A Stony Sight

by **Keene Ward** on May 26th, 2015, 5:11 pm

The twenty-first of spring, 514 AV

The rock sat steady and unmoving where he had placed it, dull and dark from where he had gathered it near the mouth of the cavern. To its side, a sphere of pale white stone, crafted by his own magic. There was space enough between them that if he focused on one, the other was only just in sight. He'd been practicing his auristics off and on, finding that the headaches grew exponentially more painful the harder he pressed, but there were several things about the magic he wanted to test. The first was the differences between a natural rock and a reimantic one. While he knew that magic seemed to affect the auras, he had yet to compare them side by side. The second, and perhaps more relevant potential discovery, was that there seemed an optimal "flow" for the djed fueling the magic.

He'd developed the theory a few days ago, when he'd been watering the tree that still grew up on the plateau a fair distance above him. The rate at which the rain fell was relatively constant when he cast it, and while it could be varied, there was a rate of rainfall that was the most comfortable for him, the most natural, so to speak. The thought had carried over to both shielding and auristics, and it had applied nicely to his shields. The rate at which he cast off his djed was also relatively steady, an optimal point. So, it stood to reason that it was entirely possible aurisitics had a similar point, though that possibility was just as equally improbable as it was contrary to such. Magic was magic, certainly, but reimancy was not shielding was not aurisitics. Though there seemed to be shared points, they were entirely different schools. Still, if there was a way to conserve or at the very least streamline the augmentative process, it was worth trying.

Settling down into the chair that had become a familiar support in his auristic endeavors, Keene centered his focus on his djed, the placid grey clouds that drifted through his being. He drew on them, coaxing them to rise and follow his will. Both he and his djed new the path well, only this time he took care to pull the clouds into a thin, wispy thread, stringing it along until he felt the whisper of a shiver at the back of his neck signaling that the connection had been made between the greater nature of his djed as the senses it embodied. Maintaining the single strand was difficult, though it a far different way that it was to simply allow the djed to flow in a steady, exhaustive stream. The strain was no longer on his senses so much as it was on his own discipline, and he found it difficult to even open his eyes, let alone study anything in depth.

Not unexpected, there was no change in his vision. Continuing to draw breath as steady as he could, Keene slowly pulled more and more strands of djed to join the first, each one allowing a greater flow of djed. Though the strain continued to impress upon him a strange sense of urgency, Keene held fast to the experiment, adding djed incrementally rather than to succumb to the desire to just allow all of it to rush along the path in whatever way it saw fit. The chimes passed, though whether they moved quickly or slowly, Keene wouldn't have known. His mind was fully focused on the tasks at hand, switching meticulously first from the gathering threads of his cloud-like metaphor into an ever expanding stream then on to the stones in front of him to check if he had yet reached his target. He could feel the djed's push against his will lessening with each additional strand, and gauging from the shift in pressures, it seemed he was nearing his theoretical point of optimization.

by **Keene Ward** on June 5th, 2015, 7:07 am

Slowly, he could feel the magic begin to flicker into something he could use. Several hundred strands later, Keene fixed his gaze on the faint, deadened glow of the mountain's natural stone before him. He could just make out a slight outline to the rock's solid structure, but it was blurred and difficult to focus on. He added more threads, adjusted the rate at which his djed was expended ever more, careful to take note of the sensations of both his senses themselves and the introspective representation of his meditative metaphor for the manipulation of his own essence. The magic grew in strength, the aura drew into greater focus. When the magic was at its strongest, Keene felt it. It was like a soft shiver throughout his entire being, almost an equilibrium between what it was he saw and what it was he felt.

Keene blinked, several times, memorizing the feeling. There was still a strain on his senses, certainly, but it was far less overwhelming. He did not feel as though the world was rising up to press around him, and as he stared at the natural stone before him, the aura did not reveal itself as those in the past. Instead, he was able to look carefully and contemplatively as the layers of the aura drifted into and out of focus. For the majority of what he imagined auristics to be useful for, the slower rate of discovery was far superior to the rush of information he'd been employing before. Drawing closer to the stone, he inspected the aura.

At first, it was grey. He could feel the solidity of it, the permanence, much like what he focused on when he created his own. The longer he stared the more he saw. There were undercurrents of a dull, tangled rust, a bite of acrid smoke at the back of his throat, and power too. It was deep within the layers of the rock's nature, and he could only just grasp at it before he found it prudent to allow himself rest. Unlike before, his body did not feel incredibly strained, nor was it nearly as difficult to coax the djed back into its proper flow. After a few chimes of slow, steady breathing, Keene let his eyes open once more.

The rocks were as they had been before, and while there was a slight ache in the very base of his neck, it could easily have been from the slight slouch he'd fallen into while searching for the optimal flow of djed. Taking time to tilt his head side to side to work out the kinks, Keene rose to walk slowly about the room, letting his legs find relief in the movements as the blood was once more stirred within his ever-chilled body. He was still far from done with his morning's training, as while he had found the point he'd supposed would be there to make the use of djed far less wasteful, it had taken him an exponentially greater amount of time to activate the magic, essentially wasting just as much as if he had done things no differently than before.

