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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:22:17 GMT -6
“Ordinarily I’d say yes, but considering how long it took you to grasp the fundamentals, maybe you shouldn’t make it sound so simple,” Noa said. “Here.” He demonstrated the mental framework he used to shape the energy once more, for good measure. He didn’t cast the spell again, since that would be a waste of mana he couldn’t afford, but Rhys probably needed a refresher on the next steps.
But the success of his first breakthrough seemed to have improved Rhys’s confidence, and he applied himself to the forming of the spell itself with a great deal more enthusiasm. Maybe that helped; to Noa’s surprise, he could feel the magic prickling around him -- and on what he thought was the third such instance, it settled in a way that felt more or less right. Noa had never had it cast on himself before, but even so...
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:23:17 GMT -6
“Hmm.” Reaching out a hand, he cast a spell on the fishing rod… and watched as it shot clear across the river, and then some. “Yes, I think you’ve got it.”
{Wh-What was that?} said Rhys, who had startled at the sound of the fishing rod being hurtled away. {What did you do? What did I do?}
“Weren’t you listening?” Noa flexed his wrist, then conjured a Hollow Hand to bring the fishing rod back to him. “The spell I’m teaching you is a magical amplifier. If you cast it properly, it amplifies the effect of my spells. I had to test to see if it was working.”
{Oh…} Rhys watched the fishing pole drift its way back to them. {That was ‘Push’? Wow, then this is pretty powerful, isn’t it?} Rhys might not have known a lot about casting his own spells, but he knew Noa's pretty well.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:24:33 GMT -6
He had seen 'Push' before, and it certainly wasn't usually quite so dramatic.
“Sort of," Noa said. "It doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have another mage to boost, but that won’t ever be a problem for you.” It was, in fact, the perfect spell for a mage’s familiar, which was why Noa had taught it to Rhys as his first spell. It was relatively low in terms of its energy requirements too, which meant that eventually Rhys would be able to cast it several times a day.
The two of them practiced it a few more times, but Rhys’s magical reserves were pretty scant at the moment, so as soon as Noa felt sure he could replicate the spell on demand, they stopped.
The other thing that Noa needed to work on with Rhys wasn't the Faeron's own casting, but a matter of sharing energy.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:53:14 GMT -6
To be honest, this was the main use of a familiar for a mage, as far as he was concerned. His parents had impressed the importance of having a familiar as a second reservoir of magic to draw upon. Rhys wasn’t really there yet; he could at most provide a smattering of energy… But that was because Noa himself also didn’t have many nodes to speak of. But that would change soon, and in the meantime, even a little bit helped.
Rhys was a little surprised that Noa wanted to do more magical work this soon after they had just finished learning a new spell. But Noa said, “This and mana are different. When a familiar shares power with a mage, they draw upon the bond, not on their own reserves.”
{The bond? What does that feel like?} Rhys asked, inclining his head.
Here, Noa reached his own stumbling block.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:53:25 GMT -6
“... I don’t know,” Noa said. “It’s not something I can do.” And indeed, it wasn’t. He had read some literature explaining a familiar’s capabilities, but it wasn’t as if he could replicate the lived in experience of doing that himself, since he didn’t have the capacity for it. “I guess just… reach for our link, and see what happens.”
Rhys was willing to try, but this instruction proved both less precise and less easily applied than Noa had first thought. The trouble with it was that they had a number of different bonds between them already -- not the least of which was the telepathic one, though Rhys was capable of touching the minds of anyone within his range with that. But when Noa impatiently asked him to reach for something deeper than that, Rhys struck upon their empathic link instead, which also wasn’t what Noa was looking for.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:54:00 GMT -6
“There’s a spell to isolate the mind of a target,” Noa murmured. “If all else fails, maybe I should look into learning that one.”
{Don’t, don’t! Hold on, I’ll try again,} Rhys said. Noa hadn’t meant it as a threat, so he was somewhat taken aback by Rhys’s panicked reaction, but well, if it motivated him, then so be it.
Unfortunately, all the motivation in the world couldn’t make up for a lack of knowledge, so what Noa was treated to for the next half hour was Rhys trying to reach him in numerous ways. He didn’t have much to offer in the way of useful commentary, so Noa decided he may as well pay more attention to the fishing rod while Rhys figured it out.
When Rhys finally did figure it out, it was a little like an electric shock to the inside of his head.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:55:00 GMT -6
Not to the point of pain, but it definitely woke Noa back up. “That must be it,” he said -- though he had no way of knowing. Still, it had to mean something, didn’t it?
{Like this?} Rhys said, and Noa felt the static fill his mind again.
“Yes, now try to… channel something through it. I don’t know, imagine me being filled with energy,” Noa said. “You know what magical energy feels like now, so this should be easy.”
The static seemed only to grow in volume at first. Noa encouraged Rhys to try harder, then demanded that he stop when that staticky feeling abruptly transmuted into real pain. From there, they took a slightly more measured approach, but it was a lot of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick. Noa devised different mental images or exercises for Rhys to try, going through all the theories he could think of.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:56:21 GMT -6
For his part, Rhys tried to refine what he was doing so it felt less like pins and needles for Noa. Both their efforts met with mixed success. Some things did feel better than others though, and in that manner they worked their way towards the proper method of channeling energy from Rhys to Noa.
