The Myth of Myrthe [Private]

[Aydyn Blair]

Permission granted from Crimson. Due to my PC being in two different cities this season, rather than continue to break up the staff creation into many different little threads, I'm doing the creation that takes place in both Demios and Jae in this one thread here. Continued from: Magic Wood Made Useful

The Season of Winter, PF XV

Demios, Month of Kalendryas

Aydyn's home was pushed up against the woods near Demios, right at the edge of town with a lovely view of trees and shadows. Or at least, she supposed that it would have been a lovely view of trees and shadows were in summer and the trees alive with their verdant leaves that whispered with each wind gust. It was, nonetheless, the perfect place for Aydyn to set up without fear of being interrupted by those just trampling around at all odd candlemarks of the darkening.

Once her daughter was laid down to sleep for the darkening, Aydyn bundled herself warmly and locked the doors of her homestead behind her. She did not leave Noah alone without hesitation. Her daughter was her love, her life. She cherished everything about the little girl, one of the few things Aydyn had these brightenings that warmed her with only the barest of thoughts. She left her alone because it was the one darkening that month during which she knew she would be able to accomplish what she needed to have done.

She strode through the naked trees not without some wariness, aware that spiders too large to mention did work their way throughout the island, and came upon the clearing that Aydyn had found during one of her meanderings. It was small, certainly, but upraised on a slanted hill and with the trees bare of leaves it provided ample opportunity for the moons to shine their light downward. She brushed aside some of the dead leaves and bracken that remained in the clearing, having done some of the work on previous brightenings she had come out.

Once the clearing was comfortably cleared, Aydyn picked up a heavy rock and began to create the pentagram that she required. She did so carefully, minding the lines and curves of the circle, the points of the star, as she set it into the earth. She supposed that some people drew their circles with charcoal and other materials on wooden floors. But this made her feel comfortable. And here she was not endangering the welfare of her daughter, should something go terribly wrong.

At the tip of each star point, Aydyn set down a candle and lit them with a flint and at each important point she marked their importance--the Astral Essences, the material elements, the magnetic directions. The moonlight bathed the whole of her construction in its light and she smiled a bit to herself, stepping forward and settling the staff in the heart of the pentacle, sealing both it and herself in with first a Circle of Magic that prevented herself from traveling outward from the pentacle and a second one to prevent things from meandering inward.

[Aydyn Blair]

Aydyn got herself situated, sitting cross-legged on the ground, the staff in the very center of the pentacle. With her hands clasped lightly in her lap, Aydyn began to strip away her senses and her thoughts as she meditated, drawing herself down into a deep, meditative trance. It was a much easier thing to do as an Adept despite the chill that nipped at her nose and stirred her cloak around her; little things like this would have, previously, drawn her out of her gradual relaxation.

She reached out towards the Nature essence of her sphere, brushing against it, focusing upon it. Always Aydyn had seen the different energies around her as faint, earthy wisps. Brown, green, the blue of the sky and water...they mingled through the world and caressed her senses. The essence itself seemed a strand of these, combined, rolled together, not muddied in the slightest, but a distinct palette of the earthy hues. She touched upon them with the familiar reverence of a person who enjoyed what she had chosen in her life, full-heartedly embracing it with the tender love of someone who wished to do no harm.

Gently, Aydyn found her comfort with the Essence, gaining a connection with it that she could not before recall having. Carefully, she began to draw on it, coaxing it from the Astral Plane and into the Material even as she opened her eyes to experience that moment of physical and arcanic awareness. It made her a little hazy, but she clung on to the sensation, rode through it, and watched in some amazement as the staff in the heart of the pentacle rose up from the ground and hung there, dipping a little before stabilizing.

[Aydyn Blair]

From what she had read, Aydyn had expected a bizarre show of lights and sound as the staff lifted upward and hung there, but there was just a faint whoosh of air, as if the breeze had stirred absent leaves and hung there now to suspend the wooden piece. Dirt and debris shifted upwards from the ground where it had been settled, but other than that, Aydyn saw nothing strange. Nothing alarming.

