Open Chronicles Lessons in Lithomancy pt.1

[Naderi]

The classroom was far, far too large with far, far too many students. Naderi never understood why the classic lecture halls were stepped as they were, with four rows and two aisles separating the thirty or so students in attendance. While the half-elf knew, logically, that stepped classrooms allowed the students to observe the professors closely, all it meant to her was that she could see each and every one of their expectant faces clearly. She almost muttered soft curses under her breath but she knew that just might accidentally release an unspeakable again. That would then take up her whole day.

Naderi could feel pressure weighing on her shoulders. By her position, hovered and leaning over the wooden desk before her, she either looked to be in great thought or wracked with nerves. Despite the sunny day and the otherwise harmless chatter, she could feel her heart in her ears. She glanced upwards for a moment only to find several of the students staring back at her. The lesson should've started by then.

She could feel a bead of sweat crawl behind her ear.

Right.

Breathe.

Naderi tapped the book she held—Willows in the Hollow Month by Ashvell Minos—onto the table before her. She tapped it three solid times, allowing the heavy thud to echo through the hall.

"Welcome to an Introductory Survey to Lithomancy. I am," Naderi paused as she placed a hand on her chest, "Naderi, a librarian and adjunct professor here. Today we'll be going over the basics and theory of Lithomancy. Thank you for having me."

 

[Selina Della Altas]

Selina was seated close to the middle of the class. She sat with her spellbook handy, but also other sheets of paper for taking other notes, this was a lecture after all, not an interactive study. She set up her station with her hovering tablet that levitated above her lap where she spread out her papers, ink and quill.

Selina was fond of the library and so knew their lecturer on sight. The students around her talked and socialized while she got ready, some of her friends were sitting next to her and so she engaged in light conversation with them until the book boomed on the table at the center of the room. With that a hush fell over the room and she snapped to attention.

Lithomancy... She wasn't entirely sure what it was. Whenever she read about it in passing she usually passed it up for studying other things, but now this word that had been popping up might finally be explained and she can expand her knowledge of the arcane.
She picked up her pen, prepared to jot down notes as Naderi spoke.

 

[Focraig'Diin]

"Focraig'Diin, present!"

He hadn't the pleasure of studying in this format, with fellow peers and students in a single room. Magic especially, since his training was more akin to survival than the book-pen schematics this place favored. He sat at the third row from the front, an empty tome and his quill ready. None sat next to him, as his magic crawled onto the desk in tendrils of white.

"Sorry about the desk! Side-effect of my craft!"

 

[Leyus]

So, he might have made some subjectively bad decisions today. Or objectively bad decision, because, to be frank, when one found themself running from an angry mob, hardly many things could have gone right.
To explain in more detail, Leyus had just arrived to Elbion, looking for a job, when a friend of a friend of an acquaintance of a guy he had traveled with that one time got in touch, telling about a little, easy job to be done in the city, for a generous amount of coin. Nothing too bad, just selling some potions down at the college. And, well, Leyus had been kind of low on money for the last few days, so getting some additional gold (or whatever was in use here) didn't seem like a bad opportunity. Really.
The thing is, he hadn't taken in account, that the potions he was supposed to be selling could be fake. And that the people who he was selling them to, namely, the students of the college, could be just the people to tell how fake they were. And that those same students could run after him with a lot more than just angry shouts.

In a few words, he had managed to buy himself some time by leaping over a relatively low wall separating two yards, making some sharp turns and changing his hair to flaming ginger and covering his face in freckles on the way, getting away from the furious crowd. At least, for a bit.
What he needed was cover.

Therefore, following a group of students, who all discussed something called "lithomancy" in very exited voices didn't seem like such a bad idea.
Leyus slipped in with them, found himself a place at the further end of the classroom, and tried to still his far too fast breathing for somebody, who was here to learn some obscure magical stuff. Although, heck, maybe he was just very exited by the said obscure magical stuff?

In any case, he had to wait this out. Leyus let a hand slide through his now bright cooper hair. Maybe he could take a nap in the process.

 

[TTamark]

Steve entered a touch late, but just in time to hear Naderi thanking the class for having her. He quickly made his way to the front, and centre of the class. Surprisingly to Steve not that many students had wanted to sit in the front, noticing several unique characters preferring to be in the middle, back, and edges.

Steve didn't linger though he went straight for his seat and began unpacking his magical tools: a sac of potatoes. Steve ignored the looks he received, his time as a student had been a bit ago, but he knew those looks would be there without having to turn his head. He had been the son of a farmer with nothing. He never had been able to afford pens, quills, paper, tablets, anything. All he had had was his potatoes, but those were all he needed.

Besides Steve had more important things to worry about then being judged for his use of tools: Steve was much more concerned with his undead winged horse being discovered for what it was, or him being found out for not only practicing necromancy, but being a leader of the largest horde of undead... possibly ever. Just above that was Steve's fear that he might not be the saviour of the world, but instead have been a cog in the machine that would doom it... So Steve ignored anyone giving him a funny look.

