A Culmination of Practice

by **Keene Ward** on May 14th, 2015, 11:05 pm

The fourteenth day of spring, 515 AV

"I won't be back until tomorrow." Keene nodded, crunching on the mornings breakfast with a placid gaze at his master's retreating form. He had woken early with the intention of training, but Atziri had explained that her presence was needed elsewhere and that their spar would have to wait until a later date. Swallowing the mess of berries, nuts, and jerky, Keene made his way over to the sand filled half of the cavern, easing down into it before stretching out his legs and running through his morning exercises. Flexibility had never been a concern to him before he had begun his combat training with the fiery woman whom he shared his home with. After several strains and painful hyper-extensions, Keene had begun to find merit in the daily requirement he had placed upon himself to push the limits of his body's ability to bend and twist. Pressing his body as close to the ground as he could with legs splayed on either side of him, Keene held the position for a chime or so, sinking slightly lower each tick until the strain informed him that there was no more give to be taken.

Finishing through the rest of the motions Atziri had instructed him to practice and refine, Keene situated himself into a more comfortable position: heels tucked under his body, weight evenly distributed between knees and feet, hands set calmly in his lap, and back straight. Res slipped from his just parted lips, swirling down into a small ball before him, shivering pale and blue. With a tap of his finger, the liquid froze into a solid sphere of ice, settling into the sand to create its own divot among the myriad others. Drawing a steady, centering breath, Keene settled in for the next bell or so. Ever since his conversation with Thomas Cosa just over an entire season ago, he had dutifully sat before one hundred orbs of ice just as the one in front of him, staring at it in deep, contemplative silence. He had made some progress, though the majority of it was physical. His posture had become even more steady and straight, and he had found that sitting for prolonged periods of time became easier the more one subjected one's self to it.

As far as unlocking the mysteries of auristics, however, he was in, essentially, the same place where he had started. With eyes fixed on what he wanted to see, Keene let his mind retreat within him, gathering up the ever present clouds of djed, their gentle rainfall cascading through his essence, forging him with every tick that passed. He ushered it forward, a different command than when he used it to shield. He wanted to keep it part of himself, and that desire to maintain wholeness permeated the meditative guidance. It drifted within him, mostly following his will, as he'd become rather practiced at it with both reimancy and shielding. Auristics, while certainly neither of his other two more practiced abilities, was not all that different, or at least, not in theory.

For the first forty-three days, Keene had done nothing but look at the ice, not taking any active roll in attempting to decipher and discern the aura that Thomas Cosa had explained all things had. As nothing had happened over and over again, Keene thought to consider that it was more than likely that djed was involved. If auristics truly was a magic - and as Keene had little reason to doubt Thomas Cosa, the thought of it being some sort of farcical joke played upon him by the sarcastic animator never crossed his mind - it stood to reason that it was hardly a passive shift in one's natural observation. Thus, he had begun to practice applying his djed in various ways on the forty-fourth day. These techniques had spanned across a myriad of possibilities ranging from shield's over his eyes improperly tasked to "observe" to "res-spectacles" in the hopes that the transmuted djed might have some after-effect. Around the eighty-seventh day, Keene had turned inwards, working his way around his djed, attempting to employ techniques completely foreign to those he already knew. Eventually, he had begun to feel the natural flow of his soul, his essence, winding and weaving throughout his person as his person.

By the hundred first day, Keene had managed to affect the flow, adjusting how much djed, or more specifically, what kind of djed, was directed towards his eyes, his ears, his tongue, and his skin. It was an odd sensation, like a tingling itch that did not demand a scratch. The first time it had occurred, Keene had thought it to be the magic itself, but had been brought back into the realm of reality when the ice appeared exactly as it had been before. Still, out of everything he had tried previously, it had proven to be the only thing that had shown any sign of being a promising advancement in his pursuit of yet another personal magic, and he held to it. The adjustment of djed had begun to wear on him, another promising indication that he was on the right path. And, as he slowly exhaled, djed rising to meet his senses, Keene bore his focus onto the ball of ice.

