Private Tales Throw down the Gauntlet

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Tyto looked down at his Gi. It really was beyond salvaging at this point. He'd be sad to see it go, but its not like he didn't have anything to remember his master by. He gestured towards his dojo crest.

"I'd like to keep this or have it added on. They can sew it on to whatever I get right? Do you think they'd have a Gi, or at least something close? Maybe something with a hood! What colors would it come in? I haven't had new clothes since I got the Gi! What if-" Tyto was getting so excited, he almost forgot. "Wait. I wouldn't be able to pay you back. I have no money." He said, avoiding eye contact. He had let himself get too excited.
 
Valkery chuckled. "Calm down, don't worry about the money, lets call it payment for helping me out on this mission. I don't know about a Gi but there are a lot of different styles of clothing in the market. I'm sure you can find something you like that fits. It shouldn't be to difficult to add the patch to whatever you buy. Though you should learn to sew it on yourself. Knowing how to repair your own cloths is an important skill, it will help keep the cloths looking respectable longer and save you money in the process," she explained.
 
  • Yay
Reactions: Tyto
Tyto laughed to himself. "Ah man I remember when I was little, my dad tried to show me how to sew. I can almost hear my mom's shrieks even now when she saw how he'd do it." Either way, being paid for a job felt really good.

Tyto took his time, eyeing the different clothing of the different shops. Finding one he really liked. It was a grey and tan number, while not a Gi, it had a diagonal front opening, and it had a hood! Tyto always thought they looked so cool and they reminded him of his master. That's when he had a thought.

"Hey, listen." Tyto said tentatively. "After all is said and done with this, I want to learn how to help people more. Theres obviously more evil out there than just thugs hassling slum dwellers." He chose his words carefully. "Let's say we stop Karass and his gang. Would you take me on as a desciple? Its just that, traditionally, your previous master's crest is displayed over your heart and your new master's crest is displayed on your back. If I were to be so bold as to ask, and it were OK with you, do you have a crest?"
 
Last edited:
Valkery started at the abruptness of the question but quickly composed herself a gentile smile crossing her face, "You really want to learn aura magic don't you. But I don't give my crest to just anyone. You would have to earn it." She said paying the shop keeper for the cloths and walking out of the shop with Tyto. "It wont be easy either. This would be years of commitment." Valkery explained as they started to walk through the market towards the richer part of the city. "This isn't something you can start and give up on halfway through." She stopped in front of a market stall to buy a pair of meat pies, and handed one to Tyto. "So, do you still want to do this?" She asked.
 
Tyto followed in silence as she explained. Years worth of training, huh? Unable to quit half way through? Tyto had to suppress the urge to grin ear to ear. Pushing through even if he SHOULD quit was his specialty. Tyto would commit a decade if he had to. He wanted to help people more effectively. If he kept on the way he was going he'd end up dead in an alley and he knew it.

He owed it to himself and Valkery to truly consider if he'd quit, however. If he was going to start training seriously as a student he had to know what would cause him to stop. Most people have other commitments that gradually draw them away. Tyto had no such thing. No friends, no family, no girlfriend even. The only thing he committed himself to was protecting those in danger. Anything else he could do would be a waste of time, a waste of life.

He had made his decision.

"Yes, I am sure."
 
There was a fire in his eyes, a determination. He wanted to make something of himself and to help others. It was an admirable goal, but was it enough to carry though into actions.

"Alright then. I'll take you on, but only on trial. You need to prove to me that you are actually committed to this before I take you on for real." She said. As they were talking they left the market making their way into the richer district, "You're first lesson will be to sew that patch on yourself got it."
 
"Got it!" Tyto wondered why something so easy was his first task but he supposed you have to crawl before you can walk. He followed her into the richer district and wondered. "So, What do I call you now? Sensei? Ma'am? Boss?" Either way he had a question about the mission too "Also, what does this Gaun-" Tyto cut himself off. "What does that thing we are after do besides be infused with aura?" He made a mental note to ask her about borrowing some needle and thread after they got to her place.
 