Steve finished pulling out his spuds, aligned them in front of him, and looked up at the teacher and gave her a large smile. switching from apologetic for coming late, to welcoming, and eager for what she had to say. Possibly a touch too exited.

 

[Kara Orin]

At a front desk near the door, Kara sat with a pamphlet of blank parchment, a quill, and ink. She wore the typical cloak for a College student. Prior to the class, she did not speak or express any excitement for the course.

When Naderi introduced herself, Kara looked up and paid attention. A pause followed. She glanced at the rest of the class to see a few eccentric peers. She then returned her gaze forward - toward the instructor.

 

[Quoril]

Quoril entered the classroom just after a woman sporting a grey robe and a sour expression whom he presumed to be the teacher of the lithomancy course. Students filed in behind him as he made his way to a seat near the back of the hall. Lithomancy was a type of magic that he knew very little about. There was a high chance that he would fail the practical aspects of the class, but even so the elf was enthusiastic to learn all he could.

 

[Naderi]

Naderi's eyes flicked over the number of students she said. She had expected pursuant collegiates and, for the most part, that was who she had. That said, there were a few seated that caused her to quirk her eyebrow.

Well, it's not like she got to choose her students.

"Before I begin," Naderi started, "you'll all find at your seats a small pouch of tiles and a set of three bones, or dice if you will. As I speak I'll be having you roll randomly, then pull a number of tiles equal to the pips. Use these letters to create words and phrases as you see fit. You don't have to use all the tiles. Will you create as many as possible with what you have? Or create a single, meaningful phrase to you? How you answer this will shape the sort of translator you'll be."

Naderi reached into her robe, fumbling for some time, and pulled out a small extending rod. She placed a piece of chalk into a slot in the end and used the apparatus to start writing on the chalkboard. She drew a large circle with a large cloud with the word 'Signified' in the center, with several lines arcing out from it. On one line was the word 'Signifier.' In a similar fashion she drew a leaf and several lines stemming from it at well, before writing words in elvish beside it.

"What words we know, what words we choose to bring forth, and the limitations of language we have, all shape our perception of reality. Elves have eight words for the type of leaves on a tree. How many do humans have?

"Lithomancy, leximancy, words of power—all of these are different names for the art of translating the world around you. It is an understanding that one thing can be many. It both combines several principles of disciplines such as transmutation and conjuration and thaumaturgy, while at the same time ignoring those concepts as a whole.

"If you may," she said, turning back around to face the students and knocking her knuckle thrice upon the desk, "can anyone tell me what this is?"

-------

Selina Altas (12): A E M I T I I A G D P E
Focraig'Diin (9): L V G H H D S W O
Leyus (18): V U N N L O O H A M Z W U E E X N T
TTamark (9): A A L I C L R N C
Kara Orin (10): A U E I I U A T F C
Quoril (12): T E A N E A O I I I O I

*Instructions how to do this are on the discord, #lithomancy-class, or in the LFG/OOC discussion on the forums.

 

[Leyus]

Leyus was most definitely, absolutely not in the place he was supposed to be (or even wanted to be, which was a much, much rarer occasion). He had thought that this is going to be a purely sit-and-listen type of lecture, where he will be able to take a pleasurable nap before being sure that anybody out there, who has wanted to chase him further and could recognize him even with different looks, was surely too tired to keep on doing that. And then he, Leyus, could slip away.
Apparently not.

Of course, he couldn't risk being thrown out of the lecture hall, that would undoubtedly attract at least some attention. And rise the question that he wasn't supposed to be studying here in the first place. So the most reasonable option seemed to do what everybody else did and hope for the best.
So he fished out the little pouch with the letter tiles, tossed his dice like a good, good boy and pulled out those tiles. Ah, how marvelous. He had pulled out possibly the most horrendous bunch of letters (seriously, that many "n"s and "o"s and he couldn't even form the word "lunatic", how pathetic).
And, well, since everybody else was trying to put those words together, he could try as well, even if just not to die from boredom.

His first attempt read:
Nonmental hex ow

Which was probably very close to what he could expect if he left the hall right now.

Second one was a completely marvelous piece of thought:
Loot ham

Which was enough to tell, that he didn't have the best letters for any refined expressions, fine? Although, if he twisted this, and tilted that...

Well, the third one formed:
Maze tunnel has won ox

Which was a bit forced, because he had to tilt the "v" to get something like the top of "z", which in its turn made "huz" sound kind of like "has". Skies, this was a nightmare.

Therefore the question the supposed teacher asked (after telling some undoubtedly important stuff about the subject that Leyus hadn't listened to) a question, he took it as an opportunity to distract himself. After all, the question was a foolproof one, and anything was better than returning to those cursed letter tiles.
"That," Leyus began in a tone that screamed of the obviousness of the answer, "is a desk." His face was marked with a very wide smile, "A very fine work, if I might add, is that darkwood?" his tone sounded almost as if he was flirting with the said desk.

