Solo Elements Counted Four

[Clyde Sullins]

3 Summer 513 The sun shined down on Clyde, as he walked past a tree. He was heading a bit away from Ravok to do his training today, and was alone save for Rye his guard dog. For most that might be considered suicidal, but for a master mage... Well, he was not to worried about running into things he could not handle. Few things short of another djed storm would take him out, and he had even thought about that for a bit... Perhaps he could stand up to that, if the need truly arose. Though he would obviously prefer not to have to. Those who asked for trouble, inevitably found it. And even if he could survive such a thing, it would not be unscathed. No, the reason he was heading a decent bit away, was to avoid people. If he was truly going to unleash his skills, he did not want to be near anyone. No observers, no one to interrupt. Just him and his magic, and the djed thrumming through his veins... Today he was wearing his normal everyday clothes, along with his staff in hand, his pack on his back, along with a hammer on the top for easy access. He was still rough with using it, but the weight of the steel head and wooden handle was oddly reassuring. He supposed their were some things magic could not do... Well, no, that was not technically true either, he thought distractedly. There were magics that could elicit that feeling, probably hypnotism, though admittedly his understanding of it was vague. But having been hypnotized against his will, he had figured a few things out about it. Clyde finally stopped when he ran into a small bog, or a wetland, or whatever it was called. He could not recall, and he was no topographer. It was a foot or so deep with water, and had plants sticking out of it. The only one he recognized was cattails, a plant he had learned of from a Konti back on Mura. Their roots were submerged, and the rest was sticking out. If he got hungry, he supposed he could eat some, as he knew they were good to eat, also from the same Konti. He set aside his pack, and began getting out supplies, to Glyph himself before he began experimenting and training.

[Clyde Sullins]

"Rye, sit." Clyde spoke to his dog, and he sat on the spot, looking up at his master. "Good boy." With that he turned his mind from his dog, and began digging into his pack. He took out his bedroll and set it aside, along with his tent, till finally he found his pot of inscribing paint. It would be good for his skin. Much less likely to smear than ink. He could simply paint it on with his fingers. He took off his robes, setting them aside, followed by his shirt tugged over his head. He even kicked off his boots, letting his toes free, leaving himself in only his pants, which he kept on. He began Glyphing on his chest, making a dot in the middle, just above his belly button, and then began to draw a curving line radiating outward from the dot clockwise. The sweeping line would curve around itself, slowly getting wider, the lines further apart, circling itself, turning into a large swirl covering his entire chest. He got some more paint for inscribing, and made a dot at the soft inside of each of his elbows, along with a dot on each of his palms. He then connected the dots on his palms with the one on the inset of his elbow, with a long snakelike curving line that swished like a wave back and force. He did the same on both arms, and then continued out of the dot on the inset, with the same curve, until it met the large sigil in the middle of his chest. He then made a clockwise curving line, smaller but just like the one on his chest, coming from each of the dots on his palms. He also made similar circles on his feet, but did not connect them to anything. Finally he made a single dot on his forehead, and was done. The Glyphs would help in exuding res, and in controlling his Reimancy spells, facilitating concentration. Now he spent a bit of time in meditation, to prepare himself for what he would soon do. He stood arms before him, palms facing up, eyes closed. He breathed in deeply, and let it out through his nose. Took in another even deeper breath, held it... And breathed out slowly from his nose... He did this for several chimes, keeping his mind clear, ignoring all else, or trying to. Attempting to ignore the sun on his face, the air on his skin, the almost dry yet still wet feel of the painted on sigils... He tried, and after awhile the sounds did not so much disappear, as seem less important. The senses were not as important, as breathing. He focused on it, keeping his mind blank, just breathing, meditating, calming. His Glyphs, the time of meditation and reflection, all aimed at preparing himself for magic. Now that was done, and he opened his eyes on the world, ready to do Magics.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde stood in the open sun, hands bare with palms facing upward, and he exhaled. On his breath was carried res, silvery and bright and glistening in the sun, but also light and airy, gaseous. He began to also exude res from his hands, a gout coming out on each exhale, along with a steady stream from his hands. He slowly collected it into a ball as it came out, gathered and compressed and shaped. Once he had a ball of gaseous res about the size of his head, he cut off the flow, and concentrated upon what he had. He turned his right hands over palm down, and began to make a circular motion with it in the air. As he did the ball of res began to rotate in a circle. With his left hand he slowly fanned it up and down through the air, activating attraction. He continued the two motions, sucking in air into the ball of res via attraction, pulling in more and more. As the core of the res ball filled with air, it began to expand. It grew and grew as it spun and sucked in more air, the outer barrier of res confining it and keeping it inside. Finally he stopped both hands and dropped them back to hip level. The ball stopped sucking in air, stopped spinning, and slowly began to contract. He held his hands up at hip level, palms facing inward toward each other. Then he slowly began to move them closer together, like he was trying to crush a huge ball between them, make it smaller. At the same time, the ball of res with the air core began to shrink. Once it was only a bit larger than when he had started, he stopped. The air was compressed as much as he could do... Finally, he opened a valve, a release, a small opening in the side of the ball of res facing away from Clyde. It was shaped as a tiny circle, no larger than a coin. The air rushed out in one gale of compressed air, losing force as it was carried. As it came out, there was a crack of air, which hurt Clyde's ears, a boom as the air rushed out so quickly. He had aimed it out at the grasses and cattails. Some of the ones closer to were he was working were ripped right out of the ground by the sheer force of the air. It only affected it in a thin swathe, maybe 4 or so feet wide, maybe less, but were it did affect it did so greatly. He did not doubt that if a man had been standing their, he would have been knocked right off his feet and sent flying. Farther out the cattails were knocked over, but once the air rushed past they sprang back up. Many had been dipped in the water, so when they did they flicked water all over Clyde. He had not expected that, and ended up getting splashed by many droplets being flicked. Luckily the inscribing paint had dried, but he could not try and dry himself off for fear of smearing. Even further out, the cattails were merely brushed and moved slightly, like a small wind had gone through them. It seemed the air lost force quickly, along with potency. He had not done his sonic boom attack in a long time, but he was still good at it. As he rested for a moment, coalescing his ball into its former shape, minus the res spent in his endeavor, Clyde thought for a moment... He did that with compressed air... And he could cause such an effect... But what if he did the same thing, without using air? What if he compressed something else? Would that not be potent.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde looked over to see Rye standing up. He had also been splattered by the droplets, and the boom of his air attack had startled him. "Down boy. It's alright." Rye paused for a moment, looking at him, but slowly descend back down to sitting. He seemed a bit unsure of his master telling him all was well, but he did not disobey the order. Clyde shook his head, trying to get the water off his head, sending some droplets going... The water was cool, which was nice under the sun. Suddenly Clyde paused, a half formed idea coming into his mind, combining several other things that had occurred into one cohesive idea... What if?... What if... He sat back down and crossed his legs, and held his arms up, palms pressing against each other, elbows sticking out, eyes closed. He tried to close out his mind, to concentrate only on this idea before it slipped away like water cupped in ones hands. Clyde had long ago gotten the idea of the air attack, which caused the boom that hurt his ears. It also sprayed out the air hard and fast, enough to knock people over. It tended to be a good non-lethal Reimancy attack. It had many uses. He had even used it to capture some Rising Dawn people, who he could not afford to kill. But surely he could push it further... Beyond that... Beyond what he had done prior when he was less skilled. He thought through the process... What did he do? He pressed air inside the ball of res, using res and attraction, until it got smaller and smaller... Once he was done, he released it in a controlled venting, a small circular opening both letting it out, but also guiding and controlling its release route. He had tried it with a wider release, but when he did the air gust was to weak... The key was the idea of the controlled release, with a fine opening, small. The smaller it was, the harder the air came out once the pressure was released, the harder it pushed to get free... But all the air did really was push in... Push in on the air already inside... So what if... What if... What if air was not in the core, but something else? Fire was not good, it would die without air... Earth was not malleable enough... Which just left... Water!

