Solo [The Divine's Gateway] Gateways to the Divine.

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

31th of Fall, 514.

He could see it before him. An island, filled with the most powerful and dangerous wizards the likes of which Mizahar had ever seen. Powered by golems and other feats of Animation history and legend, home to Voiders and Hypnotists, Reimancers and Maledictors; he finally knew what it was to be complete. To be where he belonged.

"Cyq?" The voice brought him back to reality - the skyglass domes looming overhead, tinged with the faint glow of the shields that layered over the insides of the room activated with the blood of nearly everyone inside the room. The Pycon, for his part, had contributed a small amount of his clay. The shielders responsible for the creations stood watch overhead, carefully scanning the room and the various students and employees lining the lower decks and the upper bridges, making notes and listening closely. The Pycon had arrived just in time for another lesson, and this time he was going to actually activate his own Summoning portal. In fact, everyone in the room was - there had to be three or four other students in the room at that moment. Quite a small class, considering that the Dawn Tower was holding almost eight students per teacher. However, that was a common Personal Magic. This was something else entirely.

"Alright, now. I want you to all spread out, and draw your own circle. They're all going to be minimal, and don't worry about the co-ordinates just yet. I want to make sure you're all okay with drawing up the circles before we put those in." There was enough room in the dome to house several circles at once, so there was plenty of room for all of them to take and spread out for their individual circles. Cyq, for his part, eagerly took a piece of chalk from the small pot left out, and took to one of the farther corners at the edge of the floor. It was farthest away from the others, and gave him plenty of room to begin drawing out the circle.

This time, he wanted to make it larger than before. He knew that it was a bit on the small side, the last time he'd practiced in the Divine's Gateway. He wasn't going to make the same mistake. The ring came dangerously close to slipping off the specially-tiled section of the floor that was left specifically for drawing up these circles. However, it was certainly larger than before.. if not more wonky and awkward. It didn't matter, as long as it worked. Next came the inner circle - for the purposes of simply avoiding overlap in case it came out as a better circle but the outer one curved inwards too much, he just chose to attempt to match up the first with the strange squiggles of the second. It came out, surprisingly, quite well. Of course the entire circle looked very awkward by now, but at the same time there was at least some kind of organization to the wonky-ness.

Next came the circles lining the insides, from where the final lines would be drawn. He started with the four at the four corners this time - this was something he likely should have started with the last time he began drawing. By putting together the four circles at their respective opposites, that meant that he could ensure that the others were spread out evenly for the quarters. They were, as well.. but they weren't spread out evenly. They often bunched towards the middle, rather than spread out evenly. One quarter had it right - the circles seemed to be spread out quite well, with close enough to an equal distance between each circle for the small differences to qualify as nonexistent. The other three sort-of ruined the whole thing, though. No matter.. he'd been told, time and time again, that'd he'd become better with experience. So far, the advice was looking pretty sound. Why shouldn't he believe it?

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

By the end of it, the circle still didn't look.. well, for the lack of a better word, stable. He didn't think it'd last very long, if it could be activated at all under the touch of even a Master Summoner. Not that Corin must have thought the same - he was, after all, standing directly behind Cyq. The mouse had become so absorbed in his work, he'd completely forgotten that the man was ever there in the first place. "Not bad. Much better than your first try, Cyq." The mouse nodded happily, and folded both of his paws over his chest while looking down over it. Yes, it was much better. "However, I think we could do some.. small adjustments, don't you?" It was a genuine question, and the mouse nodded again. He'd be a fool to deny the help of the mentor, after all. He didn't take long to make his 'adjustments' anyway. It wasn't even because he worked fast, but because there were a lot less adjustments to make at all.

Then, attention turned back to the crowd. "Right, now that we're all done, it's time for me to give you those astral co-ordinates." Cyq glanced about quickly and found that Corin certainly wasn't lying - scattered loosely over the floor was a mass of disorganized circles. Some were certainly neater than others, but then he couldn't really tell how good some of these Summoners even were. Perhaps there were some Experts among the crowds, and perhaps these were all Novices with some having better days than others. There really wasn't a way to gauge how good these Summoners were when performing such a simple task.