She sat back on her heels and continued the Rite, drawing on the different energies around her and shifting them together as she created the Mana. She Shaped it into Abjuration, passing it into the Staff, and Shaped the Mana still with Alteration, spreading the resulting spell throughout the staff. Lastly, Aydyn Shaped the Mana with Evocation within the wooden rod. She released the Shaped spells and watched, a shade tense, as the staff gave off a dull, green glow sparked a faint blue at the tips of the rod, and descended towards the ground, the debris settling and the hint of wind dying away.

She sat there for a moment, watching the staff as its shape altered a little more. It had done this at the end of the past two rites and now its tip curved slightly, a slight twist of the rod, nothing more or less than that. She reached out and clasped her scarred hands around the wooden staff, clung on to it, and dissipated the two Circles that she had cast around her.

Standing, Aydyn stepped outside of the pentacle and began the task of erasing the marks that she had traced into the dirt. She blew out the flickering wicks of the candles and plucked them up from the glad, depositing the waxy things inside of the small carry sack she had brought them in. Once she was certain the place was cleaned, clear of her Ritual, she clutched the staff gently against her and walked back towards her home and daughter.

[Aydyn Blair]

Outside of Jaedaxia, Month of Immanis

She had not felt comfortable conducting the rites inside of the city. Instead, Aydyn had spent some of her brightenings scouting out a half-decent location that might afford her some privacy outside of the city. It might have been a bit foolish to expose herself to the cold and open area of the city's outskirts--who knew what manner of people roamed there--but she felt more at ease with the idea of keeping her daughter safe from any mishaps. Besides, it felt more...natural...to be under the moon as she worked to create her staff.

That darkening, the night the moons were aligned in the month of Immanis, Aydyn came outside as bundled as she could possibly manage. The snow was a problem and Aydyn had spent much of the past candlemark clearing away the snow from the secluded area she'd chosen. Her hands were numb, frozen, by the time she was finished, and she was certain her nose was about to fall off even though she rubbed the red, aching thing with her wool-covered fingers now and again.

She had set the pentacle into the frozen ground, a task in itself with took more energy than she had supposed it should have, but it was hard and stubborn. She chipped away at it as best she could and almost felt near to tears by the time it was finally completed, the candles lit at each point and flickering in the light wind that stirred around her.

Once the pentacle was prepared, Aydyn set the staff in its heart and stood back, concentrating to create a Circle of Magic that prevented objects from traveling into the pentacle. She hesitated over a second Circle of Magic, having read that in this Rite of Invocation the staff was meant to come out of the Pentacle. Would it be able to do so if she cast the Circle to prevent things from leaving? Or did it defy even that?

In the end she opted not to take the risk of damaging herself with some magic gone bad and set the second Circle of Magic around the pentacle's curving circle.

[Aydyn Blair]

With the preparations made, Aydyn settled herself and gave herself over to Clara, stripping away the discomfort of the cold that had settled in her finger joints and the tips of her nose and ears. She let herself descend and once she had grasped Clara, she extended the energies she grasped over to the sliver of a staff that remained inert on the ground across from her. She caressed the magic over the wood, activating the staff as the text had instructed her to do.

She watched as it lifted from the hardened soil and her mouth tightened slightly, stifling her own interest and amazement as she watched it hang there, as if suspended from the slender, invisible strings of a puppet master. She knew next that she needed to say the name that she had chosen from her. It was something she'd been giving a good deal of thought, perhaps over thinking it almost. Nothing had sounded right to the Druidess as she rolled through possibilities. What, after all, did someone name a magic staff?

And the name had come to her.

"I name you Myrthe," she declared firmly, blue-gray eyes firmly holding the staff in view. It remained where it was. Two more times she needed to say its name. Twice more she announced the name, voice firm despite the ache of cold in her body. "I give you name of Myrthe. Your name is Myrthe." She wasn't certain if the words were entirely accurate. After all, the book had told her simply told her to affirm the name of Myrthe. Thrice she had done so. Did it need something more specific?

It did not seem to as she focused her mind towards calling the staff to her hands. Myrthe. Its name was Myrthe. She tickled her fingers absently, as if beckoning to it might hasten it to her fingers. It did not. It moved slowly until there it lay, cradled in her hands, her scarred palms upturned to touch the wounds against the wood.

