[Flashback]Magical Protection and Possibilities[Bob]

[Clyde Sullins]

55 Winter 505 Today was yet another day, In the cold winter of Syliras. Going for a bit of a walk, he had gotten out early today. Usually he did not get out till later, because he had to work or do errands for his parents. But today was rather free, and he could spend most of today. Coming out, he found Bob's campsite he was currently using, a nice quiet secluded spot. e had gotten a wooden training weapon from someone, for today only. It was of a short sword, which he had chosen. If nothing else he would gain a small grasp of how to use such weapons. However he also was wanting to try something with his magics. He had heard of shielding, however he had not tried it yet. And it seemed like something that might be useful. He had found a basic description of how it worked, and knew how he might do it. And so he set out to do whatever today, maybe even to learn more than one thing. "Hello Bob, I am a bit earlier today. I got out before I usually do, so we can spend most of today. And I was hoping you could help me try out something I have been wanting to learn. Have you heard of shielding?"

[Bob Barton]

Bob watched as Clyde came into the campsite. Besides him was a wooden sword. Thats good at least it shows that Clyde may want to learn how to use a sword. And while thinking of ways to make things interesting for Clyde, Bob had a rather crazy idea which he wished to try again later. More on that later.

But you had no idea how hard was it for Bob to get a wooden sword suitable for his size to train with Clyde. Over the past few days he had to run all over Syliras, meeting all his friends and people who are not so his friends until he finally got to find one. And even that was hard. The guy was one tough nut to crack. When Bob asked the man answered "Why da heck ya want Shyke like dis?" as he looked at the Bob's perfectly good sword and back to the wooden sword. "Not like I like it but...ya owe me a favor" the man grinned a creepy smile. Bob had to hold himself back from fainting. The man was not known well for the favors he asked for, but....Clyde asked him to get one so Bob tried to weasel out of it "A favor just for a wooden sword for a while? Come on thats not fair. And aren't we kind of friends?" Then the man hid the sword menacingly as he said "Friend's help friends ya?" Bob knew he would not be able to get out of this one so he agreed "Fine! A favor...but a small one. And if its something I'd never do you CANNOT force me on it!' Bob said with emphasis to "cannot". The man was happy enough that he would get his favor so he let Bob take the sword.

Remembering that incident sent a shiver down Bob's spine. He had no idea what and when the favor is going to come back to haunt him but still...Forget it, he had to talk about it but Clyde didn't have to know all the details. Pointing at Clyde's own wooden sword Bob remarked "I see you got a sword too, thought you might have forgotten about it. Just be careful how you get those things. It might not cost a soul, but well...everything has a price." Bob didn't feel any better after saying that, but at least he got that awful knowledge off his chest. Then Bob looked around his camp. Was there anything he could use as a makeshift shield in place?

Then Clyde started talking about shields. Bob never used one before since he never had to. And he didn't bring one either since he thought that they might only be using swords. "Shielding? I see you have a sword but none of us has a shield. How is that going to work? Not like I don't want to learn anything new..."

[Clyde Sullins]

Listening, Clyde wondered what Bob was talking about, selling souls for a practice wood sword? Really? What was he talking about. But Clyde let it pass, he was not going to be overly worried about it. "Well, what kind of sword did you get? There are like twenty different types you can use. Mine is of the short sword type. Its a bit smaller and lighter than a normal sword, more like a bigger dagger." He looked over the campsite a bit, it seemed more or less normal. He had chosen the short sword, since it was a lighter weapon, and would allow him to hold other things also. If he was going to use something, that was not a bad style to use. Smiling, Clyde grinned at Bob's misunderstanding. He thought he had meant shielding with a physical shield. But he had meant magical shielding. "No, I mean magical shielding. It is another type of personal magic, similar to reimancy. But this is for protecting yourself. You extrude your djed, and can 'task' the shield to do things. Like blocking magic. I thought you could try and squirt me with magical water, while I try to block it with a shield.

[Bob Barton]

Bob went over to his pack and took out the sword which is probably going to cost him a lot more than its worth in the end. Bob looked at his sword as Clyde was asking him about what it was and waved it a little bit. "Just a sword I guess, the normalish one." and tucked it away after getting a little bit of a feel of its weight.

Magical shielding? Its always about magic with this boy god. Bob was thinking that with so much power he can use, Clyde must be using magic as some sort of toy or game. "One god's toy is another mortals weapon." Bob mumbled to himself to reassure him that he will survive yet another lesson without dying or anything like that in the course of his dangerous lessons.

"Thats good then, we can learn this shielding thing together. It might even be useful to use this new idea I have been thinking of for you." Ahhh yes. If shielding was for magical defence, Bob was thinking of something to use for offence. Not a new magic art or anything but just probably a new application. One he had thought up for Clyde so that he would take a little more interest in the sword. It all came together. With Bob not needlessly held down by too much by magical knowledge and theory like Clyde, he was able to put together what he knew about magic to come out with something which gave even him something to laugh about in his sleep.

