The Dancing Flame (Training/Solo)

by **Elmoch** on May 11th, 2011, 9:06 pm

17th Spring, 511.

It was a bright and flustered day in Syliras. Elmoch had found a hidden place devoid of people where he wouldn't be disturbed by noise or even curious eyes, an empty alley between two relatively tall buildings. "It's so hard to get some privacy in this city, there are guards everywhere!" he mentally whined while accommodating himself in the secretive place he had found, sitting with crossed legs and with his hands resting on his thighs. Luckily his mind was relatively tranquil this day, at least to his own standards, so emptying it of thoughts to better focus on what he was about to do would be easier than usual, which doesn't necessarily make it a generally easy task to accomplish. His thoughts were always out of control, gaining momentum by themselves, and becoming powerful influential forces in his mind on their own. Meditation was the only possible way for Elmoch to get some peace, rest his mind, and focus completely on a specific activity.

Even with great struggle the random thoughts were shooting everywhere, and it was only after a good while relaxing that he managed to channel a tornado of chaotic thoughts into a single, controllable one. The image of a flame burning in the middle of darkness was the first thought he focused on, attempting to exclude everything else that had no connections to it. After a few chimes focusing on the blaze, he noticed that the shadows that engulfed it were so strong that the flame seemed rather powerless, almost fading among its surroundings. He then allowed the flame to disappear, focusing on the darkness, which seemed mysterious, inviting and at the same time calm which enhanced his feeling of tranquility and further relaxed his body.

After what could have been half a bell focusing on the darkness, he could no longer feel the cold floor, hear his surroundings, or perceive the light that bathed his eyelids. He was in a complete trance, and the wild confusion of thoughts was now absent. There was simply nothing in his mind. It was time for him to begin practicing magic, for he had all of the focus he needed to earn the most of this experience. Now his mind started focusing on his own Djed, his own meaning, what gave him purpose and existence in this world, and what powered his magical spells. He felt powerful, and at the same time insignificant in contrast to the surrounding world. He could now feel and see the Djed being transformed into a bluish translucent vapor, and felt it now roaming away from its source, away from his essence.

He now opened his eyelids, despite of the resistance of his dilated pupils against the coming light, struggling against the need of shutting his eyes closed, and saw his Res spreading around him. The surroundings were most insignificant, an unnoticeable blurry background, all that he could see, and focus on, was his own Res traveling through the air. He was now ready to begin manipulating it as he saw fit, with full attention span in order to learn the most of it and exercise his manipulation forces as much as he could.

by **Elmoch** on May 12th, 2011, 5:55 pm

The Res slowly dispersed around, in a chaotic manner, much like Elmoch's mind usually was. But now he was focused enough to have greater control over it. He slowly turned his right palm up and raised it by a few inches. He forced his eyes closed again, now to focus on conveying all of the Res into a single concentrated form above his palm. And as he wished, it happened, his Res was not concentrated there, in a roughly spherical shape, albeit very hardly a perfect sphere. It was much inconstant still, as some sort of inner power struggled for the Res to escape his magical grip. Trying to maintain it in a spherical shape itself was already a bit of a mental exercise, for he had to constantly balance all of the sides of the sphere all of the time for the Res not to float about. Still, Elmoch wanted something more challenging. With his left palm he let out more Res away from his essence, and as he focused it slowly covered the spherical shape with a thick outer layer. With a blink of his, this outer layer suddenly started burning with an orange flame that seemed somewhat red and blue inside, and it now surrounded the core of his spell. The inner Res was left untouched by the flame, as by manipulating it is how Elmoch would control the whole sphere. It also seemed to attract the outer flames, not allowing them to disperse and disappear in the air.

He now had over his hand a floating ball of fire. He was far from done though, as the fire itself was not the purpose of the whole preparation. He slowly stretched his fingers, allowing the flame to move through the air, as a bird being set free by his owner. Unlike a bird, however, the flame was still under his magical grip, and were it to do something unexpected, Elmoch would intervene. The most obvious risk would be of the flame touching one of the wooden walls of the surrounding buildings, and that would certainly get Elmoch into a lot of trouble. Nonetheless, the flame simply moved a few meters forward, and as it went further and further Elmoch could feel his grip weakening. When the blaze was on the verge of being freed of his control, he used all of his powers to halt its movement, albeit it was quite a struggle for him to manipulate it from such a distance.

