An idea occurs to you, and you have
Tavros find you a book about Essence, detailing as much as possible. It is simply labelled
The Guide to Essence. Within it you find details on methods of storing Essence, methods of manipulating it directly and performing Active Shaping, spells that benefit from using Essence over Energy, the uses of Essence in alchemy - an art referred to as Living Alchemy - and most importantly, exercises to help one increase their Essence capacity. Your Essence capacity will, of course, increase gradually and subconsciously over time as you gain a greater proficiency in Shaping and manipulating Essence, but actively growing your Essence capacity will yield rewards greater than anything else you can imagine working on. Practicing Shaping on your own time can only aid you so much considering that what you will be able to practice, you will also be taught in due course anyhow - a greater Essence capacity, however, will be a huge advantage even when you are a full Shaper. You decide to start working on that, but not now - you must stay in the library for the time being.
In the meantime, you read a book
Tavros found you titled
Detailed Shaping - the Art of Creating Small Structures and Substances. It is about Shaping very fine, complex Essence patterns, the kind required for very physically sophisticated Creations, or those meant to have poison glands, magic organs or any variety of complex structures. It is more about development than following an already existing design - Instinctive Shaping is adequate to handle all the fine details when you are using an already viable design, with the anatomy already memorized. Occasionally your subconscious will screw up and cause a minor mutation or two, but even that is rare. No, this guide is meant to aid in developing Creations that incorporate such complex features as poison glands, or magical abilities, or any number of things. Muscle, joints, bones, blood vessels, those things are relatively simple. But a Creation is not going to be very useful for much at all if it has only those relatively mundane component. And, of course, there is the infinite complexity of the brain - this book contains a few of the standard brain designs used by Shapers. For now, you read up on poison-related Shaping - there’s nothing on the possibility of simply Shaping up poison alone, but maybe it would be possible to make a Creation that would Essentially be one big, living poison gland? That has some interesting possibilities, and you don’t think it would be too difficult - Zackary did say, after all, that most of the issues in Creation design lie in sorting out the mental issues, and such a being would barely need to have a mind at all..
You check out both books when
Zackary leads you out of the library - it’s rather odd how many books you’re being allowed to check out. None of your classmates have checked out more than one book each - and they are hesitant to do even that. Even though the Shapers require literacy of their citizens, books are still rare and precious - although there is at least one library in almost any settlement of decent size, books are never allowed outside a given libraries’ walls, and it is rare for even large cities to have more than two libraries. You have no compunctions taking advantage of the Shapers’ generosity with books among their own kind, though - and you suppose it makes sense that books are nothing special to a Shaper.
Zackary leads you all to another new building, another hall - halls seem to be all the Shapers care to build - but within this hall lie patches of fenced in dirt, and on these patches batons and living tools breed, and thorn bushes grow. There are three patches total, one dedicated to living tools, one dedicated to batons, and one really large patch dedicated to thorn bushes. A lone Shaper oversees the patches, with the assistance of a few Serviles. You think he’s one of the Shapers you saw dissecting that Creation a few days earlier. He patrols the plots taking notes on the breeding and growing, occasionally directing the Serviles in feeding the Creatures or watering the bushes. Zackary brings your group around to take a look at each plot one by one, then assembles you all near the door. You take note that he’s back to being as unfriendly as when your class first met him - he seemed more relaxed when you were observing the Skitches. It seems he is disgruntled whenever away from his experiments. He commences a lecture.
“This hall is our tool breeding facility - something no true Shaper settlement or facility lacks. Here we grow living tool, batons, and baton thorns. No doubt Akar has already set you to practicing with batons - you already know what they are. Living tools, however, I do not believe you have yet encountered. Just as the batons are our powers applied to the problem of giving our soldiers ranged weaponry, living tools are our powers applied to the problem of equipping ourselves and our mechanics to manipulate, alter, maintain and repair our delicate works of machinery without undue hassle. Living tools are far more useful than normal tools - it is possible to manipulate and control living tools with a precision far beyond anything possible with normal tools, and living tools also allow one to reach deeper into a machine to maintain or repair it without needing to partially dismantle it. Today you shall practice using living tools - specifically, manipulating them to open mundane padlocks.”Zackary leads you all back to the mess hall, and gives one living tool and one padlock to each student. Controlling a living tool is far harder than you expected, much, much more difficult than controlling a Flynd or a Skitch. With the Flynd, there was only room in its head for basic motor functions and subconscious operations like breathing - its will was essentially nonexistent. The Skitch was far more difficult to control - it had a will of its own, and you constantly had to battle that will to force it to do what you wanted rather than go off and start tunneling, or whatever Skitches want to do. The living tool, however, doesn’t really have a mind at all - which is its own difficulty. You have to manually control it - instead of simply informing it of what you want it to do and then forcing it to do it, like with the Skitch, you have to actually manually control its muscles. It is extremely difficult, and this also means that you need a good understanding of what you’re actually trying to do to actually do it - you suppose that’s why living tools lack any sort of independent mind - it’s useless to give a Creation orders it can’t understand, after all. A Skitch, for example, can understand instructions such as go there, attack that, watch this, but it wouldn’t even understand what a lock was - and a living tool, if it had a brain, would definitely be at a Flynd level of intelligence.
