Solo What Diligence Demands

[Elias Caldera]

37th Day of Spring
514 AV

It was early. Too early. He yawned and cracked his knuckles with disgustingly loud pops, startling awake Jones who's head had not moved from that same spot of the table for more than a bell now. The man lazily wiped away the tendril of drool pouring from his face and glared at Elias. The mage payed him no mind, but couldn't help a smile from forming on his face. This place, the barn, was made up of two kinds of people; volunteers and debtors. Those who actually wanted to be here, and those who wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else. Jones, as was the only thing the man chose to refer to himself as, was of the latter category. Apparently, one particularly ruckus and drunken night, he had decided to take his boat out for a whirl and, as fate would have it, proceeded to steer his ravosala directly into a shop front. As ol' Jones's luck would have it, the really pricy jewelry that the store sold had been on display that previous day at the front, which, after his sailing, was now the back of his once prized boat. Needless to say, the stryfe descended on him like flies on shyke and poor Jones found himself imprisoned, facing charges of grand theft and burglary. It was surprising then, especially to Jones himself, when the shopkeeper came forward and announced all of his wares had been accounted for. Suddenly Jones was no longer a wasted jewelry thief, he was just an idiot with a big bill to pay for one night of one too many drinks.

They had offered him either the lash, or to serve the Vigil for two months. A week later and he still hadn't stopped complaining about how wrong a choice he had made that day. Elias glanced over, noting the quite annoyed expression still plastered on his face. Satisfied he wasn't the only one suffering, Elias turned back to the work he had doing earlier. His hands were covered in the ink splotches and stains from past attempts, and now that he was on his third, the young mage had convinced himself this time was indeed the charm.

He was glyphing -well, really sigiling, but try as he might, the term had ever really caught on. He had intended to draw two simple foci on his hands for future use. As he was on standby, another term that no one else was entirely fond of, he was expected to respond to any of the runners who came back reporting a breakout. Now every time that happened, it meant Elias was to be expected. There were no other mages within the Vigil, he was the sole one. It had afforded him an exceptional amount of pay up front, admittedly, but it also drained him of any free time. It was not a glamorous job he had, in fact, it was quite the opposite. A great deal of mind numbing boredom interrupted occasionally with bouts of pure panic and adrenaline. They hadn't received many distress calls since the riots a few weeks back, but still, it wasn't as if the meaning behind their name hadn't been hammered into his head since his first day here. He intended to stay vigilant, because, unlike some of those he worked with, he truly and whole heatedly believed it was the best thing he could do. Elias loved his city, and if he was able to do anything to see it better off, he wouldn't hesitate a heartbeat. If that meant drawing sigils on his hand while he waited for a fire, then by Rhysol, so be it.

He picked up the tiny, detail brush he had brought along with him from home. Dipping it in the ink that was equally his, he pictured the shape of the rune he was aiming for. A simple focus all said and done, but his drooping eyelids and yawning compatriots had made it entirely impossible to complete without screwing up. He intended to shut them out completely, so shut them out he did. Brush touched skin and Elias began to curve upwards, creating the first arch of the focus that would help him draw for-

"So that scribbling you like do to. It helps with the uh?..." Elias gnashed his teeth, turning to the bucket of water at the side of his chair and dipping his ruined ink work into it with a sigh. "My magic, yes." Jones had yet to take his head off the table, but yet still remained intent on continuing his line of questioning. Determined not to be stopped however, Elias dipped his brush once more and threw himself into the glyph that still eluded him.

[Elias Caldera]

"How does that work, then?" Jones perked up, curious now that he had the young mage spilling his secrets for the first time. Elias didn't mind, it wasn't as if he was bound by a code to keep shut his lips concerning all things arcane. Never taking his eyes of his hands or his brush strokes, he responded. "Its like a set of instructions for my djed. These sigils command magic like a mage would, so when I use them to do things with and for my djed, it makes it easier on me to focus on more important tasks." As he finished with his impromptu explanation, he turned to Jones, but only after finishing the first part of his ink rune. The man simply eyed him quizzically. Elias bit his lip in return, unsure of how to make it any plainer. "It... makes turning folks who tick me off into toads a whole lot easier." He finally settled on with an affirming nod of approval. Jones shrunk back, worry now crossing across his tanned and leathery face. "Really? You can do that?"

