was a loud pop and a crackle as a black orb struggled to materialize. With a whimper it disappeared, and with a sharp inhalation of air it began forming again. Eridanus sat on his bed cross-legged, his palm out as he stared daggers at the air on top of his palms. He had never quite gotten used to the idea of Voiding, and even back in the University he had lagged behind the rest of his cohort quite tragically.

His face was almost purple as he held his breath, staring daggers at the space on top of his palms as he forced the portal to nothingness to appear. Ironically, the portal led to nothing yet it required so much more than nothing to summon. With a final grunt as he exhaled, the portal appeared again, flickering intermittently before it disappeared with a soft crack.

The vantha sighed, looking at the empty space on top of his palms. What was his trying to do? What good would voiding do besides being a cosmic dumping ground? Does voiding even serve his purposes?

Knowledge. You want knowledge.

What would knowledge do then? Seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge was pointless, it had no real goal. What did he want to end up with?

Knowledge for a purpose.

What purpose would it be?

You want to protect.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 4:41 pm

The vantha blinked, looking at the various battle scars and knotted muscles in his arms. He realized that much was true. He persevered in pursuing mastery of the longsword, even going as far as to travel all the way to Denval to learn the powerful techniques of the Suvan-Denvali Swordsmanship style. He traveled to Alvadas to seek his former opponent and friend to learn Sanctus Peccator. He continued to train and improve his combat abilities to defend himself and those too weak to do so.

What would voiding do then in that regard?

It did the same thing. It could kill, and it disposed of opponents quickly.

But you have the longsword for that.

That much was true. Was it efficient to learn 'replicate' skills? Especially if they fulfilled the same function?

What about shielding?

The vantha recalled how he saw a small group of Syliran Knights protect a bunch of helpless farmers and their cattle from a sudden bandit raid. Their numbers were too small to physically defend the farmers, but they had a mage-knight well versed in shielding who threw up a barrier, forcing the bandits to attack the knights first before they could focus on the farmers.

Shielding can do more than your two arms.

And that much was true. He could only do so much with himself, with one body, with the two arms that he had and the two longswords he possessed. When faced with overwhelming numbers, he could only delay and distract one or two, and he was useless in the rest.

No man is an island, yet I want to protect as many as I can.

The vantha stared at his outstretched palms, the budding resolution building up as he could feel a movement within him. A strong passion, a surge of heat, the spark of raw djed that powers all sentient beings. It was all the same, men were motivated by passions, miracles motivated by magic, and magic motivated by these very same passions.

It was all the same.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:11 pm

The djed came out easily enough. The substance-less substance grew as it was naturally extracted from Eri's body through his will, through his passion. Unlike voiding, this process was entirely natural and nothing about it felt forced. It was like mental state was already prepared for this. It was going with the flow of his passions.

The djed continued flowing, and it formed a swirly orb as he willed it to to levitate gently above his palms. How great it felt, to be able to do something that he had a purpose for. He was by no means good at shielding, but at least there was now a veritable reason for him to pursue the art just as he pursued combat. Sometimes, a good defence simply triumphed offence, no matter how good it was.

Now that he felt like he was on a roll, he did not manually shape the djed. Instead, he brought his palms to the side, facing each other a distance apart side by side. The orb of djed continued to levitate in the middle, and using his mind he willed the orb to expand such that it would form a shield in between his two palms.

The orb wobbled, and it began to flatten at an excruciating pace. It put a dampener on the vantha's mood, for he was beginning to feel a little put-down. Maybe his imagined talent in Shielding was just that; imagined?

No. That was not a once-off.

I refuse to let it be.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:14 pm

Eridanus furrowed his brows as he thought about his reasons for learning shielding. The reasons for diligently practising this art. The reason for sacrificing recreational time to do this. He did not want to feel like a useless bum if he ever failed to protect the people or things that he wanted to. He did not want to feel like that.

Refocusing his attention on the orb, his eyes narrowed as he brought this motivation, sending it mentally towards the orb.

The hovering djed seemed to receive his message, and in a sort of synchronization with his thoughts it began to expand at a faster pace, accelerating its growth as it thinned and spread itself out to form a rectangular box between his palms.

