Post by Lone Dancer on Nov 6, 2022 5:19:17 GMT
Chapter 4
First Lessons
The small hooded guy, Hawthorne, clasped their hands together. His voice was smooth compared to the earlier gravel of the Guild Master.
“Well, this is excellent. Glad to meet you both. We should get moving, so as to not delay. As your new instructor, for the time being, I would like it if you both introduced yourselves. That way, we can begin familiarizing ourselves.”
He began leading them away from the main chamber, down to a side door. In contrast to his quiet steps, Melissa’s walk was clanging thunder, metal beating against the stone. The door opened as they approached as they entered the new room, with Melissa ducking under the doorframe.
The room had stairs that led down, and so they descended. Magical lanterns attached to the wall offered an affable glow, keeping the cool darkness at bay.
Hawthorne now had his head up, but like how Melissa’s visor blocked her face from view, the shadows of the cloak hid his. The only thing Carlos could spot was the glint of grey eyes. A memory flashed in his head, but Carlos snuffed it out. Hawthorne was too short.
Jade stretched out her hand while introducing herself. Hawthorne took her hand and shook it, while Melissa stood back and made no sound beyond the clanking of her steps.
“You part of the Allrun family?” Hawthorne asked, as Jade only gave her first name. She nodded.
“How could you tell?”
“Your family has a very distinct… aura to them.”
Jade gave him a wayward glance, but Hawthorne either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Melissa remained quiet. Carlos took it she wasn’t a person of many words. If any.
“Well, what about you?” Hawthorne addressed Carlos now.
“Carlos. Carlos Smithingway.”
“A Smithingway, eh?”
“You know my family?” Carlos paused at this; he didn’t think anyone was aware of his lineage. He barely knew anything, so answers would be much appreciated.
“Not at all; I just think it’s an interesting name.” Hawthorne’s words quietly crushed Carlos, who was looking forward to an answer to a question they didn’t even realize they had.
“Well, glad to meet you both. I’m Hawthorne Blackspear. And if I recall correctly, the kind lady behind us is Melissa Ironblood.” Hawthorne’s words finally got a reaction from the giant. She gave a creaking thumbs up, before dropping her hand back down.
They were now finally down the rather long stairway, and into a hallway with rows of doors branching off. Strolling down, Hawthorne guided them to whatever destination he had in mind. As he walked, he continued to speak.
“Excellent. Well, Jade, I believe you are a Cultivator, correct? And Carlos here is a Mage.”
“True Elementalist, actually.”
This managed caused to Hawthorne to pause, and even stoic Melissa missed a step. Carlos smiled internally. He knew this already, and it was one of Jade’s greatest secrets. He had a similar reaction when he first learned it a few years back.
“Following in the steps of your Grandfather, I see.”
“It’s the goal, at least.”
Carlos could tell Jade was a bit distracted by something by the way she was tapping her leg.
“If you can make it half as far as he did, you’d be a legend.”
Jade was about to say something in response but bit back her words.
“Yah…”
“Well, I take it Melissa will be thrilled to teach you, though I’m not sure how extensively your own family taught you.”
“Nothing about fighting. They wanted me to stay away from that.” Jade’s answer was brisk. Her words placed some stuff into context for Carlos, of why she didn’t want to be seen with her torn clothes by her family.
“Ah. Melissa would be able to teach you much, then.”
Jade only nodded this time. For the first time, Melissa herself spoke. Her voice was distorted by the helmet she wore, but it was distinctly feminine, despite a low timbre.
“As Hawthorne says, I would be glad to teach you the arts.”
“Thank you.”
Melissa snorted, the sound ringing out from her helmet.
“Thank the Guild Master and not me.”
Jade nodded again. Hawthorne now addressed Carlos.
“To be blunt, you are clearly inexperienced. Your earlier display revealed that quite well.”
Carlos flushed at the memory.
“In your favor, however, was the fact you broke out of your first Ego High quickly. Not everyone does. Makes for great entertainment, however! We here at the Defiant Guild prefer those with control over their magic, not the other way around.”
Carlos looked back at Melissa. The brass giant nodded at his gaze. He tried to ignore the back part of his mind that purred at getting called better than others. Hawthorne raised his hand suddenly, making everyone abruptly stop.
“Ah. Here we are, our new training room. Don’t worry about memorizing the route; we’ll be dealing with that soon enough. What’s more important is we get it cleaned up!”
Hawthorne faced the door he made them all stop at. It was a simplistic wooden one, solid in construction. The doorknob, or what Carlos could see of it before Hawthorne twisted it open, was made of iron.
The room it led into was pretty spacious for being underground. Its dimensions favored length over width, however. There were various desks, tables, chairs, and benches, made from various kinds of wood and stone. But each one was covered in a layer of dust, so thick Carlos was actively trying not to inhale it.
Illuminating the place were similar lanterns to those in the stairway and hall, giving off an orange/yellow glow. The floor was interspersed with some rugs, but like the furniture, it was also drenched in a coat of dust.
