XII. In Which Odyleon Does It Himself [GM Tisiphone]

[Odyleon]

OOC: Sorry for the long post, but after two months... Are you still willing to mod this, Nell?

The Circle was, well, aptly named because of its being circular. It may not have been absolute perfection, also because of the rugged, uneven ground it had been drawn upon; but at least it had no visible seams for him to fix. Sunset was approaching fast, and Ody himself felt the deed had taken its toll upon him, not to mention the recent hardships he had gone through in the process of Unbinding the glade.

He decided against covering the circle with cloth, since the paint might not have fully dried yet. The clouds didn't look like it was going to rain anytime soon, and the Problem Solver considered himself quite good at gauging the clouds for signs of incoming rain – a tiny bit of farmer blood did still run through his veins, after all. Mr. Galloper and his curiosity would be much more dangerous to the integrity of the Circle, though. If the horse were to tread on the paint or worse yet, do his equine business on it... Ody swallowed – precautions had to be taken.

"Sorry, friend, you aren't going to like this one bit" he apologized as he entered the familiar state of Clara and crafted an Animation in the very middle of the circle, next to the wooden peg. The Animation was that of Mr. Galloper's arch-nemesis, the dreaded scarecrow. Ody had never found out why the horse was so afraid of scarecrows; he couldn't have known that at one time, Mr. Galloper had been called Lightning and later separated from his fellow Friesian Plainsbred relatives because his master had found his pedigree was not as pure as he thought.

Sold to a man who looked like a scarecrow, with the same skeletal limbs and ragged clothes, Ody's companion had barely survived the experience. The man would buy good, underpriced horses and use them for any purpose without any thought given to their safety. He was especially known for running a particularly fast and expensive long-range courier business; the horses rarely survived the first job, none lived to see the fifth. If Mr. Galloper had not escaped, dumping his rider into the Abe river and almost dying in the process, that would have been his fate, as well. Thankfully, his wonderings had led him to Port Constantine, where Lord Hall's stable man had taken him in and cured his wounds. And there he had lived, until Lord Hall rewarded the man he had hired for a delicate task, one Odyleon Q. Meiers, listening to his plea for a horse to continue his travels with. That brightening, Lightning had stopped being and Mr. Galloper had taken his place.

Ody knew nothing of this; but he knew from experience that so long as the scarecrow stood there, the Circle would be safe. He merely had to take the time to Imbue the peg with raw, unshaped Psionic mana and connect it to the Animation. It was a smart trick he was slowly getting familiar with; Imbuements prevented Mana from dissipating as they encapsulated it within stable Vis, and if one wanted a spell to last longer, temporarily storing the excess Mana inside an item was a more efficient way to do so. With the scarecrow keeping silent vigil over the Circle, Ody decided he could call it a brightening.

That darkening, he dreamed for the first time in months.

A sphere – an orb – a ball. It didn't surprise the two of them in the least; the real form of Truth could be nothing but round. No other shape would look the same no matter where you viewed it from. Floating above the sea of things that it generated, eternally beyond his reach, was the Truth. The contents of the orb locked away from the gaze of men by ancestral law, all he could do was recognize its existence and wonder what it might hide within.

"Do not seek me" said the Truth "You are not meant to possess me. I do not hold the key to your happiness. I have been hidden for a reason".

A voice replied tersely. It wasn't Ody's, or perhaps it was, but not his sleeping self's. "Listen, ma'am, if he wants to find you, then there's nothing you can say to stop him. He'll probably get himself killed in the process, but who is to say he can't do it? Besides..." the voice chuckled "he knows where you are."

The Truth was unmoved, or if she was moved, it did not affect her roundness – nothing could, after all. "So be it. But in the end, I shall not touch or be touched by any other than myself, the Truth of Sonos, for I am necessity that be and you are contingency that may or may not have been..."

"Sheesh" interrupted the other voice, slightly exasperated "Pretty self-centered, aren't we? I really don't get why that guy is so obsessed with you. Must be all those sweets he eats. But for better or worse, his desires and my own are one and the same... we will find you, missy, and have a toast over that plump round orb of yours. And since it's him, some cake, too. Make that a lot of cake, actually. That's the only 'truth' that matters to me."

