Solo Caution, Hot Djed

[Cosette Merryweather]

2nd Day, Winter of 512 A.V. Perhaps it was because she had only recently procured the new body she was... wearing... and she had yet to synchronize with it perfectly, but it wasn't responding as quickly as most of her bodies did when she moved into them. That was definitely a cause for concern... concern enough, but was she merely worrying too much? It was winter, the possibility that it was the cold weather slowing down her limbs and it was no complication with the body transfer ritual was not out of the question, though it did not dispel her doubts completely. A pity too since she would hate to have to do the transfer again so soon, especially since this body resembled her original flesh closely in both age and appearance. It was a pity she couldn't seek conventional assistance in this matter, it would be hard to explain to people that she was dead and harder still to ask for their services in making a dead body more malleable. The value of a massage was lost to her now, or maybe it was only because none of its practitioners would continue working on her stiff muscles once the truth became apparent. To solve her problems with her impaired locomotion she was going to have to seek a more exotic solution, something that was briefly mentioned to her during her last visit to Sahova. Flux, an ancient form of magic meant to facilitate and reinforce movement and control over one's body. It was an art she meant to learn from a book if only staying in the isle of the dead wouldn't have been too dangerous. She was without allies, weak and not the brightest of the nuits taking residence there. Staying in Sahova longer than she had would have been suicide. Though she was no genius, Cosette wasn't in short supply of common sense and was swiftly out of the island as soon as the next barge willing to accept her sailed in. "Excuse me..." she spoke, cautious of the tone of her voice and the expression on her face so as not to offend the person she was about to seek a favor from. "I understand that this is an unusual request, but I was told that you're a practitioner of brand of magic... is it true?" The warrior she'd been referred to, a middle-aged man who was balding and slightly heavy around the midriff hardly resembled one outside his intimidating full plate. He seemed tired, annoyed at the girl distracting him from his day-job as a mason. "Was." he told her bluntly. "Not any more." With that statement he continued to ignore the girl as he hammered into a slab of rock, working his chisel and the small hammer quickly but with great precision. He moved quickly, with deft hands that were as strong as they were fast. The feat seemed to Cosette, almost super-human. Proof, that she had found the person she was looking for. "I'm not asking you to use it, I want you to teach me." The man paused, glancing up at Cosette with a clearly irritated look and he gently set his tools down on the table. He rubbed his temple and shook his head, muttering soft curses silently before he finally allowed his eyes to meet Cosette's level gaze. "You're bothering me little girl. If you can't make it worth my while I'm going to have to call someone to kick you out of my shop." he held an empty palm, indicating the obvious with a tap to the pouch of money on a bag held secure by a drawstring of tightly spun leather. "How much are you willing to give?"

[Cosette Merryweather]

Somehow Cosette had expected things to boil down to this. Money... that was practically the universal motivator everywhere she went in this region. No matter the city, no matter the nature of the services she sought, it was always those shiny little metallic discs that ended up as the common denominator in all her transactions. With a heavy sigh she looked wearily into her dwindling supplies and she fished out a small pile of coins, eight of the golden discs and she stacked four atop each other in two piles over the palm of one open hand. "Will this be enough?" she knew it was being generous, but she was asking for him to impart magic - something frowned upon by society. "For that much..." he snatched the coins from her hand with blinding speed that bordered on the supernatural. And she suspected it was driven by exactly that. "I think we have a deal little miss." "My name is Cosette." "Little Miss Cosette then." the man quickly stowed away the money he'd been offered into a deep pocket. "Don't worry, you can trust me. I'll teach you what I know, but your progress will depend entirely on your own ability. Even if you know the theory behind something that does not mean you have the capacity to perform that feat." "..." so she was paying for something she might or might not learn? That wasn't exactly reassuring, but thankfully she had no breath to sigh with. "Before we get started, could you tell me something... and I would want you to be honest." her would-be instructor stepped forward, daring her to delve into his gaze with that stern expression that was less annoyed now and more serious. "Do you already practice a brand of magic other than flux? I ask because if you do, it may be easier to teach you the basics than it would normally take and we could shave a few days from your training... if that's how long it will take." Cosette rarely told anyone about her magical abilities, the glamor she abused to create the illusion of life was something driven by that very ability she had acquired. But if betraying her familiarity of magic was what it would take to hasten her training and save her a few coins then that was what she would do. "Morphing." she confessed. "I'm a practitioner of morphing... it has been a few years, two or three give or take a few months." "That is rather fortunate little miss, this may not be as hard as I initially anticipated." the warrior seemed pleased and sounded even more so. "There are only three branches of magic I know of that deals with the body. Flux," he held up one finger, "its opposite which is your own Morphing..." the second, middle-finger joined the first. "And Projection... I hear there are a sect of monks who practice it in this very region... I've even fought one who claims to have been trained by one himself." with three fingers raised he grinned, sinking back into a chair. "Correct me if I'm wrong but I've heard that morphing is supposed to make you a stranger to your own flesh. What flux does is the complete opposite, instead of granting you the ability to adapt by changing your body flux allows you to make the most of what you have and to push it beyond what it's normally capable of. To do this you must learn to harness the flow of djed within and guide it to where you wish it without holding it there, timing and discipline is key... and that is feat that is not so easily achieved despite how simple it sounds."

