[Flashback]Magical Protection and Possibilities[Bob]

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde smiled at Bob's bad acting. He was supposed to be better at that right? If he wanted to lie to people, he should work on such skills. "No, it did not work. If it had, either the shield would have deflected it, or the shield would have shattered, letting it through. Either way, neither of those happened. The snowball just went through it, like it was not there. So It was just res, not a shield. I will have to try it a bit differently." Continuing to work on his shield, he tried things a slightly different way. After trying a bit of change in his res, and getting it ready, the next snowball hit it. This time, he had to raise his hands to keep the higher ball. however this one also went through the 'shield', and smashed into his hands. However do to the position, a lot of the snow blew out and went all in his face. Spluttering a bit, he spit out some of the snow from his mouth, and wiped it off of his face. The rest he got slowly off of his hands, by wiping it on his robes. This time he thought he might have gotten a bit of an effect, but nothing really. "Well, that could have gone better. Nice change up... Give me a minute... Im doing something wrong..." This time, he tried meditating a bit more, and to pull himself inward, to concentrate on his magic. He concentrated on his work, trying to change the density and shape of the res in a different way. He got so lost in thought, he forgot about Bob, and focused only on his 'shield'.

[Bob Barton]

Failed again. And this time Bob could not help but chuckle at the sight of Clyde eating the snow and taunt him a little. "Oh, how I wish you tried this shielding business during our magical sparring the last time. Then maybe I could have won." Bob wouldn't know what Clyde would have to say about that since it seems that he went back to sleeping.

With Clyde preparing and Bob done with his, there was going to be a while before Clyde finished his shield thing if the past attempts were any indication. Bob went back to his sword and looked inspected it to double check his glyphs. There was the one with the snowball in it and Bob spun the sword over to the other side. There was the 3 focuses he made as well, but...some of the chalk got rubbed off when the sword brushed with the snow earlier. Bob took up the chalk and fixed it up, connecting back all the gaps in the lines.

Bob looked over his shoulder again to see if Clyde was ready but the boy was too focused with his hocus pocus. Oh well, time to test his own theory and Bob held on to the sword handle slashing at the air. Bob started slashing at the air keeping his arm as stiff as possible so that the blade won't go off target. A diagonal slash upwards, a horizontal slash across and a stab. Slowly and slowly Bob got more used to the wooden training weapon. It was slightly more heavier than the sword he was used to but at least it still had the same reach. Taking a big step forward, Bob extended his arm and lunged at the air. With not much of a hold on the snow his foot slipped and he fell forward face first into the snow. Spitting whatever got into his mouth when he got up.

[Clyde Sullins]

Concentrating on his task, he felt he was slowly improving. He almost had what he wanted. He listened as Bob taunted him, and resisted the urge to blast him with lightning... As he worked, he saw Bob playing around with his sword, and doing something. Somehow, he ended up face first in the snow, in worse shape than Clyde had been. It seemed nature had given Bob his own comeuppance... Now though, he focused on his res, finalizing it. As always, his res was a silver so bright, it almost appeared white. As he worked, the res glinted for a moment, and then seemed to freeze. A bit shocked, Clyde opened his eyes, and saw that his res was no longer moving, but a solid structure. Had he done what he had been attempting? If it was, it would be invisible to Bob, since only shielders of similar or higher rank could see someones shield. With it coated over his hands, he was ready for another try. "Okay Bob, I think I am ready. Go ahead! Aim for my hands!" Saying this, he put his hands out at waist height, with his palms out. He hoped that he had gotten it right, and that this was indeed a proper shield. They would both see after the next one...

[Bob Barton]

This time when Clyde gave the signal that they are ready to test, it seemed that he was more sure, confident that he got the shield up. Bob no longer saw the typical signs of uncertainty such as non-verbal commands like the nod or the unsure voice in his previous cue. Because of this, Bob felt that now would be a good time to test his new attack theory with Clyde's new defensive move.

Lifting up his training sword pointing straight at Clyde, Bob shouted "You hope? You better know you are ready for this!" a little bit louder on "know" to emphasize its importance. Smiling to himself thinking how it may work out, Bob brought the sword closer to himself as though he was preparing to attack. After all his little idea is supposed so have some practical applications in battle so he should think of this trial run as the same.

