083 – Rox Learns Magic, Caspian Learns History, Steven Learns Jewelry

Master Iver thought a moment. “You are hand fighting trained?”

Rox nodded. “Yes.” She held her thoughts in check, waiting.

“Come with me.” The elf led her out of his work room.

He led Rox to a nearby building, a gymnasium, and to one of the large rooms.

As they walked, he quizzed her. “Have you tried to couple magic with your physical moves?”

“No,” Rox answered, and then changed her mind as she thought. “Yes. While learning with the Sorceress, I would instinctively move to a still, focused mindset, as I have tried to do with you. I haven’t tried to throw any magical punches. She did try to teach me to create a magical rope and maintain it as I climbed it. I could not split my focus sufficiently to maintain the rope and climb it. Caspian has taught me some, but more practical than formal.”

Master Iver acknowledged this. “Some of our magic users initially have to discipline their minds before they are still enough to do magic. Then, as you are showing, they tend to do magic by finesse, rather than form; so ‘still and focus’.”

Rox stood to her ready stance, and focused.

The elf backed out of her line of sight. “Now, orient to the flow in the room.”

Rox opened her magic sense and then turned to her right, and stopped. She faced into the flow. Brief thoughts of feng shui went past, and then she returned to now. She felt and let the energy flow around her.

“Collect some energy,” she was instructed.

Rox again had several thoughts run through her, and let all of the cartoons slip away, and just let the energy flow into her, not just around her; to fill her, not just go past her.

She sensed the elf as an eddy behind to her left. “Find something in this room. Remembering all that I did, all the components, make that thing float without making a mess.”

Rox looked around and pointed at a rack of bo-staves. She grounded herself against surges; she pictured what she wanted to do, have a swirl of energy lift the rack up the wall, top flow balancing bottom flow; the energy nearby holding things down and as it went over the rack to hold the rack together; and the control mechanism in her hand. 

“Float.” Rox put it in motion. Energy flowed from her out through her arm and hand over to the rack of staves, and around it. Rox lifted her hand and the rack lifted.

She thought about it moving toward her, but nothing happened. She set it back down, and let the energy dissipate to ambient.

Rox turned to her instructor. “What about movement in the other directions?”

He challenged her. “What do you suppose?”

Rox thought about this. “Two ways. One: tilt the column, and balance the setup in the desired direction and so forth. Two: a second column in the direction of travel. Maybe put the second on a swivel to control direction.”

He confirmed these. “Also, a third column for the third axis. As well add spin around each, and you can move things anywhere. Or, you could just use your hands”

They spent what felt like a few hours moving things around the gym. In the end, Master Iver challenged Rox to put everything back where it was. This one Rox knew, thanks to lessons from The Sorceress: the intelligence or spirit that maintained the physical form of the object also knew its proper place in the order of the world, both in space and in use. She put into the guiding matrix of the spell a node for each object to return to its home spot at a reasonable speed and without these things doing damage to each other. This resulted at first in the confused jumbling about of objects, as smaller objects moved toward larger objects, as the larger objects bumped about moving to their own spots around the room. Slowly the larger objects settled to their spots and the smaller objects settled into their spots within the larger objects.

They returned to Master Iver’s shop. Master Iver had been considering and thinking the whole way. Once in his shop, he sat down and began lecturing Rox. He prefaced by saying that much of what he had to say was already within her head, but she had not yet had the experience to order it properly. Then he started in.

“Magic is an imperfect art. Approach it wrong, and it will destroy you. The approach you are using is very dangerous. I set up and start running spells that can pickup the excess tension, one way or another, for the result that I want. That way I minimize the risk. You went straight for the result. It obviously works, but if your idea is not completely clear, you will get unexpected and dangerous side effects.” He scolded, as he instructed Rox.

“Such as lifting all the stuff, instead of the disk,” Rox contributed sheepishly.

“Precisely. Simple magic is generally safe enough to do this way. But for more complex magic, the power levels alone dictate a need for extra safety. Means to harness and bleed off excess energy.”

“So that it does not turn back and bite me.” Rox turned and pointed at a jug across the room. “Pow.”

A bolt of magic reached from her to the jug and popped it like a balloon, spilling a powder all over the floor. He gave her a scolding look for the mess. She sheepishly accepted his unspoken chastisement.

“Evidently that is your mode of choice. So we will proceed in that direction of training. Be careful that you have the end result clearly in mind; to focus the mind and clearly dictate the desired outcome. That is why most practitioners of magic use several languages, images, and bits of stuff in casting spells. As they get more practiced, they begin leaving bits out, because the end result is already clearly known.”

He looked at the shattered jug of powder. “Now, put it back how it was.”

Roxanne was off learning and practicing magic, and Steven was on his second day out of the city. So Caspian had gone to the library and indulged in some historical investigation.