But since Clyde said he wanted to "learn" magic shields, Bob had to make sure it was safe. "Are you sure you know enough about it to ask me to throw magical water at you that fast? I am fine with it but when its...my...turn, I'd rather you throw at me air instead of your damaging fire and lightning." Bob went and took his position nearby the stream until Clyde would give him the signal to begin the trial run.

[Clyde Sullins]

He waited for Bob's response. He did not seem to be against it. Yet how did he not know what type of sword he had? If he planned to gain skill at a specific type of weapon, he had to know what it was. Or else he would just use something different, and never get a high skill in one thing. "A new idea, what would that be? Tell me your idea, and I can tell you how feasible it is. It might already exist, and you just don't know about it." "Water fast? I did not mean a heavy stream. Just get a small glob of water, and toss it at me. Nothing that would hurt if it hit, since it will take time to get it to work, and you will hit me several times. And I would obviously use air, not fire or lightning. I don't want to kill you!"

[Bob Barton]

So Clyde is interested in his idea after all. But he wants to know about so he can judge whether it is feasible or not. Which is why Bob did not want to tell Clyde just yet. With all his knowledge and lack of imagination, he might just decide that the idea is not worth trying and then they can't even get a chance to try it.

Bob just smiled at Clyde and said "Its a surprise, why don't you prepare for the shielding thing first? You can teach me about that one when we are done with your test." And it seemed Clyde misunderstood him about fast. Bob meant fast as in time not speed of water. He would have to clarify that because magic is still dangerous. "I don't mean fast water...I meant you want to test it on real magic so fast? Shouldn't we take these new things slow?"

Then Bob took the wooden sword to the campsite and rummaged around his stuff before finding the chalk he wanted. Concealing it from Clyde just in case the boy might realize what he was going to try, Bob went behind the tent to get to work. "Remember! Prepare your shielding and I'll prepare...this..." Bob shouted from behind the tent.

[Clyde Sullins]

It was to bad that Bob did not want to tell him about his idea, since he was much more open minded about experimenting with magic. Also there was a good chance he might know of it, and be able to warn him of some common dangers which could be costly. But he did not want to tell him, so he would have to figure it out on his own. If he was lucky he would not do anything that could have been avoided. "That's fine if you want to do it yourself, just don't go blowing yourself or me up like you almost did that one time." Clyde was still remembering the time that Bob had messed with his glyphs, releasing his lightning, and almost blowing them to bits. But it was best to move on. "Well with shielding.... I have never done it before! So I will have no way of telling when I do it right. So when you spray me, I will see if my attempt worked, or if i got it wrong. And once I do it right, it will be revealed by how it reacts. So you see there is no other way to now when I have achieved it." "Okay, we will both do our thing, and when I am ready, I will tell you to start shooting." Going a bit from Bob, he started on his work. He took his awareness completely within himself, and attempted to block out all other things... Like that bird chirping... Or that river in the distance... Or that log falling in the fire... Okay no one said Clyde was good at meditating, but he was trying... However he did his best to concentrate on the task at hand, and to will his djed to protect him, to repulse magic. He was already skilled at extruding res from reimancy, so he sent out some gaseous res from his hands, coating it in it. He then did his best to compress the res into a sheet of it, a small layer for one task. He concentrated on it, and willed it once more to defend him, to shield him from magic. It was about as good as it would get for his first try, and he nodded for Bob to go ahead, and to shoot some water at the res over his hands.

[Bob Barton]

The chalk went down on the surface of the wooden sword as a strange formation started to show up. One side was just about done with 3 large circles lined up straight, one after another along the blade. Bob turned the sword around to start on the next part when he realized his mistake. The glyph was very distinguishable on the blade since the white colour clashed a lot with the mundane, dark and dull colour of the training sword. But there was no time to waste in rubbing off the chalk marks and redoing the glyph all over again. And with what? There was nothing else Bob could use to draw, unless...

A head peeked out from behind the tent. Its eyes looked all over the campsite until it locked on to the fire and the pile of logs beside it. Bob turned his head to Clyde, the boy was doing some weird thing. Maybe something to do with the shielding and he look sort of asleep. Bob got up and walked tippy toed to the fire as quiet as possible so Clyde could not hear. Five long steps of trying to move as slowly and quietly as possible with two uncomfortable feet later, Bob was at the fire holding on to a log. Bob dropped the log into the fire for a while before picking it up again and heading back to behind the tent. Lucky Clyde was still "asleep" so he didn't see the log falling and another five steps back tippy toed, Bob stuffed the burning log into the snow.