[Clyde Sullins]

Water! That was the key! Water was just as malleable as air, however it was more solid! It seemed so obvious now, that he wondered how it had never occurred to him. But he supposed that was hindsight. Until he had gained the idea, had it come to him with the right events coming together, he would not have understood, or been able to realize it. What if he got a ball of water, and then ensconced it in res, and then attracted air and pushed that in, and used the air to crush and pressurize and... And made the water just as high pressure as the air he had blasted... But with water the effect would be stronger, as it had more consistency, and less give, compared to air. Clyde leaped up, ready to try his new idea. First water. He descended the ball of res into the water with a downward sweep of his hand, and used attraction to suck it in. Then he pulled it back out with a upward sweep, the ball of res pregnant with water. He pulled the res in, tightening, and lifted it up to head level. Then he began to attract air with a circular motion of his left hand. The air formed a thin layer in between the outer layer of res, and the inner core of water. However he did not let the res expand this time, and as more air came in the water was compressed and pushed tighter. He kept on pushing in air, till the water refused to contract, and was as tight as he could get it. Clyde paused for a moment, thinking things through... Water was not like air... Which meant it had to hit what he wanted to strike, just blasting by would not be enough. And he was not sure if the size would affect things, or how far this would work. Clyde thought on it for a moment, and then decided to release the water from a copper miza sized hole, but to move the hole so it started at the right front corner, and slowly rotated across to the left front corner... This way it would sweep across the cattails. He let in a breath, and slowly let it out, and then opened the hole in the ball of res. Out came a spray of air for a half moment, but then came out a spray of water, pushing out at high speed and pressure, shaped by the exit hole he had made. It swept across the cattails and pushed over the cattails like a wave had come at the middle of it, but it did not knock it flying like with the compressed air... Had he been wrong? Clyde was unsure. Perhaps another test... Though he would need to think for a moment how to proceed, or what had gone wrong.

