[Flashback:Coren] Library Daze

by **Coren** on January 2nd, 2012, 9:03 pm

As noth said that there wasn't really anything new in the paragraph he was reading coren couldn't help but let out a dissapointed sigh, it seemed this book had a lot less information then he had first thought, but then again, that kind of was to be expected most wizards had the habit of keeping their knowledge as secret as they could to have an advantage on their fellow wizards. Which was stupid in his opinion, he didn't even want to think how much knoweldge died with their discoverers just because they didn't share it with anybody.
As Noth once again called out to him, he was pulled out of his thoughts and shuffled his chair a bit closer so he could more easily read what Noth's fingers where tracing.
“Well, I never knew that nader canoch didn't have its own alfabet.” Coren said, a bit wierded out by the revelation, he always thought that glyphing sigils where mostly used to spell the language and that this was an exception. But this really was a big problem if he ever wanted to decipher old documents if they where using an alphabet that he didn't know about.

“Well thats a problem,” Coren finally admitted as he pulled the book a bit closer towards him, double checking Noth's findings. “Since there are languages that already died out in the valtarrian, well at least so I think so, and they might be unable to be translated.” Coren's face fell a bit as what he read confirmed Noth's comment. “Not to mention that some people might be less then willing to learn their language to outsiders, like sym's or those cannibals in the south.”[/b] Coren just let out a sigh. [b]“Lets just take care of that problem later, nothing useful we can do with that right now so no need to focus on it Noth.” He skimmed the next paragraph's and as he read the exercise he raised an eyebrow.
“Weird that a vantha would have included this exercise to be honest, most vantha already know instinctively how thick the ice is and if it would be safe, so most vantha wouldn't think about using magic for things like that.” Coren more muttered to himself then to the man in front of him and continued to read the vani part of the description till Not once again interrupted him, coren looked up from the book.
“What do you mean, there is no instruction on how to actually use auristic's?” Coren said as he began skimming a bit further in the book, pausing for a few moments on the glyphing design that was supposed to make manipulating the djed easier and then back, letting out an annoyed groan at the revelation.
“Then we really are standing right in front of an avalanche.” Coren groaned out. All this time trying to translate this tome in the hopes he would get his hands on another magical discipline he was foiled by the fact the one who wrote the damn book didn't include any instructions to get started with it. Just as he was about to give up and just give the glyphing array a closer look to at least polish his knowledge of glyphing a bit his eye fell on the nader canoch version of the paragraph in which they explained the first exercise they found, something was off about it when he gave it a rough look over, the word djed was used quite a few times more then in the paragraph. Especially this little sentence 'Djas djed heat, sutlas-ruwe-ruwe.' Look for djed very deep in oneself. Coren quickly began trying to piece together what the other sentences meant around it, really hoping that his suspicions would be confirmed by what the rest of the paragraph would be saying

As coren translated more and more of the puzzle a smile slowly crept up his face, there it was all spelled out, sure it was worded in a way most people who didn't have any idea about concepts in magic wouldn't have a clue about what was going on, since it didn't really elaborate on what it was telling them to do..
Leaving Noth to his break Coren grabbed a blank piece of paper and his quill, he would have to write this down as he was translating, otherwise he was sure he was going to screw something up.

The art of seeing does not require a hard ritual to enable one to use it. It mostly involves meditation to find and be able to access the innermost part of ones soul where ones djed rests and learning how to manipulate it.
Of course, finding the djed isn't something where this book cannot help you much as most practitioners of the art seek and feel for their djed in different way's. But once you have found your inner reservoir of djed the part of manipulation comes a lot easier. It especially helps the first few times to visualize the process in a way you find it easy to understand. For example visualizing the djed as a pool where you drained it from worked wonders for many of my students. But feel free to be creative. Now as soon as one has a firm grasp of moving ones own djed you need to let it flow towards your eyes, allowing you to see the aura's. After you have been able to do this, follow the exercises detailed in the rest of the book.

