Completed Reading Hands

[Dariel]

Surya Plaza 78th Day of Fall 512 AV On an odd level, Dariel enjoyed being among people. Not in the sense that he loved to literally rub elbows. Not in the sense that he felt the need for human contact. No, in the sense that they provided sport and a chance to hone his abilities freely and as it pertained to his needs. His needs involved understanding the inner workings of people. His needs pertained more to interpreting an aura than to reading one. Given enough time and effort, he could read an aura well enough after all, or so he thought. But magic, even his beloved Auristics, only took him so far. It gave him information, yes, but that information existed within avoid. Without a context, without a perspective it was worthless. Well, unless one aimed for parlor tricks such as counting one's chickens before they had hatched. But parlor tricks were not what he had been trained for. The Old Crow had singled him out because out of all the children his mind was most given to order and planning while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changes. Being able to see where an enemy formation was faltering, being able to tell unit morale at a glance and most importantly of all, being able to guess at the enemy commander's intentions, all these things had been part and parcel to the idea. They were seven then. Then two. Now he was one. Dariel was free now, his own man. The Old Crow's plans were not his own anymore and if he was lucky his former master would be too busy recouping his losses to come for him. But he'd been unleashed unto a world of crowds and individuals. Crowds, he'd already found, had their own vector -their own direction and impetus- but individuals were far more complicated. They required individual attention. Presumably that was only proper. The first hurdle however lay in distinguishing a human being that was an actual individual from one that was simply part of a crowd. A shamefully large number of Lhavit's inhabitants was the latter he'd already found. But as he was blessed with eyes and a brain he'd had some modest success picking out those subjects that bore closer inspection. Not that it was a perfect process. He'd found enough people who superficially rose above the unwashed masses but whose dull grey or brown auras blended so seamlessly into those of their contemporaries as to render them factually invisible to his Djed-fueled inspection. But tall, pale and raw-boned wasn't one to be stifled by the lies people told themselves.

[Dariel]

Today's exercise was about speed and concentration. While nowhere near a master of his art, Dariel knew that given enough time and quiet, he could get all the information he needed out of someone. He also knew that he was done for if he needed to acquire a target on the fly. If he met a stranger in a lonely alley, how much time would Dariel have to figure out his intentions in a pinch? How much time before he'd have to find out the hard way? Surya Plaza was however far from a lonely alley. Watched over by the Koten Temple the wide open area never slept, not even during what passed for the wee hours around Lhavit. People going out to eat, people out to shop, people running errands, people simply going for a walk, crowds upon crowds slowly pushing past and through each other, mingling, weaving together in the middle only to fray again at the edges. All movement subject to unspoken, unwritten, maybe even unknown rules. And in their midst, Dariel, all alone. His features, his colors, even his clothes marked him as foreign, black and -moreso- white in a sea of blues and reds and yellows. His every step seemed to part the crowd as he was not part of the pulse of the city, his movement didn't follow the same rhythm the Lhavitians danced to. Only he seemed able to hear the drummer that beat out his steps. The exercise was simple enough. Every once in a while, he'd hold out a hand and touch a random passer-by. His refusal to fall in with the presumably unwashed masses made it easy to do so. Someone constantly seemed locked on a collision course or at least primed for a close encounter, set for an accident that never happened as the locals always managed to float around him anyhow. A simple touch in the throng decided his target, though it was admittedly also a crutch to ease contact. But since those people would be gone mere heartbeats later, swallowed up by the crowd once more, this crutch was possibly needed. Contact made, Dariel would take their measure, visualize their aura, then let go once he had a clear image. He neither had the time nor the inclination to delve deeper. Everything he'd seen this day had been dulled tones. The colors of dry earth, of dust, of ash. To probe further would only have soiled his Djed. Not to mention that the activity was a strenuous one. Beyond only having precious little time to focus on that one person and get the most basic reading on their aura, Dariel needed to keep his stores of Djed carefully harnessed. He'd gotten two successful readings when the pressure behind his eyes became painful. He'd failed the third and the price he had to pay for his failure took the form of constant pinpricks in his fingertips. But Dariel knew he could do more. One more at the very least.

[Dariel]

The long pale fingers would have done a Symenestra proud if not for their distinct lack of claws, long and slender and... spidery as they were. They brushed across silken robes, just the smooth light flutter against their tips, no hint of a body underneath. A challenge, but one Dariel was more than happy to take on. His head spun around even as the Aurist's mind whipped up the swirl of Djed into a spout, forcing it outward into his sensory organs. His eyes welled up with tears from the pain and pressure shooting through them, certainly akin to being blinded with a white hot iron. But before they blurred his vision he caught a glance of a beautiful lady with a perfectly painted-on face draped in a flowing robe-like dress, dark red and shining gold in the low autumnal sunlight, the thick black hair worn up in a fanciful bun, tiptoeing in a haze of a dark pink perfume cloud. A perfume with a decidedly metallic scent that lingered even after his sight had abandoned him. Dariel strained to maintain the contact. The woman was exuding Djed in such a vulgar way as to be steeped in it. His curiosity roused, his mind gave chase, blindly searching the crowd, stopping in mid-step to crane his head like a gawker. All he found was more dull dun. The only thing his efforts reaped was a jolt of pain stabbing all the way through his head, forcing his eyes shut, twisting his face into a ghoulish mask. Nausea came next as the tower of Djed he'd formed inside crashed in on itself, uncontrolled. Disorientation would follow soon as the Djed flood would overwhelm the senses he'd sought to extent beyond the corporeal, but Dariel could not allow that. Not here, not right now. Panic threatened to crawl up his throat, along with the taste of bile. Somehow, maybe just from habit, he found the presence of mind to form a coherent thought. The Plaza was limited in scope. If he headed in one direction, in a straight line, the chances of finding a wall were good. Just something to hold on to. Something, anything, to keep him from falling to his knees out in the open and befouling the plaza with the contents of his stomach. He pushed his way straight ahead as he'd planned, stumbling and shoving with the only other thing in his power an iron grip he kept on his breathing, a simple but effective method of keeping his heartbeat stable and at least fighting down the physical effects of the rising panic. If only his eyes would stop tearing and he'd be able to make out more than the colorful rainbow blur of the maggots milling about. It seemed to take him forever but eventually his palm touched something firm. By the dark blots to its left and right it was a column of some description. Solid and big enough to be that port in this storm. Dariel turned to allow himself to sag against the column shaky feet bracing against the tile of the plaza, shoulderblades digging into the masonry behind him, head sagging. Inhale, count to five. Exhale, count to five. And so on. This would not do at all. Which meant he'd go right back to doing more of the same tomorrow. As soon as his headache was gone.

[Phoenix]

Dariel

Award

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	3
Auristics	3

•	Lores Earned
•	Auristics: Interpreting an Aura
•	Being ones own man
•	Auras of the Unwashed Masses
•	Auristics: The Joys of Overgiving

The Order of the Phoenix

Another great thread and a nice twist on a training solo. Great work! Remember that if you want to get the full five points, especially as your skills progress, you'll have to spin us longer stories

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