Solo Of Fire...

[Bennar Witt]

18th of Spring, 515 A.V.
Benji's Apartment

The djed spewed from him in a practiced manner. His focus wavered only slightly as Benji willed his life essence to escape his physical form. Such a deeply personal and unnatural process took that kind of focus. It took the willpower to sidestep the natural way and the intelligence to think around the rules that govern the world. This was magic, and this was what drove men mad doing it.

The djed became res once it left the intimate confines of his physical self, but he still viewed it as part of him. Perhaps it was akin to the physical representation of his willpower? Yes. Like a shadow of the godly power of deities. Benji found his focus tremble with his own unintentional hubris. The thought had been sloppy, dangerous. He was not a very pious man, and had never devoted himself to the gods very much, but even he knew better than to compare himself to them. Only fools did so. Fools and the cursed.

Benji followed the res with him eyes as it formed two fist sized balls in the air in front of him. The light from the sun leaked in through the open window. Spring had come and the city was beautiful as it shone in Syna’s glorious rays. Though most were still in their slumber, Benji could not sleep and had decided to practice his reimancy before the sun fell once again. He sat now at his desk, silently manipulating the res he had pulled from his body.

The young mage had done such exercises since he had first learned reimancy. The skill had been largely self-taught after his initial grisly entry into the art. He had formed his own practice methods to continue to hone his ability and stretch his skill. This was a practice in control.

Benji let the thought of fire enter his mind. The flame which had been his first medium in reimancy came easily. The idea stayed in his mind, the imagined orange flame wavering with perceived breeze and constantly licking upwards hungrily. He let the thought seep into the res of the orbs. He pushed the brightness and the heat upon the res, guiding it to it’s change from ethereal substance to very real fire.

The stuff was eager for the change. It wanted a return to the ordinary. If it was no longer him then it should be something. The orbs flickered and caught with flame. One heartbeat the res was catching, igniting in a flare, the next it was consumed in flame. The orbs began to drift, no longer in his control. They lit the room with their orange flame as they fell slowly. Then, before they could touch his table, they puttered out.

Then there was no sign of their existence.

Benji pondered the orbs.

The res was a finite source after transmutation. He had found that evident over the course of his years of practice. So the trajectory was tricky when aiming a conjuring. Benji’s mind filled with images of sorcerers wielding great lashing whips of fire or raining boulders from the sky, but that was not reality. Such showy reimancy was impractical as far as he could surmise. Or else there are mages out there who are capable of a much higher level of res output than I am. This was not something that he doubted, now that he thought about it. But Benji Witt was no warrior, his magic was an exercise of the mind.

[Bennar Witt]

How could he maintain control of the orb while still lighting it aflame. A constant source would be needed, since the flames burned up the res quickly. Benji had spent many months developing the art of avoiding burns that resulted from fire reimancy. That in itself was a whole other art form. A tenuous dance with Ivak’s essence. The magic was ever a dual edged blade. Lorainne had warned him against rash use time and time again… before his initiation.

For a moment the young server groaned with the memory. Did all men feel such a fool? Was there any escaping his own sightless curiosity. It had bit him once at least, and left the bitter taste of regret. As the saying goes the fool knows not, but the wise man knows he is not but a fool. It sounded to Benji like the man who said that was scared shykeless of his own shortcomings.

Well, life moved on. He had made the decision. He had forced her hand. Now he was left with memories and magic. And when one was bitter and depressing you best focus on the other. What would Sal say if he heard his little brother’s macabre thoughts?

You’re young yet, Benji. You worry like a wrinkled crone. Salvatore Witt would laugh with that easy smile. A man who hid his stresses well, was Benji’s middle brother. The man had always served to belittle Benji’s anxieties and make him face the world with optimism. Benji found himself, not for the first time, wondering how well Sal would fare in Lhavit.

Probably better than I am.

Gods above, he was such a dramatic. Life went on and petched things up for everyone. The ones who find some enjoyment were the ones who could forget about that part. So…reimancy. He needed to have a constant stream of res to fuel an ongoing ball of fire. Easy fix.

He began to focus again, streamlining his mind on the conversion of djed to res as it coagulated on his palms. The substance of his life essence left the imprint of a distinct sapping sensation as it separated from his soul. Bennar Witt pulled the gongealing pieces of his soul out of his physical shell and began to syphon the Res into another orb above his desk. It spun about like a gelatinous marble, slow and steady.

