[Sullin's Residence]From Mouth to Mind[Amelia Cross]

by **Clyde Sullins** on July 21st, 2013, 2:03 am

Clyde watched as Amelia went through several different attempts at guiding the res and water via her gestures. Some to more success than others. Which seemed to reach its pinnacle when Amelia knocked the water ball into her own neck, loosing bits of water and res out of control.

She yanked back the res, but had still lost the water in that moment of lost concentration, without using attraction. Meaning the entire lot of water fell and splashed on the stone floor of the lab.

"Controlling something you cannot see? Controlling ones res is easy enough, you simply sense it out. As I said, it is a part of you, so you can always sense were it is and how it moves and exists in relation to you. At least, within your range of control. Past that you cannot sense it, or affect it. Try closing your eyes, and focusing on the idea of your res. Don't try to see it, just try to... Sense it... You cannot see out of it, it is not another eye or point of view. But it exists and so you can tell were it is in general."

"Meditation can help, especially when trying to exude res at your level, and to stay calm when casting, but you can sense your res as easily as you can sense that your right hand is before you. You can try it if you want. Just close your eyes, try to clear your mind of everything, everything but the thought of yourself and your res. Slow your breathing, and calm yourself."

Clyde smiled for a moment, thinking back to the last time he had taught someone how to meditate... That had been tricky, as he had been teaching it to Elaine a ghost. Trying to teach someone something, and to do it, all while being possessed... It brought a whole new level of difficulty to a task. If he could do that, then teaching Amelia the basics of meditation should not be hard.

"In fact, it might be a good idea for you to meditate and try to calm yourself before each casting from now on, or at least before you begin practice."

Clyde was just abut to turn away, and leave her to sense out her res, and to meditate, when she asked another question. He pondered it for a moment, before answering.

"Magics? Just a few really... Well, at various levels. I am pretty good with Reimancy and Glyphing clearly... But I am also decent with Auristics and Magecrafting. I also know a few others to a lesser extent... Animation and Shielding... I am not to good at them... And Spiritism and Voiding, I am a bit better, but still pretty new to both. I only began practicing Voiding though a season ago. And I am just newly beginning to learn Summoning, though I know almost nothing on it. It is my newest interest."

Clyde was silent for a moment once he finished rattling them off, and then headed for his desk.

"Alright, I need to go make a few scrolls, so get to work on the tasks I set you."

by **Amelia Cross** on July 21st, 2013, 8:31 pm

There was no trouble in keeping Amelia’s attention to Clyde, as when she had managed to actually pull out a question from her lips, she would eagerly listen to the answer. Sure, this one seemed to root down to simple common sense. If she could sense her res, guide it out of her body to use it, then she could sense it even when she didn’t see it. Right? Well, it was how it was supposed to work and what he was telling her. But somehow, it wasn’t that simple. Something in Amelia wanted to drag it towards herself when she didn’t have it in the range of her sight. Was it her desire to, subconsciously, prevent it hitting something or someone else, that wasn’t clear. But a feeling inside of her just wanted to keep her res close, maybe afraid of letting it go out of control.

Meditation, a word she has heard one time too many. Her father told her to do that, in order to calm down Amelia’s little competitive spirit and just her worked up mind. Her mother said the same thing, not to mention people who had met her more impulsive and aggressive side. Amelia disliked hearing someone say she had to meditate, it sounded like an order and she hatted orders. A helper wasn’t the pure fact she wasn’t adept in the art and had no idea how one could meditate for extensive periods of time. For her it either came naturally, or didn’t come at all. Yet, if Clyde said so...she had to obey, even if it meant meditating before each practice. ”not like it’s the only thing I would be doing upon his order” as the thought passed, she couldn’t help but smile.

Her light smile didn’t faint as she listened to his listing of the known magic. Well, Amelia had heard about Auristics and Spiritism, but the rest were just words she might or might not have heard before. But she didn’t ask him about it more, thought the sole name ‘Voiding’ seemed to cause interest in the young girl. Maybe next time, if it’s still relevant to her mind and she finds the time to actually slip in the little question. After all, she was either busy following his orders, that didn’t leave space for much chatter. Or he seemed to be a bit too far in his own world, where Amelia didn’t want to get herself in.

