Closed [Sullin's Residence]A First Step[Amelia Cross]

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde looked at Amelia, fear and anger and other emotions clear on her face. But fear seemed the most prominent. She was averting her gaze, not even looking him directly in the eyes. At her last words, "please don't be angry with you", he simply shook his head, and looked away again. "Make sure that you do. And I am not just angry at you for no reason, it is as much for your sake, as for my own. For the same reason I am limiting the amount of magic you can do. And beyond that... I am disappointed in you..." Clyde turned back to look at the girl, his face once more passive, calm, his breathing steadied and even. "You know, you are not my first student. Nor are you my first apprentice. I have had many of the first, and one of the latter. And each time when one ignored my orders, skipped a part, thought they knew better than my directions... Almost every time, they paid for it. Perhaps not right away, but eventually it came back to them. I am hard on you now, when it does not matter, so that when it does, such things will be second nature, and I will be able to trust you. So that when my own life, or yours, depends upon you listening and following my orders exactly... I will know, and you will know, that you will do what needs to be done and do it correctly." Clyde paused, walking back over to the desk, looking it over. Taking a quill and preparing it with ink, he quickly drew a focus on each hand, and one on his forehead. It was a circle, but with four tiny dashes coming out of it equally spaced, with none of the lines of the dashes inside the circle. It was more or less his common Glyphs when he did Auristics. He spoke once more, in an offhand way, almost as if he was talking about the weather. But it would clearly mean more to Clyde than that, and he did not meet Amelia's gaze as he spoke. "My first apprentice, and last before you, died. It was not pretty. It was a mess. There was hardly enough left to tell it was him... We got called off on a mission, to Syliras... On the way there, we were attacked by a horde of yukman. Massive, untold numbers. Myself and my apprentice, were away from the main group, separated." "I fought with all my might, bringing the very earth to life to fight our foes, ripping it asunder, throwing it at them, skewering them, crushing them, smashing them, killing yukman as fast as I could. I must have killed... Dozens? Hundreds?... I don't know, I lost count soon enough. It was a untold many, quite a good chunk of the entire horde, by myself. I had told Gallo to stay close. And when I knew we were to be overrun despite my actions, even with all I did, I said to run, and to stay with me and close. At some point though... I lost him. Or he lost me... Fell behind." "I survived, but when we found him later... Or what was left of him... I could not help thinking, what if he had just listened? What if... What if?... But he was dead, and I was alive." Clyde paused for about a chime or two, and then turned back to Amelia, his face cold and neutral. "Alright. I want you to prepare another small ball of res, the size of a marble or so. Then I want you to attract water to it, a decent bit, and hold it at head level. Without adding any more res to reinforce it. Keep holding it up, concentrating on it, until your res gives out, or the water falls. Even if it takes bells."

[Amelia Cross]

Finally Amelia lifted up her eyes and looked at her mentor. She could see that his commonly seen passive and calm appearance was back. It calmed her down and she was no longer shaking with fear or anger, though her arms were still there.

His words were strong, and managed to get to the girl. She began understanding why he had become this angry with her. Amelia finally began understanding that listening does not always equal hearing. And while she always listened to Clyde and his teachings, she often didn’t hear it. Despite her not knowing it, she didn’t hear it even earlier, when the questioning of Glyphing had taken its time. Clyde had explained the nature of them, but she didn’t hear it, she was busy planning, not realizing that it was impossible.

But that discussion had passed, and nobody besides the girl would know, did she still plane on traps regarding glyphing. Now even she didn’t think of them though, she was too busy following her teacher’s moves and actions, paying close attention to the glyphs he had drawn on himself and not quite understanding the reason behind it. Especially as she didn’t see him use them to focus or anything of that, he just spoke…of his last apprentice.

When Clyde was done, she was confused about him a bit more than before. How could a man with a heart and soul, ever be so calm when speaking of the death of his own apprentice. Maybe it was Amelia’s imagination, but she was sure that with such a relationship, sooner or later the two become close friends, even if one is still a student. She just didn’t understand and quite frankly, this was something she also didn’t want to understand. Amelia was sure Clyde had lost a good part of his emotions to magic, becoming cold, she didn’t want that. That was something she didn’t want to be thought.