 

[TTamark]

Steve was very exited about getting to play with tiles. This seemed like a very fun lesson. After rolling a nine and pulling out nine tiles Steve immediately saw the word he would have to make. If you ignore the leg of an R it is a P, and if you finish a C you get O, and if you flip L over you get a drunk T. It was so obvious that these tiles had to spell Potato.

What would happen if he forced every letter though? Let's see... L is T, I is L, C is U, R is H, hmmm depending on how you lean A it could be a D or a C, and if you were to make N a Z that Z would sound like an s. Then Steve with these new letters could spell out the famous Thuds Cult, that dastardly group that went around deliver heavy blows on peoples heads. Out of principle Steve shook his fist. Thuds Cult!

Steve began to feel overwhelmed their were so many words. He could make so very many words especially if he forced them. He had to limit himself, or the options would be paralyzing. Alright... no forcing.

Cranial, and the extra C facing down like the top of a head. HEHE, Wait no! No forcing, or was that really forcing? Whatever.

Ancilla, with the C facing up like the pouch the letters came in.

Racial, with the C facing down like the crania of a skull, and the N like the teeth/jaw, all to make a skull to represent the undead race.

Oh yeah "crania", but isn't that kind of cheating? Just in case Steve Placed the C facing down with the horizontal l to make a hat for the crania.

Steve was feeling a touch stressed this class seemed a bit too free form, he didn't know if he was messing up horribly. The teachers question did not help at all, it was too easy it had to be some kind of trick question. Steve would have to do his best to cover all the bases in his answer.

"From what my senses tell me you used your knuckle to knock on the desk three times. Maybe it was an illusion though, and you didn't knock with you knuckles three times. Maybe you are asking for more words for what we saw, or what you are, or what you touched. So: educator, instructor, pedagogue, trainer, or tutor tapped, rapped, thumped, or hit thrice, threefold, three times, or triply upon the secretary, worktable, writing table, drafting table, escritoire, bureau, box, or lectern. Or were you simply referring to it being made of wood? Cause then I think it is a oak desk, but forgive me I have little knowledge in carpentry."

 

[Selina Della Altas]

Languages? This was better than she ever could have expected! She loved learning new languages and already knew quite a few. She followed the instructions and took the little sack by her chair and removed the contents of dice and tiles.

Selina rolled and got Twelve letters, so she drew the letters from her pouch and analyzed them. certainly an odd assortment of letters, this would be a challenge. She got 'A' 'E' 'M' 'I' 'T' 'I' 'I' 'A' 'G' 'D' 'P' 'E'.
She began organizing them in various positions and she found that she could make many small words
'AIM'
'AGE'
'DEEM'
'GAIT'
'GATE'
'AGATE'
'IMITATE', but she had to force an 'I' into another 'T'.

About this point she got creative, leaning on her knowledge of Elvish, Dwarvish and infernal. Though she had to force letters for many of the words to work.
'LIDA', was forced, changing the 'T' to an 'L'. Which translated to 'Spiritual Strength' in Elvish.
'ZA'AF', Forcing the 'N' to 'Z', the 'E' to 'F'. And it translated to 'Crown' in Elvish.
'ELANDI', Forcing the 'I' to 'L' and the 'M' to 'N'. Elvish for 'Arrow'.

Now she switched to Dwarvish, which she couldn't think up much for given the letters she had.
'ELGER', which forced 'I' to 'L' and 'P' to 'R', and was Dwarvish for 'Elf'.
'TIRA', which forced, 'P' to 'R', and was Dwarvish for 'Work'

Then she moved on to Infernal. At this point she was cautious, because in the writing of scrolls the writer might sometimes use a word from the Infernal tongue to replace an arcane word.
'MAEY', which forced the 'T' to a 'Y', and was Infernal for 'Hope'
'SUWVAP', which forced the 'G' to an 'S', the 'M' to a 'W', and the 'A' to a 'V', and translated as 'Wisdom' in Infernal.

After making those words and jotting them down to keep track of them, she found that she could only figure out one set of words that used all the letters. And it was forced.
'TIER MAGE IDEA', forcing the 'P' into an 'R', and an 'I' into an 'E'.
She was a bit disappointed in herself for not being able to come up with more than that, not even any sentences in other languages came to mind. She probably wasn't the greatest magic user, but she tried.
Once she was done with the tiles she raised her hand to answer the question, as many of the other students had, awaiting for the lecturer to call on them to answer the question about the desk.

When Selina was called on she answered the question, possibly in a naïve way, but she wasn't alone among the students to give this answer, "It's a desk?"
But she also went on to say, "In Elvish it's called a 'Ursplin', in Dwarvish it's called an 'Anoros', and in Infernal it's called a 'Zikdy'."
With that answer she put her hand down and awaited to hear what Naderi had to say.

