Solo A Trail Traveled Part V

[Moritz Craven]

1 Winter 520(continued II)

Aja smiled at Moritz, laughing and shaking her head after a moment at seeing his reaction.

"To be honest, I don't even remember the first time I saw with my Iraso vision. Its been so long ago. But I enjoy seeing your fresh excitement on it. And I'm glad it went well. I haven't known you long Moritz but... I feel like I understand you. And thats more important really. I don't think I've met many other humans I could say the same so quickly. But then, you are an odd duck aren't you? Or should I say Okomo."

Moritz frowned, as usual more in concentration than anything else as he puzzled over her words.

"I would think so, since I'm an Okomo not a duck, odd or otherwise."

"No Moritz, its just... Ah never mind. Anyways... Now that your initiated, why don't we go over some of the basics. You turned on your Iraso vision. Why don't you try turning it back off, and then after a moment back on again. To turn it on you had to concentrate and pull your djed into your eyes. Now you need to do the opposite, stop the flow into your eyes. And that will turn it off."

Moritz sighed again, nodding in understanding. He supposed being able to turn it both off and on was important, and so it made sense to do those first. But a small part of him was excited and hoping at some more interesting uses of the magic. Perhaps in a bit...

Mentally picturing his eyes, aglow in the wash of Iraso vision, Moritz focused on the flow of djed into them. Like a stream of water, cool to the touch, surging up from his core and into his head and through that into his eyes. And now he focused on that stream, and pictured the flow cutting off. He imagined the flow like a river drying up, the stream dwindling down to nothing until it was cut off completely. And then he opened his eyes, looking into the mirror Aja held up.

His eyes were still alight, and he could still see the djed of everything in his Iraso vision.

"Maybe try another mental image, that one perhaps wasn't direct or focused enough. Think maybe... Like opening or closing a door. Off, and on. In, and out. Eventually that is how Iraso vision should work, like opening and closing a door. For now, picture the activation and cessation as something akin to that."

Moritz nodded again, working on another attempt, focusing again on his mind. Taking in a deep breath, slowly letting it out. Once more he pictured the flow of djed, streaming into his eyes. The energy allowing his Iraso ability to work. Now he pictured the flow cut off abruptly, a large and solid stone dam dropping into place before it entered his eyes. This held back the flow of djed, let it flow freely elsewhere but not as the Iraso ability. He took in another slow breath, and let it out slowly, before finally opening his eyes. It was then he saw... Normally.

"Good work Moritz, took you a bit but you turned it off. Now try again to turn it on, and we will do something else."

WC: 549

[Moritz Craven]

Moritz nodded at Aja's direction, taking a moment to clear and calm his breathing and to clear his mind. He visually imagined pushing things away from his mind, leaving a empty void, and then focused on that for a moment as he slowly inhaled and then just as slowly exhaled.

Then he began his attempt at turning his Iraso vision back on, focusing on his eyes in that blank void he was attempting to make in his mind. First he imagined his chest, inside of it a curling and coiling pit of energy. of djed, within himself. That bit of energy that flickered off with each breath, each time he moved, picturing his body as a web of lines with bits of djed flickering in and out as he lived and moved and acted. Uniform, clean, normal. With that done he focused on his eyes, picturing its energy similar to the rest of his form. With a willing inside himself he willed the djed in his core traveling to his eyes to increase, empowering his Iraso vision. Willed his Iraso vision to activate, to empower his vision and let him see more than he could with his normal mundane vision.

Magic. The ability he had been given to become an Iraso was magic, there was no other way to describe it. Wondrous, amazing, and something beyond anything he had experienced before.

On the ebb and flow of his breath he imagined the trickle of djed to his eyes slowly increasing, each wave being a bit stronger and building upon the one before it. Until finally he felt a slight tingle, but not a tingle. Such was as best he could describe it, as in truth it did not have a comparable physical sensation.

Opening his eyes, Moritz not remembering when he had closed them, he once more focused on what he was seeing. And there it was, a blaze of energy in the world around him. Light overlaying everything, light and power and energy interpreted by his eyes in a way he could understand. Density was visible by a deeper hue and more complex and bright weave of light, though beyond this sense of djed density everything more or less appeared the same. Dirt, rock, water, he assumed fire if it was present, while he could tell some where more dense than others everything looked the same. Which meant his more normal and mundane eyesight was still needed to make things out and tell them apart. He could perhaps using his Iraso aspect of his vision alone, say in a dark room with no light, see a person or animal, but he assumed he would not be able to see a bed or table very well against the surrounding general backdrop of lower density djed as it would look more or less the same without dividing the parts into disparate objects.