Sewing was a simple task, however the exercise would be a good test of Tyto's willingness to learn new things, and his ability to follow instructions even when they sounded a bit wired. It would also teach him precision, a vital skill when it came to aura magic.

"You may call me ma'am. As for the gauntlet, the book I read didn't go into much detail. Most of the artifacts seemed to work by converting life aura into void aura and storing it up for use in some way." Valkery explained. Valkery lead them off the main road along a side path that followed the outer fence of one of the estates. Coming to a servants gate Valkery took out a key and unlocked it, leading Tyto inside and locking the gate behind them again. A hedge shielded the servants path from the rest of the estate. Valkery lead him around the hedge into the garden proper, they soon came to a clearing in the garden where a few small tree's and a garden house stood. "This is the Griffen's estate. In exchange for my services they provide me with privacy and full use of the garden house." Unlocking the door she lead him inside. a table stood in the middle of the room and a desk and shelves lined the walls, curtains hung over the widows and a fireplace stood against one wall. The table and desk were cluttered with papers scrawled with notes and many glass jars and vials filled with strange liquids or objects. One vile contained a strange black liquid another half of a strange dried up worm still wriggled. In another, larger, jar strange tentacles floated in a liquid.

"Excuse the mess, I do research here on monsters for the monster guild." She explained pulling out a chair for Tyto, lighting all the candles in the room with her aura.
 
Tyto removed the hooded outer layer of his clothes and sat down, beginning to line up the patch over where his heart would be. "Ma'am, could I borrow some of that needle and thread from before?" He asked, as he bagan to look around the room.

There was a whole lot of stuff in here. This took him back. Years and years ago he was in a cluttered space, only it was salvageable junk not things for study. It was... homey. He'd like learning in a place like this.
 
Valkery glanced at Tyto. "Right, Though this should be more useful for your purposes," She said pulling a basket from under the desk and setting it on a clear space on the table. The basket was filled with scraps of fabric, spools of different colored threads, and a pin cushion with pins and needles of various sizes stuck into it. "You can get started with that while I get changed." Valkery left Tyto in the main room while she went into the back bedroom. The garden house was small. Two rooms was all she needed most of the time. This also meant that she could still sense though the wall everything that was going on in the other room. He had said that his father had tried to teach him how to sew when he was younger. Let see what he remembers on his own. How will he deal with the lack of instruction? especially when he doesn't think she is watching.
 
Tyto began in earnest. Grabbing some pins and fixing the patch in place once he found a suitable- ouch! Alright, not the best start, but it can only go up from here. 3 pin pricks later, the patch was in place. Now for the fun part. After several failed attempts Tyto could feel his blood beginning to boil. "I can hit an attackers vital points while in combat, I should be able to thread a needle!" He hissed under his breath.

Finally, he was able to truly get started. Sticking the needle through the patch into the fabric. His father had taught him the basic in and out motion, but if Tyto were being charitable, he'd say it never looked pretty. Most of his memories in this department were of his mom chasing him and his dad out with a broom so she could fix it.

He decided to use the stitching from other points on his clothes as reference. Stitching inside the border of his patch made it look cleaner. He just had to be patient, only moving a bit at a time. "Alright, yeah soon this patch will know my power-" ouch!

Tyto raised his fist, ready to break this damn table in half! After a second, he laughed to himself quietly. Maybe he could skip that particular step from when his dad did it. Tyto shook his head, and continued.

After paying closer attention and getting into a rhythm, this wasn't so bad, therapeutic even. The stitches were close together and mostly even. Looking pretty good if Tyto did say so himself. He had made it around 3/4 of the patch by the time Valkery returned.
 
  • Yay
Reactions: Madame Valkery
Valkery returned to the main room, now dressed in a pair of black high wasted trousers and a high collared white blouse. She placed a log on the fire and set a spark under it with a thought. It was soon burning brightly. She then hung a teapot on a hook over the fire to boil before moving over to look at Tyto's work. "Not the prettiest, but it is strong, that won't be falling off anytime soon, and you will be able to wear it with pride because you did it yourself," She said taking the other chair.

