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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:02:54 GMT -6
It was not true magic, in that it was not raw energy that could be given multiple shapes, but it was better than nothing.
“Right. So what I’m saying is that these spells have almost exactly the same shape -- and the same magnitude. And they’re all fairly similar to the one I taught you last time, so I hope you’ll pick these up a little faster.”
{Oh, these are for making someone stronger then,} Rhys concluded.
“Yes.” Noa was pleased that he was catching on. “Except instead of reinforcing my magical energy, you’re trying to reinforce… Well, my body, mostly. I dare say it could use some reinforcing.” He looked at himself, the slender wrists, the lack of muscle definition. Not that anyone could see much of his body beneath his clothes, but even so.
The encouragement made Rhys brighten. {Then, is it something like this?}
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:03:13 GMT -6
Rhys began to gather energy to him, but a curt word from Noa made him stop. “No, don’t try casting anything,” Noa said sharply. “I haven’t even shown you the spell, and you have neither the reserves nor the expertise to try just working it out yourself. Here.” Noa extricated a book from his bag, and flipped to a marked page, skimming it to refresh himself. He didn’t intend on properly learning the spell for his own use, but he would be able to show Rhys the proper framework by reviewing the notes he had access to on the topic. “Let’s start with the one for strength. Something like this…”
Noa held the shape of a spell in his mind, and Rhys studied it for a while before replicating it as best he could. Noa had no way of knowing how well Rhys was doing, since Rhys’s telepathy was not Noa’s own.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:03:26 GMT -6
All he could do was show Rhys each spell in turn: one for strength, one for speed, one for fortitude, and one for mental strength. The last was perhaps the most different from the others, but it turned out to be the easiest for Rhys. In retrospect Noa supposed this made sense, since Rhys spent so much of his time touching the minds of others anyway.
From there, Noa gave Rhys the name of each spell, then called them out in a sort of drill. The names he called out were random, and Rhys would form the spell in his mind, then check what he did against the framework in Noa’s mind. Noa didn’t let him feed energy into it yet. If the spell misfired, it might have unpleasant consequences, and it would also be a waste of energy to try it before Rhys was reasonably sure he could execute it.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:03:38 GMT -6
Rhys didn’t do well with the drills at first, owing to there being four different spells to keep track of. {I can’t keep them straight in my head,} he said, after the seventh failure in ten tries. {Which one was ‘Defend’ again?}
Noa sighed. “You have to stop thinking of them as separate spells. Build the part that’s similar first, like this.” Noa demonstrated, while Rhys followed along. “And then you just change the focal point. This one is ‘Defend’, and this is ‘Quicken’.” In Noa’s mind, the direction of the spell formed, then reformed: from a thin almost barrier-like shape that surrounded the body to something that seeped in and lightened the body’s burdens instead. And then he went through the other two: ‘Empower’ as something that reinforced from within, and ‘Bless’, rather ridiculously named by Noa’s reckoning, as energy flowing into the mind.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:04:30 GMT -6
Rhys was silent, concentrating on his own work for a long moment. Noa yawned, pulling half-heartedly on the fishing line. Nothing was biting, or maybe it did bite already and had gotten away… But then, he wasn’t using bait, so he didn’t expect much.
{That does feel easier,} Rhys said, after a time.
“Hmm, well. Let’s try the drills again then,” Noa said. “Defend.”
Rhys concentrated for a moment, and then Noa felt a burst of elation through their bond. {I got it!}
“Bless.”
{... This time too!}
And so it went, drill after drill. Rhys still made the occasional mistake, but they became fewer and farther between, and after a while they disappeared altogether -- or at least Rhys seemed to think so, anyway. Noa supposed the real test would come when they finally started trying the spells properly, with the actual intent to cast them, rather than just shaping them in Rhys's mind.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:04:46 GMT -6
And Noa couldn’t have him wearing kid gloves forever. “Okay, now I want you to try it with energy. Feed the energy into the spell, and settle it over me. Let’s do ‘Empower’; I’ve always wondered how it would feel to be strong.” There was no one else here for them to try it on. Some might have said it was a foolhardy choice to make yourself the experimental subject, but Noa was used to it. His parents often conducted experiments on themselves and each other too. In the past it might have been different, but by the time Noa was born, there weren’t very many Saint-Clairs left, and it wasn’t as if they could study the cure for their own hereditary condition by working solely on people who didn’t have it.
{... Alright, here goes nothing!} Rhys said, and cast the spell on Noa.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:05:52 GMT -6
Almost immediately, Noa could feel a warmth flooding through his body, so it was clear that something was happening. He didn’t feel all too different aside from that, although the enhancement offered by the spell wasn’t so dramatic in magnitude to begin with. But the real test would be… Looking around, Noa spotted a big rock, and left his pole for a moment to try and pick it up.
To his own surprise, with some effort, he managed to do it. With a grunt, he hefted it up, and then threw it a short distance away.
{Wow! It worked!} Rhys was greatly cheered by the sight of his own success. {Let’s try ‘Quicken’ next! How fast will you be able to run after this?} Before Noa could even get another word in, Rhys was already preparing to cast the next spell, though this time Noa didn't interrupt him.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:06:02 GMT -6
In this manner, they went through each of the spells in turn. By this point Rhys was simply feeding energy into a spell he had already set up time and time again in his mind, so there was significantly less room for things to go wrong so long as he had been studying things properly. Still, Noa was pleasantly surprised that each spell went off without a hitch -- and that Rhys had used the correct spell each time, though that ought to be a given after how much they had drilled by then.