Elias gave him a blank and exasperated look. "Of course not." he sighed, returning his attention to to the sigils. "That's high quality magic and I'm still a novice. I'm stuck turning people into chickens and small, hairless rodents, its really quite embarrassing." When he heard the nervous creaking of Jone's chair, he couldn't help but smirk. It hadn't been easy getting these strangers, most of which were more than content to have magic absent from their lives, to warm up to him. In fact, all of them still regarded him with outright distaste and suspicion. It hadn't mattered how many fires he had fought alongside them, nor how many more he would fight, magic was still magic, and any amount of that meant trouble, plain and simple. It wasn't as if Elias blamed them in the least bit, but he had least expected Jones to know when he was joking about these things. The old Ravosalaman, with all his jokes and harrowing escapades, had probably been his closest confident since joining the Vigilant.

With a flourish and a grumbling sigh of satisfaction, Elias placed the last finishing touches on the pair of his foci. In the end, what had come to him was a pattern of stars, one within the other, all of which collapsed into a center point that made up the eye of the focus. Sometimes he regretted letting his mind wander with glyphic shaping, as oftentimes those designs grew more and more complicated with each go. Elias couldn't decide if that was just because subconsciously, he was trying to test himself, or he was just as ass. He flung out his inked hands towards his neighbor with a hint of pride at his achievement. Jones however, was not so enthused by the magic, and nearly fell out of his chair at the sight of Elias's mystical scribbles pointed in his general direction.

It was a moment everyone in the barn was bracing themselves to share a laugh at when a boy came bursting in through the door. Panting and out of breath, he looked to the men inside, all of which had already bounded to their feet in response. "Noble!" He finally rasped.

"Fire in Noble."

[Elias Caldera]

They raced towards the smoke as fast as they could. First on boats, then on foot when the canals became too entangled. Heart thumping in his ears and blood pumping like a raging torrent, Elias ran with them, following the plume of white smoke as it billowed high into the sky. Good, white was good, it meant the fire was fresh for the most part. He didn't know why, but when things burned, they first gave off lighter shades of smoke. As the inferno progressed however, it could very quickly become nightmarish and black, signaling the threat it represented. Thankfully, that wasn't the case yet, so perhaps they had arrived in time.

The six of them, Elias the only one of them an actual recruit and not a volunteer, sprinted to the scene, axes and buckets in their hands as they ran. When the arrived, they found pandemonium waiting for them. The house -the mansion- was a three story goliath, towering over the small crowd of onlookers below. Unfortunately, while its size would have normally given them an advantage when it came to controlling the spread to nearby buildings, this time, its neighbors were just as tall. Worse yet, they were all crammed together and one of them had already caught flame. "Shyke" They all collectively cursed. Jones turned to the young runner boy who had been sent for them. For all his dashing about, the boy had done an admirable job keeping up with them after scrambling all the way to the barn in the first place. "Where in Dira's hell are the others?" The old sailor barked at the lad. The boy didn't even flinch. "There was something else they was doing on the other side of the city. Jimmy and them went to to fetch 'em, but its far away. I came got you guys first." He shouted back, wiping the sweat from his tiny forehead. Another collective swear of growing panic swept through the idle group of men.

With only a handful of Vigils, more than half of them barely rookies, the motley crew made for an amusing sight with all their huffing and puffing and axes, but little else. Elias had been staring at the structure as it smoldered, wide eyed and as panicked as he had been his first fire. Guilt had been driving him that time, now there was nothing here. Nothing but his job... My duty. It was then that he felt half a dozen pair of eyes on him, including the snot nosed kid's. Warily, he turned around to face the other men, dread building up within his gut as he recognized the looks they were giving him. He threw up his arms in sheer 'nope.'

