[Flashback] Fighting Windmills (Veldrys)

[Velenor Avenca]

Well, here it is. I am excited to be writing with you and I surely do hope for a great thread. That being said, I have taken the liberty to improvise the manner in which Velenor has reached The Place of Purging. Oh, and one more thing, I have left the date empty, so you just tell me what to put there once you get the chance. Thank you for your time. As a side note, the weird inconsistencies in the thread are all a consequence of overgiving, and I do hope I have pictured it well, PM me for corrections if such actions are required. The part of The Blue Grotto Velenor was now in was known to be his corner of the world, and normally, people would avoid it; Not for the fear of the man, but they simply did not wish for any more conflict with him than they already had. The man loved his reclusive nature, and as such, all of the sights he liked to linger upon were of the same type. Today was a day like any other to all form of maggoty creatures around Kalinor, but not to him, for he was a mage beyond any other inside the walls of Kalinor; Well even he knew that was only his ego talking, but it did have a nice ring to it. It was time for another one of his endurance trainings in the field of reimancy. The rules of his test were simple, cast as much as you can without overgiving; it sounded simple enough, but that was only because he used his supreme intellect to think of those exact words after all. Thinking back a bit, he could still remember the day on which he was escorted waters of reimancy. Oh, how he cursed that day; not for getting a new ability, but for one simple reason…. water. It was countless times that he thought someone should be burned for their ignorance or arrogance or both, but every time those thoughts would stream through his head, all they would ever give to him was a headache, and not a mild one. He prayed… well praying was not really the world to size it up, he was begging whatever unknown god of reimancy was up there; Let him rise in ranks, let him harness more power, let him leave the idiotic thought of using water based spells in a fight behind, let him leave it all behind. No response came, and it was only fitting, for gods only help those who help themselves. As a confident smile rose on his face, as every time before then, he raised his hands up, as if he was looking for divine guidance. As soon as his hands were up, he let one of them down, all of these theatrics were hardly anything more than pointless, but he liked the flair behind it all. With one of his hands in the air, he closed his eyes concentrating on extracting his djed from within him, and onto his raised palm. He had enough djed stored up in reserve as he was used to this type of exercise, and even more so to the preparations that were required in order for the whole event to take place. As res gathered onto his palm, he slowly opened his eyes and forced his essence to become water; Usually he would be proud of himself for accomplishing even such a minor feat, but he was quite sick of being the god damn water carrier. Quickly throwing the sphere of water under his feet, he could feel anger rise within him; he was still not good enough to ascend towards the ability of dual element wielding. Cursing slowly, he closed his eyes yet again. Whatever sick joke someone had going up there in Ukalas, he was starting to get it, and he was not pleased with it. As he could feel the res on his hand turn to water once more, he threw the water away, as far as he could, cringing his teeth as an obvious sign as to how displeased he was. Once more! It had to work, it had simply had to be a success! Pooling up res on his now slightly shivering palm, he could feel exhaustion creeping over him as his eyes experienced pain. Growling slowly, he turned the expelled res to water once more, but this time, something strange occurred in his brain; a subtle voice, whispering the sweetest of words, words of success: “You are close to achieving your goal, young Velenor; All you need to do now is give some more in order to harness the power of your second element. I can feel it already, oh such a lustful thing it is, your next element…” the voice trailed off for a moment, but the angry Symenestra was already in a better mood. Lustful? It must have been fire that the invisible presence spoke of, but even so, should he really push his limits that much? “Give up bits and pieces of yourself and grasp infinite power. This was never an equiualent exchange; Some give more than they get, but why would I ever toy with someone as capable as you?” the voice changed from subtle and logical, to a female voice full