Completed On a Journey[Radiant]

[Clyde Sullins]

It appeared that his initial defensive maneuvering had succeeded in protecting him, at least from the being's initial attacks. Before it could come in and rend him open, a wave of flames spurted across it, likely leaving the scent of burnt flesh in the air afterward. It tried once more, preparing to knock him with its tail, but Clyde sent another spurt of flame to roast the thing before it had the chance. It once more retreated to a tree, staring back at Clyde. Clyde who simply took in a deep calming breath, and replaced the bits of res he had transmuted into flame. He Also added an attractive force to the outer layer of the cloud of res, and sucked the magical flame back to him, not letting the leftovers go to waste. With a sideways tilt of his hand, and a quick circular motion repeated a few times, he sent off a unique motion of his res, churning up the middle of the outer layer, while also using attraction on it. This would end up creating a small ring of fire about waist height on the outskirts of the gas cloud, which was slowly rotating like a spinning ring around him. He would leave the res deeper in and closer to him alone, after all not wanting to get the flame to close to himself. The flame ring was soaked with gaseous res which was also attracting it and holding it in place, along with causing its revolutions, ready to send off a spurt of flame from any point should the thing come at him. However, he did have a overall theory behind his method of defense, which could also be used defensively. The bubble of gaseous res around and above him would work as a deterrent and protection system, one that was mainly djed based. However, the earth below him that was soaked in liquid res, would work better for direct assaults, as it would allow for him to attract the mundane earth, and to mix it with transmuted res to create attacks to strike at it, with a decreased djed expenditure than completely djed based attacks. He turned to face it in its new roost in the tree, moving the ball of djed to stay in front of him, and between himself and the creature. Now that his main defenses were done he was slowly adding a trickle of res to the ball on each exhale, making the balls gaseous res ever more densely packed, in preparation for its intended usage. Clyde watched as it changed shape, blocking itself so it could not be seen within a haze, and then morphed into another shape, that of a large Zith, a creature he had combated before. But still with the black eyes and lack of a mouth. He also noted the burns his prior attacks had left slowly disappearing as the thing healed, and undid his damage. Clearly this thing was not going to get tired out, or succumb to damage over time like other foes might. As it took off, Clyde readied his ground res, embracing the earth below him, feeling it, feeling the grind of the soil through his body of res, as if it brushed across his being, felt himself united with the ground like it was a part of him, married as one flesh to him in a mating on a primal level. He was the dirt, the rocks, the earth, at least for the circular portion of ground that was soaked in his res. As the Zith/beast flew at him, he threw his left palm upward, sending another burst of flame at the thing, this time out of the res directly above his head. Then he arched his back, and saw as his body of res/earth did likewise, imitating himself in the other iteration, felt a small tremble in the ground as his body readied to fight and to do its own bidding, as a few small patches around him rose into small tents of earth 6 inches high with a blunt yet somewhat pointed tip, four in all, around him, peaking out of his body/res/the earth. Losing the distinction as he knew they were utterly the same in this moment. Responding to his need and desire, and seeing himself in danger, his other self in the res bristled and tore itself loose, mating with the minerals and dirt and rocks to form into small spears from the earlier tents of dirt, one of the four shooting up and expanding outward as a stoney spear, rushing upwards fueled and fed by the dirt and earth below it, along with a portion of the res inside of it, acting as a glue and shaping hand to turn it as hard as rock. There was a moments pause, and then it thrust itself upward out of the ground/res/body and arched its limb up to smack at the threat, to thrust at it, to skewer it. A 6 foot spear of earth mixed with res created stone and soaked with more res issued force, birthed from the res soaked ground, leaving its earthbound enclosure to propel away from the main mass of res and to go directly at the thing attempting to claw Clyde's/his own neck open. If his aim was true, which it usually was, the giant earthen spear would punch right through its chest and skewer it. And whether or not that worked, Clyde would send out another spurt of res as a flame attack to sweep across the things chest, trying to roast it to the bone for the audacity of trying to kill him/Clyde. He could feel a sweet tang in his mouth of djed, and it was delicious. Though since that often happened even with smaller spells, there was a good chance it was not overgiving related, but simply a pleasant experience caused by the magic which could not be gained by mundane means... But whether it was overgiving related or not, it was still addictive, and faded all to soon leaving a sour taste in his mouth, leaving him wanting more, to exude more res, to do more... Which was worse though, Clyde thought to himself for a half moment, if it was related to overgiving, or if it was not?.. Magic in all its forms, was addictive, and sweater than any mundanely derived pleasure... But which was worse, if it was, or was not?...

[Radiant]

The thing flash-stepped and swooped down from Clyde's rear, it would rip out his neck soon, however.. *BOOSH* fire struck it as the ring Clyde conjured lashed onto it form. It flinched and changed location, but the fire kept striking it again and again.

