Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » An unexpected future (1x1)

Dawn sighed and shook her head, "No matter how much Jerian tries to hide behind humour and disrespect... I have the feeling that deep down he's really very lonely. He doesn't really know how to cope with it though, so he hides." The Irish girl frowned, "Ah, but you dn't want to listen to me about this. If I were you I'd go back to training. We might be sending you on more missions, at least until we find this Selkie and the next season at The Academy starts up."

(I think sending her off to the Academy would be he natural end point for this RP, if we ever get to it.)

Kayleigh smiled and hopped off of her chair. "I think so too. Where should I go now?" she asked. she secretly hoped to be sent off to Kate, since the training in magic was starting to intrigue her. Maybe she did have a knack for it... it's how she was discovered, after all.

(sounds good. Are we doing any future RP's though? I made this character especially for the society so I'm hoping we can do more after this )

(Of course we'll do more RPs with her and The Society, I just think that her training in The Academy or her post-Academy life would be better suited to a seperate RP)

Dawn frowned a little in thought, "Well... your training with Jerian seems to be going well, from what he's told me of it. Kate also thinks you're doing pretty well in your magic training, better than she expected anyway." She tapped her chin, "Hm, maybe you should go see Kate and have a few more magic lessons. You might encounter more Fae creatures later on, and an understanding of magic is always useful when dealing with them... after you're done wit Kate you can continue your combat training with Jerian. I'll be teaching you about The Society itself; politics, rules, how we're organised, that sort of thing. But that can wait until you're getting ready to leave for The Academy."

(that sounds good to me )

Kayleigh smiled and hopped off her chair. "I'll go see Kate then!" she rushed through the door, calling another thanks back to Dawn for the food.

Kayleigh ran back to the same room where she and Kate had first practiced magic within the protective circle, presuming she was there. she arrived breathing heavily from the run. then suddenly realized. Why am I so eager to work with magic? It's extremely dangerous! she reminded herself. But then she shook her head and walked in anyway.

Kate was knelt on her knees, rear resting on her heels, in the middle of a protective circle, her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply and slowly. Her lips were moving silently in some kind of incantation, and then suddenly light flared in within the circle and she was surrounded by a shimmering, almost opalescent bubble of light, colours rippled along the surface of the shield like the rainbow sheen of light reflecting from a pool of oil.

Almost as soon as the magical shield appeared, it vanished. Kate exhaled slowly and opened her eyes, light died from them, the glow of powerful magic had been hidden beneath her eyelids before the, and she tod up, exiting the protective circle. She noticed Kayleigh and smiled, "Oh, hey Kayleigh. I was just practising a shielding spell. What's up?" She could tell Kayleigh had been running from her flushed face and the heavy breathing.

"I'm here to practice magic." she replied with a smile. "Dawn said I had to come and see you after dinner."

Kate nodded, smiling, "Okay then, magic training it is..."She seemed to collect her thoughts for a moment before saying, "You already know about some magc sources, their advantages and limitations and dangers. We'll still be concentrating on your qi for now, we'll go into more advanced energies later on when you're more experienced."

Kate gestured to the protective circle on the floor, "There are many forms of magic, from warding to cursing, necromancy to divination, elemental manipulation to translocation. But they all have one thing in common; a person who wants to perform any kind of magic must form an intent, a will, and exert it upon their source of energy. This energy will then be used to carry out the user's intent. Generally you will find that emotions form a crude but powerful form of intent; fear or anger are the most common emotions used by amateur magic users. I'm sure you can draw parallels with the awakening of your magic. When those men attacked you, you were afraid and that fear fostered an intent, namely to protect yourself, to get away, which caused you to instinctively draw upon our qi, and so perform magic."

She shook her head, "Your instinct was to lash out at them, which is why your magic pushed them away instead of, say, translocating them or yourself away. This is normally indicative that you would be more suited towards offensive, aggressive, proactive forms of magic, though as you might guess it's hardly a 100% accurate predictor. The first part of learning to control your magic is to learn to control your emotions and the easiest way to focus your intent in order to perform directed magic is to focus on the emotion generating the intent."

