[Flashback] First Lesson with the Mystery Man [Hatter]

[Hadrian]

Hadrian wondered of golems were considered living souls by Zephyrus, but it was anyone's guess if Hadrian would ever become a skilled enough Animator to create a golem capable of webbing. Was a golem capable of webbing? Would Hadrian find time to learn to Animate? It was difficult to anticipate the future, but he knew that even with the terms of this Grand Oath, he would be a better magus for the options it would provide him. "I, Hadrian Aelius, hereby swear upon the divine halls of Ukalas and all those who dwell within that upon instruction in Webbing from Zephyrus Shadowrunner, 1) I shall not teach Webbing to another soul, living or dead; 2) I shall not tamper with the Web of a Drykas without their express permission; 3) I shall not tell who taught me Webbing nor where I learned the discipline to any soul, living or dead; 4) I shall not use Webbing to spy upon another Magus without proof of ill intention against me." He wondered too as he took the pen from his mentor if it were not possible to spy passively with a web such that another, dangerous magus might not detect it. Well, he doubted Zephyrus would budge on this term, and he had allowed for spying on enemies, and all non-magi, so he stooped over the book to sign his glyph, an intuitive sigil that meant Hadrian Aelius on a level that the regular text could not convey. The glyph was still imperfect, imprecise; he didn't know himself well enough to sign that glyph more perfectly, but he did as well as was within his skill, his hand moving carefully as the graphomancer had taught him. Breathing carefully, his hand moved with a grace that his gangling frame generally lacked, proof, perhaps, that he was capable of more than was apparent on the surface. When he was done, he stood up, chlorine blue eyes sparkling with something as he passed the pen back. "It is done," he said.

[Hatter]

"Good." Hadrian felt strange. He had manipulated his own Djed before, morphed it into the various personal magics; Auristics, Reimancy, but this was different. It was as if someone else was weaving his body's energies, drawing them in, forcing him to be apart of something. Strange. Meanwhile, Zephyrus leaned forward, somehow directly interfacing with Hadrian without a single gesture or motion. Perhaps he really did know what he was doing. "Webbing is dangerous." He started, his words taunt and heavy, "You know about overgiving, don't draw too much power; but traveling lines is a different sort danger." The queer feeling continued. Hadrian felt as if he was being sculpted, manipulated, his very essence drawn into something that was not there. At first it was just a minor sensation, the occasional prick of awareness stemming into his mind. Then it grew. With each pulse the boy could feel himself woven, connected, drawn into a world that he never knew existed. "We call it Overextension. Traveling the lines of a web is seductive, it is easy to lose yourself, to stay in the web. You must never be tempted to remain, never separate from your body for longer than you intended." Suddenly Hadrian felt woozy. Words shifted and faded, they followed him in circles; his balance faltered and the world drifted to a new perspective. At first it was fuzzy, dark, nothing appeared the same. Then came clarity. Hadrian was no longer Hadrian. Not physically, anyway. Somehow he had been forcibly removed from his body, his soul left to wander in void between worlds. He was still in Shadowrunner's office, the walls the same, the book, yet everything was different. Bursts of color filled the boys eyes, beautiful folds of persistent energy that drifted aloft from the ground. And what more were the lines. Set into the floor were translucent, white lines that glowed with an ethereal hue, casted from all directions and ending in the very center of the desk. Hadrian stood just apart from one such path, a weaving, one that coursed deep into the connecting paths to create a web so complex that it threatened to overwhelm the boy's senses. "Welcome to my web." Zephyrus said, suddenly behind Hadrian. "The best way to learn is to do. Touch one." He said, gesturing toward any of the lay lines. At such contact and torrential flow would stem into Hadrian's mind. Thousands of thoughts, of ideas, people, places, things, flashes of activity, all of them workings in the city. Movements, dialog, all of it assailing him at once in a cacophony of information. Inexperience would keep him from interpreting much of anything at all, but when he forced himself away Hadrian would remember sights, sounds, flashes of events as they occurred. It was no surprise that Zephyrus was so arrogant; the man knew the secrets of just about everyone inside Zeltiva.

