I should mention that Vitality and Mana are not interchangeable- Kopout has the right idea there (Ninja!) There may be spells and effects that convert one into the other (a lot of Life magic involves converting Mana->Vitality, for instance) but one is not a substitute for the other. Mages could tell you more about that relationship.
This raises an interesting question, one that I am abashed for not having come up with sooner: What are the limits on the various magical detection abilities? In order to answer this question, and find a suitable way to hide the rock from observers, try the following tests:
-Cover the rock with a peice of cloth, such as our cloak.
-Place the rock in our pouch.
-Place the rock on the far side of a living tree.
-Place the rock inside the cavity of the dead oak tree.
-Bury the rock under half a foot of soil in a spot where we can find it again.
Assuming that final tests is able to successfully hide the rock, bury the rock just outside of our grove instead of destroying it. We'll want it around for research later, and for possibly making life storage thingies. If it doesn't seem like we can successfully hide it, we'll have to destroy it.
Make it a pet rock called rocky... All joking aside, we should do some science on it and then drain the thing, we don't want to have some random traveler/elf finding a living rock.
Oh and practice an evil laughter, you always need those when you least expect it.
Assuming that final tests is able to successfully hide the rock, bury the rock just outside of our grove instead of destroying it. We'll want it around for research later, and for possibly making life storage thingies. If it doesn't seem like we can successfully hide it, we'll have to destroy it.
I agree, it makes sense to see how well we can hide our changes now before it becomes important. And it would be nice to not have to destroy everything we create.
We should remember to leave enough mana for ourselves to drain the rock, because we do not yet know if it will be detectable.
You decide that, if you must, you can destroy Rocky with
Steal Vitality- but first, you'll use your other Mana to determine just how detectable it is. First, you cast
Sense Vitality, and gain awareness of the Vitality around you. Interestingly enough, you note that while Sense Vitality informs you that Rocky has 2 Vitality, that is all it informs you of. You don't see the web of purple energy you can detect with your Necromantic Sight, nor do you have the sense the Vitality is concentrated anywhere in particular.
You first shield the rock in your cloak. You note that although Sense Vitality only works on line-of-sight (thus failing with this rudimentary precaution) your Necromantic Sight can still sense Rocky- although you can't see any of the details, you still know there's a 2 Vitality strong something or other beneath the cloak.
Rocky is too large to fit in your pouch, so you walk to the other side of a living tree and take a look. Sense Vitality, as expected, only registers the presence of the Tree's Vitality. Your Necromantic Sight, while unable to detect the tree's Vitality, is able to sense the Vitality of Rocky, but fainter than before. Backing up, you lose awareness of Rocky when you are about twenty feet away. Circling so you have line of sight to the cloaked rock, you still do not have awareness of it. When you approach again, you gain a stronger and stronger sense of it.
Drawing your belt knife, you begin digging into the soft, rain-soaked earth. After some time and effort, you have a nice little hole dug- rolling Rocky in, you quickly bury him. Your Sense Vitality spell has by now worn off, but you're certain that if it couldn't work through your cloak it won't work through the dirt. Your Necromantic senses seem muffled somewhat by the layer of dirt- you can still sense it, but you need to be fairly close- a dozen feet at the most. It is fairly obvious that something is buried here, however- the dirt is freshly turned, the leaves scattered, bits of sod strewn about. Then again, part of the reason you're out here is because no Elf is likely to stumble upon your hideaway, and even if they did, they aren't terribly likely to try and detect Vitality in a rock they find in a hole in the ground.
We should find a living insect then attempt to move the vitality from the rock to the insect, crushing the insect after we are done.
Problem. The rock is not full of mana it is ful of vitality. I like the idea of having life stored in things as a way to have quick and dirty healing, see if it is easyer to drain life from animate objects than from living things try this after we have tried to take over the rock though, if it looks like it will cost more then 2 to do we should stop part way through. that is another idea, see what hapenes when you stop a spell part way through do you expend some of the mana cost all of it or none of it. I doubt it will cost less to steel from an animate object though as it cost 3 to steal from the zombie as well as the tree.
Although you think it would be safe enough to leave Rocky unattended, you decide to perform a different experiment instead. Unearthing the Rock (much easier now that you've loosened the earth,) you snag a beetle you find hiding in the dirt. Bringing your will to bear, you
Steal Vitality from Rocky. To your chagrin, you completely snuff Rocky's Vitality while only withdrawing some small fraction of it- a third of what it had, maybe half a Vitality point altogether. Nothing you can make use of, but then, this beetle is much smaller than you.
You redirect the Vitality flowing from Rocky to the beetle instead of you. To your eye, the Vitality appears to strike the beetle and bounce, dissipating. You ponder what this means, as you crush the beetle for safety. Maybe you can't push Vitality into living things, only dead things. Or maybe it would have worked if the beetle was injured first- perhaps this is just an indication you can't "supercharge" Vitality with this spell. Or maybe you just didn't have enough Vitality in your grasp to do anything with. Maybe it's something else entirely...
Well, you are out of Mana, and judging by the bit of sky you can see through the hole in the canopy it is nearing dusk. Noticing your crayfish have definitely started to turn, you leave your pouch hanging from the dead tree, hopefully safe from scavengers- you could use a chest to store things in, you reflect. Mentally marking your path, you return home, arriving a couple hours later. Eating your usual dinner of fish and wine, you enjoy an extremely restful night's sleep.
After finishing your breakfast, you arise at a knock on the door- it is the same fisherman as before, bearing another letter from Elana Foundwasps! Eagerly, you accept the letter and settle down at the table to read it.