“First and easy lesson of practical magic. Use it to clean stuff!” Hawthorne gestured to the dusty interior of the place. The message was not lost on the two of them, and they headed inside. Carlos kept his breathing shallow so as not to coat his lungs, but it felt like a losing battle. This place was a health hazard in the making.
Trying to draw his focus without keeling over and coughing, he considered his options. The first thing he could think of was a broom or one of those dusting things he read about that maids used. Maybe Jade knew about those unless she didn’t have maids. He didn’t know.
But the problem with the broom is where would he sweep up the dust? But what about a vacuum? He had seen one before, and from what he recalled, it could work. The problem was he didn’t know exactly how it worked. But he didn’t need to.
He was drafting up plans in his mind, a large tube capable of sucking up the dust connected to a large container in which he could keep the dust. The idea was hazy, but the more he considered it, and shaped it in his head, he could see the potential.
He just didn’t know if he could do it. While yes, Mages theoretically could do almost anything they could imagine, the universe pushed back at their actions. The more out there something was, the more the pushback the Mage had to suffer. Too much pushback, and they snapped and went Ego Mad.
There were methods to make conjuring things somewhat easier, or how to do it efficiently, but Carlos knew none of them. It was just him and whatever he could currently toss at the universe. But he had no better ideas.
Pushing out both his hands to act as a focus, he attempted to conjure the shape in his mind into reality. Between his outstretched arms, an afterimage of something began to form, but unlike his mind, it was fraught with cracks that were bleeding Arcane.
The very act of conjuring something brought him euphoric joy, the idea that he was a god began to bubble forth once more. It made his will stronger, but he wanted to take it further. Why stop here at a small vacuum construct? He could summon one large enough to suck up all the dust in one fell swoop.
Yes, he could envision it now. Truly, a stroke of genius on his part. He could feel the pressure of reality against his mind, but what was that to him? He could feel his eyes begin to water at the sight of what he was creating.
Originally, his first plan of a construct was small enough to fit between his arms. It started with cracks, but those smoothed over with time as it solidified. But now, he went bigger. The construct was now as tall as he was, a large cylinder and a tube snaking out from the top. He heard voices behind him, but he ignored the sounds of the lesser. He had to concentrate, after all.
Nonetheless, his concentration was shattered when a metal gauntlet yanked at his shoulder, pulling him away. The half-formed construct fizzled out with a *snap*! And it hurt. It was like a rubber band snapped back straight into his mind, and it broke him free from his own Ego. Clutching at his face, his head pounded hard.
Pulling his hands away, they were covered in warm blood, the iron scent overpowering. The sight of it brought cold sobriety. Jade was next to him, holding him steady as he wanted to collapse from the migraine he felt.
His vision was blurry, and his face was moist from blood dripping from his orifices. He could feel a cold metallic flask press to his lips, and he resisted at first, but drank when the first drops of sweet nectar hit his tongue.
It was like a deluge of a warm summer evening, or being wrapped up by the fireplace on a stormy night, cuddled up with a good book, or out in nature, meditating. All fused together in one comfy package. His migraine began to fade, his vision was growing clear. He felt like floating off into the ether, gravity unable to hold him down.
“Easy now, don’t push yourself.” He could hear Hawthorne’s voice from his left. He craned his head sideways to look at the hooded figure, trying to crack a smile. Jade finally let go of him with a nod from Hawthorne, and he stumbled forward, trying to catch his step.
He took a deep breath in, and pointedly ignored the droplets of blood on the stone floor, intermingling with the dust. Speaking of dust, he began hacking out a cough after some entered his lungs.
“Damn it, Carlos, you should’ve known better than that,” Jade spoke from behind him as he was trying to get his thoughts in order. She sounded worried despite her words, which he would’ve found touching if he wasn’t currently riding out the end of a high and was too distracted.
“Don’t blame him too much. Ego is a hell of a drug, and it makes one wildly overestimate their abilities and not being able to feel the pushback until it’s too late.” Hawthorne responded to her concern.
“With the elixir I gave him, he’ll be back on his feet in no time. For now, just give him a minute to reorient.”
Carlos felt somewhat woozy, but he was stabilizing the more he stood. He was starting to really hate the dust, however now, as he couldn’t take deep breaths thanks to it. Wheezing out a few more dust caused coughs, he started to feel like himself.
Like before, his Ego was whispering for him to embrace it again, to return to that world where he was a king. But seeing how that belief almost got him to this state, he wasn’t exactly enthused to re-enter his delusion.
“Well Carlos, I hope this was a proper lesson on why you don’t let your Ego control you. If Melissa here didn’t snap you out of it, you would’ve knocked yourself out, or worse. You made your construct too large initially. You want to start small, as it takes less Ego to do so. You went too big, and so your Ego made it even bigger.”
He nodded, still facing downwards, the water in his eyes now just tears from the coughing. It was a lesson he would not be forgetting.
“Well, there’s still a room to clean, and as you’ve noticed, there’s still plenty of dust to be rid of. So try again with that idea you had, but start small. Build it up by chunks, rather than do the entire thing at once.”
Carlos shook his head, centering himself once more. Standing up, he met Jade’s gaze. He gave a thumbs up to indicate he was alright. He was afraid of speaking, not wanting to give the dust any more opportunity to enter his body.