Her fingers curled around the staff, the staff ceased its levitation and sat there comfortably, a familiar weight. The power thrumming from it had ceased and it remained wood, albeit a special sort. The shape of it had changed some already. Its slow twisting and shaping it had become slightly more distinct. There was a knob of wood at one end. It reminded Aydyn a bit of a strawberry in the way that it was shaped.

With the staff in hand, Aydyn cleared the area and went her way home. The Rite of Invocation was completed. Her staff had a name. There was only one more Rite to complete and it sent a slight shiver of anticipation down her spine as she made her way back towards the city.

[Aydyn Blair]

Outside of Jaedaxia, Month of Ponutis

The following month, Aydyn returned to the same spot. Winter still raged and the snow was again present--she started to wonder if it ever left this region. She dug out the spot almost precisely where she had the month prior and again spent her time scraping the pentacle into the hard, frozen ground. She grit her teeth, more determined than she'd been the month earlier. Perhaps it was because the Rites were almost concluded. She had only to finish this one and she would have a Staff in her hands. A staff that was completely and utterly hers and of far better quality than the ordinary staff she had Warped for herself months earlier.

She settled the two Circles of Magic around the pentacle again, preventing movement in and out, and once more resettled herself as the candles were lit (she had to relight the northern point several times as the wind snuffed it). Once she had that done and she had gotten comfortable, Aydyn worked on pushing away the external discomforts around her. She was cold and a bit numb. She cleared that thought and focused on what the excerpt had described as the 'projection of the metaphysical into the Astral Plane'. She had puzzled over that meaning at first, but reading forward in that snippet seemed to explain it well enough for her.

So she stripped away her senses and her thoughts and focused on visualizing the staff and herself. The object was to merge as one. Without this, she and the staff could not possibly hope to function as they were designed to. She thought of the markings on her hands, the markings that had seemed to simply become not only a part of who she was these past few months, but also a strong reminder of the staff. Of Myrthe.

With the runes in her mind, strong visuals for Aydyn, she summoned the staff to her. For a time nothing seemed to happen and Aydyn focused all the more on ridding herself of the thoughts inside of her. Nothing but the runes. Zala. Optimism. Promise. Rebirth. Dharv. Ferility. Earth. Animals. She thought of these in relation to herself and to Myrthe. She focused, relieved of the cold that she no longer felt even though winter remained harsh and bitter around her.

And then there it was, the weight in her hands. Myrthe had found its home in her hands.

[Aydyn Blair]

Aydyn's fingers curled possessively around the staff. It sat heavy in her hands and on one end it was less balanced than the others. The knob that had been fashioned at its end was more defined than it had ever been before...and would ever be, she surmised. She had, after all, no more Rites to complete. It was finished. The staff required nothing more than its use from here on out.

Aydyn trailed her fingers up the length of the wood and curled around the flower bud perched at its top. The knob had turned into a bud whose petals seemed to have been slightly twisted to the left, the lines of the flower veins distinct in the curve of the flowers. At the mouth of the flower bud, the tips of the petals were curled back very slightly. To complete the look, five leaves--identical, she thought, to the points of the pentacle--arched their backs until their tips bent to touch the shaft of the staff. It would have been a delicate design in any piece of wood, but this she knew would not snap with time or hard use.

The wind nipped and Aydyn shivered. She'd almost forgotten the cold, though it seemed insignificant in comparison to what she had accomplished in that moment. She looked around her at the darkness, up at the moons that shone above. She tugged her cloak around her tighter and retrieved her gloves from where she had tucked them along her belt. The staff tucked under her arm, she pulled them back on and then went about blowing out the candles, dumping out the excess wax and tucking them into her carry sack.

When she was ready, Aydyn left the secluded sight behind her. She would not need to come there again, she surmised. The place had served its purpose and had, along with several other similar places, yielded her a place to craft a staff. Myrthe.

So she left the place behind her, carrying away with her a prize to be valued by any mage.

This Staff is a Culmination of two threads: Magic Wood Made Useful The Myth of Myrthe

[Crimson]

+ 2 Experience Points in Druidism (Seasonal)
+ 1 Experience in druidism (for this thread)
+ 1 Experience in druidism (for the other thread)
Staff of Arcana Gained!