Salamander tales [Closed, Selfmod]

[Z'kron]

The druid sat with crossed arms and legs in the center of the circle, his eyes closed in meditation. Around him lay carrots, arranged in a geometric pattern. Carrots, carrots, and always carrots.
Nightvision, nightvision. I never managed nightvision. But who needs it when eyes are so easy to tweak anyhow?
A salamander gave a tiny squeak from the corner, waddling around the edge of the cave. The druid smiled. He had a fondness for the creatures. Not so much the huge ones- the ones which roamed marshes and devoured people. But the two-feet long ones with frills he considered, well, cute.
It was time to resume some tweaking of his masterpiece spell. The spell, of course, was adaptation; a spell which had been shown to work in the past, erratically, but with a degree of efficacy the druid hadn't expected. After all, it had enabled the transformation of an ant into a... ant carrot, a dracon into a... mobile carrot, a carrot into a .. spiny carrot which resisted necromancy. It was an odd spell, to say the least, and considerably more inventive than most of the "masterpiece" spells he'd seen, which were merely variants on spells taught at adapt level. Grow a plant faster. Walk around with tree armor. Turn into a bigger wolf. Pfff. Amateurs. Not to say that they weren't useful spells- but in terms of advancing the craft, they did little. Unlike this spell. If he could ever be controlled adequately. Clearly time for some more rigorous experimentation.
The druid was no mediocre dabbler in these arts. He himself had been a member of a created race, and had modified himself beyond that besides. In fact, he was something of a pioneer in the field of permanent alteration of life by accelerating natural development. The theory behind it, as he considered it, was quite simple.

It is a self evident truth that all creatures are made of Vis, and that all vis is constructed of Ara. Vis is merely ara held within a specific form. Ara can affect Vis. Druidic spells, such as animal form, can alter Vis temporarily. And prolonged exposure during times of formation can alter Vis permanently.
Typically, the changeling effect occurs only accidentally. Ara is drawn upon and used in a high concentration for a spell, and upon the dissipation of the spell some of the Ara links to the foetus causing changes in its stable Vis configuration. And the ara is then incorporated into the weave, and changes occur as a result.
Some races, such as the Cyraxians, have been capable of mastering this process to cause deliberate changes. But typically changes have only occurred in the aftermath of massive arcane disruptions.

It was Z'kron's intent to deliberately cause changes, to accelerate the course of natural development. This time, he was dealing with salamander eggs, dabbed with tiny amounts of the pre-adapted carrot-ichor which had been the trademark of his alterations. Only tiny portions, mind; for the majority of the spells effects were to come from arcana, not fusion.
Closing his eyes again, the druid opened his mind out, and began to draw in the ara.

[Z'kron]

The druid concentrated, his brow furrowed. It was the type of concentration seen mostly in madmen and scientist, and in his time the druid had been both. The essence of nature sifted its way across the room, settling over the eggs somewhere between a field and a dust. Unbidden, the words describing the creature he was working with crossed his mind.

The Frilled salamander, which generally is a uniform brown in color, has a far larger dorsal fin than that of others. It adds almost a foot onto the 2 feet of height the creature has. The dorsal fin is also colored with a strange mixture of colors unique to each salamander. These salamanders are fairly easy going, being fairly short at 5 feet long, and therefore are not hunted like some of their larger, more aggressive cousins are. They live in Lake Melody.

A frilled salamander? Maybe Diana's salamander would have been better? But, ah, he was sentimental for mystique, having spent so long there. Mystique and Paxia, his twin homes over the years. But the frill would absorb the ara better, yes? It was all in the membranes, the membranes which soaked arcana.
Concentrate. Breathe. Heartbeat one, heartbeat two. The heart of the druid beat so slowly these days. The magic was flowing now, the ara dissipating around the eggs of the creature. You could scarcely see it even with the arcane vision, even through clara. To the naked eye the process would be entirely invisible, but changes were happening. The tiny vis constructs of the eggs touching the subtle fields, changing piece by piece, slowing, stopping, barely grasping to life but still changing. Minutes passed, long minutes as the druid held the field. Salamanders were well known to absorb magic more readily than other species- like a sponge was the term studies he had read used- and the eggs seemed to hold to this.
The techniques he used? The old druid, his master had warned him against using techniques too specifically. They made him mechanical, he said. Druidry is not about being a mechanist, it's about flexibility, adaptibility. But he still used techniques- alteration, divination, invocation; all at different levels depending on how much he wanted to control the spell. Seeing as he was attempting to control the magical field this time and not so much the evolution, today was mostly invoking, keeping a flow.
Was the color of the eggs changing a little? A blue tint? Shrunken just a little in their gelatinous frameworks? With a final hiss, the druid released his spell, the energy fading away, dissipating into the ether.

