Things seem to be tied, but dusty's vote in terms of Morden's opinion of the Shaper Order is well thought out and true to Morden's characterization so far, and detox makes a good point about Morden not know that shit's going to hit the fan, so we're going with those options - Morden respects Shaper competence, but thinks they are too unbending in their paranoid regard of changes to the status quo, and ends up assigned to Rawal. Also, in-universe, its the mentor who chooses the apprentice, not the other way around, and Rawal is far more interested in Morden than Andras is.
***
You manage to get yourself assigned as an assistant to one of the alchemical research projects just as your instructors begin to treat you all as real research assistants, involving you in discussions and asking your opinions in relation to said research. Even with as much knowledge as you have absorbed, you still can't contribute much to the efforts of the full Shapers you have been assigned to assist, but you manage to avoid embarrassing yourself, and being treated like an actual member of the team, of course, greatly aids your observation of their experiments. The team you ended up assigned to was researching new applications of the use in alchemy - and more specifically, the possibility of Essence-infused healing serums that could regenerate lost limbs.
As it turns out, the majority of modern alchemical formulas achieve their various effects simply by enabling and encouraging the body to do things already generally within its capability, just far less efficiently and effectively absent said alchemical encouragement. Healing elixirs, for example, simply greatly expedite the natural healing process, strength potions and the like merely engage and sustain such mechanics as adrenaline rushes while dampening the side effects, and so on. Shaping can go beyond the capacity of alchemical mixtures in terms of healing, to the point where it is perfectly within the capability of most experienced Shapers to regenerate a lost limb, but such acts of healing are extremely draining on the Shaper that performs it, and a Shapers time is quite valuable - thus, it is quite rare for an Outsider to receive healing in such a manner, regardless of how severe their injuries are. Thus, a regenerative potion of such strength, also capable of being mass-produced, would be a great boon to society in terms of keeping Outsiders and Serviles healthy and fit to work.
The main possible approach your team focused on was the possibilities infusing such a potion with Essence could afford. If Essence can create new life, why not heal old life with it? And that presumption is indeed the basis of most active healing techniques used by Shapers. Making use of this, however, runs into the same obstacles the other research team you had been assigned to ran into - how do you get Essence to do what it's supposed to do in the absence of a Shaper to guide it? Thus, despite the tantalizing possibilities and the interest observations made, the project did not make much progress during the two years you were assigned to it.
Outside of your role in assisting the alchemical research team, you focused on managing a so-called study-group composed of the students of interest you noted in your first year at Ithlum, as well as a few of their associates. Although most of them were hesitant when you invited them to join your little club, knowing almost nothing about you, but eventually lured by your promises of sharing your knowledge of Shaping, quite obviously a field you are far ahead of your classmates in. Thus, you teach your future colleagues more about the Shaping arts, and they teach you about their own fields of study, all the while connections and bonds being forged between all of you that will prove quite useful in the future. Of all of them, only Arianna is the only one who doesn't take you at face value, and in fact the Agent-to-be seems to see right through you, to the extent that it makes you wonder if she has been spying on you all these years. Nevertheless, it seems she, too, sees how these connection shall benefit her in the future, and so she says nothing. When you all part at the end of your final year at Ithlum, it is with promises to stay in touch and aid each other whenever possible, something that suits you quite well.
Your fourth year at Ithlum passes much the same as the ones before it, but your fifth and final year proves quite different than all those before it. At the very beginning of the year, your instructors deliver an ultimatum - all normal classes and lectures, save your class's assignments as conscripted labor, shall be suspended, and all students must, on their own and only with aid from instructional tomes and Servile assistants, create a fully functional Tharkuss - a quite lethal battle-Creation type - via the complex, longer-term and partially alchemical method of Shaping you and your classmates had studied for the past year, and all students must demonstrate their ability to forge a connection to and control their Tharkuss without being maimed. Even you were taken aback by this announcement - you knew immediately that a few of your remaining classmates were going to end up dead or maimed. Do other Shaper academies throw their students into the deep end in such a fashion?
(Tharkuss reference image -
http://exquisitebeast.tumblr.com/post/21008273760/the-twenty-sixth-beast-the-beast-has-become-even)
In any case, you proceeded to do your utmost to fulfill the requirements set to you in your final year, as well as assisting the members of your study group in what small ways you could - wouldn't do to have your future allies end up maimed, after all - and after a few dozen aborted Creations, one dead Servile and two maimed Serviles, you succeed - and your instructors let you keep it, too! You now have your own giant death-beetle! And as you predicted, one student died and two were maimed - but the members of your study group were all fine, so in the end, all of your effort networking paid off.
When it came time for those of who who graduated from Ithlum College to be selected by your mentors, you were selected by one Shaper Rawal, senior researcher at Desoth Foundry. The journey only took two weeks, but Desoth seemed an utterly alien place in comparison to Ithlum, utterly orderly and structured and clean, all Serviles supervised and all Creations tightly secured when not being examined or fed - the only apparent similarity was the arid geography. Rawal was a middle-aged man, somewhere in his forties, clad in dark blue robes and bearing a raggedy grey beard, cold, ice blue eyes peering out from underneath his hood. Rawal immediately put you to work, and for the first few weeks of your apprenticeship, he kept you busy at all times, giving you no time to pursue your own studies beyond what you could glean in your position as a desk-gopher, giving orders to Serviles and scribing down evaluation data. After a thorough test of your control over it, your Tharkuss was penned away in one of the many Creation holding cells here, only the continued existence of your Essence-bond to it letting you know it still existed. After this apparent trial period, Rawal pushing you to the limit and testing your obedience, you assumed a far more preferable position as his personal assistant, checking up on Creations and supervising basic examination for him, and you were given time with which to pursue your own interests once more.
Rawal seems quite a bit like you, utterly driven and quite concerned with the acquisition of personal power, except he's simply a very selfish person, rather than a sociopath like you. You would guess he chose you as his apprentice due to recognizing a kindred spirit, and after some time to assess your personality in person rather than based on written records, you would also guess that if Rawal is involved in anything illicit, he plans to put you to work as a subordinate in any unsanctioned experiments he has running, trusting in your apathy towards the law and preeminent concern in your own self-interest to ensure your silence and loyalty. Participating in any such forbidden research is risky, but you could learn much, and you doubt Rawal would teach you anything himself if you refused - and you have only two years to learn from him before you are sent to face the Gauntlet, your final, possibly lethal test before you assume full Shaper-hood.
What do you name your Tharkuss, if you even do name it?How do you regard Rawal, and what do you do if he employs you as a subordinate in any illicit research?How often do you write to the members of your former study-group?What do you do in your spare time?
Author
Topic: You Are a Shaper! (Second Try) (Read 5047 times)