 

[Kara Orin]

As Naderi spoke, Kara looked at the pouch and dice on the desktop. She picked up the dice and examined each side. One Naderi finished her instructions, Kara rolled.

10​

With that result, Kara drew ten tiles from the pouch. She laid them out in the order that she drew them.

A U E I I U A T F C​

While Naderi wrote on the chalkboard, Kara shuffled the letter tiles and back forth a few times. She spelled out common words with just a partial amount of the tiles. As Naderi continued her lecture, Kara nonchalantly settled on a silly phrase that used all the tiles:

A F A T Ո ՈIＭIC​

A FAT MIMIC​

Kara placed two U tiles upside down and next to each other to form the first “M”. She then placed the E tile sideways to represent a second “M”.

Since mimics disguised themselves as inanimate objects, it would be difficult to find any documents describing one as “fat.”

Once Kara finished that task, she answered the professor with a silent stare as three other students gave their answer to what they call a “desk” that had not been confirmed or denied as a mimic.

 

[Focraig'Diin]

The ice mage could only stare at the piece he had been rolled. It was for a word... curious. Very very curious. Wordplay was not one of his strong suits... but a mage could learn. Mayhaps a different approach was required. He once again looked at the letters before him.

"L V G H H D S W O."

Almost immediately the word "Gods", sprang to mind. Why else, because those same gods were the ones to create the laws of magic the world abided by. An interesting term for the desk, as it was a byproduct of man. He would have gone for the word of 'Wood', but felt that was too simplistic. Not to mention bending the rules into a knot.

'Hoe...?' He cast that thought aside. Flipping the G upside down yielded him an 'e', as well as tweaking the W to the right. A mismatched one. But that was not how this class was to be led.

"Love...?" That could work, thought the ice mage. He still debated a few more minutes before finalizing an answer.

"This... is a desk half-frozen by my magics. Although i shall pay for this furniture with my own currency, I believe that this desk is in a ways, a god. Of what its domain may be, I know not. Containment, carving, furniture - it could be any of those three. That it has yet to collapse is also proof that its durability is godlike."

He wasn't joking, in part. Best answer he could give in what brainpower he could spare.

'Some archivist,' jeered a voice in his head.

 

[Naderi]

After calling upon the students' answers, Naderi eventually folded her arms across her chest and nodded. She straightened her glasses as she ran a hand over the desk.

"In a manner, you're all correct," she said as she moved back to the board and drew a desk before circling it like the others.

"The first thing that needs to be understood about lithomancy—the first thing to understand about anything really—is that what we define, what signifiers we grant the signified... Those are all arbitrary.

"A signified is a thing we must give name to, signifiers and what we give name to them. Yes, this is a desk, yes it is made of a wood I do not necessarily know. To the one sleeping earlier, one would call it fine work, while another would call it art. A worktable, writing table, drafting table... There are also a good number of names you could call it in other languages." With each thing she listed she wrote it, attaching the lines to the drawing, and drawing more lines and listing more words.

But then she continued to draw lines, despite not adding more words.

"No matter what we decide to call it, we will never truly know everything that it stands for and what it represents. Who was it made by? What time of day? Was it a gift? Was it made out of love? What history did the tree have and what animals lived in it?" All the while Naderi's speaking pace, her heart rate, all increased rapidly to a fever pitch.

"We cannot capture all the nuances behind it, the history behind it. No matter what we call it, what signifiers we give it, it would all be insufficient. That is what I mean when I say it is arbitrary!" When she finally draw one last line, she dragged it halfway across the board and everyone could hear the chalk snap as she finished.

She turned slowly back to the class.

"The first lesson with lithomancy is to understand that our grasp of reality, and the nuances behind it, is limited. Every possible way you can describe this desk is a possible pool of glyphs, letters, reality to draw upon, and even a single desk can give way to great possibility."

She closed her eyes and started to mutter. A small magical circle floated before her hand. "Fine work... Drafting... Ursplin. Durable. Container." She muttered to herself for nearly two minutes, with the entire class quizzically wondering what she was doing. All the while, glyphs in the circle started to fill up.

"█ine wor█. █████ing. Ur█plin. Dur██le. █ont█iner."

As soon as it finished, the gate immediately opened up and a large chunk of the desk seemed to wobble and twitch out of existence. "SAFE BACKDRAFT," Naderi quietly said before the room suddenly burst in a massive explosion of flames and heat.

As quickly as it came, it extinguished in an instant, leaving not even scorch marks. Some papers had caught on fire, but the fire burned nothing yet held heat. To those familiar in illusion magic, they would know it was no illusion. An explosion of flame had occurred that dealt damage to neither the students nor the property.

Naderi stood at the front of the room, propping herself up onto the table, her breathing slightly labored.

"It is not the fastest, nor is it the strongest, stable or most consistent. But lithomancy allows you," she flicked her eyes across the room, "all of you, the ability to find the limitations of your reality and push them."

