[East Wing] Guiding Glyphes (Open to all Glyphing Students)

[Kaeson Dakano]

4th of Summer, 512 AV

"AH-CHOO!" Kaeson sneezed, tiredly rubbing his watering eyes. Sighing, Kaeson wiped his nose and began to massage the growing pressure between his temples. Since the turn of the season, Kaeson hadn't really been feeling himself. He had been growing tired much easily, every sniffle becoming a sneeze, and had been fighting the beginnings of a headache. "Of course, all of th -- th --, AH-CHOO," Kaeson sighed again, blowing his nose on an already disgusting handkerchief, "this right as classes start," he grumbled to himself.

Originally, he hadn't paid much attention to his symptoms, and was paying for his own negligence with what Kaeson assumed to be the beginnings of a summer flu. Nothing too serious, at least nothing a little yarrow couldn't fix. In fact, on his way to his Glyphing class, Kaeson had managed to stop by to see his old herbalism professor, in hopes of obtaining some of the medicinal plant. Luckily for Kaeson, a good chunk of the student body seemed to have been suffering the same symptoms and Kaeson had managed to get away with a small bottle of yarrow syrup. Slowly, Kaeson took a swig from the phial containing a murky yellow liquid, quite disappointed the syrup's taste matched it's appearance. Making a face, Kaeson took another drink, hoping to speed up the healing process.

Feeling slightly better, Kaeson made his way down the east wing of the university, taking care to notice the classroom numbers. "23...24...25...and 26," Kaeson said to himself as he opened the classroom door. Choosing a seat in the front, Kaeson quickly sat down and pulled an empty notebook out of his pack, as well as a quill and a vial of ink.
...
"Good afternoon, class. You may address me as Professor Moara, and I will be your glyphing professor this summer session."

The professor held herself with a cool confidence, speaking to the class with a polite and formal tone. The older woman wore her greying hair in an expertly tied bun, not one strand out of place.

"I expect you will treat me and my chosen subject with the upmost respect, as I fully intend to treat you. It is extremely important, or so I feel, that we come to an understanding to how a student will act in my class. While I encourage and expect questions, I will not tolerate any interruptions while I am speaking -- not only is it highly rude," Professor Moara paused momentarily, perhaps to force a certain level of gravity onto the situation, "but it is incredibly disrespectful to those students who are here to learn. I also expect each and every one of you to come to class prepared. It is quite unfortunate I have experience students that come to class without quill, ink, or assignment. These students will be asked to leave." She said smiling.

"Right, now on to class..."

OOCFeel free to control Professor Moara in any way, I imagined her as completely OCD and extremely formal, but she is relatively deaf (I would imagine from overgiving from Auristics) so we will more then likely be able to get away with talking at a low level

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock was still pretty beat up. Broken hand, aching foot, bruised ribs, and a black eye from two days ago that wasn't close to fading yet. It was hard to walk, hard to get out of bed even. But she had classes to attend, whether she liked it or not. So she strapped herself into her magic crutches, climbing carefully into the supports. She rested her arms on the support pieces, and strapped the leather straps across her chest and over her shoulders. Then, touching the metal disks on each side, she piloted them out the door and walked them up with lurching steps until she reached the University. This wasn't an uncommon sight for the teachers and students; up until five days ago, she had spent a few weeks riding the crutches to school nearly every day. She had thought herself better enough to not need them anymore, up until she got beat up by a thief a couple of days ago. She lurched into class late, just in time for the words, " will not tolerate any interruptions while I am speaking --" The class stopped and stared at her for a moment as she made her way to a seat, the teacher giving her a stern look. Tock just looked at her and shrugged; it wasn't like it was her fault she was in such bad shape lately. She climbed out of her crutches, fell into a chair, and weakly pulled another chair over so she could put her feet up. She needed rest, and if the teacher had a problem with her lounging in class, Tock would be happy to take her shirt off and show her the bruises all over her chest and ribs. The teacher began etching some very basic Glyphs on the chalkboard, and Tock pulled out her papers and quill, groaning in pain at the effort it took to reach into her backpack. The chalk paused in its motion across the board until Tock stopped whimpering, the teacher giving her an annoyed look. She scowled at the woman, not liking the looks she was getting. Slowly and left handed, she started etching the runes down, copying what the teacher had drawn on the blackboard. She didn't recognize these, but then, she only knew about four Glyphs so far. She waited for the teacher to begin explaining them, focusing for now on copying their forms as carefully and precisely as possible.

