Completed [Flashback] Putting theory into practice [Graded]

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The fortified mountain city of the Isur. [Lore]

[Flashback] Putting theory into practice [Graded]

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:07 pm

Fall 29, 506 AV

The challenges of the Silver Tower were not to be underestimated for all that Eanos were of the clan which controlled it. As a clan member his right of entry had been more or less assured so long as he had been able to show at least a minimum of competence in the studies which had come before he had been allowed entry. There were some there who were not of the clan and the competition for those few places was fierce. While the system might have been flawed in terms of producing the maximum number of good mages for the race as a whole, and might have been seen as an easy access to power for an aspiring mage such as Eanos the reality was not quite so simple. There was a good deal of tension between the members of the Tower who were clan and those who were not. Those non clan members were better mages than some of the clan members, it was almost inevitable because of the differing entry requirements. There was a perception it seemed to Eanos among those non clan members that the clan members were lazy and incompetent and it was a challenge therefore to prove them wrong, a challenge to prove that in fact the clan had right of entry because they were all, even the worst of them, equal to the best of the non clan members. Of course that was not so easy in practice to prove and both sides were guilty of tarring all with a brush sized for the few who did not fit the stereotype.

This day however was one where he was not in the tower and had not only the chance to stretch his legs but also the obligation. There was only so much that could be taught in theory, some lessons could only be learnt and taken to heart by putting them into practice and so it was that the novice mage was wandering the streets of the city, apparently taking his time and slacking off whatever task he ought by rights to be engaged in. That appearance was one which gained him more than one disdainful glances for slacking was one thing which the Isur did not do if they could help it.

A closer look however revealed that however relaxed his body might be as he slumped by the side of the busy thoroughfare, the creases in his forehead above his nose revealed that he was concentrating with an intensity which could only lead to a headache in short order.

His spot was carefully chosen for just there two streets intersected and in the wide section that resulted from this a small and impromptu market was operating. Just a couple of stalls, one selling some form of cooked food whose aromas had twitched his nostrils but he hadn’t bothered actually identifying, the other was selling clothes and by the look of them they weren’t new. Passers by were slowed by the intersection and further distracted by the stalls and the few customers who stopped to buy or browse and it was that slow swirl of people which had attracted him. Here was his chance to study the auras of the people, to see who allowed their auras to wash out without restriction and to see who held their auras on a tighter leash, concealing their thoughts and emotions.
Last edited by Eanos on October 9th, 2013, 1:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:08 pm

An Isur, and there were of course only Isur here, paused to haggle for food with the vendor and Eanos focused in on him. Swarthy as Isur went, his left side was hidden from the erstwhile mage so his clan was a mystery, but one which did not concern Eanos in the slightest. He frowned a bit harder and concentrated on the aura, trying to identify the changes which flowed through it and to understand what it all meant. Much of it was intuitive but his teachers had warned him about making assumptions and that much of what seemed obvious in fact was not. People could be hard to read and he shouldn’t accept his first assumptions, but should try and build a bigger picture to see what things confirmed or disproved that first reading.

Fine lines creased his brow as he focussed in upon the swarthy Isur. For all the warnings not to make assumptions, which naturally fell upon deaf ears for now, it was easy for him to see the flickers of red which flashed around the man, giving a sense of heat. It was something which he was familiar with from his own aura, and indeed for all his attempts to ignore it and the stand on which food was so freely available, red flashed through his own aura in accompaniment to mild pangs of hunger which he was sure were more in his mind than in actuality given it had not been more than a couple of chimes since he’d eaten.

The focus was hard to maintain as he realised that when he glanced back up at the man and saw nothing. He muttered to himself, mouthing soft curses then got a grip and drew together the ragged edges of his focus once more. By now the transaction was complete and the Isur had stepped away, his attention on whatever it was that he had bought and not at all upon the one who watched him keenly. Now Eanos could see that the red was fading away, the streaks which had marked the aura not so vivid and being replaced by a more bluish glow. That seemed logical enough, but the warnings about assumptions sprang to mind as a nagging doubt started to scratch away at the edges of his mind. He’d assumed that the red was hunger, but it had already started to fade before the man had had chance to eat more than a bite or two. It did not discount the link but there might be other conclusions to be drawn as well. There were other emotions which linked into hunger, the most obvious of which was greed and this fitted the symptoms of the swarthy Isur as well as did hunger. It also made a better fit to the colours he’d noted in his own aura. That explanation did not fit so well into his own ego though, for he didn’t consider himself to be greedy. That it didn’t fit comfortably did not preclude it though as he was forced to admit.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:09 pm