There was a small silence and then Valkery spoke again. "Tell me. What is it you want most in the world. Not some lofty ideal, or concept of empty justice. What do you want?" She said. He had honorable goals, which was not a bad thing, but if he didn't know what drove him he would be destined to fall.
 
Tyto sat for a moment, contemplating the question. This wasn't the first time he was asked this, and he didn't have an answer beyond do the right thing. Living solely for others in need is what landed him in the gutter. Sure he had ideals, but what really drove him to do what he does?

"What I want, is to learn all there is about combat, master it, and use that to become a great man and teacher." Tyto said, meeting her eyes. "Don't get me wrong, if I wanted petty status or something I'd have joined Karass's gang when he offered years ago. The one and only thing that nobody has taken away from me, the one thing that I can truly call mine, is all the knowledge I've been given. In short, I want more."
 
Valkery nodded. It was a hard question she had asked him, one that had taken years for herself to answer on her own. She wished she could give him the time to figure this stuff out at a natural pace, but if she was going to teach him, she needed to be sure that knowledge was not going to fall into the wrong hands.

The teakettle started to sing and Valkery stood, removing it from the heat and poring the steaming liquid into a pair of tea cups. She set one of the cups in front of Tyto before sitting down with her own.

"What do you know about magic in general? Are you familiar with the Laws of magic?" She asked blowing gently on her tea.
 
Tyto racked his brain. Rasmus never mentioned anything about magic, and neither of his parents knew anything about it. Best he could do was try and remember from snippets he's heard over time.

"I remember there was 5 or 6 laws. Let's see i know time is something that can't be changed, at all. Nobody is immortal, everything has a price, there was something about distance in there, and... erm... the customer is always right?"
 
Alright, so functionally the kid didn't know anything. "There are five laws of magic. It is important that one learns and understands these laws before attempting any kind of magic, even something as simple as using enchanted items or basic tricks. The laws represent the limitations of magic, If you don't understand those you will never be able to forge magic into your ideal weapon. There are five laws. You touched on some of them but it might be better if you forget all of your assumptions about magic and approach this with a clean slate. In college circles the fist law is called The Danger of Magic . As it's name suggests it is the one that novices most often fall pray to. All magic has a cost, in my case aura, if you try to circumvent that cost the spell will either fail or backfire. Give this law the respect it demands and understand how much the magic you want to cast costs and you can become very powerful. While this law represents a limitation it also represents an advantage. The more cost you spend on a spell the more powerful it is. Do you understand?" Valkery asked taking a sip of her tea.
 
Tyto listened intently, sipping his tea. So there's a finite amount of what you can do with magic, but the more you use, the more you can do. However you can't use a spell that requires more than you can give.

"Sounds simple enough. So you mentioned cost, and if we are using aura magic it would cost aura? And if soul aura is your life force, how do you get more when you use it?" He looked at her for a second. "You dont look like you're lacking in soul or life force."
 
Last edited:
  • Yay
Reactions: Madame Valkery
Valkery scoffed, though there was some humor hidden beneath it. "How would you know what lacking a soul looks like? Life aura is not the soul itself, it is only produced by the soul, binding it to the body. However, I would not advise using soul aura, it drains your stamina and endurance and if you use too much at once you could die. There are other types of auras aside from life aura." Valkery placed her tea cup down on the table and picked up one of the candles setting it down between her and Tyto, "Think of life aura like this flame. Now if I take this glass." She picked up an empty glass vile and held it up against the flame. When she removed it there was a black stain on the glass. She held it up for Tyto to see. "Strong aura's like life aura leave a mark on the things they touch. Which can come off easily if you know how to collect it." She said taking up a cloth and carefully wiping the black stain off the glass holding the cloth up for Tyto to see that it had transferred.

"We can then take that collected aura and use it to pay magics price. I call this type of aura, aura residue, it is much weaker than other types of aura but it is a lot safer and easier to use. If you are in a public place like a city there is almost an endless supply of aura residue to draw from." She said picking her tea cup back up and taking another sip.
 