When he looked at things, there was always the desire to understand, to comprehend, but that simplistic, natural curiosity did not seem to be enough to spark the magic he sought. Where he might have looked with idle speculation, Keene's gaze burned cold, determination to tear apart and analyze shading his eyes far more green than grey. His focus held steady, jaw unconsciously clenched in the effort it took to maintain his thoughts in a single, straight path: What was before him? How did it work? What made it, it? The string of investigation ran quick and sure, something that had come easier and easier as the chimes had turned to bells and days and seasons after that. While, perhaps, he had not yet learned to draw fourth his soul's capability to peer into the essence of another, he had learned along the way; those lessons, however menial in relation to the true prize sought, were not to be overlooked.

Then, it happened. His eyes blinked, the involuntary motion eliciting a slight flicker of irritation at the back of his mind. When the darkness lifted, however, there was a flicker about the sphere's edge. He blinked again, this time deliberately. There had been many times before where the image that his eyes created for him would shift or sway with exhaustion or simply over examination, yet, when he opened his eyes once more, the motion was still there. It was pale, almost the same off-blue of the ice itself, but it swayed in a jerky motion, as if it had once been a melodic, flowing dance but something had clenched a tight fist around it, forcing it to express itself through the gaps in the fingers. There was something else about the orb as well, and the longer Keene continued to stare, his mind consciously feeding djed along several pathways, experimentally testing each to see which was the proper one, the center of the ball held a slightly different aura.

by **Keene Ward** on May 14th, 2015, 11:58 pm

The second aura, or perhaps just another layer, grew more and more into focus. He fed djed along fewer and fewer pathways, slowly isolating the proper one as he continued to examine what was before him. It was cold, oddly enough the chill of the aura before him sent a shiver down his spine, his own temperature lowering some to match that which was before him. He understood that the aura of ice should certainly be cold, but he had not imagined it to be so absolutely lacking warmth, as if even the memory of heat had never even existed in the freezing expanse of the aura's tundra.

The longer he looked, the more clear the aura became. He had found the proper path, and had begun to adjust how much djed was flowing where. At times, the ice's aura flickered when he gave too little, other times, it burned brighter, filled with tantalizing information that extended beyond what basic, even meticulous, observation could ever hope to achieve. Rather than investigate the ice further, however, Keene let his eyes close, calming the drift of his djed with another steady exhale. He had felt his heartbeat rush, the telltale tingle at the base of his skull, egging him onwards. While the magic was not reimancy, Keene knew the burgeoning blooms of overgiving when they presented themselves, and his careful monitoring of his internal systems alongside that of the sphere of ice that held within it a world far more intriguing than he had ever thought to stop and consider allowed him vigilance enough to spot such things and quell them before they had a chance to occur.

Having isolated the subjective pathway that his mind had crafted to comprehend the nature of his own djed, Keene rested on that laurel for a time, keeping his eyes bathed in the soothing darkness where the image of the aura's intensifying light still blazed. It had been bigger than he had expected, as if the ice was more than a simple orb of frozen water. As he continued to let his breath guide the beat of his heart to a more calm and steady beat, Keene supposed that the nature of the ice wasn't quite as surprising as it had been at first. It was a product of his magic, a warping of who he was into what he wanted it to be. It certainly explained the size of the aura in relation to the object itself.

He had a good understanding of djed from the teachings his mother had made sure he learned, and he knew that everything had djed, only it was had in differing amounts. A person's djed was greater than that of a rock's, as the person's essence required far more information to write itself into existence than a rock's. He had reasoned the ice's aura would be something smaller, as the in his mind the djed to create the ice was relatively minimal. However, if the ice still carried with it a part of "Keene" as it was crafted from the ever changing information that had constructed and continued to maintain him, he reasoned it was more than likely to increase the aura, the nature of the thing.

Finally opening his eyes with a slow lift of soothing lids, the vision of the orb returned, mundane as ever without the aid of his djed augmented sight. He ran his left hand lightly over the arm of his right, skimming the skin and finding it returned to its natural, slight chill. He found that his tongue too had lost the strange numbness that had begun to sink its way though his mouth the longer he'd gazed at the ice, and the cavern seemed a bit noisier than the absolute silence it had been cloaked in only about a chime before. Letting his hand fall back into his lap, Keene found that all of his senses had been affected though only a singular pathway that his djed had traveled. His mental representation of his djed-flow had not necessarily been wrong, but it had accounted for far more accuracy than it seemed there truly was. By guiding his djed along what he decided was his "auristics" pathway, he was able to extended the sensory capabilities of all of his information gathering processes. It was both interesting and daunting at the same time.