How much though could you link thoughts and emotions to the aura? He’d been taught that the link was tenuous and that mind reading was not possible. The aura could give hints, it was true enough, and under direct observation of questions a pattern might be noted. What then of the colours and there meaning? Did he simply ascribe meanings to things which either had no meaning or had quite different meanings? The process of learning was proving somewhat frustrating and he found it more than a little annoying that auristics was not a simple magic, one with direct cause and effect. He knew from his studies of smithing that there were clear and obvious links between cause and effect. You heated metal and it changed colour. Those colours told you what you could do with the metal at that point. Why could Auristics not be the same? Why did everyone perceive everything differently? It means that everyone had to learn their own meanings to everything and that did not sit well with his impatience to make progress.

Once more he realised that his thoughts had gone astray, and now the swarthy Isur was gone and as he craned his neck to look around he was even out of sight. Irritated more at himself than at the loss of his subject, since there were plenty of replacements around he sighed and looked around. He tried to concentrate on one or two of those who walked past but he found it hard to focus well enough on them to learn anything before they had walked out of a range he could usefully work with. He suspected that both limitations would in time resolve themselves but for now it was an issue so he waited for the next customer to arrive at one of the stalls and decided to watch the clothes stall for he reckoned that a customer might stay longer there than at the food stall.

He came to realise quite quickly that there were not so many customers for the clothes shop as he’d assumed. Many people walked past and some even slowed, but few stopped and had a closer look. He could have tried sampling auras at random but instead decided to focus in on the stall itself and the owner, after all it wasn’t just people who had auras but everything.

The clothes hung in various places and it seemed that the ones out on display were the better ones, though that was partly guesswork on his part since he didn’t take a great deal of interest in such things. Still it seemed to make sense to do that so he stayed with the assumption and in any case the clothes which made a pile in the centre of the stall were indiscinct in terms of aura when he tried to concentrate on them. One day he might with a glance be able to tell more about them by their auras but whilst he could tell that they had a sort of fuzzy aura he could not tell more than that from this distance.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:09 pm

He chose to concentrate on the tunic which hung nearest to him instead to see if he could have more success than before. To his normal eyes it was some form of woven cloth with leather reinforcements on the shoulders and arms, so he concentrated for a moment and activated his auristic sense, feeling as he did so that pain between his eyes start to bite almost immediately. He shrugged it off for now and concentrated on the garment. The tunic had a simple aura of it’s own but he could tell immediately that there was more to it than that. The different materials each had a unique hue to them. The leather was a simple one which flowed closely around the material. The whole aura was quite weak and hard to see but it became different on the cloth parts. It was different enough to cause him to frown and redouble his efforts to try and work out just what was odd about it.

Before when he’d been watching the people, the clothes hadn’t really figured as part of the aura for the strength of the living aura overpowered the weaker one from the clothes. The cloth though had a pattern to its aura, a pattern he realised with a spurt of inspiration matched the slightly rough weave of the cloth. This was not a fine and elegant tunic to be worn to some festival, instead it was strong and made for hard use and the cloth was made of larger and stronger fibres. His fingers ran over the cloth of his own breeches since he reckoned they were likely the same and as his concentration was broken so too was his auristic sense.

That failure for once did not irk him as much as it should have. Instead he gathered once more the shards of his concentration, which was getting harder now as the headache started to leach away his ability to focus. Deciding it was worth a last effort he concentrated harder on the breeches. His own aura pulsed strongly outwards, and that was a thing which as yet he had no control over, but he knew now that the breeches had their own aura. It was a thing of which he’d known from an academic point of view before but not really understood. At first even though he concentrated he could make nothing of the lesser aura of the breeches. His lips pursed and the furrow in his forehead grew deeper. Working harder with his mind did not seem to help as much as he might have hoped but there was a moment of inspiration and instead of simply putting in more effort he looked more closely at his own aura. That was when he started to realise that there was an echo in there, something which was not his own, but was instead a mix of the aura from the cloth in with his own. That realisation was all he got for then he lost the focus and decided enough was enough for the day.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:10 pm

The following day saw him back and wandering the city, this time forsaking his previous perch and heading instead towards the training grounds of the military. He’d done his fair share of physical training, that was of course a given for any Isur, but it was something of which the Silver Tower was insistent upon. No weakling mages who relied upon magic to compensate for the inadequacies of their bodies were going to leave the Tower and even this day had started with a rigorous workout though it had been barely more than a warm up for the run which would come shortly. Eanos had dedicated the first part of this day to making up for the apparent laggardliness of the previous one.

