12th Hamis, 2719
THE DIVES| LATE NIGHT
THE DIVES| LATE NIGHT
MusicShow
Inhale, exhale. Breathe. Feel the mona in her veins, in her lungs, in her very thoughts.
Here. Here in the abyss she could focus.
Inhale, exhale. Breathe. Open your being to their sentience. To their touch.
Here. Here in the cold she could conquer.
Charity sat in the middle of the floor, cold and dark and quiet, alone save for the voice that nattered in her mind and a couple of candles to read by. And a small, fluffy hingle in a barren small cage. It’s nose wiggled, and its beady black eyes watched the galdor, as though aware that in this place it would be foolish to assume safety. The voice in her head refused to be silenced. The voice that was her father, and yet, was not. Her eyes were closed, and around her the blonde pianist had a series of grimores spread open on the hardwood floor, like some sort of strange plot. Her hair hung loose around her face, and there were deep hollows under her eyes, but tonight she was sober. Sweat beaded on her brow and a small tremor ran uncontrolled through her limbs, but the addict pushed her need aside. The laudanum that she had consumed like water to a dying man was dulling. Numbing.
There was something so much more fulfilling than the drugs now. Something that was as euphoric as being tangled between the sheets with a lover. Something more consuming than the temporary high.
Magic.
Reaching out a hand, she stroked fingers loosely over the first book before her, opening her eyes too look at the monite scrawled there. A Living spell, complex and long, difficult to learn on its own. She had discovered it by accident, stumbled on in the books that had been left in the quaint house in the Painted Ladies.
It was difficult, but its usage could be an ace up her sleeve, when the time came. When ultimately, Damen decided he’d had enough of just whispering in her mind.
Inhaling deeply, the pale woman gathered her field, slowly dragging towards her the particles that danced with Perceptive conversation. It was familiar, warm like the embrace of her husband and responsive to her will. Charity exhaled slowly, her mind filling with a rush of clarity, pushing her fathers deprecating tone far into the deep recesses till it was silent. The room felt thick with anticipation, her aura rich with the power that she was pushing to develop. Settled into her wheelhouse, the mage inhaled again, before muttering the rhythmic syllables that built not the Living spell under her fingers, but a request to allow her mind to memorize the unusual scrawled script. She wove the learning spell like the weaver at the loom, bolstering the stanza with a repetition thrice around.
The spell wasn’t published, it wasn’t a carefully written scholars hand. None of them were. Whoever had left these books behind had gathered them from illicit sources, building a small library of works that should Brunnhold find them would most likely be burned and scattered to the wind. They spoke about dark things that were only theorized.
And Charity intended to use them to conquer Diaxio. And Damen. And any other clocking ersehole that dared to step up.
The mona sang to her, filling the galdor with purpose and expectation, and finally she opened her eyes to glance down at the book. Carefully, she read each line, the text burning into her mind like tattoos. The words consumed her, imprinting across the neurons in her brain, locking down like the lines of a childhood lullaby. Slowly, like the dawning of the sun, her field began to fill with a murky violet as the spell reached its crescendo. Charity inhaled with a short sound of pain as her temples began to ache and a throbbing descended on the base of her skull, eyes now staring through the book, reading the words on her mind rather than the ones she could see. It was so clear, so defined and complex, and so terrifying in it’s creation. Just as she thought that she might have gone too far, the Perceptive spell ended, leaving the pianist panting and shaking in its wake. In the small cage, the little grey creature squeaked quietly, whiskers moving as it sniffed the air and pressed itself into a corner.
She closed her eyes, swallowing thickly as nausea swelled in her throat, forcing back the urge to empty her stomach. Lifting her chin, rolling her head from side to side, Charity relaxed her shoulders. It was part of her now, the Living spell, ingrained in her memory artificially but completely. The spell could be burned, ashed and forgotten by time but she wouldn’t forget it.
It was hers now.
Inhaling deeply, and exhaling slowly, the Valentin pushed aside the dull headache that the intense deluge of information had created and stood gracefully. Her legs felt weak, but her mind felt strong, and with the confidence of her success, she reached out again. Her field grasped for the less familiar Living particles that danced around her like a curious kitten, folding them into her aura. Perhaps it was the lingering touch of the Perceptive spell, or the eagerness of the mona to join the blonde in her strange new casting, but Charity felt the surge within her warm and rich as she spoke the new monite. The syllables were soft and almost mumbled to begin with, before they built in intensity to became long drawn sounds spoken in a low guttural tone. The blonde held her hands open by her side, violet eyes open and focused on the caged hingle before her, though she was concentrating intensely on the spell rather than what she saw before her.
Wincing, Charity grit her teeth against the monite but didn’t stop as the throbbing in her skull intensified into a icepick digging deep within. Her fingers curled like claws, and the tendons on her wrists stood out with the tension that held in her arms. Gasping, the galdor felt the moment the spell inserted a request to manipulate matter across distance, not at all expecting how painfully draining it would be. The stanza was a diseased growl, corrupting cells and twisting plasma. With effort Charity lifted her hands in front, focused on the hingle, and cried out the syllable that ended the spell with a Push.
The hingle squealed in surprise, jolting, though it could have just been frightened by her shout. Falling to her knees, sweat trailing down her neck, Charity pressed her hands against her knees and stared at the hingle.
It stared back.
“What? But I—” She began with incredulous disbelief, shocked that after all that effort and work the clocking spell hadn’t worked. Except that something did start to happen. The hingle twitched, and squeaked. It jumped, pinging around the cage and making a high pitched squeal. It rolled on its side, making sounds that she’d never heard before. As the horrified galdor watched, the little grey creature spasmed, it’s mouth open as it fought for air. Through its fur, she could see a thick growth seeping out, like the rot found on the corpses of dead animals left to the elements. She felt tears sting her eyes, but like some sort of horrible trance she couldn’t look away. The sounds stopped, and the hingle lay still, blackened and molding.
“Clocks.” Was all the galdor managed, before she wretched, barely keeping it together. Looking down at her hands, the blonde closed them slowly, pressing tightly against the fabric of her dress and swallowing hard. Her body trembled and her head pounded violently, geometric patterns frazzling her vision in one eye. The over exertion with the unfamiliar spell and a conversation she wasn’t yet close to would leave a migraine in its wake, powerful and debilitating. She inhaled, and exhaled. And smiled.
Here. Here in the darkness she could destroy.
Dice RollsShow
Learning Spell - SidekickBOTToday at 21:36
@Raksha: `1d6` = (6) = 6
Bloodrot Spell - SidekickBOTToday at 22:04
@Raksha: `1d6` = (5) = 5
