[Flashback] Learning to Glyph (Solo)

[Leto Sunsinger]

Timestamp: 57, Summer of 497

Tossing and turning in his sleep, a young boy whom was only the age of fourteen couldn't get any significant rest that morning. He had been up late that night, but as usual since the incident had happened outside of the camp, all his dreams had turned to nightmares, and anything he thought about trying to do when it came to sleep didn't seem to work. His aunt and uncle had taken him in, when his parents were killed, and he was now within a bedroll in his pavilion. It had happened meerly a year prior, when he was only thirteen, and he watched as the creatures tore his family asunder, barely escaping with his own life intact as his parents had sacrificed themselves so that his brother and him could escape.

But fear had gripped them both and they ran in opposite directions, Leto had run towards Endrykas and his brother Sigal in the opposite direction. When Leto had arrived back at the mobile city, he found his aunt and uncle in tears, and covered in blood, only managing to mutter a few words out to them about what happened. They took him in, and sheltered him within their pavilion, not allowing anyone to see him other than the healers for the next few days. That was what happened within his past, but the psychological trauma still continued on now, even though the physical trauma had passed.

He had yet to earn his windmarks at this point, but his aunt and uncle had promised him one thing, that when he turned fourteen the next year, they would start to teach him the basics of glyphing, the art of drawing runes, and learning how they can affect magic, which was the only thing they could do. It was his family's trade though, and they made quite a few custom sigils on scrolls for the reimancer family, so that they could store their spells. Leto had always wanted to learn of their trade, and so, after years of begging them, and the incident out in the field, he finally got permission from them that they would teach him the intricacies of glyphing.

Waking up that morning, he slowly sat up in bed, put on his undergarments, and leather pants, followed by his leather vest and shoes, and looked around. I wonder where they are today? he thought to himself as he managed to slowly get out of bed, trying to get the nightmares that had woken him up out of his head. It wasn't everyday that he had them, but it seemed like it, as they were a constant reminder of why never to go into the wild without proper protection, as he and his younger brother had that day. Fools they were, it was probably their fault that their parents had gotten killed, and who knows what happened to his brother, whether he was alive or not, Leto wouldn't know for years to come, so he just assumed his brother had been killed as well.

Heading out of the tent he was sleeping in, the boy with short black hair, that had yellow highlights in it; a birth defect from when he was born; and dark eyes, looked towards the sun as it beated down upon them that summer day. Heading over to the main tent in their pavilion, he would open the flap, and walk inside, looking for his aunt and uncle to see if they happened to be anywheres that could be found that day, or if they were over with the reimancers trading their scrolls and stones for valuable spells. Brushing his hair back as he didn't see them within the main tent, he decided to head out into the city to see if he couldn't locate them, and perhaps see if they wouldn't start to teach him the basics of glyphing that day, as he had been hoping they would for quite some time now.

As he continued his trek throughout the city, his dark eyes looked towards everything he could see. He passed the various pavilions without saying a word, until finally he arrived at a pavilion where the Reimancers happened to stay. Heading into it, he'd look for his aunt and uncle to see if they happened to be there, hawking their wares, and trying to trade everything they could for anything the reimancer's could offer. Not initially seeing them within the reimancer's tent, Leto continued his trek elsewhere, heading towards the Sapphire clan pavilions, wondering if perhaps they had gone to see the webbers within the pavilion, or whether they had perhaps gone to the Opal Pavilions to speak with the healers about him, if there was anything they could do about his psychological trauma, and nightmares, not being able to sleep that well ever.

All in all, he didn't seem to find them anywhere, so finally decided to just head back home, to the Ruby Pavilions, where he'd enter the Treebearer's personal pavilion once more, and head back into the main tent, where he'd finally stumble upon them, after having spent a few hours looking around the city for them. "There you are," he said with a smile upon his face, trying not to let the recent nightmares dim his persona, even though he knew inherently that they would at some point cause a break in his mind. "So, are you ready to teach me the basics of glyphing? Or will that be saved for another day?" he asked them, looking towards them in wondering whether or not they would teach him this day, or another day sometime in the future.

Brushing his hand through his hair, he thought about it for a few moments while they finished whatever it was that they were doing, and awaited patiently and answer from them. He watched them carefully with his dark eyes, and wondered how they were so strong, having lost a part of their family to the wild, and how they could keep up doing what they were doing. Perhaps it was because he was young, that he didn't understand these things fully, but then again, perhaps he would understand them better as he grew up more than he already was...