It kept taking damage from Clyde's fire, but it was also regenerating at a very fast rate. If Clyde didn't change his tactics, it would only a matter of time before he tired out and be left at the mercy of the creature. But the Reimancer knew of course, he would not let this random creature, no matter how strong it was, to just waltz in and take his life. The creature came from his side for another strike when..

*STAB!!*

The violent wet sound of skewered flesh echoed in the forest as the Journeyman found itself impaled by Clyde's earthen power. It still held the same expressionless face and made no audible voice of pain whatsoever. It merely stood there, skewered, void black eyes boring deep into the reimancer.

"Observer Suffering Damage. Commence Filament Deployment"

With that ominous sentence. The creature launched its most deadly weapon, it already deemed Clyde dangerous enough for it to risk launching its most hidden and dangerous arsenal, its razor-sharp filaments. The hair-width cutting threads came from its shoulder, three strands from each shoulder blades. It launched to the sides and suddenly turned to cut Clyde's head from the left and right.

[Clyde Sullins]

At this point, Clyde's focus on the battle, on his res, on the next few moments, was total. In this case meditation did help, and he took slow cleansing breathes, helping himself to focus on the task at hand, on the thing before him. A part of him could hear the things words, and understood them, but they were not a part of his principal concern. Events were nearly moving faster than he could keep up with, and so his Reimancy became faster, more blunt, but also more instinctive. He forgot about even trying to form a incantation, instead returning to his more tried and true gestures, which had yet to fail him. And then he unleashed his formidable might. As he saw the first spear of earth stab into the thing, he kept on, sweeping both hands forward slowly, one still holding his staff, lifting it up at an angle so they slowly glided a few inches forward and away from his body. As his body did this, so did his earth/res/stone body underneath him. A small wave of earth flowed forward along the ground from the two stubs of spikes on either side of Clyde from the first one to skewer the thing. They both slid forward through the ground like a wave of water, till they were but a foot from the thing. Then with a twinned motion he suddenly brought both hands directly upward to chin level in front of him. His body of earth did likewise, and ruptured out from the ground nearly identical to the prior spear, grinding and melding the earth and res together so that two more stone spears with a sharp tip rose out of the ground. One was aimed at the things right hip, coming at it from the left side. The angle it was going if it hit, it would go right through it through the right rip, coming out the left side of its chest. The other one coming in on its left side, was aimed higher, at neck and shoulder level. If it struck true, it would enter through its left shoulder, and exit through the right side of its neck. He aimed another small spurt of flame off of the ring, tossing it off and at the things face with a lazy shrug of his shoulders. This one was just cover, to slow it down for a few moments as he began to transmute his dense ball of res in a specific sequence. Normally he would do this using mundane water and air, which would take time, chimes at the least, for compressing so much water to such a degree that its high pressure release would slice and rip through flesh as easily as a physical blade, if not easier than such a mundane blade, was not a simple thing to do. But using only transmutation, while more djed costly, was much faster. What would take chimes normally, could be done in moments, much much faster. As he began he brought his hands back to chest level, and began to make a two handed stirring motion using his staff. A odd gesture for a spell, but fitting for the motion he wanted. First he transmuted two layers, the core he turned into water, except for the extreme core of res which was marble sized, and began to use attractive force to pull in water. The outer layer of res remained turned to air, with the layer below it beginning an attractive force pulling it in, along with pulling in more mundane air from around them. But this was not enough, not enough pressure, not enough force in the sphere. More res in the core was transmuted, more and more, into water, building up the mass of water from the dense res, a good bit of it however remaining res to continue the needed attractive force on it. Two separate attractions done in unison, the core pulling in water, the middle layer pulling at air on top of the core, not allowing it to expand or escape. This time since he was doing it faster, and via transmutation, he did not need as much air to be pulled in and force together the water. Instead, more water was transmuted inside of his area, and the outer area of air simply acted as a buffer, not allowing it to expand or escape. The water was then forced to compress on its own. Clyde kept this up, for a moment, two, three, a few blinks of an eye. And all of this was done, so much faster than the last time when he had done this mundanely via attraction. When he was ready he opened a pinhole sized opening at the front of the sphere, through the air, and suddenly a tiny stream of high pressure water was rushing out as he thrust his open left palm at the thing.. From an observers eye, the pinhole sphere would appear to be moving and the pinhole being rotated about. But in reality, the sphere was mostly stable, instead the pinhole of an opening was being moved. The sight of the opening would slowly be opened and close, similar to a sower through cloth. He would move about the hole by closing half of the hole, while opening an equal size in the direction he wanted. This was done in fast succession, so that the hole appeared to easily slide across the surface of the sphere. His starting aim had the hole aimed at the things chest, and that would be were the first tiny torrent of water would shoot out. Then he would slide it upward and to the uninjured right shoulder, stop, and then slide it across the flesh left over to the left shoulder. He would move it again with another motion of his hand swatting at the air, and it would turn upward to move to slice at the throat, before he would close the hole, so he could build up more water pressure.