Here it was, he left to the desk to work on some scrolls, leaving her to herself. Not really minding the setting, just the lack of humanly interaction, she walked away from the spot that was now covered with a thin layer of water. She might be sort of wet, but she didn’t want to exactly sit in it. Finding a dry spot on the rock floor that surprisingly, was just a stretched arm’s length of the water barrel, she sat down on her knees, holding her dress in her hands as she did. Once she was more or more comfortable, she set the dress down.

She toke a deep breath in, trying to remember as much as she had heard about meditation and the little she had done herself. The most she meditated was steady breaths and mind clearings, what was quite far from the things most told her about it. ”Clyde…um…after I’m done with my attempts at meditating, should I try to guide a ball of res around me again? With water?” yes, she was slightly nervous about asking, but it was better to ask him now when he was still not quite into his work…well, at least it looked like he wasn’t.

by **Clyde Sullins** on July 25th, 2013, 12:23 am

Clyde was just settling down to do his Glyphing, having taken out a quill, a pair of pages of parchment, and was about to wet it, when Amelia asked another question.

He let out a resolute sigh, knowing he would need to wait a bit longer before getting to work, and then turned to Amelia.

"If you would like. Why don't you gather it off the floor, I am sure it has enough from what was spilled on it in your other attempts. Or perhaps even just the wetness soaking your clothing, from when you got splashed. Its also a not so bad way of drying oneself, using Reimancy attraction. So long as you only got hit by water or rain or something. Try and control it this time, with your eyes closed, and simply by sensing your res in relation to yourself. That might aid you in what you are trying to do, to sense out through your res."

Clyde was about to turn back, when he looked at her with one final word.

"Just pitch it out in the canal once you are done, I don't want it mucking up my workspace floor. Here is the key. Bring it right back when you are done."

With that Clyde plopped the key down on the edge of the table, and set to his Glyphing.

He made his Glyphs simple, or simple enough for his purposes, most of this concept was pretty easy, the trigger alone was what took a high level of skill to work. The rest was more or less a normal scroll effect, with a message written on the back.

He drew a focus on each scroll in the middle, though set a bit to the left to make room for the trigger on the right side. He drew the block out quickly as a wavy circle on each piece of parchment. It was a old focus design he had used for awhile. He even put a small dot in the middle.

Then a barrier, one for each, encircling the focus. This time he used words, turned on their side so that the tops of the letters always turned upward out from the focus block, the bottoms facing inward at it. They circled around the focus, the barrier slowly winding farther away from the beginning, so that it would pass all the way around its start in a large swirl, but without running into itself. It kept going till it had made two passes, consisting of words like: Block, Withhold, Stop, Enforce, Contain, Impede.

Then at the point of the barrier were the swirl ended furthest away from the focus, he drew a triangle, cutting past the last word and back deeper into the barrier to the space between words, so that the elongated triangle cut through both lines of the barrier words.

A simple trigger mechanism, which worded as he intended would release the barrier and free the magic stored inside when he wished it to.

Finally, the hardest part, was the exact wording of the trigger. Some of it had been taken from the way a grand oath was done, some simply from Clyde's own imagination. A inventive little usage of Glyphing, if high level, which served his purpose and his alone.

He took a few moments, and wrote it out in common next to the flat side of the triangle, on the right side of the scroll.

If anyone but the undersigned attempts to read the words on this parchment, through means magical or mundane, the trigger will activate, lowering the barriers and releasing the magic held within the focus.

Signed- Clyde Sullins
Sender- Marcus Ahysen
Receiver-______________
Extra - ______________

He did all of his Glyph work identically on the two scrolls, and then quickly created a small bit of res. He exuded out a tiny globe, and then split it in half, hovering each half in a elongated spike a few inches long above each focus block. With a twitch of his will, the two tiny spikes of res transmuted into air, and gusted into the focus.

Done, he waited a chime to make sure they were dry, and the he rolled up the two scrolls, making sure none of the words of the trigger were showing. To finish up, he then took out a third piece of parchment, upon which he wrote a short note:

Dear Mr.Ahysen,

This is Clyde Sullins, Mage. We met recently. During our meeting, the subject of security in sent messages came up as an issue, to which I mentioned I had a solution for. This is it, or the prototype version of it.

