Try To Be Something ... (Private)

[Malia]

"Try to be something experimental."

Timestamp: 11th of Winter, 510 AV


Malia had all the supplies she needed laid out before her. With all of the others sleeping in their tents, she was the only one awake at night. Of course, she was supposed to be the night watch, but she also used the time to practice some magic. It could be dangerous to expose such a dangerous skill out in the wildlands, but they were still traveling through the forest around Syliras and thus the trees blocked the sight of anyone approaching. Malia should be able to hear them and interrupt the working process before they actually caught sight of her and the camp.

She was sitting on the ground, cross-legged and with her coat wrapped around her slender form. In front of her were a long piece of dark silk, purchased at the clothing store in Syliras, a piece of white chalk, a knife, a candle and some flint and steel. It was already a few bells into the night, so Malia’s eyes had gotten used to the darkness and she could work by the light of the moon shining through the treetops.

After making sure that everything she needed was there, she rose and wiped the area near the tents free of dead leaves and twigs. A big empty space was important for her endeavor. Then she picked up the chalk. Although she probably still needed practice, she’d skipped the sketching part, mainly because she had no pieces of parchment to sketch on. So she immediately bent down, put the chalk to the ground and started drawing a white line across the earth. Drawing on the ground proved to be difficult; she had to make sure that all the bumps and holes were properly filled by the white line. She worked slowly, drawing a circle that was big enough for her to sit in later. Many times she went back, erased the line she had already made by rubbing over it with her left sleeve and drawing it anew. The circle had to be perfectly round and had to connect at all points. When she was sure that there were no openings, she went to one end of the circle and drew a smaller one attached to it.

Once again, she made sure that the circle was perfectly round and that there were no openings throughout the bumps and holes in the ground. When she couldn’t fill a spot with the chalk, she simply dug out some earth and pressed it in the hole, so she could draw over the newly created smooth surface. She also made sure that the circles were connected, but didn’t overlap each other. When she was satisfied, she let the chalk disappear in her backpack that was lying on the ground too.

Next she took the piece of fabric and placed it in the smaller circle. It would be the destination she would direct her thoughts to during the ritual. The idea had hit her out of the blue a few days after she had come back to Syliras. Things had happened in Sahova. Malia had become more subtle, more careful, but also more powerful. She knew that people who wore the gnosis of a deity could sense gnosis marks from the same deity. However, those who weren’t marked by that deity had no right to know which gnosis marks she bore. Uldr’s touch on her was very prominent, in the shape of a black mark at the side of her neck. Malia had bought the band of silk so she could wrap it around her neck, in order to cover that spot.

However, in the course of her contemplations regarding Animation, she had decided that she needed more practice. Far more practice. So that was what she would do now: animate the silk band for daily use.

[Malia]

Next she lit the candle by hitting the flint and steel together several times. Eventually the wick caught a spark and a flame developed. The immediate surroundings were bathed in warm golden light now, but Malia didn’t really have an eye for the wintery beauty. She saw enough of it during the day, when they were traveling through the wilderness. Instead she took the knife in her right hand and carefully drew it across the tip of her left index finger. A drop of milky white ichor escaped from the cut. Malia quickly held her finger over the circle’s white line and let the drop fall upon the line.

Triggered by her essence, the circles came to life.

Djed ran through the lines at high speed and energized the magical construction. Sparks and lightning flashes erupted from it, showing that it worked properly for Malia, and only for Malia. She was sitting in the middle of the bigger circle, again cross-legged, and ready to start the ritual. However, first she took the candle and moved the flame across the wound a few times so that it closed more quickly. Her features didn’t even twitch. She was used to the procedure.

Then she put the candle at the ground and covered the flame with earth to dowse it. After putting everything she didn’t need any more in her backpack which was outside the circles, she fully focused on the ritual. She wouldn’t need any light to perform that, so she closed her eyes.

First she meditated. Letting her hands rest of her knees, she focused on the slow movement of ichor through her veins. It wasn’t pumped through her body like blood did, and it didn’t create a pulse, but instead it flowed slowly, almost lazily. Still, she could feel somewhat weaker pulse deep down in her body. She listened to it and let its peaceful repetition calm her. Sitting on the ground in a dark forest at night, with nothing around but the occasional rustling noise behind the trees did wonders for her concentration. At the beginning the noises easily distracted her. But then she told herself that potential sources of danger would make more noise ... or none at all. So she kept calm and ignored what she heard. Instead of focusing on the outside world, she focused on the process inside her body. The ichor’s movement erased her thoughts and left blankness. It flowed ... and flowed ... and flowed. It flowed. There was nothing else.

When Malia thought her mind to be completely clear and focused, she turned her attention to the circles and their content. She envisioned the piece of silk fabric in the opposite circle and felt it at the same time. Her Djed connected with the Djed of the circle and allowed her to feel everything that was inside the other circle. The fabric was connected with her. The conditions for animating the item were met.

Now Malia focused on copying her life principle. She found this to be always a difficult step. What was a life principle anyway? It wasn’t ichor or blood, but something more basic, more theoretical. Nevertheless, she knew how to feel it inside herself, although she couldn’t explain it with words. It was there. And she took its essence and delivered the basic feeling of it to the fabric. She willed it to develop a life principle that was just the same as hers. She forced the copy of her life principle to wrap around the fabric lying at the ground. Every part, every stitch of it was infused with that life principle!

Once she was sure that it had a life principle, a soulcore, she went on to the next step. The most important part, the development of directives, was about to start.