[Clyde Sullins]

What, Clyde wondered, had gone wrong? Had he missed something? He had compressed the water... He had pushed it in... He had made it tight and released it... Nothing had gone wrong with the compressing, he had built up as much pressure as he could on the water. No more could be added. It would get no tighter. That was not it. So if it was not taking the water in, he reasoned, it had to be letting it out. The water had acted similarly to the gust of air as it had hit the farther cattails. So it was not powerful enough then? He had said before the release valve was key, as he had discovered when making his first air blast attack. So what could he change in the release to increase the pressure of the blast were it hit? Make it smaller? Yes! Make it smaller! Making the exit smaller had worked in the air blast, until he had it smaller the air blast failed utterly. So perhaps with water, a different medium, a even smaller exit was needed? How small? Well as small as he could manage of course... But how small? Clyde thought for a moment. The head of a quill... Yes the head of a quill, that was small, a good size to judge by. If a stream of water the size of the head of a quill that you wrote with, released as a high pressure stream... If that did not work, nothing would. Well perhaps something would, but it seemed a suitable next step in his experiments. Clyde paused for a break, going to his waterskin and taking a swig. Then he took a few chimes to relieve himself. All the while his ball of res floated along with him, guided by a lazy wag of his finger. Once he was back to his starting spot, he exuded a bit more res to fill out some that had been spent in his previous trials. Along with the amount that had simply decayed over time. Then he repeated the excercise, sweeping motions of his arms as he dipped the res ball into water, and sucked in water with attraction. Then the ball popped back out, filled with a core of res. A circular motion of his hand pulled in air, pressing in on the core of water. After a few chimes of this, the water would give no more. Now was for the moment of truth... The release... He took a moment to take out a quill, and looked at its head. He stared at it till he had the size down. It seemed tiny, it would not be easy to do. But then, his skill was great, he could do amazing things with his djed, controlling his res so finely should not be an issue for him. Boosted by his own self assurance and confidence, Clyde prepared for the casting. He brought his hands together, and then let them part. He held his right hand flat and level, like he was going to jab someone with his extended fingers, or that his hand was a blade frozen as one unit. His left hand he put on its side, and slowly swept it left and right. All at once he jabbed his right hand forward. As he did, he released the valve, opening a tiny hole the size of his quills head, from which the water released itself at high pressure. he swept it from right to left through the middle of the cattails. By the time the pass had been made, the water he had sucked in had been spent.

[Clyde Sullins]

He looked up to see the cattails falling... But... Different to how it had before. It took Clyde a second to realize, he had cut the stalks of the cattails clean in half. As if some giant invisible scythe had cut through the midst of the cattails, the entire lot of them that had been in the path of his water spray had been chopped down cleanly. And not just one row, or two, but quite a few. At least 10 feet deep of rows of the plant had been cut in half at the middle, if not more, right below hip level on Clyde. Clyde just stared in wonder at what he had done. He had not only invented a new technique, it was a wondrous thing! He imagined what he could do with it. If it worked so well on plants, and on that many, what would have happened had he aimed it at a person? It might not have cut them in half at the hip, but it would cut them still pretty well. It would be like a invisible blade was sweeping by slicing open a vicious gash. It likely would be debilitating, if not fatal! Clyde quickly gathered his things, reabsorbing the leftover res back into his body. A decent bit had been spent, and a decent bit had decayed, but there was still a decent bit left for him. And besides, for a master Reimancer, the castings of spells he had done was nothing. Well, not nothing, but neither was it enough to exhaust him. He grabbed his things and headed home, shouting for Rye to "Come!", thinking through the many uses this new Reimancy technique could serve him. He did not look back at the cattails murdered, cut in half by his first usage of his Water Cutter. -exit-

[Verilian]

. . Thread Award . . Name +1 Meditation +1 Drawing +1 Animal Husbandry +2 Logic +1 Reimancy You Question My Logic? : Okay, so I gave you one point in meditation, boosting you to competent level. It will now be harder to earn points in meditation, as simple breathing techniques are very basic. I did not award you glyphing because, as an expert, what you did wasn't all that complex. You got 1 point in reimancy for developing a new technique. If there are any questions, feel free to PM me. Lores: Location of Wild Cattails Outside Ravok, Lore of Reimancy Technique: Water Cutter, Clyde the Cattail Cutter Notes: Great thread, good to see the thought process that went behind creating a new technique. You're almost to 100, so your last few points are going to be hard to get. And once you are there, it will all be about earning lores, I suppose. Good thread, and keep writing! Notice As per the request of the Founders, threads cannot be graded unless your CS is up to date. This means you need to add threads to your thread list when you make new threads, keep your skills up to date, ledger, living expenses, ect. If you aren't up to date, you'll get a PM from me before i grade your thread. If you are up to date, disregard this notice.