"Hmm... Truth... and cake..." Ody couldn't tell if the dream was meant to be good or bad, and did not give it too much thought other than scratching his head as he tried to figure out who the second voice may have been.

Mr. Galloper had not dreamed at all. He had been too wary of a possible sneak attack from the scarecrow to even rest for a moment. When his master Dispelled the thing, the horse finally turned around and found some sleep in the unstable-looking mini-stables-barn-thing Ody had built for him with his own hands – and it showed.

The circle was intact. "Now, to draw a pretty star on this... step one, find North." He lay the compass on the middle of the circle and examined the device as it pointed the (hopefully) correct direction. He found the intersection of the imaginary line with the circle, and marked it with a small rock. Then, he pulled out the protractor and computed a 72 degree angle with the first line, again using string to find its intersection with the circle. He repeated the process three more times, ending up with five rocks scattered all over his circle. He also marked the eight 45 degree intervals as each direction there represented one of the eight spheres of Arcana.

"Step three" he commented, skipping step two because he felt like it "Nail these down." One by one, he hammered five pegs where the rock tokens had been. He threw the rocks away, towards the road. No-one seemed to be around so early in the morning; Vers was not the most populous of towns anyways.

"Step four." He ran the string around the pegs as he had been instructed; first and third and fifth and second and fourth then finally first again, in that order. There was something actually resembling a star made of string, now.

"Step five, paint. Hand of mine, thou shalt not tremble now!" The slow and tedious task of painting over the string began, inch after inch after inch. Ody had never believed such a small area would seem so huge when it came to painting it. He was lying on his stomach now, right forearm supporting his chin while his left, dominant hand traced the lines.

"Step six, dispose of pegs and strings, then take a look." Barring mistakes, what had been a patch of grass in his so-called garden was now a full-fledged Arcane Pentacle. As Odyleon Q. Meiers stood up, he realized his robes had turned a little green here and there from contact with the grass. Oh well, green was a nice color after all.

[Nell du'Galle]

His robes may have been grass-stained, with patches of earth rubbed into the fibres of the material and a few stray flecks of white paint after his morning exertions, yet it was a small price to pay. As the Mystic stood to survey his work, his nose daubed with a small smudge of white paint, he was rewarded with the sight of what was a very passable pentacle. The white lines demarking the star were straight and unbroken in composition, the angles accurately and evenly measured, and all was encompassed within the circle, itself a remarkable flat spherical shape – or in other words; circular. The advice and tools given by the owner of the Artists Nook had served Odyleon well.

Were the Gods looking down at his creation with approval? It would appear so if one believed in the symbiotic nature of weather and deity. For did it not thunder when the Gods were displeased? And was it not now, in the summer of Vers, a most beautiful and sunny brightening, the air fresh and sweet, with song birds gathering in hedgerows and butterflies dancing about the last of the spring blossom all over the small town? Hopefully such fortuitous weather would continue throughout the summer, leaving the skies without cloud when darkness fell so that the Mystic would be able to complete his quest.

The Arcane Pentacle was an odd sight for any who might look into the garden, although this was Vers – a place where many of the population were unbound and were Mages of the Empire converged to further their skills and studies amongst those who understood their individual peculiarities. However none did peek into the garden, and Odyleon was therefore allowed to bask in the success of his creation in secure privacy, asides from the inspection of the Pentacle by two ladybirds who slowly crawled along the white pathways with lethargic purpose.

[Odyleon]

OOC: Thanks!

There was something terribly inconsistent about Arcana as the men of Telath taught and researched it... for on one hand, they explained with scientific precision how Mana could be shaped and bent to one's will to achieve the supernatural; and on the other hand, sometimes it just went back to these rituals, with magic words and runes and moonlight. Just like Alchemy. That was why Odyleon believed in his own theory, that all sciences on Telath were part of something greater into which they could be unified.

"Abracadabra" he said, just in case something would happen inside the circle, but the altar let him down this time. Hopefully, it would work properly when it counted. The thought of starting over with the Enchanted Wood made his eye twitch; no way he was going to spend another month or so surrounded by trees and more trees as far as the eye could see. It wasn't that he didn't like trees – just that he liked furniture better.

