• Open • The Gods of Earth and Sky

[Kasoria]

14th trial, Ymiden, 720
The Stormwastes
11th break

Magic was not unknown to him anymore. An arc ago, going on two, it would have been wondrous and terrifying in equal measure. The idea of some... thing, with its own animal intellect and yearnings squatting within his form, casting spells and crafting reality through him. The power, oh, that was always a private, unspoken jealousy. But he had killed mages before. Magic did not make one immortal. In his limited, bloody experience, it made one overconfident.

Then he found the magic for him. Found it, grown into it, mastered it. So then he found another.

Which was why this was not new to him, but it was... original. "Magic" was too broad a term for all the shapings and coaxings that ether could form, from monstrous beasts mutated into nightmares to mages shooting fireballs to the Immortals themselves (may they burn and drown forever). But this kind, this direction, this use... when he summoned it, he felt a twinge of something that might have been nostalgia.

He remembered the first time he'd summoned his Spark and used Abrogation. Now it was a new discipline, a new Spark, and a whole new setting. He squatted upon a dusty rocky in a dusty desert, baked by the sun without so much as a dead tree to take shade under. The cloak he wore was stifling, but necessary. The merciless rays would burn his skin red then black if he wasn't careful. But he didn't pay much attention to the weather. His focus was on the rock in his hand. He touched it. He squeezed it. Felt the hardness and texture and weight of it. Tossed it from hand to hand and, if such a crude thing could be said to have balance, he got that, too.

But that was all the workings of flesh and mind. Not Spark. Until he breathed in, closed his eyes and-

Wake up.

Something did just that. Something new. Young. Not even a season old, in fact. Kasoria coaxed it into life and it flowed through those same intangible arteries that his other, older Spark had used. He could feel that, too. Mature and gnarled and bitter and paranoid and not enjoying this at all. He spent a quiet moment whispering a mental shush at the Abrogation Spark. It needed to learn to share. Once it did, it would see and understand what a boon this new power could be.

"Identify."

He spoke the word clearly and aloud, just as he'd read it a dozen times from his book. At once he could feel the uncertain young Spark grow eager. Pour from his fingers and envelop the rock he held. He opened his eyes and saw it, tentacles and tendrils coalescing to swamp the crude matter. At once he started to... understand? Know? Feel? There was no precedent for the sensation. It was the same rock as before, but now he was endowed with a deeper appreciation of it. Not just mortal and mundane but-

The quality of Stormwaste stone, he thought with a mental chuckle. Old... older than any house or castle or temple. Chipped off from a mountain, long, long ago. But not impermeable...

Kasoria turned the stone over, and spied the hairline fracture running under it that he'd missed before. The location of it was in his mind as if it had always been there. The Spark withdrew, its duty done, and Kasoria smiled thinly. He dropped the stone. It was, after all, just a stone. And he had learned all he wished to from it... as had his Spark.

"Mount up, men! Break's over!"

Just in time, too. He turned and saw the motley collection of trackers and scouts swinging themselves up into saddles. He walked over to his horse and did the same. Fates, even that meager parcel of movements was enough to raise a minor dust storm. Everything in the wastes was parched and lifeless. Hardly news, given the name, but even Kasoria knew this was... different. Nature and Time hadn't killed this land; they did not work so quickly. Something had... drained it.

"Not a mouse, nor a hare, nor a bird... nor a blade of grass," the Lieutenant leading them said, squinting out at the featureless, lifeless landscape. "Never seen it like this before."

Kasoria didn't comment. None was needed. The job was to scout, the duty was to keep his eyes open and his weapons close to hand. Those things he did, and without complaint. But when he got the chance, well... he had his own affairs to attend to.

With a barked "yar!" the Lieutenant went trotting off, and Kasoria gave his own horse a gentle kick to the ribs. Soon the whole lot of them were on the move, leaving a straight cloud of foulness in their wake, a dozen living ants crawling across a dead vastness under lidless burning eyes.

[Kasoria]

"Looks familiar."

"Aye. No mistakin' it."

Kasoria chose not to share in the pointless chitchat. He knew well enough what he was looking at. What had caused it, too. How long it had been there, and what pattern it was part of... he was less familiar with. He was a tracker of men across urban jungles, not monsters across the wastelands of Rharne. There were no greasy informants to squeeze nor bribe; no trails of passing from human feet. Yet when it came to a creature like this?

