Initiate Elementalism - Wade Redmond (Jiala'in Veldri)

[Wade Redmond]

TS: Late Cryxatum, Summer of Era XI - continued from here.

It was two brightenings since Wade's second visit to the Academy of Mind and Fire, and this being the third time the cether made his way into the educational institution within little over a cycle, he could almost be considered a regular guest. A smile on his face, not at all concerned with the clerk this time seeing he had already arranged the training, the small fellow walked happily towards the desk.

"Here for the training!" he exclaimed in his naturally cheerful way as soon as the man at the desk looked up from whatever it was that had occupied his thought before the arrival of the cether.

Shaking his head at the apparent enthousiasm, the clerk looked up as Wade addressed him. He instantly recognised the little bugger, and remembered what he had told the cether two brightenings before. Bringing a hand to his mouth, he cried out for the tutor, who had been instructed to stick around and wait for his new student. "Oi!" he cried out at the top of his lungs. "Your student is here!"

His excitement reaching peak levels through the calling for a tutor, Wade found it difficult to stand still as he waited for whoever was to teach him in elementalism.

[Jiala'in Veldri]

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

A slightly squeaky voice emerged from the flickering shadows of the halls, followed by a series of mutters and grunts and whispers and crumpling paper which echoed against the walls. Finally, with his nose scrunched in a huff and his big eyes narrowed peevishly, a strawberry-furred Mousai wearing flowing, deep-blue robes emerged from around a corner. His robe flew back and forth as he walked quickly past Wade as if he hadn't noticed the Cether's presence at all.

"Outside! We're going outside for today's lesson!"

This he announced while waving a clawed hand in the air with a fluorish, his tail snaking behind him. The Mousai thrust open the doors and continued to march into the open air, assuming that Wade was following. As he walked -- still without even a glance toward the student, he bombarded the Cether with question after question, never allowing time for an answer.

"So why do you want to learn elementalism, out of all the perfectly detestable spheres? Do you know any of the terminology or processes of arcanomechanics? Have you studied any sphere before? Have you been unbound? Do you even know what unbound means?"

He continued to walk until they both stood outside Demios' walls, at the base of a tree in the center of a small field. Here, the Mousai stopped and glared up at the branches, then promptly sat down between its roots with his back against the bark. He waved a hand toward the soft grasses in the shade of the tree so that Wade would take a seat.

"Well? Speak up! You may call me Master Plunkin."

[Wade Redmond]

Although he wasn't sure what he had expected of his arcana teacher aforehand, the sighting of the mousai somehow managed to slightly disappoint Wade. He was not one to judge easily, but somehow the idea of a mighty mage and the small character that proved to be his tutor didn't really stroke. There was little time to consider it though, for as soon as the mousai had appeared from the hallway he was already making his way to the exit.

Throwing a quick puzzled look at the clerk, who seemed to already have shifted his attention away from the cether and his arcana business, Wade decided that following the mousai was probably the best course of action at this point. Perhaps the training room would be elsewhere in town and was time an issue in getting there. Spinning his heel, the cether chased his teacher outside the Academy, still unsure of wherever they were heading. After all, outside was not exactly a clear definition of any place. It only ruled out the Academy itself.

Trying his best to keep up with the robed character, Wade did his best to listen as a series of questions was fired at him. Why Elementalism? Interesting question indeed... Terminology of Arcanomechanics? Probably not since he wasn't even sure what the question was... Studied any sphere? A definite no, which was somehow comforting... Was he unbound? Did he know what being unbound was? He wasn't married or anything, nor engaged, but what did that have to do with learning magic?

Wade was still considering these questions when he suddenly noticed the figure in front of him had come to a halt. Being very much lost in thought, the cether almost bumped into the mousai, only just avoiding a collision. For a moment he could only watch at his teacher as the mousai suddenly demanded answers, recovering a moment later and sitting himself down at the indicated patch of grass.

"Well Master Plunkin," Wade then happily addressed his teacher, "I'm not sure why I chose Elementalism, really. It seemed the most appealing of the three, I guess." The three would be the spheres offered at the Academy of Mind and Fire, which comprised mostly Wade's knowledge of Arcana. "I don't see myself become a great warrior, you see? So arcana seemed to better suit my person, savvy?"

Unsure whether this was the kind of answer Plunkin was looking for, Wade decided to move on to the other questions, to which perhaps he could give better answers. "I don't know the terminology of arcanomechanics, and to be frank, I am not even sure what that is. And no, I haven't studied any arcana before. I'd say I am pretty much unbound though, haven't found that special someone yet... Don't see what that has to do with it though..."

[Jiala'in Veldri]

"Not sure why! Most appealing! Not a warrior!"

The Mousai roared in a huff, his chest puffed out before him as his dark eyes blazed.

"A special someone! Dear Diana, have you no thoughts in that head of yours? This is truly dreadful."

He lifted his eyes toward the rustling leaves above him, a paw brushing at the fur of his snout as he attempted to calm a rage which threatened to boil over from inside him. Master Plunkin took a few deep breaths and turned his fiery glare to the Cether once more.

"So you simply plucked Elementalism out of a hat, then -- because it sounded like a good word? Well, then! I suppose you haven't see what this word can do!"

