• Solo • Hygge the Kind; More about Fate II

[Dula]

40th Ymiden 719 ¤

“Initiate me?”
Dula was stammering, face burning with nervous excitement. Truth be told the young woman had never given much thought to learning any magic disciplines. Had rarely met anyone who was a mage. She wasn’t even exactly certain what attunement even was. As far as she knew it was something to do with people’s souls, or being able to read the soul of objects and people.
“Why would you do that?”
Hygge frowned.
“Listen man, this may be only the second time we have met, but we are destined for something greater together. Through dark winding roads guided by only the chill in my muscle and marrow I have wandered here in search of an apprentice. After I dreamt of you I could feel your presence through my attunement like a beacon, calling to me, screaming that you needed something more. It was as if the dream attuned you to me, man, I see now that it absolutely did. Tell me, what yearning hides in your heart? What is your greatest desire? What is that thing that when you think about it your fingertips itch, your eyes water, your heart soars, and you become restless? I need to know and I think when you tell me much more will be revealed. For both of us.”

Dula knew what she needed to say but the words struggled to come out of her mouth. It felt like she was choking on the words themselves, her breathing was shallow and she didn’t meet his eyes. How could she speak these words out loud? Since her parents disappearance people had came to her asking if she knew anything, asking if she had any idea or inkling about their whereabouts. Playing stupid, she told them no. But lucky for her she was a child and her lie was taken seriously. It has since then been decided that her parents perished in the Lori one way or another, accepted by most people as fact and tucked away in people’s memories now. But Dula knew better and has never told a soul the truth of her parents disappearance. It was her most sacred secret. Her fists were clenched and through her teeth, still not meeting his eyes, she told him.

“I-I want to be a treasure hunter. I will follow my parents footsteps and find them, wherever they may be. That’s why I want to learn alchemy, like my mother did. That’s why I practice field craft and survival, I’ll need it someday. People think I’m stupid. And maybe I am!”
She was tearing up now but her voice held an anger to it, a sharp edge now that Dula’s truth was coming through her own lips.
“People think I’m a coward and a liar, just like my parents. To some degree I am. I’ve never been out in the world and I tell people I’m an alchemist all the time. I just did my first mix with you, look at me! I’m god damn blue!”
Tears were beginning to fall now and she wasn’t sobbing but trembling with emotion.
“I’m a fucking Desnind townie with granduer delusions of becoming an alchemist treasure hunter. But I’ll find my door beneath the mud and Hygge, you are going to show me how. That’s why you’re here. You’re right.”
Two solid lines where the tears fell marked her face but nothing more. Somehow she was angry, pent up. The urge to lash out and fight was all inside her body. She constantly felt like a failure, which she was. Constantly getting hurt trying to prove herself to not just people but herself. Constantly making irresponsible decisions. But she wouldn’t be a failure any longer. Not anymore. Now... she would become a mage.

Hygge was silent for some time, not smoking, not doing anything except twitching his mustached lips deep in thought. Finally he said,
“Sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroad in life. For most people it’s ‘who should I marry’, ‘what career is right for me’, ‘how do I make more money’. But Dula, have no shame and no fear. The best people in life go through changes, growth spurts. Once we are adults the growth is inside, some forget that and go stagnant. No matter what path you take at this crossroad though, Dula apprentice of Hygge, your life will never be boring and you will find what you seek. You are growing man, right as we speak!”

[Dula]

¤

Hygge had instructed her on how to sit for the initiation and there they were sitting in the sand facing each other, palms up right on their knees, legs folded under them, backs straight. Just two blue, glowing people sitting in meditation pose. Despite their blue skin from Dula's failed alchemy experiments they weren't bothered by the blue at all, just focused on the task at hand. She had confessed to him that she didn’t know much about attunement and so he began telling her some things about it.
“The very first thing I’ll say, and I’m sure you would like to know, is that it will be a major aid to you with your alchemy. Knowing the different kinds of frequencies that an unstable or stable reaction creates will make your studies so much easier and allow you to push the limits of your craft. A chemist may intuitively know how to push the boundaries through trial and error but an Attuner will be able to hear the shift in frequency the first time, so long as they are attuned to the object they’re working with. ‘Frequencies’ are the sound you will begin to hear as you practice more. What you’re hearing is the resonance of the very soul of the object or person you are attuned to. The basest form of life and reality is the frequency it resides on. A vibration of the particles from Emea as solid matter, what we hear as frequency. We all have frequencies, everyone, absolutely every object, every thing in this world. You might not understand but you’ll soon see what I mean. One last thing. Frequencies are different for each Attuner. As all of our sparks manifest in unique ways, like fingerprints, so does our relationship with frequencies.”