Coren got an exited grin on his face as he looked at Noth. “Hey noth, come over here I think I found something exiting!” He shoved his piece of paper a bit more closer to noth so he could more easily read his scribbles. Well if he hadn't forgotten that he had written it down in his own rather messy handwriting and in vani.
“Its the instructions on how to start manipulating djed in the way its required to learn auristics, the instructions aren't the clearest of things but there are quite some similarities with how one becomes able to shield though. So It shouldn't be to hard for us too figure the rest out. I think that was what the person writing it had in his mind anyway.” Coren wasn't aware that he had accidentally let slip the thing about shielding, being to exited over his 'discovery' and the prospect that they finally could figure out more about this new and highly usefull magical discipline called auristics."And you thought that there wasn't anything about it in the book."

by **Antar** on September 26th, 2012, 5:20 pm

Antar let a small smile crook up the corner of his lips as he thought how to reply to the man, it was difficult pidgeoning the vantha tongue of vani so to speak and using common for concepts he was hard to convey. But by referencing the books on the languages he had he figured it out. Albeit slowly, "That's not true. I just implied that I doubted we could figure it out as we both do not have a perfect understanding of all three languages here. Including the runes being used for the ancient tongue and how the words are being sounded out using the vani consonants and sounds. Basically, to me it's like a puzzle where we don't have all the pieces."

The rogue lapsed into a comfortable silence, tapping his quill against his parchment where he was taking notes on all the languages he had been working on today as well as the details. With practice it was pretty much guaranteed he could begin to get at least a basic understanding of the rules and grammatical structure of Vani, and the ancient language. But this auristics was quite fascinating as well. "I must say, you seem to be quite the budding scholar.I'm impressed Coren.I hope however that we're not rushing into things with only half the information. However, if we can puzzle out enough, I might be willing to experiment a little with this if you and I can determine the risk is manageable."

Taking a look at what Coren had found, Antar took a moment to internalize certain things, and ponder others as he translated. Coren had written his findings in vani after all and it had taken some time for him to transcribe to common. "Alright, I think we can do this. Just have to start with meditation after all."

Relaxing back into his chair, Antar asked the young man, "Do you want to make the first try?

by **Coren** on September 26th, 2012, 8:51 pm

Coren nodded at Noth's explanation. “I misunderstood your wording then, excuse me about it, like I said before, its still quite hard for me to understand some things in the common language.” he said with a smile. Letting the silence continue, taking some time to reread the instructions, but more importantly, to skip some pages ahead in the book to see what those so called exercises actually where. The first few exercises in first really didn't seem hard, trying to figure out the physical properties of an object just by aura alone, the rest where similar tasks with only minor variations.

When Noth spoke up again and complimented him he just scratched the back of his hoodcovered head in embarasement. “It wasn't no other vantha could have helped you with.” he replied with modestly. “Though the majority of them probably can't speak a word of nader-canoch to be really honest.” After the man voiced his willingness to experiment, coren fel silent for a few minutes, obviously, something like this could greatly help him in nearly every single experiment he could ever run in the future and then some. But like all magic it was dangerous, no matter how innocent it seemed at first sight.
“Well, it doesn't seem very dangerous at first, no djed is expelled, only used inside the body. So I think it doesn't have much of a drain on ones reserves.” He said after some consideration.
“I think it would be relatively safe if one of us tried it first on his own with the other one observing yes.” he paused once more when Noth offered him to be the first one to try it out, on one had he wanted to play it safe, but it was potentially an entire new way to look at the world how could he resist?
“Well if you insist. Just make sure to pull me out of it if you think something is going wrong okay?” Coren said before he took a deep breath and reached deep inside for the pool of djed, like he had done so many times before when he was shielding but this time he only took hold of the tiniest sliver of djed he could manage and carefully guided it towards his head. His face contorted in concentration, though noth wouldn't be seeing that thanks to his mask.
When he let the djed lose in his eyes some faint colored aura's begun to form around antar.
“I think its working. I'm seeing a faint aura around you.” he tried looking closer at the aura and some colors began popping up in it.

oocyou sure about that? the lore completely contradicts that... O__o

by **Antar** on September 27th, 2012, 12:40 am

CorenHey man, I'm going to have to assume you didn't see anything on the items as auras and saw only a thin aura around Antar. I asked Jen and being able to discern an item's aura only is capable at competent

. It's living things first

though not in much detail. Change a little in your last post to reflect this, okay? Like, See antar's aura instead, make up how it looks if you can since all people are supposed to see aura's differently. Basically, it's like normal items are too weak in an aura for a novice to see.

