• Mature • Artisan

[Kasoria]

35th trial, Ymiden, 720
Storm's Edge
Night

Continued from here

It really was a case of work making work. It hadn't occurred to him when he'd done it. The idea had come to him on the spur, but now he had the tatters in his hands, well... things lined up nicely.

Sometimes the Fates do you a favor. It's just usually shit so small you don't even notice.

Kasoria sat in his sparse lodgings, bereft of all save a bed, table, chair, and a basin for him to wash in. Water for that was his own labor; the same if he wanted to use the privy, just down the hallway. He lived like they all lived, he was sure. From the lowliest volunteer to the Knight Commander himself. He'd chafed under such austerity, at first. He was worth more than that... but alas, he'd not agreed the rate, had he? After a while, he realized it was childish. He'd survived on worse. Fates, he'd thrived on worse. At least they fed them three times a day. In the Black Cells he was sure they only fed them when the moaning and screaming reminded the jailers they were still lived.

So he'd made the room his own. Little touches, here and there. Extra mountings and surfaces for his weapons. His belongings. A cracked mirror, saved or salvaged (depending on your perspective) from the fires a season ago. Extra candles, so he could work and study and practice.

He'd come to appreciate the starkness. The severity. It helped his focus. Removed all material comforts, such as when he sat cross-legged on the cold stone, with nothing but Wastes Wind and night heat beyond the window. A handful of candles lit the room, half of them guttering out. He needed new ones. But this would be enough.

In one hand, he held a broken broom handle. In the other, the rest of the broom. His tools from earlier that day, or at least the stick was. Now it was of further use to him, as he could not just corrode or bolster or blast ether missiles. No. That was not the true function of Transmutation, he was realizing. Those were... linear ideas. Straightforward. Destroy or strengthen. Damage or reinforce. What he planned now... this was resurrection.

Easy. You're not a fucking necro. And even they don't bring people back. Not really.

The Raggedy Man peered to his side and frowned at the book open to his side. Fortunately he was at the section where the burned, black edges weren't eating too much into the script.

Sculpting, as the Name Implies, is not just Altering an Object with Quality or Flaw, but Reshaping It. This is Quite Lit

can Change the Form and Dimensions of an Item. This is Espcially Useful in Reparing Broken Things. A Shattered C

be Restored through Sculpting, Jagged Pieces put together and Bound Once More with Transmutation. However the

Care that Focus is Maintained at all Times, for to Bind at such a Minor Level of Creation is Taxing, to say the Least.

Kasoria snorted softly. The author surely had a talent for understatement. He frowned for a moment. He'd already pushed himself today. Hurled missiles in the morning. Bolstered his shirt and a stick this afternoon. Night had fallen and now, now he was planning something even more delicate, thus (as the book said) taxing. He reached into himself with a deep breath, and felt his Transmutation Spark yawn into life.

It trembled gently. Not painfully, but it was there. That ache. That tiredness. It needed time. It was as worn from use as his Abrogation was restless from being ignored. He almost snorted again. How jealous could a Spark get, without any brain or mind or soul?

Question for another time.

"Right..."

The Raggedy Man turned from his book and focused on the items in front of him. He held up the handle, and the mop head. Held them in front of him so the splintered, jagged breaking point two-thirds of the way down the shaft was in front of him. He closed his eyes... and summoned his Spark... feeling it crawl and seep out of him. Rushing through his veins and muscles and bones and out his skin. He felt the eyes on his hands open, actually blink, just once, and stare into nothing, and everything.

He was suddenly aware. The mutation of his hands telling him textures and material and substances. Stone and wood and metal and fabric. Everything for around ten feet of where he sat, so everything in the room, essentially. Fascinated but knowing he had better things to focus on, he shushed the mutation. Pushed away the barrage of information... and concentrated on the space between the two pieces of broken wood. Focused on filling that up with his ether. Immersing the edges of both, so when he opened his eyes.

Kasoria blinked. Felt the first twinge of discomfort, and ignored it. Time to begin.

[Kasoria]

He didn't focus on the whole broom. He didn't need to. It would be wasteful, and pointless. The whole thing wasn't broken; just that one section. A tenth of its full size, maybe even less. He focused on that. The breaking point. The shattering. He focused on that, and he expanded his ether to swamp the wood on either side. So when he opened his eyes...

He didn't need the candles anymore. There was enough blue-white ether filling the air to light every crevice and crack.

Focus. Concentrate. Picture what you want.

Brow knitted, Kasoria did just that. But the Three Steps had to come first.

"Deconstruct."

So he willed his ether not to repair, for now, but to destroy. To soak the damaged, splintered wood in his ether and break it down into the base stuff of reality. He could feel, like he did before, the Emea pulling at him now. As if the cloud, the floating pool of ether he'd made was a portal to that world made of pure magical energy. The wood was there, now. Or half-there, more accurately. That was what was truly breaking it down, making it pliable for the mage to work his will on it.

