Beyond the city of Rharne lies the Stormlands, which is home to a number of farms, forests, fields, Lake Lovalus, and the River Zynyx. This subforum also includes the Stormwastes to the south.
The boy wasn't going to be easily persuaded. He clung to the battered, dented, cracked and sundered breastplate as if it were a part of him.
"I helped forge this! One of my first! It's... I mean, a few trials in the forges and-"
"We don't need to, lad. Look at this!" The smithy gestured behind him, to separate piles of armor, from gauntlets and leggings to greaves and breastplates. "Piles" being the operative word. "Fresh from the city, eh? The Knights kept the roads open, now we've got men and weapons and armor besides. This old this?" He tinged his finger against it, tutting as another fragment of three of weakened bronze clattered from the boy's grasp. "Better to melt it down and start over. That or throw the bloody thing away."
"But-"
"What about this'n?"
The two Rharnians turned to a fresh voice, but a familiar one. They'd undergone the same basic training as everyone else old or strong enough in Storm's Edge. There were no exceptions. As ordered by the Knights: everyone had to fight, or know how to. If the monsters outside breached the walls or gate, having them run rampant through a garrison of frantic, helpless civilians would be disastrous. So they'd trained. They'd learned the foundations of fighting with sword, dagger, and pike. The little man in the doorway had been one of their teachers. Not a Knight as they knew it; more a sellsword, a mercenary, but fighting for free, or so they'd heard.
What manner of man was brave or dumb enough to fight so, they didn't ask. Word had it that those who did, ended up tending bruises for trials after.
"Um... what do you-"
"This." The little man held up another breastplate, plucked from the barrel of cast offs and failures. Those pieces too ravaged by time or combat or both to be properly repaired without being smelted down to molten metal. "Y'help make this'un, boy?"
"Er... nah, nah I don't think-"
"So no objections f'I take it, eh?"
"I... well..."
Isaak rubbed his hands together nervously. Damned instincts weren't helping him much, here. He was a smithy by trade, not obligation. He felt a twinge right in his purse when the idea of just giving away anything was presented. But he'd been an armorer and weapon-forger for seasons now, solely for the Knights. No coin or favor, just their protection. And both he and his apprentice bore the scars of that service. Proudly. Yet he had his instincts... and Kasoria could see it.
"S'fer an experiment."
"A what?"
"An etheric exercise," the Etzori said, seeming to smile a touch wider when he drank in their expressions. It was not too lovely a gesture. "Y'won't be gettin' it back... but it'll be doin' me a favor. Help me t'practice me wyrd."
"Your what?"
Kasoria sighed, and showed them. As the two men watched, the shadows swaddling the man in the doorway, arcing across him like shards of darkness, melted away. Blue-white light glowed under his skin, pulsing through his veins and collecting around his free hand. He raised it, and once he was sure he had their full attention-
"Brilliance."
-whispered the word and the gassy cloud burst into flickering, glowing flames. They took it rather well. Reacting more out of wonder than fear. They'd seen too many fearful things, after all. Once that had been "explained", he closed his fist... and with the gesture, the flames died. Leaving the shadows to rush eagerly back into the void. Shadows that seemed to cluster around the hairy, cloaked figure. As if he were more at home there than in the blazing, inescapable sunlight beyond the doorway.
"Yer throwin' it out, anyway, incha? Hardly a loss."
Rudy looked to his master and saw the decision made. It wasn't that the smithy was scared, or bullied. He was just... out of his depth, and really, arguing profited nobody. He'd rather not make an enemy of someone like Karim over a hunk of worthless metal. So instead the smithy nodded, and the foreigner actually gave a short bow in thanks. Isaak looked relieved, but Rudy had enough curiosity in him to ask-
"What're you going to do with it?"
The man stopped. Looked over his shoulder. Fixed him with those pure-black eyes that had chilled grown men and seemed to silently warn of a lifetime of deeds too hideous to elaborate on. But there was humor in the voice that came after the look. Just a trace, but enough to be... oddly encouraging.
"Come n' see."
word count: 812
Common Speech | Thoughts | Ith'ession Speech | Speech of Others
Rudy was not one to meddle in the affairs of wizards. Mages. Whatever they were called. Maybe spirits spoke to him? No, more likely... magic itself? Did magic have a voice? Hmm. He wasn't sure. Probably not. That would be like all the earth or all the water having a single voice. That seemed unlikely. He frowned and watched the little man adjust the breastplate armor against the wall. They didn't have to go far; just outside the smithy, his master now back at work. Mister Isaak hadn't the interest to see what the foreigner wanted with the scrap.
Rudy thought it was just because he was busy. He was a simple lad.