It is now that the real challenge would begin. How well would he get to manipulate this flame from so far away? And it certainly would require much higher concentration and magical energy than simply manipulating the flame as when it was just floating above his right hand. The first noticeable event few moments after it halted, was that the sphere grew considerably, as if fish, suddenly captured by a net, struggled to be freed. The Res inside the sphere was no longer completely under his control, but it certainly was not free - yet. He struggled to maintain its integrity for it not to just disperse into an amorphous shape through the air, possibly setting ablaze one of the inflammable objects nearby. Elmoch smiled at the risk. He was impulsive, irresponsible, it just made things even more exciting, a factor of risk, which could cost him gold, or even a good while imprisoned for arson.

He now moved his arms forward, with the palms close and facing each other, as if trying to protect the flame of a candle from raging winds. Shortly after the blazing sphere contained its chaotic movements and seemed to be returning to his control, at least slightly. He would first of all regain the control of the Res core, to then start manipulating the flame from afar, in order to exercise his magical strength and his ability to manipulate Res and the element of fire. Perhaps he would even get to learn something new, such as a new technique for keeping flames from dispersing around so easily. Even with the concentration, this was no easy task for him, for his magic had always been just as chaotic as his nature was. It would require considerable energy to do it properly, but at least he was well rested. He just hoped someone didn't suddenly catch him manipulating a floating ball of fire. He knew magic was not viewed very kindly by the general population.

He faced his own creation as it was calming down. The flame burned beautifully, it emitted a bright, colorful light that delighted him. But he couldn't allow himself to get too distracted with it, otherwise he would completely lose the control. He needed full concentration. As it calmed down, he started twisting his left hand slowly, in a counter-clockwise motion, as if commanding the Res core of the sphere to start spinning around itself. And so it did, albeit with a reasonable delay, and much slower than intended. It was no surprise, since it was now on the boundary of his control zone. The flames started spinning, and the colors twisting and melting. He could now advance to the next step of his Reimancy training, or so he thought, because all of the sudden a knock was heard from behind his back, completely ruining his concentration. What could that be?

by **Elmoch** on May 13th, 2011, 4:48 pm

Surprised at the noise, he tilted his head behind, but saw nothing but what seemed like a small shadow moving very quickly behind the building's corner. "Is this my mind playing tricks on me again?" he whispered to himself, and only then reminded of the bursting ball. "Shyyyke!" yelled him after he turned his head back only to face a much larger distorted flame that seemed completely out of control, and about to burn all of the surroundings. His concentration was now broken, his mind was completely back to its usual state, and he still had to control the frantic burst before it caused any destruction. He quickly jumped forward and sprinted towards the flame to get closer in order to better manipulate it, for attempting to contain it from afar would be useless in his current state. He made quick gestures with his hand as he moved, and once again approached his palms, as if trying to calm the flame down.

Slowly, as he got closer, now walking more calmly, the flame stopped burning so brightly and reduced in size, now seeming to be more controllable by its creator, althought not nearly as acceptive of Elmoch's commands as before. It was then that Elmoch, once again, felt a presence behind him, as if someone had been watching him for the whole time. He lifted the furious burst into the air above, where it would not be harmful to its surroundings, and expanded the inner Res, transforming the flame into several tiny sparks that slowly faded along with the remaining Res into the air. He sighed. He was now magically exhausted, and he knew that it was not good to overuse his magic, even if his instincts craved for more. Magic made him feel powerful, unstoppable, it was a great feeling, but he knew it could cause his death if not used moderately.

He turned to his back now and prepared to attack at any moment, he slowly began moving forward not to make any noises, although his attempt was most useless, as the sound of his steps were very clear to any possible watcher who could be hidden behind the corner of the building. He gently approached the end of the alley, and abruptly bended his back, pushing his head forward to spy on the sides. There was nothing. He returned himself to an erect posture, scratched his beard and began thinking on what could possibly be spying on him. "Who is doing this? What do they want from me?" he began questioning himself as if he had an army of people interested on chasing him, when in fact there was no good reason to suspect anything. He raised his voice and began shouting in a threatening tone: "Reveal yourself! I know you are here! You can't fool me with your tricks!"