Okay... Kay replied, nodding her head slowly. She sort of understood what Kate said and absorbed all the information. She sat on her knees and held her hand down in front of them. However, Kate's mentioning of the event that showed her magic for the first time made it flutter through her mind, and when she tried to form the will to cast a tiny ball of energy, a heavy but short burst of fire erupted from her hand.

Shocked from seeing the fire envelop her hand and shoot forward about 3 meters, she pulled back fast and the fire stopped. She shook her hand to get rid of the heat but when she looked at it, surprisingly, she was not even slightly singed by the flames. She looked up at Kate with a gaze of amazement in her eyes.
"What in the..."

(rediscovered this RP and thought it'd be a shame if it died just reply whenever you got time!)

Kate cursed and fell back away from the shooting flames, instinctively casting a shield around herself. When the flames passed, leaving her with slightly singed hair and the scent of smoke in the air, Kate shook her head, "And that right there shows why control is important," she said, before she dropped her shield and headed over to Kayleigh, "You okay?" She asked as she took the girls hands and examined them, "Huh.."

She frowned thoughtfully, "Not a mark on you. It normally takes a few attempts to modify mage-fire properly so it doesn't hurt you... I'm rather impressed. If you can learn to control yourself better you'll make an excellent magic-user."

She gave a slight smile, "As I was saying, emotion is the catalyst for most early magic. Your memories of the attack stir strong emotions.. I guess that is why you accidentally lashed out like that?"

"Yes, I guess so..." she replied. "I remembered it and it just, happened."
despite being surprised like that, she smiled broadly at Kate's compliment. "Thanks!" she replied excitedly.

Maybe magic wasn't so bad, she thought to herself. If her tutor at least kept saying it could be good... then why couldn't it be?

Kate smiled warmly, but then her expression turned more serious, "However, this is exactly why you must learn control over your magic and your emotions. You need to concentrate once you summon your magic or you will lose control, like just then. If I hadn't been a skilled Guardian, then I could very well have been killed just now, or severely burned. Magic is useful, wonderful, powerful... but it is, above all other things, very dangerous. It's like a loaded gun. Mess around with it and someone will get hurt,"

Kate inspected the protective circle on the floor and nodded, "At least these wards are intact. Now, try again. You need to give your magic an intent, concentrate on a single, powerful emotion connected with that intent and you will be able to command your magic to perform a task. Try a shield spell. Think thoughts of safety, protection, anything that makes you feel warm and safe. Channel it into your magic to make a shield."

That was easy, she thought. "She thought back of Ronno's bar, and the carpenter she worked at. They weren't much, but she'd always felt at home there. She lifted her hands and channeled the energy, releasing it to a shield that covered both her and Kate. She had a bit of trouble maintaining it at first, but eventually managed to control it.

"How's this?" she asked, not looking at Kate for fear of losing the shield.

Kate's eyes widened as the shield engulfed both of them, "Wow..." she reached out with er magical senses, probing the shield gently. It wasn't the most powerful or stable shield she'd seen, but it was still impressive for a novice's first try. Kate had only expected a tiny shield, perhaps not even enough to fully protect Kayleigh nevermind the both of them, "This s... a lot better than I expected. Larger. It's not the best shield, there's a few weak point and it's not very stable but... this is a great start. You have the raw power, more than enough actually, it's just unrefined. With training... well I've already said it. You'll be powerful."

The archer smiled, "I'm very proud, let the feeling fade and dispel the shield. Now you know how to form one with your qi we'll work on refining your technique, shoring up weaknesses in the shield construct itself."

Kayleigh nodded, she was getting excited. She wanted to discover what else she could do, and Kate's compliments did tell her she seemed to be an exceptional talent. Her eyes were alight with enthousiasm, but she maintained her calm.
"Okay," she replied. "How do I do that?"
It would have been unmistakable for Kate sense her enthousiasm, no matter how hard Kayleigh Tried.

(Oh my lord! I totally missed this!)