[Hadrian]

Of course Webbing was dangerous, he wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. Every teacher from whom he had learned had warned him that magic was dangerous. He knew that, but he supposed it was a good thing to remember, especially as it felt like Zephyrus was reaching out and molding his aura or something similar. Immediately, he blinked his auristic vision back to full capacity so he could watch on another level what the Drykas mage was doing. Once pulled out of his body, he could feel the new patterns of energy that were all tied up with Zephyrus and, now, with him to a certain degree. Thanks to his Vision, he could also see them. Everything really was connected! He could feel a stinging in his eyes, but it was as if he were a dreamer with only a vague connection to the impressions of his body. If his body was reacting to the emotions he felt, then they were happy tears threatening. He wondered if all of this was something he had seen before with his enhanced vision, but could only now pick out from the rest of the energies thanks to the guiding hand of his new mentor. Or if it were a new vision altogether. When the information began to overload him, he tried to limit the incoming stream... but suddenly, on impulse, he changed a little something, something ineffable, and it was like walking out a door and into a busy marketplace. The mind registered the light, the colors, sounds, and movements, but only peripherally, allowing him to focus on a smaller range of things while the rest waited for his attention. Though no longer quite so connected to his fleshly hands, he made as if to reach out to touch a bright line of energy nearby, and found that his mind constructed a body-like thing, a simulacrum to help him understand what was happening. It was more symbol than anything else, but as the graphomancer had taught him while drilling him in his glyphs, sometimes the symbol was everything. There was even a cord of silver-blue light linking his "navel" to that of the fair, gawky form he had left behind for the moment. The line he touched was that nearest to him, the one that now connected him to Zephyrus. He felt it pulling his awareness toward the Web Mage, quickly and beyond his easy control, but he tried to open his mind to whatever information he might be willing to share by such intimate means, mind-to-mind, perhaps.

[Panna Cotta]

OOCLet's ditch that torrential flow of Zeltivan secrets, and just concentrate on the room itself.

At first contact, Hadrian was immediately seduced. Perhaps it was within the exotic characteristic of the web itself, or the experience of learning rare magic that titillated his being - but he was immediately consumed by the glowing line. Almost unconsciously, Hadrian gripped the luminous web. Had Zephyrus not been there, Hadrian might not have been able to feel, much less see the entirety of the magic string. Right now he could only focus on the one that he was holding, but if he tried to see beyond, his magical eyes might help him see the multitude of magical branches all around the room.

Already he was assaulted by his thinking mind, the desire to want to learn. Hadrian was now teetering on the dangerous edge of learning Webbing, and if he let his wanton need for knowledge go unfettered, this might be the last time he ever touch any web. At the very least he was aware of the art and skill that went into making the lines. Curiously, one of the web branches led him back to the mysterious book. It was clearly covered in a complex net of thin magic strands.

Hadrian was nearly in a trance as he continued his first exploration. He was guided by Zephyrus' push and pulls, orienting him to all the lines that connected each furniture to another. The barren room looked much different than before, the stone walls revealing traps (which Hadrian would learn later) and anchors (at that point he didn't know what they were).

The sardonic voice of Zephyrus jerked Hadrian into his half-consciousness. "Now would be a good time to learn and practice leeching, don't you think?" Learn for Hadrian, practice for Zephyrus? Was that a threat? Then again, Zephyrus was one of the blokes Hadrian had a hard time figuring out. At the very least, Hadrian had enough wits upon him to know for a fact that webs were a fat source of djed for leechers. Then again, maybe Zephyrus was just trying to be funny - in a scary kind of way.

If he focused, he could see his Drykas mentor connected into the web. There was so much in the room itself to study, glowing lines of various lengths and widths. The choice to leave or to stay in the web rest in the young mage. Or, as Zephyrus had asked, learning leeching was just an answer away.

[Hadrian]

Still and all, Hadrian did not feel in control, which was exhilarating on one level, but terrifying on another. Zephyrus had pulled him out of his body, and Zephyrus was moving his soul around the room. He remembered the warning about Overextension, and grew cautious when his mentor pulled him short, offering all but forbidden instruction. "Is that... Is Web energy clean enough to Leech without poisoning your own body?" he asked, his voice slurred by his half-tranced mental state. "It would be nice to take your energy back if you are finished with a Web, I suppose. I thought... I would learn to Leech if only I could Magecraft some sort of filter to keep the energy from destroying me. No... I'm not ready for Leeching. All magic is dangerous, but its dangers are not risks, but unavoidable damages... Perhaps one day I will figure out how to prevent it, but I am not there yet. "I would learn the other disciplines, though... Projection, Voiding, Glyphing... But wouldn't that be too much at once?" He was struggling to make wise decisions while his mind was bombarded with input and stimulus, distracting him and keeping him halfway out of his body. "Can I learn by following your Web back to you?" he asked. There was still the temptation to know, but asking questions was certainly safer than trying to pull his way along the Web and into Zephyrus' mind, if that was even possible. And if he was a Leecher, would such a journey into his mind infect Hadrian, too? The young apprentice had ideas about purity of essence. "Am I learning how to Web?" he asked, the confusion inherent in this new situation obvious. He could see it now, and he could touch it. But the ability to see and touch them was hardly training.