[Wrenmae]

Wrenmae doodled on his supplied paper, dipping his ink and drawing out long curving lines across the sheet. They had no place, no meaning, more the doodles of a mind set on other things. Around him, the student body swallowed back symptoms and minor ailments while trying to focus on the teacher who was preparing her notes near the lectern. After eleven years, the Blight had become a background to the storyteller, more a consistent sniffling in his ear rather than the guilt-ridden curse he’d thought it while younger. Honestly, how much could he possibly beat himself up for it? He had no power to control it, no ability to alter its course or mitigate its effects…short of becoming a hermit, there was no way to stop it. Well, he’d chosen to forgo the life of the completely ostracized, and so here he was. Wrenmae blew a strand of hair from his face with a noise akin to a sigh, swirling the pen tip around on the paper in alternating circles. When the professor began speaking, he looked up with interest and stared at the runes on the chalkboard. They were alien to him, just shapes, but he could almost instinctually glean their meaning. Rather than question her approach, he drew them down near the bottom of his paper, struggling with the thin and delicate lines, working to produce a design that at least somewhat matched the glyphs she’d done. Seidaku had taught him that glyphing was an instinctual thing rather than an exact science. There were no standard glyphs anymore, but mages seemed to instinctually be able to tell the glyphing process from the shapes drawn by complete strangers. There was an interesting connection there, some sort of inherent Djed connection between those who channeled it…but it wasn’t really Wren’s strong suite to research. Sure, it interested him, but how long would it take to make some guesses based on that hypothesis? Years? Decades? Certainly longer than he planned on staying in one place. The glyphs took time to create. He turned the paper over in order to make use of the back side. Unfortunately, he did so too quickly and smeared ink over his desk. Closing his eyes, Wrenmae promised himself he’d be more careful in the future. Tock had arrived late, as she seemed to consistently as far as class was concerned. The storyteller made a special note to avoid looking back at her, bending even father over his own glyphs and trying to ignore her presence. The woman was a plague to him now, ironic considering his effect on her. She represented the single most damning instance of his overgiving since he got to Zeltiva. Wrenmae had no idea if she still hated him, but he imagined so. His nose still hurt, the bruise fading but still darkening his skin. From what he’d heard about Tock, mostly through the rumblings of students, she was an impulsive and stubborn girl, reputed for her temper. He wanted to apologize again, he really did. But it was almost counterproductive to be in the same room with her, much less speak. Kaeson was busy in the front row and Wrenmae cursed himself for not grabbing a seat beside the animator. The magic Kaeson studied was enamoring to the mage, almost to the point of borderline obsession. He tempered that desire with a firm reminder that the Sweet Whispers were likely part of the cause, but the idea of imbuing life into objects that could not get sick appealed to him. Friends that did not keel over and die…certainly Vayt couldn’t get mad at him for that. The teacher was speaking again and when she paused, Wrenmae finally snapped back into reality. She was staring at him, eyebrow raised, hand on her hip. “Well, Mr...." She trailed off, glancing briefly at her roster, "Wilmot?” She asked, “Did you find the answer to my question in your jaunt through imagination?” Wrenmae blinked, panicked, spilled ink over his hands as he sat back straight and thrust both hands over his work. Laughter followed. The teacher sighed, shaking her head as Wrenmae meekly answered, “N-no… Sorry.” Before she turned to the rest of the class. “Tell me, class, does the shape of the glyph matter? What If I were to draw this glyph backwards? Or this without the curve,” she erased the curve and drew a line on one of the glyphs, “Do you think that would ruin its ability to hold a spell?” Wrenmae looked down at his ink smeared hands, ashamed. Part of him wanted to get up and leave, but he’d have to pass by Tock. That and that alone kept him rooted in his seat. She had crutches, and although she might have fooled the rest of the class into thinking they were to aid her walking, Wrenmae knew the truth, it burned in his mind like a brand. They were weapons. Clobbering weapons, cunningly designed as aids. He would not be fool enough to get into their range.