Yet, the words reinforced her promise to hear his teaching and follow them precisely. ”It would be quite sad to die because you didn’t listen”

And so she did, this time, the girl had heard every bit and was sure she was doing the right thing. As she calmed herself down, throwing out all of the previous sadness, anger, confusion and fear out of her mind. She chose to concentrate on the res, like she had done before. This time it was harder though, maybe it was her recent burst of emotions or the fact she was not familiar with using it and was already growing tiered, but it was a lot harder than before.

Still, she had the little ball of red, a solid shape. Attracting the water however, didn’t seem as hard as when she did it the first time, it was still no fun and games though, taking a bit of time until she had a coat of water attracted to the ball. Then, she lifted it from her palm, where it was and lifted it up, to meet her eyes at the same level.

As the process began, she didn’t talk; she was in the task with all she had. Every bit of her, remaining herself to not let the ball lower and to not use any more res than it already had. And so it went on, not a bell had passed when she thought it would fall, but no, she managed to regain control without using any more res. ”for a moment there” she shock her head. Continuing her task, time passed. Slowly, the ball seemed to become heavier and heavier. Harder to keep control of, did she need more res? Was this how I felt when you needed to add more? She wasn’t sure, but one thing was clear. After nearly two and a half bells, the water was no more under her control, it fell.

[Clyde Sullins]

If there was one thing being a mage had taught Clyde, or perhaps being in Ravok had, it was to hide his lower emotions. Fear, sadness, were often things pounced upon by others. And so for the most part, Clyde did not show them. This was not to say that he did not feel them, he did, though more of the first than the second. Clyde simply was not one to get overly sad about the past, knowing there was nothing he could do on it. He was far to pragmatic for that. Anger did pop out quite often. And the occasional sense of melancholy. His story of his prior student, who had died, was likely to be categorized as this. But it did not last long, and he was soon back to his stony faced neutral expression. Which likely made him appear to Amelia to be cold and emotionless, uncaring for others. Uncaring about much of anything. He came across that way, but it did not mean it was the truth. Clyde watched as Amelia prepared herself, sucking up the water, and holding it there. Clyde let out a sigh, and left her to it, to the task he had set. Instead of watching, he would keep himself busy with some auristics, inspecting her aura. The Glyphs would help in that. He focused inside of himself, closed off his mind, tried to clear out the sounds of Amelia breathing, of the occasional slosh of water... Breathing in deeply, holding, and letting it out slow... Repeat. Again. Once more. Clearing his mind. Calming. Grasping at his djed, he felt a surge as he pushed it into his skull, felt without feeling as his eyes sparked with djed, and his aura vision began. He opened his eyes, to look upon Amelia. And the aura of the ball of water and res before him. This was his first try to focus on two auras at once. At a cursory glance, it was clear to see the ball of res had a much smaller aura than Amelia did. Her grey aura exuding out of her body. But this was only scale. As he looked closer, he could see the grey aura of the ball of water, with something else shining inside. Her res. As he looked closer, he saw a shine of color, and then her aura shimmered and was no longer grey. It was a odd color, sort of like a bright green, or a off blue. The best he could describe it as was a off blue-green color. As he looked at the water ball, its mundane liquid shining out grey, he could see in its depth a tiny capsule of the same blue-green color, the same hue almost as Amelias aura. It made sense, since her res was a part of her, a physical manifestation of her djed and will. Looking at it knowing, it seemed obvious, but he had not realized until now that a persons res aura would look similar to their own aura. He likely looked odd to Amelia, if she looked at him now. He would appear to be staring at her, but without his eyes being focused truly on her. Like he was seeing through her. Which in a way he was. The res shined out, dwarfing the aura of the mundane water, which remained dead and grey. But seeing her res in this fashion, he had a feeling it would help with something else. He pushed aside the aura of the ball with a casual sweep of his hand, focusing only on Amelia's aura. he gripped at it, pulled it apart, to its component colors. It broke down into a blue color, a green color, and a white color he had not noticed till now. He looked at the edges of her aura, and looked for the telltale shine of djed remnants, that marked her as a mage. It took him several chimes, but he found it. It was harder, since the traces were small. They were weak, not very strong, and still very fresh. Which stood up to the fact that she was newly a mage, newly initiated. Most of the djed remnants shone on her hands and face, which was also the sites were he had invaded her. Perhaps that had something to do with it? If he spent enough time, would he find traces of his own djed inside of her? Pulling back, he looked at the colors, wondering on them. The blue probably reminded him off her aura, of the water, of her element. Perhaps that would change later? Hard to say... Or perhaps it meant something else entirely... He pulled at the green, and the shade of white, but nothing immediately appeared from it, or became clear. Clyde decided to stop there. He had noticed some things, found out something new about res and its aura... Perhaps another time, he would find out what the colors meant. He began to pull back, letting off the flow of djed to his eyes, letting his aura vision fail. He simply stood there and rested. He was unsure how long it was after this till the water fell and broke him from his revery. Ticks? Chimes? Bells? He could not say. Looking up, he gazed Amelia in the eyes, this time his eyes focusing on her, as he was not looking into her aura. "Alright, that was fine. Perhaps we should stop now? Better to not do to much on our first meeting. You learned some Glyphing, learned a bit of Reimancy and what your element is. Good for now." Clyde began to turn away, when he recalled he needed to tell her how much magic she could use. "No more magic for today. After that, until we meet again, you can do 2 spells a day, simple ones for your skill, and no more. If you do not use magic for 2 days in a row, then on the third you can use 3 spells."