That brightening, he just took care of mundane details such as purchasing twelve candles from Ludwig's trade post for a few Crowns, and covering the altar with some cloth – sorry, little ladybirds! With that, the Altar was technically complete. Oh, how he wanted to celebrate the event with cookies. But not just yet; the PonderTree's ban would not end till the next Spring, condemning the poor opsomaniac to many more months of forced abstinence – for he didn't even consider the option of breaking his vow altogether. Somehow, he knew the Big Medonian Treant would learn about it eventually, and what would happen next was anyone's guess. PonderCheat...

The Rite of Identity

The Wizard takes a ceremonial dagger, and imbues it with the essence of his or her craft. The caster then uses the dagger to carve a rune of the mage's selection representing the self, the singular, the individual, upon the palm of the right hand. Blood must flow freely from the palm over the Enchanted Wood, and the Mage should invoke the Material Plane and call upon the four directions and four elements to affirm the identity of the spellcaster and the staff to which he is bound. Continue the invocation repeatedly as needed; only when the wound is magically healed, leaving a scar that tingles but does not hurt, and does the blood then seep into the wood of the staff, is the rite complete.

'My identity... eh?'

Did he even know who he was? Did anyone know it? Master Alchemist Vagrid Haldir had once said, 'So you think you are Odyleon... but Odyleon is just a bunch of letters and sounds that people use when they're referring to you. Pronounce it one hundred times fast and it will lose any meaning. So let me ask again, who are you?' And the student had been unable to answer. Vagrid, to tell the truth, had been pleased with the silence.

The thought had been haunting him as he waited for that brightening, the twenty-second of Cryxatum, to come. Being eternally unemployed, he had little else to do in the meantime, aside from practicing his Circles of Magic and marking the progress of the moons to try and predict their final position, when they would be aligned. So he had been spending whole candlemarks lying on his back, and thinking. If he didn't know who he was, how could he affirm his identity and that of the staff? The Rod... it had not changed at all, as if it were stuck in the very moment Ody had pulled it out of the Glade.

'Names are eternal, and yet what they represent is ever changing. I bear the same name I did yesterday, but I am different. This house is different. The world around me is different. Only this rod of wood, I feel as static and immutable... like my name. My last name is my own invention, my middle initial is empty... so who am I? What is this piece of wood? Is it true what the book seems to imply... that even now, this Enchanted Wood is a reflection of me? So... no matter how much I change, there is always something about me that will not? That would be my... identity.'

By now, there was something mesmerizing about the Rod. Back then, it had been a prize, a cheque he had cashed in. Slowly, it was beginning to become his own, even if it did nothing to attract his attention, per se. But it felt warm and reassuring to his touch, a faint golden aura emanating from its bark and caressing his fingers. 'What is the Heart of the World, anyway? What kind of wondrous things live inside the rock we call Telath?'

Slowly, the candlemarks piled up into brightenings and the brightenings into cycles. The first Rite was upon him. That brightening, the wait became feverish as he watched the shadows grow ever so slowly. When he first spotted the moons where he expected them to be, he knew the time had almost come.

In the fading twilight, he picked up the Enchanted Wood and brought it outside. He gently pressed the rod vertically into the ground, where he had enlarged and deepened the original hole from the central peg to accomodate the item; the Circle was not large enough to lay the six-foot thing on its surface and still be able to walk around on the inside. Then, he lit five candles at the peaks of each major directional point. With that, the preparations outside were concluded. He tried to reassure himself with the thought that, if the rite were performed correctly, success was highly probable, or so the book said.

He stepped into the Pentacle, stiletto in one hand – the weapon would soon draw its first blood. Even the very last rays of the Three Suns had, by now, fled beneath the horizon. Still, Ody knew it was best to wait a little longer, to make sure moonlight could properly illuminate each magnetic point and marking. He chose his own position so as not to obstruct the precious light in any way. For a few, endless minutes, the only sound he could hear was his own hastened heartbeat. The time was now.

Easing himself into Clara, the young man went through the well-rehearsed process of crafting a Circle of Magic on the painting which enclosed the pentacle, to prevent travel out. He had not drawn the second, optional circle around the first, sensing that he didn't really risk such sudden interruptions after dark and here at the outskirts of town, where the nearest house was quite a bit down the road; and besides, he had not wanted to over-exert himself maintaining two circles.