[Panna Cotta]

There was something rustic about Zephyrus' soul - the Drykas strength in him leaped into Hadrian's vision. He was still undeniably a horseman, even if he had abandoned home a long time ago. Perhaps it was the sheer magnificence of the experience that puzzled Hadrian, enticed him into knowing much more, so much more of the glowing colorful ethereal lines.

"Think of it... as a... tour." The pauses in the mentor's words meaningful and valuable. There was no other way to learn of the web unless you are inducted to it yourself, and that was exactly what was Hadrian was getting: an introduction to a whole new world. "It works pretty much the same way as learning Reimancy," Zephyrus shrugged, half-meaning his words. Once again, the student was left with his own interpretations. "Keep your wits about you lad, we aren't even halfway there yet." Focus, he ordered. Keep your eye on one web. They traversed the room carefully, moving towards the wall and away from the book. Hadrian's elbow was lifted and he found himself raising his own hand towards a thick braid of djed on the wall. His hand automatically gripped the magical rope though his mind was still filled with so many questions.

Once held, he was exposed to a stored memory in the web, one of the many threads in the room. Hadrian was vacuumed into a different time within the same room. There, but not quite. It was a male student, face somewhat familiar - he may have been Hadrian's classmate in Anthropology a couple of times. The Drykas instructor was in the memory, offering a nasty knowing smile against - Anvor! Hadrian remembered his name now. The exchange of words were clear and audible as if he was there on that day itself. The puny student switching between mad angry and disappointed ashamed as Zephyrus chipped at his essay on one of the Drykas' many epic tales. Apparently, the Drykas was still a Drykas even if he was far away from motherland and he did not take well against students who - for the benefit of claiming a "discovery" - fabricated oral history and culture. A double whammy for Anvor - first and foremost, intentional falsification of research results was not tolerated in the University; second, Anvor made a mistake to conjure papers about "unexplored cultural heritages of the Drykas" at a time when the Drykas was a guest professor.

Certainly an astounding gossip, which no doubt justifies the reason why Anvor was not so fresh in his memory. Come to think of it wasn't the guy expelled from the - And the thread of thoughts in Hadrian's mind was cut - the memory was not just a preserved memento of an erring student, but a warning. The punishment - Hadrian was not very surprised to see - was to be leeched until near death.

It was certainly threatening, and it did not help that Zephyrus smiled mischievously at Hadrian right now. "I just wanted this to serve as a great reminder of what the Web is, and what it means to me." A mind torture device? "The Grand Oath not withstanding, I have my own ways of castigation. If I ever catch you..." With the words cut mid-sentence, they sounded so much more scary. His word was castigation! Didn't that count as a grave misconduct against students?! "But this is a good example of what you can do with a web."

"So, what can you do with a web, Hadrian?" Zephyrus wanted his student to work with his intelligence. It would be a shame to praise a student's ability and not test it after, right?

[Hadrian]

"I have no quarrel with the Drykas," he protested weakly, finding it difficult to remain in his body and in the world of the Web at the same time. It was a new experience, and Zephyrus seemed to enjoy letting him flounder with only his grasp upon his apprentice keeping him from drowning in the information and sensations. Initiated and introduced to the Web now, it still felt like Zephyrus was keeping him off-balance so as to indoctrinate him; knowing that didn't seem to help Hadrian any, either. Put on the defensive, he wasn't even given much opportunity to protest his innocence. Played like a marionette, he gripped the line of energy and was transported to and through Anvor's disgrace, and not the first one. He had never liked him, anyway. What was the point of fabrication or plagiarism? Hadrian was there to learn, not to learn how to hoodwink people. "Don't the... the Drykas abhor Leechers?" he asked when he was somewhat recovered from the Vision. Certainly Zephyrus was a maverick, but he wondered if he was unwelcome among his own people for having learned the ways of their enemies, unless they saw that as a wisdom. Perhaps Hadrian would learn a thing or two about the Drykas by association with his new mentor, if he survived the rough treatment and threats. He was determined to do so. But he was being tested again, and Zephyrus liked to test him when he was at his weakest, his least able to reason clearly. So be it. "To save memories, as you've shown. To safeguard locations and possessions. To exchange information with, well, you... I'm not sure I want anyone else to know that I can do so. To spy on people not excluded by our contract. Traps. It'll certainly add a layer of complexity to my magecrafting..." The options were nigh limitless, but most of them would probably come with time and experience. Webbing was a mysterious discipline, so rarely practiced outside of the Sea of Grass and so closely protected.

[Panna Cotta]

There was a nod of approval together with a tap on his shoulder. Hadrian was exerting his best effort to stay in the web - but if the dizziness was due to the prolonged exposure or a little leeching from Zephyrus, the mage did not know... or bother. "Time to remove yourself from the threads that bind many of this room's secrets." The mentor suggested that he should return to his body and that the rest of the lesson will be outside of the web.

