Flashback Cloak and Fiddle

[Numia]

Fall 79, 515 AV

The Pycon shot awake and grabbed her fiddle, the sounds of a moving squire rummaging through their belongings rousing her from her sleep. Her newly-rested mind began to hear the other wake-up calls, and sleepy humans began to wake up from their biological stasis. The fiddle bobbed as she stood and ran to the edge of her oversized bed. She was quick about swinging the instrument over her back and tightening the straps, and then she swiveled around and dipped herself over the edge. Her claw-like hands provided good leverage for her to climb down, and when she was about a foot off the ground she let go and loosened up her knees to absorb the impact.

Standing upon the floor, she didn't bother greeting anyone when they were in this state of mind. It was another day where she wanted to practice her magic. She listened intently as the groaning girls roused themselves from their beds and even more energetic older women shouted that it was time to begin the day. There were no windows, so nobody knew what time it was until someone who did announced the information. There was already one squire awake, she had long black hair and she was dressing herself. There was also a chest revealing some of her personal possessions, and as Numia listened she could hear the hollow sound of the metal vibrating. This girl was no push-over.

Feeling playful, Numia decided to try and see if the girl would detect her. Numia had been introduced to her roommates, and she knew six of them but not the seventh who hadn't reciprocated the introduction. The sounds in the room were intoxicating, but the Pycon didn't pay attention to them. Instead, she focused on moving silently with as little noise as possible towards the door which was cracked open. The fellow squire had her back turned, Numia knew this would be easy. She could hear herself move, but she knew that she was very quiet due to her weight. She bent her knees with each step and listened to her feet, at the same time watching where the female human was looking as she dressed herself.

[Numia]

The whole thing was more for herself than anyone else. She liked to play with sound, and the gift Rhaus had given her brought so much joy to her life. Numia crept towards the door silently, looking toward her destination rather than at the girl by now although she kept her ears open. She was nearly a foot away when she heard the human turning. Numia’s hearing focused on the squire as this happened. The squishy sound of blinking eyelids followed by the even more squishy sound of a jaw slacking told the Pycon that the girl had seen her. Numia looked over her shoulder to confirm this, and smiled although most humans couldn’t tell from this distance.

The squire was looking at Numia, but there was a huffing noise as she exhaled sharply and stopped paying the Pycon any heed. Numia gave a defeated sigh and slipped through the doorway, walking out into the hallway. Well, that’s over with. It was dangerous to walk in the hallways due to the many footsteps, so Numia tactically made it a habit to walk alongside the wall. Her small hand playfully brushed the rough masonry, an idea as rough as the stone forming in her mind. She knew she couldn’t perform magic in the dormitories, it was one of the first thing she was told about the place.

Leaving the dormitories, Numia found herself in the bittern district. She stood outside the dormitories as the morning crowd - or possibly the night crowd at the end of their ‘day’ - bustled about. Numia tuned out their footsteps, instead sinking further into her own interests as she rubbed the wall again. Numia had no eyes to shut, so instead she let the torch-lit grey fill her view. Her other thoughts began to fall to the wayside one by one as she cleared her mind before she began to concentrate solely on the picture before her. The rough texture, the smoothness of what portion of the stone wasn’t rough. She brought all of these together within her mind as a picture and whipped her clay cloak around in front of her and turned around away from the wall so that it faced the walking humans. This would serve to help camouflage her and reduce the definition of her body so she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Then Numia shifted her concentration, pooling her internal energies into the cloak so that it felt somewhat off. When that was accomplished, Numia began to concentrate on applying that image in her mind to the cloak. It was a slow process, something that took her chimes. She wasn’t copying the material, but rather the coloration and the texture. She could do the latter naturally with her body, but her magic was something like a muscle that grew more and more dextrous with each use. The color began to shift across the cloak, the Pycon was focusing on that first. It started as a blotch that she concentrated on growing, keeping that color at the center of her focus.