[Z'kron]

Time passed as the druid watched the salamander eggs.
External fertilisation, development in water, food from yolk. The stages blended together in his mind. Salamander eggs laid in water, fertile and ready to grow but damaged... taken from the nest while the Marsh Monster had eaten the mother. The thoughts were flowing slowly today.
Gills. Gills. Most salamanders didn't have gills. But as her peered at the eggs, he wondered if these would have them. Free of operculums, perhaps? Like the tadpoles. The blue-tinged eggs looked much as they always had, though perhaps the tiny black centers which characterised amphibious reproduction had grown just a little.
It was all something of a mystery to him.
With a sigh, the druid scooped the eggs up, and placed them in a basin, warmed ever so slightly by a heating-enchantment. Now, it was just a matter of time.
A quirk of the mouth, as the druid turned back to the basin, sending a final tiny jolt of magic towards them.
Well, mostly time.

[Z'kron]

It had been a long time since the druid had done any training. The adeptship was a fair time in the past, and of late all he'd really done was slow arcanically-managed experiments. Not exactly the stuff of legend. Good research no doubt, but not legend. And he had to stay around the check on his salamanders in any case.
Rummaging in a drawer, the druid drew out a wand. An old training wand, slightly battered, made of thin brown wood and tapered at the tip. The druid had never really understood how these wands worked, but he was assured they did. Positioning himself on the balls of his feet, the druid aimed the wand at the wall. Magic, he had learnt long ago, was equal parts dramatics with real knowledge.
"Incedo!" he exclaimed quite irrelevantly as he struck a pose, focusing his will on the almost pointlessly small amount of ara it took to cause a gout of flame to burst from the wand in the "burning rage" spell.
The wand promptly exploded, bursting into half a dozen smouldering pieces, one of which landed with a small sizzling "plop" in the salamander basin.
Bugger. The druid looked over to his salamanders to see if they were hurt.
Thankfully not.
"Back to the training ground again, it seems" he muttered, peering wistfully at the smoldering piece of wood in his hand. "Where was I. Nightvision?"

[Z'kron]

Plopping himself down by the salamander basin, the druid creaked open one of his old textbooks. One of those ones he barely ever looked at. He was something of a maverick by druid terms; and this had left him with a few gaps at his education.

Strip me of skin to feed the deers of wild,
Let her perch upon my limbs,
A sun I shall make, only to bring some rain,
She will fly to me and then fly away,
With harder skin I shall remain,
to send air to blow and destroy my foes...

The druid shook his head as he peered over the notes, glaring at the introductor poem. A riddle about apprentice spells indeed. Why did they have to be so cryptic? What were they expecting the reader to do, turn into a tree? Still. It served as a reasonable way to remember what the standard apprentice spells were if you didn't want your student to know. The druid examined the book closer, checking the scrawls he himself had made on the side post his arcana training in Mystique,
"No more riddles." Well, that certainly sounded like him.

"the skills of the adept are perhaps the most exiting stage of arcanic learning... they mark the boundary between mere copying of templates, and actual creation of spells... within the limitation of three techniques of manashaping as follows"

The druid closed his eyes. These things always gave him a headache. The manashaping limitations rules, the arcane advancement rules, the absolute of spheres rules, the non-chanelling of material essences rules. So many rules, so little artistry. But again, a smile as he saw his own notes vehemently disagreeing with most of them. But he was not here for his own amusement. He was here to study. Puffing a breath of air up to displace some hair which had fallen uncomfortably over his eyes, he frowned at his notes again.

Abjuration - The technique describes the motion of energy. Useful for shaping arcane fields or deflecting magical attacks. Good against necromancers. Alteration - This technique describes the shape of energy. Also for altering the nature of the energy, such as from light to heat via a algal construct.Conjuration - This techniquer describes the construction of energy and summoning techniques. Such as globe of fireflies. Not the most useful.Divination - This technique describes the communication of energy, an interface with the mind and senses. Also useful for measuring arcane constants in permanent alteration and breaking down information you can't handle into comfortable mental chunks.Evocation - This behaviour describes the direct invocation of energy from an alternate plane. NOT PARTICULARLY USEFUL. SILLY AND IMPRECISE. DRUIDISM IS ABOUT NATURE NOT BLASTING.

"It is worthwhile to examine the student on the technique of manashaping, in an attempt to gauge their understanding and natural talent... it is imperative to have an understanding of such techniques before going on to create individual spells..."

A wry smile at the pomposity of it all. Still, practise was practise. An inhalation, and his hand dropped to the carrot on his belt as he sank into the state of clara, drawing ara from around him. Reaching out again to the essence plane, the druid casually gathered the required essence, in rather the manner of an experienced herbalist picking cloverberries.
Globe of fireflies, a simple conjuration spell, twisted apart so it wasn't a globe. Abjuration, so that the energy was flowing rather than static. Abjuration and conjuration together, an apprentice spell. Not beyond his capabilities.
Piece by piece, the druid deconstructed the globe of fireflies in his mind, breaking apart the sphere which held them bound. And then, motion was introduced, just gently. Then, release.