Should Hadrian comply, he would struggle to fight against the desire to stay longer, to not just hypothesize about the weavings of djed in the room but to touch and feel each magical line. But in the end he would overcome the call, and return to his body with his beautiful head pulsating with a little impairment on spatial perception. It would take a while before he could focus his natural vision, but calm breathing would certainly help. His mentor was in no hurry to start the lesson, allowing the student to bid his time to recuperate and ask a question or two.

Hadrian could still recall the web in the room, he could somehow picture the room lined with the colorful ropes of varying... and then it came to him that he had been inducted into the skill of Webbing. He didn't even had to use Auristics to see the web lines! He might try blinking a few times to double check, but it became obvious that what he saw wasn't the after image of the room in the web, but rather the faint faint glow of the web themselves. Joy of joys!

Anyway, should he like to stay in the web, all Zephyrus would like to hear was a little protest...

[Hadrian]

Hadrian bristled at the suggestion, thinking his mentor had better answer his questions than boss him around like some... but he was merely an initiate, and a part of him shouted at the rest of him that overgiving was the ever present danger, and who should know an initiate's threshold better than a master teacher? Still disappointed that Zephyrus was not elucidating his teaching, Hadrian began an all out battle against himself, against that part of him that wished to remain forever upon that tangled skein of energies, a butterfly slowly fanning its wings dry after climbing out of its chrysalis, eventually to fly down the lanes and avenues of connective power. But that sounded like a new version of the sweet whisper, as it was called, and his etheric body struggled against both itself and the currents of djed like a fish swimming upstream in order to find his body again. Time seemed to lose its meaning in this struggle, and when he did manage to plant his soul back where it belonged, he was panting for breath, his vision funny and his head... expansive, as if there were an outward pressure along the inside of his skull, but also a vacancy at its core. Everything looked a little off, and he hoped Zephyrus didn't demand he get up and move anytime soon, because he was sure he would trip into things and possibly hurt himself, or key some magical trap to go off and injure him worse yet. But whether that was an afterimage of the web burned into his retinas or the thing itself, he would have to ask. In any case, the tracery of power had an optical blur of colors to it that recalled to mind a migraine headache. To prevent this, he attempted to get his breathing under control and if not enter into a full-blown trance, at least to calm his mind as much as possible. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. The desire to dive right back into the Web would ebb as he sussed out that source desire, observing it rather than becoming a slave to it. Finally he spoke, and his tongue felt thick, his mouth dry from the effort of working with a new discipline of magic. This was, as yet, not so traumatic as his initiation into reimancy, at least. "Thank you," he said, albeit grudgingly. The man's warning had prevented worse overgiving, to be sure. "Now will you answer my questions?" he asked. Surely he would, and had plenty of else to teach. Hadrian only hoped that he did not work him into such a state that he was so desperate for magic that an initiation in Leeching would sound like a good idea, or even a necessary idea to keep him alive.

[Panna Cotta]

Nothing like a good breathing exercise to combat being disoriented. Slowly, most of his self-sense came back. The experience, to say the least, was otherworldly. He wanted webbing, he got webbing. Most of it felt like a taste test, and it wasn't easy wanting more and more. Hadrian could evade the lure of danger as much as he could for now, but it won't be long before he turned into an aficionado, what with his unrelenting desire to learn, and learn it all. While he bid his time for a short break, Zephyrus went back on his seat, pushed the chair backwards and lifted his feet on the desk, crossing one with the other. Seriously, he was still evading the damned book! Maybe Hadrian should try to touch it?

The part-time professor had a different smile on his face now, but it was hardly reassuring. So far the Drykas had been giving him a mishmash of personality. Did he care for the Drykas heritage? Did he not - why else would he give out a secret skill? And, most importantly, why did Zephyrus Shadowrunner teach him Webbing? Because he asked? Bullshit. The man was just as ambiguous as they had first met.

But such queries were a little bit below the priority line, the pretty mage student wanted to make the most out of this lesson. There was an insolent shrug from the Drykas before the man brushed himself with his hat. "Well, if you're sure you'd be coherent, go ahead and ask." As if by habit, Zephyrus snapped the hat onto his head and tipped it low before folding his arms. "But nothing stupid, or I'll make you answer your own questions."

What followed was a lecture that went on for less than a bell about what he could do with webbing at his current skill. "Basically nothing," Zephyrus wrapped it up, "nothing yet." Nothing significant anyway. It was information overload for the Zeltivan boy. At the very least he still absorbed the part how he could sense webs and locate anchors. The thing about the Drykas was that he did not wait for Hadrian to keep up. Even when he agreed to answer questions, the flow of the lecture and the pace of his teaching went according to his plan. The man with the dandy hat was clearly the bigger person in this - no pun intended.