[Cosette Merryweather]

Thus the lesson proper had begun. The warrior before her had shed his role of mason in favor of the mantle of a teacher, a part he played surprisingly well... or unsurprisingly. Magic was not a domain of idiots, if this man had survived long enough to reach his level of competency in a dangerous form of personal magic like flux, then that meant he possessed the cognitive ability and self-restraint required to survive it. Cosette thus listened eagerly like a student as he discussed the fundamental topic that all practitioners of flux should be acquainted with. He drew a circle on a patch of dirt and within used a stick to draw three more circles, each inside the last and smaller than the former. "Flux is in simple terms, a magical discipline that lets one control the flow of djed within one's own body. By gathering untapped djed that would normally remain unused and urging it to move from one part of the body to another you can enhance the performance of the body part receiving excess djed." he waved his stick around the four circles he drew on the ground, planting the rod into the center for emphasis. "These four circles represent the concept of the soul." "There are four layers to the soul, the first is the aura, it is the outermost part of the soul and it radiates energy invisible to all but aurists. The next and the one most relevant to flux is called the astral body. This is what controls your body, think of it as the glue that binds soul to body and it is this that synchronizes body and... mind, or soul." he moved his stick to the final two layers of the soul, holding Cosette's gaze. "The next is your persona, that which bears your identity. The personality, thoughts and feelings that make you Cosette... and the soulcore, which bears the concept of self and only serves to give a soul the quality of being a soul." "Returning to the second layer, this here is the medium that djed travels through, it is connected to your nerves and it is through these nerves, these pathways of the body that normally lets your brain tell the rest of your body what to do which djed may also travel through. Here you can channel unused djed, or concentrate most of your djed to great and often dangerous effect." "So I simply use this to gather energy into specific areas of my body to generate strength and speed...?" Cosette suggested, inclining her head forward for reassurance. The human nodded, but raised his teaching implement to strike a point. "Yes, but in practice it is a little more complicated. Flux is primarily about managing your djed. You cannot keep it still, liken it to blood that must keep moving to sustain life. If you can keep the djed moving at conservative speed without concentrating too much of it in a one place for too long then you can use it safely. Moving too much djed too fast in one pathway of the body or keeping it in one place too long can cause the body part that experiences too much stress to literally burst from within." "Once you become more proficient, it will be possible to move a lot of djed through the body quickly... and this you achieve by using more than one nerve path. For now, I want you to concentrate on allowing the djed to flow through the parts of the body with the largest pathways for djed, these can handle stress more readily than smaller pathways and are ideal for beginners to utilize until they become more adept at fine djed manipulation." he drew a rough outline of the human body and pointed certain parts, primarily the limb and the torso. "These are the strongest pathways and the ones you would ideally use while you're inexperienced." "Now that we're finished with theory, shall we move on to practice?"

