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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 12:22:57 GMT -6
But if Rhys was privy to any of its unkind thoughts in his general direction, he hadn't stopped because of them. And Noa was the one who turned to it and said, "We're doing this for you, you know." After all, it was the little feathered creature who had first become interested in this thing, and had been persistently pecking and playing around it.
Though come to that, looking at it now, Noa wondered if it would simply have been content jumping around on the thing while it had still been partially buried in the sand. The little feathered creature might not have wanted them to actually dig it up, and it was possible that it had only drawn their attention to it as a point of interest that it had wanted to investigate more closely. But it wasn't as if they had damaged the thing in their excavation of it, and now the little feathered creature had more space to hop around on and peck to its heart's content, so no harm no foul, as far as Noa was concerned. It really was a pity they couldn't take it with them though, after how much work it had been.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 12:23:50 GMT -6
While the little feathered creature was occupied in exploring its new makeshift jungle gym, Noa turned to Rhys. "While we're here, we may as well work on your spellwork. There's one I've been meaning to teach you, and this seems like a good place to do it."
{Alright,} said Rhys. They had only recently begun working in earnest on Rhys's own understanding of the magic that he himself was capable of. Noa was usually the one casting spells, but as his familiar, Rhys had the ability to learn a few spells of his own, as well as perform magic that Noa couldn't do at all. Rhys also had a lot of different abilities that didn't depend on that magic, but he hadn't yet learned much about the magical side of what he could do.
And magic afforded Rhys a certain level of flexibility beyond his inborn powers. On this occasion, Noa wanted to capitalize on that, if he could.
"Good. What I want you to learn this time is how to breathe fire."
Noa had the satisfaction of watching the surprise diffuse over Rhys's features. It looked different on a Faeron than it did on a person's face, of course.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 12:25:32 GMT -6
But the difference wasn't so drastic that Noa couldn't recognize it, especially when he had been with Rhys over half his life. He laughed. It was a funny sight. "Oh, come now, you can't tell me you haven't thought about it. You watched me with Avander and the rest of that lot all these years."
{Well, yes, but...} Rhys trailed off, unsure of what to say. For a moment they both watched the little feathered creature, who was still at play. Noa suspected he knew what Rhys had been about to say. The Faeron's role had always been as a healer, a supporter. He could bite if things got desperate, but with his small size and his skill set, he wasn't designed to be on the front lines, or doing damage in general, when there were other more qualified creatures for the role.
At length, Rhys said, {I just didn't think there was a spell for that.} Which was fair, considering Noa himself had never used the spell. But he had other fire spells in his repertoire, and he knew more or less the general principle behind what he was trying to teach Rhys now, so it shouldn't be a problem.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 12:26:15 GMT -6
Besides, as a magical genius, even if he didn't necessarily know everything, he could always figure it out as he went. Noa didn't anticipate too much trouble on his side of things, at any rate. "We might as well start. You remember what I taught you last time, about drawing energy?" Rhys gave a wordless assent, and Noa smiled. "Good. Now, this time I want you to draw... Oh, this much, say." He demonstrated by drawing on his own reserves of power, and estimating the amount that one would need for the spell that he had in mind this time around. Rhys observed him carefully, whiskers twitching as he sensed the magic in the air. He seemed a little... discouraged wasn't the right word, but perhaps 'concerned' would describe it. He didn't seem confident, at any rate, perhaps because it was over double what he had worked with last time.
"If you're worried about not having enough, don't be," Noa said. "You have more than enough. Just try it."
{That isn't... Well, here goes nothing then.} Under Noa's somewhat impatient gaze, Rhys closed his eyes and began drawing on his own magical reserves, while Noa dissipated the energy that he had drawn.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:40:55 GMT -6
Just as with the last time Noa had taught Rhys a spell, this was to give him more room to see what Rhys was doing, and to gauge how much energy Rhys had manifested without his own getting in the way. Now Noa focused on Rhys's energy, and frowned when he saw that Rhys had stopped generating more. "This isn't enough," Noa said. "If you try like this, the spell will fail."