"Alright, ready? Your co-ordinates are.. 8492841047291777." At least he spoke the numbers slowly, so that the Pycon had time to scribble down each one before moving to the next. Why did these co-ordinates have to be so complicated, anyway, he wondered? Perhaps it was because there were simply so many of these damnable places.. or they were in fact very, very simple and yet they only knew how to access these worlds through the most complicated way possible. "Right, now, I want you all to prepare a droplet of blood to add to your circle. Cyq, this means you're going to need to get a small chunk of clay. When I say so, I want you all to drop your piece into the center of the circle and then stand well back. It's got a bit of a delay to it, but your circles should all work just fine."

The Pycon unfortunately hadn't brought his hunting knife with him - thankfully, there was a needle being passed around for all the humans to prick themselves on the end of their forefinger to activate their circles. The Pycon used this to scrape out just a little piece of his clay, in preparation. However, he didn't add it until Corin had gone through a final check over all of the circles - scanning each one, making the co-ordinates were correct and the circles were drawn out accurately. "I'd just like to note, before we start. If this was a summoning using live creatures, we most certainly wouldn't be holding more than one or two circles to this area, at the most. However, this is a very safe and simple summoning. For those of you that didn't already know, this is a world called Swalden. It's utterly harmless. Now, I'd like all of you to drop your respective fluid into the circle and stand well back."

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The mouse stepped onto the circle of chalk, dropped the clay right on the middle, and then backed the heck off as quickly as possible. At first, there was nothing -the same went for the other circles scattered about the room. However, suddenly they burst into life with a spark and a flash, with what had been stone covering the ground inside the circle dropping away into an eerie, murky blackness. There was no sign of ground below, strangely enough. He didn't know why, but he expected ground.. blue skies, green grass, those sorts of things. Instead he was met with a blackness, with the starry sky spread all around.. but the forefront of his view was dominated by a band of floating rocks. Each one jet-black in appearance, suspended in nothing as though held aloft by tiny, invisible strings. He could hear murmers of awe from some of the students off to the side, but others were silent and observant - they must have done these things before.

"Alright, that's good. We now have several connections to the world of Swalden." He seemed immensely pleased with himself - for what reason, exactly, the mouse couldn't know. He'd not done anything, they were all the ones that had drawn the circles! "Now, those floating rocks you see hovering before your circle are called Memosites." They looked like ordinary pebbles really, only that they were black as midnight. "These stones will, when picked, give you a memory. In return, though, you must entrust a memory to the stones and return it to its place, otherwise it will refuse to give you a memory in the future." Now, that was something very interesting indeed. Stones that had the power to pass on memories from others to them, and in return, they could entrust some strange memory back to the stones to be passed onto someone else? Wow.

"Go ahead, now.. pick out your stone." All of the students nearly jumped at the opportunity - even those that had, before, seemed rather reserved on the entire subject. It was funny, how quickly they all turned to the stones to try and find a memory. Most of them could easily reach inside and draw out their own stones from the utter mass of them - the Pycon had a little more difficulty, loaning to his stubby little arms, and had to draw a significant portion of his clay out of his body and into his arm so that he could extend it by several inches and take back one of the stones. At first, it seemed a little resistant to the pull.. but very soon it all but floated into his hands, gaining quite a bit of weight as it pulled back through the portal and dropping safely into the cusp of his paws.

Suddenly, his mind burned with an image so vivid that for a brief moment he lost his sight. He wasn't a Pycon anymore - he was a human, hammering away into a sword atop an anvil. There was sweat on his brow, an ache in his back, and the blistering heat was unbearable. He kept going, though.. hammering away, over and over, until his arm felt like it wasn't even attached to his body any more. It was just a piece of meat attached somewhere to his shoulder. His gaze kept shifting between his regular vision and that of a highly-tuned Aurists, watching the djed pathways shifting under the heavy weight of the hammer, molding them into their new form...