[Leto Sunsinger]

"Ah, Leto," said his aunt, whom turned to him and smiled. "You've come at the right time, we would be happy to start teaching you our art. Take a seat over there," she said as she pointed towards the small chair and desk sitting in the corner of the tent. She then brought over some parchment, a flask of ink, and a quill and set it down infront of Leto. And so Leto sat down, and awaited her instructions. "Now, the basics of glyphing," she began, looking down towards Leto and picking up the quill, placing it in his youthful hand, and said, "To utilize a quill, you have to dip it in the ink, and then wipe the excess ink off of the side of it on the side of the flask so as to not waste any excess ink. Then, we will start off with what Glyphs can do..."

So the young Leto listened to everything she had to say, and turned up to look at her. "I know of a few things that glyphs can be used for. They can be used to capture magic, and release it... Are there any other uses for glyphs?" he asked, and his aunt nodded patiently and said, "Of course, some other uses of glyphs are restricting magic into a certain area, channeling magic into an area, splitting magic, combining magic, and stabilizing dangerous and wild magics..." Smiling, she took the quill from him and began to draw a glyph upon the parchment in front of him. "Now, you don't need to know anything other than the basics which involve capturing and releasing magic from a glyph. By itself a single glyph might only be utilized in focusing magic, such as using webbing, a glyph upon the hand might help one to access the web easier," she said, and then pointed towards the paper, and said, "Each glyph is different, and has a different meaning, specific to the wizard that uses it."

"Now, I know that your mother initiated you into the web at a young age, Leth bless her soul," said his aunt, and she continued by saying, "So we'll have you work on utilizing the glyphs to access the web easier. Take the quill and draw a glyph upon your left hand first, make it's meaning personal to you, and draw it however you wish. Glyphs are meant to be personal to the wizard, but we can make them for others as well, so long as we explain the triggers, and meanings of the glyphs to them." And so Leto picked up the quill in his right hand, and began to draw his very first glyph upon his left hand. It was a circle, with three lines drawn through it, curving inwards to form a triangle in the center of the glyph as he worked carefully to draw it. It took some time to make it how he wanted, and he was very careful with drawing it, so as to not injure himself with the quill. Once it was finished, he looked up towards his aunt, and then asked, "When grabbing the web with my left hand, and utilizing the glyph, it should allow me to separate my body into the web easier, correct?"

His aunt nodded, and then said, "Yes, and once the glyphs been used up the ink will fade from your hand, and disappear entirely. This is why people generally need to redo glyphs from time to time, as the parchment they are put on will disappear, or the stones will crack, and things like that, destroying the glyph once it is used." And so Leto sat down upon the ground then, where he knew a strand of the web was, and gripped it with his left hand. Carefully closing his eyes, and feeling the ethereal web within his hand, he would focus on the glyphs, and the web, and start the transfer of his body to the web, ethereally entering it. As his spiritual form crossed over, he did find it increasingly easy to enter the web, with the use of the glyph that was upon his hand. Once he was fully in the web, he traversed it a little bit, not far from his body that had fallen limp in his aunt's lap as she sat down next to him. After traversing it for a brief period, he returned, and allowed his ethereal body to enter his physical body once more, and upon doing that, he opened his eyes, sitting up, and looking down towards his left hand. The ink had all but vanished.

"See, that's how singular glyphs can be used, now next we'll go over sigils, and how they can be utilized," his aunt said, a smile upon her face as she looked towards Leto, motioning for him to sit back at the small desk which still contained the parchment, ink flask. "Now, a sigil is a group of glyphs designed for accomplishing a purpose of something," she said, and then pointed towards the parchment. "I want you to think of a purpose that you'd like the sigil you're going to draw accomplish, and then draw it upon the parchment..." Leto nodded, and then began to think of a purpose. "What about a sigil that holds a spell? How about that as my purpose?" he asked her. His aunt nodded, and then said, "That will work, we'll just do a basic sigil to hold a fireball that the reimancers would store. The sigil will consist of a focus, a barrier, and a trigger. Do you know what those three each do?"

