• Solo • The Swordswoman and the Thief, Part 4

[Devin]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Ashan 30, Arc 720

How did you make a totem?

Devin looked at the bloody tooth that he had extracted from his patient, at the bowl with the blood that the Biqaj had spit out and at the strand of light brown hair proceeded to scratch his head in confusion.

A moment later, he turned to Adeline, his mentor, who sat on the sofa and was filing her nails as if that was the most important thing in the world and demanded, “Help me!”

“You said that your master’s first initiate died, and that you don’t want that to happen to your first initiate who happens to be me. How do I turn this here into a totem?”

Adeline looked up for a moment, filed her nails some more and finally walked over to the table where Devin had arranged the three sovereign substances on a piece of clean cloth.

A moment later, she handed something to him – a silver ring that had some kind of hole in the middle and that was obviously missing a gemstone or something similar. “Since your self-totem is a pendant, I thought that it would be better if we made this totem a ring”, the blonde told him. “This one should be the right size for your tooth.”

Devin nodded. He wasn’t particularly keen on wearing necklaces and rings made out of teeth and toes as those was a bit disgusting, to be honest; he was quite keen on magic and shapeshifting though as it would make his cons so much easier if he could just turn into someone else. What more, Becoming would hopefully eventually allow him to grow wings, just like Kalortah.

With that thought in mind, he took the ring when Adeline raised a hand. “Before you go ahead, use your new totem and transform for the first time, there is one thing that I need to tell you. You must never lose your self-totem. Keep it safe. Keep it close. If you lose it, you can never become yourself again, and if your totem is destroyed …”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but only shuddered. For a moment, the blonde who was usually quite confident, bordering on arrogant, looked just a little bit scared. Devin had never seen her like that before which was why he didn’t make one of his sarcastic comments, but only nodded. The thought of being stuck in a totem frightened him, to be honest.

He found temporarily becoming someone else exciting; in the end, he was quite fond of his own body though. It was a great body. It was an extraordinary handsome body, and he’d gone through a lot of effort to get it. He had even subjected himself to Rakvald’s crazy fleshcrafting magic.

[Devin]

Jewelry crafting was definitely not Devin’s forte – usually, he didn’t make jewelry, he stole jewelry, preferably expensive jewelry from rich people – so he just stared at the ring that Adeline had given to him for a bit or two before his eyes suddenly lit up. He quickly grabbed his doctor’s case, opened it and removed a variety of different tools from it, including needles, a very slender scalpel – and, strangely enough, a tongue depressor.

He took the tongue depressor first, but set it down again a moment later, shaking his head as it did so. The scalpel turned out to be more useful. Its tip, he realized, as he held it against the ring, was just narrow enough to fit into the hole. So, without further ado, he scooped a bit of blood up with it and proceeded to smear it all around the inside of the ring, a look of utter concentration on his face.

His fingers trembled a bit. Arcs of playing the lute and, more recently, working as a doctor, had given him quite a steady hand, but this here was different from everything he had ever done before. So, once he was done with the first step, he looked up at Adeline.

The mage seemed … confused. She peered at the ring that was all bloody inside now, narrowed her pretty brown eyes and finally remarked, “I’ve never seen anybody make a totem with a scalpel. You are …”

She broke off. She seemed to struggle to find the correct word to describe her initiate, so Devin who was in a rather favorable mood that trial, finished the sentence for her. “Unusual? Exceptional? The best initiate that you’ve ever had?” he remarked with a grin.

“You are my only initiate, so you are my best initiate by default”, Adeline remarked dryly before she told him, “You should continue as long as the ingredients are still fresh!”

Devin didn’t know what would happen if the blood dried or his ingredients decayed, but it probably wouldn’t be particularly pleasant, so he didn’t say anything, but just nodded and went back to working on his totem, with Adeline watching him closely and rather critically.

Carefully, oh so carefully, he wrapped the hair around the bottom of the tooth that still had some of his patient’s blood on it and inserted it into the opening before he looked up, at his mentor again. Devin was normally an incredibly confident man, to the point of arrogance, but the thought of what might happen if he messed his totem up, made him just a little bit hesitant and unsure.

Adeline sighed and produced a pair of delicate pliers. “Push the sides of the bezel cup to look the tooth in place and make sure that it doesn’t fall out the moment you move your hand a bit too much”, she told him and did one side of the ring before she handed the pliers to him. Devin eyed the tool with thinly veiled suspicion before he attempted to repeat what she had done. It was … he hated to admit it, but it was hard.

He would definitely never change careers and become a jeweler instead of a jewel thief!