"Keep writing. Find your limitations."

---

Leyus (9): O U E I G T S B Z
TTamark (13): V R I T N B P U L C I E E
Selina Altas (11): G E P I X O G D O U I
Kara Orin (12): L O E E A D W Y C N N A
Focraig'Diin (15): I H A L L J F K D N O E T I L

 

[Quoril]

The dice skittered across the desk. Twelve. Opening the small pouch Quoril grabbed out twelve tiles and laid them out face up in front of himself.

T E A N E A O I I I O I

Neat. The word seemed to jump out from the random assortment of letters. Quoril spent the next few moments shuffling the letters around without much success. He had thought there would be a lecture first, and was a tad overwhelmed after being thrown right into a task. Inspiration struck when he realized that I looked a lot like a lower-case L. That opened a whole new world of possibilities. TAII (Tail), TAII (Tall), OII (Oil), IEAN (Lean), NII (Nil). A sideways E could act as an M, and an N could be rotated to create a Z. Word after word appeared in front of him, and as fast as he came up with one, a new arrangement of letters took its place. The elf almost lost his lunch when he read his newest arrangement - OOZE TEA. There were some good uses for ooze, but tea definitely wasn’t one of them. Deciding to stop there, he turned his attention back to Naderi.

Naderi was muttering to herself and a circle of glyphs lazily spun above her hand. Quoril heard her quietly say “SAFE BACKDRAFT” before the room suddenly filled with flames and a nearly unbearable heat. The fire and heat vanished as quickly as they had appeared. He sat there, trying to understand what had just occurred.

This was starting to get good!

 

[TTamark]

Wait what they say has a chance of being summoned! This is something you need to warn people of ahead of time, there could have been a group of people with clubs wacking people over the head. Steve went for a safe phrase this time: Blive picturez

Whether this would cause one to draw a portrait quickly, or caused one to remember a scene, it would be pretty safe.

Steve was more confused about what the teacher was saying about limits. Was she simply covering the basics of magic again, that all kinds of magic have limits and drawbacks? Was she talking about limits to ones imagination? Why do people need to be so vague?

Steve didn't know any of the answers, but he wanted to show his creativity so he used five potatoes to make a Naderi sculpture golem. One as the base, One to push her form out of the first, and another to animate it, and two more so it would be able to have basic intellect, with Steve himself as the source.

"Ok... Teacher Junior, make your own word."

Steve smiled exited, and expectantly.

The Fire the teacher had made must have still been fresh in Steve's mind because the teacher shaped potato golem spelt out Burn Evil. Steve decided to duck under the table, just in case.

 

[Kara Orin]

Kara listened to Naderi continue the lecture. She maintained half a frown. She placed an elbow on the desk and relaxed her head upon the palm. Her eyes examined professor’s writing. Her eyebrows perked up as glyphs materialized. Then, she lifted her head back up as magic consumed part of the desk.

But when an apparent explosion followed, Kara rushed to turned around to put her back toward the flames. She ducked her body down to attempt to use her own desk as cover. She touched a ring on her right hand with engravings – activating some kind of magic.

Yet when screams of bloody murder did not follow, Kara lifted her head to see flickers of flames dissipate and unharmed students. She saw a few that leaped from their seats as well. Nothing materialized from the magic she activated as she slowly got back into her seat.

Once reseated, Kara looked at the professor once more with narrowed eyebrows. As Kara examined Naderi, she picked up her quill and dipped it in ink. Then, she began to write on the paper she brought to class.

Rather than attempt another round with dice and tiles, Kara’s focused on taking detailed notes and writing follow up questions.

 

[Leyus]

He? Sleeping earlier?

When those words reached Leyus he made an effort to look shocked and even a bit offended; how could anybody presume that he was sleeping earlier? It was true, fine, but the audacity to say that.
He had answered the question, right? Was that something that a sleeping person would do?

Anyways, he didn't really care for anything that was said. It was a lot of "blah, blah, blah, history, magic", which he didn't care about that much. Although this time he actually made sure to at least make an impression that he was listening, mirroring the interested and concentrated expressions of some people around him. He was a trained performer after all. While that was going on, Leyus had drawn new tiles, in hopes that this time he will be more lucky with them. And it was nicer to have something to make his hands busy with while holding up his smooth act.

He wasn't much luckier second time around, but it wasn't that bad either.

His first attempt, was a very cute:
Be an egoist.

Put out more like "b uz egoist", with the "z" flipped to look like "n". A neat little phrase, really. Something to live by, even.

Right with this thought, the room burst into flames.

"AAAGH!" The next moment Leyus was flying down from his chair with a loud shout. Had those guys dound him? What on earth was going on here?
He caught himself midair, and, with a noticeably skillful maneuver managed to not fall on the ground, but rather fall under the table, which seemed to a be safer spot. At his point he actually started to notice, that there was no smell of burning flesh in the air, and that he didn't feel agonizing pain or anything. His gut clenched with fear and surprise, probably his own shared with that of the others here, but there was no downright panic.
What had just happened?

