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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:04:27 GMT -6
So he had only himself and Rhys to rely upon if things went wrong, and there was never any telling what would happen in a mountain cavern, deep beneath the earth.
Truthfully he hadn’t wanted to come at all. But he had to; there was no getting away from the necessity of finding more gems, if only to trade for more crystals. Occasionally he would get lucky and find a crystal here, without having to go through any sort of middleman, but that kind of fortunate find was still few and far between. He wasn’t a superstitious sort, but he’d landed a boon find the last time he was here, so he rather doubted he would be so lucky this time around.
Still, with the Underground doing the trades that they did now, any gem he found was a good thing. And he was out of mind crystals, which posed another problem.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:04:39 GMT -6
He should also probably have brought the gargoyle with him. He didn’t have the resources to cast the spell that gave Rhys a sense for the rocks, not today. It shouldn’t have been an issue for him, but his health had taken a turn for the worse lately, despite his own and Rhys’s best efforts. That was the bulk of the reason why he hadn’t wanted to come out today, but the weather had warmed somewhat, and more importantly, he was overdue for another trip to the Underground. And so, here he was.
{Are you sure you’re okay?} Rhys said. He was curled in his usual perch, draped over Noa’s shoulders, this time with his tail wound around Noa’s upper arm for stability. Noa could feel his concern radiating through his mind, and had to suppress the urge to snap -- though being telepathic as he was, Rhys probably sensed the sentiment all the same.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:04:50 GMT -6
“That’s the tenth time you’ve asked,” Noa said. “If you have something to make it easier, use it. If not, save your words.” Not to mention that Rhys probably had an idea of exactly how Noa was doing, and whether he was okay or not. That was Rhys’s original purpose, after all: to monitor Noa’s health. The Faeron had all the tools he needed at his disposal to do just that. His parents hadn’t skimped when they commissioned these familiars, and Rhys was no exception to that. If he couldn’t even serve his primary purpose, they wouldn’t have kept him, and Noa would be traveling with a different individual by now.
Rhys wilted a bit, but he was used enough to Noa’s moods not to take it too badly. Or at least this wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:05:02 GMT -6
Besides which, they were bound together now anyway. It was too late to get cold feet for either of them, after so many years.
Given the state of his own condition, Noa didn’t bother trying to be picky with the tunnel he chose this time. He ducked into the first likely looking opening that could fit him inside, and promptly leaned against a wall, catching his breath. It was all he could do not to sag immediately to the ground, and then only because it would have been more of a hassle to get up again, after that. Curse this. Had it always been so hard? He didn’t remember his mining trips being quite so miserable before he had even started the actual mining before.
Rhys took the opportunity to crawl off Noa’s shoulders and onto the ground, where he peered worriedly up into Noa’s face.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:05:13 GMT -6
Noa fixed him with a slightly questioning look, and a toss of the head to tell him to get on with it, whatever it was he was trying to do. Rhys hesitated, then something in his gaze shifted, as if he was concentrating.
Nothing happened.
… Well. Perhaps Noa was being ungenerous. He didn’t feel particularly generous at the moment, but it would probably be false to say that nothing happened. He could feel a faint tingling somewhere in his body, but it was not a pleasant sort; if anything, it felt more like when a limb had fallen asleep. The intensity hadn’t grown yet to the point of pain, but whatever Rhys was doing, he was probably doing it wrong.
The spike of displeasure must have made itself known to Rhys. The Faeron stopped.
“What was it?” Noa said, a touch of impatience still in his voice. “What you were doing.”
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:06:08 GMT -6
{I… Well, the usual healing I did didn’t seem to help as much,} Rhys said. Noa waited, though he wished Rhys would just cut to the chase. {I thought… There’s ways for familiars to heal their masters, even if they don’t have innate abilities like mine. I thought maybe I could draw on our connection and…} He trailed off uncertainly. It was readily apparent that it hadn’t worked, so perhaps he felt a little sheepish.
But it wasn’t a bad idea. It was actually more of an oversight on Noa’s part that they hadn’t explored that avenue for his treatment yet. Rhys had already been his familiar for many years, even if their acquaintance didn’t start on those terms. It was just that Rhys’s other abilities had been sufficient for keeping Noa going, even if they couldn’t produce a cure.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:06:19 GMT -6
This wouldn’t have produced a cure either, so Noa hadn’t paid it much attention, since there hadn’t been a need. Not before now, anyway.
“Do it again,” Noa said. “This time I’ll reach out on my end too.” They might as well sort this out now. Maybe this was a flare-up and it would pass, but even so, it would be nice to have more tools at their disposal if it happened again. He repressed the aches in his body and the faint sense of nausea that had been hovering at the periphery of his senses since this morning, and concentrated on the bond.
It wasn’t something either of them were used to doing. Frankly, they both had enough abilities at their disposal that working on the bond just hadn’t really come up. But Noa had an awareness of it, at least. His magical training had covered that much.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:06:30 GMT -6
And there was certainly a difference in the presence of it -- a sort of hum in the back of his mind that represented Rhys, in whatever esoteric manner the magic had created. But Rhys’s inborn telepathy had sort of muddled things, and it was hard for Noa to separate that from the actual familiar bond. Something had shifted when he had made that pact with Rhys, but he would be hard pressed to say what it was.
