Solo Practice Makes Perfect

[Darius Twoseas]

83 rd day of Fall in the year 513 Darius sat down at in the middle of his tent. It was mid-afternoon outside, and he could hear the bustle of the people outside his tent, only slightly muffled by the canvas. He had just recently arrived in the city and was looking forward to getting to know the city he once called home again. There was real darkness in his heart when he remembered what had happened to the family left to him here--their pavilion burned in an accident and then the scattered members killed by the plague. But the darkness only set him stronger in what he knew he needed to do. After his parents' deaths, he had vowed that he would attain the power to keep it from ever happening again. To this end, he had studied every aspect of the magics he had already possessed--Reimancy and Webbing--and had even found a teacher to initiate him into the discipline of Shielding, the most promising to his cause. But now that he was in the city, he knew it may be a while before he could pay for lessons. And so he would need to devise a way to practice everything he knew with the most efficiency possible, in order to progress with his studies. That was why he was here now, to devise a series of exercises that would challenge him.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius decided to begin with the least familiar of his disciplines. He had learned Shielding only one and a half short seasons ago, and was still barely understood it. He had only had one or two practices after his initiation, and knew only the basics. However, Shielding was also the discipline he was most excited about. If he could master shields it would make it far, far easier to protect those the gods had put into danger. However, he was also aware that he had a long, long way to go. For the time being, he needed practice, and his limited knowledge of the art made it really difficult to come up with an exercise that would challenge him. Darius sat in his tent, his eyes closed, calming himself for a long while. At this stage, creating shields took him a long time and intense concentration. When he felt he was ready, he cupped his hands around his mouth, exhaling deeply into them, tasking his djed to guard against sight. As his hands filled with the magical shield material, he imagined he felt a certain weight and coolness to it, though he knew that had to be in his head. From his cupped hands, he pinched it apart, thinning it out and stretching it into a long sheet of swirling darkness. Without trying to judge his effectiveness so far, Darius pulled out his waterskin, laying the material around it and shaping it carefully the the irregular shape of the waterskin. It took intense concentration, and when it was done, Darius sat back to examine his work. While it was true he couldn't see the waterskin itself, there was still blotchy, swirling darkness around it that made it totally visible. He was aware he would be unable to make things truly invisible with shielding, so the coloring didn't bother him. What did was the blotchiness. His shield had holes in places and the whole thing would never successfully hide anything large from sight. Darius sighed. This was what his attempts to shield would look like for a while now.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius picked up the waterskin to examine it further, then realized it couldn't help but disappoint him and set it down, leaving the shield in place to see how long it would last. Already he could see the opaqueness decrease as cloudy spots appeared in the shield. Yeah, it would be a long time before he would be able to effectively protect anybody. While this disappointed him, it didn't come as much of a surprise. But he did keep note of what he had just done. Blocking sight was obviously the most useful task for training, because it allowed him to easily judge his progress. It would be his goal to evenly cover his waterskin in practice. He turned his attention to his next exercise. This one would be for more dangerous. Reimancy was possibly the most dangerous of all magics that Darius knew of. If he wasn't particularly careful, he could destroy a lot more than just himself. If he lost control of the flames, his tent would defiantly go up, and it wouldn't be too hard for the fire to spread through the close-packed city. He'd need to keep it carefully contained, and at his current ability level, it would require intense concentration to keep the flames at bay. This gave Darius an idea. Again he breathed into his cupped hands, forming a ball about the size and shape of his fist out of Res. He then opened a hand, palm up, letting the gaseous ball sit in his palm. With considerable effort, he raised the ball to hover inches off his palm, then maybe a foot. It bounced ever so slightly up and down, reminding Darius of the tenuousness of his control. The ball itself was also shifting and changing shape ever so slightly, like a bubble about to pop. With as much care as he could, Darius converted the very outer layer into flame. There was a bright flare as the ball burst into a small, careful flame, like that around a log in a campfire. While it was actually quite controlled, it was burning through his little sphere faster than he had intended. He concentrated really hard and the flame dimmed down to the fluid warmth of a candle's flame. But as he focused on lowering the conversion rate, he lost some control on the shape of his Res and the entire sphere flickered and nearly flew apart. In panic lest his whole tent be set alight, Darius tried to reconfine the Res back into its little ball while simultaneously dimming the flame even farther. Instead, he snuffed the flame entirely and his Res bubble popped, dispersing the Res into the air relatively evenly.

[Darius Twoseas]

Darius sighed and abandoned the dispersed Res. He was already pretty tired from just what he had already done. If he continued too far with his Reimancy, he would be in danger of overgiving, and he was quite aware how susceptible he would be to that particular danger. It was, in fact, something he worried about constantly. Darius had even, occasionally, worried that his entire--to become like a god by mastering as many schools of magic as possible--was perhaps a manifestation of the Sweet Whispers. But whenever that thought occurred to him he threw it out. He did not wish to rival a god's power for its own sake, but to protect others. When he had resolved finally that he was done for now with his Reimancy practice, he turned with excitement to his final exercise. He concentrated again upon the thrumming power he felt throughout the Endrykas camp and the web appeared to him, vast and reaching, the networks of magical lines running all through the camp. It was time to get to know the camp he had left for a decade better. He was tied to the vast web, as were all of the Drykas, and he allowed his consciousness to flow out of his body through the webbing. Normally, he decided, he would practice by actually constructing webs, but today he was too shaken by the close call with his Reimancy to think it was safe to expel any more djed in this session. Instead, he traveled the network of webs, exploring the city of Endrykas as it was constructed today, first locating places of interest. He spent a few long minutes in the Baultimes Barrel, feeling customers enter and exit. For a while after, he followed a few of the slaves from the recent auction through the web, or perhaps simply traders--whoever they were, they were not tied into the web themselves and that made them unique and easy to follow. Then, when he grew bored of that, he located the Guided Horse, where, after a long while of concentration, he could located his own Strider, Alaxel in their care. He found the Mists of Rain easily enough, as the fresh students were meditating and were themselves entering the web. He greeted a few of them as they met him in the network. This made him rather happy, as this was one of the few situations where he was more capable than others in the city in a useful skill. But his contentment was broken as he turned to the neighboring tent and found the mind of a student that happened to be being initiated into the school of reimancy. While the web didn't convey any of the student's fear or agony at the ceremony, Darius's own memories provided them readily enough. The discomfort in his memories was enough to remind him of his purpose in being here. Alarmed at how long he had spent in the web, he fled back through the web into his own body. Darius opened his eyes in his own body. He was surprised at how hungry he was. He stood up and looked out the flap of his tent to see the sun had moved considerably since he had began his practice session. He had to have spent at least three bells inside the web without realizing it. He shivered in appreciation of how wrong that could have gone. He reprimanded himself for not returning to himself faster. He was a fairly competent weaver. Overextension was just as dangerous as overgiving, and he needed to be above that. Shaking himself off, Darius decided his practice was done. He had had enough close calls today, and didn't think he needed to risk another. Besides, it had, in fact, been a pretty extensive exercise. He got all the way up and left his tent, stretching a little as he found his body a little stiff after abandoning it for a few bells. While it had been dangerous and to be fair, rather disappointing, but perhaps it had given him useful practice. Regardless, his ultimate goals could wait. He needed food. He decided to head to Baultimes Barrel physically. In all, perhaps it had been a good practice.

[Taylani]

XP Award!

Davus Twoseas:

XP Award:

• +1 shielding
• +1 Reimancy: Fire
• +1 webbing

Lore:

• Grief fueled ambition
• Reimancy: Care needed to keep it contained

Notes:

Comments :

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TAYLANI