Probably an illusion of some sort. Or something between those lines, made by the teacher, as far as he could catch it from her following words. What the-?
But the thing that actually left Leyus gaping was the fact that nobody else here seemed really that phased about the fiery events. Were all people in this college like this? He would have presumed that it was just that they controlled their outer looks, keeping their true emotions on the inside, but he knew, he felt, they really just didn't care that much about this. Not as much as a normal person should.
"A warning would be nice next time," Leyus muttered before going back to arranging the letters with slightly shaky hands.

The phrase read:
I beg you.

Or "I beg u", to be precise.

 

[Focraig'Diin]

"I H A L L J F K D N O E T I L." Spelled Focraig, rolling his tiles. He had to lean to catch a few as they nearly slid off the icy surface of his desk.

This was getting more interesting as a class. The demonstration of what the students as a whole would be learning was somewhat clearer now. Lithiomancy was to, quite literally, convince reality to bend to his whims, via words! A magic with its own rules and limitations, yes, but still a brand of magic that liberally taps into the grand Reality itself to create effects.

A fine craft! He would see if integrating this into his own cryomancy would be effective. For now, he would figure the meaning of these words as the letters demonstrated.

Bending the rules, he turned the L to the left, turning it into a mismatched 'V'. Then he spelled out a core foundation of his magic, to test a hypothesis about Lithomancy and his own cryomancy.

"V O I D."

His ice actually coalesced into a sphere of its own volition, as if drawn by the word itself. A color he had only seen during the Lessat Eclipse, the pitch black core of this spherical construct was a haunting sight. He had a genuine clue as to his magics own origins now, thanks to the class.

"Miss? Or Ms? I encountered an error of some kind?"

 

[Naderi]

After catching her breath, Naderi walked up and over to Focraig's table and gave the shape a look. "Ahhh. You've tapped into the idea of the craft. It's not exactly what I would expect at this point, no, but I feel you've tapped into the idea of it." Naderi would wag her finger, and nod to herself. "You've understood its first principle."

The half-elven woman walked down the stairs, taking a look at the various crafts and words. She spotted what looked to be a small sculpture of herself and she raised her eyebrow quizzically. She'd keep an eye on that one.

"Lithomancy is neither simply about saying certain words, nor using the tiles before you; else, anyone would be able to use it and our world would be very much different from what we know of it.

"Yes, you need talent first, or at the least, magical talent. But not too much to be honest," said Naderi, holding up her hand, palm up. The magical circle-looking gate appeared there again. "You need just enough power to start translating, as well as enough power for the process. But after that, it needs none to maintain it." Naderi would aim her hand at the chalkboard, taking just a moment, before saying 'CLEAR.' The letters of chalk slowly faded away.

"In linguistics, there are these terms: fricative and plosive. Fricatives are when air escapes through your mouth at a constant rate. Consider the sounds of the letters 'v' and 'f and 's.' Some magic is like that, but lithomancy is the latter, a plosive. These are sounds like the letters 'b,' 't,' and 'p.' You build up a certain amount of pressure behind your lips, then it's let out all at once."

"But to channel that at all," Naderi continued, filling up her chalk holder with another piece and writing on the board, "you need to focus your powers." She had written the word "Impulse" on the board.

"Lithomancers call these, 'impulses.' These are not simply personality traits, but the method in how you shape the world around you. I was taught these 12: Calm, Daring, Feeling, Focus, Force, Grit, Hope, Reason, Renown, Scheme, Style, and Trust.

"While everyone has some degree of them, people often only have a few strong enough to shape the magic as they feel fit. I personally am only capable of using Calm, Focus, Force, Grit, Hope, and Reason. Despite practicing for many years, of these, I would only be confident enough in Calm, Focus, and Reason.

"Consider well what you feel might suit you. While several of you are capable in your own respects, I would suggest dabbling only in what you're confident in. At least for now."

 

[Selina Della Altas]

While Naderi spoke Selina rolled the dice, eleven. She drew the tiles and looked at the letters. G E P I X O G D O U I.
Again, not the greatest set of letters but she got to work. This class was getting very interesting, though she was still trying to comprehend what exactly the function of Lithomancy was. To her it seemed to have something to do with retranslation. Taking the language that is used to describe objects, events, or even people and changing them... In her mind she let her imagination try to picture the applications.
Perhaps taking the word "Cat", What is a cat? a feline, what else is a feline? a displacer beast. So could she use Lithomancy to change a cat into a displacer beast?

Indeed, it's like Naderi said, this field of magic encompasses many fields of magic all at once while remaining true to its own core function.
She looked up, she had almost missed the magic that the teacher was forming. She watched with rapt attention, listening closely to the words she spoke.
Then the spell detonated on her desk, several holes simply vanished from the desk and a harmless flame erupted around the room. She flinched and raised an arm to shield her eyes from the fire, but when nothing happened she looked in awe at what was left of the desk.