With the charred remains of the stick, Bob held it like an overgrown pen and began on the second side. This one was going to be a bit harder than the 3 focuses he drew just now, But Bob went for it anyway. Since it was only a test run, he stuck to the easy stuff. This time one big black circle was drawn in the middle of the circle. Then thinking to himself "Hmmm...I can't leave any room for error in this..." Bob thought back to the times he saw Clyde drawing his glyphs. Always he used words so there must be some reason for it despite what he had taught. Around the circle, Bob started writing "Snowball-Snowball in-Keep snowball in-Snowball..." over and over again. When he reached the end with only a few words left, he wrote the trigger "When I say out, snowball out!"

Now that the glyphing is out of the way, its time for the final step. As always from all his training with Clyde on reimancy, Bob focused on his palm. As he was staring at it like something was supposed to happen, the gel-like res came out and started to form getting bigger and bigger. After it Bob saw that it was enough, he went to the snow and put the palm over it. As he moved his palm the snowball grew as the snow started to get attracted and stuck to the surface of his res. Bob lifted the snowball and was about to throw it into the second glyph when he caught Clyde nodding in the corner of his eyes. Shrugging unsure since there didn't seem to be any difference with Clyde, Bob threw the snowball straight as Clyde as hard as possible and aimed for the head. Even if the shield did not work, Bob could brag that he was able to nail a god with a snowball.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde silently tried to focus on his work, but he was not the best at meditating. It seemed like instead of blocking out things, it more clearly defined the sounds around him. He listened as Bob tried to sneak clumsily to the fire, and get something. Along with dropping some things. But Clyde did his best to not think of it, and to focus on his work. He did his best to compress his res, and to get it how he wanted. Finally being done, Bob noticed and chucked the snowball at his head.Even though he said water, and to throw it lightly.... Throwing up his hands with the res covering over them, he tried to block it. However the shield did nothing, and smashed into his hands, with some bits flying into his face. Flinging out his hands, he threw off the snow, while keeping the res attracted to his hands. "Well... I guess I could not expect the first try to work... But I did say to throw it lightly... I guess in hindsight, you were right with the snowball. It was better than water... Good thinking.... Okay, I will work a bit more, and then you can throw another." Concentrating, he once more tried to force his res into the given shape. He willed it to protect, and imaged in his head the snowball bouncing off of the shield. Breathing out a bit more res, he added a steady slow stream to his 'shield.' Hopefully he would get the right way done eventually. He nodded once more after several minutes of focus for Bob to go again.

[Bob Barton]

A slow, loud clap echoed through the campsite. The snowball burst into nothingness when it hit Clyde's hands. "Impressive, but wouldn't it be easier to use a real shield? Unless you want to sneak the shield somewhere." As far as Bob was concerned, the shield did its job to block the snowball. He did not know what to expect since only today he heard of this new magic trick so...SUCCESS!

"Wait it didn't work? How do you know if its supposed to work or not?" in a surprised voice. Then Bob just waved his hand to take in the credit eventhough he had no idea what was going on "Uhhhh...Of course. I am always thinking you see thats why I...uhh...used the snowball. If I didn't trow it hard it would either miss or not reach you right?"

Clyde went back to do that thing he did with magic again. Bob took this as his cue to work on his own project. Bob went back to the snow and got back out some res again. "Hmmmm...good idea for the snowball huh? Maybe the waterball would be more effective then" Bob chuckled to himself thinking. Tthe res on his hand which was accumulating grew bigger as he thought that, as though responding to his very wicked idea. Once it grew big enough Bob put his hand over the surface again to start absorbing.

This time instead of putting his hand over snow, the hand went over the water from the melted snow when the fire on the stick was put out. The water started to ripple from the disturbance from the attraction and started going up into Bob's hand. Wrapping over the res layer after layer until it became a waterball. Bob peered over his shoulder, Clyde was still doing his magic mojo. "Enough time for another." and Bob with the sword below him dropped the waterball into the glyph which took it in, absorbing the waterball like some dried up sponge he had seen before.

With that out of the way its time for the shielding bit. Bob hummed as he tapped his finger, thinking if he should go for the waterball or the snowball. "Bah, it will make the waterball more surprising later" Bob told himself as he started to put his hand over the snow. The snow started piling up on itself as it tried to reach up to the res on the palm hovering above it. Finally the snow crawled up and formed a snowball. Bob rolled it up a little bit to make it more smoother before turning at Clyde. The boy was already waiting for the snowball. "Well, it looks like its time to deliver." Throw it lightly the boy said. So instead of throwing a snowball as anyone would, Bob bent a little forward to get his body closer to his target and threw the snowball underhanded. Up it went for a while and then down at Clyde. Hopefully it was strong enough to reach Clyde.