"Makes sense to me. But if there's a limitless supply of aura, there should be limitless applications right? Let's say I wanted to throw something so hard from the middle of the city it passes even the outer farmsteads before coming to rest? What if I wanted to throw the same thing but to the moon?" Tyto asked, picking up the vial and cloth.

He began to repeat her earlier example of scorching the vial and cleaning it off until the cloth was rather tarnished. "If the cloth is us, and there's so much supply, feats like that should be possible. Is there a limit to how much aura you can have?"
 
Valkery nodded "You're getting the hang of this. The cloth can only pick up so much soot before it is unable to pick up anymore. We can only hold onto and process so much aura at a time. In addition to that aura residue is constantly decaying. Residue like this only lasts twenty-four hours before it decays completely. This means that any aura you collect will diminish over time. Also you can't use other peoples soul aura's, their aura is incompatible with your own, your body would reject it and try to tear itself apart from the inside out." Valkery said. Valkery knew that if one told someone not to do something they would often try it anyway. She hoped by framing it as an impossibility Tyto would not even consider it as an option. If there was one rule that Tyto took to heart she hoped it would be this one. Never use the life aura of another person. Breaking that rule had caused her so much pain and it never ended well. There was a reason her hair was white at such a young age.
 
Tyto winced at the idea of your very aura rejecting somone else's, rending your body apart from within. Didn't sound worth attempting to him.

"Alright, I think I've a solid grasp on the basics of the first law now. What would the next law be?"
 
  • Yay
Reactions: Madame Valkery
"The second law is called Magics End. This one is simple, basically all magic has an end, the duration of the effect is proportional to the cost. Think about the candle example. The candle will only burn for as long as the wax lasts. Most of the effects of aura magic only last a couple of seconds. It would take way too much aura to make a long lasting effect for it to be practical. Other magic however can create effects that last hours, days or even years. They will, however, ultimately, end. Even the portal stones will stop function some day." Valkery said finishing off her tea and setting the cup down on the table.
 
This one was even easier for Tyto, everything has its end, would make sense to him that magic would follow suit.

"So I won't be able to make myself permanently buff, eh? Darn."

He supposed there was a silver lining to it too. If he was ever cursed or something the effects wouldn't be permanent. He looked over at where he saw Valkery's burns before. Well, not permanent unless he was scarred. Or killed.

"So if there's a limit to how long magic can last, and there's a limit on power based on how much you put into the spell, I'm gonna hazzard a guess that the next one is about how you can't bring somone back to life?"
 
"I have more effective ways of making you buff, if that is your goal," Vlakery chuckled. She leaned back in her chair and stared out the window with tired eyes. She sighed, her chest feeling tight again. She had almost fully healed from her broken ribs but her body was sill adjusting. Forty wasn't that old for a half elf, she looked down at her scared hand. It was getting harder and harder to recover after injuries like this.

Valkery started as she realized Tyto was talking again, he said something about the third law being about immortality.

"That is the fourth law. The third law is called The Sanctity of Time. It is relatively simple, time can neither be reversed nor speed up. The fourth law is called the Thread of Mortality. One cannot revive the dead. Or conversely the cost of a life is another life, and this is often unpredictable as to who's life the universe chooses. If you try to revive someone some one else will die. The fifth law is called The Trouble with Distance. Basically it is impossible to teleport without a portal stone. These last three laws are relatively simple, It is the first two laws that will be the most important in your practice of magic."
 
Well that made things easier. If he only had to really worry about 2 laws, Tyto would have more freedom to work with the applications of the magic he wanted to learn. He was going to ask about the process of sensing and gathering aura residue when he saw Valkery's state.

"Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but you look pretty tired. Are you OK?" He noticed she wasn't 100% before, but she didn't seem to bounce back like he had. He had always been fast to recover, but having gotten that aura treatment after their scrap he felt better much faster than usual.

"Should we wait a day before we visit the Reavers hideout?"
 
  • Yay
Reactions: Madame Valkery
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back