Naderi then seemed to check over some of the students closer to the front who seemed to have activated some Lithomancy prematurely. She looked back down at her letters, she was a bit envious of those, they already had a set field of magic that they were focused on and could already apply Lithomancy to their chosen craft.
Selina had taken the harder rout, training not as a mage to cast focused and trained crafts at will but as a wizard to study magic in all its broader definitions... And for many that took generations. She already had quite a collection of spells, but in comparison as a wizard she was vastly behind the mages of the collage.

She watched while Naderi explained some more about Lithomancy. So, it can even be used for simple things, such as clearing a chalk board, by first silently defining the board as cluttered by chalk, and then redefining it with the word, 'Clear'. It was simply fascinating!

She got back to work on her letters. G E P I X O G D O U I.
The first word that jumped out to her was, 'GOD'. This made sense to her, because all magic had a source, just as all of nature itself came into being and held its perfection through intelligent design.
The other words were less impressive.
'PIGGIE'
'OX'
'IDOL', by forcing the 'I' into an 'L'.
'DIGGER', by forcing 'P' into an 'R'.

Suddenly she found a phrase that really stood out to her.
'GOD OF ALL'. It was forced, the 'E' to 'F', the 'O' to 'A', the 'I' to 'L', and the other 'I' into another 'L'. But it again signified her identifying the source of magic.
Then she thought of another forced word, a name of a little known creature that she learned of while studying in Naderi's library. 'XORN', forcing the 'P' to 'R' and flipping the 'U' into an 'N'.

Naderi had said, "Lithomancy allows you, all of you, the ability to find the limitations of your reality and push them."
Selina couldn't quite understand that statement. How does Lithomancy push limitations? So far she has seen its capacity for transmutation... What limitations did she speak of? Selina had to wonder.
She wrote down some notes.
As a wizard she couldn't simply start popping out magic on the spot, she had to study it and understand everything about it in order to quantify it, break it down into words, write it out in her spell book, memorize it, and then finally cast it. It's why new students tended to become mages over wizards.

Right now she hardly understood only one of its many facets. The best she could describe Lithomancy is as a transmutation spell using language and translation. She couldn't quite grasp its rules, could she turn fire into ice by retranslating the wording? Could she turn a human into a frog? Could she cast a fireball in this way? Or was it simply about manipulation of the world around you? Could she take the elvish word for friend and retranslate it as an enemy?
The more she thought about it, the less it seemed like 'retranslation' and the more it sounded like 'redefinition'.

 

[TTamark]

Steve was trying to understand what was being said. The build up, the release. Those made sense to him. It was the focusing that gave him pause.

"Could you go into more details about these 'Impulses'? How does one focus on these impulses, what are they, and how does one know which to use? I guess what I am asking is: what do I focus the energy into? The words? How I define them? How it could be defined?"

Steve and the golem, dubbed Teacher junior, continued arranging words as he spoke. Each time releasing a potato amount of energy into the words, while focussing on their meaning in their context.

"Could you 'incite' some understanding? make he lessen more 'vincible'? Act as an 'unveiler' to us. Be a bit more 'relucent', to you know help shine a 'light'(spelt LICRT) on the material? If you don't mind, I just want to make sure I have a good grasp on what you are saying. Any help would be appreciated."

 

[Leyus]

To be honest, at this point Leyus was a bit lost. After all the fire and explosions he had started to feel more inclined to listen to the teacher, for quite obvious reason, that if there was anything like that coming again, there was a chance that he could somehow see it coming based on what she was saying.
At this point, the actual monologue of the woman made him feel like a five year old again, while one of many Lerte had thought him some magic tricks. Everything that she said separated sounded kind of reasonable. When put together, it made an equivalent of a very confused question mark in his head.

Well, of course, he wasn't here to actually try and learn this craft. He wasn't even studying any magic at all, that was as far from him as an individual with actual magical abilities could get. Yet, he had already invested some of his time in this, he had already tried and listened to some of this, and Leyus rather preferred to understand the things he heard. Or saw. Or did. If he wouldn't, he wouldn't be a good performer. Or a still living trader.
At least he wasn't the only one who had no idea what in the name of gods was going on. The guy who asked a long line of questions, while fumbling with something that was... potatoes?.. also seemed to not be exactly on the top of this discussion.

Although, obviously, it probably wasn't that important that he didn't get all this "lithomancy" stuff. The serious magic, the one you actually had to learn to do, was a messy, tedious thing. Not his play-field, really.

More out of reflex now that anything else he continued to play with the tiles.
This time they spelled:
Bog.

And, what was something from those bunch of words that the teacher had said? Style? Heck, he had plenty of that. Leyus frowned for a moment, shifting his focus on the tips of his fingers. Nails, to be more exact. After a few seconds they acquired a faint brownish green tone. Very fitting for a bog. He let them slide along the tiles, appreciating the overall aesthetic it made.
But, what was that? Did it really feel, when he finally raised his hand from the table, the the very tips of his fingers were suddenly wet?
As quickly as it came, the feeling vanished. He was probably just imagining things, lulled by the confusing lecture.