There were benches off to the side of the training ground where equipment might be stored by those who were out on the grounds. It wasn’t the sort of place where bystanders were encouraged but Eanos didn’t intend to be there very long and he certainly didn’t want to endure the insults which were likely to come his way if he tarried there too long just watching.

Out on the grounds a group of younger Isur were being drilled by a grizzled member of the Coglias clan whose finely etched physique showed the results of many years of careful muscle building and the rigours of working with weapons and armour. It was an impressive sight and one which brought a degree of jealousy to the heart of the watching Pitreus. He allowed it to burn there for a while but it was a dangerous jealousy to have given that he had no way of winning any form of match against the older and far more experienced, stronger Isur. He contented himself with the knowledge that one day, that Isur or one of his clan would come begging of Eanos for some special commission of arms or armour and then would he be able to sneer and all would know that Eanos was the master magesmith to whom the mighty and the proud would be forced to humble themselves.

He felt a savage exultation at the thought and forgot that it had been inspired by a moment of jealousy and insecurity. Well one day it would come, and never a day too soon, but it would only come if he excelled at his studies and so now he took comfort from his fantasy, bolstering his ego and turned his attention back properly to the soldier.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:11 pm

From deep within he felt a strand of his djed and pulled it out, transforming it as he did so into a vision which would allow him to observe the older Isur whose attention appeared to be solely upon his hapless victims. Words and insults came clearly across the all too short distance as the soldier waved a sword in a complicated series of weaves, designed apparently to penetrate through armour. It was a technique which baffled the watching Eanos for whom weapons training had never been a preferred way of spending his time.

Suddenly he had access to his vision and the soldier and trainees were overlaid with a new wash of colour. Individuals started to stand out as he glanced across those who trained there, but easily the strongest aura stood out in front with his back to Eanos. The mage in training nodded to himself at the sight. Yes, that made sense, for the trainer was strong and imposing himself upon the squad. There, they struggled with what they were being taught, their attention internalised and their personalities subdued by the imposition of military discipline. It was a rough diagnosis and perhaps he was reading into it more than was there, but it gave him confidence that he was starting to be able to read more of what he could see.

Being in the presence of so much activity while apparently merely being an observer did not sit well with Eanos and it was not much longer before he found himself both fidgeting and feeling guilty. It was something of a conflict between the physical requirements that the clan imposed along with the harsh mental work that the magery required against the apparent ease of a man who was thinking hard. Rather than continue to appear lazy while others worked Eanos rose and went on his way, leaving behind the squad as they wrestled with the complex moves being taught by their instructor.

He headed out of the inner places of the citadels, out towards the less used ways, places where he could open up his stride and break into the run that he so much desired, pushing his physical body hard, the breath coming in short until he reached that point in his stride where his legs started to fall naturally. His breathing, laboured after a while eased off and only came harder thereafter on the upwards stretches, sometimes up staircases and other times up steep ramps. These slowed him down for they forced him to reach deep into his reserves and be much more careful about his stance so that his feet flew while his breathing eased.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on September 24th, 2010, 4:12 pm

Not for nothing were the fortresses of the Isur built into the mountains. Deep the passages delved but also upwards to the heights and this day Eanos chose the harder routes, routes on which he could not maintain the pace that he would have wished. All but the hardiest Isur would have faltered on some of these paths and Eanos was not one of those. Coming to the top of a long and steep path which broke out of the ground to a sentry post which gave a long view down a rocky valley, his vision started to blur and he was forced to come to a stop, sweat burning down into his eyes and breath coming in hot stabs as he gulped at the cold air.

Sucking in deep breaths he attempted control, forcing his body to obey for all that it wanted just to throw itself on the ground. Holding his head back he closed his eyes and sought distraction, drawing on his djed and transmuting it into a sense which allowed him to examine his own aura. He kept his eyes closed for this, allowing his other senses to feed back information. It was hard to concentrate but certain things could be told even without the focus which was necessary for detail. His aura flexed and fluctuated as he walked slowly around the small and rocky platform. It seemed to ripple as the sweat ran into eyes which he’d opened slightly to avoid walking into the stone walls and burned. He screwed them shut and stood still, taking a deep breath and then holding it. His aura stabilised and then pulsated slightly.

