Lucas' Fortune

by **Anselm** on July 1st, 2012, 3:44 pm

The Nuit gathered up the coins and deposited them in one of the pockets sewn into the inside of his cloak. He produced the bag of bones again and poured the contents into his hand. Then he flipped his hand over and the bones fell on to the table with a clatter. He spoke slowly, as though carefully choosing each word.

“Observe how the bones have fallen into a roughly rectangular pattern,” his raspy voice croaked. “Six rows of three. It takes some practice to learn how to do that consistently. I will leave it to you to master the skill on your own."

He pointed to one of the bones. “Observe the designs carved into the bones. They are complex and varied, are they not? No two designs are exactly the same. As it turns out, this has no meaning at all, except possibly that I happen to like fancy designs. However, if you study them carefully you will discover that there are only two kinds of design. Some of the bones are mostly comprised of curved lines, whereas others are mostly comprised of straight lines. Let us call them 'curves' and 'straights' to distinguish between them. Furthermore, let us assign a value of 3 to the curves and a value of 2 to the straights.

“Now, observe the first row of three," he said, pointing to the first of the six rows. They are all curves. Were we to sum up their values, we would have 3 plus 3 plus 3 for a total of 9. If you consider all possible combinations, you will realize that there are only four possible totals: 6, 7, 8 and 9. Each of these four values has a meaning. For now I will simplify and tell you that 6 and 8 represent broken lines, while 7 and 9 represent solid lines.

"Our first row has a value of 9, which makes it a solid line. The remaining rows have values of 7, 6, 6, 8 and 8, which translates into solid, broken, broken, broken, broken. Thus the six lines are:

Solid
Solid
Broken
Broken
Broken
Broken

“The top set of three – solid, solid, broken – represents wind. The bottom set of three – broken, broken, broken – represents earth. Thus we arrive at the corresponding oracle, which incidentally must always be intoned dramatically, or no one will take you seriously:

Wind above, penetrating, Earth below, receptive.
Gradually progressing in accord with proper timing,
Advancing without impetuosity, with alert observation;
Therefore it is called 'observing'.

He gathered up the bones and put them back into their bag, which then disappeared beneath his cloak. “That, my dear boy, is the mechanics of what I do and how I do it. I believe that concludes the lesson.”

by **Lucas Arias** on July 7th, 2012, 8:42 am

Lucas decided to be a good boy and observed. And then he observed some more. As Anselm informed him that the designs on the bones had no meaning at all, he frowned. He had thought they were glyphs and that the seer had put magic into them. That this was not the case was a little disappointing to be honest. In his opinion a seer should know at least some magic.

Well, at least Anselm didn‘t demand the new cloak he had promised him.

„So I could use triangles and squares instead of straight and curved lines, and it wouldn’t change a thing as long as I assigned the same numbers to them?“ he wondered before he went back to observing the seer again. He understood the thing about solid and broken lines, but there was something else that he couldn’t help but wonder about.

„Is there anything besides wind and fire? And do you just make the oracle up or is there a book of oracles somewhere? I mean, I could make a few dramatic lines up – I’m pretty good at making up stuff – but still …“

He abruptly stopped and made a face as he realized what exactly Anselm had just said.

„Your lesson is not complete yet“, he immediately disagreed. „Besides I just paid you a lot of money. I expect you to teach me properly. You don’t want me to go around telling people the wrong things, do you? I could give fortune tellers all over Mizahar a bad reputation!“

by **Anselm** on July 7th, 2012, 5:36 pm

“Ah,” said the old Nuit. “I said I would teach you the mechanics of what I do and I have done that. I did warn you before hand that there was nothing especially profound or mysterious or secret about it. There are some who make a living with nothing more than what I have given you. Perhaps you had unrealistic expectations.” He reached into the left sleeve of his cloak and scratched at a scab that had recently formed there. It fell off and disappeared somewhere inside his cloak. He didn't bother looking for it. “But now you ask for something quite different. Something considerably more difficult. Something considerably more valuable. Now you ask me to teach you the the oracles themselves. Now you ask for the ancient words of wisdom that were taught to me by my master and which took me years to learn.” He stared out the tent entrance into the distance and his mind wandered again.

“I want to learn the oracles,” Anselm said to Master Ahn.

“There is nothing secret about them. They are free to anyone who wishes to invest the time and effort in learning them. But tell me, Anselm. Why do you want to learn them?”

He thought about this for several minutes while the master waited. Then he said, “I want to understand them so that I can draw on the wisdom they contain.”

“A good answer. Learning the oracles is not especially difficult. There are not that many and they can be committed to memory easily enough. However, understanding them is another matter entirely. It is not so easily done. Nor so quickly.”

“How long will it take?”

“Ten years.”

He brought his mind back to Lucas. “The oracles are not written in any book that I know of,” he said. “And I know of no one else who knows them. But I have sometimes thought about writing them down lest they be lost forever. Perhaps this is as good a time as any.” He waved his hand in the air dismissively.

“Bring me two blank books, a supply of black ink, and several quills. I will transcribe the basic oracles into the books and will give one of them to you. It will cost you an additional twenty gold mizas, which is payment for the time it will take me to write them down. The book will not include the rather large body of knowledge that surrounds each of the oracles. That would require many books. But the oracles themselves contain the wisdom of the ancients which, were you to meditate long and deeply on them, would make you a wise man indeed.”

by **Lucas Arias** on July 11th, 2012, 5:27 am

„No, I didn’t have unrealistic expectations“, Lucas disagreed. „Or maybe I did. I was expecting a proper teacher who actually put some effort into his lesson. Professor Hadrian would never teach such a lesson. I don’t want to be a bad fortune teller. I want to be a good fortune teller.“ He briefly wondered if Hadrian knew fortune telling. He seemed to know a couple of different kinds of magic and spoke several languages, but no, he probably didn’t know that. Fortune telling was probably too unpredictable for him, so Anselm was his only hope of ever learning which kind of sucked.