Then, the memory was gone, pushed into the back of his mind. It was strange and surreal, to have that memory entwined so deeply in his head.. it was as if he'd truly been there, magecrafting. He shook himself, and rose back to his feet. Apparently he'd managed to fall over backwards from the sheer force, but he still held the stone tightly in his hand. A glance about the others confirmed that they were all absorbed in the stones that they'd taken - reliving some old memory, or passing on one of their own. He couldn't tell.

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Soon, his concentration turned to the others. The portals were being closed again - they were minimal, only able to remain open for a short amount of time, especially in the hands of under-experienced Summoners such as them. Each one of them now had a stone in their hands, and thankfully wore the same bemused expression on their faces as the mouse likely did. Corin, who'd stood at the corner of the dome throughout most of the experience, now returned to walking around them and nodding soundly. "That's good - you've all got a Memosite, and likely a memory as well. Don't worry if it doesn't make sense to you - a lot of these things are very complicated." For a moment Cyq considered sharing the memory with Corin to see what he thought of it, but then he shook the memory back from his mind. It was his memory now.

"Now, you need to return a memory of your own back into the Memosite, before we redraw our circles and send them back through. If we don't, then next time you try to take a Memosite, it won't let you draw from its memories." Was that all? Then again, the Pycon thought closely on this.. he could learn a lot more giving back the Memosites and taking more of them, than he could just taking one and keeping it. The thing was pretty much useless now anyway - it didn't have any memories to give. "When you know the memory you want to entrust to the Memosite, I want you to concentrate on it hard and grip the stone in both hands. It'll do the rest." He could see the memory; it was one that he could live without, if he really needed to.

It was the memories of his first meeting with the Symnestran Maledictor that had passed by Pyconia, on his travels across Kalea towards Alvadas. The thing had been huge, and gangly - thin limbs that were far too long, and sharpened teeth that gave him a smile with a hint of ferality to it. He'd worn necklaces of bone and coats of many animals layered together. Charms stretched over every inch of his forearms and wrists, with rings adorning every finger. While this should have looked regal, instead it was rather hideous. Pieces of rotten meat still clung to some of the pieces, and they all looked yellow and worn. There was an unmistakable stench of decay that radiated from him, in all forms; his breath, his outfits, the strange jewelry. It was a memory that he could rather live without, and in a moment he felt it wiped clean, as if it had never existed. He was still there, at other moments.. but he could never really recall just when or how he'd met the strange creature.

"Cyq, why haven't you started yet?" These abrupt disappearances from the land of the living were becoming tiresome. Most of the other students had already entrusted their memory, and were busy wiping their circles clean to begin again. Others had already started redrawing their circles and filling in the astral co-ordinates. Meanwhile, the mouse still knelt before his completed circle, staring off into nothing.

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

After finding the damp rag that had been used by all the others to clear away their circles, the mouse followed in their enormous footsteps and wiped away the circle before starting anew with a fresh piece of chalk. This was a chance to actually redeem himself. He was going to draw the best circle he'd ever done before, and he meant it.

The outer circle came first, as always. He still had the faintest outline of chalk on the floor beneath him, which he used as a sort-of template to work out the size that it needed to be. However, where the outline was rather wonky, this time he tried to keep it straight and fair. For the most part, he succeeded; there were still certain areas that were wonky and jagged, where he'd been forced to go back over and wipe clean himself before continuing. Even on the second or third tries, because he didn't start out at the exact point that he'd left off before, the line didn't look smooth. Even the retries, he had to wipe clean with the rag before he could continue. Slightly embarrassing.

The inner circles fared better. The outsides were always the hardest part when he had nothing to run from, after all. All he needed to do was keep the gap between the outer and inner circles relatively consistent all the way around, with the exceptions being the parts that came out wobbly. Of course, that was much easier said than done. He was so focused on making sure that the distances were consistent, he forgot which of the parts were wonky and which parts weren't on the outer circle, and so replicated them almost perfectly over the inner parts. He'd essentially copied the exact same mistakes he'd done the first time over and over again, consistently messing up the circle. Shyke.

