BGM Set
[X] Practice your body arts.
[X] Search for the spark of willpower.
[X] Track down Sheffield for a conversation.
- [X] So, what's this mission going to be like?
- [X] "So, what do you do for Uncle? I mean, what you do with your sword... it's not normal. Nor is what I do with my healing. It shouldn't be possible to pull your sword out of 'thin air', it'd be like having some sort of portable hole or pocket outside of reality.
You can't call yourself a mage until you can cast a spell. Your other abilities don't really count, at least, not to anyone besides you.
The furnace that fuels your prana manipulations is omnipresent. You're looking for something else. You discard everything you've read in textbooks and think on it yourself. There's a magical force called willpower just waiting to be harnessed, but you can't reach it. How do you go about finding it?
What about the name? It's called willpower. Willpower: The strength of will to carry out one's decisions, wishes, or plans. You have an immediate goal in sight. You don't want to die during your mission because you couldn't call forth the elements to your aid. But it's more than that; you want to prove to yourself that you're strong. There have been obstacles in your path, but you haven't been driven to the brink, forced to survive on nothing but your own power. Your wish is what grants you strength-
And your drink is really, really cold. Actually, it's ice. It happened without you even noticing. You stare at it for a second, uncomprehending, before a light goes on in your brain. You dash over to a faucet and turn it on, your mind racing. You keep the proverbial switch turned on for as long as you can. The water freezes as soon as it gushes forth. You laugh joyfully. "I did it!" you yell, throwing your hands in the air in jubilation.
New Section: Spellbook
New Skill: Willpower Spellcasting F
New Spell: Chill
Unfortunately, you couldn't replicate your success after that. Belden explained this to you. "Your first experience with magic can bring forth extraordinary results. You'll need a wand now that you've unlocked your potential." He strokes his chin in thought. "It is fortunate I was prepared for you getting an early start. I have a wand in my room you can use until you can commission your own."
"I can use any wand?" you ask.
Belden looks oddly at you. "It's just a tool. Although, that does remind me of a funny joke I heard one time.." He chuckles to himself.
He turns deathly serious, pointing a finger at you. "In imperial Albion, wand chooses
you!" He waits in his serious pose for a reaction, and you stare back flatly. He smiles weakly, looking embarrassed. Clearing his throat, he says, "Ahem. Moving on."
He assumes a lecturing pose, a hand under the opposite elbow with a single finger pointing upward. "To start off, I'll teach you a basic spell of each element. You already know an air spell, so we can skip that."
"Firstly, fire." A mote of fire appears and swirls around his extended finger.
You look at him with some confusion. "Wait, I thought you were just saying that a wand was needed?" you question.
His smile slips. "It's not important. Focus on the lesson. Next, earth." He moves his arm perpendicular to his body with the palm of his hand facing up. A solid cube of dirt appears there. It doesn't even disappear after he's done. Either it lasts a really long time, or his conjurations don't disappear. That sounds useful.
"Finally, water." He flourishes his hand and a stream of water begins pouring out of an invisible faucet into a glass on the desk.
"Now, you try. I'll help you visualize how the spell is supposed to form. Can you reach into the pool of willpower consistently?"
You nod affirmatively. It's there on the edge of your perception- whereas manipulating prana is like flexing a limb you didn't know you had, your willpower is like a lake of energy in your mind. You can grab the energy with your hand, but you can't do anything with it- it just falls apart as soon as you try materializing it outside of your mind.
He rummages through the desk, and pulls out a wand for you to use. It doesn't look like it's ever been used- in fact, it looks brand new. Should you even bother getting your own wand? This one seems fine.
You studiously ignore Belden staring at you and try channeling willpower through your newly obtained wand. It's very rough- it flows through it like a torrent, and there's no dam you can create to stop it. The temperature in the entire room starts plummeting.
Belden yanks the wand out of your hand. "I don't think we want to freeze to death." He warms up the room with some kind of air and fire combination, and hands the wand back to you. "You seem to have large stores of willpower. It will flow very easily- you don't need to try all that hard, or something like that will happen."
You try again, this time easing up on the siphon. You cast your chill spell on the conjured water, and it freezes solid. You smile happily.
"Very impressive. What about the rest?"
You try conjuring up the mote of flame, stream of water, and chunk of earth in turn, but all your attempts fizzle out. The spell seems to be actively resisting being completed. You're a bit discouraged. Though Belden assures you you're doing fine, it still feels like you failed because you couldn't do it immediately. It takes you weeks of diligent practice to manage casting all of them successfully, but your hard work does pay off.
Item obtained: Gifted Wand
New Spell: Candlelight
New Spell: Waterspout
New Spell: Conjure Earth
"I know you're thinking that these are useless for what you'll need come three months from now, and you're mostly right. That's why next time I'm going to focus on teaching you something much more advanced."
"If my hunch about your affinity is correct, you should be able to learn how to use the Ice Spear spell before our time is ended. That is my goal." he declares.
You feel a little excited. That's a staple spell used by mages all across the kingdom- if you can learn to cast it, you can call yourself a knight of Gallia. It should prove useful as a go-to method of attack for when you're out of range to use your decay ability. Plus, tossing ice spears while riding a tiger is one hell of an image.
There has to be more you can do with your nerve control ability. Being able to shut off pain at will is without a doubt a handy skill, but that shouldn't be the limit.
