diff --git a/Book-1/Chapter-4.md b/Book-1/Chapter-4.md index 6059f1e..17d4f5c 100644 --- a/Book-1/Chapter-4.md +++ b/Book-1/Chapter-4.md @@ -50,4 +50,48 @@ The sensation started up again as he envisioned the blue light - the mana - in t Mira was focusing on her own exercise. The two had spent the better part of the last hour first practicing their mana bolts, then practicing channeling raw mana itself. -"Everything in magic is made of mana", Laz had explained. "Once you can summon and shape it, you can do things like power magic circles." As a demonstration, he had produced a green bar of light that the two could hold. \ No newline at end of file +"Everything in magic is made of mana", Laz had explained. "Once you can summon and shape it, you can do things like power magic circles." As a demonstration, he had produced a green bar of light that the two could hold. + +As Slannon watched, Mira's red light flowed from her hands, shaping itself into a sphere. She grunted in concentration as the sphere slowly grew in size. She reached upward, plucking the sphere from the air in front of her, then silently handed it to Laz. + +"Very good! You can probably still feel it, even though I'm holding it now. Try moving it around without touching it?" Laz held his hand out, the red sphere resting in his palm. Mira cocked her head, and slowly the ball floated into the air, before shooting off toward one of the walls. It vanished as the three ducked for cover. "Okay, well you moved it. Your control needs a little work, but at least you can summon it." + +Not to be outdone, Slannon returned to his position. "You said that we have to hold the entire pattern of the mana in our minds, right? So how can it get out of control?" + +The blue energy flowed from him as Laz answered. "Even a stray thought seems to be enough to break control, at which point it just becomes wild energy. It does whatever it wants in that case, usually moving in random directions and spreading out, until our minds sort of clean up after themselves and will it out of existence." + +Slannon's ball was smaller than Mira's, but he did his best to remain calm. He imagined the ball moving upwards - not being pushed, but almost as if it were flowing into a different place. The ball did as he instructed, though more hesitantly than he had hoped. Encouraged, he made it float in a circle around his head before melting back into his palm. That last step was particularly strange, as he could feel the energy from the ball rejoining his body. He was about to try again, when the three heard a voice calling from upstairs: "You've got to see this, everyone!" + +--- + +Though Laz had dubbed the room a "study room", the term "workshop" was probably more applicable. There were a few desks up against the walls, each holding various objects. The most distinctive feature of the room, however, was the giant circle carved into the stone of the floor. Several symbols that appeared to be Unua were carved into it, but overall it seemed almost empty - as though it needed to be filled with other symbols. In the center was a triangle with a different symbol carved at each point. Lily stood, beaming, to the side of the circle, with a book in her hands and Tome by her side. + +"I got this from the library. We were originally going to look through and see if any new words popped into my head, but then this happened. Go ahead, Tome." Lily looked at her partner in crime excitedly. + +Tome reached out, one hand crossing into the circle, and closed his eyes. Yellow mana flowed from his hand, forming a complicated series of shapes that lay on the floor. The resulting circle looked much more full now. He opened one eye, grimacing, and said "Alright, now hurry." + +Lily reacted, flicking some olive light into the circle. Where the mana struck the ground, a flash of light appeared, and a fire started to burn. The shapes in the circle faded away as the two turned to look at their audience in the doorway. Lit from behind by the still-burning fires, there was something strange about the two - they almost glowed with energy themselves. + +Rasp was the first to speak. "We've been studying these books for two months, and you already figured out how to read them? How did you even do that?" + +"No, it's not that we understand them." Tome shook his head. "You know how it's been when we're practicing. I've always had a knack for keeping mana in place. I think it has something to do with my memory." + +"Mind filling us in?" Mira was looking back and forth between the two. "What about your memory?" + +"It's perfect. I can remember literally everything, as long as I focus when I first look at it. It made school really easy, to be honest. But now... I can remember the positions of all of the runes, and keep focusing on them, though it's a bit tricky." + +Laz patted him on the back. "It's pretty cool, to be honest. I wish we all could do that!" + +"There's more." Lily turned to one of the tables, picking up a small lens. "Look through this." + +Slannon did as he was told, closing one eye and looking through the lens with the other. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he looked back at the book Lily was holding open. There, clear as day, were the words "fire spark". He opened the other eye, but could only see the runes. "It's a translator." + +"Exactly. It doesn't translate everything, just the chapter titles, but it's enough that it should help us catalog the books. The shelf we got this from was full of books like this. Each chapter seems to start with a circle like this one, and then a few pages of script. This particular book seems to be about fire." Lily flipped through the pages for a moment before stopping at one page. "Fire ring. Try this?" + +Tome took the book from her, studying it. Laz turned to Slannon and Mira. "We've found a few of these spell circles, but most of them are filled in. We think that having a circle written out allows us to do magic that's more complex than just basic mana manipulation." + +Tome reached out his hand again, creating new patterns on the floor. Lily turned to Mira. "Come on, let's see if you can do it too!" + +Mira stepped forward, summoning a ball of mana more quickly than she had in the basement, before moving it into the circle. A ring of flame erupted around the edge to form a barrier. She clenched her hand, and the fire roared up before dissipating. "I could feel it, but... in my mind, kind of." + +Laz was beaming. "We'll figure this out. One of those books has to have a way home for all of us!" diff --git a/characters.md b/characters.md index 76ba517..19d49bf 100644 --- a/characters.md +++ b/characters.md @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ Mana: yellow Class One Blonde girl, mischievous Focus: innate understanding of Unua -Mana: ??? +Mana: olive green ## Lucas