The Mousai crawled to his feet with a grunt and narrowed his eyes up at the blue, cloudless sky above them. With his gnarled staff clutched in one hand while the other was fanned at his side, he raised his arms slowly above his head, breathing slowly in concentration. The light breeze which had been rustling gently in Wade's curly hair quickly became a forceful wind which whipped around the tree and threatened to blow the Cether to the ground; the leaves above clapped with a deafening clamor. The wind suddenly dropped in temperature to a point below freezing -- something quite unusual for a Summer brightening -- and the spiraling gusts felt like needles against Wade's skin. The threatening shadow of gray clouds cast over Wade and the Mousai mage, and the storm began.

A white sheet of snow and ice whipped around the tree and pierced the Cether with chilled daggers. The tree was quickly encased in a glistening coat of ice; many of its leaves broke from their branches and fell heavily to the ground, narrowly missing the Cether's head. The wind howled like a mourning ghost as it covered the grass with a blanket of white. A maniacal laugh rose above the din.

"Ah HA! You see? Not a warrior, you say? This is the art of the warrior, if there ever was one!"

Plunkin's toothy grin flashed through the spinning, endless snow. Even now, Wade would find that ice had begun to cling to his own hair and clothing and the snow had risen to his knees. Beyond the shadow of the tree, however, there was green and sunlight.

[Wade Redmond]

The feeling that filled Wade as his mousai teacher replied could likely best be described by a schoolboy not having done his homework. Knowing better, the pupil had taken a risk and had been caught. And indeed, perhaps it was the case that Wade had failed to do his homework. He was not one of well-considered decisions, not one of great reason and logic. He was someone who acted on feeling, someone who often made decisions on the spot. Unfortunately though, it seemed that he had managed to unknowingly anger his teacher.

He was about to mutter some sort of an apology when the weather started to change. And instead of an apology, all that Wade could utter was "Not again!" Unknown to Plunkin --unless he was a hedge mage and mastered Mysticism as well and had read Wade's mind when the cether wasn't looking-- sudden changes in weather conditions reminded him of the encounter he had in the Ariumite Highlands, not altogether a pleasant memory. Falling to his knees, Wade covered his head with his hands as he awaited whatever would come next to happen. He made sure not to be too close to the tree though, remembering his cousin Jeldo who had been hit on the hit by a tree after the trunk had been struck by lightning during a storm.

Letting himself sink to his stomach as the force of the sudden storm increased, the cether had his eyes tight shut by now. Few thoughts managed to survive in his now troubled mind, the main one being why such things had to happen to him, and whether it had been a mistake to sign up for Elementalism. Suddenly, Mysticism had a certain ring to it as well, perhaps the teacher would even have been a pretty looking cether...

His mind filled with such trivialities, Wade hardly noticed that snow had joined the mayhem surrounding him. It was only when the cold flakes of frozen water started to soak his tunic that Wade realised something other than wind was harassing him. Wade was ready to burst into desperate tears, apologising for all mistakes made during his life, when Plunkin's voice came roaring over the wind. With it, the feeling of despair quickly left Wade and he slowly opened his eyes, finding only whiteness where there had been Demiosian soil before.

Getting back to his feet, Wade realised that he had been snowed in; that effectively he had been covered by the large amount of snow falling from the sky. Directing his attention to Plunkin, a hint of Wade's usual bravado showed as the little man regained some of his stature. "Give yourself a pat on the back, mate! This is very impressive! Now I know I made the right decision!" The whole situation had scared the living Aeternia out of Wade initially, but the realisation that Plunkin was showing off to make his point had made the cether as confident as ever.

[Jiala'in Veldri]

Plunkin grinned and roared with triumphant laughter, sweeping his arms this way and that in order to scatter what was left of the snow. His tail snaked behind him as he looked upon Wade with an air of power and mischief -- an expression which quickly turned to one of open-mouthed horror, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"That will do, Plunkin."

A slightly deeper voice came from the tree behind the Mousai, who slowly turned his head. An elderly human stepped out from behind the trunk, his disheveled grey hair and white robe piled with snow. Though Plunkin gaped at him wordlessly, the man smiled and folded his arms over his rather plump belly, motioning with a nod of his head toward the spires of the universitas. Hurriedly, wishing to move away before being reprimanded, the Mousai scuttled through the snow and bounded past Wade toward the heart of the city, his tail whipping behind him. The man nodded, satisfied, and turned his bright eyes upon the Cether.

"I apologize for that. Plunkin is a bit hasty to take students under his wing -- desperate enough to steal them from under his own tutor's nose. This is why he has not been accepted into the staff of the universitas, you know."

He chuckled and pressed a hand into the bark of the tree as he lowered himself into the grass at its roots; as he did so, the sleeve of his robe lifted to reveal a long scar which ripped the skin of his arm, as if he had once been horribly burned. This disappeared, however, when he came to rest with a sigh, and he beamed at the Cether.

"I am Master Nicholas, but you may call me Nicholas or Nick or grumpy old man. I, unlike my ambitious apprentice, am a teacher of elementalism."

[Wade Redmond]

Not sure what to think after what he had just witnessed, Wade decided not to linger in thoughts but simply extended his small hand towards Nicholas and introduce himself. "Good brightening to you," he declared, refraining from adding 'grumpy old man' in order to avoid further diabolical weather conditions. "The name's Wade, as in spade with a 'W'," he then continued.

Having introduced himself, Wade took the time to rid his clothing of melting snowflakes. "I guess the mouse meant well, eh? Showing me what I am about to learn 'n all that. He kind of made me more excited about my lessons, really. When do we start?"