"Don't look at me!" He shouted

"Come on Elias, you're the only who knows what he's doing. I've only been here a petching week!" Incredulously, he whirled on Jones who had said that. He was right, he was too new to know the business end of his hatchet let alone lead the others. All of them were too new. Not all were newer than him however, but still, they had lacked the same commitment he had showed in his training with the man in charge. Now it was showing in their hesitation... as if he was any different. "Hold on, where is Grey?" He suddenly realized the veteran wasn't among them like he had assumed. Grey had been the resident guy to go to when no one else was around. Where the heck was he now?

"You mean the old guy?" A youth in the back spoke up nervously, peeking his head between the taller men in front of him. They parted to let him through as Elias nodded. The kid threw his gaze oddly at the ground and twiddled his hands. "I... I think he was still on the shyker when we left." Elias groaned.

Fantastic...

[Elias Caldera]

"Alright, alright. Uh... Drop your buckets!" He told them, exuding a exasperated confidence that was entirely not at all there. What had Marco told him... Stop the spread. Contain and control, just like the instructors at the Vitrax had drilled into him years ago. You had to bottle a riot, to kill it before its size could spin out of control. He turned to the fire then, examining it once more. The building that had clearly caught first was big and a gaudy shade of blue all over. Smoke spewed angrily from the first story, but it was on the third that the fire had broken out of. The flames had crashed through the window, fanning themselves up and over to latch unto the equally tall building next door. That too now had fire spreading across it, but with a much more restrained intensity that its origin.

"Ok, you and you." He said spinning and pointing at two men. Korick had been one of them, a giant of man from the lily farms along the shore. Elias had never gotten his story, but he assumed boredom and a lust for heroics had driven him into the arms of Ravok and the Vigil. "We need to contain the fire. Uh... Were going to cut the supports on the... west and let it drift away from the other buildings."

"I saw the ropes on the way in." Korick declared, hefting his axe eagerly. "I know where to go, but there are two of them."

Elias nodded. "Then go, get it done. Uh... Jones, you and- Hold on!" He stopped, grabbing out at the third, the young lad who had told him about Grey's mishap. He caught the boy on the shoulder and the teenager jumped. He was scared and he had every right to be. "Not you. You go get everyone still on that platform off, you hear me? Everyone." The boy nodded fervently, panic and uncertainty. still shining in his eyes. "Courage, you'll be fine." He spoke, his voice unnaturally soothing as Elias forced thoughts of confidence and comfort upon the boy. He wasn't sure how well it had worked, or if it had had any affect at all. He bolted off before the mage had a chance to put the full stop on his sentence. "And make sure no one's inside!" Jone's barked after him. The rugged Ravokian turned to the magic user, the only two of them left standing there now. "I guess its me and you. Lets go find that rope." With affirming roll of his shoulders, Elias took off, Jones hot on his heels.

It didn't take long before they were not only upon the mooring of the platform, but also damn near under the fire as well. They were too close in fact, and while Jones raced ahead to begin chopping away at the line, Elias fell back, stopping almost underneath the two overarching rooftops as they burned. He held out his hand, letting instinct take over as he called upon the djed within him. With a rush, it answered, flowing forth and through the focus painted on his hands with exciting vigor. It poured into his hand, transforming into a pale blue translucent substance as it broke skin. Elias directed this res upwards towards the fire, had it grow until it was nearly the size of his head, then tasked it with luring in the flames.

Immediately they began to react, as if a strong gale had all of a sudden forced them downwards and towards his outstretch hand. The fire hadn't spread enough to provide any kind of challenge, but that didn't mean he would just leave it there. The small bundle of flames trickled down towards him in swirling stream, pooling around his res like water poured into a bowl. It didn't take long before there was nothing left of it but what Elias had under his control. What remained of its victim was nothing more than a bit charred roof. It wouldn't stop it from catching again, but it at least stymied its advance unto the surrounding buildings for now.

With a heave, like he had just taken on a massive weight upon his shoulders, he flung the fire and his res into thin crevice between platforms, blazing flames pouring into the lake below. Steam angrily charged back up in its place, a raspy scream he made certain to stay well away from. With that done, he rushed over to where Jones was hacking away at the rope and wordlessly slammed his own axe down along with him.

