Closed Teaching the Dead [Tsaba]

[Annalisa Marin]

60th of Summer, 513 AV

The room was empty and clinically clean but for two desks, one littered with various pieces of parchment and the smaller one bare. Anna liked to keep her classroom looking rather nice and free of clutter, except for her own desk which was a mess. The wizard sat at her desk, waiting patiently as she often did when she was going to have a class. Large group settings tended to split her efforts when teaching, which was rather disadvantageous. So she had opted to conduct this next instructional one on one with her student Tsaba.

The other woman was something of a mystery to Anna, she always looked so sickly. Almost dead, like a corpse walking about. The professor herself hardly looked all that well as of late, she was still having problems getting to sleep. When she finally did drift off to the realm of dreams it was always fitful. The dark circles around her eyes were less prominent than they had been in the previous days, but they were still there and noticeable.

Since her research into the other places on Mizahar, Anna found herself wondering where Tsaba hailed from. She would certainly have to ask her when possible during this instruction or after it. The wizard was starting to look further outward to the world, if she were to serve Rhysol well she could no longer remain ignorant of the world outside of Zeltiva. Tsaba was not native to the city as far as she knew, therefore she might prove useful in her own research.

The wizard went over today's lesson plan, she intended to go over all of the basic glyphs for Tsaba to study. Anna felt the other woman was acquainted well enough with the focus glyph, so the important ones would be the barrier, the trigger, and the pathways if the last one seemed necessary. There was plenty of parchment for Tsaba to make use of as well as plenty of ink.

The other woman usually came armed with a number of questions, so Anna prepared herself for those as well. The art of blending questions into the lesson was still one the wizard was refining. Tsaba was not late by any means, if anything Anna was too early. Though that was because she had gotten very little sleep and couldn't shut her eyes at the moment. The overgiving episode a little while back and her Voiding initiation had messed up her sleep schedule something fierce.

Ah well, hopefully teaching would prove enough to wear herself down to get some rest when she got home. One could only hope.

[Tsaba]

Most students probably would have been more nervous about one-on-one instruction than a full class, but to Tsaba, it was something of a relief. She'd grown up under a single tutor, after all, having to share his time with one other student at most; and while she'd never tell Craun so, she suspected that Annalisa was rather more proficient at instruction than he was. She carefully checked that no preservatives or ichor were leaking from her body (she really needed to do something about her condition, it was starting to get out of hand), made sure that her face was still of reasonable enough quality to avoid scaring strangers at a glance, and prepared for class. She was something of a note-hoarder, and while she'd condensed a lot of her notes to take up less parchment, the end result had been that she was now carrying around not only the condensed notes, but any of the original notes that might possibly have information that could be lost in rewriting, thus defeating the process. At this rate, she'd need a new scrollcase. Tsaba told herself that it was temporary and when she understood glyphing she wouldn't need such basic notes, and shouldered the overburdened scrollcase, carrying anything that didn't fit (mostly pages of practice glyphs) in the crook of one arm. The classroom was, as expected, empty except for Professor Marin. Tsaba gave the professor a respectful nod in greeting and took the single empty desk, quickly laying out her notes with practiced ease. Seconds after seating herself, she was looking up at the professor, brush poised over her inkpot and wearing an attentive expression. "Hello, Dr Marin."

[Annalisa Marin]

Tsaba always did seem to carry a clutter of notes with her when arriving to the class, though Anna supposed that was due to a desire to keep every scrap of knowledge thus far close at hand. The wizard didn't exactly blame her, considering her own first experience with learning glyphing involved keeping a similar amount of notes. So the tall woman ignored the copious amount of notes and stood from her desk, striding in front of it and leaning against it as she often did when teaching. Her grey eyes were focused solely on Tsaba and her mind was already arranging the direction the lesson today would take.

"Hello Tsaba, I trust you have been practicing your brush work because you will have need of it today. We will be moving on to another basic glyph today, after I'm satisfied that you possess an acceptable grasp of the Focus. Draw me your best, remember that your own glyphs are going to look different than mine and that the overall shape is unimportant." The professor instructed.

Anna felt confident that Tsaba had a good grasp of what a focus was by this point, but it never hurt to drive the message home. Once she was fairly certain the sickly looking woman had a good grasp of what she had already taught, then the barrier would come. It was another rather basic concept but it was sometimes a stumbling block when compared to the focus. While the focus was a single large rune, the barrier was made up of a number of much smaller runes.