"Good work Moritz, good work. Now first things first, you need to begin your training in Pathfinding. Eventually you will be able to see the paths taken by everything. People, animals, objects. But admittedly the latter, objects, tend to have weak trails. So I would advise against trying to track them till you are more skilled. So lets start with the easiest, by comparison. People. Focus behind you, and follow your own trail back the way you came for a bit."

WC: 562

[Moritz Craven]

Turning around Moritz looked behind him, his Iraso sight blazing in his vision. As he did he saw, as Aja had said, a trail coming out from behind him. There was an odd twist, perhaps of him turning, or perhaps something indicating he had stayed in one spot. But off of that was a clear path stretching outward. After a bit of distance this dropped off, the trails patchy to him. Though, Moritz realized, he was unsure if that was because he was new to the ability or it would always appear as such.

Taking a few steps the way he had come Moritz looked about, seeing a few other paths intersecting. Which, Moritz realized, made sense. This was someones camp, and so they would move about. Aja, the animals, and all sorts of things. As he moved further away he had more trouble tracking his own pathway due to this issue, other paths moving over it.

"Uh, I'm having a bit of trouble picking out my own path, there have been a lot of trails laid around here. Also I have a question. When I look, I'm seeing gaps. Bits where the trail drops off, and then picks back up. Is that common? Or am I just new?"

Aja smiled at Moritz, her own eyes alight as she looked about at the paths he was inspecting.

"Your eyes are not your old ones, they have been changed. Made new by the djed passed into them. Think of these new eyes as a new muscle. They have been changed, but they are weak. Untested. Unskilled. The more you use it, the more you train it, the better you will get. In time the trails will become more clear, it just takes time. Eventually you will be able to pick out one trail from another, see through knots, see older trails unlike now when you can only see these fresh ones... They will be one continuous trail blazing across the land. For now, you'll just need to work on it and learn to deal with the paths as they are."

Mortiz nodded once more, focusing again on the trail before him. Focusing and looking back he could see where he had come from, and therefore trace it further along the new route. Or in this case the older route, as it was backward into the direction he had come from... Trying to pick apart the paths he noticed something else. His own path seemed to be... His. Turning to look at Aja he saw she had yet another... Pattern? Her djed, her blaze of djed about and of her, looked different than his own.

"Aja.... I just realized, your trail, your... Pattern... It doesn't look the same as mine. Is that common with djed.... Patterns?"

"Of course Moritz, how did you think to tell them apart. Each person has their own djed signature, a unique... Pattern, as you called it. Not quite easy to explain to someone who isn't an Iraso, which makes it difficult to explain with words. Kind of like trying to explain to a blind man what red is, or someone who can't see colors maybe would be a better example. But as you pointed out, our signatures are different. Why don't you spend some time learning your own, and learning mine, so you can track me down later if you need to. Recognizing a djed signature once you see it is important, kind of like memorizing a friends face so you know them when you see them. Except in this case they are leaving the face all about."

WC: 601

[Moritz Craven]

Moritz nodded at Aja, taking a moment to once more calm himself before looking downward. In his Iraso vision he could see his djed body, a blaze of light against the backdrop of the dim ground. He was not however as bright as Aja was, which he assumed meant something. What, he did not know. But as with other things, from what Aja told him, he assumed in time such things would be more clear.

As he focused on his body he slowly began to see the pattern within, or that more so made up his body. To anyone uninitiated into Pathfinding describing it would be utterly impossible, he quickly realized. Even more so than seeing paths, trails, and djed in general, the complexity of detail of a djed body was far beyond that. Like layering a shape, color, hue, brightness, density, thickness, and several other descriptive sights into one thing. And even then it was.... Something else. Beyond and different.

No, Moritz realized, seeing a djed body and knowing it as this or that djed body was more akin, Moritz felt at least, to reading. Like words on a page. But reading in a language one did not understand. As one focused and inspected things, as he was doing now, the symbols and things came into greater clarity. But it was still odd he felt, and if he grasped any facet of it beyond the surface it was very limited. Like trying to read a foreign language in a foreign script which was written in water, held in a bucket that was leaking out the bottom.

