by Miro on April 30th, 2013, 9:54 am
Miro listened to Rayage speak with the utmost care. Every word, every image he would ask him to picture, would be forced into mind. Rayage of course was talking about magic, about his gift, about furthering his power. At every prompt Miro nodded with a firm determination and gave a kind look. The Nuit did ever so much love to be received with open arms. The kind motherly face was just so appealing, her warm smile that drew him in close. It was like a dream, like he was a child again. Wrapped tightly in his mother's love of him, and of course their mutual adoration for magic. It enveloped him like a blanket of happiness and nostalgia.
First it was a recap, bringing him back to a time of his initiation, their practice into Glyphing, then much more. The furthering of that fateful encounter, what he meant all that time ago. The means of unlimited casting. In short, what the Nuit was going for was a glyph of stored Djed and a Leecher to harness it. Any spare Djed they had could be stored, then recovered, and they would have it to draw on later. Now was the start of this, and it was brilliant indeed. The way he spelled it out, it did more than get the message across, it got him excited.
His words were so vivid, full of life, energy, able to convey something powerful. Miro was actually able to see the words in his mind. A cup, his vessel, filled with, of course, his Djed. Casting drained the water from the cup, and when it was empty, and still you continued to take form it, it cracked. This was overgiving, and a perfect representation. This webbing of cracks, they were not so easily repaired. Even more than that, the cracks turn to shattering, the ultimate risk of magic. Overgiving meant losing one's former shape, fragmenting into a horrific form. But they could fill it back up, fill it with tainted water that would sit atop the pure, Leeching, as it was. This was vile water, not the best for drinking, but it kept your cup from drying. But then, something more, other cups to drink from. Other sources to crack down, disposable cups, or filled glyphs. As long as a Leecher carried with them cups to sip from, never would their own run dry. It was beyond brilliant, as long as the shoddy disposable cups didn't crack and spill.
The Reimancer filled with pride, adoration, and so many other powerful emotions. His friend, no, his benefactor, he cared so deeply for him as to share this insight. All along he had planned it, a way to protect him, always looking to care for the young wizard. If there were tears in Miro's body, they would begin to stream down his face. Everything the ancient master had done for him, it was only rivaled by a couple things in his life. The love his mother had shown him, the care his best friend Kinneas had shown after saving his life, and now he had this, the means to chase his dreams and goals and not let anything stop him. It seemed that he furthered the previous legacy of those great people before him, surpassing even what they had given him. The similar feeling of boundless and immeasurable love was imprinted on him, and he could only think one thing. In the sweetest most caring voice, his mind resounded with a thought, over and over, "Rayage cares for me."
And with that, the wizard had all the inspiration needed to prove just how hard he had been working. He pulled deep within himself, the emotions of pride and self-worth, and drew them to the surface. He began to mix Djed within his body and empower his voice with a hypnotic charm. The Hypnotism charged words would inspire an emotional response of pride as they were spoken. "You are an amazing person, Rayage. Thank you for your gift ever so much. It is beyond me to even begin to express what it means to me. Just know, I will do everything I can to return the favors you continually send my way. I may not always seem the most reliable source, but my heart is in the right place...with you."
The Glypher went over past the Nuit and snagged a larger scroll, it was of the taller and thicker sort, and a pot paint with brush as well to go with it. He walked back a distance to a clear spot on the floor and spread it out, wide out, until it was sprawled completely open. It took up a good chunk of the room, but luckily the lab was quite spacious to allow this. "I have a Glyphing technique that I invented. Originally, it was meant to be a defensive sort, but for this purpose you have stated, it is quite perfect. The point of it is to present a perfect balance of storage and stability. See, it lacks the triggering needed to release a spell for combat, but with Leeching, that is not needed. It contains a large mass of barriers that form a long winding path along the length of the scroll, and of course, inside of this pathway are an assortment of focuses. But, hold on a moment, for I need to add a modification."