By the time they did finally make it work, Noa was almost ready to throw in the towel, for the sake of his aching skull if nothing else. When the energy flowed in properly for the first time, it felt almost like a balm -- except it didn’t really, because it flowed into his nodes and not into him.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said, before collapsing onto his back in the grass on the riverbank and massaging his closed eyes with the heels of his hands. “Now just do it as many more times as you can.”
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 18:57:27 GMT -6
Maybe he shouldn’t have been going back in for more after being fried so many times today, but this was the least Rhys could do to make their efforts feel less like a complete waste of time.
Rhys, mercy of mercies, had pretty good retention. He only made Noa wince once in his five or six repeat attempts, and that once was still early on. By the end of it Noa had some hope that he wouldn’t have to wince at all when they did this tomorrow, which was some consolation.
At that point it was time for the two of them to go home. Noa was no longer in a fit state to do anything up to and including fishing -- not that he got much done anyway, considering everything else that was going on. Still, at least if one of them was set on fire here, they weren't far from water.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 19:35:41 GMT -6
It was some time before they were able to return to the river. The work that Noa had been avoiding hadn’t gone away just because he had grown fed up with it for a day, and in the following weeks he had to deal with it as best he could. But eventually he managed to settle matters somewhat, and with the worst of the urgency gone, he allowed himself another break. A fishing trip was not entirely a frivolous venture, since there was a shop that had opened up in recent years that took all manner of strange goods in exchange for magic crystals, including fish and the like. It would have been remiss not to keep a stock of such things at the ready.
But their other goal for the day was to work further on Rhys’s magic, just like they had done the last time they were here.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:00:34 GMT -6
There hadn’t been time for much more practice, but waiting for a bite always seemed to take forever, so now was as good a time as any. They were stuck working with small spells for the moment, since neither Noa nor Rhys had a lot of magic to work with, but even minor spells could be useful. And the most natural transition from what Rhys had been doing before would be for him to learn some simple enhancement spells.
Noa had given this some thought; there were a variety of directions that a familiar could be taken in. As he understood it, his mother’s familiar actually had significant knowledge in offensive spells. He could, a little, see the appeal: a last line of defense that could be summoned to hand in an instant, and also be allowed, by the necessity of a familiar’s nature, in any venue.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:01:15 GMT -6
But upon further consideration, he didn’t think that was what he wanted Rhys to become. The Faeron already had a good capability for healing spells, but if he could amplify the power of those around him, that would let Noa and Avander and the like be better at doing their jobs -- and it seemed more efficient to make an already effective tool more effective. Rhys was quick for his size, and certainly faster than Noa, but he wouldn’t necessarily be able to outpace the bigger, more specialized beasts like Wiurns and Vespa… And even if he was faster, he didn’t always have a good chance of taking them down in one go, while the retaliation would almost certainly mark the end of him. The clever strategist’s play would be to put him in a support role or, when he had a little more magic to his name, turning him into a debilitator instead.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:01:35 GMT -6
Besides, Rhys didn’t really have the temperament of a head-on fighter. And truth be told, not many creatures could play a supportive role, whereas you could get a fire-breathing dragon without much trouble these days.
Noa took his time setting up the fishing rod, while Rhys went through a series of meditative mental exercises, designed to warm up his brain and ease him into a day of magical practice. Most of it was derived from Noa’s own exercises from when he was much younger. These days he didn’t bother with any of that. He hadn’t had a node on a permanent basis for all that long, but his parents had had him practice on and off with the lesser nodes in the family treasury when he was younger, and by this point he had a strong foundation on which to build. Casting a spell he had mastered was almost second nature to him already.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:01:52 GMT -6
Rhys though… A Faeron wasn’t meant to have his level of mental acuity, and while they weren’t an unpopular candidate for a mage’s familiar, the vast majority of them certainly never expected to cast any magic of their own. So mental exercises it was, though maybe eventually Rhys would outgrow them too.
Once everything was in place, Noa turned his attention back to Rhys. “I’ll be teaching you four spells today, though honestly they may as well be different flavors of the same thing. They work almost exactly the same way; the only difference is how you’re directing the energy.”
Rhys inclined his head. {But… Isn’t that the difference between all spells?} he asked hesitantly.
Noa’s brows pinched together for a moment, before smoothing back out. He had been a student of magic all his life, as every Saint-Clair was, but he hadn’t had to teach anyone before.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:02:10 GMT -6
He reminded himself that Rhys was a magical novice, and didn’t have a proper understanding of aspects that he found to be juvenile and rudimentary. Rhys had been present for a lot of the lessons, but clearly they hadn’t been absorbed. “Yes, in a sense,” Noa said. “But the shape of a spell to create a cyclone is very different from that of a spell to knit flesh together, whereas the spell to blow a small wind has echoes of the spell to blow a large one. Don’t your healing abilities feel different from your illusions?”
{... And healing a cut and healing poison feel a little similar, yeah,} said Rhys slowly. The idea seemed to be sinking in, which was good. At least Rhys had some sort of base to draw on, since he already knew how to use the innate, lesser magic inborn to the creatures here.
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