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[Ochita]

I don't quite believe that preservation is needed, since I doubt that the force exerted on the rock would be enough to shatter it. If anything, preservation would probably stabilize our spell, and make it be more efficient, maybe? Actually, hmm..
Applying Aether to free it from the shackles of gravity, and then Earth to move it to a point, supplying our mana. Preservation would be optional, but would probably reduce the cost of the spell.

[LordPorkins]

+1 to Ochita

[Iituem]

"Hrm."  You think for a moment.  "Perhaps applying threads of Earth and Mana, or perhaps Aether, to draw it to a point?  Or applying Air to make it move in a direction.  Would I need to use Preservation to stop the pebble being damaged?"

"Good ideas, but you're overthinking.  You're right in that you could use a form composed of Air threads to push the stone, although that is a little advanced.  You also want to keep the number of things you need to do as simple as possible right now.  Mana isn't exactly a thread type you use, so much as the source of threads.  You employ it to perform magic, but it won't form any structures on its own.  You won't be exerting enough pressure unevenly enough to break the pebble, so Preservation patterns are unnecessary.  Additionally I feel you may be taking the names a little literally, remember these were named thousands of years ago based on their initially observed properties.  You are on the spot about Aether and Earth, however.  If you would take a moment to not sharpen your witchsight, please observe."

Pip extends his hand and gently touches the pebble in several places, then leaves his finger on the side of it for a few moments.  He carefully draws his hand back.  You watch as the pebble gently rises into the air, turns around, moves in a circle and then a figure of eight, and then gently descends again.  The pebble remains still.

"The goal of this spell is to use as little mana as possible, with a relatively simple design.  There are two parts to it.  The first is a very useful technique that uses Aether constructs.  Aether threads are good at producing what Hamish and Goddery called 'meta-constructs' in Aetheric Engineering.  First, we will work on producing Aether threads from mana.  If you could sharpen your senses, please?"

Pip slightly defocuses into a Pip-shaped tracery of force.  The pebble looks perfectly mundane, and you assume that whatever Pip did to it previously has been undone for the purpose of your instruction.  Pip extends his hand, and you see the flow of mana in his body shift, concentrating at his fingertips.  When it leaves his finger it seems to suffer a strange sort of bleeding, leaving what seems to you like a long thread of force, which seems different to you than what was before. Pip gestures for you to try the same.

It takes about twenty minutes of trying, during which you end up simply expelling mana from your hand into the air.  The process proves to be almost instinctual, once you can sense what you are doing, like making a fist.  Similarly, some part of you switches at last and you start producing the same stream of force by stripping the mana down.  To your surprise, you find that you can instinctively manipulate the shape of the line whilst it is still connected to your personal stream of mana.

"Now, let it go."

You stop producing more thread, and with a mental effort it comes away from your finger.  You find that you are unable to manipulate it.

"And create a new stream.  See if you can anneal it to the first."

You do so, the new thread coming easily.  You touch it to the other thread, but it does not seem to connect.  With a flash of inspiration you reach forward with your other hand and touch the point where the two threads meet - they anneal together as one, and you find that you can manipulate the whole shape.

"Leave that form be for a time, just let it rest in the air.  Now, I'm going to make a shape with the aether threads, and you're going to try and copy it.  I assume it will be a shape, for me it is more like a complex chord of notes."

You follow his lead, and the shape is a little complex; three straight threads, each of which is connected to the others by a sort of reinforcing zig-zag.  Or at least that's how you see it, gods only know how this looks to another mage.  It takes you about five minutes, but you can extend your witchsight for up to an hour now before you start getting headaches.

"All annealed?"  You nod.  "Now, still connected, see if you can extend the whole shape at once, as if you are growing all three main threads and the supports at the same time."

This proves more difficult and you end up unevenly expanding the shape a few times, at which point you scrap the shape and recreate it.  On your fifth try you manage to extrude the whole shape at once, extending it.  By this point, you are starting to feel the strain of extended witchsight, and further you can actually almost feel the drain on your own mana supply.

"Before we stop, take a look at your initial shape again."

You do so, and the joined threads have partially disintegrated into fragments or entirely disappeared.  Becoming conscious of the tide, you can see how with each ebb of the flow the shape disintegrates slightly.  Pip gives you a nod and you regain your sense of reality.