Bob shut his eyes and focused on his hand on the sword's hilt. As he did he released some res through the skin in its liquid form and forced it to start wrapping around the hilt. The res crawled from between the hand and the hilt until it touched itself on the other end. Even with the start of the reimancy Bob kept his eyes shut. Now that he only needed to keep the res in place for a while, he shifted most of his concentration to imagining up a phantom opponent. The eyes opened. No longer did he see Clyde. Instead it was some bigger, more scary looking person. Not a boy god. A huge bald man, scarred at the eye and chest with bulging muscles sticking out of the arms and legs of the even more muscular torso. The man stuck his hands forward to him, gesturing him to come forward and strike.

"Here I come!" Bob yelled to raise his confidence and to try and intimidate his opponent. He started waving his sword with each step he took forward. Everytime he saw an opening, he slashed at the man to take it. Everytime the man attacked him with the humongous fists, Bob would dodge it using the movement to increase the speed of his blade in the counterattack following the direction of his body. Eventhough he knew the phantom was not read each swing he did with as much strength as he could muster and as wide an arc as it could be, down to up, left to right, straight back to front. Why? Because everytime he did, he used the force and momentum of the attacks to help speed up the movement of the res which he was concentrating to creep up the sword blade from the hilt.

To keep the res on its intended path instead of flying scattered all over the place, Bob tried his best to split his attention on the focus and his enemy. Using the three circles as waypoints, Bob did his best to collect the res on those points before continuing on to move to the others. By the time it reached the final circle of the tip, most of the res was gone because his mind was not strong enough to hold it all together. The res was probably half of what it was being spread out by the movements of the sword. But it was probably still enough for what Bob wanted to do. At this point he imagined the man to be straight on Clyde's position and Bob though at quite a distance away, a few arms maybe? And he lunged pushing his back foot as hard as possible to give his upper body as much strength to maximize the speed of the thrust.

Using the sword's tip as a launchpad, Bob willed the res to fly straight forward. Using the momentum of the thrust, the force helped to make the speed the liquid fly faster. The shimmering liquid res was transmuted into a sharp long trail of water in mid air as it headed over to Clyde. But as it was his first time, Bob's footing was not good enough to support the move and the res missed as it flew over Clyde and smacked into a tree. "SHYKE! I FAILED!" Bob shouted at his failure and swung the flat of the blade over his other hand in a defensive move. Bob shouted "OUT! OUT!" excitedly. Next thing, a waterball flew out of glyph and headed straight over at Clyde.

[Clyde Sullins]

As Bob did some odd flailing around moves, with some imaginary enemy, Clyde concentrated on his magic. He held his shield, trying to get it to work. He was pretty sure he had it right now. Meanwhile, Bob continued to do some odd things with his res, and shot it over his head, missing everything. Getting aggravated, he cursed, and sent a waterball at Clyde. This was finally his chance to do his shield. Figuring out were the ball was going to land, He put his hands up to block it. This time his shield was substantial, and had an effect for a moment. The waterball struck it, and as it did, the ball exploded. When it struck the shield, the shield would become visible to Bob, a silver color so bright it was almost white. For a moment it held, but only for a bit. Then the shield shattered, allowing all of the smaller drops of water out in every direction. Including all over Clyde. Now pretty wet, he spit out a bit of water. Shaking his hair, he smiled and looked at Bob. "Yes, I did it! I made my first shield." Having said this, he walked over to the fire, and plopped down to warm up and dry off.

[Bob Barton]

Bob was a little frustrated. After all that thinking of how to make the sword interesting for Clyde, applying some magic to it and he noticed nothing? Not even a comment? Bob breathed out a little to try and get the anger which was growing in him out. But what Clyde did not do Bob did. He saw the waterball hitting something...not Clyde but it was too fast. He couldn't make out what it was.

Being that close, some of the water even got onto Bob getting him wet. So shaking his head in disbelief and his body to get some water off, he walked over to join Clyde by the fire. "Wait...what was that? Was that the shield? When is it my turn? Does it only block magic? Bob asked excitedly about the new magic.

Then came to the next issue, the one which frustrated Bob earlier "So how did you like it? The sword magic I mean. Yeah...I know its a bit too basic for you but with my reimancy ability, I was not able to try what I really wanted to do. But maybe you could do it? You should be strong enough." Still holding his sword, Bob waved it at the fire as though cutting it and fighting it. The fire swirled away when the sword went through but the wooden sword did not catch any fire since it was still wet from the magic earlier.