[Amelia Cross]

All the time while she was concentrating on her task, not even once did she look at Clyde. A good thing actually, otherwise she’d have lost the control over the ball of water much sooner. And as the ball fell, she finally turned to look at him. ”is it just me, or is he calmer than usual?” she couldn’t help but wonder.

A ghost of a smile, finding its way on her face as he stated, that they would stop for now, for today. Amelia had to admit that she wanted to do more, to become better and understand better. Still, she knew that if she pushed herself further, nothing good will happen out of it. She had spent some time learning about overgiving, and from what she knew, that was the least thing she wanted.

The last thing to cover, was clearing out how much magic she could use until their next meeting. 2 spells seemed reasonable, as it was what she was doing today, sort of, and it already drained her, or at least it felt like that.

Anyway, the lesson was done for the day. The further instructions regarding magic were done and they were clear. Neither of them seemed to be angry or disappointed and thankfully, everyone was breathing. Amelia would say, the lesson was a success.

Final goodbyes, a polite bow from the Cross girl and she was gone. Gone until Clyde would have a message delivered, telling her to meet him for yet another, potentially emotional, lesson.

[Verilian]

. . Thread Award . . Clyde Sullins +1 Meditation +2 Auristics +4 Teaching +2 Leadership Lores: Scolding a Student, Res matches the Aura of the Caster, Amelia's Aura Amelia Cross +1 Drawing +1 Writing +2 Glyphing +5 Reimancy Lores: Glyping: The Basic Idea, Glyping Terminology, The 5 Glyphs of a Sigil, The Different Types of Triggers, How to Extrude Res, The Properties of Res, Lore of Gestures and Incantations, Reimancy Technique: Attraction, Amelia's First Element: Water, Reimancy Technique: Attraction, How Clyde's Previous Apprentice Died, You Question My Logic? : A lot of stuff, but if you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Notes: *ponders* Yknow.. you could make a glyph that creates a barrier to trap somebody using earth reimancy. Just cast an earth wall, probably in a circle, into the glyph, and then the wall pops out when triggered. I love these threads, because they always make me think. It's also apparently possible to store a person or object inside a glyph, if you first cover them in a shield.. but it is not possible to cast a shield by itself into a glyph, which totally gives me ideas.. I was going to say for my konti.. but then suddenly evil Ebonstryfe related ideas popped into my mind. Like.. I literally just got a tingle down my spine. Anyway.. now that my rambling is out of the way, excellent thread you guys! I absolutely love these kind of threads, and this one was done exceptionally well. Keep up the good work, and keep writing! Notice As per the request of the Founders, threads cannot be graded unless your CS is up to date. This means you need to add threads to your thread list when you make new threads, keep your skills up to date, ledger, living expenses, ect. If you aren't up to date, you'll get a PM from me before i grade your thread. If you are up to date, disregard this notice.