"I think that's enough for today, no doubt you're tired.  Before we part, can you think of any applications for what you have learnt?"

Spoiler: Notes (click to show/hide)

Focus: 3/Day
Mana: 5/Day

Spells

Witchsight: 1 Focus (no components, sharpens magical sense at the expense of slightly blunting physical senses)


Components

Lattice


Flavours
Mana.
Fire.
Air.
Aether.
Earth.
Water.
Life.
Destruction.
Preservation.

Skills
Novice Farrier
Novice Groom
Dabbling Chemist
Dabbling Metalworker
Dabbling Swordsman

[Griffionday]

"It seems that using these aether 'meta-constructs' we are able to design a force chain that at some point we will be able to tie to mundane objects like that pebble and cause them to act.  It seems likely to me that you created a series of forces to lift the pebble, move it in a circle, and then slowly let it back down?  If so... the effects one could produce would be nearly limitless; in the physical world moving air, rocks, metal, would be fairly simple.  For instance one could add additional force to the blow of a sword, or the trajectory of a thrown snowball to go around corners or the like, or more mundanely make things lighter to carry.  If this can be extended into the magical realm... this might be the basis of a net for mana with a net or web (sorry, I imagine that's how it would look to me) to collect the ambient magic into one point for easier consolidation.  I believe I noticed that you used aether to tie the mana into the pebble you gave me a while back."

"It also seems that these deteriorate with each ebb of the tide, which explains why a simple magical construct won't last on it's own without active concetration.  Would one be able to use elemental preservation in the meta-construct to resist or slow this deterioration?"

"I'm going to make a jump here and say that to connect these to the physical and magical reality through the application of specific elemental threads?  So for moving the rock you might tie the rock into the meta-construct using a earth thread?"

[Ghazkull]

On an OOCly not...please don't use that kind of formatting again, that just terribly hurts the eyes to read...

[Maegil]

On an OOCly not...please don't use that kind of formatting again, that just terribly hurts the eyes to read...

-1 The blurring might be a bit annoying, but the coloring contains metadata that would be much harder to describe in plaintext, and is important both for the character and the players. If you find it that hard to read, press CTRL-a and the formatting mostly disappears.

[Ghazkull]

nah didn't mean the coloring just the blurring that was really disorienting for me...

edit: problem is the blurring can be even seen through the ctrl-a
also didn't mean to be...pushy i guess? i really like the idea of the colours giving us ideas about wahts going on...just that blurring is hard on the eyes.

[Griffionday]

((Just my 2 cents, I think the shadow is really cool as the loss of legibility makes sense due to shutting down parts of our senses making everything seem ghostly and slightly translucent.  It does make things slightly more difficult to read, but darkling theme seems to lessen the difficulty quite a bit after looking again, this is false.))

[Kashyyk]

Conversely, darkling makes some of the other synaesthesia affects difficult to read, so it's a trade off.

[Iituem]

On an OOCly not...please don't use that kind of formatting again, that just terribly hurts the eyes to read...

Would this work a little better?

[TheBiggerFish]

Conversely, darkling makes some of the other synaesthesia affects difficult to read, so it's a trade off.

Really?  I don't have any problems with anything except entropy or what have you.

[Kashyyk]

Mana and Life have very little contrast with darkling, whereas Destruction is just impossible to read.

[Iituem]

Hrm.  I use the default board view, but I can see the problems.  I'll mull on an alternative.

[TheBiggerFish]

Mana and Life have very little contrast with darkling, whereas Destruction is just impossible to read.

Hrm.  I use the default board view, but I can see the problems.  I'll mull on an alternative.

I think you're fine, really...  Maybe make everything closer to the middle of HSV?  If you really want to.

[Griffionday]

Hrm.  I use the default board view, but I can see the problems.  I'll mull on an alternative.

I think you're fine, really.

+1 This. I really like the way everything looks and all the detail you put into your posts, they never feel like walls of text, but are broken up by things that add a lot to the story without being a distraction. This is by far the prettiest text based forum game I've seen.

Destruction can be difficult to read in darkling (it is pretty much  the background colour), but it's probably only a word here or there and the gap in the text clues us in that something dark and sinister is hiding there.

I think the switch to highlight for witchsight works better, as the bottom colour is to the right, so we have more contrast at the start of the word? But then I had little problem before so I may not be the best person to offer an opinion.