of lust with a moaning undertone. Still a bit reluctant as he was, it was not a great effort for his pride to push him further ahead. Shivering more and more with each passing moment, he could feel the eyes of the cave upon his back, they were all here, and they were watching, and he would give them a show; one befitting a god. As water was present within his palm once more, he quickly turned around glaring at the dark corners of the cave, as if he was challenging someone to step out of the dark, as if he wanted to meet the owners of all those red eyes that were covering in fear among the shadows. What he held was still water, but he could feel slight tingling in the sphere, as if it was trying to burn up inside, it was a clear sign from above; his water was now poisonous and deadly to the shadow dwellers, and it may not yet be fire, but right now it was a holy flame to purge the place from the cloaked trespassers. Quickly throwing the reinforced element onto a pair of eyes, he could hear a screeching sound, fairly similar to screaming, as it resonated within the hall. “Exquisite, keep on young master, clean this place, claim your rightful energy” the voice was even more craving and intoxicated than before. His happiness was past the level of anything regularly possible, and was edging even through the limits of known euphoria; A god so strong that he could actually cloak his presence and yet talk so effortlessly, a divine being of magic was speaking to him, and it called him a master, gave him a mission… Normally he would see the logical faults within his own thoughts, but he was far too power drunk to notice them now. As he focused his attention to a puddle in the floor, not even three full feet away from him, he slowly started to pull the water into his own grasp, into his own hands, into a new spell, one bigger than before. This one will smash at least two of these puny creatures. As he finally formed the spell, he could feel a strange taste in his mouth, was it led? Shrugging to himself with his shaking shoulders, he could feel his heart beating faster than before, as he threw the spell and four more eyes closed forever with prolonged screams. One more pair of eyes was left, and these glared back at the slayer of their kin with anger, but even with its size being approximately two times that of the others, it still dared not to venture out of the dark. He truly was a fearsome force of immeasurable potential, but he could feel his body giving out beneath his mind, and for the first time in a while, he started to question his actions. As if t was called, conjured or summoned, the voice spoke yet again, but this time lacking the seductive tone, it was his voice: “What’s the matter? Is big and strong Velenor afraid to claim his rightful power? And they call you a reincarnation of a supreme existence, you are nothing more than a joke…. A joke!” the voice yelled within him in a logical tone, the one that always made sense the most, his tone. At the limits of his physical strength, he turned both of his hands to the half drained puddle and emptied it completely. It was an effort, yes, but he could not show weakness, not right now, he was not entitled to such a privilege. Raising both of his hands above his head, he threw the spell at the large apparition, but it just stopped mid air and started to fall back onto him. It was trying to drown him, all of this must have been the doing of his hidden nemesis, but as he struggled for air, he could see only one person emerging from the dark, he could see himself. As the water pulled back into the ground, leaving him an inch away from losing his breath, he raised one of his arms slowly to his scarlet eyed duplicate, begging for help in a mute manner he somehow knew the creature understood. But the imposter refused to help, as it gave him wounds and pinned him back to the ground. He could now feel blood pouring down all four of his limbs and gushing slowly out of his mouth, it seemed like the end, but was it really? When he finally opened his eyes, he could feel pressure on all his limbs and on his lower back; The floor of the cavern was passing by quickly, and he could hear voices around him, as he was carried to places unknown. He could not make out what they were saying, but it hardly mattered to him anyway. He closed his eyelids again, only to part them once more as he was being laid down onto a solid surface; gentle as the ones who carried him were, it was still not enough to stop the pain from searing through his body as he growled and moaned for a bit. He could see a fuss around him but he could still not perceive them fully, or even think clearly for that matter…

