Doves of Peace (Spell Creation, Private, Dar Havark)

[Shei'yein Neydremi]

Winter of Era X in the Age of the Darkening
Solaria, Kalendryas 25th
0400 Hours

Deep within the heart of the earth, surrounded by layers and layers of hostile earth, in what could have been the ancestral home of some dwarf, there sat a figure. He was surrounded by candles, offering some small and meager protection against the night the seemed to envelop his lithe form from every side. Several caverns away, the picks of goblins rang true through the underground fortress, for the construction of Dar Havark – the real construction that happened in the grottos of the earth – had never ceased. Above ground, however, the tower had long been completed. To the people of Acumin, it was nothing more than an ominous, mysterious thing. Who could have suspected the darkness that brooded underneath the stone pillars?

Perhaps many people did, or soon would, but to that, the figure that sat, ever so quietly, was oblivious. The candles flickered, revealed a bared chest, and legs clad in white silk. There was a sheen on his skin, and there had been no attempt to wash away the sweat of light exercise. It was of the martial sort – a massive broadsword laid on the ground next to the figure, both a testament to his cavalier nature and a contrast to his thin form. Again, the candles flickered, stirred simply by the movements of dead air through the caverns. Elven ears, dimly lighted, peered out from behind flowing brown locks of hair. The elf smiled, sitting quietly in a lotus position, staring into the flame of a candle. The flickering flame reflected itself in the warm and murky pools of elven eyes, and the elf simply continued to stare.

He knew had made many utilitarian spells in the past. In his collection of tools, he had many scalpels. But sometimes, one simply needed an axe. And an axe, though its strength could be controlled, was made to kill. It was meant to send something into a ‘final peace’.

Entering Clara smoothly as he stared at the candle, the elf’s consciousness internally strove towards a state of Focus, beginning the manipulation of mental and environmental energies that he would harness to power his spell. He stared out at the vast metaphysical universe that his eyes were opened to, and it stared back at him. The strands of Ara waited – urging him to pull them, to weave them into something meaningful. Shei’yein would indulge them. Reaching out with his mind, he began to weave the Ara together, manipulating and trapping them into shapes. These shapes would soon become substantiated during mana shaping. Nonetheless, unless they were imbued with power quickly, the forms of Ara would soon fade back into their natural fabric.

Knowing this, the elf proceeded to Channel his own personal Vis, as well as the surrounding psionic essence latent within the cave, into the doves, creating mana. With alteration, the formless blobs manifested themselves into usable mediums. They were shapes of dozens and dozens of doves – haphazardly made, without truly defined form, but doves nonetheless. Each dove was tied, ever so slightly, with a final strand that led back to the base of the elf’s mind. Utilizing the facilitating powers of divination, the elf then empowered each of these strands to relay his will – a way for him to control the actions of the arcane doves. Finally, he gifted the doves themselves, changing the nature of their being with the power of alteration – contact with them would reroute the neural networks of the contacted, siphoning neural energy, the very stuff of life, and transfer it, though the strands, to Shei’yein. It was never necessary for conjuration to be used, for the birds were not needed on the material plane. They interacted with the minds of individuals, and to materialize them would only make them vulnerable to attack.

It was necessary, however, to test out the latency of the spell. A single ratta stood before the meditating elf, having been under orders from the beginning of the experiment. It was a worker from the crews of the dracolord, and had easily been obtained by Shei’yein for a small test.

Attack… the elf willed to the flock of doves, eyes narrowing at the ratta.

[Lichen]

OOC: Sorry for the super late reply. Can you send me links of your master mysticism training thread?

IC: Shei'yein's energy grew, as the ara began to feed off of the strength he gave it, letting itself be molded into the shapes he desired. The elf was able to see his spell take shape as out of thin air and ara he brought into being a flock of doves. It did not matter that it was underground, it did not matter that it was night and that the aerial creatures were purely diurnal... Shei'yein was a mystic, not a druid. All he cared about was the shaping of power, not the irony as he created doves of thin air to flap their feeble ara-enchanted wings in the candle-lit underground room. And he did his job well... the doves were barely distinguishable from their living counterparts by the time that Shei'yein had finished. Their feathers were soft and white, their cries low and unworried... they were doves, in every sense of the word.

