Flashback Blood, Magic, and Fire

[Volens]

Magic, Blood, & Fire
Fall 508- Summer 512
Outside of Sunberth

Volens was born in Syliras to a moderately wealthy farming family. He remembers numerous brothers and sisters. Most worked in the city and sent their money home to the family house, and Volens vaguely remembered a brother who was a something or other for the Knights. Volens remembers that he wasn’t the youngest child, and kind of remembers several babies. Volens didn’t have any special abilities or unique talents. He only possessed an unbridled need to learn. The whole sale consumption of knowledge has been a driving force in his life since his parents hired him a special tutor to teach history, math, science, and many, many more topics. At 8 years old he tore through books at an alarming rate, and spent his childhood visiting local book stores, and libraries. He had devoured hundreds of books by the time he reached 12. Many of the kids his age would try and make fun of him, but having your nose in a book sometimes prevents the rigors of the world from crushing you. Life was pretty good, and Volens was shaping up to be a scholar of renown, but fate is a funny thing and often has other plans in store. Those plans were Clay.

Volens bumped into Clay outside a small library, right after his twelfth birthday. At first Clay was angry, but then he saw something in Volens, maybe he looked like Clay’s son, or maybe Clay just liked the innocence he saw in Volens. And Volens was to young to see the slightly frayed mind behind Clay’s eyes. Volens was generally shy around kids his age, but he quickly befriended adults. Volens would spend take time from his book collecting to talk to Clay. One day, Clay told Volens about reimancy. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the vast power and knowledge of reimancy. They discussed magic for weeks. But then Clay had to leave town unexpectedly. Volens resolved to follow him, he didn’t even say his byes to his family. He just slipped out one night.

At first Clay was reluctant to have a child traveling with him, but Volens quickly made himself useful. Cooking, cleaning, packing, and other various chores. But Volens was always prone to listlessness, and once the charm of running away wore off… well, that was the day Volens begged to be taught magic. Clay set upon Volens, raining a series of vicious, merciless blows on to the young kid. Volens didn’t let out a single cry, and the incident didn’t discourage him, it instead steeled his resolve. He asked every night for a year, often times receiving a vicious beating. Then one day the beatings stopped, Volens never understood why the beatings stopped, or even why they started in the first place.

Then after the winter Volens turned 15 Clay started to teach Volens mind calming techniques. This took a month of dedicated meditation. Then he was introduced to hand to hand fighting styles, then how to fight with a dagger, then he learned how to use the long sword. He trained everyday for a year, as well as completing his chores. He had surpassed Clay in every weapon within 3 months. But Volens didn’t stop training there, and after a year of training and hard work Volens was initiated.

It happened on his 16th birthday, when the full moon shed its pale light on the cool Autumn night. Clay sat Volens on his knees, and drew a short, jagged knife. He roughly grabbed Volens hands, and deeply cut from the tip of the index finger, swirling across his palms, and up his forearms to his elbows. Volens was already feint from blood loss when his master’s res entered Volens body. Volens could feel his soul fighting the invading Djed, and it burned more than anything he had ever felt. The pain lasted for hours, but Volens has lost consciousness by the time the res had left his body.

When Volens woke several hours later the moon was setting. A small fire illuminate the camp. The gashes had be cauterized by the massive amounts of energy that had passed through them, but they still seared in pain. His master looked frayed, like he had lost a piece of his soul. They sat in silence until the morning. Volens make a light breakfast, wanting to get to the training as fast as possible. His master seemed lethargic, and less patient than he was during previous lessons.

Volens first lessons were about drawing res from his body. And controlling it, gently, and slowly. This part of the training lasted for a week. The second part was turning his res, into sand. Clay believed this was the building blocks for earth. Volens spent a month producing sand, and either launching it at great speed at targets a dozen feet of away, or throwing it at targets much closer. The third month Volens spent creating slinder stone shards, and flinging them at targets. Towards the beginning of the third month Clay was prone to impatience, and bouts of vicious anger. Clay also began to frequently lose his concentration- blaming vauge whispers, and sights. Clay would also vanish for long periods of time, leaving Volens on his own to practice.

Volens spent his time practicing with his blade, dagger, fists and magic. His style is efficient using all parts of every weapon and anything he could his hands on. He spent many quiet days honing his fighting. Things more or less continued like this until for the rest of the year, until one fateful day they went to town to restock supplies. As they were leaving town a gang of locals confronted the mage and his apprentice about disappearances. Needless to say they didn’t get an answer they liked- and Volens never was able to find out if his master was responsible. He certainly didn’t have time then, as the local gang forced them both to their knees. Clay was able to create an opening with shards of stone, stunning many of the thugs. Volens looked at Clay- whos eyes said simply, “Run.” Volens never looked back, but he could feel the fire, and pain as his master died.

When he made it to the camp, he knew the thugs had followed him. He let his masters horse go, then quickly gathered his gear, and a book that belonged to Clay, and he rode as fast as Compar could carry him.

[Twister]

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Experience Award

Volens

Grade :

Experience: 2 Meditation, 2 Running

Lores: Finding Refuge Between The Pages Of Books, Indulging in a Lifelong Passion Early in Life, Knowing What You Burn For, The Odd Turns of Fate, A First Introduction to Reimancy, Seeing Your Chance and Taking It, Leaving and Not Looking Back, Clay: Reluctant Teacher, Gladly Enduring Abuse, Meditation: Clear Your Mind, Meditation: A Thought-Free Routine, Be The Master of Your Body and Mind, Living Under Studious Discipline, Taught the Pain of Overgiving, Knowing the Risks of Using Magic, Reimancy: It Starts In Single Grains of Sand, The Building Blocks of Earth, Reimancy: Shaping Shards of Rock, Clay: His Name Should've Been The Hint, Clay: Not Given Enough Credit, Clay: Thoughtful To A Fault, Clay: A Generous Sacrifice, Clay: A Mystery In Death, It's Easy To Blame Mages, The Casualties To Reckless Prejudice

Miscellaneous: N/A

Comments: There. You have a lot of lores to work with, now. To explain why some sound the way they do... I figured, since this is a story from his past, he would've learned and deducted certain things from his experiences that he didn't realize back then, such as the purposes behind certain things that Clay did and the real meaning behind the look in his eyes, amongst other things. Basically, I formulated them with the pretense that he'd understand better in the present day. I also gave you a few skill-points to complement your Starting points, seeing as you didn't get yourself anything in Meditation or Running, but obviously should have some experience in both. As for the feedback you requested...

I like your writing. It flows well enough to make it easy to read. If there's anything I'd want to remark upon, it's how you sometimes structure your sentences and how brief you are when describing certain things. This thread wasn't meant to be very long-winded and I can tell as much when I read it, though certain events probably could've been fleshed out a little so the reader gets a better feeling for what's going on. As it is right now, it moves along forward very fast and the reader doesn't get a lot of chances to really see inside Volens' mind to understand what he is going through at the time. It's structured in a way that makes the events pass on by very quickly with the briefest of summaries. I would've loved to see you go more in-depth. Also, the sentences that you start with "But [...]" could probably be merged with the previous sentences, as "But" is a very awkward word to start a sentence with. Merge it with the one before and it'll probably flow much better. Commas are often superior to full stops unless the sentence is starting to cover up multiple lines in a paragraph.

If you've any questions or concerns about your grade, drop me a PM!
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