Chavie
06-23-2006, 07:18 PM
Half-asleep and feeling hopeful, Chavie stumbled into the place she was calling Ghost Cottage, to study a couple books. One would teach her the power word for instantly casting a power word of fortitude on a group of people--and better than she had been doing!--and the other would teach her how to say a prayer of protection from shadow for a group of people. She was finally at the peak of her training, a High Priestess, and had progressed so much that she could understand it.
While the ghost that looked like Sabine walked around fretfully saying "It's so dark" (sometimes Chavie pitied her, and sometimes she mocked her), Chavie hummed a happy tune. She was still weak and dizzy, but she had come a long way despite that. The sense of power that filled her was amazing! And though Vuudu was not around to see Chavie finish up her training (she had gone to bed), Chavie ran into so many friends from all sorts of different guilds and was able to celebrate with them. Rasta, Joudas, Ravnodaus, Lilliana, Keraph and Nadea, Zusteakai, and of course all her guildmates cheered for her over the hearthstone. If there were more she was too sleepy to remember their names!
So she was going to study the books until they made sense and go to bed. She was surprised at how easy it was to understand the spells now! Then something caught her eye.
The illustration for the shadow protection spell. It looked familiar. It had the same basic properties as any protection circle, with some variations, but it was the basic protection aspect that caught her eye. Chavie squinted at it and traced the lines with her finger. Then she gasped.
It was as if a light had been switched on, as if a tiny bell had been struck in a play at the moment the character realizes something. Pieces were falling together rapidly in her mind. The symbols were very similar to ones she had carved around the children nearby--but slightly different! Where a circular shape was left partially open in the book, Chavie remembered closing it in the cellar; that squiggly line there was facing the opposite way... Had she done the runes wrong?
She slammed the book shut and rushed out of Ghost Cottage, to the shed where she kept her children. She made sure no one was looking and ducked inside, and opened the trap door--which she realized now that she should have passworded; dummy Chavie, trying powerful necromancy spells in her fiftieth season!--and went inside.
Yep. She had done the protection circle wrong.
Was that what had caused her to be so dizzy? A misworked spell?
She inspected the circle more closely, mouthing nonsense syllables, walking around the crystal-encrusted glowy children. She looked through the book again. But the book wasn't enough--she'd need other books to be sure. Chavie kissed the forehead of one sleeping child and left, called Bu Bat to her, and led him into the water to swim the lake and get back to the Undercity.
_____________
After a few hours of squinting at books in the library at the magic quarter, Chavie knew what she had done wrong. The runes she'd made were made wrong, but in a way that they still worked; they just had been drawing power from her and feeding it to the children, making the whole spell volatile and likely to backfire... and making her dizzy, giving her vertigo and blackouts. If she changed them a bit, she could stop the leeching and use what they had drained from her so far to sustain the spell for a long time.
Chavie laughed.
And she laughed.
And she laughed.
And she got to work.
While the ghost that looked like Sabine walked around fretfully saying "It's so dark" (sometimes Chavie pitied her, and sometimes she mocked her), Chavie hummed a happy tune. She was still weak and dizzy, but she had come a long way despite that. The sense of power that filled her was amazing! And though Vuudu was not around to see Chavie finish up her training (she had gone to bed), Chavie ran into so many friends from all sorts of different guilds and was able to celebrate with them. Rasta, Joudas, Ravnodaus, Lilliana, Keraph and Nadea, Zusteakai, and of course all her guildmates cheered for her over the hearthstone. If there were more she was too sleepy to remember their names!
So she was going to study the books until they made sense and go to bed. She was surprised at how easy it was to understand the spells now! Then something caught her eye.
The illustration for the shadow protection spell. It looked familiar. It had the same basic properties as any protection circle, with some variations, but it was the basic protection aspect that caught her eye. Chavie squinted at it and traced the lines with her finger. Then she gasped.
It was as if a light had been switched on, as if a tiny bell had been struck in a play at the moment the character realizes something. Pieces were falling together rapidly in her mind. The symbols were very similar to ones she had carved around the children nearby--but slightly different! Where a circular shape was left partially open in the book, Chavie remembered closing it in the cellar; that squiggly line there was facing the opposite way... Had she done the runes wrong?
She slammed the book shut and rushed out of Ghost Cottage, to the shed where she kept her children. She made sure no one was looking and ducked inside, and opened the trap door--which she realized now that she should have passworded; dummy Chavie, trying powerful necromancy spells in her fiftieth season!--and went inside.
Yep. She had done the protection circle wrong.
Was that what had caused her to be so dizzy? A misworked spell?
She inspected the circle more closely, mouthing nonsense syllables, walking around the crystal-encrusted glowy children. She looked through the book again. But the book wasn't enough--she'd need other books to be sure. Chavie kissed the forehead of one sleeping child and left, called Bu Bat to her, and led him into the water to swim the lake and get back to the Undercity.
_____________
After a few hours of squinting at books in the library at the magic quarter, Chavie knew what she had done wrong. The runes she'd made were made wrong, but in a way that they still worked; they just had been drawing power from her and feeding it to the children, making the whole spell volatile and likely to backfire... and making her dizzy, giving her vertigo and blackouts. If she changed them a bit, she could stop the leeching and use what they had drained from her so far to sustain the spell for a long time.
Chavie laughed.
And she laughed.
And she laughed.
And she got to work.