„Years?“ His eyes nearly dropped out of their sockets as the seer informed him how long it had taken him to learn the oracles. He really, really wanted to uncover the secrets of Anselm’s trade, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend years doing so. Lucas was quite an impatient young man.

As Anselm made his demands, the failed squire frowned. And then he frowned some more. „I’ll bring you the books, the ink and the quills“, he agreed. „But don’t you think that an additional twenty golden mizas are a bit too much? A course at the university isn’t that expensive. I initially offered you twenty golden mizas – for everything, so I’m willing to give you another ten.“

„I’ll already have to pay for the books and all that stuff. You demanded five silver mizas for a simple fortune telling. Twenty golden mizas should be more than enough to compensate for the time you spend writing those books and leave a little extra. Maybe I’d be willing to give you that new cloak I mentioned before though.“

He grinned. In his opinion it was hard to argue with that kind of reasoning. Why, the fake male Konti was probably making a lot more money than he would normally have made!

by **Anselm** on July 15th, 2012, 1:06 am

The empty page waited patiently for him to begin. He took up a quill, dipped it into the small bottle of black ink, and began to write, forming each letter carefully in the Common tongue. The title page required three more dips into the ink bottle.

The Oracles of Master Ahn

Transcribed by Anselm the Seer

In the Year 512 A.V.

Unexpectedly he found himself overwhelmed with emotions. He had studied under Master Ahn for ten years. The old master could be infuriating, demanding, irrational, a hard task-master. Anselm was glad to finally leave the dojo. But he had developed a grudging affection for the old man and eventually allowed himself to admit that he missed him. This book would be his expression of gratitude for the gifts he had received from his master and friend.

He turned the page and carefully wrote out the first oracle:

HEAVEN

solid – solid – solid
solid – solid – solid

Heaven above, strength. Heaven below. Also strength.
Producing things in spring is the creativity of strength.
Developing things in summer is the growth of strength.
Maturing things in autumn is the fruition of strength.
Storing things in winter is the consummation of strength.

This was the first oracle he learned from Master Ahn. Its fundamental meaning is that one must always assess his strength in whatever endeavor he undertakes, seeking to understand the "season" and thereby choosing the correct course of action. The master linked this oracle with the Six Dragons, a set of teachings having to do with when and how to exercise power.

“Consider the Hidden Dragon,” Master Ahn said. “In the beginning of strength, when the quality of strength is activated it is like a hidden dragon. This is the time to nurture the sound energy; one should not yet rely or presume on this strength.”

This was followed by “The Dragon In the Field”, “The Leaping Dragon”, “The Flying Dragon”, “The Proud Dragon”, and “The Headless Dragon”. Anselm carried in his head a vast body of teachings associated with the oracles but he did not write any of them in the book. Perhaps someday I will write subsequent volumes that will contain them, he thought to himself.

Moving to the next page he wrote the second oracle: Earth. On the next page, the third oracle: Difficulty. He wrote through the night and well into the next day. When he was done, he had written down sixty-four oracles, each on its own page. Then he started over with the second book and by the morning of the next day had two copies of The Oracles of Master Ahn. He put one copy in the chest where he kept his treasures. The chest was locked with an animated lock that opened in response to a password.

He took the other copy with him to the tent, where he found Lucas waiting per their agreement. Anselm sat down heavily, brought the book out from under his cloak, and set it on the table in front of the boy.

“Ten gold mizas,” he said.

OOC :

by **Lucas Arias** on July 19th, 2012, 6:38 am

Lucas brought Anselm everything he had requested. He even brought him a nice, black cloak with a hood even though Anselm hadn’t asked for it. If Lucas made a promise, he kept it. Once he had handed everything over to the seer, he waited … and waited … and waited some more.

He didn’t find himself overwhelmed with emotions. He didn’t know who Master Ahn was nor did he particularly care, having never met the man. He just wondered if it would be worth it. Besides that, he was slightly bored and wished Anselm would write faster. Lucas wasn’t a particularly patient young man.

He wanted the seer’s secrets now!

When Anselm finally appeared again, the failed squire immediately grabbed the book and leafed through it to make sure that it really contained the oracles and not some kind of nonsense.

Satisfied that it contaiend the slightly mysterious stuff he had expected, he put ten golden mizas on the table. It was only afterwards that something occured to him. „You only gave me one book. I bought you two. What’s happened to the other book? Did you keep it?“

by **Anselm** on July 21st, 2012, 6:02 pm

Anselm ignored the boy's question. “Sixty-four oracles,” he said. “You don't have to use bones, of course. Any method for selecting one will do just fine.” He pocketed the gold rimmed coins. “How you use them to tell people their 'fortune' is an art you will have to learn for yourself. But I will tell you a secret. The secret is to find the intersection between the oracle and the person whose fortune you are telling, and to draw the person's attention to that.” He paused for a moment as though in thought.

“I believe that concludes our business," he said, and then added without a trace of irony, "I wish you good fortune.”

by **Paragon** on August 6th, 2012, 12:21 am

Adventurer's Loot

Anselm's Loot :

Lucas' Loot :

Fun thread, I always enjoy the oracles, as divination is of particular interest to me. Good job guys! - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.