Understanding the Flames (Solo)

[Eridanus]

Day 31, Spring of 512 AV
Late Afternoon
DOI Headquarters

Eridanus sighed as he wrote the last few words needed for a fellow agent. The man had called in for urgent sick leave and was currently being treated at Ionu's Mercy for having purple tentacles growing out of his nose. He supposed that it was a side effect of the wild djed tampering with the illusions within the city. The underground, ironically, became the safest place to be in the djed storm. Some might even say the aftermath as well.

Either way, that meant that he had to finish up that man's report for him. Fortunately for him, most of the notes are scribbled down, and all he had to do was formulate them into proper sentences.

Correct spelling and punctuation too!

He sighed. What was this, a bloody literature exam? The vantha shook his head as he finished the last few sentences, re-reading the report for any accidentally language errors that he might have missed out.

Good.

Finally, he was free! Placing the report down on the table with a flourish, he stood up from the sick agent's cubicle, stretching his arms and almost-numb legs as he did so.

He could not wait to get started exploring his elemental crafting abilities that he awakened since a long time in Fall, and the end of this report marked the end of his work shift.

[Eridanus]

As he hurried down the stairs that led down the various rooms, coincidentally, just bloody coincidentally he met Johann Yonkvik again. Yonkvik made an exaggerated comical expression to him as he walked pass, causing the vantha to bristle.

"Not today, Johann. I'm busy," Eridanus muttered.

"I can see how falling down requires utmost attention," Johann observed with a mock serious grin.

"You're a riot," The vantha replied sourly.

The two of them walked beside each other in silence, their camaraderie sufficient only to make mockingly disparaging remarks at each other for a few lines but not enough to continue the conversation beyond that.

The vantha schemed when he realized that Johann was walking down the same series of stairs where he had been pranked. Oh yes, he had even remembered exactly which step he was stepping on when he was pushed.

"Hey buddy, be careful!" Eridanus exclaimed sarcastically, shoving the morpher down the stairs at that exact same step.

However, instead of falling upwards like Eridanus, the man went spiraling down, and there was an uncomfortable crack that resounded through the stairwell as the man lay face flat all the way at the bottom of the stairs, his body rigid and unmoving.

Eridanus widened his eyes in surprise, weakly protesting, "But but..." as he shouted the man's name. "Johann! Johann! You alright? Answer me you damn gorilla!"

The vantha bounded down the stairs, cursing himself for taking the prank too far. He probably should not have tried it without extensive testing.

Dammit, have I really accidentally killed him?

With great remorse in his heart, he bounded down the stairs, shaking his fellow agent while shouting his name.

"Johann, can you hear me?"

[Eridanus]

"Johann is dead, would you like to leave a message?" A muffled voice announced sardonically, surprising Eridanus enough to startle him a few steps back.

The morpher rolled on his back, resting his head comfortably on his hands as he eyed the vantha merrily, "Johann Yonkvik, 2. Eridanus, 0."

What in the...

It was then that he noticed that the floor below the stairs were somehow soft. Though it looked like any cold hard concrete floor, upon close inspection and touch its true nature was revealed - it was as soft as a pillow.

So that's how he...

"Why you goddamn prick..." Eridanus growled, reaching his hands forward to grab the morpher who dodged quickly, racing back up the stairs. Before he rounded the corner, he slapped his butt playfully and winked before laughing as he ran off.

Eridanus swore as he began plotting all kinds of revenge as he continued walking. Only upon reaching his destination did he remember his purpose for coming here.

Calm down, Eridanus. It is only a mere prank, an act by a childish mortal.

Forcing himself to take deep breaths to relax his psyche, he went down several corridors, finally finding a room unoccupied. Opening the door, the room lit up customarily and he let himself in.

[Eridanus]

The beginner mage performed a perfunctory check around the room to make sure that he was really the only one. Sudden surprises were never a good thing when deep in concentration. He had heard the stories of a reimancy undergraduate slipping into overgiving when suddenly pranked by a fellow coursemate. Of course, he had no idea if the story was true, but it was repeated often enough back in Zeltiva University that even a non-Reimancy student like him heard about it.

It was time for the standard procedure. His heart was still hammering from the mild rage provoked by the mischievous morpher earlier, and it took him quite a while to calm himself down and think nice fluffy thoughts of pink and cute bunnies.

Drawing deep from the djed within him, the vantha began extracting the translucent blue material from his body, though technically it was from his astral body that happened to inhabit the same space as his physical one. Walking alongside the windows as he extracted his djed onto one hand, he used the other hand to slap the intangible substance on the windows, walking from one length of the room to the other and covering all the windows with his djed.

He plopped a gunk of djed at the open space between the door and the floor, though this time the door had no window. Shrugging, he returned to the first window, putting more specialized attention into every individual shield as his experienced hands shaped the formed the shields to consistently cover and spread throughout the visible glass.

[Eridanus]

Working on a window at a time, he shaped and spread the djed, before tasking it to block against light, rendering the room dark to those who looked from the outside. He tasked light to pass perfectly normally from his side though, so he in essence he created a magical one-sided window for his benefit.

When he was done with all the windows, he paid extra attention to the djed under the door, mentally controlling its movement so that it would fully space itself throughout the open space to ensure that it fully connected the door and the floor below.