Thomas Cosa had explained that overgiving in auristics was far less dangerous than with reimancy, but Keene placed great necessity on his own senses functioning optimally. While he assumed that the overgiving would not necessarily result in his death, he opted to err on the side of caution until he knew his limits and the extents to which he could push himself - as well as circumstances in which that might be more than just simply unnecessary. Still, he had finally breached the threshold into a new form of personal magic, and with his vision as unclouded as it had been a season before, Keene drew in another steadying breath in preparation for a second attempt. While he had, essentially, stumbled upon the magic the first time, he had a relatively good understanding of what had occurred to create the effect in the first place.

by **Keene Ward** on May 15th, 2015, 12:58 am

Once more, Keene centered his focus. It took a few chimes to coax his djed back along the spindly pathway in his mind's eye, but once that was accomplished and a steady shift of djed fed through to his senses, the ice's aura once more flickered into being. The changes came faster this time, the chill sinking into him and the silence muddying the sounds around him in a matter of ticks, his senses remembering what it was to see, feel, and hear ice. Making sure to to control just how much of his essence was funneled into his augmented observational capabilities, Keene focused on the visual representation of the object's djed. Again, the jerky motion of the blueish haze presented itself, though this time it was far more fluid. His eyes saw the darkening of the sand around the orb, and it was no doubt an indication that the structure was melting. The intense cold at the core of the ball was still present, still absolute, but as he scanned his way out towards the edges of the aura, it became far less frigid.

There was, underneath all of it, a slight hissing sound paired with a pale blue light. It was far more expansive than the rest of the aura, wrapping around and through it, part of the ice and yet not. He felt a dull throb at the back of his head, and promptly released the altered flow of djed. His self naturally restored the proper flow, though this time it took several ticks longer. Keene noted the change in plasticity as his eyes closed once more, steady breaths to calm the heat that had begun to rise from within his chest. It seemed that Thomas Cosa had been a bit more practiced in auristics, as Keene was only able to handle about a solid chime before he began to feel the strain. From the way his body responded to the changes he thought to so smoothly inflict upon it, Keene gathered that it would require more experimentation and trial and error before the various side effects of the magic might be mapped out and understood.

He pressed the heel of his palm to the lower half of his eye's socket, the gentle pressure helping to alleviate some of the physical aggravation the strain had begun to place on his eyes. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. His breathing slowed further, centering his mind on the intriguing nature of auristics and the auras it allowed him to see. He could see the practical applications of auristics, as well as the potential for it to become an invaluable tool in combat. The increased senses were almost addicting, an object so intimately experienced was not something easily passed over, however therein lay the danger. He would have to exert a fair amount of self control and monitoring, something he decided on as he once more let his eyes flutter open, taking in the mundane features of the world around him. The second time he had used the magic, he had noted that the ice was not the only aura around him, but that it was the only one in focus.

Everything that had djed, theoretically, had an aura, or at the very least, that was what Keene believed. It stood to reason that the stronger his aursitics became, the better able he'd be to handle the magic in terms of longevity as well as switching his focus. He hadn't tried to during either of his brief attempts to analyze the orb's aura, but the amount of concentration it had taken to simply look at one thing hinted that it would be quite difficult if not impossible to shift from the thing he'd originally intended as his target onto something else.

His mind whirring with potentials and possibilities, Keene calmly studied the orb once more, the memories of its displayed essence still clearly recallable in his mind's eye: cold, shivering, fluid yet solid, smooth and melting. It was a curious augment to the information he received on a daily basis, and he found it infinitely intriguing as he paused to consider what the auras of other objects he had long ago internalized might bring to new light. He rested for a much longer period of time, acutely aware of the changes that had occurred during his time under the influence of his newly acquired magic. His neck felt slightly more strained, eyes certainly taking a few ticks more to focus on what it was he wanted to look at. His other senses seemed well enough off, though he still felt a little prickle of cold now and then as his chest rose and fell in steady introspection.