Dula’s heart was racing and her mind was spinning, feeling like she might cry. She wanted to run, wanted to wake up from this dream but this was real. Things in her life were about to get very, very weird.
“I understand. I’m ready.”
She croaked, and sniffled up a bit of blue snot into her nose.
“Ha! This is going to be very uncomfortable but try to stay calm. God’s man it’s been many an arc since I was initiated. I was just a boy. Hm. Well I here goes. I’m going to start singing and you will hear a lot of things at once. Once it starts I can’t stop… and you don’t want this to go wrong. I’ve heard the stories--”
“Wait! Hygge, things are always going wrong in my life. Maybe I should just go home. I don’t want to die!”
Hygge’s face darkened and he pointed a bony finger into her face.
“I can’t force you to stay, but it will be the biggest mistake of your life if you get up off of your ass and run like a rat-dog into the woods. Bark at the moon yet again she says! I promise you, things will be fine. Just stay calm Dula.”

He instructed her to breathe with him, in and out like Tey’droa used to do with her when she was a child, and she was feeling more centered. They breathed in tandem with each other, in tandem with the waves lapping the shores of the gwalos she sat on, and in tandem with the wind in the trees. She could hear the waves and the trees singing together in rhythm with her heart. And that was when she realised that Hygge was singing, clear and baritone a low “OHM” that she could barely register it. Until his voice began picking up and he sang with what sounded like seven or eight voices at once. Her body felt like it was melting under the power of his song. Her eyes began to water and felt like they shattered, then knit themselves back together. But they never would go back completely the same.

[Dula]

¤

((play video now and continue reading for full effect))
Hygge continued to OHM, a whine like a didgeridoo now accompanying the chanting, and Dula’s body felt like every fiber of her being was being vibrated on a particle level. Her head was shaking and everything in her vision had waves of energy beaming all around her. The waves were like a pulse of clear liquid energy and started from Hygge, vibrating out all around him in perfect concentric circles every other OHM, then vibrating off of her on the second OHM creating those same circles around her being. Everything in her field of vision was in motion, dancing like boiling water. The process was excruciating. It was as if she was going to pop like a child would pop a soap bubble. Every single particle, every atom, was standing at attention and moving to the music. She fought the urge to scream and didn’t dare move a single muscle, she was terrified that one wrong move and she would cease to exist on Idalos- vanishing like with only a pop! noise to mark her exit. Out of fear she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

The OHM’s turned into a song that she would never remember for as long as she lived. It sounded like he was playing a didgeridoo but he was making all the noise with his mouth and vocal chords. As her mentor got more into it he began swaying back and forth, clapping his hands and slapping his knees with his song. It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing she had ever heard. The longer it went on the worse it got. The mind body and soul of Dula was overwhelmed with pain, joy, vitality, death. It made her want to leap up and cry while also make love. Something about it was primal, like the song was a force of nature all on its own. Her particles stirred and groaned against the strain of the song, she knew if this lasted much longer she would succumb to death. His song became louder and as she felt on the cusp of dying she could feel something else. Something new had entered their sphere of influence and was coming straight for her.

On the outside looking in Hygge and Dula were doing nothing but sitting in the sand, Hygge singing in a loud voice while clapping and hollering, young Dula sitting there looking in deep, troubled contemplation. Still his voice grew and grew, guiding her Spark home. Telling it to rest within Dula’s body. Willing and daring the best and brightest Spark among them to test her mettle and make Dula its final resting place. He called forth to her, beckoning eagerly, a fearsome Spark who would test her as much as she would test it.

Inside Dula’s very body and soul the Spark had made itself known. A high pitched screaming, like metal on metal, ripped through her at once. Still able to hear Hygge singing she steadied her breath, ‘just stay calm’. She could feel it resting there, screaming the whole time, and when it finally latched on, like a baby latching to its mother’s breast for the first time, the pain and suffering she was going through ceased. Dula apprentice of Hygge would never remember this part save for the faint recollection of a melody she couldn’t catch the tune of, but at the moment the spark latched and they became one her body jerked and she was transported mentally to a place of vibrating energy in song.