Luckily for you, you know the mechanics of mundane locks, and even though controlling the living tool is very difficult, to manage to raise the tumblers one by one and turn the lock bit by bit until it opens, just as
Zackary begins going around to collect the locks and tools. You see that no one else managed to do much, as no one else knew how locks work -
Zackary is a bit of an ass when it comes to actually giving instructions.. You suppose someone ignorant of a lock’s mechanisms could have theoretically figured those mechanisms out by using the feedback of the living tool, but it doesn’t seem anyone managed that - it seems most just gave up on the lock and simply practiced manipulating the living tools to do vary motions and gestures with their three appendages. One unfortunate boy managed to kill his living tool by essentially having it thrash wildly within the lock - which you learn when
Zackary berates him incredulously, furiously and loudly. Oh - it was
Oswild. Huh. You suppose it wasn’t a completely horrible idea, but it shows
Oswild’s predisposition towards solving problems with brute force.. He’s definitely going to become a Guardian.
Zackary is once again surprised by you when he finds your padlock unlocked - he takes your tool and padlock without comment, but you can feel his interest in you rising - this is the second time in a row you’ve managed something the rest of the class couldn’t, after all. The first time it was effort, and the second time luck, but in any case you are glad to stand out in such a positive fashion - the Shapers treat talent well.
Time has passed faster than you supposed -
Zackary has a Servile lead you back to the dorms. Your classmates soon settle into sleep, but you wait, and after all your peers are slumbering, sneak out and make your way to the Shaping hall, taking
The Guide to Essence with you. Your unofficial study group agreed to suspend your late-night practice for a week or two following Ralph’s death, but you have less compunctions about going out alone - you have no doubt
Akar is aware of your excursion, but let him be aware - he let you make it to the Shaping hall, and even if he confronted you, you doubt he would do more than, at most, forbid you from going out at night again. Anyhow.
Once in the hall and by the Essence pool, you sit down on one of the mats next to it and crack open The Guide to Essence, flipping to the chapter about Essence capacity, specifically the exercises to actively increase it. You already have an inkling of what is necessary to increase one’s Essence capacity, seeing as you were tutored in the subject for two years preceding your arrival at Ithlum, but the exercises you went through during that period are, according to this tome, not safe without expert supervision - when going at it alone, you must take things much more slowly, and your gains will be more gradually as well, but if you do it every night, or even every two or three nights, for six years? Your Essence capacity will be all the greater for it. So you begin.
To increase one’s Essence capacity, one must simply hold within themselves more Essence than their capacity currently allows for. This is not, however, so simple, easy or safe as it might sound. Essence, as you already know, is an extremely dangerous substance - if you take some within yourself but fail to control and contain it properly, it will destroy you from the inside out. Thus, your Essence capacity refers not to how much Essence you can hold actively, but how much you can hold subconsciously, even when asleep. Thus, your Shaper tutor during that period would do such things as force relatively large quantities of Essence into your body, and the bodies of your fellow prospectives, keeping it from destroying you, so as to allow your bodies to adapt to the presence of Essence - obviously not the type of thing you can do alone. Instead, you will have to simply do such things as actively hold a disc or two more of Essence within yourself actively than you can subconsciously, for an hour or two each night. Through such persistence, your Essence reserves shall increase gradually, but safely and steadily. Thus, you begin, and hold two extra discs of Essence within yourself for an hour, before retiring to bed satisfied.
You are waken up in the morning, somewhat predictably, by
Akar’s shouting. Today, he runs you all in laps around the training ground until you’re all on the brink of collapse except for
Oswild, and even he is run ragged.
Marcus looks like he’s about to die, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you looked to be in a similar state. You’re going to be very glad when -
“Don’t get your hopes up that you won’t have to go through this when you all sign up to be Shapers, kids! Even Shapers have to be decently fit, so they can outrun rogues when their lab experiments go horribly wrong! This isn’t part of the Guardian training schedule - it’s part of every training schedule!”
Fuck.
Fortunately, that’s all he runs you through today - no near-decapitations at the claws of Vernexes for anyone today. After heckling you all through lap after lap for an hour or two, he lets you go to listen to
Craumpalin’s ramblings again.
