A Jaded Life

Sitting within my newly created shelter, I considered if there were ways to make things more comfortable. After meditating to regenerate the Astral Power I had used to create the shelter, there were no pressing tasks at hand. Here, without knowing who might be nearby, I didn’t want to start any serious experimentation, putting me at a loss of what to do. Exploration would be a possibility but I had a feeling that I’d have visitors sooner rather than later, visitors I wanted to receive on my turf, so to speak. Sadly, as things were, my house was nothing but a shell of bare stone with a bit of glass in the windows and a few added touches that mimicked porcelain. There was nothing warm or homely, making the entire thing give off a fairly uncomfortable aura.

No, if I wanted to truly impress these people, I needed to demonstrate just how versatile magic was and what better way to drive that point home than to show off the ability to create a home from nothing but some bare rocks?

At first, I decided to use a bit of blank stone to start experimenting, just using a bit of Earth Magic to accomplish my will but I quickly realised that what I was trying was far beyond simple Earth Magic and opened myself up further, letting more Astral Power flow out of my in an attempt to accomplish what I had set out to do. For once, I didn’t focus on the process, I didn’t even try to consider what Elements or Runes might be needed to fulfil my tasks, I simply let the magic flow and focused on the outcome, in this case, I focused on the appearance I wanted the stone to take.

As the stone started to shift and morph, I realised that I was channelling far more than just Earth Magic, or even the combination of Earth and Crystal Magic I had used multiple times before. Instead, there was also Lightning, Fire and even Ice Magic in the mix, all moving to fulfil my desire. It wasn’t efficient, far from it, nor did the magic behave as it normally did, making me briefly wonder if I was moving on a different part of the Arcane Path than I normally did. At the same time, I realised that I was already changing my previous decision to start no serious experimentation because what I was doing now, was most certainly that. Not only did it take a large amount of magical power, it was also something completely new.

But, despite my inexperience with this strange way of using magic, I had enough power to carry through thanks to the Titanic Ambition and Dragon-Touched Traits. It took a bit of time and a lot of power but soon, the process I had only vaguely imagined was completed, leaving me with a curiously changed rock.

It had started out as an ordinary, round rock from the river, maybe half the size of my fist, washed smooth by water and sand and of a light grey colour, likely lightened by the sun. Now, after my magic was done with it, the rock was stretched out a little, turning it from a roughly egg-shaped object into one that looked almost like a saucer but that could have been done with nothing but Earth Magic. More important was that the surface looked as if it was covered with wallpaper, lightly textured and just a little off-white. It also had a strange warmth to it, making me wonder if I had accidentally changed the thermal properties of the stone, so it would reflect more of my hand’s warmth back instead of transporting it away.

Fascinated by the change, I started to gently poke and prod the stone, noticing that the internal composition had greatly changed, to the point that I barely recognised the result as stone. It was something I’d have to study for days, maybe even weeks, until I had even the vaguest idea of what I had wrought here, or why it had taken almost as much Astral Power as the construction of my house had taken.

But this was not something I’d be able to do with the entire house, especially if I tried to use the same method as Titanic Ambition wouldn’t kick in a second time, leaving me without options. Instead, I decided to use a much simpler method, though one with far worse results, and began to construct some furniture from stone, before adding pillows of spongy snow to them. This was a lot less comfortable, especially for people who lacked my affinity for Ice Magic, and wouldn’t nearly last as long as the earthen alternative but it was something I knew how to do which was more important at the moment.

Soon, I had a fully furnished house and while the furniture looked a little weird, it was of decently comfortable and would easily last until I decided to move on. The cushions wouldn’t last much longer than that, I’d even have to maintain them with my Astral Power, but it was a minor expenditure that I was ready to accept.

My musings were, once again, interrupted when the alert-ward I had placed over the path to my house was triggered, informing me that somebody was approaching. It took me a moment to consider how I wanted to act before I stood and went to open the door, revealing a fairly young woman, maybe a year or two younger than I was, looking just a little confused.

“Greetings,” I greeted the young woman, breaking the moment of confusion caused by opening the door before she had a chance to knock, “What brings you to my door?”

“Er, hi,” she returned, the confusion on her face remaining strong. A glance at her hands and clothes revealed some streaked dirt, and a bit of grime while her hair looked fairly messy, speaking of the needed labour to make a community work. Out of curiosity, I used a tightly focused and completely concealed Observe, learning that the young woman was only level four, showing just how protected she had been since the Change.

“I, How did you do this?” she stuttered for a moment, before blurting out her question, hands gesticulating at the house I was standing in.

“This, you ask?” I waved a hand, almost mirroring her gesticulating, only that I used a bit of magic to conjure some snow and let it flutter around in the wind I also conjured. “Or maybe this?” I waved my hand again, this time channelling a bit of Earth Magic, making the earth tremor right beneath her feet, making her stumble just a little. “Or is it this you seek?” I asked a third time, again waving my hand but this time, we were briefly shrouded in Darkness, with some tiny sparks of flame glowing around us, giving the impression that the darkness was stretching far further than it actually did.

“What is it you seek, I ask again?” I pushed, noticing the wide-eyed look on her face and savouring it just a little. Maybe there was a really good reason why the Grandmother, back when she had greeted us that first time, used a Yoda impression, completely confusing me at the time. It was quite amusing, though now I wondered just how on Mundus the Grandmother had known about Star Wars.

“How do you do this?” she blurted out, her voice demanding but moments later, her hand covered her mouth as if she couldn’t believe that she was demanding answers from me.

“Well, I could answer ‘Magic’ and be completely truthful. Not useful to you, but truthful. Sadly, it is also the answer easiest to understand, as a better and more complete answer would take a lot of time and probably go over your head,” I replied, wondering just what she had in mind.

“I’m not stupid,” she quietly grumbled, before continuing in a normal voice, “Is it something you can teach?”

“Some of it, yes. This doesn’t mean you have the ability to learn, at least not necessarily in a short amount of time. As you might expect, Magic is an expansive field of study,” I explained, considering what to teach this young woman. That I would teach her was a given, if only to make sure that there were arcane spellcasters as a counterpoint to the divine spellcasters, lessening the divine hold on the supernatural.

“Will you teach me?” she immediately asked, making me wonder just why she was so desperate to learn magic, or maybe she was simply seeking power and wasn’t interested in the martial path. Either way, she might be a suitable first student in this village. Hopefully, there’d be more, I wasn’t certain that a student this impetuous would be a good thing overall. But first, I needed to figure out what she could be taught easily, and where her affinities lay.

“We shall see. Enter, and we can discuss your interest in detail,” I offered, stepping back from the door.