You carefully sneak out of the dorms and make your way to the Shaping chambers. The guard beasts growl from their alcoves, but you wave your amulet at them and they go silent, satisfied you are meant to be there. Not one of them bellows or raises the alarm at your unauthorized excursion - they are guards against outside threats, not student babysitters. You make your way to the Shaping chambers without incident.
Once there, you take your position near the pool of Essence meant to replenish the students' reserves when they practice Shaping, focus on the mat before you, and follow the steps outlined in A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to the Shaping Arts. You can feel the Essence flow through you as you visualize the Flynd's anatomy, down to the tiniest detail, and will it into existence. Your reserves of Essence abandon you, flowing into shape on the matt, and before you you have..
A twitching, gory mass of muscle. You usually aren't grossed out by the same things other people, but you're certain you're green in the face looking at the organic mess before you. Fortunately, A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to the Shaping Arts also tell you how to clean up your messes.
You focus again, staring hard at the tiny puddle of muscle, and visualize the Essence that composes it dissolving and flowing back into you, re-incorporating into your being.
This time, the exercise works, and the mess is gone, and some of the Essence you had wasted is recouped. You focus on absorbing fresh Essence from the pool supplied for that purpose, re-filling your reserves completely so you can make another go at it. Then you re-focus..
By the end of the night, you have a fully functional Flynd in the palm of your hand. Controlling it is much easier than Shaping it was, just like the book said - it puts up no resistance to your attempts to control it at all. And at this point, it is effortless to re-absorb it. Once again, you top off your Essence reserves, so as to bee fully prepared for tomorrow.
You find a little more time has passed than you thought when you finish your practice, having focused too much and forgotten the time, but you quickly get back into the dorms and fall asleep.
When you are woken in the morning, you are tired, but not exhausted - you can get through the day fine, and the knowledge you gained practicing was worth it.
A new person comes to wake you all up today - a Shaper in dark purple robes, with his hood up. It definitely isn't Rawal, though - when this man speaks, his voice is harsh and young, but you think you also hear a bit of pain in his voice whenever he speaks. He certainly walks around hunched over. Even through his robes, that is obvious.
Once you are assembled before him, the man speaks.
"I am Zackary. I shall be your Shaping instructor, as apparently Rawal is too busy running my experiments to teach you all. I'm sure Akar has scared you all to death of what monsters we are building in this facility, but I assure you, I am the one to be feared here. Annoy me for even a second, and I will make your life miserable. Now follow me."He leads you to the mess hall, temporarily re-purposed as a classroom.
Zackary hands you each a text book, tells you which pages, and orders you to work.
You find that the text book is a sort of Creation catalog, listing creations, their uses, and their anatomy - everything a Shaper needs to decide upon and Shape a Creation. The one
Zackary has referred you all to is a tiny centipede-like creature, except bigger - sort of like an insectoid snake. It is just within your Essence reserves to make, but a far more complex creature than the simple Flynd you made last night. It is clear to you that you'll be required to Shape it soon, and
Zackary wants you all to study it beforehand. Most of the other students don't seem to understand this though. One raises his hand to ask a question, but puts it down as
Zackary turns his head and glares at the student from under his hood. You focus on understanding and memorizing the anatomy of the Creation, a thing called a Skitch, as thoroughly and quickly as possible.
Zackary didn't give a time limit.
After approximately two hours,
Zackary goes around and collects the text books, and takes you all to the Shaping chambers. You think you did a good job memorizing the thing - you can recall it in your mind effortlessly. Shaping it is a different matter, however.
Zackary starts having students step up to Shape the creature, and although it seems a few other students caught on early like you, you can see realization dawning on the faces of the others. One by one, students step up to attempt to Shape, after
Zackary describes the process, and one by one gruesome lumps of chitin and flesh. Most of them are able to re-absorb their messes, though, and when they prove unable to, Zackary simply incinerates the mess. Interesting. Apparently Shapers can only re-absorb their own Creations. Intriguing..
Then you step up, having been about halfway down the line. And you start to Shape..