When he felt his body had relaxed appropriately, he readied himself once more. This time, however, he held a hand up before his face, eyes closing as he did so. The aura of a human was certainly different than that of ice, or so he expected it to be. A part of him was ready to look for that same pale blue influence that had wrapped itself around the ice so completely, expecting that that had been the part of him that had remained even after the res' transformation. With a steady exhale, Keene drew upon his djed once more, the clouds and rain and subtle gusts all rising with an invisible tide, funneling through his consciousness to settle in what felt like a mask just behind the surface of his skin.

by **Keene Ward** on May 15th, 2015, 11:14 pm

When he opened his eyes, the djed filling his vision and tinging his tongue, the first thing he noticed was a distinct smell. It was familiar, intimately so, a slight hint of cedar with an overtone of musk and something almost bitter he couldn't place. As he focused, his aura came into view, rolling off of his hand and arm in a tightly controlled shell, not that much unlike a shield. Only, where a shield would have protected, the aura simply was. It pulsed in tandem to his heartbeat, a handful of muted colors displayed in shifting hues like a sheet of ice in a Zeltivan morning's light. Again, there was an iciness to it, his right hand numbness apparent in the familiar core of absolute cold that ran like a sliver from the center of his palm up through the forearm.

The longer he focused, the more he saw. The flecks of subtle color became more apparent, lines of purplish grey with hints of yellows and greens. He wasn't sure exactly what they were, and the more he investigated them, the brighter his aura seemed to shift towards an off-teal. It was different than the ice, far larger, more powerful. He could feel the magic, taste it on his tongue, feel it there just beneath his skin. His eyes strained, searching deeper, trying to pry though the muted colors to trace the line of cold that ran it's way through him. He wanted to know what it was, where it came from, and the teal color shivered ever brighter. With a sharp breath, Keene cut the magic off, closing his eyes and re-centering his breathing. He could feel the magic still flowing, still taste the semi-sweet bite of something on his tongue. Slowly, he guided his djed back to the paths it had occupied before, his mental constructs effectively repairing the connections and allowing his body to calm its hypersensitivity.

He sat in darkness for a time, his breathing stilling. He had never felt quite the desire to push his limits with reimancy as he did with his budding auristics. He had not been prepared for the draw that the stimulation would have on him, the tantalizing flecks and specks of information drifting just beneath the surface of things. There was more than that. He knew, inherently, that what he saw was only the surface, only the beginning, of what he might discover. An entire world hidden from him for twenty odd years, finally his to explore. As much as he wanted to, however, discipline told him otherwise. If his sight was lost to him, it would do little good in his forays into the realm of auras, so he continued the gentle inflow and outflow of breath, stilling his mind and body.

Keene wasn't sure how long he sat in contemplative, healing quiet, but when he opened his eyes again, the ice had diminished to half its size. The heat of the cavern certainly added to the semi-solid's rapid state of decay, and as he settled his eyes on it, his lips turned down in a slight frown. It was strange to want to use a magic for something he'd never needed before. He wanted to know just how cold the orb was in comparison to what it had been before, how variable the wavering edges might appear with the reduced size, whether the snaking pale blue representation of what he imagined to be his res still held the aura firmly in its ethereal grip. His eyes felt as though they had stared into something too bright for a tick too long. Even in the dim candlelight of the cavern, he found that keeping them open for too long was uncomfortable, though not necessarily hampering. He thought back onto what Thomas Cosa had explained a season ago, how aurisitics tended to give less severe side effects, but that those effects would affect the senses.