[Veldrys]

It had been one of the worst days at the Purging since Veldrys had started working there. There had been trouble with a surrogate. Of course there was always trouble of some sort with them. They weren’t exactly in Kalinor voluntarily. They had been abducted, they were prisoners, and they would die a painful death. At least the majority of them seemed to be quite aware of that. Usually whatever problems they caused were easy enough to handle, but this particular surrogate had tried to flee. She had somehow made it to the outskirts of Kalinor before the father of the child she was carrying had caught her. She’d been dragged back to the city in shackles, and then the man and his Web had tried to cut her legs off so that she wouldn’t be able to flee again and endager the baby. Something had gone wrong however. When they’d finally decided to bring her to the Purging, she had been more dead than alive, and not even Old Hellebore himself had been able to save her. They’d tried to cut the baby out, but it had been too early, and the little boy had only lived for a few hours. Veldrys hadn’t actually participated in the operation, but what he had witnessed had shaken him to the core. He’d already sympathized with the Esterians to some extent before, and this incident had only strenghtened his conviction. To him it made more sense to research ways to help Symenestra mothers survive the birth, to cut the babies out before the due date than drag human women into Kalinor and rape them. As far as he was concerned, surrogates always posed a risk, even in the best of cases. To some extent he pitied those women. Besides, he considered the harvest a pollution of their blood. He had nothing against humans – in fact he found them quite fascinating – but he didn’t want the Symenestra to eventually turn into a race of half humans. He wanted his race to stay pure, free of the human taint. He’d tried to argue with the dead baby’s father before he had left the Purging, had tried to tell him that locking the surrogate into a room and posting a guard in front of the door would have been sufficient, that it hadn’t been necessary to maim her, but the man hadn’t wanted to hear anything of it. Even though his child had died, the man had been convinced that punishing the animal had been the right thing to do. Surrogates were precious, but they still needed to know their place. He already had two healthy children that would soon become parents themselves. The work at the Purging often exhausted Verldrys mentally and physically. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he left his Web, if he left Kalinor and spent a few years on the surface, but then his sense of duty was simply too strong. There were people that needed him, that depended on him. Few Symenestra chose the job of a healer anyway since it required a gentler nature that most of them possessed. And thus the healer simply retreated into an empty room after the turmoil had died down, a cup of blood in hands. Blood was a poor substitute for a proper meal, but it filled his stomach, and it gave him something to do, something to concentrate on other than the dilemma he found himself in. The few moments of peace didn’t last long however. Only five minutes had passed before another healer barged into his sanctuary. Veldrys abruptly put the cup aside and rose to his feet. There was a mixture of annoyance and vague curiosity visible on his face. “What is it?” he wanted to know, noticing how the other man, one of the apprentices, seemed to be rather agitated. As soon as he heard that a Symenestra had been brought in, a man that was bleeding from several wounds, he rushed towards the part of the Purging that was dedicated to the Symenestra patients. They’d taken the man to an empty room and put him onto a bed. He seemed to be bleeding in several different places. Veldrys found himself staring at him for a moment. What could have caused such wounds? There were no animals that did something like that, and when humans interrupted a harvest, the wounds that they gave you were generally different as well. “Seems like a case of overgiving”, he heard somebody say. He arched an eyebrow. His experience with that was still comparatively small, and unfortunately there was no treatment for overgiving per se. All you could do was bandage the wounds and make sure that the patient in question got enough rest and that he didn’t do something that stupid again if he survived. He shook his head disapprovingly as he looked at Velenor. What had he been thinking? Didn’t he know that magic was risky at the best of times? At least he didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. His heart was still beating steadily, and he was still breathing, even though he seemed to be on the verge of unconsciousness which wasn’t much of a surprise considering what he’d managed to do to himself. The healer gestured for somebody to bring him the things he’d need. “Can you hear me?” he asked Velenor while he readied a needle and a bit of very thin thread. “You hurt yourself. At least one of your wounds needs stitching, and I will need to bandage the other ones. You are lucky that nothing worse happened. It’s going to hurt a bit, but you’ll get something for the pain.” Again a wave of his hand, and one of the other healers wiped the blood from Velenor’s face, and then the man placed a cup against his lips – if he was conscious enough to be able to swallow. This part of the treatment was something that Veldrys, who was still learning in some ways, usually left to his colleagues.

[Arlecchino]

.:Velenor:. XP: Reimancy 1 Lore: Experiencing Overgiving, Sweet Whispers .:Veldrys:. XP: Observation 1, Medicine 1 Lore: Diagnosing Overgiving, Treating Overgiving Additional Notes: Nothing much to say about this thread, just that it looked really promising. Sad to see such potential go to waste. If Velenor ever comes back and you feel like finishing this thread let me know!