Shei'yein took his new creations, their beautiful white wings a symbol of peace to many cultures, and used them for war. Clamping down on his creations, he forced them to soar through the air, diving towards the helpless and rather awed ratta. As the ratta saw the doves dive towards him, he began to back up, but he was not fast enough... the doves hit the ratta, their sharp beaks piercing his flesh and going directly through it, followed by their heads, their necks, their bodies and wings, and then lastly their tail as the doves, one and all, dove through their target in a fashion that proved they were as illusionary and artifical as all constructs of a mystic. For that was the curse of a mystic... they could change brain waves, they could alter behavior, and they could change the way things seemed... but they could not bring life into being.

[Shei'yein Neydremi]

Shei’yein frowned, the crease of his lips drawing a ledged mark across his face. The spell had failed, somehow. Yet, his goal had been within his realm of power, the combinations and refinements of several existing spells. He would recast the spell, but after a reconstruction of the spell components. Going through the states of pre-casting once more – Clara, the state of simultaneous peace and concentration, and then Focus and Channel, the gathering and infusion of power – the elf began to shape his spell with renewed definition. The doves, as before, were mere constructs. In many ways, they were similar to the dove forms he made for himself while in an astral state. They were illusionary, mere representations of a medium upon which psionic energy could be transferred. They could very well have been arrows, or giant spheres. Either could have served the purpose equally.

Unlike an Astral Transcendence, however, each dove was only connected to the elf’s will enough to rely his instructions. It was a method by which remote control could be established. The spell was constructed in much the same way, yet this time, the elf instructed the spell matrixes that the doves represented to specifically absorb the strength of brain waves – neural energy, but more targeted. If the target’s brain waves could cease to function, its body would naturally stop working, resulting in quick and effective death.

Again, the elf instructed the dove-constructs to follow his will, attacking the ratta.

[Lichen]

As he took the time to form each wing, this time he took into mind that these were astral projections of his own psionic powers, not birds nor intelligent in their own right. It was this recognition that led to the success of his spell... and the agonized wailing of the ratta as a flock of psionically-imbued doves slammed into it's body. Eyes bulging, it squeaked in pain and then suddenly was silent again as the spell imbued in the doves began to feed off of the ratta's own vis. Death was not instantaneous, but the ratta's silence and sudden submission was. Where the initial pain had been great enuogh -judging by the quality of the scream- to reduce the ratta to it's knees in tearful agony, it now stood there instead, slack jawed and unable to move as it's vis was drained. A silent and very efficient death force... the energy absorbed from the ratta would power the doves and give them the strength to go onto the next target, should there be one.

[Shei'yein Neydremi]

The spell had worked, and although the doves held onto their power, it seemed logical that in the same manner that they took it, they could grant it. He had no use for the neural energy at the moment, nor would the doves, for they¡¦d soon be dispelled. Instead, the elf instructed the doves silently, ordering them to channel the energy back into the ratta. The worker was no enemy, and though use of the spell in the material realm had been necessary to test it, Shei¡¦yein sought to do as little harm as he could while he worked. If it was necessary, he would tap into the latent mana in their surroundings ¡V the power that had not yet been expended in the casting of his spell ¡V to channel to the birds, replenishing the neural forces of the ratta.

¡§You have served well," the elf said softly, entering the state of focus once more. He watched the doves fly in circles in the cavern, anomalies of sparkling white. They were crude, yet beautiful. Again, he gathered arcane powers, drawing Ara from the surrounding fields of magic, infusing them with his own Vis and the psionic essence to create mana. Whatever the pain of having one¡¦s neural energies drained out were like, Shei¡¦yein did not want the ratta to remember it. Some things were best forgotten. With tendrils of magic, he worked the mana with his shapings, divining it into the mind of the ratta, and using alteration and evocation to do his best and burn away the memories of the past thirty minutes with the Memory Wipe spell.

[Lichen]

OOC: Sooooo sorry for the wait!!

The doves obeyed with the unquestioning way that only animations or slaves who'd been slaves for so long they had forgotten they'd ever been anything else ever have. They shimmered and began to fade as their energy was returned to the ratta. Little sparkling bits of white feathers began to fall from the air, falling towards the ground but disapearing before they managed to get there, like snow flakes melting before they hit the ground. The ratta, on the other hand, reanimated itself as the doves disintigrated. His eyes lost their dull edge and became glassy then wild as his regained energy reminded him of what had happened. However, Shei's spell took hold quickly enough that the ratta could only inhale before the reason for his scream was suddenly forgotten and he deflated with a confused wheeze. Looking around in sudden confusion, he focused his glassy, non-comprehensive stare on the mage, wondering what was going on.