He flung his arms out to the sides, fingers spread and clawed. He breathed out and then as he breathed in again, he clutched his fingers together and drew in his arms as though he were trying to squash the very air. In his auristic vision he tried to do just that, though it was his own aura which he attempted to manipulate. Veins seemed to expand on his forehead as he tried to shrink the aura, but to no effect. Breath burst from him and he gasped for a few moments before trying it again, but to no better effect. There had to be a trick to it, he knew that it could be done, but the mechanism escaped him. Of course he’d not yet learned the trick because this teachers had not yet judged him ready for it, but it did not mean that he would stop trying. Pride and arrogance however were no match for his elusive aura which stubbornly refused to bend to his control.

Breath now had returned to a manageable level and with a yell of frustration he launched himself back down the passageway, seeking to burn the disappointment, fuelling his exercise with rage and frustration.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Eanos on August 21st, 2012, 12:54 pm

The first tinges of sunlight were highlighting the peaks around him as he stood once more in what he fancied to be a sentry post, though he gave the matter little thought and his ignorance of military matters made the supposition somewhat dubious. It had occurred to him on his return before, as he’d worked to keep his exertions such that his breathing was not excessive, that the possibilities of aura were much larger than he’d ever really contemplated until now.

It was a very passive art, this study of Auristics. It did not have the capability to move into other dimensions or bring down the mountains, but what it did instead was both subtle and powerful, for it gave him the power to see with more than just his eyes. It was another sense in all the meanings and intentions of the word. He relied upon his eyes most of all, with hearing and perhaps touch next in his everyday work at the forge, though there the latter two might well be reversed. There might come a time when his eyes would be second to his Auristic sense though that would be a very long time hence given the drain upon his personal djed that the magic required.

He found himself a seat on the rocky ground, slightly uncomfortable with the space above him for the comfortable cave roof was of course missing and that lack niggled at him so he closed his eyes. The sense of relief was palpable and yet he could not quite forget that there was nothing above him. He unwrapped a strand of his personal djed and transformed it so that the inner eye could open and reveal the scene around him.

“All things have aura”, the words echoed in his mind as he fought to avoid the distractions and assumptions which normally plagued him at this moment for his curiosity was ever present. He channelled that itch, muting it and converting it by questioning his assumptions that he actually knew anything about where he now sat. The stone was hard and cold beneath him, the air crisp, fresher and colder than it was below. The wind was especially noteworthy he realised. But theses were his other senses and he knew already what they told him.

He refocused, realising that once again he’d allowed himself to drift from his supposedly rock steady intent and opened that inner eye once more. Now he could sense the aura of the rock, though he could see just the surface of it, little more than he could see with his eyes or feel with his hands. Identifying it though allowed him to see the boundary of it and so he looked beyond it. Now more subtle interactions tugged at his mind, half seen and half recognised. Something swirled very faintly and then disappeared. He paid closer attention, catching again out of the corner of his mind. The aura of the rock shimmered slightly and as it did so he was struck by the way it reminded him of the way that the heat of the forge caused the air to ripple above it. Suddenly he made the connection. Of course, it was the same here for there was heat and there was the wind and surely for anything to affect anything else it needed some form of it’s own, and in which case there had to be a related aura.

He sat back and contemplated the idea, teasing it through in his mind.
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[Flashback] Putting theory into practice

Postby Gillar on November 11th, 2013, 2:06 am

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Thread Complete and Graded


I must say I am really enjoying your writing. I can see clearly what you are trying to convey and you definitely have your audience (the reader) in mind when you are writing. Sometimes as writers, we can forget that while we are writing for ourselves, we are also writing for those who read our work. Great job indeed and I definitely plan on reading more of your work!

Observation – 4
Auristics – 5

Lore: Auristics: Reading Auras of Objects

Lore: Auristics: Reading the Auras of Others

Lore: Pitrius City/Citadel Layout (Partial)


Final Note - I try to elaborate on my Lore awards when I feel a simple title doesn't sufficiently describe what is experienced and learned. And as always, if you feel I missed something, please let me know and I will consider award modifications.
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