[Malia]

This time establishing directives would be very easy. Before starting the ritual, Malia had thought long and hard what she wanted to achieve and how she could voice it the shortest and most precise way possible. As always, she had decided to voice her commands in Nader-Canoch, the ancient Mizaharian language that was only spoken by scholars and mages and ancient Nuits anymore. A common person would never understand words in Nader-Canoch, but thanks to Jilitse and her time in Sahova she had learned bits and pieces of it and was able to express simple commands. As for the command itself, she had started with a vague idea of self defense in mind. Although she possessed weapons, more by chance than with any conscious intention really, she didn’t know how to wield them. Not yet. So she wanted a mechanism of self defense that would aid her in situations of extreme danger.

During the planning phase, she had come to the conclusion that there had to be two ways of triggering the movement of the silk band. Firstly, she would trigger the self defense through a voice command in Nader-Canoch. Secondly, it would be triggered through touch from any being except herself, so it reacted to anyone else touching her neck when it was wrapped around it and covering the gnosis mark.

So, when she delved into imprinting directives, she first focused on the sound of her voice. She spoke clearly into the silence of the forest, but kept her voice down. “Abastlas”, she said, the foreign pronunciation rolling off her tongue with only a little bit of difficulty. As she said the single word, she made sure that the silk band memorized the sound of her voice as well as the special lilt of the word. With those two aspects imprinted in its life principle, the item would only react to her voice and that word. And she could feel the presence of new knowledge inside the item’s animated body.

Next she made sure that the word triggered what she wanted it to. As she said “Abastlas”, she pictured the silk band reaching out to the person who would stand in front of her, behind her or anywhere near her, and curling around the person’s throat. She took the visualization even further by feeling the throat of the other person constrict and the breathing process cut. As soon as she said the word in Nader-Canoch, the silk band would wrap around her enemy’s throat and effectively strangle them.

When she was sure that the command and impact was imprinted in the object’s memory, she went on and repeated the process. This time, she replaced the word and the sound of her voice with the feeling of touch. She pictured the touch of fingers and palms on the silk, and then she made sure that the touch of her own hands was excluded from that vision. No, only foreign fingers should be attacked. Again she pictured the trigger followed by the movement of wrapping around the person’s throat and strangling it.

Ancient Tongue explanation :

“Abastlas” means “come to life” (future tense of “abase” which means “life”).

[Malia]

Next, she focused on another directive, the one she would use to stop the band from acting. When she said “Rozast”, she envisioned the band stopping in its movement, coming back to her neck like a snake and curling around it again. She thought it would be neat if the silk band came back on its own, so she didn’t have to tie it anew. And she felt that the directive was imbued into the item’s memory, felt it through the sizzling Djed that connected her soul with the soulcore of the piece of fabric.

Only that it wasn’t a piece of fabric anymore, but a being that could act when it was told to act and move to protect its owner. Malia felt the sensation of having created something that was hers, something she could entirely control. She opened her eyes.

Now the only thing left was to find out whether she had taken the right steps in the right order – to see whether it worked in reality.

The circles had burned down, swallowing all the Djed Malia could muster. She had burned through her resources, but the basic energy she needed for moving was still more than enough. Her limbs felt stiff from sitting for a long time. The position of the moon above the treetops told her that about three bells had passed since the ritual had started. Still sitting at the ground, she stretched, blinked and picked up the silk band from the other circle. It looked unassuming in the moonlight, despite the fact that it was now animated.

She wrapped it around her neck, making sure that it covered her gnosis mark, a thing she felt on her cold flesh as if it was constantly burning. Then she prepared herself for the test, raising from the ground and approaching the next tree until she stood only two feet or so away from it. After having made sure that the branch was more or less vertical and right in front of her face, she secured her position, digging her feet into the ground, and started.

As the Nuit whispered the magic word “Abastlas”, the band came to life, slipping from her throat like a snake and wrapping around the branch in one fluid motion. It coiled around and around once more, until the last rest of it had left her skin and was applying pressure to the wood. Of course, the fabric did nothing to the solid structure of the tree. However, suddenly Leth’s light illuminated a tiny hole in the silk, and then the low voice of tearing apart could be heard. Malia’s eyes widened as she quickly spoke: “Rozast!”

The band let go of the branch and returned to Malia, wrapping around her throat until it was in the exact same position as before. Well, at least the second command had worked well enough. Running a hand across the fabric until finding the tiny tear, Malia stroked it and thought about the mistake. Silk was a strong and durable type of fabric, and she was glad for that. In a situation of real danger, it would rather rip a man’s throat apart before tearing to pieces.

However, was there really a way to control the strength with which animated objects attacked? Malia dropped to the ground, near the place where she had previously sat, and pondered the question for a while. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t recall anything in her lessons that’d help her detail her commands even further.

She’d have to make do with what she had. Touching the black silk once more, she thought that she had at least created some kind of self-defense mechanism that’d keep people from seeing her gnosis mark and strangling her.

- THE END -

[Panna Cotta]

MALIA Animation 4 Meditation 2 Tactics 1 Lore of Performing a Ritual in the Wildlands Lore of Copying your Own Life Principle Lore of Testing out your Golem Lore of Hurting your Golem Lore of Animating Cloth Scarf - Strangles the nearest object or being upon contact or upon Malia's command. NOTES I would have given full points if you had used a different source. This was a straightforward Animation ritual, so there wasn't really a lot of other things in the thread... If you have any questions regarding the rewards feel free to send a PM. A moving scarf reminds me of Mashaen's.