[Kaeson Dakano]

Kaeson's patience was wearing thin. He had been trying to perfectly copy Professor Moara's glyphs, but has so far been unsuccessful. Professor Moara's delicately drawn glyphs became ugly and distorted at Kaeson's clumsy hands. Every line became a scribble, every curve a sharp angle. The few glyphs Kaeson had managed to recreate were sharp and awkward, perhaps mimicking the growing anger he was slowly associating with the particular arcane art.

Seeing Professor Moara otherwise occupied, Kaeson managed a quick glance around the classroom. No one else seemed to be having as much difficulty as he was, anyway. Looking around, Kaeson spotted Tock on the other side of the room, and offered the injured gagdeteer a supportive smile. The young animator's eyes then fell upon the storyteller, Wrenmae, and quickly mouthed a 'hello'. Kaeson hadn't seen the the storyteller since they spent an evening with the Nuit, Anselm, and was glad to see that Wrenmae had been spared the flu that had claimed so many of the other students.

Turning back to his glyphs, Kaeson decided to start again with a new glyph. "Abase," Kaeson murmured to himself, remembering the glyph's corresponding word in the ancient tongue. His own limited knowledge on Nader Canoch was basic at best, but it did allow him to translate the meanings of some of the glyphs Professor Moara had listed on the board. Abase was one of the more simpler glyphs to draw, consisting of three squiggles, each on top of the other.

Slowly, Kaeson began to recreate the Abase glyph, determined to see it exactly as the one the professor had drawn. Dipping his quill in the ink, Kaeson carefully drew three descending squiggles. Comparing his own Abase glyph with that of the professor's, Kaeson frowned. Again, his own glyphs stoop sharp and aggressive even, while Professor Moara's were drawn gracefully. It bothered Kaeson immensely -- that he couldn't copy such a simple glyph.

Hearing laughter, Kaeson turned around to find the source. The young Mage saw the story teller covered in ink, clearly embarrassed by the situation he found himself in. Kaeson turned to Professor Moara, ready to answer her question in Wrenmae's sted.

"Of course it matters," Kaeson said, his tone implying he had taken offense from the question. "Glyphing is a world magic, so precision and repetition in the ritual are everything. Of course the magic wouldn't work if you had drawn a curve instead of a line, or even a oval instead of a circle. Obviously, whatever the caster intention was, it would never be successful unless the glyphs were drawn perfectly." Kaeson finished, and quickly glanced around the class silently daring anyone to contradict him. World magic was easy -- if you followed the directions precisely. There were rituals to be followed, patterns to observe, blood to spill; everything in Animation had an order, and in Summoning as well, why would any of the other world magics be different?

Professor Moara smiled, opening her mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again. No, she had a better idea.