Kasoria's hand roved over the metal. Feeling every pit and crevice. Looked liked claws had ripped it open; three deep, ragged tears had been gouged into it, through it. And by the smell... yes, whatever was underneath hadn't survived. Blood and bile. Skin and veins and the organs underneath. Those sort of wounds, inflicted in the heat of battle without a healer close by, were usually fatal. If shock and blood loss didn't kill you, infection would. No wonder it had been left behind, tossed aside, abandoned and written off.
Bad luck, as well as ripped to shite. But you can still be useful.
He closed his eyes, and heard the faint creak and rustle of the boy leaning closer. Didn't hurt him to have an audience. Focused his mind, actually. One more thing to tune out as he reached into himself... and spoke to his Spark.
"Corrode."
It understood what the word meant. But it was... different, for it. So far it had been illumination and knowledge it craved, not destruction. It simply wanted to know the world, and illiminate the dark places to better understand them. What its host and master asked now was... almost the antithesis of that. Why destroy what it knew? What it had touched and felt? If it were gone, the effort of knowing was wasted. There was no point to anything. Kasoria felt and understood rather than heard these worries. It was too animal, too simple for words and abstract knowledge.
You're still not what you're going to be, he mentally whispered, as his palms began to glow, all save for the Abrogation witchmarks in their centers. You still have to learn. You create. You shape. You make things and change them. But you also do this...
Rudy gasped softly as he watched the rot start to spread. That was what it looked like. Not corrosion, not rust, not anything time nor water and nature could inflict upon metal. These things he understood, of course... but they were slow, painfully slow, and thus easily corrected. This was the work of moments. This was like a blight spreading across the shining bronze, for while it was beaten down and ruined, it was still beautiful in the way it caught the light. Under Rudy's eyes, that shine was destroyed. Under his stare, Kasoria's ether ate into the metal, bathed it, and sped up the abuses of seasons and arcs into a handful of trills.
"Oh... my..."
Kasoria smiled at the boy's words, but didn't turn. This was... fascinating. He could feel all those qualities of the bronze armor fading, twisting, falling apart. The solidness of it, the impermeability of metal... it was a joke, after his Spark set to work. If he closed his eyes, he could feel his ether coursing, shrinking, finding the gaps between the smallest parts and...
It feels like fire.
Soon everything under his hand was nothing but rust-colored waste; not even half a bit later, and it was every inch of the armor. Eventually, it spread to the leather and cloth still on it, as if hungry for more. Metal buckled and fell in on itself; leather abraded, frayed, fell away into scrap. Cloth curled and blackened and Kasoria swore he could smell real rot in the air, if only for a moment. Then the whole edifice began to wobble and then-
"Bloody Hell."
It didn't collapse into dust. Nothing so dramatic. It oozed to the ground. Almost like it had always been just a puddle of frozen water, and now his Spark had scorched it into that shape again. Rudy's jaw clicked open as he saw that stalwart piece of protection loose all the shape that defined it as a breastplate, and slide down to the floor like a crackling, sizzling heap of molasses. The Raggedy Man stood back to avoid getting any on his boots, head cocked to one side as he studied it. The fire had only lasted a while. Just as long as it took to fully "infect" the object. After that, it seemed like the breastplate had wanted to fall apart, had wanted to corrode further into dust, the barest stuff of creation... but that, apparently, was not how Transmutation worked.
"Well... dat wuz edu'cay'shun'ul." He turned away from his experiment and tapped two fingers against his brow, a cheerfully mocking parody of a Knight's salute. "Thank yeh, boy. Much 'preciated."
Rudy pressed himself to the wall as the little man passed. Fearful of those hands, dark and dull now, that had called forth such energies before. He shuffled over to the puddle, and found that's what it still was. The metal hadn't cooled, like it would in the smithy, after the heat had been removed from it. No, whatever Karim from Etzos had done, it had stuck. He shoved it with his boot... and with a sad, hissing clatter, the mass of corroded metal and rust and leather and cloth fell in upon itself.
The boy turned around and watched the man walked away. The latter did not look back.
word count: 1000
Common Speech | Thoughts | Ith'ession Speech | Speech of Others
Knowledge:
Transmutation - Corrosion: Effective Against Armor
Transmutation - Corrosion: Degrading an Object to Destruction
Transmutation - Corrosion: Ether Explosions so Tiny and Fast it Seems Like Burning
Transmutation - Corrosion: Seems to Melt Objects
Negotiation: An Appeal to Utility
Negotiation: Claiming Supplies for Experiments
Loot: - Wealth: - Injuries: - Renown: - Magic XP: Yes, for Transmutation. Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10
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Comments: I liked the way that you set the scene in your first post. The conversation between the smith and the boy who was so attached to the damaged breastplate was well-written in my opinion.
There is something quite unique about Kasoria’s approach to magic in my opinion.
I don’t think anybody else actually says the names of the techniques when using them. I also found his wondering whether magic has a voice interesting. I wonder if we’ll ever find out.
I’m amazed by the detail in which you described Kasoria’s using Transmutation.