Taking Hawthorne’s advice into consideration, like before, he stretched his arms in concentration. However, this time, he started small. Quite small, in fact. He first started with a circular base, then extended the walls from it to create a tube.
His Ego tried to butt in, but he pushed it down. With how much smaller this construct was, its influence was lesser as he pushed against reality. The thoughts of snapback were slightly worrying, but he was confident that he wouldn’t shatter his mind by just conjuring a simple tube.
Once he had his tube, he drew the shape of the hose in his mind, before attaching it to the currently present tube, segment by segment. It was a slow process, but unlike before, it didn’t have cracks nor bled Arcane.
And more importantly, it didn’t set his Ego up to consume him.
It took him some minutes, but the resulting product was something he was proud of. In his hands was a tube the size of his arm, and at the end of it was a suction hose. The other three in the room watched as he willed it on, and the Arcane construct hummed to life as the hose began to pull in air.
Pointing it towards the dust, he watched with glee as it began to successfully suck up dust and deposit it into the cylinder. Hah! His construct worked!
“A bit slow, but it’s workable. Better than a broom, so well done.” Hawthorne congratulated him. Melissa stayed silent, but Jade gave two thumbs up of encouragement.
“Still, I want this room cleaned quickly, and while it was fun to see you make your first advanced construct, do better.” Those words were slightly crushing, but Carlos bounced back.
Pointing it at the dust once more, he pushed his will into the construct, and encouraged it to suck faster. It did so with a *thwoomp*, and dust began to fly inwards.
The problem was the tube and hose were completely filled up before long, and he only ended up cleaning a small section.
But he wasn’t done yet; he had an idea. Holding onto his construct, he slowly reshaped it to seal off the dust-filled tube. Disconnecting the hose with a slight snap, he now had an arm-shaped pill of dust.
Fun.
He began conjuring a second tube to attach the hose to, and it went by faster than the first as he now had some experience. The very act of magic encouraged itself, but he was staunch on not getting sucked up into an Ego High, and remained wary.
Still, it went off with only a minor hitch, but it was like molding clay to fix a slight sealing issue. He resumed sucking up dust but ran into the same problem of it filling the tube too quickly.
He began conjuring the third tube before Hawthorne stopped him, shaking his head. He pointed towards Jade.
“Alright, your turn. Let’s see what you can do.”
Jade looked at Hawthorne, before glancing back at the room. She took a few strides to move close to where Carlos was. She stood still, and took a form with her hands pressed together. From his vantage point, he could see faded red sparks emit from her arms.
The room began to feel charged, and he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as Jade concentrated. He could swear he felt a slight breeze before Jade snapped her arms forward, palms facing outward. With a whoosh, a veritable wall of wind blasted forward, ruffling Carlos’s hair and clothes, and the robes of Hawthorne. Melissa was unaffected.
Dust shot up into a cloud, but the invisible wall focused it forward. The end result was most of the dust in the room clumped together in a rather uniform pile at the far wall. Hawthorne clapped.
“Well done, well done. Certainly swift. However, it does leave us with the problem of how to dispose of the dust. But need not worry, I’ll take care of that part.”
Hawthorne himself began to walk to the end of the room. While he walked, Arcane sigils inscribed themselves into the very air. They were in various color, the most common being the deep Arcane blue.
“Another good lesson to know is this. Every Mage’s magic is unique to them. It is an expression of their inner world. While Cultivators and Elementalists seek to further their understanding of reality, we Mages conjure our own. Instead of learning the rules, we write our own. We are the author of our own magic.”
As he spoke, the sigils around him began to chime and pulse. Where Jade’s power made the back of his neck prickle, Hawthorne’s made him feel tranquil and at peace. The sigils felt odd for his eyes to look at, imbibed with ideas that left him feeling like he was grasping for fog and mist. The ringing of the sigils composed an ethereal melody. With a rising chorus, light beamed out from every sigil; each pointed at the pile of dust Jade created.
The light they created was oddly pleasing to the eye, a gentle river of raw energy. But where they touched, matter vanished. The light oozed over the dust, and it disappeared. It was a fleeting moment of primordial beauty before the light, and the dust, was gone.
Carlos could faintly hear Melissa snort and comment;
“Show off.”
Personally, he just gained a great appreciation for his new instructor. Because holy shit. Even Jade was having problems with trying to stop her jaw from touching the floor. Hawthorne turned to face them, grey eyes sparkling from underneath the veiling shadow of their hood. He clasped his hands together.
“Alright, now with that done, this place is spiffy enough for Melissa and I to begin properly teaching you both. It would be a great shame to lead you into a scenario where you died because you lacked the know-how.”
Carlos wrestled his awe back under control, and snapped his attention to Hawthorne. Melissa clanged her way to where Hawthorne stood, and singlehandedly dragged one of the tables over to where he was. He thanked the titan with a nod, before conjuring a simple chair to sit down on.
Scooting it forward closer to the desk, Hawthorne gazed at them both. Melissa stood behind him, arm’s crossed.
“Well, shall we begin?”