[Shei'yein Neydremi]

“You should not be here. Go now,” the elf said softly, still in meditation. With a dismissive wave of the hand, the elf motioned for the ratta to leave, satisfied that the memory wipe had been completed successfully. He was doubly satisfied, then, that the creation of the Final Sending spell had been successful – now, he had a hammer, a bludgeoning tool. Yet, like all his spells, it worked on two levels. Were his mind ever so depleted, so drained, he, too, would be able to steal the neural energies of an adversary and add it to his own. His work this brightening was nearly done, and though he had not ventured into the outside world for quite some time, he would have to break from his studies and attune himself, once more, to the activities of the empire. There was much he had missed during his periods of self-reflection. Still, one final spell was needed – a simple thing, similar to a cheap parlor trick done by initiates, though it had one important different.

The spell was meant to mark things with the magical sigil of the caster – a mark of identification, much like a dog does by urinating on his land, though nothing quite so tasteless. Sigils, however, were useless unless they could be traced, and so, the elf intended for his sigils to be both invisible to outside detection, and to have a link back to his own mind, so he could locate the wearer of the sigil. It was likely that it could be done with two shapings, making it an apprentice level spell, though his status as a master would likely enhance the range of the spell greatly. Perhaps he would try and modulate the strength of the spell with a third shaping, for the spell would truly be useful if he could sense a sigil from across the empire.

As he was already in the state of clarity, the elf proceeded to focus his thoughts, drawing together the ara strands in the cave and processing them with his personal vis and the surrounding psionic essence. With the usable mana he had created, he picked a rock – any rock, it did not matter – and evoked the energy, blasting away at the energy matrix of the rock. On the metaphysical plane, not the physical one, he carved his sigil brutally: two lines intersecting in an ‘X’, a cross below, and a reversed ‘V’. Then, with divination, he drew a long, reinforced strand of mana from the sigil to his mind, conditioning the strand to relay information about the object’s state – though psychological information would be useless on an inanimate object, it would also attempt to relay information on the object’s location. Reusing the divination shaping, he laid a deception on the sigil spell – the often used clause, “this is not a spell, and neither is this layer itself a spell”. It would be important, if the sigil was laid on a mage, that they be unable to become aware of, and thus, dispel it. Finally, to strengthen the strand, he placed filters of abjuration, modulating the flow of energy and reinforcing each burst of information so it would not be lost. Picking up the rock, he threw it as far as he could into the caverns – it would not allow him to test its ultimate range, but perhaps from the strength latent in the connection, he could estimate how many imperial miles it could last. Closing his eyes and lying back on his haunches, the elf wondered how successful his new spell, Stigmata.

OOC: Don't worry about it, I havn't posted that much lately, either. Your cough get better?

[Lichen]

OOC: Aye, my lungs are staying firmly in place in my chest now

IC: Picking up a large pebble, Shei began to cast his new spell. The magical signature seemed visible to Shei, though that quickly disapeared as he began to lay layers of illusion and disguise over top of it. Perhaps it was ironic, that minds were so easily confused and warped by mere words reinforced with magic... then again, the mind was so weak unless trained properly. And Shei's was quite well trained... as he cast his spell, he infused it with his will, forcing the onlooker to submit to his spell.

This wasn't so much of a signature or sigil, for if it was such it would be used to signal to the owner who had created it. No, this was used to spy on the owner without alerting them, which was certainly different. It was subversive and self-serving... perhaps a very good description of the art of Mysticism itself.

As Shei finished his spell, the magical signature wavered and disapeared until all that his eyes and his mind saw was a plain pebble. If he concentrated, he could feel the connection between him and the spell, but otherwise detection was beyond him. Perhaps it would be good to test this on another mage, to make certain it was not merely him who was affected. It would also do well, as it would test whether or not the spell was more than just invisible... having it in the hands of another person would allow Shei to test and see if the spell itself was working or not, as well as distance of effectiveness.