[Flashback] Lightning doesn't strike twice (Clyde)

[Bob Barton]

45th day of Winter 505

The new site Clyde showed Bob to set camp was good if not for a few glaring flaws. One, Clyde only spent a day at each of his hiding spots so he didn't really know suitable places to camp for days. Two, because of this food and water sources were not readily available nearby. Three, it was a little bit out of the way to ensure Clyde is well hidden during his training so it made things difficult for Bob to get back to town whenever he liked. Other than these "little" problems, Bob found it an ok enough place...

So how did Bob get through all these problems? For the first flaw, luckily, he was decent with a sword. On his fourth day camping out, he was suddenly attacked by a young wolf which got separated from its pack. Both of them were equal in a sense in terms of skills and numbers so when the wolf snarled, Bob turned around slowly to not alert it and casually took his sword. Bob knew the snarl marked an impending attack so before the wolf could do anything, Bob charged with his sword point first. The wolf probably never being attacked before stood there waiting until Bob thrust his sword through its leg being helped with the momentum. After Bob pulled out the sword, the wolf ran probably back to its pack. He didn't pursue it knowing better and started to make plans to move again the next time he met Clyde.

For the second flaw he was faced with, Bob used the snake he killed from the last time. The snake which was hibernating in winter still had its stockpile of fat in it so Bob was able to spread it for a few days as his dinner. Bob still didn't know how to cook, he had better things to do. So he stuffed the snake into a container and filled it with water and started to boil it. After he dumped the snake's body and some foliage he saw some other animals eating, he would stir the strange concoction from time to time with a branch he broken off a tree. Somehow he made some edible yet disgusting stew? Soup? Bob didn't know how to cook so what he ended up with, will be left to imagination. If it wasn't for the winter cold the stew-soup would have been spoilt a day or so earlier than it did. What about water? Well, Bob was a water reimancer so all he would have to do is focus some res into his palm, attract the solid snow with it until it forms a snowball. After that he just had to transmute the res into water and let the snowball melt from the inside before enjoying his drink. Or if he was lazy, hungry or both he just took a handful of snow and ate it.

The third flaw...well not really a flaw because all it does is make Bob bored and would be fixed once Clyde comes to meet him for their next training session. But for those who are curious will now know how Bob killed his time for the four days. Bob's uncle had taught him a little about poisons and snakes have poison right? So Bob went to the snake's head and traced its fangs all the way to its poison glands. Then he tried to milk the poison from the gland and spread it all over his sword, a really messy job since the poison spread all over the camp. Lucky it was not one which required only a mere touch to be effective. But luck wasn't at play here, more like stupidity so when Bob pricked his finger on a fang he was in a weakened state for two days bumming around camp just eating, sleeping...you know the deal. At least its the wolf's turn to experience that now since the sword was full of it.

So on the fifth day when Clyde would come, Bob had recovered from the lightning incident and snake poison and whatever else. He was busy setting up camp for an easy getaway in case something happened again sorting and, arranging his gear and would keep on with that until Clyde came. Even if he would not have to leave today at least a more orderly camp would end up with less damage from Clyde playing with magical lightning again.

[Clyde Sullins]

Walking along out of the walls of Syliras, Clyde made his way to the campsite. His weak had been pretty boring, nothing much had happened, just working with his parents. Know he finally had a free day, and would be going out to do some more work on his magics skills. He did not know what he would be doing, though Bob was getting pretty skilled. He would soon be proficient enough to take on a second element. Arriving at the camp, he greeted Bob. "Hello there Bob, how has it been since I last saw you? Nothing interesting on my end of things. So, you are getting pretty skilled, so I thought we might try a little spar with reimancy. Just tossing some magic at each others magic, to see the results. No actually trying to hit the other." "Also maybe we could talk some more over your choice for a second element. You are getting quite skilled, and should soon be able to take a new one on. SO it is important to choose now what you will be using next.

[Bob Barton]

Bob was walking around carrying and arranging his stuff when Clyde greeted him. Finishing up with the rest he called Clyde over to take a seat by the fire and asked if he wanted the last few remaining snake stuff. After they got comfortable he got to answering Clyde's questions. "If you would like interesting you should try camping out here with me." And Bob went on to tell Clyde about the snake poison and the wolf. "Don't worry about me, its not one of those dangerous snakes anyway. I only felt a little bit trippy and the wolf was just a cub, he should be feeling trippy about now as well" and let out a little chuckle.

