Magic Lessons - RPLOG
Participants
Date
11/5/477
Log
The Firmament Academy: ever a place for scholars to gather, or just beings out to learn a magic trick or two. Needless to say a diverse range of folk find themselves in the building proper for some reason or another.
Walking out from the library, Selena seems to have picked out some old-looking books for today in addition to a few papers in her bag, ultimately ending ending up in the foyer as though waiting for - or just expecting - someone.
Samira wanders into the academy, the skunkette doing her best to keep staring to a minimum as she searches around for Selena. She'd been told that she was going to get magic lessons soon, so she'd gotten up nice and early in the day and headed out. Sadly she hadn't planned for all the stalls she'd come to be distracted by on the way here, so she winds up being a little late. On the other hand, she appears to have some kind of pastry roll in her hand, which she finishes quickly when she spots Selena.
A woosh, and a kite... Lands in the main square within the academy's walls from above, apparently having opted to... Jump off of the tallest part of the building? He seems unharmed, simply dusting himself off and mumbling something to himself. "Hrmm... Not quite high enough to reach the sweet spot... Just about the one thing I really miss about Cliffside," he mumbles, twitching lightly and watching the going-ons, before he too, slinks into the the academy, gathering a few odd looks.
At first, the wolfess doesn't quite notice the somewhat small squirrel, though after some of the inter-lecture crowds dissipate, the wolfess then moving over to the woman with a wave of her free hand. "Samira. Good to see you made it! Sorry I didn't have a better time for this before, but... Well, the Creator Church aparrently didn't want me visiting at odd hours when I was perusing their spells." She greets, the kite's sudden landing prompting an amused look from the wolfess as he slinks in. "A protip, you may want to work on your landing a little. Draws less odd stares that way." She comments.
The distinctly not-squirrel perks her ears up when her name is mentioned, spinning around until she spots one of the few familiar faces around the place. Waving back cheerfully she wanders close. "Oh, don't worry about it. Now's as good a time as any!" she churrs as she pulls out a napkin of sorts to wipe her fingers off on. The kite's landing does prompt an odd stare from her, similar to that of some of the other bystanders. "Hello there?" she squeaks, inquisitive yet cautious.
A mumble, a small smile as Trace looks to the spot he landed in. "I'm... I'm quite alright. Erm... Sorry to startle people?" he mumbles after a moment's pause, looking back to Selena and Samira. "I... Name's Trace. Trace Blackwing. I was just... Looking to see if I could reach my top speed... Turns out I can't... Too short a fall. I need to find a better place, later."
Selena smiles, dipping her head a little longer than a standard nod. "Well, there's a spare room we can use - Usually it's used for earth magic courses, but there's none using the room for now."
"You might have some luck with the lighthouse, Trace. Possibly the church, though I don't glide." She replies; "It's not really a problem, though. My name's Selena; it's a pleasure."
Samira goes 'ooh' as Trace introduces himself, presumably having heard his name before but never met him until now. Smiling warmly she churrs, "It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Samira!" as she holds out a hand.
"Been there, done that... Doesn't have the right flow of air or geographical features. Went a little slower there. Isn't there a volcano to the west? I might be able to use the flow to launch myself up," he mumbles idly to himself as he looks towards Selena and Samira.
Hesitantly, he shakes Samira's hand, just a moment, before looking to Selena. "Magic... Practice? I... I think I may've been referred to you by Sveta as well... Although I mostly do fire and air magic, not earth or water... I can do those just as well as fire and air, but they don't quite... Feel right, if that makes sense... Like I'm out of my element. In... In any case, I'm rambling, but... I-I tend to lose control when my spells get too large... And then things die out harmlessly in the best case, or explode violently in most cases..."
Selena nods, rubbing cheek. "Yes, Firebough - though that place is fairly dangerous. You have to go through the flats to get there." She replies to the kite, furrowing her eyebrows. "Sveta referred you? Well, either way. The room should be fine for practicing other types of magic, but there's no special equipment." The wolfess notes.
"Well, Samira, Trace - I didn't intend to keep the room completely free of beings, so shall we?" She notes, slipping the bags into her pack and gesturing to a corridor. "Control is something that takes a bit of finesse. It usually helps if you know about how the spells work as well - that way you have more control over the variables." She notes as an afterthought.