She knew at once what it was, what Hygge was singing before, she was hearing the song of Idalos. A divine tune that all creatures and objects on this planet sang when they hummed together in unison. The song was that of being one, of finding peace in knowing the truth behind all of reality. That vibration was the one language all people, creatures, objects, rocks, plants, anything alive or inanimate spoke. The Universal language of all things. The song spoke of love, life, hate and dying. It spoke of ideas creating sacred objects and even objects that were mundane. It was the song of creation and roared in her mind like thunder. But no longer burned her atoms, it solidified them. She could feel her body begin to knit itself back together and find purchase in being a whole being yet again. But someone else was there. A symbiote.... It was peace, bliss, and in her mind’s eye a flash of colorful fractals blinded her and she fell back into the sand. Memory wiped clean.

It was over.

[Dula]

¤

“DULA! DULA!!! DUUUULLLAAA! Oh shit man I think she’s dead. Fuck-- DULA!”
Hygge was crouched above her, blue glowing face inches from her own and eyes peered straight into hers. She blinked and uttered a ‘hmmm’ as, stirring, she came to. It was then she noticed the strange puzzle like pattern his blue eyes held.
“Moseke’s right boob, Hygge your eyes!”
“My--what? Dula! Holy shit! It worked! I swear to the GOD’S I have never done that before. That was amazing. I can’t even describe it.”
He was now jumping up and down, hat in hand, throwing his arms around. At one point he clicked his heels. To say Dula was surprised a man of his age could move like that was an understatement, but she had more things on her mind.

“Hygge, what happened?”
The past half hour was a blur with only the faintest trill every so often was within her memory. It hurt her heart, like she had forgotten the face of her most dear friend. On top of that her blonde head had a slight throb, but it wasn’t uncomfortable just felt like something… else… was inside of her.
“Oh my gods.”
Her face was sheer surprise and fear as her hand slowly raised to her mouth. She had a Spark inside of her. Fear was wrestled away by excitement. It hardly felt possible. Dula Mii’kril was now a mage.

They were smoking a pipe now and both had calmed down, though the excitement from the adventure was still buzzing in the air.
“I just can’t believe it.”
She said incredulously and followed up her statement with.
“So what do I do now?”
He smiled at her and said,
“Now I will teach you all you need to know! I need to get going though, I’m sorry. I will see you after Saun is up. I have some places I need to be, things to collect. We will meet again sooner rather than later. Goodbye Dula! And be careful. OH but before I leave. Try tuning into the trees around you to start with or the water. So you will go on to experiment, it's not too hard. What you will find is the difference between frequencies, a jumbled up mess, and notes, a single sound. Notes are usually a concept or a feeling. Good luck. I will let you know when I come back.”
With that he left, tipping his hat to her and taking his pipe with him. A trail of smoke followed him out.

She thought about frequency and tried tapping into the Spark she now held. Finding with some effort she could hear her Spark’s Frequency. It was a natural thing and hollow almost, sounding like a scale of notes played on a piece of bamboo in a helter-skelter way. Doing as she was told, she tried tuning into the trees near the gwalos. At first it was hard, she was afraid she would pop a blood vessel trying to focus on them, but the sound of her Spark's frequency wouldn't stop. She breathed out through her nose and willed the attunement to let go of it's grip and it did. The world was silent again. She knew now she would be able to hear the trees. At first it was quiet and hard to grasp. The sound kept slipping away from her as if it were shy but when she stopped coaxing it and simply opened herself up to its energy she found she was able to hear the trees clearly. It was like being blind and seeing for the first time. It was a vibrating sound that was familiar. Almost like a wood pecker but in a down tempo, hollow, low, and solid. But how would she turn it off? Sitting there by the ocean, occasionally sneezing, she was in awe of this new gift Hygge had given her. Eventually her stomach started growling and she wandered back into the Lori, back to Desnind, to find some smoked beetle at the Insect Farm. Blue skin and all.

[Werewere]

Review Is In!

Dula

Knowledge:
Alchemy: Attunement can help in creation of reagents
Alchemy: Needs a secondary skill to keep the process safe
Attunement: Notes are concepts
Attunement: Frequency: Trees
Attunement: Frequencies are the resonance of an object or person’s soul
Attunement: Frequencies are different for each Attuner similarly to finger prints

Loot: N/A
Injuries: Puzzle eyes witch brand
Renown: N/A

Points: 10 May not be used for Magic (as you were just getting use to feeling it really)

This was my first initiation thread to read. The music was a great touch, along with the visuals. It is interesting how the world changes once you gain a new ability. Wald can relate to that, as his mark gives him new senses, such as the ability to feel where animals are similar to attunment. I can not wait to see what you do with your new abilities, and just what is behind the door in the mud.

Any injures are based on a 1d100 roll using applicable skills