Rhys's ears and whiskers drooped, but Noa was firm. He had simply stated the truth, and if Rhys wanted to learn how to use his spells, he was going to have to get used to handling larger quantities of magic. Noa could understand his unease to a point, intellectually, even if he had never faced any of the same trepidation himself. Accidents did sometimes happen when he was doing his own magical research, but he simply adjusted and kept trying when they occurred. He would never have learned anything if he had been too frightened to try.
And anyway, he knew the results of not using enough energy from experience, so he could say with full confidence just what would happen if Rhys tried casting a spell like that.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:41:05 GMT -6
But clearly he did have to say something else to assuage the Faeron's fears. "We're near water," Noa said. "And there aren't any plants around. As long as you aim away from me and that coral, it's not as if you could hurt anyone." And even if they were hurt, Rhys could always fix that. Rhys had healing capabilities aplenty. But Noa didn't think it would be wise to say that last bit, not right now, so he kept it to himself.
{Okay... Okay. You're right. I can do this.} Rhys gathered a little more energy this time. It was just the bare minimum needed to make the spell work, but since it was finally enough, Noa decided that was fine, and they could move on.
"You've seen Grunty breathe fire before, right?" The Thundergug was the only creature in Noa's roster of fighters who was capable of it; Nightshade's flames were of a different quality. "Think about heat. Make it big, big enough to use up all the energy you collected. And direct it outward, from your mouth, so that it doesn't just manifest in a random direction or a random place." Picturing it would give Rhys better control.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:41:16 GMT -6
It took a long moment before anything happened. Noa was sure that at least some of it was due to that same reluctance on Rhys's part, that he had to work himself up to doing what Noa had asked of him, but in the end... Noa snapped to attention when he felt the energy start to shift, and a moment later a truly impressive gout of flame issued from Rhys's opened mouth. The heat of it could be felt even from where Noa was standing, off to the side and away from Rhys. Even the little feathered creature stopped, though whether because it could also feel the heat of the flames or if it had only been arrested by the spectacle was anyone's guess.
"Not bad," Noa said with a slight smile. It was a fearsome gout of flame, to be sure. They wouldn't have to work Rhys up to a proper amount of fire, the way he had to sometimes do with creatures who could do this naturally. But that was the beauty of spells; either it worked or it didn't, and there weren't any half measures to worry about. Now all they had to do was work on consistency.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:42:11 GMT -6
There was a big difference between being able to pull off a spell once and being able to pull it off flawlessly, every time. And in this case it mattered more than others, because Noa could only really think of asking Rhys to do something like this in a situation where they were fighting something off. If they needed a smaller amount of flame, his own spells would likely suffice, and there were tools for that kind of thing too. But the primary reason he had wanted Rhys to learn this spell was so that the Faeron had some more offensive power, in case the two of them -- or even Rhys alone, really -- ever found themselves in a situation where that would come in handy.
{I can't believe it,} said Rhys, who looked the most stunned out of the three of them there. The little feathered creature had more or less recovered, and had gone back to playing around. Apparently seeing a gout of flame issue forth from a Faeron wasn't strange enough to perturb it much, though given the fact that it lived with them, maybe that was just an indication of what it was like to make Gracehaven your home.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:44:27 GMT -6
Noa shrugged. "It's a spell that exists. A lot of magic is just imagining an end goal, and trusting the energy to carry out your will as you've shaped it." Of course, some of the challenge was learning how to ask the question -- how to phrase it in your mind so that the energy understood, how to guide it into place so that it would do what you wanted and nothing else. And some elements were easier, more malleable, more biddable; and some things were easier to achieve than others. But at the end of the day, if Rhys had a pretty strong concept of 'breathing fire', then it wouldn't be hard for him to manifest a spell that did the same.
"Let's try again. Show me a burning breath," Noa said, reciting the spell by name. That may as well be its signal, to stop them from getting confused; eventually Noa wanted Rhys to learn a great deal of spells, and it would be easiest to keep track of them all this way.
Rhys had to brace himself again, but soon enough the energy gathered in the air, and this time it didn't take as long for the shift.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:56:24 GMT -6
It was probably because he had gone through it once, and no one had died or gotten burnt. Seeing it happen might have given Rhys the confidence that he really could control it, so long as he did as Noa had instructed. And sure enough, the gout of flame was produced again, just as it had been the first time.