"I can hazard a guess," said Leto, whom then thought about it, and said, "I'll say a trigger is what is used to release the spell. The barrier helps contain the spell, and the focus is where the spell is contained?" As he asked the last part, she nodded, and then said, "Yes, a focus is where the magic is contained. The trigger will deactivate the barrier and in turn activate the focus, so that the magic is released, and not blocked by the barrier. A barrier is generally a circle of glyphs around the focus, which is usually one large glyph in the center where the magic is stored..." She then pointed towards the parchment, and said, "First I want you to draw a focus, and then we'll work on the barrier, and finally the trigger..." And so, Leto would start to work upon a singular large glyph, the focus of his sigil...

[Leto Sunsinger]

And so, the young boy named Leto, would start to work on his very first focus glyph, aside from the glyph they had just recently utilized for the purpose of webbing. Carefully, drawing a circle with the ink and quill, the young boy began to work to create the focus of the sigil. It would take him time, much more than he was used to when he had learned to read and write from his father, who was as scholarly as a drykas could get. He would continue working on the glyph by then drawing a line through the center of the circle, and then drawing two smaller circles, one in the upper left quarter of the larger circle, and another in the lower right quarter of the circle. Then, he'd draw a line going diagonal from the center of those two circles to connect them together. Once that was finished, the young boy would look up to his Aunt, whom had patiently stood there watching over him to see how his work was being done.

"Good enough," she said. "Now remember, each glyph you draw usually corrosponds to a symbolic meaning. That for you could mean a fireball focus, which is what it should mean." She then looked down towards the parchment, and smile at Leto saying, "Now, the barrier glyphs. See this parchment here, this is a sigil I made, that has barrier glyphs around a focus and a trigger as well. Now I'd like you to draw the barrier glyphs around your focus, but remember, each should have a special symbolic meaning to you..." Leto nodded, and then began to work on each of the glyphs, drawing each of them side by side around the focus. Each had a special meaning to him, that of which would be to create a barrier around the focus. They're was a myriad of triangles, with half circles through them; squares with triangles within them; and circles with pentagrams within them. Each meant the same thing, and a different thing at the same time. But they all served one purpose, which was to create a barrier around the focus of the glyph.

Once that was finished, Leto's aunt continued to watch him work, and then after he was done, a few hours later given he was just starting to learn, she said, "Now finally, we shall do the trigger of the glyph..." Nodding towards him, she the said, "It should be something quite simple, something not too elaborate, like say 'Fireball' to release the barrier, and then release the spell from the focus." Nodding, she allowed Leto to create the next set of glyphs on the corner of the parchment, those being the statement 'Fireball' to release the spell. It would consist of two glyphs total, which would amount to 'Speak Fireball'. The first glyph was a pentagon with a circle in the center, and a dot in the center of the circle. That would mean 'Speak'. The second glyph was a trapezoid with a half circle above it, the curved end touching the top of the trapezoid. That would mean 'Fireball'. Once he finished with that, his aunt smiled, and then said to him, [b]"Now, we won't actually be utilizing the sigil, because it's probably too unreliable for you to use given it's your very first one, and you're still learning the processes, but I have another few pieces of parchment, that i'll have you utilize to create a few more sigils over the next few days in order for you to truly get a grasp on creating scrolls to contain spells. This is how your uncle and I make a living, thus you should learn to do it too if you're to become a true Ruby Clansman..."

So, over the next three days, Leto did another few sigils and continually practiced drawing glyphs upon his hands, to enter the web easier. He'd find that entering the web became nearly second nature to him through the usage of the glyphs, and so he'd always try to draw a glyph upon his hands, a focus, before trying to utilize the web, so that he'd be able to enter it with much more fluent ease. His sigils that he created, would be rough, and unworthy of actually being utilized by the Reimancers, but soon enough he knew he'd be good enough to sell the glyphs to the Reimancers for them to store their spells within.

Over the next few years, the young boy Leto would only socialize with the reimancers and his aunt and uncle, still being socially withdrawn from the world. It wasn't until he was 22 that he would finally discover the horse that he would bond to, and his windmarks would be given to him. A triangle upon his chest, with a line through it, that would simply mean 'Power', something Leto had lost when he was younger, but that the Drykas hoped he'd regain as he grew into a great glypher for them...

[Jackalope]

Leto

Award

Skill	XP Earned	Lore Earned
Glyphing	+3	Collecting on a Promise Made
Observation	+2	The Basic Uses of a Glyph
Webbing	+1	Glyph: Webbing Access
		The Parts of a Sigil
		Glyph: Speak Fireball

Witty Remark Here

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