'Here we go...' His next actions would set the process into motion, and there would be no turning back from the Rite of Identity. Entering Clara once more, he began the familiar process of spellcasting, but instead of shaping or releasing the Mana, he injected it into the stiletto he held in his left hand – raw Psionic mana that would probably make him feel the dagger as if it were part of his own body.

Shifting his weight forwards on the Enchanted Wood, he brought the blade to his right palm. He defeated his self-preservation instinct with surprising ease, for it all seemed so right and unavoidable for some unknown reason. He pressed the tip into the flesh and began to carve, stroke by stroke, the Ikos rune he had previously copied and memorized at the Balet'hos Library prior to leaving for Medonia. Pipitili, the rune of One, the Identity.

"I call upon you, Plane of the Material where I was born. I call upon you, North, East, South and West that this whole world encircle. I call upon you, bright Fire of Calcination, cleanse away my doubt. I call upon you, clear Water of Dissolution, reveal my truest purpose. I call upon you, pure Air of Distillation, lessen my burden. I call upon you, solid Earth of Coagulation, bolster my resolve." He would recite the formula as many times as necessary, blood seeping from the wound. What happened from now onwards was no longer his to control.

[Nell du'Galle]

The moonlight shone dimly over the pentacle altar, the candles burning with small flickers in the darkening air to illuminate each point and all was quiet. There was the barest breeze tickling the robes of the journeyman as he stepped into the pentacle with his rod of enchanted wood, yet nothing to disturb his concentration on the task in hand. The birds had roosted, the insects had buried their way to rest and even Mr Galloper had closed his eyes to chase sleep. It was the time, correctly calculated and observed, the moment when if ever such a ritual was to be carried out, it was now.

As Odyleon imbued the stiletto with the mana charged with psionic essence, the blade began to hum with the arcanic energy, a vibration that was barely sensed except to the man holding it, the awareness of its potential power melding dagger and person together. Blood dripped steadily from Ody’s palm, leaking from the carved rune to obscure the initial cuts in a wash of red. Pain would be expected and was received, but when such is purposefully done the body accepts such. At first there was no perceptible reaction to the spoken words, repeated over and over, as more blood was lost through the self-inflicted wound. Then the moonlight intensified, and what had been a faint silvering of light grew stronger, casting a blue glow from the skies. Something was afoot. Anticipation of something momentous hung in the air around the Mystic.

The blood seeped, splashing onto the wood, and as the blue glow of the moon reached a brightness that could almost be mistaken for an artificial light, Odyleon felt the wound in his hand burn with the sudden intensity of a white-hot poker. Yet only for a brief moment, before the shock of pain was instantly soothed by a rushing coolness, quenching the heat as water quenches fire. Short respite though as the wound then cackled with electric charge, sparks shooting into the cut lines rather than outwards before the final moment as the lips of the wound closed up, sealing the wound and stopping the flow of blood. What was left was a faint imprint of the Pipitili rune, a thin marbled line of silver and grey – a tingling reminder of what had been.

As for the blood that had dripped onto the enchanted wood? It vanished into the rod, seeping into the wood to leave no trace of its presence. The first ritual was complete and the rod of silvery enchanted wood transformed as the last drop of blood sank under the surface. Already long, the end of the rod slowly extended further into the air to a tapering tip, which then turned back onto itself, to wrap downwards three times around the uppermost section of the shaft, leaving one foot ornate coil.

OOC: The staff remains six foot in length despite the change.

[Odyleon]

So it had worked.

The Mage outstretched his right palm in the dim moonlight to gaze at his wound. He would carry it to his grave, and he knew it. The ritual, whatever its explanation, had indeed succeeded in affirming his identity onto the Staff, with the Material plane and its elements as silent witnesses. His stomach felt like a party of drunken Gnomes were dancing a merry jig within.

'So my blood carries my identity' Ody pondered briefly, his scientific nature never truly at rest. 'One can safely assume that my blood, opportunely purified through aligned moonlight, triggered the transformation in the wood. Hence I argue that no two people share the same blood configuration. Blood and mind... This theory will come in handy in the future.' A crooked grin spread over his features as Ody realized he knew what his Masterpiece would, eventually, be like.