After that, it was really a matter of getting Rhys used to doing it. If he knew it well, he could perform it quickly, even under pressure. They practiced a few more times with Noa giving him the signal, so Rhys commit it to memory. It wasn't just the signal that he had to remember, but also the amount of energy needed, and the way he would have to picture the spell. Sometimes it took a little longer to go off, possibly because Rhys was experimenting with the manifestation step. Noa let him do it, knowing that he would learn more by feeling it out himself. Besides, if there was a safe place to practice, it was here, among the water and sand. Noa hadn't been lying when he said that there wasn't as much risk of an accident with the fire here.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 13:58:54 GMT -6
By the time Rhys had exhausted his magical reserves, he was also feeling more confident in his ability to perform it properly, which was what Noa had been looking for.
Noa also felt that he would be able to perform the spell successfully if they came under attack -- though of course it might be fun to put it to the test once they got back to the estate, if Noa could convince Avander or someone to go along with it. For now, however, he was satisfied that Rhys had learned the spell properly, and could reproduce it when prompted.
The little feathered creature had been playing along the coral all this time... Or at least that was what Noa had thought. But when he turned around, it was no longer perched on the coral. Noa frowned. "Where did it go?" he asked.
Rhys was taking a moment to recover. Repeating the fire spell had pretty well tapped him flat, which wasn't surprising since it was a pretty energy intensive spell, as far as those went. And that kind of magical reserve wasn't something that Noa could help him restore either, which was a bit of a pity, but still better than nothing.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 14:01:58 GMT -6
It took a moment for Rhys to recover his bearings enough to start casting about for the whereabouts of the little feathered creature. But it was better to wait for Rhys to do it than to cast around aimlessly himself, so Noa simply waited it out. After a moment, Rhys's whiskers began waving around. They did this whenever Rhys was trying to suss out something, and Noa never did know whether the motions of the whiskers actually contributed to the process, or if they were just something that happened as a by product of whatever Rhys was trying to do, the way that Noa unconsciously tapped his fingers while he was thinking and other little tics like that.
But sure enough, it didn't take Rhys long to locate the little feathered creature. Of course, it probably helped that the little feathered creature wasn't really trying to run away from them. It liked Noa pretty well these days, if its responsiveness to his shift in moods earlier was any indication, and it had most likely just gotten bored from the fact that neither Rhys nor Noa had paid any attention to it in some time.
{It's right over there,} said Rhys.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 14:05:25 GMT -6
Noa looked in the direction that Rhys had indicated with a wave of his tail, and there it was, the little feathered creature, pecking at something in the sand. "Looks like it's found something," Noa said. He hoped that that something was a little smaller than the coral had been, so that they could actually take it back with them when they got it out of the sand. With all the time that Noa had spent on teaching Rhys another spell, they hadn't actually done much in the way of shell collection.
There was no way to find out but to approach, so Noa walked over to where the little feathered creature was. Fortunately for him, it really wasn't a large object this time. He reached down and pulled it easily out of the sand, revealing... a necklace strung with bones and teeth. "Interesting," Noa said. "I didn't think I would find jewelry in a place like this."
Of course, 'jewelry' was a strong word for what this was. It wasn't refined or even well made, though the craftsmanship was not so shoddy that it fell apart immediately either when he picked it up, so at least that was something.
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Post by Noa on Aug 14, 2021 14:08:15 GMT -6
He could take it home, and present it to the trader, and see if that strange fellow would give him something good for it. That was all he wanted out of the things that he found here, so a necklace he didn't care for was as good as anything else in his eyes. He inspected it once more to make sure there was nothing really interesting or valuable about it, such that he might want to keep it for himself after all, then stowed it away.
The three of them spent a little more time casting around the sand for things of interest. Rhys found a pretty good number of shells, though most of them weren't whole enough to be worth collecting. He kept a few shards of shell he had found that were a pretty color, and Noa let him. They were nice enough colors, Noa supposed, but no one else was going to treat them as anything of value, so he had no incentive to try and take them for other reasons.
They didn't amass a huge haul, but Noa had to lug it all home himself, so that was fine by him. Once they were tired enough, they took their leave.
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Post by Jack on Aug 15, 2021 19:12:39 GMT -6
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