It was a rough rectangle, and the edges are spiky. Yet, with his thoughts alone he managed to force the djed to form this shape. Perhaps magic was more theory; perhaps magic involved the heart as well. Passion played as much importance as understanding and logic. That was one interesting avenue to explore.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:18 pm

Should he then use his hands to smoothen the texture of the box? No. He was ambitious, he wanted to take it a step further.

Imagining a smooth unlined box in his mind, he sent that image towards the shivering djed held between his two hands.

Nothing happened.

Emphasizing on the importance of the box, he sent it to the djed again, only seeing a minimal change after he did so. Remembering what he realized about the importance of passion besides relying on pure logic, he put an image of importance to the message.

He imagined that his mental box held something important. Something that he could not allow to be left exposed and in the air. A jagged box would not do, it had to be consistent. It had to be good. It had to be perfect.

The pre-shield slowly responded to his urging and needling. Gradually but surely, it became to smooth its surface, the random spikes of djed retreating back into the box, and large craters began to fill itself out.

The shield was now looking more like a box, and though it was not precisely and scientifically consistent in texture it at least had a modicum of propriety in its shape. It looked like a proper box, and a proper shield.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:22 pm

The only step left was tasking. Eridanus thought about Avanthal where the surroundings were cold. Maybe the box held food, and he needed to keep the food warm. This meant a tasking in terms of temperature, and a tasking to keep the heat in and the chill out.

Instead of using his hands to weave the individual djed strands, he began to mentally pick up each djed thread, using the power of his mind and his intense gaze to shift the strands. He had a vague idea of where he wanted the threads to go, for a temperature tasking was similar to the other taskings he had done for it was also a tasking of sense. More specifically, it was related to the idea of touch.

Painstakingly he shifted the djed threads to form the basic template for a sense tasking. Through countless experiments he had determined a standard pattern for blocking light, sound and smell. He called it the "sense template", and with this train of thought it made tasking so much simpler by virtue of knowing this.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:25 pm

He shook his head. This was taking too slow, and he could already feel his resolve wavering. There was a set time limit for how long he could keep the shield up, and if he took too long the djed would wither away before he had time to even form the shield. That was not acceptable.

He decided to try out a new method of creating the pattern. He cleared his mind as best as he could, mentally visualizing the sense template that he was so familiar with. Every location of every strand, he went through it all in his mind until he was satisfied that the pattern he memorized was correct.

Keeping it imprinted in his mind, he opened his eyes and stared at the shield floating between his hands. Imagining the mental pattern as an overlay over the physical shield, he slammed the template into the floating djed, forcing the djed strands to take the shape he visualized.

It worked, though not as perfectly as he wished for it to be. Certain threads went out of place, and in some regions were simply wrong. Still, it was a beginning, and with this method he still managed to hasten the tasking process.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:29 pm

Using his mind, he continued fixing the rest of the pattern, ensuring that they went straight into place. After a few more chimes he was done, and as he put the last pattern into place he could feel a slight warmth at his palms which formed the sides of the rectangular shield.

The top of his palm was cool to the touch because of the morning air, but his palms that were in contact with the inner parts of the shield began to warm up due to the shield keeping the heat in and preventing the chill from entering.

He looked in amazement at the baby that he created with just his mind, and gravely acknowledged the importance of the heart as well. It seemed that magic was not a purely mental science after all; for one's own emotional exertions can play a huge role.

He did take note that that very same heart could lead to his downfall, for he was a victim to it more than once when he became too engrossed in using the dangerous ways of the flux. Shielding was less dangerous, but just because he had not overgiven because of shielding yet did not mean that it could not happen.

Complacency caused accidental deaths, and he had to continue treating magic as a two-sided blade or risk losing it all.

by **Eridanus** on March 31st, 2012, 5:32 pm

With a nod, the vantha spread wide his hands, releasing his mental grip on the shield and it disappeared, the djed flickering for mere moments before being reduced to nothingness.

Palms returned to the soft linen on the bed, and the vantha looked wistfully out of the windows that gave a view of the street that Traveler's Row was built beside to. People milled to and fro, busy in their own business. Perhaps he should get going too, for he had to earn a living as well to continue feeding himself.

The bed called seductively to him, but he had to go, and so he pushed himself off it, walking towards the chair where he flung his outer robes over.

The day had given him some things to consider.

by **Emblem** on April 3rd, 2012, 7:58 am

Congratulations!
You Get Glorious Experience!

Eridanus
Skills

Lores

Comments :