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.
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.