Bob looked around, at the snow, the fire and the dirt from where his things previously was on. After inhaling and thinking for a while, he continued "Second element? No idea yet, but the most logical choice would be earth since I would get ice. And sparring now? Alright if you think you are up to it" Bob grinned as he said that. He would do his best to win and if he had to resort to a few cheap tricks of his own...oh well... On second thought, he had no chance to win if he thought about it. Clyde might be a boy but he is still a powerful boy god so he tried to ask for something safer "Are you sure after the last time we want to try something so dangerous so soon?"

[Clyde Sullins]

Smiling, Clyde listened to Bob tell of his adventures since there last meeting. It seemed Bob had been much busier of late, unlike Clyde safe inside the city walls. Clyde thought over what he said, but he doubted his parents would let him camp outside. He had enough trouble sneaking out to train his magics without his parents noticing, let alone staying the night. They still treated him as a baby, though he was pretty mature. "Last time? Ah, you mean the lightning. Well I don't plan to make any glyphs today, and I will do my best to not make any lightning, how is that? And we are not trying to kill each other, just making our magics fight. I won't hit you with it." Saying this, Clyde quietly started to gather his bright silvery res. Bringing it down to the fire, he started to back away. Using a bit of attraction, he brought it to the ball of res, which now had flames swirling over its surface. He now had a good sized chunk of flame, with his res at its core. "So, you game?"

[Bob Barton]

Clyde just had to say the magic word "Game" didn't he. It flipped a switch in Bob any everything else was pushed aside becoming far less important. Forget the lightning, forget the glyphs, forget the magic. Now its time to have fun and its only fun if you win the game as they always say.

Bob went and slowly put layer after layer of res on his hand until he could see the small round blob being formed on his hand. When he found that it was enough he went up to the snow and started to attract it. The solid form of water slowly crawled up his hand with the icky feeling of slimy worms and after a minute or so with that experience a pretty large snowball formed on Bob's hand. Bob was pretty much satisfied that it looked slightly bigger than Clyde's fire on his hand but maybe it was because his snowball was nearer. No matter, Bob started to bounce and juggle the snowball on his hand and stared straight at Clyde,

"You know how snowball fights are in Winter? The bigger boys always win!" Bob then went and extended his arms wider and stood upright in an attempt to make himself look bigger than he already is. Then he thought to himself "Half of this games are always psychological and thats where I come in." grinning as though victory is already his. If Clyde was scared now, he hasn't seen anything yet.

[Clyde Sullins]

Smiling, Clyde saw as Bob tried to use some intimidation tactics on him. He had been coming out alone to train his skills for years, in the danger outside the city. If he still kept doing that, there was little chance this novice at magic was going to scare him. Putting a bit more concentration on his reimancy, he continued to flow out his res into the center of the ball of reimantic energy and flame. Letting off another grin, he used some more attraction on the flames of the fire. Twin streams of flame rose out of the fire near him, swirling together as they went, and feeding into his ball. It quickly grew in size, and with a sudden growth grew much larger than Bobs ball of snow water. "True... but physical size is not everything. In this case, you may be larger, but my power is much bigger than yours. If you think I was being serious before.... well those magics were a pittance to what I am capable of." A flash of light behind his eyes would let off, showing the energy hidden inside himself. Clyde felt the power brimming inside of himself, barely being held inside, roaring in his soul to be unleashed upon the world.... or maybe that was just his reimantic spirit trying to loose itself, to scorch the very land with his powers.... Finally taking the offensive, Clyde would form a small bit of flame with some res at its core, and send it out from the main body of the ball. He would send it at Bob, controlling it with the res, and as it drew near would ignite the core. It was small enough that Bob could stop it with his small ball of snow, however only a fraction of the larger ball of energy and flame.

[Bob Barton]

The twin streams of flame told Bob one thing. His lack of training probably means he bit off more than he can chew this time so he started running the numbers like in any game. They both did not use any glyphs so thats a good thing, no overly powerful magic here. Bob scoffed as he was thinking that, a mere mortal against a god. Then he thought somemore...Bob was stuck with water and Clyde was using fire though he had air. If Bob moved fast enough, he might be able to catch Clyde off guard before he can focus the air into lightning.

The thought process was halted when the fireball on Clyde's hand flew towards Bob closer and closer. Bob could only stare in disbelief that Clyde is going to start without warning, then he tried to jump to the side to dodge it shouting "I THOUGHT THIS WAS SPARRING!!!" The fireball barely missed and Bob looked back at Clyde as he laughed "Hahaha! Serves you right for cheating." Bob was just about to throw his snowball at Clyde when he caught the scent of something burning and thought to himself "I don't remember cooking anything today..." and turned to his coat sleeve to find that it caught on fire.