Looking at Tsaba herself Anna wondered if just not getting enough sleep was cause enough to complain. Sure, she looked bad but Tsaba was looking somewhat corpse like, much like a race she had heard rumors of. Corpse stealers some called them, but the correct term was nuit according to scholars. Anna couldn't be sure if Tsaba was such a creature, but at the moment she fit a pretty good description. The professor kept her assumptions to herself at the moment and instead focused on Tsaba's work.

Knowledge about other races and places was becoming more fascinating to her, knowing more about the outside world made one more ready to combat threats it threw at them. The wizard made a note to inquire as to Tsaba's place of origin and race a little later, her curiosity could wait until the lesson was completed. The wizard turned back to her desk, grabbed a piece of parchment and inked her brush. She started on her own focus glyph, which hardly took much time at all to finish. The triangular shape was becoming more common from her and it was rather simply drawn. Geometric designs always seemed much more right to her, orderly and focused. Ironic, considering she often dreamed now days of chaos and destruction.

It took her a few chimes but it was quickly finished, with that she started on creating a ring of barrier runes around the focus. The barrier always required more intricacy than the focus, while her brush strokes for the focus had been sure and confident the ones for the barrier were much more cautious and controlled. This would likely take her a little longer than the focus, hopefully Tsaba would be finished before she herself was.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba gave a single nod at her teacher's instructions and set to work. It was a good thing that she had, in fact, been practicing with a brush. She quickly fleshed out what she'd come to call the skeleton of the glyph with a few strong, sharp strokes, then began to add the peripherals. Tsaba didn't need to check a reference for every stroke any more, but she still checked one to confirm that she hadn't made an embarrassing mistake every now and then. The more she studied glyphing, the deeper her respect for the art became. She thought of it as communicating with the universe, writing to the forces of nature themselves. A language naturally understood by the spirit, by djed, but which people like her would have to study to understand. Learning glyphing was learning to communicate with the very force of life. Being in Zeltiva seemed to be making her a lot more poetic. And she was getting something of an instinct for the art, or at least for the focus glyph. Her own focus was still very reminiscent of Dr Marin's, as that had been the primary source for her study, but they weren't quite the same, any more than two people describing the same building would use identical descriptions. But she felt that she knew what she was drawing by now. The rest was a matter of practice, and taking care not to forget details. It was like Auristics, in that way. Two different Aurists might look at exactly the same thing, but 'see' it differently, and that... No. Bad time to get distracted. Focus on glyphing now. Random musing about magic can come later. Tsaba finished fleshing out the glyph and sat back to let it dry, looking back up to Dr Marin. Only then did she realise that the teacher was still drawing. Or possibly writing. Even though Dr Marin was much more accomplished and much faster at Glyphing than she herself was. And that could only mean that she was about to be shown something interesting.

[Annalisa Marin]

The wizard finished the barrier soon after Tsaba finished her focus, the sequencing of the runes easily forming a well defined barrier around her own focus. Anna nodded slowly as she looked over her work, it was excellent in her opinion, not perfect but it would serve as ample demonstration. She turned on her heel, leaving her little project on the table for the moment to get a look at Tsaba's Glyph.

The tall woman's grey eyes looked over the Glyph, sweeping over its design and form. It was not perfect by any means but it definitely displayed some improvement compared to the other woman's earlier glyphs. The reimancer nodded slowly and turned back to her sigil. Practically speaking the barrier made the focus only good for entrapping magic, with a trigger added it might make a good scroll but until then it was incomplete for all intents and purposes.

Anna displayed the sigil for Tsaba to view, sliding it on to the other woman's desk. This was the next stage in the experience of glyphing, Tsaba would need to know the basic glyphs before advanced concepts like scrollmaking became possible.

"Your focus shows marked improvement, continue to work at it as such practice as it can only let you improve more. Seeing as you possess an acceptable grasp of the focus we will be moving on to the barrier glyph." The professor said, returning to lean against her own desk.

"As you will remember, the focus is used to store magic within it. However, it's containment is unstable by itself, so thus the barrier glyph comes into use for containment reasons. The barrier restricts magic within a certain area, such as containing it within a focus. As long as the barrier remains stable and in place then the magic cannot escape." The professor explained.