Antar nodded, just acknowledging what the other man said as he kept his gaze upon Coren. He took in how the man was breathing, then noticed by a look at his eyes through the mask's holes that there had been some small effect: they were a little red. As if he had blearily had no sleep or had been crying . Speaking calmly Antar approached close enough to reach over one hand to feel the other other man's wrist was to check his pulse. "There's nothing to be alarmed about, but there is definitely a change I'm seeing. Your eyes are a little red, and your pulse is a little heightened. Try to relieve the stress of djed in your body and then when you're ready ; bring it back to focus on an aura. Use mine if you can and try again. This time see if you can get any details."

With a bit of an encouraging smile , Antar bade Coren to continue as he dropped the other man's arm. His job , until the man was finished was to watch after all. Though he'd only allow maybe one, or two more attempts before asking Coren to call it quits for the day. Magic, as far as his meager understanding went was like working a muscle. When you used a muscle for the first time, it would be too easy to stretch or pull it causing you injury.

With those thoughts on his mind, he allowed himself to unshackle a small bit of his emotions. Allowing a sense of amusement mixed with concern for the vantha be felt as strongly as he could allow himself to do.

by **Coren** on September 27th, 2012, 3:36 pm

Red eyes and en elevated pulse that didn't sound to bad at the moment and he was pretty sure the faster pulse was just because of the adrenaline that was flowing through his body from the excitement.

“yes, Stress on the body doesn't really is a good thing.” Thought to be honest coren had no idea how to remove the stress on his body, or that there even was some kind of had no idea how to do that. Maybe pulling some djed out of his head and eyes might do the trick for now. He slowly reached out tried to pull a few slivers of djed away. Strangely enough, there continued to be a very faint aura around Noth. Probably some residue djed that was still there, it probably would pass within a few moments when it was used up.

He closed his eyes and gave them a quick rub. Before taking another try, he reached once more for a scant amount of djed and pulled it towards his head and eyes. The faint aura around became a little bit more pronounced and he could see... something in it, he couldn't really put the way he saw the changes and variations in the man's aura in words.. they looked like colors. But not really like colors he had ever seen before.
“This is quite intresting.” He mused to himself after a few moments. “I'm quite sure I'm seeing your aura now, though I haven't got a clue what anything i'm seeing at the moment means now. That probably comes with more practice I hope.”

by **Antar** on September 27th, 2012, 8:07 pm

oockay, Well, I know you can't tell anything about affected items such as maledicted items or magical artifacts till competent reliably and I know this has come up before. So I asked Jen quickly in chat. My suggestion: better safe then sorry and just keep it to living things till competent. Though at novice I'd say you'd be able to tell temperature of a living thing. Main thing at the beginning is time and you'd probably overgive or become a vegetable after an hour or so of looking at an item's aura and trying to focus on it. The *reliability* comes in at competent so I imagine living auras are really 'easier' for a novice to see. Especially one at 0-5 pts. So an item, even a general one: probably not a good idea >.<.

"Alright then." "Let's see if I can try a little. I think there's plenty of htings to potentially see, I just don't know what might come of this until we get a little more... formal training from another practioner. Remember, that book was written by someone who might not have all the answers we'd want." Antar said in warning before taking his place back in the comfortable chair.

Slowly he began to let his head rest with his chin pointing towards his chest as he closed his eyes and began to breathe. Letting the air come in and out of his lungs in a cadence that allowed his mind to relax before he began his attempt. He stayed this way, as a minute, and then another passed. Allowing himself to focus on the calming remembered sight of the frozen waterfalls of Avanthal. An image he thought excellent for a base to allow his mind to still itself.

Reaching towards his djed he could feel the tingling sensation emerge from the pit of his stomach as he grasped and pulled a tiny stream of it up towards his eyes before opening his shuttered lids to stare about the library. His gaze passed over books, that did not seem any different until he glanced over at Coren. Surrounding him was a staticky theel of assorted blues, like varying shades of ice, that seemed to blink in and out existence. As if Antar's eyes were struggling to maintain the connection as they soaked in the ambient djed. Breathing in a sharp breath he placed his hands over his eyes and took a moment to calm himself.