[Clyde Sullins]

Looking at his handiwork, Clyde smiled as his first shield had worked. It was not much, but still was something. Relaxing by the fire, he warmed up, a bit of steam rising off his clothes as the water heated. "Yes, it was the shield. It was not to strong, since I am new at it. Your reimancy skills are much stronger than my feeble new attempts at shielding. That was supposed to block magic, however I'm pretty sure you can do other things besides that. I heard of someone making a shield which only let the caster go through it." Listening, he wondered on what Bob was talking about. That magic, with the water on the sword? Okay, he would give a bit of a reflection on it. "With the water, it was interesting. What exactly was your goal you were trying to do? Well you can conduct magic through objects with magic, however glyphing only does so much. D-wire in it makes it so the magic can transfer, though that more requires magecrafting I believe." "You do need to be careful with storing magic, in things you want to keep. Don't forget, once it is used, the glyph disappears. So if you say carved the glyphs into something, once the magic was used it could destroy the thing." "I always wanted to do one thing. What if you glyphed some rocks with sigils, and stored magic in them. Then you could throw them, to release the magic on contact... What do you think? Rocks that explode with flame?"

[Bob Barton]

Hands spread around to try and show a big large thing. Bob still had no idea how the shield looked like but tried to express it the best as he could. "Yes, yes, yes. New shield for you but when can I get mine? And what do you mean only let the caster in?" in an impatient tone. Even as he did he held both hands together and spread them out again, like an explosion just like he saw the waterball hitting the shield.

A smile appeared on Bob's face, he finally got Clyde's interest. "Well, I was trying to use my reimancy as a projectile with the sword. The glyph helped a little, but it was not as fast as I hoped it would be" Picking up the sword, Bob handed it over to Clyde for him to inspect the remains of the glyph whether he has done it right or not. "Can we make the exploding on something other than rocks? And...I use water so how does that work?" Bob started thinking about the magic sword again before finally asking "Can you teach me those path things again? I seem to have forgotten those too."

Bob was freezing his ass off with the exploding waterball wetting his clothes in the winter. He moved closer to the fire for warmth while waiting to see what they are going to do next.

[Clyde Sullins]

Happy that he had managed his first try at shielding, Clyde was a bit confused by what Bob was saying. "Teach you? I just figured it out myself! Don't you think I should get a bit better at it before I try to teach you? And as for not letting through, I meant making the shield do that. I had heard you could make the shield in a certain way, to stop other people from walking through it, almost like a solid wall..." Thinking over the try at reimancy he had seen, he smiled a bit. It was a bit flawed, but was a decent try. "Well, I see your design you used, however, there is no were clearly for the res to be guided. The focus is fine, but if you want to fire the water out of it, a path would be best." Taking the sword, he indicated on it what he meant. "You see you have the focus here, where the magic goes in. However you should have the trigger release the one side of the barrier, and let the magic flow out that one spot, which will be linked by a path. That path leads out of the focus, and up to the end of the point of the sword." "The sword point is more fine, and so the magic will be compressed into a narrower stronger blast of water. So you will have the water shoot out of the focus, along the sword, and out of the tip of the blade, you see?" "A path is just a double pair of barriers, a road by which the magic travels down. It is pretty simple, once you get it. And yes, I suppose you could do it on things other than rocks, that was just an example." Looking over, he would watch as Bob redid his glyphs for his sword. In the meanwhile, he would try to reform the shield over his hands, to get a bit better at using shielding. Though it would take him several minutes to do even such a simple task.

[Bob Barton]

Shrugging at Clyde's comment Bob tried to get him to leak out the secret. He did want to learn how to use these magic shields. They may be very useful in the long run. "Fine, don't teach me the shield magic right now...just tell me how you did it so I might try it for myself" and Bob chuckled to make the statement seem like a joke on his part.

Eyes watching attentively, they looked over everything Clyde gestured over the sword as he explained how it might work. Pointing at the spots where the glyphs and barriers should go and how the magic would move. Bob raised his concerns to Clyde's method when he took back the sword. "Yes but if I am using this path method, it won't be so discreet right? I mean I don't really want people so see the magic flying at them unless its too late. If I had to make something out of my res and insert it into the sword from my hand then my opponents would know something is up." While he said this, Bob showed his hand as though it was carrying something invisible and kept hitting it at the sword as though he was trying to stuff something into it.

Nevertheless Bob took the sword and started making the changes. The side of the sword with the three focuses, he erased the middle one and fixed up the one at the front and the back. Connecting the lines which have been broken by the moving res from earlier, Bob took up the burnt stick again. When he was done, be wrote on the sides of the sword the barriers which Clyde told him to. Writing things like "Move-fast-magic-inside". Now that he was done all he had to do is wait for Clyde's next signal to begin.