Samira follows quickly after Selena, keeping behind Trace so that when she thinks no one is looking she can pull a second small pastry roll out of her bag and finish it off in a few bites. She does listen while she eats though, her curiosity over the way spells function piqued. Sadly all the questions she's got might have to wait until she's both in the room and not munching on baked goods.
A nod, a mumble. "I... I can upscale my spells to a certain point, and after that, they invariably fail... I've... Never cast a successful battlefield purification spell... Instead, I tend to set everything ablaze... Friend and foe," he mumbles, frowning lightly... "And... I have the knowledge to shoot lightning, I can summon it up, but after that... Well, that's how I had to find a new mentor, the last time... Mister Whitefur survived, but... A few centimeter further to the left, and..." he mumbles, trailing off and muttering.
Selena quickly fiddles with a key before opening the doors to one of the rooms, looking back over her shoulder. "Firstly, this 'mister' should've known to set up some earth magic as a precaution. Electricity is dangerous to practice with." She notes as she moves into the room, a sigh and gesture of her hand levelling out the soil in the center with practiced finesse and speed. "...Never are these rooms even when I come back to them." She gripes under her breath before turning back to the pair. "I recommend a test to most of the fire math students for control: Boiling water rather than setting fire to things. It's a good gauge of their potency and a lot less dangerous. It's a fairly simple change. But since we're in the room for earth magic for Samira's benefit, I've got some rocks off to the side assuming nobody's taken them."
"Just to get some background though. Trace, could you tell me where you studied and how long you studied for? Also, if you could explain to me how you produce these spells it would help. Theory, thankfully, translates well into practice for magic."
Samira wanders into the room once it's been flattened and, seeing that Selena and Trace seem occupied discussing the issues he seems to have had, simply wanders the room for a while. The rocks, soil floor and any furnishings reciving a thorough observation as her shoe-prints start to make little trails around the room. She stop just short of bumping into Trace as she wanders back to the group, standing off to the side as she waits to be told what's going on, sneakily munching on the third and final pastry.
"He did... And the spell went around the barriers he threw up... And... Small spells, like heating water, those are fine... I can even make minor sparks and control them just fine... There's just a sharp cut-off where I lose control."
The kite pauses a moment, before looking away... "I... Studied in cliffside. Several years. Usually, I draw the spells into the air, be it via kevinscope or formula, although I find the prior just a little easier... For smaller spells, I can do those mentally..."
He glances towards Samira for a moment, before silently looking down at the ground.
Selena nods, rolling a large-looking stone from the sides of the room to the center through some parts magic and a little bit of manual guidance. "I don't mean a few barriers. actually armoring yourself with earth magic is a better plan if electricity is involved." She notes. "Samira, the stone I've got here is granite from the quarry. There should be enough to practice on, since what I'll be trying to show you is essentially just fracturing off slivers of stone to change the shape of the material." She explains, resting a hand on top of it. "As you you, Trace... I'm not sure where to start in here, since I'd neither like the room set on fire or someone to get electrocuted. but we do have enough soil in here that I can ask you to try and put a hole in it with air magic - start small, then slowly try to make it larger for me. There's enough space in here that you shouldn't damage anything even if something goes wrong, and it'll give me an idea of where things start to go awry."
Then, back to the skunk-that-is-not-a-squirrel and the stone, the wolfess promptly fracturing it into more manageable chunks. "Try to break off flakes of the stone. Essentially, that's how you'll work with glass or jewels. Stone is far easier to work with without damaging its structure or shattering it from an incorrect breaking spell, and the finer you can flake the material, the higher quality your product will be."
A mumble, a small nod as Trace starts working up some spells to try and punch a hole in the slab offered to him. Even so, he moves around the block, inspecting it for weak points, much like a gemcrafter would look for faults. "Here... I should try and break it here," he mumbles, even as he sets up a slow, steady pattern of spells. Something akin to cutting winds, slowly growing larger, though eventually, he simply stops scaling the spell up, for better or for worse, continually battering the rock with the wind and sand he blows up with it.