Closing his eyes, he allowed the djed in his body to suffuse itself back to normal with a slight extra push on his part before allowing himself to glance back at Coren. Before taking a look down to his dictionary on the vani language. "I saw... something " he began in vani and finished in common. "as well. Though it seemed to be a tenuous thing to grasp. Very difficult to concentrate upon to keep it within my senses. A bit of blue shades around you, like patterned solid ice yet shifting around as if a liquid or a gas. I can't explain it too well."

Antar sighed a moment, rubbing his temples from the exertion of the efforts. Sure they had made inroads today in learning a different school of magic. But what exactly was what they were learning? They were seeing it from a standard of a book that may or may not contain the information they'd need. "Perhaps its best to go slowly with this book? Let us experiment as we can while managing the risks until we can speak to another practioner. And somehow convince them to impart the basics of the craft. As you said, until we know what we're seeing we don't exactly know if it's similar to what an Aurist usually sees. What are your thoughts on this? Should we make one last try each to try and get a stable image of an aura?"

by **Coren** on October 25th, 2012, 6:30 pm

“I fully realize that, but at least something is happening, that's a start don't you think? Besides, we both are being careful now, what could happen?” Coren froze stiff as soon as the last words left his mouth. That was just asking for trouble. “Nevermind the last sentence, don't wanna challenge fate. Anyway I'll keep watch on you as you give it a shot.” Coren fixed his attention on the man in front of him and watched as the man in front of him closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Coren quickly ran over the basic overgiving signs in his head and reminded himself what the man saw on him. Bloodshot eyes and a quickened pulse.

At first nothing really happened, Antar looked around for a bit before he focused on the man standing right in front of him, narrowing his eyes as if he wanted to bring something around him into focus, quite possible, as he remembered the colors that had been swirling around antar being vague and out of focus. He really hoped that would be an issue that would dissapear with practice.
“That was something both of us where aware of before we started to try this out.” Coren responded to Antar's. “And I'm thinking about that the same, no matter how much I would like to get started on this thing by ourselves as quickly as possible, I don't think we can make any progress in a fast safe way without any instruction though. So my thoughts would be to keep it to this for today, both of us have already showed minor over giving signs and it is growing late, I don't want to mess around with magic I still don't have a good grasp on if I'm not fully alert if I can help it.”
Coren gave an apologetic look at the last sentence.

by **Antar** on October 26th, 2012, 7:29 am

Antar nodded sagely, pondering the wisdom of the other man's words. "You're right Coren, a little bit of caution goes a long way. A wise thing to keep the counsel of these events between us... and us alone."

There was a silent assurance there, that Antar would not reveal Coren's ... 'intellectual' pursuits, and delving explorations of magic. Provided of course that Coren did not betray Noth's own confidence. But such was an almost silent agreement between them. Something that did not need to be reinforced down to the last details by words spoken aloud. Only ruminated upon in passing.

He seemed to get that read off the other man anyways.

Leaning back into his chair, Noth closed his eyes and ruminated a little on what he learned today. He had a starting grasp of Vani, as well as a good foothold on learning the signs , with Coren's help of learning the phonetic language of the ancient tongue. Something which was sure to help him as he continued his studies.

He was still beholden the man for helping him learn the basics of the vani language, its elements of grammar, and structure, and he knew that far further practice in both would be needed to become fluent in both of them. Otherwise he'd be condemned to 'pidgin speak' as it were.

But all was not so bad. He gave the mage a reassuring smile and a courteous nod."I presume we will still be meeting at the archery range then? It's only fair that one renders aid for aid received. Perhaps, just perhaps, you might aid me in times to come for my purpose in this city. But only if I'm sure you can defend yourself by then."

Such were the nature of a concerned 'bounty hunter' as he still had a target to find, and to neutralize. Hopefully, long before the symenestra in question became a threat to Avanthal's people.

Whatever the future might bring, for now he was content in his progress.

Without further ado, Antar gathered up his notes, and meandered his way to the door. He would only pause if Coren wished to say a goodbye before venturing back out into the blistering cold air of the city. Heading for his tent, and to sleep.

by **Valkyrie** on October 31st, 2012, 5:50 pm

Antar :

Coren :

You Will Be Collected if Worthy

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.