"However, note that it takes an extremely skilled user to try and contain dangerous magic with a barrier. It is theoretically possible, however it is not something you should attempt any time soon. I'd suggest focusing on just trying to draw one around a focus first, to get the feel of it. This is a fair bit more time consuming and complex as the runes within it are small and ordered in a specific shape. I'd suggest sticking to a circle to keep it simple." The woman instructed.

Anna stopped speaking, regarding the other woman for a moment. It was a gaze akin to one she would grant an interesting subject of study such as her own res or the Void, one that spoke of a frightening curiosity. She left room for any questions Tsaba might have, this lesson would be far more easy if the other woman told her of any concepts that she had difficulty understanding.

The wizard was hardly the finest instructor at the University, as such it was often the student's questions that built up her lesson. Tsaba had proven to be quite inquisitive, Anna had no doubt today would be no different.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba considered the barrier carefully as she mentally dissected Dr Marin's words. She thought she understood. The focus was like a, a lake, and the barrier was like one of those little walls they built to stop lakes from flooding into towns. Maybe. She didn't voice the metaphor, because even in her head, it sounded stupid. She hadn't brought up her theory about glyphing being a godly gift with the professor again, but it was certainly something that she was still considering, and as she read more of the art, it seemed more and more likely. Dr Marin seemed to dislike the concept for some reason, so out of respect, Tsaba continued to keep it to herself. The pattern of tiny runes, though... that was clearly language. It had to be. A lost alphabet, perhaps; one that could no longer be recognised or translated, so that when making an error or missing a letter reduced the whole thing to nonsense, nobody could be sure why... and the shape, according to the Professor, was important. A language written in two dimensions instead of one, and connected intricately to the very nature of the universe. Tsaba's practice with Auristics had taught her to always keep an eye on her own moods and environment, because getting too obsessive and losing track of time was a great way to cause permanent mental damage. So through habit, a sort of detached part of her mind noted the tingle of excitement rising in her, and realised what was happening. Craun had warned her about this. She'd seen it in others. To many of the Sahovan Nuits, not having it was treated like a sort of mild mental illness. She was becoming obsessed. Maybe. It might pass. Such things tended to. But spending at least a few nights in the library tracking down trivia on the history of glyphing was unavoidable. Tsaba traced one finger slowly around the barrier. A circle, to keep things simple; the shape was important, the postion held instructions as well as the rune sequence... Tsaba briefly considered asking Dr Marin whether she spoke Nader-Canoch, and decided against it. Craun had always been amazingly patient, but some wizards would take the mere question as a challenge to their competence. Of course she spoke Nader Canoch. Nevertheless, she formulated her question in such a way that whether she did or didn't was irrelevant. "A circle is a simple, even shape," Tsaba said slowly. "Does the shape change the flow of magic, or the strength of the barrier? Or the distance between the runes -- are more tightly packed barriers, or thicker barriers, stronger or weaker?"

[Annalisa Marin]

Anna considered the question, in truth she had experimented very little with the barrier glyph in her own attempts of finding more advancements in the art. She had mostly focused on finding ways to better augment her personal magic, though since trying to create better scrolls Anna was likely to experiment with the barrier further. Still she had her own theories and some experience that she could indeed use to better teach Tsaba. It was unlikely her answer would be complete, but it would hopefully be enough to point her in the right direction.

"The shape would likely effect both the strength and the flow, though I will be entirely honest to say that I have yet to deviate from the circle shape yet myself. Thicker barrier would likely create more strength and be safer in terms of magical containment. However, keep in mind that Glyphing is essentially the language of magic. Language possesses restrictions, in much the same way as does glyphing. The difference being is that the structure of glyphing is even more abstract, to the point where it can be difficult to see its boundaries." Anna answered slowly.

"The danger of glyphing lies in lacking the knowledge of what these boundaries are. One's own skill in glyphing lies not just in knowing how to draw the runes themselves, but rather in knowing the boundaries and finding ways to create great things even with those limitations. At the end of the day it also comes down to skill and experience to decide how strong your barriers will be, or indeed any glyph. You can sit there and painstakingly draw a barrier with packed and cramped runes until you are blue in the face, at the end of the day the barrier I have drawn will be more stable. Yes, adding more and thickening the barrier might indeed strengthen it, however that strength is meaningless without correct form and experience." The wizard explained, trying to find the right wording to properly convey her message.