The Etzori peered over the edge of the crater. It was deep enough to have some mud in the bottom, where the mist of the cold nights had collected as a sludge come the morning. He'd guess maybe ten feet deep, slopes down gentle but only because of its sheer size. The men on the other side looked like children at this distance. All of them wore the same wary, stoic expressions as he. Only once creature was vast enough to make such a rater. Either that or some celestial body crashing down with massive force... and somehow, Kasoria doubted that.

"Mark it on the map," the Lieutenant growled softly, clearly more angry than anything else. Enraged like any man would be at an invader of his land, a soldier would be towards a mortal enemy. "Mayhap some reckoning of where the beast emerged in the past can inform us of its movements... or intent."

Kasoria responded by spitting into the hole. It was a trill or two before the gob splattered onto the bottom. Mark all you want, he thought somberly, make your plans and researches and calculations. Without magic or an army, no steel or flame or walls will stop that fucking thing.

And yet, here you stay.

For now.

"Yes, sir."

Fates Beyond, that actually came from him. Quite the respectful little guttersnipe was he becoming, eh? Yes sir and No sir and all that shite. He smirked softly at the thought as he did as he was bid, using a little stick of charcoal to mark the location of the crater on the map. It was a simple thing, black and white and lined from being folded and unfolded so many times. He didn't know the scale, but the Lieutenant had been navigating by it well enough. Though he suspected the scouts and hunters who new the Wastes had been nudging them here and there. He looked around for some feature of landscape to go by... and gave up after a moment. A scout ambled by and took the map from him instead. Kasoria watched with interest as the man seemed to study the sky, then the horizon... and finally marked an X with deft certainty.

"How'd ya work that out?"

The scout blinked, surprised. As if the Etzori was mad to ask that, but not even comment on the giant, ominous sigh they were standing on. "It's, ah... it's the distance we covered, from the last camp. Got the direction, see? You guess how fast we been riding, times that by the breaks, find the direction... then y'get the scale on the map, and-

"-an' den y'know where y'are."

The scout shrugged, maybe a little too humble. "More a' less."

"Thank yeh."

Again, that same surprised blinking. Fates, did people think he was some sort of savage? Either way, Kasoria returned the map to the Lieutenant and soon they were all mounting up again. Nothing else to find here not record, so they might as well-

A flash, white and glaring, caught his eye. It looked almost like bone, sticking up from the lip of the crater. Kasoria frowned and stalked over to it. Yes, long and straight and white, like a leg bone. But when he wrenched it up from its half-buried state, it felt... different. Dust sloughed off it and when he flicked a finger against the middle, it sounded more like...

"Identify."

The ether told him what he already suspected. Skin glowing under and around the strange white stick as he held it, he could feel it caressing the unfamiliar substance. At once, words seemed to pop into his head.

Wood.

Bark.

Hollow.

Rings.

Branch.

Dead.

Dry.

All these things, these qualities, became as known to him as the cobbles of Etzos under his feet. He tested the strength of the branch, feeling it creak under his grip. Yes, it had been long dead. Not just dead but... sucked dry of life. As if the anima of even vegetation had been leeched from... whatever was prowling the Stormwastes. Kasoria grimaced as he tossed the stick away, his use for it at an end. He'd wager the roots would be the same. Mayhap this "Amalgamation" was responsible. Eating the plants and grass from the bottom up when it wasn't bursting forth like a whale from the ocean. Standing back up, he could see other flashes of white. Broken branches, smashed roots...as if the Amalgamation had come up under a copse of dead trees and smashed them to kindling.

Probably didn't even know they were there, he thought, and stopped himself from imagining what such mass and force could do to, say, an outer wall, or a gatehouse.

"Mount up!"

The cry went out again, and Kasoria was glad to be trotting after the rest of them. He didn't cast another look over his shoulder. The crater would still be there, and the beast would not return. Better to look ahead, towards the darkening horizon.

[Kasoria]

"There's a word for this, isn't there?"

"Fer what?"

"Like, when there's trees an' stuff in the middle a' nowhere."

"What, like a forest?"