He first placed the primary tasking against sound, though the shield would allow sound to come in from the outside but not travel from the inside. He then inserted a secondary tasking into the shield to block against light from traveling outwards but allowing light inwards. He did not task the entire shield however, and only relegated the secondary tasking to half the open space, allowing the other half to shine with light to let others know the room was in use.

Making a final inspection of the shields, sometimes rubbing a loose end here and plucking a loose thread there, the eager learner returned to the clearing in the middle of the room, sitting down in a cross-legged position.

[Eridanus]

He was ready to refamiliarize himself with reimancy. In the previous session, he had been warming up with Res Control, but now he wanted to stabilize his spells. In order to do so, he would need to associate words with muscle memory, and that with action. It was the basis behind every incantation, and that was why despite of discipline incantations would always exist.

Breathing deeply, he settled into a meditative trance as he focused on the flow of djed within him. Bringing out the arcane resource, he directed them towards his palms, the memory of the ritualistic wounds there helping to convert the djed into res.

As the substance pooled into a sphere before his palms, it glowed in a pure-white manner, though Eridanus could not see it due to his eyes being closed he could feel it. There was a mental connection between him and his Res, for Res was simply an expression of his djed, which was him. Djed was the essence of life.

Exerting his will on the sphere, he moved it several times in the air, the sphere wobbling but moving gradually as he practised his manipulation of the substance with his hands.

[Eridanus]

It is time.

The vantha opened his eyes, centering his gaze on the two spheres of res that he controlled with both palms. Pushing his palms together, he merged the two into one single ball that floated between his hands.

With a determined gaze, he began drawing emotions from his heart. He imagined feeling the warmth, feeling the heat, and feeling the dangerous thrill of fire. What words could possibly represent his emotions?

He was looking at the sphere of res, and he really should, for fire was not to be trifled with. If he had an opponent, that should be where his opponent should be looking at, if he feared his life.

"Feast your eyes..." Eridanus muttered. He helped his concentration by continually moving the sphere of res in a parabolic shape within the confines of air between his two palms so that his mind would not wander.

[Eridanus]

He stared at the ball of res, hovering gently. It seemed too calm, too still in order to explode into fire. What was fire attributed to? Danger. Destruction. Pain. What was that? Emotions. Feelings. Passions. Love.

Everything extreme. That was the essence of fire. What could he use to trigger that? He had no love, but he had passion.

That was when he realized. He had no love. Memories of his past flashed back, and he remembered anger, sorrow, loneliness. But no love. Smacking himself to the present, he promised to contemplate on this in the future, but not now while the ball of djed hovered before him.

Could he call up feelings of passion in the middle of combat to burn an opponent?

Anger. Hatred.

That was what he needed. The spark of contempt during combat, to hurt the opponent, to defend himself. He needed to direct his anger.

As the words began forming in his mind, he mentally associated his feelings - the entire mental process - as he composed the words. Staring at the ball of fire, he intoned slowly but clearly, "Feast your eyes on directed anger..."

The sphere began to crackle as the pure-white reddened into crimson. Heat began slowly seeping out of the ball, but he maintained his mental will on it to prevent the fire from dying out.

How could he complete the spell?

[Eridanus]

Fireball? That seemed too contrived. Perhaps he should go for something related to heat. Warmth. That was it.

"Feast your eyes on directed anger, Warmth Arc!" Eridanus repeated clearly, and he lashed out his palms as he did so. The sphere of res exploded in a cacophony of energy as the ball was pushed forward in a straight line, though the flames dying out before it hit the wall.

The vantha yelled in surprise, punching the air. Now he only needed to keep practising it so that he could cast it faster. It was a matter of relegating it to muscle memory rather than conscious thought.

Taking out a quill from the nearby table, he began glyphing his palms, helping to aid the memorization process. The symbols on his arms were supposed to stabilize the res when they pooled, so that he would have more time to focus on getting the feeling right rather than merely the functions right.

He added several more glyphs alongside the stability ones to help increase the longevity of the res so that he could, again, delegate more mental processing power to getting the process right and focus less on maintaining the res. That would come with practice and experience over time.

[Eridanus]

Over the next few bells, Eridanus continued practising his reimancy spell.

"Feast your eyes on directed anger, Warmth Arc!'

With this incantation, he slowly solidified his understanding of the spell, practising to throw it in both straight lines and in parabolic arcs. That was the reason behind the suffix of his spell name. He even rehearsed the motions so that he might be able to hone his accuracy in projectile motion. That came from estimating the angle and height of throwing, and that would direct the result of the landing.

He continually refreshed the glyphs on his arms as he practised, and as time passed he slowly got better in both reimancy and glyphing.

Soon, there were several knocks on the door, for it seemed that a meeting was bound to take place in the room. With regret, he could only stop his practice session, rearranging everything back in order as he dismantled the shields around the room with Chaos Glyphs. These were sigils meant to disentangle the web of djed threads that formed the basis of his shields, and he was able to do so because he understood the formations of his own shields. In order to do so it required him to utilize both Shielding and Glyphing, but soon it was done, and he finally left the room after apologizing to the people.