But instead of cutting the stream off, Benji let the Res continue to fuel the orb in a thin strand from his palm. The Res began to slip from him at a subtly more frequent rate, but he paid it no mind. Ben decided to ignite the ball and see if he could continue to manipulate the thing. He let the image of a flame enter his mind again and projected it onto the surface of the orb.

It ignited and burst into flame. The yellow and orange tongues of fire licked greedily at the Res. Benji felt the element begin to take over his concentration. He began to sweat. He could do this. He felt good. The magic felt good, strong. Benji gasped as fire lit up within the orb and burst down the strand of res towards him. It ate the res, his life essence, greedily. The mage barely had time to gasp and stumble backwards off his stool before the flame tore through the last bits of the broken strand. For a moment his apartment was bright with the light from the flame. The heat reached out for him hungrily, and he felt his heart race because of it.

Then it was gone and he was left with a layer of sweat and a racing heart.

[Bennar Witt]

Petching shyke. What in the world happened?! Had Dira come and brushed her cold lips against him? Benji collapsed back against the floorboards of his apartment and closed his eyes. He spent a long moment just breathing hard, reveling in the newfound appreciation of that. Shyke this stuff he played with was dangerous! He sat up and stared at the space above his table where the magic had taken place. It was empty and normal, though his mind portrayed it ominously through memory.

The youth pushed up on his hands and slid back across the cool floorboards to rest against his bed. He ran both his hands through his hair, trying to comb out the wild thoughts. The panic and fear had left him shaken and hollow in their wake. The room was silent and still for a while, the single occupant just sitting and staring. Then his relief escaped him like a tumbling avalanche. The feeling taking the form of a shaky laughter. He was okay. He was still alive and well!

Praise be to the gods for sparing his idiot arse!

The Alvadan struggled to his feet and began to pace about the room. Fire, fire was not in his luck today. The man thought that he would not be using that damned magic for a while. Trepidation kept his mind from revisiting the notion at the moment. But he did feel inordinately lucky, and eager to continue his practice.

Earth. He had neglected the element because it was not as directly useful in everyday life. But he had figured out how to use it before his voyage to Lhavit. He hoped the much less volatile element would serve as a safer practice substance.

And perhaps you should avoid sustained casting, you dolt. His idiotic idea had seemed genius at first, but rash and dangerous in retrospect. Syphoning out your own life essence to make something as unpredictable as reimancy was a sure way to be courting Dira before too long! Why had he not seen it? There was nothing to making him any less flammable than everything else, least of all his virtue as the caster.

What you intend for the magic and what happens are two very different things, he realized. Care must be taken at all times. Care and protection. One must use their own wit and ability to protect them from their own destructive power. Protection! Of course!

He would also shield himself before his next foray into the elemental manipulation. He had developed his shielding skill to a point where he was certain he could absorb djed with it. And Res was made of djed. Or at least that was what Lori had explained to him. Benji had no way of knowing whether or not Lori had actually been a competent mage, save by virtue of her not being dead and being able to teach him.

The mage slid out of his shirt. He let the linen cloth fall upon the rough-spun wool of his bed sheet. Then he hurriedly slipped out of his other clothing before crossing his legs and sitting upon the floor. He closed his eyes and breathed, slowly. The practice of clearing his mind had always been harder for the merchant’s son than had the actual production of flame or a djed crafted shield. To be inwardly calm was no small achievement.

But soon the focus came and he was able to gather the djed in his mind’s eye in the familiar way of his shielding. The mage smiled to himself. The employment of his magic was a deeply satisfying ritual for him. He wondered if the same was true for every mage, or was he especially insane. Benji let the djed seep from him and began to touch it to his chest. He painted it onto himself with hands practiced in this particular method. For most of his small shields he used this to layer the djed evenly. For any rare larger shield he had done the mage had just extended the ‘’brush’’ to paint large swaths in midair. But he was much more comfortable with the micro method.

[Bennar Witt]

Benji knew how to make the shield block djed. That had been a relatively simple lesson, and the main point of him learning the practice in the first place. His memories crept up, like freshly hatched chicks, into his mind. The brick wall behind his father’s home. The sun setting over the jagged peaks in the distance. An Alvadan dusk, and Lori explaining how shielding, this form of magic, could protect against other forms.

