43rd Day of Winter
Riverside Isle Park
12th Bell
Riverside Isle Park
12th Bell
The tome had aided him greatly, but books and words could only take a man so far. Knowledge was a fine, oft essential thing... but rendered meaningless without practical application. The lessons it had taught him were swimming under the surface of his memory now, just waiting for him to dive under and drag them to the light.
Most crucial for the novice, however, was the peace and isolation to "be at one with your djed". At first the Myrian had thought the words to be a poetical flourish, or a scholar's metaphor. The more he practiced, though, the more he realized there was a whoel world within himself he had never tapped before, aside from his forays into the Power of Bones.
So Razkar had come to the sprawling Parks on the edge of Sunberth, dotted with woods and clearings, oddly unspoiled in a city where there would be no law to punish transgressors who dumped refuse or seized the land for their own purposes. He assumed the place was patronized by some powerful and thus feared figure, but didn't think too deeply into it.
The silence is what matters. The emptiness.
Emptiness. He felt it now, standing upright in breeches and a shirt, his guard against the cold. His weapons harness was with his rucksack off to one side... and he could hear the little chinks of metal in the brisk north wind as he breathed slowly, steadily...
Feel every part of yourself. Know every inch of your frame, for within it is power you never knew.
He knew he was quoting from the book, and that was the point. The scholar who had wrote it gods new how many years ago had leaned towards the verbose in his prose, but he was right.
Razkar clenched his fists... and felt the scar on his right palm. Still it smelled of ash and iron, from where he had prayed alone in the woods outside Syliras for his distant friend Tinnok.
He breathed in, his chest expanding... and the curse of Yahal stretched slightly as he did so, carved onto him by the God of Light himself outside Zeltiva. So too did the still-healing scars on his shoulder and back, claws of monstrous, twisted albatross on the journey across the ocean.
His tattoos... had he ever truly felt them before? The ridges under and just above his skin? Stories and memories and mementos of family, lovers, battles, victories...
Then Razkar felt it, stirring within him. The bones beneath his bones, as the tome had called them. Rippling muscles of djed that fitted from his sightless eyes, always hiding, hard to pin down... but there. Awaiting him.
The Myrian raised his arms and opened his eyes. Swaying, leafless trees waved all around him. Belching smog from the endlessly-burning dump marred the sky. He thought nothing to them or it or anything else. He bent his knees and pulled back his right fist.
"From my Body, Power..."
The muttered words seemed to trigger something in his body: a tingling swelling that traveled from his core, up into his shoulders. Razkar forced himself not to lapse into elation or pride. The blow was not yet struck. He simply willed it, drew it further into his limb-
"To my Fist, Strength-"
-and then threw it forward, a short, controlled right hook that seemed to have a lead weight attached to it. Augmented and empowered by The Flux, it jerked him forwards as if some invisible force was pulling him. But Razkar allowed a tiny smile to alight his face: if it surprised him, just imagine how "stunned" his enemy would be, after being hit by a blow twice what they were expecting?
The Epoch. The first blow you learned. Now... paradoxical as it sounds... try for two.
Razkar breathed deep and felt the icy air cut into his lungs, then imagined his lungs, his heart, his organs, pulsing, beating, roiling in the darkness within him... and glowing with that unseen wyrd coating them. He corrected his stance and drew up his fists again.
Tingling in the arm. Pins and needles. Don't overdo this.
"From my Body... Power-"
He lunged again, right fist swinging forward, ripping through the wind with its unnatural force. He did not pause long that time, breathing in again and willing the djed to slide across his body, into his left side, as his arm pulled back-
"To my Fist, Strength-"
-left fist bursting outward into a cross, a solid one-two combination of punches that would knock down most unsuspecting foes with their sledgehammer blows... if it wasn't for the lengthy pause in between, anyway. Not to mention-
"Ah... here it comes..."
The Myrian winced and growled as the strain and ache of bells squeezed his limbs within the space of ticks. They felt heavy, sore, as if he'd slept on them and was now trying to lift weights. He walked in circles and shook them as best he could, face screwed up in pain.
Overgiving, the mages call it. Pushing yourself past your wyrd... much like running too far, too fast, and going right off a cliff. The effects are... similar.
The scholar who'd written his tome had been explicit, even graphic, when it came to them. Arrogant or foolish wielders of The Flux who had pushed their bodies too hard and broken limbs, detached bones, even burst muscles that rendered them cripples forever after.
Moderation. Always moderation, and caution with your wyrd. He remembered the words and nodded as if they were spoken to him, taking deep lungfuls of air to deaden the pain, waiting for his limbs to be his again and not numb lumps attached to his shoulders.
Razkar rolled his head from side to side and grinned at the clear, frosty Winter sky.
"Getting better, though..."