The final parts, the sixteen circles and the cross connecting them, went by uneventfully afterwards. He had the method down now, to start with the four circles at the four corners and then build up using them. When it was all done, yet again Corin stepped up and offered his help. The mouse glumly accepted, and watched the mistakes wiped clean from the floor, and yet not from memory. Corin must have sensed the mouse's current attitude. "I'm sure you'll be fine in a few seasons time." That really didn't help him, at all. He wanted to learn this stuff now - he wanted to make good circles, be able to summon strange creatures and harness their powers. He wasn't, though. No matter how much effort he put into it all, he simply wasn't.

His mood was down too low to bother trying to put on a positive attitude for the rest of the lesson. All that was left now was to activate the circles again, after all. Apparently the circles of Summoning, unlike those of Malediction, were only really useful for one time - just like that of Glyphs, even if the circle was left with the same co-ordinates and the same design. They had to rewrite the circle every time they wanted to open it.

[Cyq]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The needle was passed around again, and each one of them pricked themselves - except for Cyq, who dug the pin into his wrist and began edging out a little chunk of clay. He may have pushed it a little farther than necessary, but right now he didn't care - if anything, it felt good to stab himself until the pain felt satisfactory. He didn't have long to dwell on it though, because soon they were all dropping their respective fluids into the circles for a second time in order to open up their portals. The sudden sparks, the illumination and the pull of the ground down into the depths of a new world was significantly dulled from before. Perhaps it was just the mouse, or the circle had really deteriorated in its effects. The starry sky seemed very similar to the one that he saw whenever Syna's light faded from the sky, even though the two could not be connected in any way.

The others replaced the stones to their respective places in the orbit around the planet that nearly blocked out all vision of the other stars surrounding the little portal. The Pycon followed them, and gently dropped the little black stone into place. Strange, how the cold grip of the world beyond this one seemed so comforting. He almost found himself reveling in it, drawing closer until he caught himself and pulled back again as the portal fizzed and pulled back in on itself and the floor, returning all to its rightful place. His memory was gone - sealed away within the mass of tiny little black pebbles, locked away likely from even himself. Far away in the future, some Summoner would find it and remember it. Perhaps they will entrust it back into the stones in turn, and those in the ever-distant future will come across it.

The class was ending, and the shields that had housed them all were slowly being lowered, the summoning circles wiped, but the Pycon wasn't really there any more. Everything just seemed detached, as if it was a memory that wasn't his. He wished it wasn't. To be truthful, he wished that it was this memory that he'd entrusted to the Memosites, rather than the other one. Maybe he would have found something better, after all. Well, why don't I just summon a portal back to the Memosites again later, and swap the memory for a different one? I've already done it once, I know the astral co-ordinates now after all..

He didn't know where the thought came from, but it was certainly worth considering. He could, after all. He could even ask Corin at a later date if he'd allow it inside the Gateway - he doubted that the man wouldn't agree to it, after all, he'd already told them all that it was perfectly safe. "Remember, you can come to me any time and I'll help you recreating a portal to Swalden. For now, I'll see you all in a few days - I'll be holding another session if any of you are interested in joining it." Well, that was certainly convenient, wasn't it. For some reason, all of that depression had melted away very slowly over the course of a matter of ticks. There was no point questioning these things unless he wanted to return to his misery, so he did what any sane person would do.

He moved on, left it behind, and forgot about that tiny little voice inside his head, niggling away. In a few days, it'd be floating around Swalden in a little piece of Memosite, waiting for whatever unfortunate person picked it up next.

[Brandon Blackwing]

CYQ

XP:

• Drawing +2
• Observation +3
• Summoning +2

Lore:

• Astral Coordinates: Swalden
• Memosites: Memory-exchanging Stones
• The Memosite's memory: Vision of a Magecrafter
• Entrusting a memory to a Memosite
• Summoning circles: One time use

Notes:
And yet another nice one. I think I like these threads better than the ones where you maledict... Or maybe that's just because I'm not that interested in malediction Either way, good work!

Please remove or edit your post in the request thread.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding your grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM.

credit goes to Adelaide Sitai