"A very sure answer, Mr...Dakano, but I believe there might be some other opinions in the class. So, class, does everyone agree with Mr. Dakano's answer? Or are there some who believe him wrong?"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Nah, 'e's wrong," Tock said without looking up from her own drawings. While the forms of the Glyphs were unfamiliar to her, she was a rather skilled drawer, and thus copying down a form that was right in front of her was quite easy. Memorizing the Glyphs so she didn't need her notes, or discovering ways to links several Glyphs together, that was something she still needed to learn. But seeing what was drawn on the board and mimicking it, that was no challenge. She didn't realize the teacher was staring at her until the woman cleared her throat. Tock looked up, hoping the teacher wasn't about to ask her to come up to the board. She could barely walk, and was quite glad that a Glyphing class was something she could do while remaining in her seat. She met the teacher's eyes, but didn't know what she wanted. After a long moment the woman asked, "Miss Zipporah, would you care to elaborate?" "Tock," Tock replied, looking back down at her paper and carefully re-etching the Glyph once more, trying to memorize it. "Excuse me?" the teacher asked, obviously not having expected that answer. "My name's 'Tock,'" Tock said gruffly. "Ain't no 'Miss' nothin', aye?" The teacher sighed and said, "You haven't yet answered my question, 'Tock'." Tock looked up at the board, then over at Kaeson, then over her shoulder at Wren, not really giving a damn if he looked a fool with the ink all over himself. She looked back up at the teacher, not sure what else she was supposed to say, and just said, "Huh?" The teacher sighed once more and said, "You told us Mister Dakano was wrong." Tock nodded. "Aye, 'e is." She didn't bother to offer Kaeson any apology for contradicting him. When someone was wrong, they were wrong. Another long moment passed until the teacher, in an annoyed tone, asked, "Can you tell us why you believe he is wrong?" Tock rolled her eyes. "Well ya didn't done ask 'at!" she protested. Some people could be so slow. "Ain't done gotta been done the same way, cause she's like math. Ya can do 'er any way ya want, long as the end result is the same." The teacher arched an eyebrow, clearly not expecting quite this response. "Please, continue," she said. Tock sighed. Why did she need to explain this to everyone? She hated laying things out step by step. It wasn't how her mind worked. Whether it be math, blueprints, or magic, she saw the end result, not the steps. She just assumed everyone would know the steps along the way. "Oy, ya got all 'ese Glyphs, 'ey done different things, aye? But so as 'ey don't need ta does 'em all in one way. Ya change it, she should work jus' fine, 'long as what ya done balances 'er out wit' another one, aye?" She looked around, thinking that explanation should suffice. No one seemed to get it. Tock sighed again and said, "Oy, so, lessay 'at Glyph, she's like a 'four,' aye? Awright, so ya can done 'as a four, easy peasy. O' ya can 'as two plus two. O' one plus three o' three plus one. O' two times two, o' eight divides two, o' sixteen divides four, o' eleven in base three, aye? Ain't done matters none 'ow ya gets 'er, she's still a four. So's as if'n ya done draws 'er backwards, she does 'er negative, o' whatever. An' if'n ya done takes the curve off, ya jus' done gotta add somethin' someplace else what fer ta make 'er still done the same thing, aye? Aye." Of course, she didn't know what Glyphs would be able to replace that curve. Glyphing seemed to follow some mathematical principles, from the little bit she knew about it, but she didn't know the formulas yet. But the teacher could probably show them ten ways to change the Glyph on the board around that would all give the same effect, just by using difference combinations, different formulas.

[Wrenmae]

Closing her eyes for a moment, the teacher seemed to ponder what Tock had said. Returning to the board, she drew another design beneath a focusing rune, pointing to it without speaking. It was vastly different looking than the one above it and yet to anyone with a hint of glyphing in their repertoire, it would somehow seem familiar. "Correct. Just as Miss-....Just as Tock has said," She paused over the word Tock, as if chewing on something particularly bitter that she was unable to spit out, "Sometimes glyphs will look different depending on how they were learned and on the wizard using them. I don't want you to feel confined to my particular glyphs. The ones I'm teaching you are the basic glyphs found in the once common Alahean textbooks. Glyphing was a bit more common then, and some of these focus glyphs were standard among users." Pacing around the room, she examined the notes the students were writing, pausing briefly to smack one on the back of his head, stunning him from a doze, and coldly glaring at two girls gossiping in the back. When order had returned, she continued. "I could have you practice drawing all day, but I felt for this lesson we should try something a bit more...hands on. Tell me, does anyone here have a complimentary personal magic they are capable of?" Silence. Silence reigned over them all. "Don't be shy, I assume you all have some other form of magic you're using. Glyphing learned solely on its own is mostly useless. Without a magic to channel, I'm just teaching you shapes." Slowly, Wrenmae held up his hand, along with a few others. "Good," She said shortly, nodding at them all, "Please come up to the front of the room. Bring a piece of paper and draw one of these focus glyphs. We're going to use them as a conduit for your magic and see if our doodling worked." Shyly, Wrenmae got to his feet and tore a piece of paper, taking it with him. "Kind of a cold bitch," Zan observed quietly, "A lot like the Irylid. Try to talk to one. I dare you, just TRY. Suckers don't know how to have emotion, like it's all frozen up inside of em. Bet that's why we don't get along." Wrenmae nodded absently, to Zan, but mostly to himself. He drew the focus glyph the way it was taught, running through his list of magical abilities and one that would not take much from him. The Void. He'd use the Void. There was something peaceful about the premeditation required to open it. Before beginning, he glanced around to see who else had volunteered, what other kinds of magic they would use. Everyone seemed nervous...wizards, by and whole, were a suspicious lot. No one wanted to reveal their abilities without good reason...and most of the class remained seated. Maybe he should have as well. Too late.