A soft wind moved across the cave, glittering with the light of fireflies so that every movement of air was clearly visible, a dim shine that illuminated everything that it touched. It was beautiful, but all too temporary, dying out within twenty heartbeats, as was common was rapidly manashaped spells. Bubbles rose from the algal-pool in the corner, stirring the sparkles. It may not have been a long lived spell. But it was enough. The druid rubbed his chin, noting that the spell had felt notably more tiring than he had expected it to be.
Ah well. A bit of a break from spells as he stirred the basin, peering over the textbook again.


"Imbuement is a complex procedure not within the capabilities of many journeymen ... the trick of it is to form a kind of template of the spell from the essence of nature in your mind, and then to channel it into the weave of an object. Do not try to deconstruct the weave of the object you are imbuing, but rather just nudge the weaves aside to make room for your own. Deconstruction is the privy of masters."

[Z'kron]

Well, he knew how to imbue. It was really quite simple, once you had a bit of practise. All it was was fitting a spell inside an object. Nothing complex. The druid peered at his belt, where a handful of imbued carrots happily coexisted. Yep.
"All things are connected in the circle of life. The trees, the waterways, the animals, the magic. The beauty of it is its temporality. Natural mana is an attraction to them all, for they are all linked together. But this does not mean it is simple to bind magic into objects, even with this attraction..."

The ex-dracon scratched at his chin. It seems quite a muddled way of putting it, but he supposed it was accurate enough. Equal parts druid and scientist, his perspective on matters diverged quite freely from the typical "druidic" version of things. Maybe he should've just stayed a sorcerer. He sighed, and concentrated again, picking up his train of thought where he'd left it floundering a few moments ago.

Really, imbual was not a particularly difficult technique. An initiate sorcerer cast gate spells searching for gaps in the vis of a room to embed anchors. Growth spells were more effective if you found gaps to let a spell unwind. The only real difference was that the spell would be left undone, with a tiny gap so that a sliver of vis could trigger its completion.
It was rather like an operation. Or an infection. Just finding the gaps in an object to slot a spell in. A furrowing of his brow as the druid took up another carrot. Single charge imbuement. What spell though? He pondered. Well, what better than the manashape he'd only recently created?

The druid however, was dealing with carrots. And he knew carrots. He was a carrot, and the carrot was him. He knew precisely where the gaps in the vis weave were, and how much energy they could fit. Weighing the carrot in one hand, his fingertips moved over it. Just- there, that's where the spell would fit. A pattern of mana, bent ever so slightly along the natural growth line of the carrot itself, condensed down to better fit. Simple. The spell wound out of him, nestling itself into the carrot, with only a sliver of energy needed to bring it to life. Holding himself in clara, the druid examined his handiwork.
Not too bad, even if I do say so myself. And a very pretty spell to boot. He slipped the carrot back in his belt and turned to watch his salamanders.

[Z'kron]

Unbinding. A necessary skill, used in the creation of staves of Arcana. By removing the first level of barriers upon the mind of a living creature or rare inherently magical substances, we increase the affinity with arcana and permit them to access abilities otherwise beyond their reach..

The druid looked at the salamander eggs cautiously. Unbinding. Well then. Who was to say that unbinding couldn't be done on animals too?
The druid's mind drifted back into the state of clara that it was so used to with ease. Focusing it inwards, then outwards, he examined the developing minds of the salamanders with curiousity. Bound, like most creatures. Tightly bound to prevent spellcasting, a weave limiting the arcane awareness of the world. It was just a matter of finding a weak spot... somewhere to unravel from... there. Found. Tugging at it with his mind, so that the fabric began to break apart slowly, like a spell being dispelled but with oh-so-much-more caution. Piece by piece the barrier fell away, and the druid could feel the new openness to arcana inside the newly unbound mind of the salamander. A potential that would likely never be used, seeing as the creature was an animal. But a potential nonetheless.
Z'kron thought back to his own unbindings. The first, many yeas ago, which exposed him to the clockwork machinery of the world. The second, more recent, showing the unwaveringly chaotic nature of its development. He wondered how the salamander was feeling. With a gesture, the druid sent out a tiny sliver of comfort towards the developing creature.
The egg showed no other sign of change, staying still, though growing with the aftereffects of Z'kron's initial spells. Was that a tiny start of a body within it? Difficult, as always, to tell. The druid turned back to his book.

He dozed quietly in the corner for a while, his mouth pursed in the semblance of a non-consummated snore. His head turned to the side, nostrils flaring. Algae. Bubbling algae. How peculiar. He jerked awake, eyes fixing on the pool. How very odd. Had they been caught in the spell too? Maybe it was less specific than he'd thought.
His eyes fixed on the salamanders- tadpoles now, swimming slowly through the pond. Quietly coexisting, with none of the competition seen in other species. Nibbling away at the algae, which sat unresponsively. Except for something slowly easing out of it... a bubble? A bubble coated in a thin layer of something, bearing a tiny piece of the algae, floating to the surface and then dispersing.
How very odd. Even the algae had developed a variation. Nothing of consequence. But a variation.