"Oasis."

Both Rharnians turns to the little man from Etzos that had bruised and bettered them in equal measure. "Sir?"

"Oasis. S'when there's a patch of life an' water an' vegeta'shun inna' desert. Which this sorta' is, I guess."

"Oh..."

Now you're just showing off, wanker.

Kasoia couldn't argue with that sentiment. It was true, for one thing. But he had so few opportunities to flex his vocabulary and Fates, here was a perfect example of the word! In the middle of a desert without sand, bereft of even grass and shrubs, nothing but dry earth and bones and dead trees for trials in any direction... there was this perfect spot of life. Rising up impossibly as they road onward; consigned as an imagining, a phantasm of their eyes. Only once it was clear they were all having the same delusion, they had to take it seriously. Kasoria was no different. The waning suns, the deepening shadows... it was possible that smudge of color was just an echo of the light catching stones in the distance.

They rode closer. Horses panting and huffing under them. The trees became clearer. Rising high and living and covered in leaves. Gras, real and green and lush, was between them. The horses knew better than the humans did, not smart or stupid enough to ask questions when real, tangible nourishment was only a short trot away. It wasn't until his horse started munching in front of them that Kasoria actually believed what he was looking at. It was odd and unlikely as finding an ice sculpture in hell. Only this sculpture, when he placed his hand against it, was real in a way that old branch was not.

Supple.

Pliable.

Kasoria chuckled softly. His infant Spark was becoming bolder, it seemed. Still tentative, perhaps, but learning new words. Informing him of more qualities when he asked of it. Even his Abrogation Spark seemed a touch more willing to allow it to journey through limbs and intangible channels it alone ruled supreme. Kasoria took his hand from the living tree an looked up into a tangle of vines, fungi, leaves, and rich brown bark. Around him their party was exploring, searching for edible plants. mostly. But the Lieutenant and the clutch of other Knights... their minds were on other things.

Font of Life. He heard that a few times. The Etzori sidled closer and listened in.

"There's red metal here, we've already seen it."

"What does it do? What can it do?"

"We're not sure yet. The healer-woman is doing her research, and Augustin-"

"There's no time for poking at rocks in an apothecary! We need to-"

"Enough." The Lieutenant was a good enough leader to quiet his bickering underlings without needing to bark. He just spoke firmly, and order was restored. "It doesn't matter tonight. We'll take back samples and mark the spot on the map. If more is needed, we'll send out a party an bring back all they need. For now, the horses need rest, water, and feed. Post sentries, get a fire going... you, Karim? Can you cook?"

Kasoria, grown so used to the false name that he didn't even recognize it as such, shrugged one shoulder and scratched under his beard. "Gimme the makins' an' I'll see what stew I can whip up."

So it went, under the shade of the only trees for two trials ride, that the mismatched band laid down in lush grass under a thick canopy. Desert and death a slow stone's throw away, and Etzori pottage wafting through the balmy air.

[Doran]

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Skill Knowledge:
Transmutation: Identify
Transmutation: Deconstruction Doesn't So Much Destroy an Object, Rather Makes it Semi-Permanent in Reality
Transmutation: Transmuting to Reduce an Object's Weight
Transmutation: The Three Steps Require Intense Concentration
Navigation (Land) x1
Horse (Mount) x1

Non-Skill Knowledge:
Location: Font of Life, Oasis of Vegetation and Red Metal in the Stormwastes
Storm's Edge, Ymiden 720: Threatened Anew By a Gigantic "Amalgamation"

Loot: Samples of "red metal" from the Font of Life, delivered to interested parties in Storm's Edge.
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 5
Magic XP: Yes, for Transmutation.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

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Comments: I found Kasoria’s thoughts about magic – and how his Abrogation spark reacted to the new spark – quite fascinating to read. I think this was the first time that I actually read about a mage speaking while casting a spell.

And the way you described Kasoria’s using his magic – I like that you actually incorporated the spark’s actions and described the process in so much detail.

I also enjoyed the subsequent scouting. I have to admit, I chuckled a bit when Kasoria said “Yes, sir” and subsequently thought about how he was becoming quite the respectful little guttersnipe. He seems to be changing though, judging by what I remember from his earlier threads!

Great job, and enjoy your rewards!