I thought in your line of work these might be useful, and it would also give me a chance to "field test" my work. So I would like you to use them, and return to me any notes or impressions their usage give you, so that I can make the second edition of them with any possible improvements.

If anyone but the people so signed to be able to read these scrolls safely attempt to do so, they will find the message will be destroyed, along with the entire scroll. For now that is simply myself and you. Simply write the name of who you are sending it to in the Receiver slot, and any other person of your choosing in the Extra slot, or leave that slot blank, and then write your message on the front, being careful to roll up the scroll so that no words are visible. Then send it.

I am sending them via my apprentice, Amelia Cross.

Hoping you enjoy my work and find it useful,

Clyde Sullins

With that done, he waited a chime for the last piece of parchment to dry, and then folded it in half, in order to distinguish it from the rolled scrolls, and set it across them in the middle of the table.

by **Amelia Cross** on July 27th, 2013, 6:07 pm

ooca bit like...really long...sorry

Being reminded of just how much water she had managed to get onto her was not what she would have liked to hear. But when Clyde said that she could use attraction to dry herself off, it made her wonder. If you had unlocked bout water and earth as your elements, could you get mud off yourself with using res and attraction? This though, was not something she would even consider asking him. For one thing, it was silly and if she survived long enough to actually get herself familiar with earth, she could try it out herself…right? For second, he had already set his mind into whatever he was doing.

Thus, she began her more or less awkward attempts in meditation. First things first, she made sure her sitting position was comfortable enough and she wouldn’t be distracted by that further on, as she was well aware that her concentration was week, and being distracted by that could make her not only fail at meditation, but also turn the calm girl into a bit of a frustrated, capricious mess. Well, with some more twitching and moving around she decided that part was clear. She straightened her back, and closed her eyes. Unsure of what to do with her arms, she put them in her lap.

Taking a deep breath through her nose, she tried to concentrate on the feeling of it entering her body, using that as an escape of thinking of other things. Another breath, calm and steady, she followed how it entered her lungs and made her chest rise and fall as she let it go through her lips. Again, another one, followed by a few more. But just as she thought her mind was empty, she began speaking in her own mind with those little questions of “am I thinking of something?”;”am I doing it right” and so on.

She shook her head, repeating the pattern of breathing. This time it seemed to come easier than before and she didn’t pollute her mind with questions, she just did it. And without much surprise, she became much calmer and her head began feeling light. The lab was so calm that is didn’t distract her, there was no noise that could bother her, no annoying sound of people speaking, no argues, no water splashes. She began understand why this place had so little windows. It prevented him from getting distracted. And now, the constantly wandering mind of the Cross, was also saved from distractions. A bit more, she couldn’t follow what was the time, but she felt good. At one point, it seemed the she could even hear Clyde write something, but she shock it off as imagination. And that was the point her meditation broke again. She assumed that there was enough of it done and moved on to performing her task.

She stood up and with the sliding move of her leg, began executing her res. She should probably figure out what gesture of her hands would help her do it, as she wouldn’t always have the chance to perform this, right? But it was a topic to think of latter. The res did come to her calling, but it was much harder than before even though she had meditated before it, maybe she was reaching her limit for now? She refused to think like that, but it was possible.

Circular hand gestures of her palms and the small ball was formed. The motion repeating itself until she had made the ball dense enough to call it a core that would attract water to it. But before she attracted any water to the ball, she wanted to practice guiding it around her. So she lifted the ball up to her eye level. Another calm breath and once she had closed her eyes, her fingers began moving in circles, guiding the ball around her head. So far so good, with something as small and dense, it seemed to work and not really cause any trouble.

Finally, she decided to use attraction and get the water from her clothing out. Her fingers tensing as she guided the ball around her. Eyes still closed, but she could feel that it was working. As she guided it back in front of her and opened her eyes, she could see the water had made a clear cover around the res, but it wasn’t a solid shape anymore. When she wasn’t visually following the process of attraction, it didn’t seem to come out steady, as the water in front of her seemed to be more of a blob.

Fingers on bout of her hands now tensing, trying to get the water in a solid shape. Eventually she managed, but it didn’t seem right. Not right at all. Eyes closing for what seemed the hundred time, she tried to guide the water around her, now it seemed to be more complicate. She could even feel the water slightly touching her hair, but this time she didn’t seem to be bothered by it, at least not bothered enough to actually lose control. That done, she decided to drop this task.