Unfortunately, refining these spells was the work of several more days, spaced out over several more mostly fruitless fishing trips. Rhys only had so much energy to work with. And the gaps between trips served to test his recall as well; it was a little harder when the spells were no longer quite so fresh in his mind. But after a few further sessions, Noa pronounced himself satisfied.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:43:20 GMT -6
There was one other thing that Noa worked on with Rhys during these sessions, owing mainly to the fact that it didn’t draw upon the same energy as Rhys’s spellwork. There were other things familiars could do by drawing on the power of their bond, but most of the ones that Noa had read about seemed either useless or not something of immediate priority… Or, in the case of healing, covered by abilities Rhys already had. But the power to apparate instantly to Noa’s side was appealing. They weren’t often apart, but it was possible that they might get separated at some point.
When Noa explained all this to Rhys, the Faeron seemed enthusiastic about the idea too. {That way I can get to you if there’s an emergency! I like it,} Rhys announced. {I guess I can’t teleport away after, but I can fly pretty fast, and if it’s really bad then you can teleport us instead.}
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:44:08 GMT -6
Noa made a noncommittal noise that might have been an agreement. It was hard to say what the best course of action was in an emergency without knowing what the emergency was, but more options was always a good thing.
The trouble was just figuring out how it worked, which was starting to feel like a theme with these ‘familiar-specific’ things.
“... Think about being on my shoulder, I guess,” Noa said. “You sit there often enough.”
{Okay,} Rhys said. He agreed more readily now, having worked enough proper magic by now to defer to Noa’s judgement in these things even when he might personally have had reservations on what he was being asked to do before. But in this case it didn’t work. It wasn’t, apparently, enough for Rhys to just think about being there.
Noa studied the Faeron, brows furrowed. “Maybe you have to want it,” he tried. “Can you feel more desperate about it?”
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:44:45 GMT -6
{I can try,} said Rhys, though he no longer sounded so sure. Admittedly Noa didn’t know if he would be able to do it either if someone had asked him to think about something with a sense of desperation. But it seemed like as good an idea as anything, because if that wasn’t the case, then how did creatures of lesser intelligence ever learn to do any of these things? Not all familiars could be quite so uplifted as Rhys, after all.
That didn’t work either though, so Noa began a new line of questioning. “Are you drawing on the bond when you think about it?” he asked.
{... Ah.} Rhys had the grace to seem sheepish about it, but Noa still couldn’t resist covering his face with the palm of one hand. Had Rhys really needed a reminder about the fundamental nature of these tricks? {I’ll try it again.}
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:45:12 GMT -6
“Go on then,” said Noa, though with more resignation than anything else. After the first two failures, he didn’t expect much, but to his surprise, after a bit of a pause, Rhys disappeared from where he was… and rematerialized on Noa’s shoulder, just as Noa had asked.
{It works! It really works! I wasn’t sure if it would,} he exclaimed.
“Well, it must, since other familiars have been able to do it since time immemorial,” Noa said, though frankly if he hadn’t seen his own parents’ familiars do the same, he might have been more skeptical himself.
Now that they had managed it once, they just had to get it to happen again.
Noa set Rhys down and walked a few steps away. “Blink to my shoulder,” he said again. Rhys concentrated, but nothing happened. Then he tried again, this time with his eyes closed -- and succeeded.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:45:45 GMT -6
{... It’s easier when I don’t have my eyes open,} he said. {Why is that?}
“You can probably visualize better without distractions,” Noa replied. “Casting used to be easier for me with my eyes closed too, though you’ll have to lose the habit eventually. Not being able to see where your spells are going is dangerous in a fight.” Among other high stakes situations. “But for now, close your eyes if you have to, I guess. It gets easier once you’ve done it more.”
Rhys took his advice to heart. They practiced a couple more times that first session, which was all Rhys could manage without exhausting himself. Then, the second time they came back, they went back to practicing the ‘Blink’ after Rhys had exhausted his reserve of proper mana for spells.
It would have been nice if this had served as a simpler cooldown after their magic practice.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:46:13 GMT -6
Unfortunately, that didn't quite turn out to be the case. The ‘Blink’ turned out to be trickier than the enhancement spells for Rhys, since the Faeron was used to channeling energy into others’ bodies, but traveling magically through space was a novel concept for him. Still, with enough repetition, Rhys did eventually become faster and more deft -- and, yes, capable of performing the trick with his eyes open. As his proficiency grew, they tried out longer and longer distances, but Rhys reported that curiously the effort remained the same no matter how far Noa was. Maybe it was because it drew on the bond between them, and that force, such as it was, rendered the actual physical distance irrelevant.
If only that sort of thing had any bearing on curing diseases, Noa might have pursued the matter more closely. But as it was, it was nice to know that Rhys had a way of reaching him in a pinch.
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Post by Noa on Jul 10, 2022 21:49:25 GMT -6
And they did manage to catch a couple of fish here and there in the end, though Noa was sure that if he had really put in the effort, they would have caught many more. Unfortunately, magical practice turned out to be pretty thoroughly distracting, and much of what they found were shells and other stationary nonsense along the banks of the river itself -- whatever caught their eye as they walked along it, particularly when generating distance for Rhys to try blinking through.
Still, the trader didn't only take fish, and sometimes also looked at this stationary nonsense, so it was all the same to Noa. It wasn't as if he had a great enthusiasm for fish, especially with all the extra pains one had to take to make sure they stayed alive.
Well, maybe he could start putting these things in pods, if he could find some spare ones.
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