Craumpalin is, thankfully enough, finally done with drilling the class on things you already know. Today he has you all memorize a few different formulas for the mixtures that Shapers use to fill their incubation vats - sometimes, when Shaping large, complex or costly Creations, if there is time to spare, Shapers sometimes Shape said Creations in an embryonic state and leave them in a vat to grow for a while before they’re to be put to use. It is a less costly alternative to drawing upon Essence during the act of Shaping to create a Creation beyond the average Shaper’s Essence capacity - such a process requires large crystals to store the required Essence, expensive, hard to get crystals. Thus, the far less expensive incubation vats.
After Alchemy, you all have lunch in the mess hall, and then you are sent to
Bridget. Today
Bridget explains the basics of warding - as you already know, all magic and even Shaping is based on the effects forming various patterns with Energy and Essence create. Warding is simply making use of the defensive effects one can provoke.
Bridget drills you through some basic warding designs, and has you all practice making a few - you have some small success, but you get the feeling spellcraft is definitely not your talent.
Katherine, however, is a natural at it - all her wards work beautifully at providing minor protection against whatever it is they are meant for - her dust ward flings away all dust near her, and so on. Then you are all sent to the library again. Unfortunately, up to this point you have not had the opportunity to put an idea you had into effect - you don't think any of your teachers would care about you having a few Flynds around, since even when you aren't controlling them they do nothing, but all of them would take issue with you Shaping in class, and no Shaping is allowed in the library.. At least, you think no Shaping is allowed in the library. Do you want to risk it?
What do you do?You:
Health - 11/11
Essence - 4/4
Energy - 8/8
XP - 4/10
Inventory - Prospective Robes, A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to the Shaping Arts, The Guide to Essence, Detailed Shaping - the Art of Creating Small Structures and Substances
Status - Normal
Spells:
Absorb Essence - Variable Energy Cost - Replenish your Essence reserves from a nearby source of Essence
Hold Essence - 0 Energy - Your special training allows you to hold a certain amount of Essence reflexively without it destroying you from the inside out
Boost Essence - Variable Energy Cost- If you focus and have a source of Essence nearby, you can increase you can multiply your Essence reserves by 1.5, but if you lose focus or fall unconscious, the surfeit of Essence will destroy you.
Manipulate Flame - 2 Energy - Manipulate nearby flames to a small degree, or create your own tiny source of flame.
Flare - 6 Energy - Cast a tiny bolt of flame at something. Very low fire damage.
Energy Meditation - 0 Energy - If you meditate and focus on cycling Energy through yourself while doing so, you can gradually increase your Energy reserves. Not as fast as they'll grow naturally through the use of magic, but with this there is no chance of a spell backfiring, and it's something to do when you find yourself without anything else to do.
Control Creation - Variable Essence Cost - By focusing and willing your Creations to do things, you can command them without words, and compel their complete obedience. Unnecessary when a Creation can understand verbal commands, but useful to ensure obedience. If you lose control and are distracted by something, however, the Creation may slip from your control and do as it pleases, possibly even attacking you. You can safely control one small, animalistic Creation at the moment.
Shape - Variable Essence Cost - Shape a Creation who's anatomy you have memorized.
Minuscule Warding - 4 Energy - You have learned how to create extremely minor wards, such as dust wards or insect wards.
Creation Types Known:
Flynd - A palm-sized, furry humanoid, worthless except for practice. Costs 1 disc.
Skitch - A small, burrowing Creation best described as like an insectoid snake, useful for espionage or scouting. Costs 3 discs.
Notable Figures:
Marcus - The only person you could possibly call a friend, if that, Marcus possesses a great amount of herbal and alchemical knowledge, due to his parentage. You have also discovered that his mother seemed to prepare him to become a Shaper, and thus he has some basic knowledge of Shaper schools that might prove useful. Attends your late-night Shaping study group.
Guardian Akar - A fearsome Guardian and your new caretaker, as well as the head of security for Ithlum College.
Sage Bridget - A business-like, non-nonsense mage, and your new teacher in magic.
Shaper Rawal - The Shaper in charge of Ithlum College.
Shaper Genna - Shaper Rawal's timid assistant.
Master Craumpalin - An aging, crotchety alchemist, and your classes alchemy teacher.
Mind Tavros - The Servant Mind who directs the Serviles in charge of maintaining the library.
Shaper Zackary - A harsh, young Shaper, who doesn't seem to want to teach you, and always seems to be hunched over and in pain. Your instructor in Shaping.
Oswild - A soon-to-be Guardian you've pegged as good grunt material. Attends your late-night Shaping study group.
Katherine - An aggressive, brusque girl particularly interested in magic and spells. Attends your late-night Shaping study group.
Arianna - A withdrawn, quiet girl, always observing, and always precise and measured in her actions. Attends your late-night Shaping study group.
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Topic: You are a Shaper! (Read 10253 times)