He carefully removed the Staff from its resting place, taking notice for the very first time of a strange coincidence – that the Staff was exactly as tall as he was. He literally couldn't wait to see what its final form would look like, but the moons dictated the when's and how's of each step. "I'll have to find a good name for you. I have a thing for names, you know." He would have to resist the temptation to call it Cookie, making a mental note to discipline himself when the time came to make up a name.

The second half of Cryxatum crawled its way to completion at a snaillike pace. A waste of time, it was. Humans, with their short life spans, could not afford to waste any, and it pained him to see whole brightenings pass him by pointlessly. Even Mr. Galloper had taken in on some of his master's apathetic state, which pained Ody even more. That would be the first and last time Odyleon Q. Meiers wasted the time he had been given. Once the device, as he called it, became functional, he would make sure to live everything to the fullest.

The second of the five rites worried him, but only to an extent, in the "been there, done that, but you can never know" way. Of the five steps, he feared the third above all others.

The Rite of Convocation

Taking the ceremonial dagger, and imbuing it as before with the essence of the Wizard's craft, the dagger is then used to carve a rune of the mage's selection representing the other, the plural, the collective, upon the palm of the left hand. Blood must flow freely from the palm, as before, over the Staff of Enchanted Wood, and then should the Mage invoke the Material Plane and call upon the four directions and four elements to affirm the native membership of the caster with the plane in which he performs this ritual. The invocation must be continued repeatedly, as in the first step, and concluded only when the wound is magically healed, leaving a scar in the left palm and blood vanished, absorbed entirely by the staff.

It was the 24th darkening of Aperitus. Ody had taken off his fingerless gloves to stare at his cupped hands and the lack of a symmetric rune to complete Pipitili. The meaning of this rite was clear: once you have affirmed who you are, only then can you affirm where you belong. The act of carving a rune with a hand which already carried one acted as the main symbol.

He had taken the same precautions as before, studying the motion of the moons and the weather, and lighting the required candles. A good thing he had picked the longest summer for the outdoors ritual, for the next few era's would see little in the way of heat. The Staff, with its ornate top, once again stood before him in the very middle of the Circle. Grasping the dagger with his right hand came a little unnatural to the left-handed Versian, but then again he didn't have to draw his self-portrait.

Raising and activating the Circle of Magic well after dusk, as before, Ody felt calm but not relaxed. He couldn't help but feel calm if he was to enter Clara, anyway. The sensation of raw Mana entering the blade of his dagger (which he had washed in distilled water prior to reuse) signalled the beginning of this new ordeal, with the Human prepared to face more scorching pain as the tip of the blade pierced his left palm. The Ikos rune of... Ikos – not a lot of choices representing the many as opposed to the one – was soon traced in red paint, the patched Mage then reciting a new formula to claim his belonging in the Material plane.

"I call upon you, Plane of the Material that gave me birth. I call upon you, North, East, South and West that this life of mine encircle. I call upon you, Hot and Dry Fire of Bile. I call upon you, Cold and Wet Water of Phlegm. I call upon you, Hot and Wet Air of Blood. I call upon you, Cold and Dry Earth of Melancholy." He was claiming his heritage through the four humors or temperaments of the body, each corresponding to one of the Elements. The Alchemist had rehearsed the formula before, and was ready to repeat it any number of times.

[Nell du'Galle]

The sky was clear of cloud and the light of the moons shone with a bright intensity on this darkening in Aperitus. Odyleon’s preparations for the second ritual had been flawless, the Mage’s serious intent in completing the ceremony successfully apparent in the attention to detail. The night was balmy, summer’s bloom over Vers making the scent of nature heady and rich. As he began the ritual, blood seeped from the scratched rune of Ikos onto the enchanted wood and his words rang clear into the air, calling on the four directions and the elements, invoking the Material Plane.

Repeated once, twice, thrice and as Odyleon pronounced the fourth Melancholy, the blood that had dripped from wound to staff began to slowly ease both up and down its length in meandering trails of red against the silvery wood. This time there was no pain to the wound other than that of being split to release the blood. Yet the staff itself seemed to quiver as the blood spread its path, each trail widening until they merged into a whole so that the staff was slick with blood. As the last bit of silver surface was covered, the blood sank below the surface, leaving behind a purple stain, that was rich and deep, with a polished veneer.

The wound on Odyleon’s hand had closed and just as had happened with the first ritual, a faint marbled scar was left as a permanent reminder of what had occurred. Silence reigned over the pentacle.