"Your own glyphs are drawn rather unsurely, even the focus you drew was rather flawed and easy to notice that it was drawn by one not used to the art. They will become better and stronger as they take on a style all your own, when they become like writing a second language." Anna said with a nod.

Like all skills, the key to success in glyphing was repetition and practice. Anna was indeed trying to push forth the point that practice was the only way to truly get better at glyphing. Theory and knowledge helped, however unless the person actually applies that knowledge successfully its useless. At least that was how Anna saw it.

"That being said, you certainly show progress. If you apply yourself diligently then I have no doubt that you will go far." The wizard offered.

It was not often she paid compliments, even to her students as she saw it as a way of making them too content. However, this class was not just about teaching, it was about gathering information. The more Tsaba warmed up to her, the better Anna's chances were of finding out the information she wanted.

"Do you have any further questions? If not you can attempt to draw the a barrier around your own focus." Anna said.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba did have more questions, but they weren't immediately relevant and she had no wish to derail the lesson, so she picked up her brush. She accepted Dr Marin's assessment of her skill and potential with a polite nod and without comment. she knew that she was rough and untrained -- that's why she was there. But the explicit assessment of a teacher as always valuable. Dr Marin had a lot more experience than she did, after all. She carefully laid out the little runes on paper, trying to copy Dr Marin's form as closely as possible, since she didn't yet know what was 'important' and what wasn't. For some of the runes, the stroke order was obvious; for others, she had to guess. Even keeping the shape circular was difficult; Tsaba had never had to write in specific shapes before. Dr Marin's warning about dangerous magic being unstable in an improperly protected focus didn't bother her all that much. Tsaba's magic was rather passive. she didn't see how Auristics could be dangerous, unless one overgave. But doing things properly was a matter of principle, and if Dr Marin said that if barriers were necessary to properly using glyphs, then they were necessary. It felt like taking notes, a little; notes she didn't understand in a language she didn't know, the runes linking concepts she couldn't fathom. Hopefully, she would learn. That's what she was there for, after all. Tsaba's spacing wasn't perfect, with runes alternately cramped together and spread out in order to try to keep their position approximately the same as dr Marin's example, but she was pretty sure they were all there. Of course, it was hard to tell, given that she was looking at them for the first time. but Dr Marin would know, at any rate. Tsaba laid down the las stroke and then sat back to let her first attempt at a barrier dry.

[Annalisa Marin]

Anna watched as Tsaba worked, carefully picking apart any flaws she noticed in the other woman's work. Naturally there were indeed a few, however most of those struck the wizard as superficial. They added up to make bigger flaws, as her spacing was a bit out of place in her opinion and the runes themselves looked rough. Overall though, it showed marked improvement on Tsaba's part. It was not bad for a first attempt, with a bit more work then Anna believed that she might very well be able to continue on her own.

Idly, the professor wondered exactly what discipline of magic she practiced, she seemed to grasp concepts rather well and progressed rather rapidly. What manner of mage was sitting before her? Another question to ask her sooner rather than later.

For now, the woman shook her head slightly at Tsaba's work. It was good for a first time, but it was better to point out flaws than merits in order to build upon what needed building upon.

"Your spacing is a little odd, don't alternate between cramping them together and spacing them out. Inconsistencies will weaken the glyph, keep it uniform by choosing one style and sticking to it. All of the runes are there, though you should try to relax your wrist a little bit. Let the runes flow naturally, its your own style you need to try and discover. Use my work as a reference but form the glyphs as they feel right to you." Anna instructed, nodding slowly.

The hard part was always trying to get people to realize that mimicking another wizard's glyphs was not a good idea. One's own style needed to manifest itself and develop before glyphing could truly be delved into. Once that occurred, then self learning became much more easy. The glyphs flowed more easily and work improved considerably. Her mentor had taught her the same way, so far it seemed to have worked out well for her.

"Try again, this time feel what shapes or letting makes you feel most comfortable. Ignore the shapes of my runes, they mean nothing, only use the spacing for your reference. Redraw the focus on a new sheet of paper before you construct the barrier, practice makes perfect Tsaba." The wizard said, rounding her desk and sitting down.