Without a good measure for severity, Keene contemplated the benefits of trying a final push. He wanted to know just what his limits were, and he couldn't tell with just the minor ache alone if it was something like the side effects of using a particular element, or if it were a more serious presentation of a strain on his djed. He sat and thought, eyes staring at the ice but not really seeing it as he weighed potentials. On one hand, if he stopped, he doubted there would be any issue with lasting effects. He wasn't sure if auristics could permanently damage the senses, but from the brief periods of augmentation, he doubted that it was beyond possibility. On the other hand, knowing precisely (or as close to it) how far he could go before more serious side effects could prove useful in situations that might require the full extent of his abilities.

by **Keene Ward** on May 18th, 2015, 6:38 pm

Settling himself once more, Keene decided that knowing his limits was more important than constantly avoiding them. As he had learned with reimancy the first time he'd used it, the knowledge of what could happen and how far one could push one's self was worth a single point of foolishness for a lifetime of wisdom. Drawing in careful breaths, Keene stilled his whirring mind once more. It had become a bit easier to do so, to settle into a mind set that was ideal for manipulating one's djed after the past few season's call for its necessity. Unlike in the midst of a fight, berated from all sides by an aggressor shouting commands, it was calming to find his center, the place where thought, action, and desire all culminated into a single, flowing essence.

With a steady, slow exhale, he opened his eyes again, the djed much more eager to fill his senses with its augmenting influence. First, he let his eyes open, focusing on the ice's aura. It was as he had expected it to be: smaller, looser, still cold but receding. The pale blue still tinged the aura, a signature that matched his own aura, though not precisely. Testing his abilities, as he could already feel the strain increasing, Keene drew his hand up, and forced his gaze to settle on the larger, more intricate aura of his own body. It felt strange, like his eyes had been submerged in a liquid only to briefly be removed before plunging once more into a different bowl of equally tepid water. The shift, however, had not been as difficult nor as taxing as he had anticipated it might be. While his focus was singular, it was malleable, able to move from one thing to the next. The only thing that held in him place was his own curiosity, which he had isolated as the teal tinge to his own icy aura.

Doing what he could to maintain a natural, easy tempo of breath, Keene investigated once more the dull shimmers of his essence. The scents and flavors returned, situating themselves around and within him as if they had always been there. Again, the ice that seemed to be a different part of his aura, though still affecting the nature of its pulse, rose to his attention. He focused on it, drawing it out of the rest of the aura through effort of his own intrigue. It was cold, absolutely cold. The more he focused on it, the more his other senses joined in on the investigation. Compared to the orb of ice before, the thin line of deep blue was very similar, only where the ice had had a distinct feeling of something that had once been water, the cold in his arm lacked that. It was like a splinter of numbness that had been shoved into his body, never anything before but what it was.

He wanted to know more, to feel more and explore the ever increasing intricacies of his own aura, but his head had begun to ache with a sharp pain. Keene forced his eyes shut, the deprivation of once sense helping him to turn his focus inward. It was still a far more lengthy process than before. Scents and sensations still trickled in, and he could hear the quiet beat of his aura's pulse even as he centered what focus he could on the feeding path of his djed, easing it back down and away from his senses to still the stimulating magic. His breath moved in and out of his lungs at an uneven pace for a time until he felt the djed settle back into it's proper place. It took several chimes, and the headache did not drift away. If anything, it grew, pressing against his eyes with a steady pressure that was a few ticks over uncomfortable.

Remaining in darkness for a time, Keene focused on his breathing. Each inhale and exhale brought him closer to a constant rhythm that helped with the ache in his head, like an invisible balm to soothe the throb behind his eyes. When he did finally allow his vision to return, it took things quite a bit more time to come into focus. Things were bleary for ticks until they eventually sharpened, and he found the light of the candles to be uncomfortable at best. It seemed that he had pushed himself far enough for the time being, and there were still things he needed to do. Adjusting his mental schedule as he slowly pushed himself up to his feet, Keene stretched out his legs, taking care to make sure that the stagnant muscles loosen some before requiring much more action from them than simple supports. He planned to practice auristics in the evenings, where, if he did go so far as to strain himself, it would be in the night where there was the comfort of darkness and the promise of rest.

With a sigh, he rolled his shoulders, working some of the tenseness from his back. It was going to be a long day.

by **Caesarion** on July 14th, 2015, 1:54 pm

Grades, my darling, grades

Keene :

Notes :

If you have concerns, questions or praise (inmydreams;_;) for your grade, drop me a PM and we'll do a number!

Skill	XP Earned
Auristics	+5 XP
Acrobatics	+2 XP