• Graded • Sight

5th of Ashan 718

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Zip
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Posts: 782
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 9:14 am
Race: Human
Profession: Professional Scowler
Renown: 0
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Sight

5th Ashan 718

How did they see the world without magic?

Some of the Domains, even the more brutish, aggressive ones, imparted a certain awareness of the world to its practitioners, a certain perception of sorts that elevated them the sorcerer over the sorcerless. It was akin to a sense-

No, sense was both the right and wrong word.

It was never merely sight nor touch nor hearing but something else both bigger than the sum of those mundane parts and wholly unique. It was an intellectus that catered insight into the power of the spark, an extension of it to see the world the way they saw the world.

Though other Domains may have all been pretenders to the throne of magical understanding that was Transmutation, but even mongrels and half-breeds had their bite.

Defiance, shallow and superficial as it was, took in the mood of the winds, the rumble of the deep earth, the heat of the fire, and the dread depths of the waves. Robin Stark often talked at length about how every he could feel every inch of the earth that could still count as earth, how insulted he was by the dead drone of concrete, how he always knew when a storm was coming or when it was going to rain. She witnessed him detect a buried corpse several meters under the dirt and detect a small landslide bits bits before it hit.

Or maybe he caused it. Wouldn’t put it past him.

Like all Defiers who made it to the top, he talked more to the false, probably incredibly effeminate voices in his head than he did other people. All the power in the world and he couldn’t even master the basic etiquette to say hello before gushing about how water was hurting or how the earth couldn’t stop screaming or how, hey Zip, didn’t you know that Transmutation poisoned the soil beneath her feet and maybe she should just stop using it altogether-

She wasn’t bitter. She wasn’t bitter at all.

She left his corpse in the dirt where he thought he belonged, and that was that. He died for his crimes against her and her brother. He died for something he could never undo, nor would he even if he could.

Necromancy. She had seen her elusive childhood friend Neronin submerge himself into a trance and join his mind with a gaunt or a marrow, controlling them to move away while seeing everything they saw. While Defiance claimed a relationship, Necromancy saw far more practicality in raw control. Robin was often denied by the elements, rejected from using fire or calling up water because the elements, in their infinite caprice, said so. Neronin never had, well, such performance issues. Sure, there was always the danger of being eaten alive by a pack of angry, mindless thralls, but at least you knew where they stood if you lost control of them.

She had enough with relationships in real life. To indulge in an arcane relationship? It sounded tedious. It sounded annoying. It sounded like the kind of raw shit a sadomasochist would be into.

“Honey, would you cause an earthquake for me on the way out to grab some milk?”

“Dear, would you drive the rain over to that other town while you grab a dress for our date?”

“Honey, would you drive a bolt of lightning down onto this exact location at this exact time? No, no reason. Just do as I ask.”

How did he even live like that?

How did he even live with anyone, juggling four demanding naggers in his tiny head? How did he not arrange for his own grave?

Maybe giving him death was a mercy.

Herself?

She touched a sword, a bar of iron, a plank of wood, a gem, a sheet of fine glass, and she knew. She knew, she knew, she knew how it was made, how long it had, and what it could do. The same applied to materials of a more arcane nature. As her understanding of the magical substance inside everyone called ether grew, she could sense the casting of a spell, hear the the little, low dirge of active enchantments. All things unliving and all things forged from Ether was her gift, not the shallow excesses of Defiance or the crude expansion of Necromancy.

But that wasn’t her only gift, was it?

Attunement was unique about the Domains because while others granted a small measure of sight, the gentle discipline-

Was, for a lack of a better word for the sense, sight itself.
word count: 771
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Zip
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She wouldn’t deny that she resented the fact that, both in the Army and the Black Guard, they prized her far more as an Attunement officer than as an etherist. Before the incident in Rhakros that stole away her arcane sight for a not insubstantial time, her roles were more scout than combatant. They tasked her to find Fractures, for Attunement officers were few and far between, and there were fewer still who had the expertise needed to find Fractures.

She wondered whether she still could. She was, after all, incredibly out of practice and there was much catching up to do.

