[PM to Join] Spellwriting 101

[Pleasance Hedgethorne]

21st of Bethas 2719

She hadn't bothered to pay attention to the instructor's name, but they droned on their warnings intermittently, as the students present listened to the endless extolling of theory behind spellcraft, specifically the writing of spells. Of course, the students weren't permitted to write their own completed spells, they were only introduced to the principles involved. This was particularly vexing to Pleasance, who tended to excel at practical learning, over theoretical exposition. At best, they were allowed to draw elements of monite characters on paper, never intending for a full pronunciation or follow-through.

Only a couple of years before, she'd begun to take her studies more seriously. It was more important than ever that she shows herself to be a competent mage, now that her allowance hinged on continued excellence at school. As such, she tried to surround herself with excellent practitioners. Not necessarily those that were in the same field of magic as her. William, of course, was a great perceptive conversationalist, while the boy that talked to dead people, well... She wasn't sure what kind of magic he was involved in. She barely ventured to ask. Only thought to sit herself and William at his table, while attending their beginner spellwriting courses.

"Now, you have all come to a ways in your studies these past years. It's time to put the aggregated knowledge of all those years to use in this one effort. To design your own spells. It is no small thing, to create a spell. But having read quite a few, you've begun to not only learn the shape of monite, but also how the shaping of spells has wrapped itself around your own fields, in successful usage," Here he glanced at some of the more talented students in attendance, "As well as the less successful." Obviously directed at Pleasance, or so she thought. Perhaps she was getting insecure. He didn't deign to look at her at any rate.

She shook her head out of that thinking, anyway. The young woman was determined to make something of this course, and eventually reaching great enough heights with Physical conversation that she would be able to scribe her own spell. Her parents would eat their ultimatum, and she'd be grinding the words of her spell into their faces.

But that wasn't a proper mood to be writing a spell in. Not for Pleasance. Her approach toward the mona was one of negotiation. Transactional, offering this for that. Even if it were only pretty words, for a simple push or pull, there was a lilt of persuasive intent, tempered by a commanding timbre when she spoke the monite language.

William's approach was slightly different. His was a more ostentatious, bombastic style. She'd seen how he waved his arms, practicing the magic with all his physical presence. It'd be impressive if he worked on himself more. But he was still her chubby little friend, in her mind.

Their style of spellcraft seemed to translate to their writing of the monite letters on parchment. These were not meant to be formal spells, for use in the moment. None of them were anywhere near ready for that level of magic. This was just the preliminary fumblings of young men and women who might one day become spellwrites and magisters. Even so, they each had their own peculiar style when it came to tracing those monite characters on their bits of paper.

"William! Careful, do not mouth the words as you write them, here, you must have discipline!" Pleasance took the instructor's distraction as an opportunity to pause her own work, and take a look at Ezre's writing style. Curious to what the ghost-obsessed boy might be working on, she leaned over, perhaps a little too closely, to get a look at the shape of his writing.

[Ezre Vks]

a stuffy classroom

Afternoon on the 21st of Bethas, 2719

Ezre Vks considered himself a decent student, and the Hoxian had heard the word divinipotent used in his presence about his person from the lips of at least one of his Clairvoyant professors, despite his obvious focus on anatomy, physiology, and mortuary sciences. He was aware that much of his interests were not at all in what most students considered the ordinary or acceptable, but the Hexxos Acolyte also possessed absolutely no interest in being ordinary among his Anaxi peers. Their standards of acceptability were lacking, in his opinion, and so he moved through his education on the fringes, like some phantom at the edges of someone's vision, like a candle flickering in the distant dark, not anti-social so much as not socialized with, save for those who'd managed to endure the rhakor and the lingering scent of incense and chan that followed the temple-raised foreigner wherever he seemed to be.

To say that he was merely interested in spellwriting would have been a slightly lacking assumption, the Kzecka-born Hoxian having grown up among ancient texts and crumbling grimoires from ages long-forgotten even in the hallowed halls of Brunnhold. Considering his supernatural leanings, even Ezre had to admit that so much magic was written in ignorance of the whole truth and had set it in his mind to at least make his own contributions.

Dark eyes were focused on Professor Goelan while the man rambled on, the older galdor always speaking as if he was in front of a room of sixth years, of fresh new upper forms eager to expand their skills instead of ninth year students who were far more eager to flex their wings with the skills they'd already honed. He'd taken some notes, however, writing down the process by which a spell was approved during the course of the brief lecture and noting that in Anaxas, the peer-review process was left mostly up to the already busy Magisters and Chairs instead of opened into a more egalitarian forum like much of the foundation of education in Hox.

The professor went on to instruct the class to each pen their own favorite version of the simple but varied light spell, aware that different spellwriters had developed a handful of successful, reliable methods of creating a small, easy-to-control luminescence. Ezre was more familiar with the Static Conversation-based variations, given that Hoxians were best known for their strength in the discipline and despite the fact that he'd chosen Clairvoyance as his magical path of choice instead.

"Now, once you've penned the spell you know," The aging galdor with hair that was still a faint, faded shade of red instead of grey moved to the chalkboard and began to write, his tidy, compact Monite characters scraped across the dark, dusty surface with a rough but competent hand, "I'd like you to find the most fundamental of clauses and break down their structure like so."

Much like Estuan language courses in the formative lower years, Professor Goelan began to draw out the grammatical analysis of the spell he'd written on the board, using the Anaxi shorthand for each of the participles and components. The Hexxos Acolyte noted the differences with little marks in his notes, comparing what he'd learned in Frecksat to what he saw visualized here this afternoon in Brunnhold.

"You can see here that there must be agreement between the opening clause and the closing curl. The invocation is usually an obvious mirror to how one chooses to speak the end. Using this same concept, class, please take a moment to do the same for the spell you have in mind."

He'd glanced back down to his page, pushing ink across paper with a careful, steady hand. Deftung poetic calligraphy was a serious subject, one he'd spent much of his formative years learning, and it was often applied to spellwriting when a sorcerer wanted to make sure their hard work was recognized as unique and personal. Self-expressive outlets in his homeland already rare and markedly different than in Anaxas, the motion of Ezre's hand on the paper was probably far more fluid and gestural than most of his peers were used to. It was legible, especially to himself, but also what other observers would perhaps consider more than just a little artistic.

The Hexxos Acolyte felt someone else's eyes on him, but only after flinching at the Professor's loud admonishment of poor William. He flexed his field, first in caprison of the other student and then to make it known he recognized Pleasance's attention without lifting his eyes from his writing to look in her direction right away. The deadpan, calm expression on his delicate features didn't falter when he finally did glance up, tilting his head toward the other ninth form's curious face.

She was leaning far too close in her curiosity and as she bent to invade his carefully curated personal space, Ezre's dark eyes widened and his tatoooed lip curled for a heartbeat in displeasure, his hand not holding his quill reaching out to catch a book from tumbling off er desk, inked fingers curled around its spine,

"Can I help you, Miss Hedgethorne?" One eyebrow quirked, the softspoken student asking a question with such a deadpan tone that it was almost difficult to hear it as an inquiry so much as a statement. Still, there was an edge of something to his voice, but it was probably sarcasm and judgment more than anything else, thinly veiled behind the Hoxian's well-honed rhakor, "Did you need assistance in remembering a spell for light?"