Deconstruct. Base. Devolve. Make it as clay.

For what seemed like breaks but was only a few bits, Kasoria let ether and Emea do their work. Until the broken ends of the mop were half-real and shimmering in and out of reality. Once they were at that point, Kasoria knew they were ready for the next part.

They. We. As if you are more than one.

Some base intelligence purred in his ear. Another growled. Kasoria smiled, indulging the notion for a moment, before pushing it away. Who's to say there weren't?

"Sculpt... like it wuz before..."

Memory was what he relied on then, not just will. He thought back to those handful of trills, where he'd held the broom in its proper form. Whole and stiff and straight and long. He remembered how his Spark had eagerly Identified it for him, right down to the Flaw in the bottom, where mold had started eating away at the wood. His mind stopped remembered just before he snapped it in two. No. He didn't need that part. He needed what it was before... and as he did...

He saw the two splintered edges of the broom handle start to change. Move close to each other. Coil and writhe like the appendages of questing, curious creatures.

Entwine and wrap around each other. Pulse and shimmer and flicker in and out of reality. Forge new bonds, new solidity, a new fastness between them. Until he barely noticed his hands bringing them together and after a moment... he couldn't move them any further. Because they were becoming one yet again.

His eyes widened. He was doing it. He was-

Focus, damn you! The job isn't done!

"Ruh... Restore..."

Damn him for a fool, but this wasn't the hard part. He ignored the sweat dribbling down his brow and cursed the hitch in his voice. He'd been so focused on the repair, the reforging, that he'd forgot about the Third Step. The most important. All the changes and sculpting in the world was pointless if you couldn't make it stick. He closed his eyes now, blocking out even that sparse reality. He needed to know nothing, save for his Spark and what he held.

Pain was removed from the list. The quiver in his limbs, the random twitches in his neck and jaw. His Spark keened, young and sorrowful, wanting to take a break. He ignored it. Remorselessly, he spurred it on. They had more to do, and until it was done...

The Spark obeyed, and Kasoria suffered in silence.

For long bits, he sat there. Coaxing the repaired broom back into reality, gram by gram, ensuring that as he withdrew his ether back into himself, he left behind only finished and restored wood. The wood had to be bound at a level smaller than his eyes could see, or those weaknesses, those unseen Flaws would manifest all the faster. By the time his ether had dispelled completely, his arms were shaking like a man palsied and he let them drop to his sides-

-broom clattering onto the stone floor as he slumped over.

Breathing heavily. Mouth draw, so parched to swallow was to scrape the sides of his mouth. He tried to raise a hand for his water... and felt blood dribble from his nose. Damn him. Too much. Too far. Too many times. He cursed savagely for a moment, but the proof was before him. He had to wait long moments before he could use his arms again, fearing in every bit that passed he wouldn't be able to. But in front of him, at his knees, was his victory.

Ten bits later, Kasoria rose to shaky feet, and with a deft if careful gesture, foot-flipped the mop upright so he could grab it.

The breaking point was... thinner, it seemed. A tapering of paler wood where there's been the break. Mayhap some splinters and shards had been lost in the Courtyard, and he'd had to draw extra material from what remained? It made sense. Kasoria would ponder it later. For now, tired and wiping the blood from his nose, he marveled at his work. He'd never been much of a craftsman, at least not with his hands. Then again...

"Never figured me fer'n artisan, didja?" He said to an empty room, talking to a man long dead. He stood the broom up in a corner, and shuffled to his bed. "Surprised s'you are, believe me..."

There was no answer, of course. He didn't expect any. The dead did not listen, nor speak. That was their liberty, not their curse. Kasoria half-fell into bed and breathed some life back into himself before he slept. Waiting for the spasms and twitches to cease, or at least subside, before listening to the wind, and letting the darkness come. Bringing old memories and fresh dreams.

[Doran]

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Meditation: Setting a Mental Boundary and Objective
Transmutation: Sculpting
Transmutation - Sculpting: Used to Repair Broken Things
Transmutation - Sculpting: Changes the Shape, Dimensions, and Features of an Object
Transmutation - Sculpting: Changes are a Mixture of Memory and Imagination
Transmutation - Sculpting: Requires Intense Focus

Loot: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: Light Overstepping: Nosebleeds and weakness. While Kasoria's nose will stop bleeding quickly, the weakness will last until the following morning.
Renown: -
Magic XP: Yes, for Transmutation.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.

Points: 10

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Comments: It was interesting to find out how Kasoria lived. I liked that you didn’t only describe his lodgings, but also wrote what he thought of them. Consulting a book prior to using magic is a good idea when you don’t have any experience with that particular technique yet. The description of the spark’s reactions/feelings was a great addition, as always. I’ve never considered that the spark could feel tired after you used a lot of magic before. Kasoria’s using his magic was described in a lot of detail and interesting to read in my opinion.

I find the mutation that Kasoria has on his hands quite fascinating, by the way – and useful!

Enjoy your rewards!