Now Caspian sat in the café across from the hotel, passing time after his own dinner reading about the Charman Empire consolidation. He had been generally instructed about this history as a boy, but being four centuries and half a continent away, it had little direct impact on the specific history he had been instructed on. Nydecia was one of six kingdoms that had been consolidated into The Empire. The Charman Empire itself had then lasted three generations of leaders, and held the center trade routes of the continent. Then it splintered into factions that were subsequently picked off by surrounding nations. The direct remnant still existed, by a different name.

The former kingdom of Nydecia was east of the center of the continent, and now part of a kingdom that stretched further east. The elves library had little current to say on the subject. The older records had been put into storage, and were out of easy reach for Caspian’s interests.

With the sun going down, the wait-staff had lit the few torches and candles. As he read from the book, the rocks nearby that Verigan had marked and tuned to Steven’s amulet vibrated. Caspian put his book down, and watched.

First the glyph glowed, and then the dust swirled and picked up to a man-sized whirl of energy. Steven materialized and stabilized as the whirl of energy dissipated. Steven was filthy, from dust and dirt. But he had two swords. His first in its scabbard, another tucked through his belt just above the first. His bedroll had something rolled in it, and his shoulder pack was full of stuff.

Caspian followed Steven to their hotel, and ran him a bath. The bag was emptied; the clothes and bag were sent to be laundered. The large scroll was set aside, the smaller one set by the sword. Caspian was curious about the scrolls, but Steven was not yet talking about them. They lastly unrolled the bedroll. Steven let Caspian take the pack of parchment. He then rinsed the bedroll. Once all the blankets were hanging to dry, Steven set to washing himself in earnest. As Steven bathed, Caspian rinsed and set out the jewelry. By then Roxanne had shown up, having spent the last while with Master Iver. Once Steven was dry and dressed, Rox and Steven went to dinner and Caspian went to a hotel lounge to keep reading.

The next morning Caspian went with the Caplan’s to the jeweler, and had all the stuff from the tomb appraised.

Some of it was purely ornamental. The gold mail was dismissed as old artisanship. It was small rings in a one-to-six interlink pattern, but each ring was actually two as the gold would be too soft to support its own weight, so a second set of rings of another metal backed the gold. The mail dress would be worth more melted and separated. Or they could have a jeweler remake the dress, if they would give him one of the tiaras in payment. Caspian showed a heretofore hidden knowledge base when he said that for the labor involved, and the metal, if they wanted to have the dress remade the price was good.

The Caplan’s both passed on the dress. It is just to be separated and the metal recycled.

The tiaras were of good quality; most likely master-jeweler work, especially with the abundance of small gems in silver and platinum alloys.

The earrings were mostly semi-precious stones, and little more than costume. Two sets were of master-cut diamonds, matching a respective necklace each.

The rings were like the earrings, being mostly costume, but three were of significant jewel value with two matching the earring/necklace sets, four were signets for wax-seals.

The six necklaces were the real prize, only one was costume, the rest were of assorted makes with various levels of precious stones through out.

Last to be sorted were the bracelets. Nine were jeweled ladies bracelets, four matching the growing sets of jewelry; another dozen were men’s bracelets, some chains, some bands, most of costume value, some of significant value. None of it was magic. But it was worth a bit cumulatively.

All the pieces were laid out and sorted on a chamois.

After they had all been laid out and sorted Roxanne claimed one of the diamond and platinum sets for herself. This set had a necklace with herring bone base chain with diamond encrusted filigree hung from it, with some thirty individual stones dangling within the filigree. A set of bracelets, earrings, and a diamond crusted ring matched. The ring would have to be sized to fit Rox’s finger, but the rest hung comfortably. The hooks for the earrings smoothly fit the piercing in her ears.

“I’m going to keep this set,” she declared.

Steven looked at his wife, wearing the recently recovered jewelry. It looked a bit out of place compared to her current dun colored costume. “What are you going to wear it with? Looks like for our world, it would require black, or white.”

Rox interrupted Steven. “Well I will have to get a new gown, then.”

“You don’t wear gowns. Or you didn’t at home.” Steven did not bother to argue further.

�
� n>����le='color:black'>Rox knelt, sensing under the disk. “I sense the column spiral out under the disk, and up around its edges. I think this is stabilizing it, keeping it level and still.”

She looked across the disk. “I sense some of the energy holding everything on the disk in place. Then it flows into a column that spirals up off the disk and dissipates out above head level. I am not sure what this is beyond venting the energy.”

Master Iver appeared pleased, and spoke. “Elementary physics; the energy needs a place to go. Also the upper column is pulling the disk up, to balance the pushing underneath. There are two more components you have not mentioned. One is around me, to push excess energy away past me, so that I do not get hurt by any surges. Another is within me, so I can control how high the push and pull of the columns are.”

Rox spoke as she reviewed her own immediately previous efforts. “I just wanted the disk to lift. Then was nervous as I felt I was trying to balance on a ball. It’s apparent I did not do so complex, or as safe a spell as you are.”

Master Iver lowered the disc, and the flow disbursed. For a moment Rox could sense the natural flow of energy through the room without effort. Then like a surge in a river, it was passed and the flow returned to its normal unnoticed level.