[Odyleon]

Blood. He'd never seen this much blood before, except that time in Demios, that one had been a bloody thing. Almost got him killed, and forced him to kill in return. The left hand which now sported a faint Ikos scar on its palm had stabbed a guard in the back, after the man had sunk a blade in Ody's shin.

Theldric. The guard's name was Theldric; his companions shouted it loud enough for him to hear when they came across the corpse. Two of them, the Human had tricked into pursuit across an old wooden bridge, cutting off its ropes while they were traversing it and spelling their demise. The fourth, he had taken out with a well-placed Terrify cast with the guard standing on the edge of the abyss, making him fall to his doom. He had been a mere Initiate at the time.

It hurt to even remember the bloodthirsty satisfaction he had felt in seeing his plans come to fruition and his enemies fall one by one. There was a beast inside each and every heart, and his own frightened him to no end. He stared at the blood-stained dagger for what seemed an eternity; so long, in fact, that the Circle of Magic dispersed on its own, without the need for him to Dispel it.

"I owe you this much, Theldric" he stated "I will seal the beast."

That darkening, he dug a new hole not far from where the Pentacle was. There he tossed all of his weapons: his shortsword, his stiletto, his Elven steel cutlass and finally the dagger which had served as the athame for the rituals. On that dagger's sheath he had scribbled down the following words: 'Aperitus 24, 11 PF – The beast is sealed'. He then filled up the hole, burying the blades, never to see the light of the suns again. He summoned a small Psionic Orb to provide flickering illumination while he used up what was left of the white paint to draw a stylized eye on the spot where his weapons lay, to act as a reminder of his choice.

"From now on" he vowed, turning to gaze at the Staff in the making "I will not touch any weapon that is not you, my purple friend. These hands now carry your name." 'I will honor the blood of mine that rests within you, as well as that which I spilled in Demios.'


The Rite of Arcana (part 1)

Entering a meditative trance, the Wizard focuses upon the essence of his discipline, but once a proper focus has been established, he must then channel power into the Material Plane and open his eyes and recognize simultaneously both his physical and metaphysical states. Ordinarily, this would cause a spell to fizzle, however, if the Rite of Identity and Rite of Convocation were properly performed, the Arcane Pentacle or Altar will prevent the loss of the meditative trance, and instead, the Enchanted Staff will begin to levitate upon its own will. The Mage should not be alarmed by the presence of sights or sounds that surround said levitation; it is a normal occurrence. The Wizard must then attempt to shape the mana into a spell of Abjuration into the Staff, Alteration throughout the Staff, and Evocation within the Staff. Confirmation of the spell and its success is obtained when the staff glows and descends on its own accord.

Ody had spent the better part of the month reading books at the Balet'hos library, using his free student pass to access the silent halls of learning. The third rite involved casting a peculiar tier three spell on the Staff, but he felt he already knew one that would serve that purpose, and did not bother crafting a custom one.

It was all part of his style; never one for flashy displays of power unless it couldn't be helped, he was a terribly economical Mage. If he didn't need a custom spell because a normal one could achieve the same result just as well, then he would use the normal one without a second thought. His magic was all about control and finding an opening, as he called it. That was, in his opinion, the defining trait of a Mage as opposed to a spellcaster. Most situations could be solved by merely finding the correct opening and then applying the smallest amount of strength on it; it would cut through the problem like a knife through butter. For instance, you don't cast Non-corporealate to pass through a locked door; you Objectify your finger into the key and just open the door.

The 25th brightening of Optia. Already he could see the moons if he strained his eyes hard enough. He feared this one rite the most, for today he would have to prove himself as a Mage, not as a person – that had been the object of the first two rites. Would the Staff appreciate his views on magic and how it should be used?

"Only one way to find out." he shrugged the doubts off. Halfway through summer, and halway through the rites, he reconstructed the Altar for the third time. What kind of 'sights' and 'sounds' would be there to greet him? Control, control. He had to stay in full control no matter what happened or how shocking the visions.

The Staff towered from its usual location, mere inches away from its master. Darkness had enveloped the town of Vers and the candles had been lit. Moonlight shone down on the scene. "Don't hold anything back" he smiled at the staff, white teeth flashing in the dark "I am going to tame you tonight." Recollecting his thoughts, he built and activated his Circle of Magic in the usual way. His eyes shut throughout the process, he then entered Clarity once again and prepared to cast as he'd never done before.