[Elias Caldera]

"Come on you big bitch, break! Break!" Jones roared, his strikes frantic and furious. Elias couldn't blame him. A city that could fall apart at the slightest breeze or loose strand wasn't a city at all, that was why every mooring line between each platform tough as steel ad thick as an arm at the very least. He had heard they were treated with special, even magical alchemical slaves and potions to make them as strong as they were, but Elias didn't believe that. They were just strudy, the result of a cordage maker who was damn good at his job, because if he wasn't, he'd have all of Ravok and the Black Sun to answer to. With all that said though, Elias was still glad it was here to begin with. The thing about Ravok was, the further you got from the center of town and the older structures that had sprouted up around the temple, fewer platforms became less individual buildings and more large, all encompassing barges, designed to hold huge chunks of the city. This one, clearly very old, was an island all its own, making their job of secluding it a thousand... times... easier. Damn it, why won't this break!

With bellow of his own, Elias brought his axe down right after the other man's, the two of them smashing away at the hemp in a fevered rhythm of aching muscles and frustration. The tools they used were old and dull. Ancient and pitiful weapons gifted to the Vigilant decades ago by the look of the rust on their edges. His swings became manic and enraged, a tinge of panic slithering in among the desperation and burning pain in his arms. "Come on!" He screamed at the damned thing, echoing Jones in his harsh words, but paling in comparison to his more vivid insults for the piece of rope.

There was a sudden and thunderous groan from the platform, like a slumbering beast waking for the first time in centuries. With a start, both men leapt back, the platform they were trying to free shifting lethargically with a gargantuan ruckus. Water splashed up as the entire building moved, the ground it was built upon sliding down and into the water as if bouncing. It was then that Elias saw Korick waving his weapon at them in the distance, his giant, shyke eating grin as bright as the sun, even from so far away. Jones laughed, then cursed as he noticed their task was still yet complete. The tension the now single moor was put in had tightened and strained the rope's reach, threatening to snap even without them all of a sudden. With an exhausted war cry, the two of them went at it again, lifting handles up high and bringing the biting heads back down with all they had.

With thunderous applause, the rope finally surrendered. Never had Elias heard such a satisfying...

Snap

[Elias Caldera]

Free of the rigging that held it in place, the platform drifted lazily to the left and away from any other structure. Now Elias and all six of the Vigilant stood alone upon the meandering thing, facing a flame determined to devour everything it could. Smoke still flooded from the downstairs window, while two windows up, the lashing tongues of flame still smoldered angrily. Elias was no investigator or solver of mysteries grand, but he knew foul play when he saw it. The entire second floor was absent of any smoke or heat, and fire, on it's own, just didn't decide it was going to skip over something in its path. Before he decimated the inferno however, Elias needed to know if anyone was still inside. The boy he had hypnotized, had told him that no one was, hacking and coughing up his lungs after trying to go inside and see for himself. Still, the Ravokian had to be certain. The steam born from water introduced to fire was just as deadly as the fire was, if not more so because of its unexpected and very rapid expansion. It was why he had been careful when dealing with the fire from earlier, and why he would be careful here as well.

Djed flowed from his core upon is bidding, quickly rising and slithering in behind his eyes, eliciting an explosion of aura's into his now otherworldly vision. The smoke, the fire, the house and everything inside, it all shimmered with its own smudged, convulsing tapestry of colors. It was maddening to see it all undiluted and formless, crashing and swirling into one another without any definition or reason. Elias had to blink back a tear as he tried to focus, pressing his sight beyond sight deeper into the depths of the interior. Humanity, or life he should say, had a very unique glow about it, distinct from all else in comparison. Elias was far from complete in his studies of the Auristic arts, and in fact, if he had to be honest, didn't really care for it much. That said, he still knew enough that even he could pick out a living soul amongst the background noise that came along with every undisciplined use.