[Cosette Merryweather]

Cosette was never good on paper, she was not gifted with the mind of a scholar but she had taken to morphing quickly. Partially because she had surprising aptitude and also because she was properly motivated to hide what she at the time she learned morphing believed a curse. She still thought that way, but now her anger felt muted after three years of inactivity. Without the clout of hatred obscuring her judgement the Syliran found herself quick to grasp the very basics - but only the basics. Flux had much in common with Morphing though they were opposite schools of personal magic. Tapping into the djed flowing within her was something she had done on many occasions past, but channeling it... and continuously channeling it was alien to her. Normally she expended the djed, it was burned out, utilized to change the very structure of flesh and bone. Now she had to mentally juggle it... an activity similar to keeping count of the number of buildings one passed by on a city street as one ran from one end of a neighborhood to the next. The task was hard but Cosette was patient. She started small, guiding only miniscule amounts of djed and judging its progress through tactile feedback from within. With the counsel of her instructor however, she would make good progress, moving a respectable size of djed into her arm so she could quickly use it to lift a slab of stone she didn't have the strength to move before. But it was short-lived success as the tell-tale sign of pain shot through her mind and she was forced to quickly disperse the energy on her teacher's timely prompting. If she could sweat, Cosette was positive that she would already be soaked. But it was easier to keep calm when your heart wasn't racing in your chest. She pushed on, using gut held in check by prudence as she practiced again. Her mentor was quiet, ever focusing his attention on her body and the amount of djed she was manipulating. He was vigilant, quick to scold her if she began to use too much for though he had her money there was more to be had if she met success. Her progress was slow, her pace absolutely dull but that suited her just fine. She had time in her hands and no appointments to keep until late in the evening. She only had to concentrate, to keep the flow of energy traveling the length of her limbs in a measured, rhythmic pace until she could gently allow it to come into full circle in her chest where she could allow it to rotate and spend its energy in a lazy oscillating spiral. A far from practical method of disseminating dangerous energy, but it would do until she was comfortable enough to use this skill like she had grown to control her power over the discipline of morphing.

[Cosette Merryweather]

"You're a quick learner, but high aptitude can sometimes be as much as a detriment as slow growth can be. Your familiarity with djed manipulation is a boon to you but I notice you tend to supply excess djed to the point where you're trying to achieve an effect far too often and if you could do it safely without my guidance is an issue to me." To her as well, though she didn't dare interrupt the man's ruminations at this point. Talkative as he was, most things he said gave her greater insight into this new branch of personal magic she was exploring and she knew that if he realized his habit he might withhold this information otherwise freely given. "I want you to keep in mind a few pointers whenever you start feeling discomfort." he motioned for her to sit down across the table carrying the debris of broken slab stone and thoughtfully counted down the fingers in one hand. "The first, you must cease drawing djed from anywhere the moment you feel too hot or an unnatural pain makes itself known. The next, you should keep djed flowing even if the pain is forcing you to halt your manipulation of djed and be sure that when you do move djed always move the majority through the major pathways of the body. Keep it circulating, eventually the abnormalities will subside to a degree where you can control it." "Finally, and you may have realized this yourself but djed flows more fluidly when your body is relaxed and the limbs are straight. When your joints aren't folded at an angle, the energy can flow practically unimpeded and it becomes easier to allow it to return to dormancy." Cosette hadn't noticed that before, but she did remember the man holding her arm firm and straight when she complained of sudden pain earlier. He tried it out, channeling the djed circulating within with her will and when she grew hot she did exactly as he was told. She relaxed her body, a feat too easy for a nuit, and she extended her hands completely, raising the fingers until they were level with her shoulders. The heat vanished quickly and the cool, natural temperature of the nuit physiology returned with haste. She had to admit, that was a trick she might do well in practicing if she wanted to survive this body-threatening craft she was trying to master. Synchronizing her mind, soul and body. It was an art she was willing to devote some hours of her long days to if it could allow her faster adaption stages with her bodies and neutralize the sluggish movements that she'd before now had to silently endure. "I can't teach you this, but you might as well pick up auristics. I dabble in it but I don't have the ability to give instruction in it. I use it mostly to help me inspect my own body's condition and prevent my djed from reaching a degree of activity I cannot manage. I'm not certain if you've heard of it, that magic that allows you to see beyond what the naked eye can?" "I've met someone who practiced it..." though how Drainira the supervisor golem saw her was still a mystery. Was her method in employing auristics similar to the ones practiced by other mages or did she see the world through some artificial lens? Cosette would have to look into it in the future, but it wasn't high on her list of priorities just yet. "I'll take your advice." "I would recommend we meet again in the near future, not in the next few days since I want you to give your body time to recover, but soon."

[Fallacy]

XP Award! Name:Cosette XP Award: +2 Rhetoric +1 Interrogation +3 Socializing +2 Observation +2 Flux Lore: Seeking a Teacher What is Enough? Initiation Into Flux Flux 101 Notes: Please subtract 8 GM Any questions or concerns about the rewards gained please send a PM