[Numia]

She could feel her energy draining away ever so slightly as time went on, her mental engine working fervently to tune out any distractions such as the passing humans while at the same time proliferating her magic. The slow process took chimes to complete, and soon her cloak had a similar color to the wall. She kept the transformation up by feeding it more energy, turning around and holding it up to compare. The comparison proved one thing, that her mind couldn’t keep the picture of a color for very long without the image getting perverted. The cloak was a marginal shade lighter than the wall, and it was still smooth. She hadn’t even changed the texture.

Numia knew it was time to start over, she had to get the color correct. The second time around she would visually compare the two. Concentrating on halting the flow of energy, Numia watched as the cloak shifted back to the original coloration. Suddenly, words showered over the small Pycon. “I’ve never met a Pycon who could change color before” came the gruff voice of a female squire. Turning around, the Pycon saw the long black hair and the poignant stare of the same human squire that the Pycon shared a dorm room with.

Numia stuttered a response. “Y-yes, I learned how from a snake person.”

The girl stood up and looked down the hallway before looking down at the Pycon. “Sera Jyness mentioned you to me, Numia. You will meet me in the Stone Gardens tomorrow morning. We will put our heads together on some magic - my name is Lilly Grant, if you didn’t know yet.” The supreme confidence of this squire mystified Numia, and the way Lilly spoke left Numia with little other choice. She would have to meet this squire tomorrow to see what she wanted.

[Numia]

Numia rubbed her chin, piping up despite a temptation to shy away. If she was to be a knight, she knew she had to make friends and allies. The knighthood wanted her to be a leader. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance Lilly - that sounds good. The Stone Gardens? I’ve walked by there a few times. I will head there first thing tomorrow and let my patron know that I have plans if I see her.” Numia watched as the squire turned her shoulder to the Pycon and nodded down at her in confirmation before disappearing into the quickly swelling throngs of humans. Numia smiled to herself as she turned to face the wall again, she was finally starting to get to know the other faces from the order and she was on her way to becoming a more confident and aspiring squire that could maybe one day lead allies to greatness.

Her mind was abuzz with what Lilly had told her, wondering what tomorrow entailed. But there was such a big day ahead of her that it seemed like a distant thing she would have to wait ages for. Numia glanced at the wall again before putting her hand on it and running down the hallway, sticking to the side so she didn’t get stepped on or kicked by the less observant. Numia focused on regulating her breathing as she ran, her short legs making her much slower than even the walking pace of a human. She was looking for a less busy area to practice her magic.

Glancing around Numia found a much more narrow corridor, one with better lighting. Doors lined the way, but she wasn’t interested in what was behind them. There was practically nobody down there, the perfect place to be alone and practice. At the end of the hall was an alcove hewn from the stone, decorated with candles in an ascending crescent pattern and some sort of small effigy in the center of them all. Numia sprinted to the end of the hall, her breathing rising into a crescendo and filling her mind. She paused for a moment to recover before she gazed at the tall rise before her. The rock had plenty of grooves for Numia to hang onto, but this was probably the most she had climbed.

Pycon were very strong for their size and weight, but that wasn’t the problem. Numia crouched and then jumped as high as she could at the wall to give herself a head start, her small claws easily catching the cracks and suspending her. She tried to find a spot for her feet to dig into, but instead she kicked out against smooth stone as she scrambled to get a foothold. Eventually, she settled on using her upper arm strength to pull herself up and reach the next crack, her foot finding purchase in the spot where her hand had been moments before.

[Numia]

About a chime followed as Numia climbed and climbed. When she reached the top, she excitedly turned and did a silent victory dance despite the burning from her sore muscles. She had a feeling that this would get easier the more she did it. Then, she looked down at the height she had scaled and smiled to herself. She really was starting to become the adventurer she had always wanted to be. Her mind refocused to the task at hand, turning around to examine the shrine. The statue was some sort of god, the shape of a female human carrying an orb high above her completely surrounded by the lit candles which were shorter in the front and higher in the back. Somehow just being in the presence of this statue made the Pycon feel more cheery. Getting closer to it, Numia noticed it had an inscription carved at the base, obscured by the wax cylinders in front of it.