Eyes open, no desire to close them anymore, still holding control of the ball of water she lowered it down to the level of her knees. She wasn’t interested in having the dirty water splash all around if she didn’t manage to attract all of it. ”nice and steady, nice and steady” she repeated as she attracted the dirty water to the ball, layer after layer. Walking along the pattern the water had made on the ground she soaked up as much as she could. There was still a trace of water here and there, but she just felt that she couldn’t get any more to stick to her res and not run the risk of dropping the ball before she left the building. It was, not the most pleasant of all things to imagine.

The ball was fairly big, bigger than what she was used to, so the not so pleasant visualization of her dropping it came naturally. All of her attention was on that one ball of dim water, even as she walked closer to Clyde’s desk to pick up the key. So much not like her, she didn’t even look at what he was doing. She just toke the key and walked towards the door of the lab and unlocked it. As she left the lab, she didn’t lock the door behind her, assuming he wouldn’t get mad at her for it. But she really had no idea how paranoid he could be.

Her walk through the living area came easy enough, possibly because she wasn’t worried of her mentor keeping an eye on her. What was a great relief to the girl. The next door, the usually open main door was a little challenge just like the laboratories doors, but she managed to open them without any big problem. And once she was out in front of the building, the main door still open behind her, she finally toke a closer look at the ball of water. Well, it was cleaner than she imagined, but still dirty. Making her wonder, who cleans this place? She somehow couldn’t really imagine Clyde washing and brushing the whole place. Could it be that he had slaves to do it for him? She hadn’t seen any. But it would make sense for a man of his influence to have them…Shaking the thought off, she released the attraction once the ball was above the canal and trying her best, brought the res back inside of her. She had to admit, it felt so much better to have it there, with her, not floating around.

She retrieved back in the building, that didn’t really seem so inviting. Walking though the main area, while playing with the key of the lab she couldn’t help but wonder, did anyone see her? She tried to remember, but the scene felt blurry. She was quite sure there weren’t any nearby voices. But Ravok, just as Syliras, was a city where everything had ears…not just the walls. One way or the other, she opened the unlocked doors to the lab and this time she locked them behind her. Heading over to the desk to set down the key. To only see Clyde fold a piece of paper, parchment maybe?

by **Clyde Sullins** on July 27th, 2013, 8:16 pm

As Clyde finished his work, he let out a sigh, and looked up from the parchment and scrolls and ink to see Amelia returning his key. He let out a short smile as she gave it back, and he tucked it away.

"So, how did it go? Better? I know training can seem to get a bit repetitive, but I will try to break it up and make it different, less monotonous. But until you get a bit better at controlling and exuding your res, our lessons will be a bit limited."

He looked about for a tick, and then back to his scrolls, and then back to Amelia, holding up the note he had folded on top of it.

"Anyways, I think we are done for this lesson, and I will be busy for a bit. Though I may call on you to assist once I begin work on a Magecrafting project I have planned. I will call on you when I need you to come. I will only really need you for one day, for one specific step of it, but if you would like to get a bit of experience in doing such things, you can also help on other days. I will send you a note for when I will be doing it, and when I specifically need you."

"And I would also like you to deliver this note and these scrolls to someone for me, a Marcus Ahysen. He works with the Black Sun. Don't open or read the scrolls, I will know if you do."

With that Clyde would hand said scrolls and note to Amelia.

by **Amelia Cross** on July 29th, 2013, 9:27 am

”Well, meditation is clearly not something I can do, I can get distracted too easily, but maybe practice can fix that short attention span I have...” she confessed, assuming that the man had noticed her constantly twitching and not being able to concentrate for too long, well, she thought so, not really thinking that Clyde was too deep into his own work ”but it generally went good, the whole res guiding around me, disposing the used water…didn’t notice anyone outside of the house” she thought it would make sense to explain that nobody saw her, or that she thought so. Yet, she didn’t mention getting tiered from the training, thinking it had more to do with her spending time in the wilds, rather than the training on its own.