After going through the pleasantries, the letter assumes a scholarly, lecturing tone. You grin- it's from Elana, all right. Life Magic, she writes, is fundamentally the art of encouraging the growth of Vitality. The practitioners of Life Magic have developed different techniques, depending on the effect the Mage wishes to achieve.
Growth is the most basic of the disciplines, and involves encouraging the development of living things. Mages who specialize in the discipline spend much time learning about the anatomies of many diverse creatures and plants- living things are complex beings, and to maximize potential requires a deep understanding of the finer mechanisms of Life itself.
Healing is another widely practiced discipline, and focuses on strengthening the life in a particular part of the body to facilitate rapid recuperation. Mages specializing in the discipline know much about the healing process as a whole, and can also help living things fight off disease.
The third, smallest discipline within Life magic is Imbalance, and is the use of Life magic as a weapon. Mages who specialize in the discipline can cause normally innocuous diseases to become life threatening illness, and can interfere with the biological mechanism of life by accelerating the growth of one area of the body without increasing the capacity of the body to handle the imbalance.
There is a certain amount of overlap, and since Elves are immortal they have the time to master all three disciplines, which puts less emphasis on specializing on one to the exclusion of the others. Elana is new at the art, however, so her initial discipline will inform her abilities for years to come. She says she is undecided between the Growth and Healing disciplines- she considers the use of Life Magic to destroy to be a perversion of her gift, as do most Mages. In fact, the few living Elves who are considered masters of that discipline are all old enough to have been children or novices during the Flight.
You set down the letter, reflecting on your own school of Magic. If Life is, fundamentally, the growth and increasing of Vitality, then what is Necromancy, exactly? You know it isn't just corpse related, and apparently it has applications on things that were never alive in the first place. It is certainly something to ponder.
It is still early morning, and the sun is shining. Should you reply to Elana now, or later, and what should you say? Do you have any other tasks you'd like to accomplish in town, or should you get straight to the experimentation?
Vitality- 10/10
Mana- 12/12
XP= 10/20
Inventory- Eight Copper Pieces,
Elven Tunic,
Elven Cloak, Belt Knife
Abilities- See Necromancy(Passive)
Status- Content
General
Detect Magic- 1 MP - detects spells and magical items near you
Calm Animal- 1 MP - causes wild animals to become peaceful
Sense Vitality- 1 MP - you can detect the Vitality of living things, with a bit of effort
Necromancy
Raise Zombie- ? MP - You can take the formerly living body and turn it into a zombie, but you lack understanding or even much knowledge of the particulars. You need practice.
Command Undead- 2 MP - You can merge your awareness with an undead creature, gauging its general condition and issuing explicit orders it will obey to the best of its ability. You can also give orders that will persist beyond the end of the spell.
Steal Vitality- 3 MP - You can suck the Vitality out of living things. This spell removes up to 6 Vitality from the target and gives 1/3 of it to you.
Animate Object- 4 MP - You can force Vitality into inanimate objects, things that were never alive to begin with. It seems to be more complicated than Zombification though- your Rock doesn't do anything, which is hardly useful. you'll need to experiment with this more.
Your Parents- Your mother is a prominent Mage serving in Yicelafo itself, and your father is a Ranger Lieutenant, currently patrolling the borders.
Omo Thunderjaw- Your best friend, brave and true. He is currently an aspiring Ranger, and is currently home on leave.
Elana Foundwasps- An old flame of yours, she is currently studying with the Mage the next town over.
Pevo Zephyrtempest- The village Sage- you can ask him for knowledge of what history the elves possess. He is somewhat absent minded and easily distracted.
Ari Wetdawn- The village Mage, here to cure ills and bless crops. He knows much of Life magic as well as magic in general, but is also most likely to discern your true nature.
-Zombie plants! Possible?
-This one's a bit morbid, but bear with me. Take two crayfish. Shell one, leaving the meat inside as intact as possible. Remove the flesh from the second while leaving the shell as intact as possible. Attempt to revive both and compare the results. Is vitality in flesh or in bone? In both? Neither? Regardless of what we find, it should prove instructive.
-If you ever have enough spare mana, see if you can control multiple dead crayfish at once, and if there's an upper limit on how many perspectives you can hold at once. Stop if you get a headache, feel dizzy or anything else seems strange.
-See what the maximum range is for controling one of your zombies, and if it expands with practice. May take more than a day of effort, but it'll be good exercise.
-Try to find out if zombies have a memory, if they can be made to recognize specific objects. I recomend starting with a ball or something, and instructing a zombie to follow that specific ball wherever it goes. After testing it to make sure it works how we expect, substitute in another ball that has a different colour or a different size, and see if the zombie knows it isn't the right ball to follow. We can move to more abstract things from there, like having if understand things like "any ball" "any non-red ball" "the biggest ball" and stuff like that, or even to sort a pile of pebbles into stacks by colour.
-Attempt to raise a pile of ashes from a cremated corpse.
-Raise an earthworm and then, once it is raised, cut it in half at the border between two segments. Which ends, if any, are still animate? Continue cutting into halves at segment lines until all parts are dead or it has been divided into a prostomium, peristomium, pygidium and a pile of ordinary segments.
-Make a zombie insect that will stand still, then see if we can take its vitality when it is behind a rock (out of our line of sight).
-See how much damage a dead body can sustain before it is unraisable
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Topic: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-36 Decisions, Decisions (Read 686140 times)