Leaning back on her chair in her little house covered in Doran figures, she reached out -truly reached out- to her second spark for the first time in a long while. No longer did she take little exploratory jabs, little captured frequencies, little steps she knew she could take. She plunged right into the network of that could connected her soul with every other frequency she has mustered up in the last season.

She regretted not re-snagging Finn’s when she had the chance at Foster’s.

She wrenched down hard on the missing hole that once was a sense and activated Compass… and understood then how foolish it was for her to hold back, to nurse wounds that had long healed. She forgot, fuckin’ forgotten what she missed the moment the skill the other Attunement officers called Compass flared to life and she seized onto the spiderweb of awareness that once accompanied her every step of her life. It was like coming out of a long illness, like digging your way out of a well you had been stuck in for seasons.

She felt Niv on her far right, miles upon miles upon so many fuckin’ miles away: Foster’s, no doubt.

Neronin’s frequency was garbled. He went missing again, but the fact that she could feel him told her that he was, if nothing else, alive.

Her connection with Robin was torn to bits the moment she stabbed that adamantine-layered glove straight into his surprisingly meaty heart. She figured it wouldn’t be there. What a dirty surprise that was.

She refused to take Gangui’s frequency on principle alone. The thought itself repulsed her. She had other means of capturing snippets of his activity, she supposed.

She felt… elevated. Like a swimmer who had swam in arcs, like a born fighter who threw hands for the first time in their life. If all she needed to do was press the old buttons-

She released her frequencies, released her hold over them and Compass lost its grip over frequencies it was meant to guide her to, fading away to return to its passive state of heightened, spatial awareness. She had sought what she held, now she turned her arcane sight to the unknown and the untouched.

It was the only thing they ever wanted her to do: Douse

Douse for Fractures, Zipper. Find the wells inside, Zipper. You’ll be handsomely rewarded for it, Zipp-

Shut out the noise.

Shut out the noise and think of what you are going to find.
word count: 530
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Zip
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She closed her eyes this time.

Leaning back fully onto her chair, she closed her eyes and listened to the song of the universe.

She tapped her chair. She tapped again and again, trying to find a beat to what she was trying to see, a rhythm that would kick-start yet another atrophied hand she hadn’t used for far too long. Nothing, nothing, nothing, just the patter of her hand against the hard wood of her chair. Identity tried to kick in, screaming for her attention, but she held it back. Transmutation’s day was not here.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap-

Bam.

A scatter of perception flooded into her.

Omnivision, they called it. Her attunement officers called it.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Bam.

There it was again: brief, off-color, more glimpse than sight, but it highlighted the entire area she was in: the Doran dolls, her little kitchen she never used, her bedroom covered in, you guessed it, more Doran dolls. The Dining area, unused again, more Doran dolls-

She should really get a workshop for this. These Dorans were everywhere. It was bloody untidy.

Tap, tap, tap-

Bam.

She got her rhythm.

A longer glimpse this time. Like a novice ranger trying to start a fire, all she could see were the sparks. All she could see was the blaze that could have been, but when she reached out to the fire, it extinguished itself.

But she got her rhythm.

Though her eyes within eyes were blinded, slowly she would see again.
word count: 258
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Oracle
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Zipper

I always greatly enjoy reading the writing of another magic user. Your descriptions of how Zip used Attunement were wonderfully vivid and detailed. It was interesting seeing the world from her point of view with Omnivision assisting her; With little sparks of awareness peppering her surroundings, slowly creating parts of a greater whole. I also loved the simple premise of this thread. It was merely Zipper sitting in a room and expanding her awareness, while covering the tiny nuances that come with using Attunement. Well done!

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XP: 10
This may be used for the following Domain Magic: Attunement

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None

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None

Knowledge

Attunement: Compass
Attunement: Compass: Able to measure direction and distance between the Attuner and held frequencies
Attunement: Compass: A mastery of direction and spatial awareness
Attunement: Dousing
Attunement: Omnivision
Discipline: Staying focused in an Attunement trance
Non-Skill Knowledge[/tab][/tabmenu][/align]
word count: 150
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"Without the dark, we'd never see the stars"
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