Solo Legacy (Pt. 1)

[Annalisa Marin]

21st of Winter, 513 AV

Anna's room in the Palsa Hydrasa was a mishmash of chaos and disorder in its own right, reflecting her faith and mind as of late. Parchment was strewn about the room haphazardly and various inks and paints stained the floor in splotches here and there. To Anna she saw a tale in the whole design, an artistry that she doubted many would take note of at even further inspection. It was a sordid and tragic tale of a monster trying desperately to succeed at the supposedly impossible.

For what else was she if not a monster? A creature that parents frightened their children with, a villain, a beast knights rode out to slay without pity or mercy. If Anna were being wholly and truly honest she would blame those knights from attempting to do so, though she would deny it outwardly vehemently. Perhaps what she had done was amoral and wrong, perhaps Sahova had twisted what Rhysol had started but she was too far into it now just to stop. The tall woman chuckled bitterly to herself, her smile ghostly and humorless.

The Sorceress sat cross-legged in the center of her room, a long scroll of parchment before her. Her robes were neatly folded in the corner of the room, today she had opted for her tunic and trousers. Her black hair fell about her face and her eyes looked somewhat haunted as her long fingers fiddled with the brush in her hand. How very much a slave she looked, were it not for her well fed figure and the silver ring wrapped around her right ring finger.

Anna touched the item gingerly, admiring it and hating it at the same time in a paradox of emotions. It was a symbol of status, a status a good many pulsers would have killed for. It marked her as a full Wizard of Sahova, someone to be respected and feared to some degree. It meant she was recognized as being a cut above the rank and file Apprentices.

It was great, it was everything she had dreamed about. It was a chain that might as well have been wrapped around her next, gilded in silver.

She was as much a slave now as that fool slave had been in the Forge, the one Silverheart had taken as his apprentice. The ring marked her as one truly bound to the Citadel, a someone that Sahova viewed as a resource to keep on hand. So she was now bound to the island and it to her, the destiny of the island of the undead entwined in her own. She smirked again, reflecting that she still felt a little too young to be getting married.

Her thoughts drifted from her newest commitment, frowning down at the blank parchment before her and the task she had set for herself. She had come to the bitter realization, after managing to swallow some degree of her pride, that she had a good chance of dying. Not in a battle with Kierra Doma or Celeste, but rather to the claws of the horrific creatures within. It was this realization of mortality that had left her thinking about what she might leave behind.

Hypothetically, if Anna ended up dying there was only really one person she trusted was capable enough to learn from her truly. One person who could take what she knew and utilize it to its fullest extent, who could reach the heights Anna had reached. It was with an aching and heavy heart that she realized that person was Celeste, the only person on the Island capable of benefitting from her legacy. The same girl she might be called to kill or use to defend herself.

It was possible they both might die in this, but if Anna was the one to die upon the journey and Celeste did not then the tall woman wanted to leave something behind. The girl was the closest thing Anna had to a... companion? Friend? The girl had not judged her for the mark upon her flesh or her faith but rather offered the possibility of something more. This was the closest thing Anna could do to give back.

It was hard though, the words got jumbled up in her head and she felt at a loss for where she could possibly start. It was tearing her up on the inside and she felt a little ill just thinking about putting brush to parchment and pouring... really herself onto the parchment. For what else was she other than the sum of her knowledge? Her brush seemed to hover over the inkwell, blocked and held in place by and invisible force from acting.

Anna took a deep breath, gathering the most important facts that Celeste might need to know in her training as a reimancer. She was an Aeromancer from what Anna remembered from their conversation, not a particularly skilled on either. Perhaps the Four Forms would help Celeste on her way to becoming a true Reimancer. It was a good basic point to start with, to grant proper grounding and focus. Perhaps her limited drawing skills might be of use in mapping them out in picture form.

Happy to have found a starting place, the Sorceress dipped her brush in ink and started writing. The first bit would... require some explanation for the girl.

Celeste, if you are reading this then some circumstance on our journey has led to my demise. Perhaps I should hate you if you were the one to bring it about, or perhaps you again showed yourself to be a better human being than I and fought tooth and nail to prevent it. Whatever the case might be I possessed enough foresight to prepare something to leave behind to you. I do not own much in this world but for my knowledge and that is what I intend to leave to this world. More specifically I shall leave you all of my written works I have managed to prepare before we undertook this journey. I am grateful that you once offered me your hand in friendship, Celeste Arumen, no matter what may occur I do not view that meeting in the Dungeons as a mistake. Thank you.

-Fondly, Annalisa Marin.