[Kaeson Dakano]

Kaeson hated being wrong. He hated being corrected, especially in public.

Kaeson grumbled underneath his breath, shooting nasty looks at the gadgeteer. "I couldn't have been completely wrong," Kaeson thought, a pathetic and desperate attempt to nurse his own ego. His eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed at the board, trying to find any similarities between the two focus glyphs. "They're not...so different," Kaeson whispered to himself, still determined to find some shred of evidence to back his point. It helped the second glyphed was easily distinguished as a focus glyph, while remaining vastly different from the original glyph Professor Moara drew. Kaeson was able to know it as a focus glyph, even before the professor had said anything -- Kaeson would just assume it was because the looked alike, even if they hadn't.

"Basic glyphs...common...Alahean...much more common," Kaeson muttered as he quickly scribbled down notes. Dipping his quill in ink, Kaeson carefully began to retrace the focus glyphs. While he hadn't completely agreed with Professor Moara's idea of how glyphs should be used, the young animator couldn't argue with his own results. Kaeson found it much easier to use a simple square as a focus glyph, compared to what Professor Moara had drawn on the board. Slowly, Kaeson etched own a small square with a label identifying as a focus glyph in both common and the ancient tongue.

Looking up from his notes, Kaeson found the classroom in dead silence. The young animator hadn't heard the question the first time, instead only raising his hand because the girl beside him was.

Lining up, Kaeson choose to stand next to Wrenmae, giving him a smile before he started to produce res.

Kaeson slowly began forcing the translucent golden res from his glyphed mark hand, surprised at the magic's fluidity. Reimancy wasn't a magic he felt especially proficient with, and could only clumsily produce any res. Now, his left hand marked by focus, Kaeson found it much easier to produce and control the golden translucent. Kaeson head began to throb as it had on occasion the last couple of days. The pain had caught him off guard, losing control of the golden res for a second.

He assured himself it was nothing, knowing the pain would leave as suddenly as it had come. A wiser person would've stopped, choosing not to risk what may have been an early symptom of overgiving, but Kaeson continued. His own focus was swaying, the golden res becoming harder and harder to control. Still he pushed on, not wanting to stop. Kaeson willed the res to encircle itself, becoming a small orb. He was losing focus, he was tiring quickly and the classroom around him began to dim.

Kaeson managed to force the res to transmute, willing an almost perfect sphere of marble into existence.

Then he fainted.

OOCSorry about the delay, will try to keep on top on my posts in the future

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock continued taking notes and copying the Glyphs, but when the teacher asked who would come to the front of the room, she frowned. She looked at her crutches, and did NOT want to climb back into them. Like Kaeson, she was rather beat up at the moment. So she just told the teacher, "I's does 'er from 'ere..." Looking over how beaten and bruised Tock clearly was, the professor nodded and said, "Yes, that's fine." She sketched out the focus according to the professor's example, with a couple of corrections offered by Moara along the way. Once it was done, she focused on the only type of magic she could think to use in this situation: auristics. It would be impractical to try to perform a work of Animation in the class right now, and they didn't have the lab equipment in here needed for Magecraft. She concentrated, her head aching with the pain she was already in, and focused a slim flow of Djed towards the page. She continued for several minutes, trying to get a read off the paper's aura. She knew simple paper wouldn't have much to sense, but she should have been able to sense something. Tock frowned. "She ain't workin'..." she muttered. She stopped concentrating, releasing the Djed flow. Then, a moment later, it came back up at her in a rush. Her eyes sparkled with blurry afterimages, as if she'd just stared right into the sun. She got a strong sense of the paper, the texture of it, the dampness of the ink, and a slight green image that hinted at the plant it once came from. She rubbed at her eyes in confusion, and the Professor stepped forward. "It's a good thing you didn't try that with Reimancy," she said, shaking her head in concern. "Tell me what you did wrong?" Tock groaned, looking up at the teacher. She couldn't make out anything more than a blur. "I unno," she replied. "Weren't workin'..." The professor took on her lecturing tone again and explained, "You drew a focus, which stores and then reflects back any magic sent into it. The more you channel into it, the more it will release. And without any further Glyphs to guide it, it released all at once. Furthermore, you lacked a barrier Glyph to hold it in, which is why it released all at once the moment you cut off your Djed flow..." Tock sat back in her chair, trying to concentrate enough to memorize all this. Then she heard a thud, and looked over, unable to make out enough with her blurred vision to realize Kaeson had just fallen to the ground. It took her a few more minutes before her vision cleared up and she was able to see what was going on.