Samira hesitates as she thinks about what the soil will do to her clothes if she falls over, but manages to come to a compromise by squatting next to the rock so that it's just below her hands. Keeping an eye on what Selena's up to she mimics her actions, although with practically no effect on the rock. After a few dozen attempts, she gives the rock a poke just in case it's fractured but not seperated. To her chagrin (and presumably the rock's bemusement) nothing happens. "Er, Selena?" she churrs, head tilted to the side. "I don't think this is working." she says flatly.
Selena raises an eyebrow at Samira's comment, coughing quietly - "Just a moment." She notes, looking back to Trace. "Keep increasing the magnitude, Trace." She calls over the sound of the grinding rock, returning her attention to Samira. "... Hmm. Well, it isn't your typical spell. Let me trace out the kevinscope for you." She notes, leaning over and digging lines and symbols into the dirt. "Essentially, you take the stone, derive a tangent to an edge, set that plane into the stone relative to its center and break it along that line." She explains, gesturing to various parts of the kevinscope as she does, then looking back at Samira for a moment. "... You... Do know how to use earth magic, right? Admittedly that's not the simplest form of the spell, but I just remembered Flora never actually said you had a soul considered 'good' for the job. I probably should've asked before taking you out here."
Samira stares blankly through the explination, but the pictures certainly help the poor skunk. Eventually though she has to admit to Selena that she's never used earth magic before, as well as the fact that she posesses a sum total of no magic souls. "It was a bit impromptu..." she churrs. "Plus I don't have the money to buy souls just yet, I assumed that'd be dealt with... or that one of my other souls would be enough."
Trace mumbles and hesitantly increases the size of his spell again, slowly, much, much slower than before, until eventually, a large gust of air blows up in his face and blows him backwards, onto his ass. Seems he reached his limit, even as he's staring rather... Uncertainly at the small dust-devil forming around the rock, before it dissipates again.
Selena rubs the back of her head a little. "That could be a problem... I'd have thought Flora might've been able to invest in at least a mage adept's soul for you. They're an excellent starting point for learning magic." she suggests, rubbing the back of her head. "The other souls I know of that put earth magic to use are fairly expensive. I might be able to pitch in a little to help, but..." The wolfess lets her voice trail off, the kite landing backwards prompting the wolfess to inspect the stone. "Hm. Well, you certainly did a good job. Trace, could you tell me what you were thinking when your spell backfired? You can't have run out of energy or it would've petered out." She notes, offering the bird a hand up.
Samira tilts her head and rubs at her ear. "I'm not sure. Chances are I'm going to have to ask her about it later. It's probably not worth other people paying money towards souls for me anyway." she churrs, looking glumly at the rock, which she prods with the end of her shoe. Instead of grumbling more though, she follows close behind Selena and watches Trace. At least her first try could have gone worse!
Trace mumbles and twitches lightly as he looks to the rock, accepting the hand to help him back up again. Again, he glances at the rock, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
After a few minutes, he finally mutters a simple, unsure "I don't know" under his breath, sighing softly. "I don't know what keeps going wrong... I know this spell, and it just blows up in my face whenever I try it..."
Selena nods, patting Trace on the back. "I'll have to get to another lecture soon, but I can offer you both some advice in the worst case. Trace, you know you can do it. Make it happen - don't alter your equation once you've figured it out." She replies. "It's daunting, doing things on a large scale, but it's just like trying a smaller spell for the first time."
Then to Samira - "No, I don't think it'd be a waste at all. If you want to learn something, then I think you should be allowed the resources to do so. It's all a matter of practice. I'll tell you what, if you can ask Flora how much she can contribute towards a soul, I'll see if I can help provide some funding of my own. I don't need all of my income, it's not going to buy me any more insight or wisdom, those are things you get from real beings." She chuckles, motioning to the door. "I'll have to clean this up - the hall's being used soon."
Samira cheers quietly to herself and does her best to /not/ jump up and down, since that might look strange. Instead she just thanks Selena profusely, agreeing to talk to Flora when she next can. Since Selena needs to tidy up the room and the skunk has little else to do, she wanders off, presumably to find more of those delicious pastry things or stare at a moth.