He saw nothing, no shimmer or flicker of life at all, but there was... something. Something that burned with an intensity Elias knew all too well. Magic. Sitting on the second floor, the young mage found it almost difficult to focus on, as if it were vibrating, trying to hide from him. He thought he recognized something similar if not diluted on the first and third floor as well, but his skill limited him there. Whatever it was, it wasn't alive, and if there was no one to save, then all that left was the building. That air of expectation enshrouded him again and he realized the others, still six and no more, were waiting for him to act. Someone had thought to go for all the discarded buckets which he noted with a smile of gratitude. A smile he shot at Korick as well as the man grabbed hold of another volunteer who had expected to begin a bucket line. Korick had seen Elias work once before, utilizing the line with himself as the source, not the fire. He intended to do the same here as well.

"There." he pointed, choosing a place as close to the water and the fire as he could. "We start there."

[Elias Caldera]

It was something he was comfortable with, perhaps even more so than any other factor of reimancy. Attracting an element was just so much easier, and came to him with such grace it was hard not to be used to it. He had never before lived somewhere without water there to ease him, whether it be his home of Ravok, or his sanctuary in Zeltiva, there had always always been the sea. He sometimes considered adorning an eye patch and taking to the ocean like one of Laviku's chosen people, but then that meant he would have had to learn how to sail... Maybe not then. Dreams of pirate shanties and sail rigging aside, his connection to the water had manifested itself in his reimancy, giving him control over the element, and in turn, bringing him just another step closer in their relationship, one he was now counting on again to help him.

Lake Ravok roiled and swirled under his command, a giant pool amassing behind him just as it had his first day after the riots. The bucket line, instead of going to the house in a vain attempt to douse the voracious flames, would instead feed into his bubbling mass, gorging it until it was near bursting from under its own girth. Res swirled around the giant bubble, acting as its core to attract, and its mantle to hold it in place. It wasn't a perfect construct, and more often than not the water would dance and swash about erratically within its unnatural confines, pressing Elias's focus to the limits with each churning wave. He wished he could simply produce a conduit of res all the way from the canal straight back to his hands, but as much as his skills were excelling, they weren't that great. His range of control was limited, forcing him to rely on his fellow Vigilant to bring him what he needed in frantic tosses of their buckets. It was also the reason he had to abstain manipulation when his spells flew too far. Frustrating, but also challenging. Reimancy, and all the arcane arts as well, demanded that he kept getting better and better with each day, and it was a task he strove to achieve.

With a powerful cry of halt, the water stopped, Elias deciding he was already teetering too close to the edge to risk attracting anymore. He didn't even need to look behind him to see his sponge of djed's accomplishment. A shadow had fallen over him, the light of Syna blurred and distorted as it cut through the liquid monster he had created. Closing his eyes, he began to chant words deep, ancient, and all together meaningless. He was speaking in nader-canoch, letting the first language guide him as he guided his power. The magic within him and that outside both began to react, like the ripple of a stone's throw upon the lake. It started to move, reshaping itself and pouring from his hands. He had used his second sigil for this, allowing it to hasten his flow to a near dangerously wild point.

The pool he had created lifted above his head, dark and disturbing in its size. With only a shift in Elias stance as a warning, the water lashed out, two torrential arms flinging themselves towards the fire. The first rushed into the first floor, while the second moved for the third. The hiss and fury of the two opposite elements meeting was instant, steam rolling out of the windows as Elias's magic stormed in. For the second time, Elias called upon the sight beyond sight, pinpointing his view solely on the structure he was trying to save. He fought to sort through the jumbled mess of colors and auras, his eyes every once in a while helplessly drawn to the radiance of the magical thing that teased him from the second floor. He desperately ignored it, endeavoring instead to locate the other familiar aura he was acquainted with: Fire.

Its own static and chaotic buzz was unique, devouring the presence of others to feed and grow itself. It was there that the young mage would guide his streams, fighting the fire with an unseen window into every nook and cranny it dared to rear its devious head. Well, wherever it was large enough to for him to notice it anyway, the Caldera wasn't that quite adept with auras just yet, but most of the time he got it all doused with his massive downpour.