Priskil of Light and Hope. After reading it, Numia was mildly surprised. Light and hope? Priskil sounded wonderful, like Rhaus. Numia remembered that humans commonly prayed at altars, so she decided to try praying herself wondering if anything would come of it. She stood before the altar, gazing up at the statue which loomed before her. Then, she knelt and held her hands together. The statue filling her gaze, she began to devise the prayer she would utter. Satisfied, she spoke aloud. “Priskil, please bring light to this dark castle and hope to those who most need it.” Satisfied, Numia stood and looked out toward the hallway as if expecting Priskil to appear like a magical genie. Nobody was standing there. Numia had never seen a human have their prayer answered, but maybe it was a step in the right direction to meeting a new one?

In either case, Numia was quick to change her priorities and decided to do what she came here to do. Numia walked to the edge of the altar with her back to the flame and the edge inches away. She wanted to perfect the color of the wall. Staring at it, she compared her cloak with the grey stone. Numia focused on calming herself and clearing her thoughts with the exception of what she was seeing and her goal.

Concentrating, she pictured the wall within her mind, the color, and she kept that color from being overwritten by her imagination by visually stimulating it. After some effort, she managed to will some of her energies into an active state again and this time she felt a slight tingling sensation as a blotch of color began to grow on her cloak. She imagined the outside of her cloak as the color of the wall, concentrating on making her imagination reality.

[Numia]

She held her cloak up as she worked, making sure the cloak was the same color as the wall before she fed the transformation more energy. She was getting better at this. Chimes began to pass as she continued to shift the color of her cloak into the desired color. It spread out slowly, but Numia knew better than to try and rush it. To do so would be dangerous for her and those around her. She didn’t want to be known as the Pycon who exploded, ruining the shrine of Priskil.

Numia welled up with joy when she compared the cloak to the wall following the completion of her transformation. It wasn’t perfect, but the cloak was much closer to the wall than before. She felt worn and tired from the energy expenditure, deciding that she shouldn’t continue further. Color was very easy, but changing shape with magic wasn’t. Still, color wasn’t something a Pycon could do on their own. She was proud of what she had done, but she would have to save texture for later.

Numia turned to the ledge, waving goodbye to the statue of Priskil before she began to climb down. Going over the precipice was tantalizing, but she seemed to be filled with a certain … hope … that calmed her. Maybe Priskil really was watching over her? Numia’s feet dug into the masonry as she climbed down, and when she was close enough to the floor she kicked off and fell a foot through the air. As she hit the ground, she lost her footing and ended up falling on her side because she failed to land on her feet. Numia let out a slight laugh, winded but not in pain. She checked her fiddle for blemishes before she went off to find her patron.

[Okara]

Grades and Awards   Numia Experience Observation 1 Stealth 2 Meditation 3 Camouflage 1 Morphing 3 Climbing 2 Endurance 1 Lores Sneaking Past Roommates Meditating in a Busy Hallway Morphing: Changing the Color of One’s Body Lilly Grant: Syliran Squire and Magic User Priskil: Goddess of Light and Hope Are Prayers Ever Answered? Notes The morphing skill page limits morphing to features from the animal and vegetable world. I would stay away from stones, I chose to award it since you were only morphing to match the color as opposed to turning yourself into a stone. You may wish to consult a player more experienced with morphing than myself. This was a nice thread where you wove together several different activities. I liked when Numia looked around after her prayer wondering where Priskil was, that made me smile. I got a nice sense of Numia’s personality through your writing, she’s curious and playful. Please edit your post in your grade request to reflect that it has been graded. PM me with any questions.