Benji had imagined a wild storm of djed lashing out and disintegrating the vile tentacles of magic sent by villainous sorcerers. But the reality was much less climactic. In reality shielding had a potent power, but a very subtle one. As he had matured, Benji had learned to appreciate that more than the wild imaginings of a youthful dreamer. It had grown to be his favorite form of magic, and the one with which he derived the most pleasure.

Benji finished with coating his torso and methodically moved through the rest of his body. The djed gave no sensation as it was caked onto him, but he imagined something akin to clay as he worked. Though that was completely arbitrary, Benji often found such ways to wrap his mind around the foreign nature of the magic he performed. After a few minutes the mage was completely finished with the application of the djed to his body. Benji tested the half-completed shield with his mind. A bit uneven, a bit clumped in places. It was hard, at his skill level, to get it perfectly uniform. It was even harder to get a shield on oneself perfectly uniform. But it was definitely good enough for his purposes. He could always perform maintenance on it later.

The mage pulled from his mind the idea of blocking djed. The imprint of the task on the shield was an odd sensation this time. Since it was a personal shield he felt the task projected from his mind and immediately knew it had soaked into the shield and was spreading across the congealed medium of the thing. He imagined a pulsing sort of knowledge within it that would function to make the thing act, his knowledge. Or previously his.

Now it was the shield’s. But that was not enough. The doubt trickled into him unbidden. He needed more. He felt that it could handle more. Benji began to formulate a second task, a slight complexity that would compliment the first nicely. He crafted an absorption task that would, ideally, enable the shield to not only block the djed from passing it, but also enable it to absorb foreign djed in much the same way as it had welcomed the djed he painted it with. The two ideas were similar enough that altering both tasks to be compatible was only the work of a few moments. He let that one seep out of his mind and become law within the shield as well.

And then it was done. Almost. Benji had learned from years of thoughtless magic. He needed a way to let his own djed escape when casting, or else the whole thing was pointless. So he rubbed away the djed shield from his hands, allowing for those two points of weakness. When the shield was removed from his hands he was satisfied he would be able to cast without it being absorbed.

Benji hastily pulled his undergarments and trousers on again and crossed to his window. He pushed open the creaking, complaining panes of glass there and stared out at the white stone of the building next to his own apartment building. It was a windowless tower that served to house a stair up to an even higher platform. He grinned. Perfect.

Benji glanced down. The mountain’s rocky cliff-face was below with no passers-by to see him perform. The mage began to focus. He would send a chunk of dirt flying against the tower wall. The ambition of it all. Who would have thought that such a lofty mage was capable of chucking earth at a nice white wall. The youth exuded enough Res to form a sizable chunk, which he shaped into a crude imagining of a spear. The Res shifted subtly in the light. He felt an intense connection to it, as if it was still him, just outside of himself. It was an odd feeling, but not uncommon for him.

Now remember, he thought, no sustenance in these castings. Create and be done. Small, subtle movements and get the most out of what you give. His face screwed up in concentration. The Res floated next to him, shuddering with his wavering excitement.

Benji willed the substance to propel it self at the tower. It did. Fast. He watched as it tore across the few dozen feet of space between the two buildings and thought: Earth! The Res immediately shifted to a dark, compact soil as it slid through the air. The much heavier stuff ripped through the intervening space for an instant before smashing into the tower’s wall. Most crumbled and fell to the depths of the cliffs below, but a small mount still clung to the wall where it had impacted.

Benji’s triumphant yell echoed down the cliff-face. He was a petching mage! Benji become paranoid then, glancing around before quickly shutting his window. He laughed a bit to himself. He was a petching something.

[Brandon Blackwing]

BENNAR WITT

XP Award:

• Reimancy +3
• Observation +3
• Philosophy +1
• Meditation +1
• Shielding +2
  

Lore:

• Reimancy: manipulating res
• Res is a finite source after transmutation
• Magic: Care and Protection Required
• Meditation: clearing the mind
• Shielding: Applying a shield on your body
• Tasking the Shield: Block Djed
• Tasking the Shield: Absorb Djed
• Reimancy: Conjuring an Earth Spear
  

Notes:
What can I say that won’t make me feel as if I’m repeating myself over and over again? …. Great job with the magic. It is fun to read about Bennar’s magical experiments Good work, as always.

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credit goes to Adelaide Sitai