Settling back into the chair, Keene leaned back, nibbling on a piece of half eaten jerky he'd been working through earlier that morning. As a child, Mella had forced him to eat at very specific points in the day. While the wilds of the Sahovan wilderness were not entirely conducive to strict eating schedules, Keene still seemed to adhere to them, though perhaps a bit more loosely than he had in the past. Setting the mostly eaten meat aside, Keene swallowed, tracing the movement of his breakfast down his throat and into his stomach where he centered his focus once more.

by **Keene Ward** on June 5th, 2015, 9:21 pm

Again, his djed was pulled, this time a bit more firmly. He had a rough idea of how much he wanted to allow, but he erred on the side of caution, choosing to allow a conservative stream to flow along the established path of his auristic senses. Once more, he moved slowly in allowing more and more djed to pass. He could feel the shiver of his essence still some as he approached the optimal point once more, and after only a few chimes the steady glow of the rock's aura sharpened into focus. Keeping his djed flow steady, Keene took a slow, calming breath and turned to stare at the second stone, the one crafted by his own magic.

The aura that rose to meet his gaze was quite different from the first. While the immediate nature of the stone rose to meet him, much the same as before, the aura itself was much larger, the fringes of it shivering, almost as if it were alive but lacking the beat of soul. A pale blue light was woven into every layer of the aura, from the marble's natural density of a dark solid color right down to the soft, cool temperature in the light grey undertones. The aura itself was far more intricate, information pooled and woven throughout the structure before him, drawing his attentions, willing him to seek more. He felt the strain on his control, some of the djed slipping through his hold to flare his senses. The aura burned brighter, and while several new colors and a distant chill ran down his spine, Keene forced his eyes shut, gripping onto the djed and stilling its flow, coaxing it back and away.

It took a few chimes for his breathing to calm. The djed within him swirled about, the neutrality of the overcast nature of his soul thrown into a flurry that took time to still, to calm. The entire time his eyes remained shut, the chill having since dissipated and the earthy flavors of the stone's aura faded. When finally he felt himself calmed, Keene let vision once more return, blinking slowly in the light that was a bit too bright. He could feel the strain, familiar in its irritation, as pressed his fingers to his temples, rubbing gently to alleviate some of the pressure. He had been experimenting with his djed expenditure, so he was hardly surprised that slight overgiving had already taken hold of him. It was hardly enough to stop him, but more than enough of a suggestion that he pause, let himself rest for a chime or so before continuing again.

Instead of preparing for another test of just how much djed should be used and what the ideal rate of flow was for the augmentative magic, he simply stared at the two stones. Without the aid of auristics, the only true differences he could see between the two were the drastic shifts in color, shape, and size. Everything else was, more or less, similar enough that to refer to both as "rocks" was hardly an injustice. Yet, under the lens of his djed fueled senses, while one was a rock, certainly, the other was - for lack of better terminology - a magic rock. He leaned back in the chair, brow only slightly knit as he pondered whether time might fade a wizard's influence while increase that of the rock's "rockness". If that were so, it was entirely possible that "natural" rocks were maybe not quite so mundane. If a wizard were to create a mountain, a feat he imagined would be something either very time consuming or requiring quite the sacrifice of one's own life, the mountain's aura would be that of stone and dirt and earth, yet also of the wizard's. If time had a part to play, years - perhaps even days - after its creation, the mountain's aura would shine far more dominant than that of the wizard's, until eventually, the signature would be buried beneath whatever new information was stacked over it.

It was a theory, of course. One that he could certainly test in the years to come. For the time being, however, Keene leaned forward once more, letting his eyes shut and gently rubbing the skin just beneath his bottom eyelids with a soothing pressure. He had isolated, more or less, his theoretical point of optimization. Practice would be required to fine tune the mechanisms needed to achieve it, and with that in mind, he set his future studies aside to focus on the present.

by **Keene Ward** on June 5th, 2015, 9:42 pm

Once more he drew his djed upwards and through him, guiding it from a rush of wind of fog into a steady, controlled stream, easing it along the pathway that had grown not only more familiar over the days, but much easier to find. The restrictive hold on the wealth of djed that shivered beneath his will was by far the most difficult thing to maintain, but as he slowly released it, ushering what he imagined to be close to the proper amount into his senses, his eyes, ears, tongue, and skin, it felt... better. There was not the strange sense of emptiness that came with shielding or the rush of desire that was reimancy. Instead, it simply felt as thought his faculties had been expanded, carefully and gently as opposed to the sudden rush he had grown accustomed to. He reigned in the flow somewhat, eyes blinking open and finding the auras in clear focus.