He Focused his Vis on the flexible essence of his sphere, but at the stage of Channeling, where he mixed it with the Ara to form Mana, his eyes suddenly shot open, as if embracing the Material plane instead of the state of Clara. It was a risky practice, prone to dangerous incidents as all half-baked spells are, and felt strangely unnatural. The incomplete Mana could even explode before leaving his body and that was a guaranteed deep-fried Odyleon Q. Meiers.

And yet his eyes were wide open, and watching the Staff.

[Nell du'Galle]

The Rite of Arcana, the third step to attaining a staff of arcana, was perhaps the most strange, requiring Odyleon to recognize both his physical and metaphysical states as he channelled the psionically charged weave of mana. Such a thing would be impossible if he had not undergone the Rite of Identity and Convocation successfully – and did he not now have the two marks on his hands to prove this? The faint, silvery runes on the palm of each hand, permanent reminders of what he had undergone, attested to the completion of the previous Rites and here he stood, within the Pentacle, lit by candles at each point and protected by a single circle of Magic. Under his feet the ground was warm, the Summer reaching its apex. About him the air was heavy with the fading heat, and no sound disturbed the Mystic as he began to focus on the Psionic essence, channeling it to create mana. Now was the moment when Odyleon would discover if he had correctly followed all that the parchments detailing the Rites spoke of.

His eyes opened fixing on the staff that stood at the centre of the Pentacle. The purple staff with its ornate top coil was where he had left it, upright and fixed into the ground. Had it failed? No, but then the parchments never mentioned anything about instant levitation … Instead there was a faint distant rumble and the enchanted wood began to tremble, the top coil vibrating visibly. Another rumble more akin to a deep hum, a muffled base heard as though through the ground from a cellar. Although there was no cellar of course, this being outdoors in the garden of the Villa Meiers. Slowly the staff began to rise into the air, inching its way upwards and with every hair’s breadth of height achieved came a whining screech akin to nails being scratched on slate - painful noise that ripped into the ears as the levitation progressed.

One foot achieved, two feet, three feet and then suddenly outside the Pentacle a wall blue flames erupted into being, encircling the altar from a yard out, extending fifteen foot high and crackling with a strange ferocity. They burned hard, licking into the night air and giving out, not heat, but a deathly cold blast over the Mage and the Pentacle. Slowly the blue flames began to advance inwards, matching the staff’s ascension foot for foot, but each foot bringing the flames closer to the perimeter of the Pentacle and decreasing the temperature inside.

Would the Mage hold his nerve and complete the Rite? The staff had reached five feet into the air by now, and a frost was settling on all about him, a white coating that stretched forth and slowly changed to ice.

[Odyleon]

For the duration of a single heartbeat, he regretted telling the Staff to do whatever was in its power against him. Ody needed to reconsider his plans, and fast. While he had suspected the rite would indeed prove harder than the manuscript seemed to imply, nothing could have prepared him for this. Deep rumbling, screeching noises, icy blue flames erupting all around him and threatening to enter the Altar... 'Aeternia!' his mind spat out as he realized that his Pentacle lacked the second Circle of Magic, the one acting from the outside. The one Circle he had in place would do nothing to stop the flames. He'd been careless.

Shocking as the apparition was, his mind soon processed another, even more important piece of information: that he was actually thinking and feeling while in a state that could have been called Clara. Normally, he couldn't have reached the blessed state with his heart pumping furiously, his veins throbbing, and his eyes open, pupils reduced to mere dots. And yet the Mana was there, raw, waiting for guidance, ready to be given shape and purpose, his only warmth in the unnatural cold that the Staff conjured upon its master. But just what purpose?

Originally, he had intended to cast the spell of Attonement into the wood. True, he would have had to rework it some in order to get rid of Divination in favor of Alteration, but nothing he couldn't have accomplished. However, the Staff's harsh display of power called for something else entirely, and Ody would have to tame the creature, not please it. He needed to prove that he wasn't a slave to his magic, that he controlled it and not the other way around. In spite of the danger, he could not suppress a smile, seeing his Staff rise defiant, aiming for the sky. It truly mirrored the young man's own desires. A journey to a place beyond the sky...