The wizard looked down at the empty scroll and imagined the assorted runes and thought hard about how to adjust the sigil to accommodate easy draining of several focuses. For a chime or so he sat with his legs crossed, hand rustling his hair and making odd noises. "Hmm maybe," he would start out, then, "No, not quite." Then a bit of excitement, "Ah," but again followed by disappointment. And finally he had it and snapped his fingers. "This winding path, it leads to a switch, and the switch to another special focus. See, the focus and switch have dual operations, and even with the addition of a trigger could release this magic. But that is a lot of Djed to be held at the release of a single barrier. Anyways, listen, it's like this. The focus can take in magic and channel it through the switch, breaking it down to be stored into the many focuses throughout. But then it can also combine and channel this magic back out to the focus for ease of access in Leeching."
With a sly smile and pride in his voice he continued on. "See, I got this idea from a type of painting I saw in Alvadas, on some of the walls. It was a long painting filled in with all sorts of interesting things, and it made use of all of the space given to it. When I had asked a resident what it was called, they said it was a mural. And I really liked that painting, very interesting. It was like a picture story. It got me to thinking, something like that, if applied to Glyphing, it could be really useful. The wall could have the ability to stand up even to my Reimancy if covered in focuses and barriers, just absorbing it in until it was full. More than one wizard could cast, ya know? Then I thought, if you could carry something like that around with you, then you could defend against powerful magic anywhere." He was quite proud with himself, coming up with the idea and having an even greater use for it.
"Not only could it catch an enemy spell, but you could then make their Djed your own. Ya know? And with the focus on the end connected to the switch and mural, you could do something really useful. See, when the mural is painted, it is all connected to this one focus on the end. It only has to be big enough for you to fit your hand onto it. You could leave the scroll mostly rolled up and drain from the entire thing...or have it only opened a bit, and store magic in the rest of the focuses within the scroll. The only thing is, leeched Djed is hard to use. It causes a lot of strain on the body to use, and I am not very adjusted to it. Using it with Reimancy is nigh impossible, even with my mastery of the discipline." By the time Miro had finished with his explanation he was practically shaking with excitement. He was eager to finally put this technique to test and application.
"Alright Rayage, I'll show you first, then you copy the technique and do it yourself. When we are done though, we need to be careful with what we store. Momma always said that focuses were dangerous, and that barriers were never infallible. The moment you take your eye off of the sigil, it will explode and poke your eye out. She was a very wise wizard, so it is best we pay close attention to her lessons. If you don't want your face burned off, don't play with fire, play with water instead. That is a lesson I learned on my own." He snickered to himself and moved the the furthest end of the scroll, the inside edge, and seated himself. As he opened the paint and dipped his brush, and issued the first lesson of creating a Mural Glyph. "Always start at the inside edge and work your way down. Works best that way."
Before he could start in however, an interruption. "You do understand why he is teaching you this, right? Why he had to give you Leeching...why he had to put you through the initiation, without telling you his motive until after. It was because he is trying to use you. He claims it is all for your benefit, but he has invested quite a lot into you, and he does not want to see it go to waste. He wants to control you, to make you act in his favor. Of course, I am sure you already know, if somebody is trying that, you can turn it on them. If you play hard to win over, he will have to try harder. If he needs you, make him work for it. Use him instead." His master did not respond, and he didn't have to. The look on his face spelled it all out. An amused smirk, one that said he could agree. A way to dominate and control, since of course, Rayage would do anything for him. Maybe he could get some more use from the Nuit.
Miro started in painting by outlining the area that would become the focus space. He left a center cavity, a spiraling channel, to become a track for focuses. Around the outside he began to create various designs that would become barriers. A pattern of waves, swirling, intersecting, forming whirlpools. The current of drawn waters started at the top left side and moved to the right. As the currents broke at the top right corner, it swired into a large whirlpool with budding offshot streams that broke against what he drew as a wall. This wall was the beginning of his input-output focus, what would be the most important rune.
The Glypher made it sizable enough to fit his hand, and a rounded square close to the edge of the scroll completely bare inside. For now he could leave this empty and continued to work around it. To the direct left of it, he made the switch, a smaller circle that was filled with several lines that all swirled towards the center. And to the left of that switch was the track of the focuses. From the bottom right corner and around the focuses he created more barriers to seal create the paths. Further on the series of cascading waves and swirling eddies and flows cascaded, all the way around the last corner and back to its starting point. In some variances, he made the flow slosh over into the territory of the focal tracks, but not without pattern. These overstepping waves snaked in and out in a pattern, to make a serpentine pathway for the focuses, quite the barrier design. He had impressed himself with the flow of the barriers that would seal the magic in.