Still staring at his own djed pattern Moritz spoke another query to Aja, not looking up from his work.

"Aja, what sorts of things can you tell from seeing a djed body or the pathways they leave behind?"

Considering for a moment the woman spoke, a smile on her face as she considered things.

"Well, at first very little. But then slowly, more and more. Maybe you can tell what you are tracking. A human. A boar. A cougar. Maybe you can tell it is a male, or female. And then in time slowly more is made visible if you look. How old the man is, if they are angry or placid or other such types of personality. Maybe with enough care you would be able to tell the person is a smith, or a cook, or a guard. And at the upper end, things even I rarely can do, would be more fine details indeed. Names. If the person is a mage, a magic user, just by looking at the path they leave behind them. Some of those require time, training, and skill. Some just require a bit of skill, and time examining the one pathway. But in the end, practice is the main key."

Moritz nodded, blinking a few times to refocus his eyes after staring at himself for so long. After his work he could certainly make out the this that made his djed pattern, but he needed to rest his eyes a moment before continuing his work.

WC: 518

[Moritz Craven]

Having a good grasp of his own djed signature, or djed pattern as Aja called it, Moritz turned his focus back to Aja. He had seen at first glance that her djed body was brighter than his own, but did not truly understand what that meant.

Now he needed to learn to recognize Aja's pattern, which he knew was the first step in learning to tell one djed pattern from another. Once he had done a few it would logically be easier to see the differences in other ones. He would still surely need to take time to learn each one, to understand what made each different and that pattern versus this one, but he felt the promise of a route of sorts to go. Always, or so Mortiz felt, a promising thing when taking on a new task. And a simple enough first step in a plan of action he was taking.

Considering the future he knew he would also need to work on learning the patterns of other people he saw often. Kyra. His mother. And anyone else he thought he might need to be able to find.

Focusing his eyes on Aja Moritz considered her djed, trying not to blink in his attempt at focus. This seemed humorous to Aja, who audibly laughed in response.

"Moritz, you aren't trying to bore through me with your eyes. Just look like normal, blinking is fine. Pathfinding is all about the eyes, but its also a new normal type of vision you can use. If you were studying a painting, would you stand and stare without blinking?"

Moritz frowned, puzzling over a response for a moment.

"Why would I stare at a painting?"

Shaking her head Aja smiled once more, having been around Moritz enough to have picked up on his way of thinking to some degree.

"Your missing the point Moritz. The point I was trying to make was when studying something for a long time you need to do so normally. Not by glaring without blinking. Thats not sustainable is it? You can't keep that up. So just look at me like you normally look at things, and let the understanding come."

Moritz nodded, working once more to slow his breathing and examining his instructor without forcing his eyes to stay open.

As he considered her djed pattern along with his own he began to notice differences. This bit here was like so... But that hue or brightness there shifted to this way... And on he went, focusing on the pair of patterns and discerning what was the same and what was different. And then comparing each to each other he worked on understanding what made this pattern this pattern. He felt like it would take time, but already he was beginning to grasp the basics. It also helped when he looked about at the other animals and saw their distinct patterns. Not so complex perhaps as a persons, but different in unique ways such that it served as a good reference point for the differences in Moritz and Aja's pattern.

"Alright Moritz, I think that's good for a first lesson. Lets call it a day, alright? Rest your eyes, and we'll come back to this later."

WC: 539

[Moritz Craven]

Grade Award!

Name:Moritz Craven
XP Award:

• Logic 3
• Meditation 2
• Observation 2
• Pathfinding 5
• Planning 1

Lores:

• Meditation: Picturing Djed as Water
• Meditation: Picturing a Pit of Djed in ones center
• Meditation: Picturing Djed as a web throughout the body
• Pathfinding: Possible uses in the Dark
• Pathfinding: Like building a new muscle
• Pathfinding: Patches and breaks common at lower skill
• Pathfinding: Distinguishing a paths Djed Signature from another
• Pathfinding: Moritz own Djed Signature
• Pathfinding: With skill &/or time can tell details from a Path
• Pathfinding: Aja's Djed Signature.

Penalties & Awards: N/A