[Flashback]Sealing and Storing with Sigils[Bob]

[Clyde Sullins]

Finishing off his scroll, he added a trigger, making it almost the same as the first. The only difference was it made reference to scroll number two, instead of number one. Starting to extrude his res once more as a silvery gas, Clyde listened to Bob's tale. He did not really see the point in it, or why he ended it by shooting more water in his face, but he must have some reason behind it. Regardless, his magics was now safely diffused, and would not explode. Giving him a second piece of parchment, Clyde himself started to gather res up above himself into a cloud. He tried for one of about the same size as before, and it still took several minutes to gather sufficient res. Going on, he noticed he only had one more parchment left, best to save that for later. But he also wanted to talk a bit more to Bob. "Now you may have noticed that your scroll is gone now that you used it. That is because once you use up a glyph for its one time use, it is destroyed. In the case of your scroll being used, the paper simply crumbled and fell apart into dust." "While you can do many things with glyphing, be carefull, as they only live as long as the magics they are working on." Looking over Bob's new glyphs, it seemed different from his last try, and a wee bit better. Though that was not really saying much. But still everyone must start some were, and this was Bob's place. Looking at his cloud, it seemed he had gathered enough res for another lightning bolt. He would soon shape it, and send it into his scroll.

[Bob Barton]

The gaseous res traveled from Bob's head to his feet attracting the water on Bob's body as it went. At first hardly anything is visible except some shimmers of light being reflected on the res but as it went down, Bob became drier with the dripping water getting lesser and was slowly being shrouded in a light mist. It took a while and most of Bob's concentration to do it but by the time he was done, Bob was feeling pretty comfortable and dry as he could in the cold winter's air.

Then Bob made the res move into his hands which the mist started moving to follow, slowly but centered. With his will he made the gaseous res turn into its liquid form as a ball on his palm with the mist soon to follow making yet another waterball on his hands. He could just drop the waterball into the glyph again but what would that do? Another splash at the face? He survived that one, no damage there so there is no point in storing his magic in a glyph which would not help him in a pinch.

Bob took his new glyph and went towards the tree in front of him. There he hung the glyph so that it would face him before moving back to the spot he was at earlier. Compressing the waterball between both of his hands to increase its pressure, Bob imagined a little straight line in his mind. A line which went from the waterball in his hands over to the glyph. "Target practice, let it rip!" and Bob released the water in his hands following the line he visualized for support. The water still maintaining its pressure shot out in a powerful stream which this time did not do as much damage to Bob's hands because he remembered to wear gloves today for the winter. The pressure was too strong for Bob to control initially though and it missed the glyph entirely. Bob had to push his little water gun to the left fighting against the pressure and once it reached its target, the water just disappeared into the glyph like...magic...

When he was done Clyde started talking again and Bob remembered about his previous glyph. In his efforts to dry himself he completely forgot about it and when he went to the spot it splashed on his face, Clyde was right there was only a little mound of dust left there. But there was more so Bob asked "What do you mean? What else can I do with glyphing besides making reimancy easier or saving up attacks for next time?"

[Clyde Sullins]

Finishing gathering his res, Clyde finished up his cloud of gaseous res, while watching Bob work. His aim was slowly improving, most of that last blast of water had even hit! He did smile at Bob's question, as there were so many things that could use glyphing. "As with most magic, your imagination is the only limitation for glyphing. You can use it for various things. At its base level, glyphing can manipulate magic. However this can be more than just storing magic, and attracting it to you hand." "At higher levels, you could even make runes that would absorb wild djed, or that redirects magic attacks. Though that would be a master level glyphing, not for the average glypher. But it is possible. I have even heard that you can add runes to items that stop people from using magic!" "So there are many things to do, you must just try out different things. Now, I will do the second bolt of lightning." Looking up at the cloud above his head, Clyde started to shape it into a spike. He slowly elongated it, until it was a long string of djed. Finally he pushed it down at the seal of his glyphs, throwing it at it. As it got close, he transmuted it once more, sending a bolt of lightning down. As the light flashed Clyde was momentarily blinded, and then deafened by the crash of thunder. But it did not matter, the second he transmuted the res into lightning, nature took control, and it went the way he had sent it. With a flash it was gone, also sealed inside of a scroll.

[Bob Barton]

Bob was listening attentively to Clyde. Surely glyphing is something he should master if it was this useful. But he knew the level he was at, the basic one so he asked more "So I am at the base level now right? What else do you think I can do besides manipulating and storing my magic?" If he was going to be good at this art, he would need to learn as much as possible from his young master before moving on.

He was just about to ask more questions when Clyde mentioned something about a second bolt of lightning. Now knowing what to expect, Bob hurriedly put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes instead of heading straight for the stream again. After the muffled sound of thunder passed he peeped with one eye to make sure he was in the clear before taking out his hands from his ears and opening the other eye.

With that slight distraction out of the way, Bob continued the questions for his lessons. " How long do you think it will take for me to reach the next level? The ones which I can redirect magic attacks and absorb these...wild djeds? And isn't controlling items with magic the same as magecraft?" Bob walked back up to the tree taking his new glyph and passed it over to Clyde. Bob did not want to get wet again so he decided to let Clyde handle the glyph.