[Radiant]

In normal situations, the Journeyman would never have to launch its filaments, and when it did, it usually succeeded, but it seemed to have bit more that it could chew - figuratively, since it's mouthless - this time. This subject was far too powerful for further observation, pushing it further would just result in the t death of the Observer, it knew that much.

"Subject 90. Threat Level: Maximum.

Emergency Action: Tactical Withdrawal"

Those words were as close as saying "Petch this! I'm outta here!" for the Journeyman. When Clyde launched his barrage of spikes and flames, he closed his eyes fro a split second to blink... the Journeyman didn't let this chance go, when he opened his eyes just a split second later, Clyde could only see his spikes and flames striking nothing but thin air... It had escaped, using that very small time frame when it's out of Clyde's sight to vanish. Clyde could feel its immense magical aura slowly dimming down... down... and down until the forest felt normal again.

Rye finally looked up to check if his master was okay, he sniffed the air, sensing nothing out of the ordinary at first, and barked happily to Clyde as if very proud of his master's abilities. Then... he suddenly went alert and ran a bit to Clyde's side... he spotted something small and thin, but very unnatural. A thin hair-width white strands were sprawled on the ground around Clyde, three strands on his right and three strands on his left. The abandoned filaments of the Journeyman.

Even though very thin, Clyde could feel subtle magical aura when he examined it closer. Its very sharp and touching it without any protection whatsoever could cut one's hands.

OOCAlright, Clyde! This should be my last post. You can post your final reply and I'll give you your grades.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde was ready to attack full force, to really nail this thing to the ground, when it spoke in his mind once more. "Subject 90. Threat Level: Maximum. Emergency Action: Tactical Withdrawal" Clyde knew he was subject 90, and knew what a tactical withdraw was. It meant running away, so you did not get utterly destroyed, when you knew you were overwhelmed. As he was registering this, his eyes shuttered for a moment, and as the opened the thing was... Gone? What the petch, he thought to himself, it had vanished, in the time it took him to blink? But as he thought back on it, had the other times it had moved so fast also been when he blinked? Perhaps it had! Perhaps he had just discovered another thing about this creature. Or whatever it was. He pulled back on his magic, stopping all transmutation, just holding things steady, as he felt out for the things presence... Which was no were near as overwhelming as before. In fact, it was slowly diminishing. He waited until this had returned completely to normal, vanished from his awareness, to lower his guard, and begin to return his leftover res to himself, slowly reabsorbing what had not been spent or decayed and casting aside the transmuted and attracted elements. It consisted of a decent portion of the gas ball around him, along with the layer of res saturated soil below him. Both slowly oozed back to him, clinging to his skin, and being sucked back inside to rejoin him as his djed, as a part of him. It was only then that Clyde noticed Rye's discovery, that of the "filaments", as the thing had called them. They still thrummed with a life, even cut off from the mass of the being. He slowly opened his aura vision to look at them, and saw them with a strong internal glow of djed, far beyond anything so tiny should be. Perhaps though he could keep them? Though experience with magic and other dangerous things had told him touching them was not a good idea. Instead, he used a stick he picked up off the ground, and tried to use it to slide it about, dragging it to one spot. He used the stuff from his pack, and made a simple scroll to hold them. He was fairly certain this thing was some kind of magical creature, or summoned being, or whatever, so it should logically be able to be held in a scroll. Perhaps his reasoning on this was missing a few points, but he was certain it would work. A circle with a wavy line around it, encircled in a diamond pattern created by dual XX's slowly bending around the focus. Then a triangle intersecting with one part, jutting out as the trigger, writing out the words- Release when Clyde Sullins looks at this scroll, and says "Dangerous squiggles be released" He would try to move all of the filaments to one spot, curling them upon themselves, and then pick them up with a stick to hold them over the focus, then tilting the stick to the side so they dropped into the open focus. If all that worked, and they indeed were sealed inside the scroll as he expected, he would take the scroll and his things, and head back to the others with Rye.

[Radiant]

Clyde :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+3 XP
Tactics	+2 XP
Reimancy	+2 XP
Auristics	+2 XP
Animal Husbandry	+1 XP
Singing	+1 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

A Walk Gone Wrong

Ominous Aura In The Forest

Fragment Monster: The Journeyman

Journeyman: Blinking Ability Requires Out Of Sight

Journeyman: Razor Sharp Filaments

Loots

+6 Journeyman Filaments

Notes :

It has been fun, Clyde! Bring a ghost or Nuit next time and you'll surely kill that milky white monster.

I really love on how you put the description to your Reimancy. I personally learnt a lot from it... so that's the capability of a Master .

Anyways, congrats on maxing Reimancy, Clyde!

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.