The Sorceress felt some wetness stinging at the corners of her eyes and viciously wiped it away, attempting to harden her heart against the confusing and irritating emotions warring in her skull. She couldn't break down here or ever again, she couldn't have friends or weaknesses. She needed to be perfect, to be unbreakable and impossible to defeat. She couldn't afford to be human once this was said and done. So she started on the first form on this very scroll, the Air Form.

[Annalisa Marin]

The Four Forms were in actuality stances Anna devised when manipulating each individual element, the prime ones as the Para-Elements required a bit more of advanced thinking. Each form was designed to assist in keeping maximum focus and to help the Reimancer feel more in tune with the element they were using. They were basic things really in the grander scheme of things, but it was important to start with the basics and build up from there. Celeste would need as much assistance as Anna could provide to avoid the early failings of a Reimancer, the forms were a good way of starting her off. Then she could start writing in one of her books regarding the finer arts of Reimancy.

The first thing Anna did was to place the title of what this was beneath the note she had just written previously. Her hand writing was as neat as she could possibly make it, less cramped and more legible than normally. She wrote "Air Form" and the underlined it, moving her brush down to start drawing a rough sketch of a person.

She started by creating an outline, lightly teasing the parchment with her brush and forming the lines and curves into a skeletal shape of a person starting with the legs and moving up. The legs were positioned so that one foot was placed in front of the other, rather like the person was standing mid-stride except they would stand on their toes. The arms formed an upward facing crescent, looking rather like one was trying to steal the sky from above. The image was rough but it looked enough like a person and the image conveyed the over all stance, flighty, light, always ready to move much like the air itself.

The Sorceress placed some finishing touches upon the picture, lightly darkening it with her brush and making it look more right. She was hardly the greatest artist, but all she needed was to get her point across to her reader how they needed to place themselves. Grey eyes looked stormy as a multitude of unspoken emotions played out behind her eyes, feeling for the right words in her heart rather than thinking of them. Once she knew where to begin, the tall woman couldn't have stopped herself if she tried.

The first of what I call the Four Forms is simply titled the Air Form, a simple name for a simple device but one I have found invaluably useful as a reimancer. To truly utilize one's element to their fullest extent, the reimancer must know and feel them within their very soul. Their body and mind must resonate with the nature of the element one seeks to control, attaining a sort of harmony with their magic. This form makes it so that the reimancer feels closer towards the air itself, the reimancer must be light on their feet and quick.

The Air is a primarily defensive element and for this reason it is often dismissed for being weak, when in fact it is the most versatile of the elements in terms of self defense. When one strikes a balance and control with this element one might be able to glide around a battlefield, dodging and avoiding and enemy as easily as the air itself might. This stance is much the same in that the reimancer is ever mutable, light and poised to move as the air might.

When used in combat, gestures utilized with this form take the form of wide arcing sweeps and quick airy motions. The feet must ever be moving and shifting along with the body, keeping the body pointed higher towards the sky to attain resonance. This is crucial when avoiding attacks from an opponent, allowing on easy and free movement as you both blow and cushion yourself with air utilizing equal parts attraction and transmutation. Not striking a proper balance or being aware of one's terrain could very well end with one breaking something vital.

Used meditatively one should make their movements airy and light, neither slow nor fast but simply a strike of balance in between. This perhaps makes this form one of the most difficult to master, as balance and poise is key. The good aeromancer does not seek control, they seek freedom and movement. This is reflected in this form.

Anna looked back over the work, grey eyes glancing over the words for misspellings and errors in her tone and inflection. The tall woman nodded as she found some sense of satisfaction with that particular scroll, though she was no where near as familiar with the Air Form as she was the Fire or Earth Forms. She kept her writing technical to hopefully allow for better understanding.

The tall woman sighed as she moved that particular scroll to the side and prepared the next one, intending for this one to contain the Water Form. It was her most recent acquisition really, but she understood it well enough. Really these forms weren't so much advanced concepts as they were positions she took when manipulating a particular element, instinctually hardwired into her as feeling 'right'. It was nothing like the finer points of Reimancy, more a basic edge to a reimancer to grant them a degree of increased focus. In reimancy, focus was key after all.

She closed her eyes and sighed, as this was as much emotionally taxing as it was mentally. Anna was putting a piece of who she was out there, she was giving part of her being to another being. It was a sour thing really, a bitter thing when she reflected upon it but it was a necessity brought on by circumstance. Celeste would learn from these scrolls, and from what she could record into one of those blank books she possessed. The written works of Annalisa Marin, Master of Reimancy and Wizard of Sahova.