In the streets of Emlocke...
Mark and his buddies carry off all the bodies in the square to the tower and go into Mark's room!
It is arranged like a surgical theater mixed together with a morgue - there are large drawers in the walls with labels on them, a large surgical table in the middle of the room complete with a vast array of tools for every surgeon's need. He places each body in a drawer, making sure to label them "Snakes", "Flattened Snakes" and "Pyromaniac Weirdo" as necessary. With that done, he goes to the Artiste and inquires about the wind crystals he has.
"Oh, those? You can use them to cast wind magic, but you'll need to attune them to yourself first."
In a library of an open mansion...
Tom sits down and begins to read the focus construction books he has.
[Intelligence roll: ?]
Okay, so the Boy's Own guide requires you possess something called a "starter's kit", and then works from that point. Lacking a starter's kit, Tom feels a bit too divorced from the material to be able to absorb any of it. Maybe the Young Women's guide will be more helpful.
[Intelligence roll: ?]
And it is! Unlike the Boy's Own Magical Focus Making Book of Fun and Gainful Learning and its strict adherence to the need for a starter's kit, this text informs Tom that to successfully create a focus, you don't actually need any knowledge, you just need to focus your will into an object and make it an extension of yourself, though to do so without any prior knowledge requires incredible luck or extreme willpower. You can also attempt to attune another's focus to yourself, though this comes at the cost of it not performing as well as one you created by yourself and for yourself. Any object can be a focus, though the magic it is best at will invariably be tied in with its nature.
Now, there are two main ways of making foci - technique and intuition. Technique allows for the creation of very elaborate, predictable foci such as spellbooks, while intuition lends itself to more force-of-nature style foci. Intuition is more understandable to the layman - you make things up as you go, though the results can vary extremely. Technique involves lots of learning - an understanding of magic is required, as well as the ability to successfully tame it. The way of taming most espoused by the book is weaving - you can think of magic as wool and the spellbook as a tapestry. There are many steps in between and the process can be complicated depending on what exactly you want from the focus, but the basics remain the same no matter what you need.
Furthermore, when you choose a focus for yourself, its symbolic value - what you associate it with in your own mind - can be just as important as its actual nature when you give it power.
It also mentions that many makers of foci use what are popularly known as chants. These are special linguistic patterns that align your mind for a particular task, and they are useful in focus making as well as many other spheres of life, such as preparing for an exam. Chants can help suppress one's emotions, create a calm demeanor, slow down the metabolism and do a whole lot of other things as well. As such, they are useful for any scholar, mage or even a warrior. However, some chants, particularly ones meant to evoke introspection, can be dangerous.
After reading this book and finding it useful, Tom notes that there are several other guides in the For Young Women series mentioned at the end of this book that he might find useful, including Life Magic for Young Women: The Power of Life and Advanced Necromancy for Young Women: The Endless Well of Souls.
Speaking of necromancy, it's time to dig into the Beginner's Guide to the Necromantic Arts.
[Intelligence roll: ?]
Okay, the foreword of the book says "If you are hoping to be able to raise the dead upon reading this book, you will be sorely disappointed. Not only is raising the dead a highly complicated and involved necromantic procedure requiring elaborate rites and dedicated foci in most cases (and it is exactly for this reason that it is the mark of the highly skilled necromancer), it is also not the aim of this book to teach you these things. This is an introductory text serving to illustrate the actual nature and-"
Tom gets this far before getting bored. What's the point of reading this if he can't raise the dead afterwards? Sheesh, some people.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 562675 times)