Kate smiled warmly at the enthusiasm in her eyes, "It's simple enough. The shield is an extension of your will. You must be unyielding as stone, firm and immutable in your will for your shield to be strong. Reach out with your mind, feel the power flowing from you and into the construct, feel along the lines of power. You should be able to sense the places where the power is weak, the soft spots. Focus your will, shape it. command the shield to hold, to be strong and unbreakable. Pour energy into the weak places, patch them up."

Kayleigh nodded and calmed herself. Her mind closed off almost instinctively and focused on the task at hand. She summoned her memories of home, the carpenter's and Ronno's bar back to her mind. she reached into her pocket and took out an old key-chain, the only thing she still had of her parents. She closed her eyes and closed her hands around it. as she channeled the magic from inside her. She felt the energy flow around her fist. Opening her eyes, she looked down at the keychain which was now in an open hand, outstretched towards Kate. She visualized it and found weak spots, closing them to the best of her abilities. A slight smile tugged at her lips, but the energy was draining her, so she stopped it.

Kayleigh wiped a strand of hair from her face and let her arm fall into her lap. "How was that?"

Kate smiled as she watched Kayleigh dip once more into her qi to strengthen her shield spell. "Good, you did well," she reached a hand up and directed some weak bursts of magic to probe the shield around Kayleigh, "You've managed to patch up or strengthen most of the weak-spots... it's still not the strongest shield I've seen, but then you've had no training yet so that's to be expected. I see that you've already figured out another little aspect of magic," she said with a nod at the key, "Objects can be used as a focus for magic, an aide to concentrate and a physical channel through which magic can be guided so spells will be more accurate or brought under tighter control. This is why even in popular culture magic users are often depicted with a staff or wand, in the old days such things were one of the more common objects used as a focus. Objects that hold a particular value or significance to the caster tend to be better as focuses, though obviously objects designed and built specifically as a focus are preferred to any old thing."

Kate stood up and stretched a bit, "I think we can take a break here, dissipate your shield. Just let go of the construct in our mind, stop the flow of energy out into the world, and your shield will dissolve. You at least know the fundamentals of magic use, just remember the golden rule of magic - always be cautious, never experiment unless you are with someone more experienced than you, and even after you gain mastery do not do it alone. Magic is powerful and very useful but it is also dangerous."

Kayleigh nodded, she was tired and hungry, and ready to take a break here. "Thank you." she just said, she clenched her hand around the key-chain before putting it back into her pocket. she rubbed her eyes with the other arm and pulled her hair back behind her.
Magic was exciting, that was for sure, but it drained her at this point, she was unable to control it very well yet. But she hoped she'd be able to keep it going, enough things have gone bad before, she wanted to do something good for once.
"when's dinner going to be?"

Kate stretched a bit and yawned, "Mhmm... dinner? I'm not to sure what time it is... I often lose track of time with magic practice... still, shouldn't be more than an hour away. We'll go find Dawn if you like, she's the one who takes care of the rosters for all the chores... I think Jerian's on cooking duty today. I'll be doing it tomorrow and Dawn does it the day after... um... and Tech's still barred from the kitchen after that whole 'tore open a hole in the fabric of the universe' fiasco with the blender... or coffee machine or... whatever the hell it was."

Kayleigh giggled, but suddenly stopped. her mouth snapped shut and she looked at the ground. The sudden realization had hit her - she had remembered how she ended up here. The death of that man and the sudden transfer from having nothing to... having everything, let alone all the magic training that came with it. She had been uncertain to follow Jerian here, she still sort of was uncertain of things - but she did realize that these people had welcomed her among them and for that she was grateful.

Another realization snapped to her mind. Samm!
"Eeh, Kate?" she hesitantly asked. "Before Jerian took me here, I had a friend named Samm back at the carpenter's. He may feel a bit... abandoned... since I wasn't able to leave him a message. Is there any way for me to contact him?"

(I was thinking of incorporating a little storyline here where Samm gets in trouble and maybe dies at the hand of some supernatural being, you can make that part up, I'm not so good at it ^^" . Sort of as a motivation for kayleigh in the sense of "I will never let this happen again". What do you think?)