Bob screamed in panic as it started to grow being fed by his beloved jacket. Then he remembered that he had a snowball in his hand. Transmuting the ball of res in its core the snowball began to melt, faster because Bob was concentrating on making more water and he threw it on the sleeve with a "SPLASH!" Bob threw off the coat because it was damaged and a damp coat is not good to be worn in Winter, he'd freeze to death. With a fit he shouted to Clyde "Dammit! That was my favourite coat!" His anger made him a little more focused as he looked around the forest and came up with a strategy. Focusing his res on his hands again, this time he attracted a smaller snowball and started juggling it on his hand. "Now hold still, its my turn to get a free shot!" he shouted at Clyde as he tossed the snowball, missing the head and flying above him far far away.

[Clyde Sullins]

Watching, Clyde saw as his first strike got close to Bob. Lucky for Bob, he had aimed a little to the side, near his arm, so that meant it was a bit farther away. As he tried to dodge it, a bit of the flame caught on his sleeve. Clyde was about to say something, when he noticed his arm caught on fire. Clyde gave him his moment as he thrashed around trying to put his arm out, and finally soaked it with his ball of water. Clyde continued to pull in the flames, soon he had all of the fire, and was sucking the embers into his ball as Bob managed to get rid of the flaming jacket. "Sorry, let me warm you up a bit!" Forming another small ball of fire with res at its core, it split off from the main body of reimancy. He saw Bob shout of something, and then as he threw his ball at Clyde. Not waiting for it to reach him, Clyde launched his own smaller ball of fire. This one launched along towards the ball of water and snow, and Clyde ignited it as it got near, giving it a final push to collide with Bob's attack. With a small explosion of fire and water, both went sprinkling down between the combatants, leaving a nice effect for both. "Well, that was cool. Lets do it again!!! I like it when it explodes!" It was times like this that Clydes age really showed, as he still enjoyed such visual effects and explosions. Not enough to distract him, as he started to form a third ball of fire and res.

[Bob Barton]

Bob got a little cheesed off that his plan has failed. Clyde is just too much better than him so he can definitely attract the elements faster. And Bob knew that attracting snow is a lot more slower than pure water so Clyde had another advantage in drawing pure fire. Bob could go on the defensive all the way easily if he wanted to but he wanted to end it fast. No sense in dragging on and risk losing even in a sparring session.

He started thinking back to the whole game. Clyde had kept attracting the fire from the campfire so Bob either had to get rid of the fire or play chicken with a flying fireball. Not really many choices to choose from, the third of admitting defeat was not a choice at all. Bob would have to use every advantage he could get right now if he was going to win. Bob held out his hand to Clyde gesturing him to wait for a while "Hold on, I need to check on my coat a little" and went to his coat. He put the charred sleeve in between his fingers and rubbed it, getting some of the black powder on them. Then with his back turned to Clyde to hide his next move, he drew two simple circles on his palms. Focuses for glyphs which would definitely make attracting the elements faster.

Then as he turned around to face Clyde, Bob begun to accumulate the res unto his palms and said "Alright, lets go for the next one!" Still squatting at the ground, Bob begun to attract the snow, faster than the previous rounds as they became bigger and bigger. With the two snowballs taking up the whole of the hands, the glyphs got rubbed out but they fulfilled their purpose. Bob stood ready for the next fireball Clyde would throw at him. When that happens, he will make his move. Just to make sure it would happen faster, Bob made a motion of throwing the snowball without releasing it. Bob was getting just a little too impatient to keep his eyes on the prize now.

[Clyde Sullins]

As Clyde played along, Bob once more needed a break. Smiling at him, he watched as he turned his back on him. Never a smart thing to do in the middle of a fight. He also seemed to be making some odd motions, he was trying to hide something, though Clyde did not know what. Not one to take some time for granted, Clyde worked on his reimantic ball. Motioning it, he split off one, two, three, four smaller balls, and had them rotate around the larger section. Each was packed with power, a core of res for control, surrounded by flames, each enough to take out Bobs attack. He was using now what fire he had already attracted, using the res he had already extruded. He was careful not to release to much at once, as that could cause problems. Having already used the campfire, he was limited to his great ball, unless he produced more fire. "You know you sure do need a lot of breaks. Maybe we should just stop now before you pass out?" This was more trash talking, as he readied to launch another. Motioning it around, he sent off one of the balls previously rotating, sending it at Bob. As it got close, he ignited the core, and launched it at him once more giving a final push with his res.