You get some good practice numbing and un-numbing areas, but you don't get any sudden flashes of inspiration on how to manipulate anything else. Although, it does remind you- your body is still growing. It's really evident now that you're experimenting, but you should probably keep up on your reinforcing skills or they'll diminish in effectiveness as you lose sync with your own proportions.
Advancement comes from a different place- your sleep, in fact. It started when you noticed you don't really go through the 'half-asleep' phase that most people go through when they just wake up. When you get up in the morning, you're fully cognizant. Starting from there, you found you could do a few other sleep-related things.
You can sleep on command. Whatever the situation, even if there's a stampede going on in the background, you can fall asleep in an instant if you want to. You can also determine how long you stay asleep. From ten minutes to ten hours, you can control how long you sleep for without fail as well as the level of interruption that will wake you, from soft footsteps to a bullhorn.
You haven't messed with it long enough to determine any potential health risks, but you think that there's something different about your rest as compared to the rest of humanity, on a fundamental level. You can operate much better without rest, for instance. You managed to stay awake for an entire week before you got tired enough you felt you had to sleep, and you probably could've gone longer if you were in a crisis situation. All you had to do to make up for it was tack on some extra hours of sleep for the next few days and you were fine.
Nerve Control F becomes Body Control E
It would be massively helpful for you to know just what you're expected to do when your twelfth birthday rolls around. You don't really want to ask the King. He probably wouldn't tell you anyway. Sheffield.. actually, she probably won't tell you either, but you won't know until you try. You find her in the same secretarial office.
"So, what's this mission going to be like?" you ask casually.
She doesn't even glance up from her work. She's wearing her reading glasses and looking over a report of some kind. "You're a smart little hellion, aren't you?"
You turn the gears in your head. What is it going to be like? Well, it'll probably suck. Why will it suck? "He doesn't want me to succeed." you say slowly.
"So.. he's going to assign me something really hard." you continue hesitantly.
"Keep going.." Sheffield drawls, scribbling something down and crossing another thing out.
"I could.. look at the records of the most dangerous and high-risk missions run by the Gallian knights. That would give me a rough idea of what to expect." You nod at your own logic.
Sheffield smirks at the paper. "Congratulations, you have a brain. That puts you ahead of 99% of people."
I guess she'll help after all. Though, she didn't actually do much other than prompt you. There's something else you want to ask. You steel yourself and phrase your question. "What do you do for Uncle? I mean, what you do with your sword... it's not normal. Nor is what I do with my healing. It shouldn't be possible to pull your sword out of 'thin air', it'd be like having some sort of portable hole or pocket outside of reality."
Sheffield looks up at you, a smile spreading across her face. "Uhuhu. I just have the right key. It's not strange at all." She turns back to her work.
"But.. you're still weird as hell. That wasn't magic. Care to let me in on
your secret?" She peers upward and rolls her eyes before writing some more.
Her eyebrows furrow in thought as she continues speculating. "Are you, perhaps, not the true daughter of the Duke and Duchess? It would explain a lot. Your appearance.. your abilities.. I wonder how you made it to this place. It wasn't the same way I did." She pauses in her writing.
"Oh well. It's in the past." she says dismissively, shrugging.
She places the quill back into the ink bottle and folds her hands in front of her. "You asked what I was doing for Joseph..? I'm leaving Gallia before the month is out. It's time for the wheels to start turning, if you catch my drift." she says.
"Don't get trampled under foot. It would be so disappointing if you died while I was gone." She waves you away, and you leave, ruminating on the conversation.
The last piece clicks into place. Sheffield originates from another world, just like you. It might even be the same world, though you can't say that for certain. She can't possibly guess the 'reincarnation' angle, but she's remarkably close to the truth nonetheless. The only part that you can't figure out is how she got here. Maybe she appeared to Joseph one day? It would explain why he keeps her around.
Though apparently, she's going to be somewhere else now. Is Gallia making a move on the other Brimiric nations? You are the nation of intrigue, so it would make sense for your advances to be covert.. but the crown itself being the mastermind is rather mind-boggling. You'll have to keep an ear to the ground to see what Joseph is planning and just what Sheffield is up to.
There's a piece of paper waiting for you in your room. There's no signature or addressee, just a drawing of what look like ancient runes. It doesn't resemble any of the runes used for writing today. You flip it over, but the other side is blank. Who sent this to you, and why? What does it mean? Should you just ignore it? The questions bounce around your mind. You set it aside in your desk for now. You have things to do.
What do you spend the next three months improving? (Choose two. Unless you specify otherwise, Belden will teach you Ice Spear regardless of what you choose.)
[ ] Expand the Wire Menagerie.
- [ ] How? (Write-in.)
[ ] Experiment with forging materials.
[ ] Research at the library.
- [ ] About? (Write-in.)
[ ] Practice reinforcement.
[ ] Practice your body arts.
[ ] Something else. (Write-in.)
Additional events (Choose as many as you wish.):
[ ] Show Belden your prana manipulation.
[ ] Head to the city to commission a wand.
[ ] Research records of dangerous missions.
[ ] Research runes in the library, try to match one to the drawing.
1-25: There's nothing there. You must be doing it wrong. +25 to further +search for the spark rolls.
26-50: You can feel something there, but you can't grasp it. +50 to further +search for the spark rolls.
51-75: It's just out of your reach, but you're very close. +75 to further +search for the spark rolls.
76-100: The spark becomes a flame. You cast your first spell with willpower.