Inside of the paths, safe from the floes of paint stylized as currents, was the canvas for his focuses. These runes would serve as the entire storage capacity for the sigil, and were of great importance. He had quite the length of scroll to work with thankfully, and took a moment to take in inspiration for his mural. In the center of this water would be the bed of wildflowers, a garden of plants growing like weeds, thanks to the sun to the right and the water around them. Miro started in at the top, a circle, several petals, leaves, vines, and drifted along the paths length. Offshoots of other flowers their various flowers with unique petals, their twisting veins and stems. Each one had some new variation, different shaped flower head, petals of varying sizes and shapes, twisting stems and patterns. In each of the flowers and stems he drew a patterned design. Further down the scroll he worked, his garden taking a new life with each inch, becoming more wild, filling in every inch of the space not meant to designate spacing. As he came to reach the end he tapered off the bed of flowers. The veiny plant's stems wove together into a wall that marked the end of their expanse.
Now with barriers forming paths, paths filled with focuses, focuses channeled into a switch, and switch flowing to empty space, there was but one rune left. The most important single rune, the input-output rune. It would take the magic in, disperse it in the switch and store it among the focuses. This one would require a fine and delicate touch, the utmost care in its design. The inspiration was that of magic itself. A weaving of Djed, fine and elegant. Individual lines, when woven together, form shapes. A well directed, well placed drag of the brush combined with another, and another, and another, and it would form his spell, his rune, his magic. With each line drawn with the tip of his brush, he refreshed its paint and began another. Each fine, though some more than others, but each equally well placed.
They formed a design of a sigil, a forming weaving with a noticeable opening that spelled a drawing. The form was loose, taking some deductive and observant skills to name it, but was definitely present. That of two humanoid figures, woven into a knitting, and something interesting between them. On the leftmost side betwixt them, the man with outstretched arms flowed a seeming substance, one with fine rounded edges with lines that overlapped and cascaded into one another. It wrapped about and flowed around the other shape, but its center was taken back and drawn out. It was as if split between overtaking the other shaped substance and having that substance eat its own core away. The other shaped substance, the one form the right figure, it had sporadic sharp edges. These spiked tendrils of wild uncertainty pressed inward against the warped round edges in conflict, but also in a strange unity. Rising from them were spokes of a wavy nature radiating outwards. These tame lines wrapped about each other in a harmonic shape that coalesced into a circle, much like the eddies around it, and swirled to a central point.
Miro had lost himself in the design, and given the size of his scroll and the use of most of its space, he had taken well over a bell, perhaps even two or three. Originally he had intended to give lessons, but magic had a way of drawing him in and cutting off the outside world. His meditative state could not be broken by prose or prod, nor any other mundane distraction. Only the completion of his work would snap him from his trance. When he finished he stepped away, back from his work, not wishing to disturb its continuity with a smear. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. His work of art was a mural, a story in picture form, just like he remembered. That of magic, conflict of opposition, and the harmony it brings when strife turns to evolution. When two opposing forces meet, what is borne of their interaction is born anew. A new form. From water and fire come steam. When world and personal magic meet, something greater between them is created. Glyphing was the perfect medium to create and bear this weight.
"And there you have it. My craft, complete. When it has finished with its dry, I will fill it with magic. On that note, filling it with magic, that is important. It is tempting, I am sure, to use your Reimancy. In honesty I would be tempted much the same. Storing flame however is a bad idea. Long term that is. You do not want to carry a mural full of fire and have it rupture on you. Instead, I recommend smaller sigils in which you practice technique, catch your flames, then draw the Djed when you intend to fill a mural. Then in filling a mural, resort to another Djedform. Flux, Hypnotism, Morphing, something that won't go boom. If you have anything like that, that is. If not, work your arse off to develop the ability to transmute water or wind, something harmless."