He considered casting Warp Mind, but dismissed the idea as quickly as it came. Damage-dealing spells could very well break the Enchanted Wood in its current state, excess of strength being no better than the lack of it. Thus, he settled for Paralysis. He would bridle the device's very essence, gently but firmly bending it to his will.

'First, Abjure into the wood' he thought, shaping the Mana accordingly as he did; it felt wonderful, being able to think, see and cast at the same time. The second step was Alteration of the injected Mana all over the full volume and form of the Staff. Finally, Evocation to bring out the paralyzing properties of the Mana, though in a harmless manner. He had never cast this spell on a piece of wood, but the visions were proof enough that said piece of wood had a mind of its own, or something to that effect.

He was going to show the staff's mind that he could wield it with an iron fist in a velvet glove if needbe.

[Nell du'Galle]

As Odyleon’s mind raced to decide on how to cast the required spell, the blue flames came ever closer, blasting their icy breath over the pentacle so that the ground turned white with frost. The air before the Mage puffed with white as he breathed and his skin grew pale – a feat indeed considering the pallor of his skin already. The freeze assailed his clothes so they became stiff and chilling to his form as the frost began to coat the ragged robes. Yet he held his nerve, his focus trained on the task of casting a spell that would tame the enchanted wood.

The Mana was formed quickly, essence charged and swifly abjured into the very wood and then altered to stretch through the staff. Still the staff continued its ascent, still the flames crept closer and the tips of Odyleon’s hair began to freeze into spiked prongs. Finally the Mage evoked the Mana, a spell of Paralysis his intent. The result – paralysis. All sound ceased in an instant, the silence deafening in the suddenness of its arrival. The flames about the pentacle also froze, an animation stopped in its tracks – and the Staff? Locked into position in the sky.

A moment passed, and another. Then without warning the flames disappeared, the freezing air dissipated and a light seemed to split the staff open, as a door opening to reveal a shaft of daylight into a darkened room. Warm, golden-hued, glowing with a power that suffused the air about it, the Staff bathed the watching Mage with its light as it gently descended to the ground in meek obedience. The ritual was complete.

As the glow slowly faded, a change could be seen to the form of the staff. Gone was the fancy coil, the opulent purple and instead the Staff was plain – a simple piece of wood six foot in length with a blue tinge to an otherwise silvery surface, the sides smooth and silken to the touch.

[Odyleon]

The Orb floated content in a cloudless sky of twisting colors. Everything would change, lives would begin and end, but the Truth would stay. One thousand miles above him, was the Truth, and still it taunted him without actually saying anything, doing anything. Just by existing, uncaring and unfettered. He wanted it not because he wanted it, but because he could not have it. His gaze lost itself in the self-contained immensity that needed nothing and served no purpose but itself.

'Have you given up on it already, Ody-boy?' the remark had an icy feel to it, yet also burned like a flame, and the man turned around to face its source, but his sight failed him. Everything was shrouded in fog, and only a pale reflection of the Truth shone through from above. The voice itself, androgynous in tone and pitch, spoke no more.

'Give up? No way.' the Mage replied, his own voice betraying a soft tinge of annoyance at not being able to see a thing in the fog. 'The Truth is the ultimate goal I have set for myself. All the questions in the world, answered, plus countless answers whose questions were never asked. How could I possibly give up on that? It is a cause worth dying for.'

'A most noble cause, no doubt' retorted the faceless presence 'though one pursued in a flawed way. You are still seeking that... shortcut?'

Ody nodded vigorously. 'Sonos.' he simply said. 'That kind of planar travel isn't impossible, it just requires appropriate power and reagents. I have researched the Planar Shift in Vers, and if it was within the Vaettir's capability to move the entire city to the Elemental planes and back...'

The voice seemed to emit something resembling a sigh. 'Please. Vagrid Haldir would kill you if he heard you say that. And you dare call yourself an Alchemist? The Truth is to be sought in patient research as you learn to know yourself and the world as one. Certainly not by barging into the homeland of Aslan and challenging its many guardians, which will get you killed even assuming you can arrive there in one piece. Do you seriously believe you can pull that off? What are you thinking, Ody-boy? Are you the kind of man who would do th