Anna waited for a few moments, her hands steepled out on the desk before her as she watched Tsaba. The wizard waited a few moments before finally asking her question.

"Are you what they call a nuit, Tsaba?" She asked, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

The wizard needed answers, so why not try and pry them from the other woman while teaching. It seemed rather fair, not only that but the interrogation would be aided by the position she herself held. Denying answers from a professor was not something many students would do, besides, the other woman seemed to have some manner of respect towards her.

[Tsaba]

"Yes, Dr Marin," Tsaba said promptly in response to the question. "I underwent the Daek-Nuit seventy five years ago, on Sahova." It did not occur to her to lie about it. It wasn't as if she'd made any sort of secret of her race, after all; in fact, she'd actively advertised it as part of her self-appointed quest to improve local human-Nuit relations. Nor was it the first time she'd been asked, although she wasn't sure why the professor cared. Presumably she wasn't racist, or she would've made a point of finding out much sooner. Of course, even if she had been trying to conceal her race, she would not have considered lying in response to such a question from Annalisa. By Tsaba's reckoning, Dr Marin was her Master, although she'd made it clear that she didn't want to be addressed as such. And that meant that Tsaba followed her instructions and answered her questions to the best of her ability. That was how the system worked, at least until the university glyphing course was over. Besides, she was too focused on her task to question why Dr Marin wanted such information, even if such speculation had been appropriate. As Tsaba had delved deeper into glyphing, it had become apparent that her efforts in attemotping to boil a glyph down to its core, unchangeable strokes had been misguided. The 'skeleton' she'd developed hadn't been as universal in focus glyphs as she'd hoped. But it worked for her, with her logical, reductionist mind, so she kept drawing the glyph that way anyway. Tsaba pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and laid down another focus glyph in broad, familiar strokes. When she was happy with the glyph's shape, she turned her attention to the barrier. Dr Marin's barrier was an even circle of glyphs, so far as Tsaba could tell, compared to her own clustered attempt. But how to achieve that? Feel what shapes or lettering makes you feel most comfortable. Tsaba realised that she was wrinkling her nose in a very childish expression of frustration, and immediately stopped. Dr Marin was starting to sound like Craun. 'Feel the flow of the aura, Child; let your intuition hone in on the irregularities.' Maybe being a magical apprentice just required a good sense of intuition. Tsaba had never trusted her intuition. But both magical experts were unlikely to be wrong. And after all, hadn't the focus glyph become a lot easier after she'd started following a pattern of analysis of it that felt right to her? A barrier was a... a magical wall. Tsaba closed her eyes momentarily. She didn't start looking for auras, but she imagined the magic in a glyph as if it were an aura. It would sort of... of pool around the focus, a soft pink puddle clinging to the page. But it would diffuse out from there, with nothing to hold it back. A barrier's job would be to do that, to hem it in; in her mind, her imaginary magic hit an invisible barrier when it strayed too far from the glyph, and curved back on itself like waves hitting the wall of an ocean fortress. Right. What would that barrier look like? When Tsaba picked up her brush, she didn't simply start drawing at the top and move around in a circle. She drew the core of a rune directly above the focus, then one direclty below. She put in an East and West rune. She bisected each of the quadrants again with four more runes. Only then did she fill in the gaps, the first eight runes acting as markers to keep her spacing even. Her writing still looked a fair bit like Dr Marin's. That was ineviteable; her first foray into the art had been copying from Dr Marin's focus for hours, after all. But she drew the bits that seemed important in broad, chunky strokes, creating 'skeletons' for each. She imagined an aura of magic diffusing from her focus into her barrier... did it seem right that they would stop it? Did the angles of her lines seem appropriate for deflecting magic? When she'd finished her runic skeletons, she sat back from the parchment to view the overall effect. Even from the incomplete runes, they looked too... individual. They should lock together, like vertebrae, or knit together, like stitches. There should be something about them that screamed 'we are small parts of the same whole' other than their placement on the page. She added peripheral strokes to the runes, knitting them together with similar flourishes of the brush, but that as superficial; more a bandage than stitching. Of course, she didn't really know what she was doing yet. That's why she had a teacher. Biting her lip uncertainly, Tsaba passed the parchment to Dr Marin, and immediately began drawing another focus glyph in case she had a chance to try again.