[Varees Har'ethwyn]

'Anon would have none of the voice of reason at his side. "Feth that!" he fumed, shaking Varees' hand angrily off of his shoulder as he glared steadily at the red eyes glaring back at him from the dark window. He brandished the shoe that had struck him, shaking it furiously. "You know what, bitch," he called out, "I don' think I need these. I already got a pair on my feet, you know. Here!"

The human threw the shoe at the window, or at least in the general direction of it. It came out of his hand awkwardly and struck the wall well wide of the intended target area. Edera laughed nastily, which of course only made 'Anon even angrier. Before Varees knew what he was going to do, the human snatched the other shoe, the one the elf was holding, from his hand and threw it as well. This time his aim was truer; the shoe sailed right into the middle of the window -only to slam into the shutters which had just snapped shut. 'Anon swore in impotent rage as the shoe plopped down onto the street next to the stoop. He started searching the street around their feet.

"Cobblestone!" he barked, holding out a hand towards Varees as if he expected his friend to have a pocket full of spare cobblestones. "Gimme a goddam cobblestone! I'm gonna smash those shutters in, you just wait!"

Varees eyed the shutters glumly. They were quite heavy, and it would have taken a rather forceful projectile to smash through them.

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"Your next spell," explained Danvan, as he carefully stood the Primer to Arcana on its edge in the center of the table in front of his student, "is a fun one, one of those smash-things-to-pieces spells that everybody associates with Sorcery. It's called Force Bolt, and as the name implies, it involves creating a concentrated bolt of force with which you can strike things. An accomplished mage can do things like smash windows and even doors with it. For you, for now, we'll stick to trying to knock this book off its perch."

The old vysstichi picked up a stool and paced off about ten paces away from where the book stood balanced on edge. Setting the stool down, he pointed to it. "Have a seat, Mr. Har'ethwyn," he invited. Varees complied, and sat facing the Primer he had spent the previous evening studying as Danvan had instructed. It looked odd standing upright as it did, against the background of the black-and-white grid pattern on the wall behind it. "Keep your eyes on the Primer while we talk. It will help you with your concentration, I think."

"Now relax and go into Clara as you learned yesterday," said the old vysstichi male. "You do remember the steps to weaving a spell, right? Go ahead and talk me through them in your own words."

Varees, feeling oddly as if he were talking to the book, recalled: "First you go into the state of Clarity or Clara," he began.

"And the technique used for doing that is called..." prompted Danvan.

"Meditation?" answered Varees, his voice rising in the uncertain cadence of a question in spite of knowing the answer.

"Was that a question or an answer, Master Varees? You need to grasp these concepts with certainty. Tentativeness when handling the Essences of Force can get you killed. Now, continue, please. What will you perceive in Clara, and what do you do next?"

Varees eyed the Primer to Arcana in front of him, as if hoping it would open to the correct page and show him the answer. But it merely stood there, taunting him with its inertia. "In Clara one perceives the essences from the Astral Planes. There are many such essences, and each school of magic has one proper to it, one from which it draws its power."

"And the essence proper to sorcery is...?"

"The Essence of Force," responded Varees, glaring resentfully at the Primer, which could have told him all of this very easily. Such a drab, awful book, and yet it was supposed to be his passport into the astral planes and his key to the mysteries of magic?

"Yes! Good, I like the certainty in your voice now. Continue. Once you find the Essences of Force in Clara, what do you do?"

"You Focus on those essences, gathering them together to bring them into this world-"

"When you say 'this world, Master Har'ethwyn," interrupted Danvan, who was now pacing back and forth off to Varees' side, so as not to stand between him and the Primer, "what exactly do you mean. What is the exact term we use for 'this world'? Telath? The 'world of the living? What?"

"The Material Plane," he said, answering more precisely.

"Good!" approved Danvan, still pacing. "Now, what do you do to actually bring the focused essences into the material plane. What is that technique called?"
Varees' pink-flushed gold eyes bored into the unhelpful cover of the Primer, as if staring at it hard enough would enable him to see the pages. "Shaping," he announced after a few moments.

"Not quite," said Danvan. "Shaping is what you do after you've got your mana into the material plane. But you've got to do something else first."

Varees thought a bit more. "Channeling," he said at last. "You have to channel the ara into this sphere."

"Right," said Danvan. "Now, once you're ready to shape this spell, to mix ara with a peace of Vis to realize the weave of the spell, you're going to employ a shaping technique called abjuration. Do you remember what that is?"

The Esh'lahier frowned, and took his eyes off of the Primer to glance tentatively at the vysstichi master. "Abjuration, erm, the focus and control of a flow of something?" Danvan nodded. "Close enough -stay focused on the book, please," he gestured with a long, ebon finger at the Primer on the table. Varees turned his eyes back onto it. "Yes, abjuration is the technique one uses to control motion or movement. In this case, you're going to concentrate and throw a little ball of force at the Primer there, with the intent of knocking it off the table. Now I've already imparted the spell's weave to you, so I want you to go through the process we just talked through, and cast your spell."

Varees focused on the book in front of him and willed his mind to relax. He went through the steps he had just described, going into Clara, which was by far the most difficult and time-consuming of the tasks for him, then focusing the essences of force and chanelling them into this world-The Material Plane his internal Danvan corrected-, where he could weave it with a piece of his Vis and abjure it towards the book poised so provocatively in front of him. When he had the weave together, he released it.
The Primer flew satisfyingly off of the table and smacked into the gridded wall behind it.

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"'Anon, what are you doing?" he called out, as his drunk companion made to throw a piece of cobblestone he had managed to pry loose from the pavement at the shuttered windows above his door. "Stop!" he commanded, placing his thin nimble fingers over the human's angrily clenched hand. The man started to resist, and shot his friend an angry look. "Stop," Varees repeated, more soothingly and pleadingly. The anger passed slowly from 'Anon's eyes, and he seemed gradually to come back to himself -albeit it was still a rather drunk self- and his hand went limp as he allowed the elf to pry the cobblestone loose from his grip.