[Devin]

“Now you need to meditate with your totem, dedicate it and channel your ether through it”, Adeline instructed Devin once the Mortalborn had finished the ring that looked exactly like what it was – the creation of a man that was not particularly competent at jewelry crafting.

Devin’s eyes widened, and a moment later, he frowned deeply. She wanted him to meditate? He hated meditation! In fact, it was one of his least favourite activities ever! It was boring, and he wasn’t very good at it either! Why on Idalos did magic have to involve meditation? Why couldn’t he just stick his totem on his finger and be done with it?!

He looked at Adeline, looked at his new ring and let out a loud sigh. He really didn’t want to meditate, but if he didn’t meditate, he would never learn to shapeshift, and if he didn’t learn to shapeshift, he would never find out how Biqaj eyes worked and why they changed color!

He would never be able to fool the guards and blame his crimes on somebody else!

He would also never be able to grow wings!

“How exactly do I …?” he wanted to know. Would it be enough if he just stared at his totem for a break or two? Did it take longer? And how exactly did you go about channeling ether? He had thought that his studying Magical Theory had prepared him for this here. The professors had talked about ether every now and then, but there had been no practical demonstrations as using magic during a lecture was not allowed – which was one of the most stupid rules ever in your opinion.

How were you supposed to really familiarize yourself with magic if you had never seen it in action?!

[Devin]

Eventually, Devin simply took the ring in his hand and closed his fingers that ended in blackened nails around it, trying to overcome his disgust because it had, well, a bloody tooth on it. He closed his eyes because doing such made it easier for him to focus – and forgot what the object that he was holding was made of. He inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply, willing himself to calm down, to forget the past trials that had been stranger than anything he had ever experienced before, even the accident with the magical tree that had turned his eyes violet, struggling slightly.

He tried to forget everything and everybody, Adeline, who was next to him, his roommate Aidan that had retreated upstairs in order to not disrupt his meditation and get in his way, his pet zombie that was living in the basement, his flunny that was pretty much a bunny with wings until nothing but the strange little object that was in his hand existed, until all the sounds around him began to fade away, until the only sounds that existed were the sound of his breathing and his own heartbeat that seemed to be unusually loud, but that was slow and steady, nevertheless. It was a such a strange sound, but comforting and reassuring at the same time. He had never been so aware of it before.

Time seemed to slow down and extend endlessly, trills turned into bits and eventually something more as the Mortalborn dedicated his totem and meditated with it. Adeline watched him closely, but she didn’t move or say anything as even the smallest interruption – even compliments or words of encouragement - might make him lose his focus.

She had gotten to know him quite well over the previous couple of trials, and he didn’t seem like someone that enjoyed meditation or was very good at it!

While Adeline looked on, Devin poured his heart and soul into his totem, everything that he was, everything that he had been and everything that he would be, that he wanted to be, his desire to be more than what he was now. He thought of the man whose blood, bone and hair the totem was made of and whose body he planned on wearing, the way he had held himself and talked when he had walked into his home, the way that his eyes changed color which was something that he found so absolutely fascinating.

He channeled his ether into the ring, slowly, oh so slowly, and carefully. He barely knew what he was doing or how he was doing it, only that he was doing it, and that it was harder than anything that he had ever done before because he was using a part of himself that he had barely been aware of so far. For the first time, he could actually feel his soul – and the spark that was inside of him now, that would always be a part of him from now on.

He couldn’t have said how he knew that his totem was finished; he only knew that the ring that he still clutched in his hand had finally become something more than the sum of its parts, more than just a silver band that was decorated with a tooth instead of a gemstone. He looked at it for a moment, his eyes wide and filled with a sense of wonder instead of the disgust that had been the dominant emotion so far, and then he turned to Adeline who had never moved away from him. The Mortalborn who was loud and boisterous most of the time smiled at the mage who had initiated him almost shyly for a moment before he began to grin.

“What now?” he asked.

[Yrmellyn Cole]

Thread Rewards

Overview

This series about how Devin stars as a dentist to gather teeth, blood and hair of from his patients and make totems so he can become them is extraordinary (fun).

I liked the detailed way you wrote the creation of the totem, Devin doing it for the first time. It wasn't easy. And he is doing all this because he wants biqaj eyes?

Entertaining like crazy! I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Player One

Rewards and consequences

Points: 10 (Can be used for magic: Becoming)

Knowledge:
Becoming: Creating a totem
Becoming x4
Meditation x1

Renown: n/a

Loot: A Biqaj totem (ring)

Skill Review: Appropriate

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