Few things could escape getting wet when Elias Caldera was around.

[Elias Caldera]

For all the excitement and madness that went along with fighting fires, there was a long, unspoken and infinity boring process that followed. It had taken perhaps thirty or so chimes to kill the flames as the quick work on Elias's part drowned damned near everything in both rooms to a point little was not drenched to the core. The Ebonstryfe had arrived on scene sometime during the firefight, and, ironically enough, brought order with them as they marched in, black armor bristling as they controlled the crowd that had formed. Thankfully Elias himself didn't have to report anything to them himself, instead doing so to another member of the Vigil when the main force arrived sometime later. Unfortunately, that meant instead he had to work, which in turn meant he had to get dirty.

"See oftentimes we put out a blaze just to have it spark up again and burn the house down anyway. Fire is a persistent petcher, it likes to hide in the walls and in all the little places it can, biding its time for us to leave before it springs into action again." He had told Jones, his axe biting deep into the blackened wall as he spoke. They had used him almost as extensively to find the remnants of the fire as they did to get rid of it in the first place. As long as he was close, he could call upon his auristics to weed out the pockets of heat concealed behind the walls and charred furniture. Normally it was just a matter of pressing one's hand up against something to see if it still smoldered on the outside when it shouldn't have, then they would take their axe to it, ripping out the fire as they did so. With djed filling his vision however, it was just easier for him to find and kill such problems. In the end all the men assigned to the less that spectacular duty ended up covered in a black, sooty foulness only those who had risked a fire were used to. Unfortunately, the smell of burning flesh was not as easy to get accustom with.

Korick had lost his lunch when they found the man. Elias and Jones had nearly followed suite. The mage's heart had raced in fright and horror at the thought that he had failed to notice him and was responsible, but when he laid eyes on the poor bastard, bits of what was left of him sprayed in charcoal chunks against the wall, he knew it wasn't his fault. It proved little comfort in the face of such a gruesome sight. The room had been subject to an explosion, just like the one two stories above it, and it seemed that whoever it had been down here, they had been unlucky enough to get caught in one of the blasts.

Feeling his stomach lurching, Elias was unable to bear the stench any longer and was forced to flee. Once outside he struggled to contain himself, bending over until he rested on his knees and stared at his own smudged boots for some semblance of calm and comfort. He noticed Jones walking out of the structure a little while later, axe in one dirty black hand, and something else in the other. The man looked troubled as Elias called out to him, garnering his attention before unsteadily striding over to him. "Whats that you got there." Elias asked, wiping his mouth as he motioned to the man's clenched fist. He lifted it up and opened it, revealing a small, amber... hexagon? At first the Ravokian thought he was looking at a toy, his confused expression showing as much. "We found on the second floor." Jones informed him, his countenance mirroring Elias's. "Korick said he found pieces of something similar on the first and third as well, where the fires were."

The mage stretched out his hand, silently asking for the Ravosalaman to hand him the thing. He did, and the young man felt the tell tale texture of glass on his hand. With a furrowed brow he turned it over, inspecting it further. His expression of uncertainty turned to one of dismay and disturbance. He noticed the broken glyphs carved into the glass, and as he magically enhanced his vision, he saw the djed within, sputtering and desperate to escape. "What do you think it is?" Jones asked him, noticing the strange concentration the man was smothering the thing with. Elias turned to him, an odd mixture of feelings stirring inside as the headache that had been brewing for a while now began to take its first real stabs at his mind.

"I think we got lucky. I think its a dud."

[Nemesis]

Elias Caldera

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Auristics	+3
Glyphing	+2
Hypnotism	+1
Leadership	+2
Observation	+3
Reimancy	+3
Rhetoric	+1
Running	+1
Teaching	+1
Weapon: Battleaxe	+1

Lores

*Fire: Lies in Wait
*Fire: Reading the Smoke
*Taking Control of a Team

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

____________________________________________

Notes

*I don't think I've read one of your Job Threads before... that was a lot of fun! Glad to see that he's really making a difference to the city

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