 

[Naderi]

"Could you go into more details about these 'Impulses'? How does one focus on these impulses, what are they, and how does one know which to use? I guess what I am asking is: what do I focus the energy into? The words? How I define them? How it could be defined?"

...

"Could you 'incite' some understanding? make the lessen more 'vincible'? Act as an 'unveiler' to us. Be a bit more 'relucent', to you know help shine a 'light'(spelt LICRT) on the material? If you don't mind, I just want to make sure I have a good grasp on what you are saying. Any help would be appreciated."

"Good question," said Naderi, raising her finger to point at the boy.

"Consider an Impulse to be a... filter of sorts. While the difficulty with most magic is generating and gathering enough energy to cast your spells, lithomancy acts in the opposite. The magic and areas you must place your focus into, to not incorporate additional Glyphs, or letters like you've been using, in your spell. You want to remove as many additional elements as you can. Those tiles in excess after your words? Imagine that, but instead, dozens, perhaps in worst cases hundreds, of them flashing through your mind in an instant.

"I personally use common whenever possible. The Glyphs you see in casting aren't in common, but it's easier to see and pull them to you. An Impulse is similar; it is a tool to make the phrasing easier."

Naderi held her arm up and chanted again, manifesting a ring off of the palm of her hand. "An Impulse is essentially a filter, a purpose, a goal, a schema of the type of spell you're trying to cast. They're often based on how we, personally, tend to handle situations. Everyone is capable of mustering them to some degree, but only some aspects of us truly shine, and it's only those aspects that allow us to influence the world around us.

"Calm, for those that shun great emotion and seek mediation.
Daring, for those with great dreams and desires.
Feeling, the opposite of calm. To delve into the emotions of the now.
Focus, to concentrate and hone yourself and others.
Force, the most common, direct, straightest path.
Grit, for those that are strong enough to endure hardships.
Hope, when you bring about latent power and potential.
Reason, to assist in understanding the situation.
Renown, to gather those around them and nurture our bonds.
Scheme, for those of complex machinations and structure.
Style, how we act with flair and great life to be known.
Trust, how our trust in others can bring about success."

As she said each one, she wrote them on the board.

"The Phrase, what we call spells, must ultimately match the Impulse used to cast it to a degree. However, how it applies is very... subjective to the world."

"The Phrase ENFLAME was one of the first I was taught to manifest. As a Force Phrase, it could incinerate fields, but as one cast with Hope, it spurs on your allies to action. It takes a clear and strong image to make it work, it does. If your purpose is unclear, at the least it can fizzle. At the worst..."

Naderi paused, holding the book in her left hand to her mouth. She looked pensive. She bit her lip. Was this the right thing to do? Teach a handful of students a type of magic that, at its worst...

"In the worst scenario, you could bring about an Unspeakable."

This might have been a mistake.

"I'm sorry, but we'll have to end class for now. I have much to think about, as do the rest of you. I'll leave notes at the library, pick them up if necessary. For now, before the next class, I want you all to take great thought in the type of Impulse you might be able to bring about. The one element about you that you believe can change the world. The stronger and clearer this Impulse, this aspect of you, is, the better.

"Lithomancy requires very little theory to use, but the concepts are complex to grasp and must be understood deep within you. It is in equal parts about understanding the concepts, understanding the feelings behind them, and, hardest of all, understanding yourself. An accomplished mage and wizard of many years could very well find themselves at odds to a confident, self-actualized lithomancer."

She turned her back to the class.

"Class dismissed."

---

*The RP/thread isn't actually over, but the first class is ending before we pick up on actually casting more magic. Feel free to rp yourselves after class/in the time after till se 'start classes' again.

 

[Selina Della Altas]

Selina still had so many questions, she hoped she could catch Naderi later to ask them. For now this was a huge treasure trove of knowledge! She was making notes as fast as she could. Spells that can be influenced by personal characteristics wasn't unheard of. Mages and wizards of every creed would exhibit this, those more intent on destruction would often focus more on fire magic and the evocative forces of nature. The people themselves being described as 'hotheaded'.

But she had more questions, and honestly she hoped she could have help as she attempted to learn this magic. As a wizard she really wanted to expand her knowledge of magic, in all its forms. Right now it seemed that this magic had the potential to expand not only the amount of spells one could create, but even in creating small cantrips at a whim.

She listened as she jotted down notes, working on a example spell that she might have Naderi look over to see if her understanding is on track.
She heard the hesitant warning... and mention of something called an, 'unspeakable'. And then before she knew it, the lecture was over.

What happened?
She gathered up her supplies as the confused class stood up and began filing out of the room. Selina went straight to the library hoping to find Naderi.