[Wrenmae]

Standing in front of the classroom, glyph drawn on a piece of paper, Wrenmae gulped. All those eyes watched him, hung on him, caressed him in the most uncomfortable sense. Once he’d been comfortable turning antics for crowds like these, but these days he shrank away from attention like some excitable mouse. His hands trembled, threatening to tear the paper between them in their frenzied gyrations. Taking a breath, he placed the paper on the ground in front of him. It was like Seidaku taught him, really, no more complex than that. The Djed went into the empty riverbeds, flowing along the constructed lines of inky darkness to create some sort of lasting effect. There was little he could think of performing that was of note, perhaps reimancy? No, surely the wind would serve as more of an annoyance than anything else. Hypnotism and morphing was out of the question…perhaps… He had it. Kneeling near the paper, he placed his hands beside the page and then lifted his right hand, laying it gently on the lines. Up came the welling of Djed, like golden warm water rushing from his body. He thought of the calm within nothingness, the shape of the darkness he had come to know better in his time between Alvadas and here. That most potent void, the shadow of Mizahar itself…and yet somehow more. Out came his Djed, trickling along the contours until it collected within the shape, a simple one noted to increase the longevity of his spell, to give meaning to his frenzied efforts and refine the black sense of nothing he attempted to dredge. To understand the void, one had to understand perspective. It wasn’t easy to know the shape and make of a realm that was the antithesis of oneself. For Mizaharians, they based themselves on the prospect of something. Efforts were rewarded with consequences both malignant and benign, but always filled with a sense of purpose, of mass. The Void eschewed these properties, consuming, ever consuming, and never full. What of the things that fell into its cavernous maw? Did they vanish? Were they nothing as well? Perhaps Mizahar itself was the tattered dreaming of a being at the verge of waking and the Void awaited them all when fantasy gave way to reality. Certainly disconcerting. Pushing the djed along the pathway, Wrenmae called the tiny portal into existence, floating over the piece of paper like a whirling black dot, opaque beyond belief and beyond reason. It consumed the dust of the air, drew the attention of the students, but only for a moment. There was a thump, and Kaeson was on the ground. Forgetting his project, Wrenmae stood and dashed to the young man, turning him over gently and holding out his hands to clear a space. Students crowded around him, murmuring about overgiving, damage to his soul, death, and worse. Directly near his side, Wrenmae could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the pallor of his skin. He put too much effort into the magic, it seemed, and had fallen ill as a result. “Stop crowding, stop crowding,” the teacher snapped irritably, “And enough of those rumors. Mr. Dakano overexerted himself, nothing more. Give him some room and he’ll come around.” She pushed students away from Kaeson and Wrenmae with the stern superiority of control and finally nudged Wrenmae away, kneeling beside Kaeson. “Mr. Dakano,” she said, “Mr. Dakano. Can you hear me?” A sigh. “Mr. Sek, would you mind taking Mr. Dakano with you to the infirmary. Tell them to give him some cold water and send him on his way. I expect you to practice these glyphs tonight and tomorrow.” Wrenmae nodded apprehensively, looking anywhere but her eyes before helping Kaeson to his feet and pushing down the aisle. Behind him, the void lay open, sputtering and swirling, till the paper was consumed by a flash of light. And the spark of darkness was no more.

[Cascade]

Adventurer's Loot Kaeson's Loot : Skill XP Reward Drawing +1 Reimancy +1 Glyphing +2 Lore: Yarrow Syrup: Taste Professor Moara: Glyphing Professor Glyphing: Abase Overgiving From Reimancy Glyphing Class: Hands-On Activities Wren's Loot : Skill XP Reward Voiding +2 Drawing +1 Glyphing +2 Lore: Professor Moara: Glyphing Professor Kaeson Dakano: Classmate Glyphing Class: Hands-On Activities Zan's Opinion About Moara It was cut short, but the collaboration between you guys in this class thread was nice. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!