Unlike all those before you, you manage it. The creature is slightly warped - you can tell that some of its many legs don't work, and it seems near-sighted - but it's functional. All of the students are shocked, and
Zackary seems taken aback for a moment, but then he snaps,
"Sloppy. This Creation would take but a second of effort for a true Shaper to will into being, and you took a minute. Not to mention the thing clearly isn't fully functional. Next."You can tell you've surprised him though. Shaping is a task beyond anything else your batch of students has been set to before. You learned from your practice that, even for such naturally focused individuals as you, who have then sharpened that focus through your Essence training, have to get into an extreme level of focus to Shape. Shaping requires what you would describe as a trance, as you focus purely on the anatomy of the Creation and willing it into existence. You expect that quite a bit of your training as a Shaper-to-be will be focused upon practicing Shaping so much that snapping into the Shaping trance becomes immediate and effortless. Not to mention controlling Creations.
Zackary seems content to let you get a little practice controlling the thing while you wait for your next turn, and the creature, despite not being very large, seems to have a mind of it's own, unlike the Flynd, and controlling it requires much more focus. You can feel that it wants to skitter off and start tunneling, and dominating its will and controlling it, while not exactly taxing, does require effort and focus.
By the end of the Shaping class, you've managed to create a perfect Skitch.
Zackary examined it himself, and found that it functioned exactly as intended by its design, in every way. The other students have progressed to the point where their Skitches are functional, but only barely. None of them are anywhere near you in skill, although some are better than others.
Afterwards, you are taken to the mess hall to eat, and then set loose in the library again. You haven't re-absorbed your Skitch yet -
Zackary advised you to practice controlling it throughout the day.
What do you do?You:
Health -10/10
Essence - 0/3
Energy - 6/6
XP - 6/10
Inventory - Prospective Robes, A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to the Shaping Arts, a Skitch
Status - Distracted by controlling Creation
Spells:
Absorb Essence - 1 Energy - Replenish your Essence reserves from a nearby source of Essence
Hold Essence - 0 Energy - Your special training allows you to hold a certain amount of Essence reflexively without it destroying you from the inside out
Boost Essence - 6 Energy - If you focus and have a source of Essence nearby, you can increase you can multiply your Essence reserves by 1.5, but if you lose focus or fall unconscious, the surfeit of Essence will destroy you.
Manipulate Flame - 2 Energy - Manipulate nearby flames to a small degree, or create your own tiny source of flame.
Energy Meditation - 0 Energy - If you meditate and focus on cycling Energy through yourself while doing so, you can gradually increase your Energy reserves. Not as fast as they'll grow naturally through the use of magic, but with this there is no chance of a spell backfiring, and it's something to do when you find yourself without anything else to do.
Control Creation - 0 Energy - By focusing and willing your Creations to do things, you can command them without words, and compel their complete obedience. Unnecessary when a Creation can understand verbal commands, but useful to ensure obedience. If you lose control and are distracted by something, however, the Creation may slip from your control and do as it pleases, possibly even attacking you. You can safely control one small, animalistic Creation at the moment.
Notable Figures:
Marcus - The only person you could possibly call a friend, if that, Marcus possesses a great amount of herbal and alchemical knowledge, due to his parentage. You have also discovered that his mother seemed to prepare him to become a Shaper, and thus he has some basic knowledge of Shaper schools that might prove useful.
Guardian Akar - A fearsome Guardian and your new caretaker, as well as the head of security for Ithlum College.
Sage Bridget - A business-like, non-nonsense mage, and your new teacher in magic.
Shaper Rawal - The Shaper in charge of Ithlum College.
Shaper Genna - Shaper Rawal's timid assistant.
Master Craumpalin - An aging, crotchety alchemist, and your classes alchemy teacher.
Mind Tavros - The Servant Mind who directs the Serviles in charge of maintaining the library.
Shaper Zackary - A harsh, young Shaper, who doesn't seem to want to teach you, and always seems to be hunched over and in pain. Your instructor in Shaping.
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Sorry this update took so long, it's a lengthy one and I hadn't figured out how to handle Shaper Zackary until today.
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Topic: You are a Shaper! (Read 10766 times)