[Clyde Sullins]

"Well at your base level you can not do much more, not until you are better. You could try combining or splitting magic or its effects, but not much more than that. Though I'm not sure how good you would be at it." Having used his magics, he smiled as it had been successful. It was pretty much the same as the first use, but still was a good job. He had manged to make two good quality lightning scrolls. That would probably be good for today. "Well it depends on both how much you practice it, and how difficult the stuff you are doing is. But different people progress at different paces, there is no set speed. For the wild djeds, funneling it, not absorbing it, that is an expert level glyphing skill. It could take a while, maybe even years." "Redirecting magic is master level, it could take a lifetime to reach there. And many never reach that skill." "Magecrafting is adding magic to items, and it is permanent. Glyphing however is only temporary. Plus magecrafting is much more expensive." "And I was speaking of something that stops people from using magic. You can make an item, that when put on them, makes it so they cannot use magic, like reimancy. Though that is also a master level thing." Having explained all of the questions for the moment, he took the handed scroll made by Bob. This one was better than the last, and though it was a bit soggy, seemed to be holding together for know. Pointing it away from himself, he said the words on the trigger, sending a small stream of pressured water out of it. It went flying a good bit, before settling on the ground.

[Bob Barton]

Alright so Clyde explained a lot. Its going to take Bob a looooonnnnngggggg time for this but he had time, if anything to kill. As Clyde tried to use the scroll Bob gave him, Bob went up to one of the smaller trees and held a branch with both his hands. Exerting his strength with both his hands applying force to the opposite directions, soon enough the branch broke with a "SNAP" and Bob was holding a brand new stick in his hands.

Bob went up to a flat surface of snow with his stick and started to draw a circle on the snow. Instead of moving his arms, he moved his whole body by moving his body in place. With the arm holding the branch sticking straight out, Bob shuffled his feet to rotate his body, drawing a near perfect circle on the ground. Done with his task, Bob flicked the stick upwards to land on his shoulders as he held on to it.

Turning his attention from the focus to Clyde, Bob asked "Soooo...now that I have started with the focus here, what else should I do if I want to combine or split my magic effects?" Bob tapped the stick on the ground "Tap...tap...tap..." he was impatient to get as much as he can from todays glyphing lesson as possible so he could try new applications next time.

[Clyde Sullins]

"Well, usually it would be combined with a path, which I don't believe we have gone over. A barrier surrounds something, to keep the magic inside. However a path is a set of barriers, which magic goes down. Like a road. This can lead out of a focus, to where you want it to come out." "Now a switch will look different than other sigils, if in ink it might be a different color. A switch can either combine effects, or can split it. This can be power wise, or function wise. Here, I will show you an example." Taking his staff, Clyde drew out his sigils in the snow. He quickly drew a focus, with a word of power. Then he surrounded three sides of the focus with barriers, speaking of 'movement, withholding, and restriction.' The last side, instead of sealing it over, he drew a path of twin barriers coming out. At the end, he made a switch, of the words 'split, spread, and divide.' This was a pretty simple use of it, though might still be pretty difficult for Bob. Finally, he looked over at Bob, and smiled. "Okay, so this is a simple usage. It is a focus, with a small barrier, and a path coming from it, leading to the switch. Do you have any questions on it?"

[Bob Barton]

Bob was busy digesting what Clyde is saying. "So actually, the magic will always follow inside the barriers is that what you are saying? Like people walking down the paths in Syliras?" Bob took up his stick and pointed at the barriers what Clyde had made. "Yes I still have a few questions. I notice that you usually write out what you do in your barriers. Is it to tell the glyph what you want it to do? But you told me that any sort of symbols can work for it."

Bob went back to the glyph in the snow he was making and continued. Simple enough he drew some shapes around the circle like squares, triangles, dots and lines though some turned out strange because the stick would sometimes get stuck or diverted in the snow. "So this is a glyph you taught me how to make. What is the difference with that?" Bob asked while pointing back to Clyde's new glyph.

[Clyde Sullins]

"More or less. Usually it follows inside of the barriers, once inside of it. Or it stays outside the barrier, if there is no way to get in." "Any symbol can work, however what that symbol is, is different for each glypher. The important thing is that your work shows your intent. For me my glyphs are words in the ancient tongue. That is my way of representing it. But even you can read the intent in these words when they are collected." Having explained this, he looked over his sigils once more. It was pretty much complete at this point, though he could still use it to show its effects to Bob. Listening once more, he was a bit confused by the last question. "I am not sure what you are asking me, the main difference between your glyphs and mine is style, which is always unique between two users. Or did you mean something else?"

[Bob Barton]

Bob put his hand on his glyph and used the focus to help him absorb some snow after he had extruded some res on his hand. Then the snow started to move to his hand to make a small mound of snow below it which he picked up. With a new snowball in hand he tossed it into the glyph where it entered and disappeared. "There! You taught me to use it to make my magic faster and more focused as well as to store my magic. So what would have happened if I tossed my snowball into yours?"