Even so, he focused on it, and Rhys did too. The Faeron had learned the proper casting of a few spells, so Noa didn’t bother giving him the most rudimentary guidance as far as trying to manifest an effect. Rhys would know by now to visualize the outcome that he wanted, to put his will behind it. The only difference was that, instead of drawing on his pool of mana, he was drawing on… whatever this was. The ‘bond’, such as it was.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:06:52 GMT -6
Noa felt, again, the pins and needles sensation. He grimaced, but forced himself to remain still, remain focused. He had endured worse than this, so in some sense it wasn’t as difficult as it could be. Unpleasant, to be sure, but not difficult. And as he bore with it, and tried to achieve some sort of resonance with Rhys’s presence, he felt the quality of the sensation shift. Gradually it became less pins and needles, and more a sort of warmth moving through his body. It wasn’t unlike Rhys’s inborn healing magic, but there was something different about it. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was almost as if this felt… familiar, somehow. As if his body recognized it, in a way that it didn’t when Rhys healed him with other means. It sounded absurd even in his head, but it was the best descriptor he could find.
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Post by Ashe on Mar 18, 2022 3:22:06 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2022 20:54:51 GMT -6
But then, not all things could be explained clearly and succinctly, much as he wished sometimes that that wasn't the case. He had worked with magic and with creatures with magical abilities long enough to understand that too.
Noa didn’t need to speak to encourage Rhys, or to tell the Faeron that he was on the right track. Rhys could sense, through the various means available to him, that what he was doing was having a positive effect. At least, Noa thought it was positive, anyway. More likely it was too soon to tell, and as of yet the sensation wasn’t an acute one. He still had to focus to even ascertain that it was there, and while it was pleasant enough, at the moment it wasn’t doing much to push away the discomforts plaguing him from other sources.
Heartened by the progress that he had made, however, Rhys redoubled his efforts…
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2022 21:20:29 GMT -6
And the warmth grew in intensity, such that Noa could feel it pulsing through him. It had a funny rhythm to it, which Rhys’s normal healing didn’t. It was almost as if it was mimicking a heartbeat, or maybe the rhythm of someone’s breathing. Noa felt almost compelled to match his own breathing to it; on a whim he did so, just to give his mind something else to think about. Maybe this would help them synchronize. Who knew? Everything about this was experimental, and it wasn’t as if he had any tutors who might be able to walk them through this process. They’d had to figure out so many things on their own.
Eventually the warmth faded, and once it did, Noa opened his eyes. He took methodical stock of his bodily sensations now, and found that he did, in fact, feel somewhat better.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2022 21:21:15 GMT -6
Not to the extent that he was perfectly comfortable, but then, he hadn’t been perfectly comfortable in a long time. He wasn’t sure that he could remember what it felt like to occupy a body wholly without pain.
“Not bad,” he said.
Rhys’s eyes lit up. {It worked?}
“For now.” Noa wasn’t quite as optimistic as Rhys was. The Faeron had seemed pretty discouraged when it started becoming apparent that the healing magic that had held Noa together these last few years was starting not to work quite as well as it used to, at least as far as managing Noa’s symptoms -- which was all they could do, really, since his research into a true cure hadn’t made any meaningful progress. Having discovered a new means to heal Noa obviously bolstered Rhys’s spirits, but Noa knew that this was only a temporary solution to his problems.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2022 21:21:31 GMT -6
If familiar magic had been the key, his parents would still be alive. Sooner or later, his condition would grow beyond the scope of this too, and then…
… Well, that was why he was down here.
Still, a single success could hardly be relied upon. He reached for one of his tools, testing the point of it on his finger. And then, in a quick and efficient motion, he slashed open the skin of the opposite arm. Blood welled, and Noa’s face twitched slightly, the ghost of a grimace of pain flitting across his features. But it didn’t linger. He was used enough to pain, and since the blow had come from his own hand, he had expected it.
He presented the wound to Rhys. “Try again,” he said.
The Faeron had paled -- which was a funny thing to think about, since his scales were white to begin with.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2022 21:21:54 GMT -6
But he could grow paler, and he did, now. {You didn’t have to--}
“It’s the easiest way to practice,” Noa interjected. “And I’ve already done it. If you can’t, then just heal it the normal way. It should still work on flesh wounds.”
Seeing that he wasn’t backing down, Rhys could only sigh and bend himself to the task that he had been assigned. He wasn’t built to argue with Noa, not really. He did think, sometimes, that their personalities were poorly matched. Surely his parents could have found a specimen that objected a little less to his way of thinking. But by now it was too late for either of them to renege on their pact without consequences, and Noa really didn’t have the time to waste on raising another familiar.
Rhys concentrated, and when Noa felt the energy working its way through him, he tried to feed into it from his end too.
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