Amelia was actually quite interested in what magecrafting was, she was curios of it and its powers and the chance to learn seemed to brighten her whole face. More so, since he would need her help. She was down to earth enough to realize it should have been something small, but, if she did it right, she stood the chance of falling in good grace of her teacher, proving that he can trust her. Though she didn’t really note on it, just nodding her head as a sign of listening and understanding.

When Clyde handed her the note and the scrolls, she looked at them curiously. She was dying to know what they were about, why a member of the sun would ask for them and how Clyde would know if she would read them. But the fear of her mentor's wrath erased the idea of opening them, instead she decided to ask. The worst scenario was a firm ‘no’ ”If you don’t mind me asking, what are these scrolls? Are they scrolls like the ones you introduced me to?”

Now, who was Marcus Ah..Ahsen was it? No, Marcus…Asen? ”So, should I deliver these to him at the Temple? Or could you share the information of his house?” Amelia assumed that her father would also know, but she preferred to not ask about anyone who was associated with the Black Sun. She always managed to get herself in awkward situations when she did.

by **Clyde Sullins** on July 31st, 2013, 4:33 pm

Clyde nodded, listening to Amelia's retelling of her practicing. It was more or less to be expected. Especially for someone newly learning to meditate. Even the slightest distraction could set one off at that point. It was more about calming ones body, and eventually learning to calm and close off your mind. But she would simply learn that through experience, once she had spent more time in meditation.

Her next question though made him a bit curious. Scrolls like he introduced her to? What... It took him a few moments to realize she meant a basic scroll more or less, which was what he had shown her before.

"Not exactly, they are a special kind, something I am newly developing. They are not meant for fighting though, they are meant for carrying messages. If it goes well, perhaps I will make more."

But that seemed to be all Clyde was going to say on them. Of course, she might have noticed, or not, that he had only said she could not look at the scrolls. He had said nothing of not looking at the note folded in half. Which meant technically there was nothing to prevent her from reading the note.

Amelia would really need to start paying attention to the nuances of his speech, when he said something so specific, if she wanted to find such options.

"His house? I have no idea, I only met him at the temple. You will just need to pin him down and give them to him."

Of course, Amelia had no way of knowing that if she broke his instructions, and attempted to read the scrolls instead of the letter, then by their very nature they would vanish, leaving her nothing to deliver to Marcus. He just assumed she would do as told.

Clyde got up, and made a shooing motion with his hands. "Alright, we are done, till next time." He would once more walk her out of the lab, and lock the door behind her.

by **Amelia Cross** on August 1st, 2013, 4:46 pm

It was clear as the water of the lake, that Clyde had no intention to go in the details of the scrolls. Amelia was curios, true, her curiosity often got the best of her. But, maybe because of her background in Syliras, and the fact the teachers of the Institute didn’t seem to radiate with the kindest of glows, that she was terrified of meeting the wrath of a mage. She was not really found of meeting any forms of anger, none the less of someone who she knows is as powerful, or at least rumored to be as powerful as her mentor. So, she decided to not push the matter and just node her head. Curiosity killed the cat, and in this setting it could be more than just the saying.

Now the fact he couldn’t name the actual location of his home was a bit displeasing, she wasn’t angry no. she was just disappointed and her pout showed it quite well. It wasn’t even the fact that he didn’t know that caused her displease, it only seemed to make him more human in her eyes. It was the sheer fact that she would need to ask her father for directions and pointers that bothered her. After all, finding a man in the Temple was a bit more than just challenging. Not to mention, she wasn’t that sure that anyone except acolytes and really, really important members of the Sun were around there too much. Furthermore, it wasn’t noted that he would actually be there, what made it a bit more complicated.

No more questions in the air, Clyde showed Amelia out and at that her time with her teacher ended. She was in no rush so she walked home instead of using a ravosal, thinking over one too many things.

”guess I’ll need to visit daddy anyway…’

by **Vanari** on November 5th, 2013, 7:26 pm

Clyde

Teaching	+3 XP
Glyphing	+1 XP
Logic	+2 XP
Leadership	+1 XP
Writing	+1 XP

Lores :

Amelia

Glyphing	+2 XP
Reimancy	+5 XP
Logic	+2 XP
Rhetoric	+1 XP
Interrogation	+2 XP
Meditation	+1 XP

Lores :

Loot :

Notes :

Closed [Sullin's Residence]From Mouth to Mind[Amelia Cross]