Suddenly after he was done, a sound was heard, being emitted from behind. A "Meow". He looked back to the end of the alley, and there it was, a cat. He pointed the index finger in the direction of the feline. "How dare you spy on me, and interrupt my meditation! What do you want from me?" questioned Elmoch with a rough voicing, as an attempt to intimidate his beholder. The cat didn't respond, obviously. It had bright eyes, that were directly staring at Elmoch's with no fear, and the fur was dark as the night, greatly contrasting with the strong sunlight coming from outside the alley. After a moment glaring into each other's eyes, the cat swiftly moved to the side, getting away from Elmoch's sight.

Elmoch was confused. Was it his mind fooling him with illusions? It couldn't be, it was all too real! That certainly looked like an ordinary cat, but..."That's what he wants me to believe, of course!" he muttered. "Maybe..." he paused for a moment to further think and then continued talking to himself, "Just maybe he is one of those magical animals who can take the form of a human! It all makes sense now, I was being spied on!" But who would spy on him, and what for? And why would the animal actually be a Kelvic, or some sort of magical being? In Elmoch's mind such questions were not relevant, at least not at the moment. He had to capture the animal to know for sure in what sort of terrible conspiracy he had gotten himself into this time. And at this point trying to practice Reimancy would be useless anyways, for his focus was ruined, and his magical energy was now slim. He swiftly walked further, to find the cat once more and attempt to capture it in order to get to know what was going on.

by **Elmoch** on May 19th, 2011, 10:34 pm

The animal swiftly disappeared away from Elmoch's sight, between the legs of several of the people who were walking on a street nearby. Elmoch scratched his beard. "Well now..." he began thinking, "where could this animal have gotten itself into?" He deeply analyzed his surroundings, but was unable to locate any cats, only Sylirans. "People, everywhere." He stood there thinking for a chime. "Wait a chime! Of course! He's morphed into a humanoid form, that must be it!" Elmoch jumped into the street and began looking deeply at every single person nearby in the eyes. "This man doesn't look like a feline magician at all, nor that woman. But there is this blue skinned guy, and..."

His line of thought was suddenly interrupted when his gaze deviated from the Akalak and stumbled upon a young woman, that caught his attention for some reason. "I can see it into her eyes, she is hiding something! She is trying to deceive me!" he whispered to himself just after the girl launched him a quick glance that showed a glimpse of suspicion and perhaps even fear. For Elmoch that was enough proof to conclude that she was the one he had been looking for, she must have been the cat. He ran over to her, immediately receiving a look of disgust and disapproval from her.

He then grasped her on the shoulders and began yelling. "Reveal yourself, creature! I know who you are, you can't fool me with such petty tricks! There is no longer a point for you to hide yourself under this disguise!" The girl now seemed quite scared and started screaming, which ended up alerting a guard who was patrolling nearby. The armor-clad man quickly approached to confront Elmoch. "What do you think you are doing!? Let go of the lady!" ordered the guard, and Elmoch complied. When released from Elmoch's hands, the woman rubbed her hands against her sleeves, as if trying to clean herself from the contact she had had with the miserable-looking man. She began whining to the guard, and he now demanded an explanation from Elmoch, who seemed a bit confused about the turn of events.

"Well, that woman..." Elmoch hesitated for a moment, but then continued his attempt to explain his plight, "that woman is actually a magical cat, and she was stalking me just a few chimes ago!" The woman started laughing shamelessly, and the guard struggled to keep a serious expression on his face. Elmoch was rather serious, and probably for this the guard seemed pitiful. "Look, just leave the citizens alone. If I catch you disturbing the peace here again, I will make sure to get you punished. Now move along!"

Elmoch nodded at his words, and upon turning to walk away, already hopeless of persecuting his spy, he saw the cat on the brick floor, not far from there. He quickly rushed to the cat, and at this time he was actually successful at catching the animal. The cat barely resisted Elmoch's grasp as it was carried away, however, and not long after that the both were back to the place where they had first met. There Elmoch looked at his surroundings, making sure that there were no bystanders around.