He tested the djed, adding and subtracting to how much he fed to his senses. The more the stared, as always, the more he saw, but the rate at which he saw seemed variable. The more djed he expended, the faster he could delve into deeper layers. The less djed, the longer it took to investigate, but there was far less strain. For the most part, his attentions were focused on the marble, his reimantic stone that he'd created. The aura was predominantly stone. Even as he delved into the aura, djed on a careful and methodical leash, the pale blue seemed only a small part of what was the larger nature. Greys, whites, and blacks meshed and melded with each other, thin and lifeless, almost delicate where it not for the innate solidity of what it was he saw. He could feel it, in is skin, the weight, strength, and motionlessness. It was a rock, everything about it was a rock, save the ever present wisps of blue that were equally present in every layer he found.

Though he had a much better hold over his djed's flow, Keene reigned the magic in, finding that as long as he remained conscious of the control needed to mold the very nature of the everything within him, it was much easier to effectively "turn off" his auristics. Settling the djed back into its proper places, or wherever it seemed best suited towards, Keene let his breath draw him away from the slight patter of excitement and back into a more calm mindset. The magic was exhilarating, though not in terms which like the whisper of addiction that reimancy offered. With auristics, he could see things, learn things, that he simply couldn't without. It was a world within a world, one that had a plethora of treasures to offer him if he only would search for them. It made stopping difficult, but with his growing understanding of how to stop, it made the concept of why to stop more of the obstacle than anything else.

Slipping the last of the jerky between his lips, Keene chewed with a methodical rhythm. Magic rocks, then, were still rocks. Their origins were unnatural, but their natures were as close to what it was they imitated, that the imitation might as well be the real the thing. It wasn't necessarily that surprising, though, as he leaned back in the chair to stare up at the flickering shadows on the ceiling cast but the candles' light, he supposed that it hadn't been what he'd expected either. He'd never really considered what a magical element even was, beyond... a magical element. Mella had explained that reimantic elements were essentially the same as those they were modeled after, only the reimantic elements were pure whereas a naturally occurring element could be mixed with others. The purity was something he had seen, maybe, within the folds of the aura, but the stone he'd compared it to had hardly seemed a mix of anything, though there had been the smoky bite... Fire perhaps.

by **Keene Ward** on June 6th, 2015, 12:18 am

Leaning forward for what he imagined to be the final time, as the motion gave his head a solid throb that warned should he push much more he would find the light of day to be bright enough to blind him, Keene pushed the two stones closer together. He'd only ever tried to focus on a single aura at one time, and as the morning had been one full of hypotheses tested, he saw little reason to not end with another that had popping into his head during his relaxing ruminations. If a reimantic element was more pure than its brothers, he imagined there would be a noticeable difference in the auras, though if it were too deep, he wouldn't be able to see it without rest. He supposed the increased possibility of failure wasn't too concerning, as one learned far more from mistakes than triumphs, and proceeded to draw the djed up and through him once more. This time, however, his eyes did not close. He was relatively confident that the flow would be steady, but he found he couldn't help but blink as the magic flared to life.

The auras were before him, but neither were clear. It required him to focus on a single one before he could discern anything, and while he tried several times - even experimenting with how much djed fueled his endeavors - it seemed that two auras were simply too much for him. Choosing to settle on the plain, dark glass-like stone, Keene let his elbows rest on the table's surface, alleviating what strain he could on the rest of his body as he felt the telltale ache of fatigue playing just behind his eyes.

Again, the grey rose up. The smoke hinted at the back of his throat, and as he continued to stare, he found similar layers to the marble: solidity, motionlessness, permanence. Though, it seemed there was a frailty to the stone, a slight, almost sickly yellow tinging what was otherwise the sturdy nature of the stone. There was more, the sheen of the stone represented in a slick, almost sharp edge of the aura, pale white like an opaque glass. Again, there was a small fleck of rust within the layers, an entity that was neither foreign nor entirely stone. It hung within the aura, woven throughout it, though there was less to it than that. It was like a distant memory, if the aura had had such a thing, incomplete and fractured. Though he wanted to look more, the headache had begun to set in, and with the tightly held reigns of his will wrapped about the flow of his djed, Keene found it easy enough to ease away from the sensory overload of his magic and drift back into the natural resting state of his being.

Taking a few chimes to rest, simply sitting in the chair and doing little more than breathing and forcing his eyes to slowly adjust to the candle's auraless flicker, he found that the morning's time had not been wasted. There was still much for him to do, both in the mornings to come and the rest of the day, but he wasn't so foolish as to think those things did not require the time to do them. Even Mella had been aware there was only so much one could do in a single day. When he felt the throb of his head had simmered to a low, constant ache, Keene slowly rose, stretching and twisting his body to reawaken the weary muscles and stiff joints that had settled while he'd worked. Setting the marble sphere to the side, Keene picked up the chunk of obsidian, weighing it in his hand as he squinted down at it. The glassiness was more apparent than before, or perhaps he was simply more attuned to the fact that it was present. He could almost feel the frailty of the rock in relation to that of the marble, though again, as he turned to head outside, he had little doubt that it was simply because he was more aware of the rock's essence than he had been before. What a strange thing, the magic of auristics.