Open - Training at the forge in the grassy hills

Sera sighed as she sat on top of a grassy hill, letting the cool air's breeze blow her hair wildly. Each day she had spent in this world, she was growing, slowly but surely, more powerful. She could now forge beautiful weapons, yet due to a lack of recipes beyond basic tier except for one, they were really no different than anything anyone else could make. Her Astramancy still eluded her entire understanding. Out of habit, she spoke her contact word, and her rainbow prism began to float before her. She sighed, staring at it's slowly changing colors. "You know, I ought to get a focus and keep you in that when I'm using my magic. It ought to help me use you a bit more efficiently, don't you think?" She asked it.

The prism didn't respond. Sometimes it did. The seven - or possibly nine, she wasn't completely sure - spirits that resided inside of it sometimes desired to make comments, sometimes helpful but sometimes snide, when she talked to it. Or maybe they didn't reside in it, but rather could use it to speak to her. She still wasn't completely sure about that. She let out a heavy sigh, once again. This world was beautiful. She held up a hand and felt the wind, moving her fingers softly as if she were conducting the breeze. Theoretically, she could. She could tap into her astramancy, use that to replicate the power of aeromancy, and use that to command the winds to dance around her however she saw fit. Maybe she would have enjoyed that. But as of late, a strange grayness had been creeping into her. She felt as if she was stalling. Like she had soared as high as she could, and now she could go higher, and would soon crash to the ground. Not only would that lead to the ending of her own dreams, but she knew it would disappoint Lucia. She smiled at the thought of the woman. Lucia had been the greatest thing she discovered in this world, even this awesome power to control magic. It was for Lucia that Sera now held her desire to grow stronger.

In her training, Sera had heard rumors of a power many practitioners of astramancy were eventually able to control. The power of conjuring. It would basically turn her into one of the heroes, or villains, of the old comics she had loved to read so much, able to create weapons out of nothing but her magic and imagination. How exciting that would be! "Creating weapons with my Astramancy..." Sera muttered. "I suppose... even now, that it's possible as I am." As she said those words, the thought came to her. Why didn't she? What all did creating a weapon entail? A forge to heat the ore, ore to be heated, an anvil to strike the headed metal upon, a hammer to strike it with, and water to cool it. Geomancy could form the forge and anvil, as well as the ore to smelt. Naturalmancy could grow her something to burn. Pyromancy could ignite her fuel, and hyrdomancy could create the water. She could use her aeromancy to feed the fire more oxygen and let it burn hotter. It wouldn't train her illusion magic, but it was something. And indeed, it could be rather fun, creating a weapon entirely using magic.

Sera stood up. She inhaled slowly, building up her resolve and her energy. She knew the most difficult part would be creating the forge. Since she would be doing this out in the open, she didn't want to risk putting herself into MIND DOWN. Likewise, if anyone did come, it would be nice to have someone to talk to as she worked. Who knows, they could give her something else to do as well, or they might want to even purchase the weapon she created. She pushed the thought out of her mind for now. She had to focus on creating the forge. She needed three things - a basin to store water in, and anvil, and a furnace to store the flames in. In additon, since she didn't have any tools with her, she'd have to create those as well. A hammer made out of a hard enough rock would be fine for hammering hot steel, and she wouldn't need tongs as she could just levitate whatever she decided to craft out of the fire. "Right then, a furnace, an anvil, a hammer, and a basin. That's not too bad."

She cleared her throat and began her chant to control the earth, and bend it to her will. "Hadhih alsultat hi al'alghamu, wahadha hu haqiun. Swa' kan dhlk fi daw' yawm 'aw 'aswad min allyl. 'Ana adey kl ma yaqae fi maryiy. Wa'aghtanim ma 'uridu, mae aldaw' albrtqaly!" The spell was a relatively simple one - it drained her energy the longer she had it active, but while active, she had only will the earth to move and it would. Larger movements would cause her energy to decrease at a quicker rate.

Sera raised both her arms, as if beckoning the earth to rise. A large obelisk began to push its way out of the ground, about Sera's height in diameter and about twice that in height by the time she finished. As soon as she did, she cut the spell's energy off and ended it, before dropping to the ground. She panted, gasping for breath, and looked at her energy. It wasn't so low that she was in danger of MIND DOWN, but it was low enough that she decided waiting a while before doing any more work would be smart. She laid back down on the ground and stared up into the sky. The sun shine down beautifully on this world, and the grass stirred on the breeze, the world perfectly content and peaceful. If any part of nature was bothered by what Sera was doing, forging it to her own will rather than its own, it didn't give any hint of that fact. No, today was a beautiful day, and Sera planned on getting a lot done.

(Edit: This was originally intended to be a solo, so if no one joins I'll just treat it as such, but I figured it could be fun to have it be an open, let people come in and talk with Sera or train with her, or help her, or whatever, so don't be put off by the walls of text! I'll reduce that if anyone wants to join, and feel free to pop in at any time!)

 

Sera watched as her energy meter slowly ticked up. The ring she wore on her finger helped speed it up a bit, but not any large amount. She let out a heavy sigh. If she could, she would like to soon get a second accessory, as she had been told she could have two. She reached up and touched her neck. Maybe a choker? They did often look very cute. Besides, she'd also decided that if anything happened and she died, that she would like to reincarnate in this world as a Felis. Though, she hadn't discussed such an idea with Lucia yet. If that woman was against it, she wouldn't do it. But if not, it might be fun. She wished there was a way to reincarnate without dying, but she supposed that was kind of the point. Maybe, more accurately, what she wanted was a way to change appearance and race without dying. Yeah, that was better.

Despite the fact that her energy hadn't quite yet recovered all the way, Sera pushed herself into a standing position and dusted the girl and grass off of herself. She approached the earthen obelisk she had created and began to examine it. She only needed a rough furnace, nothing too fancy or detailed. As such, this would probably do, once she had hollowed it out. If she had been thinking, she would have made it hollow in the first place. That would have been less earth being moved, so less energy being spent. She sighed. Lesson learned. That was the whole reason she was training anyway, right? Now she knew something more about geomancy that she didn't know earlier. Progress. Advancement! A basic and fundamental understanding of the preservation of energy by preforming the minimum about of work necessary!

Sera frowned. She began to walk a slow circle around the obelisk, tracing her hand along its surface. It would take nearly as much energy as she had spent to raise this thing in order for her to hollow it out. It would then require a decent about of energy to create the anvil as well. Then the basin, which would then have to be filled, then the fuel would have to be created.... She let out a heavy sigh. Her idea had seemed so perfect when she first stumbled upon it, but more and more she was realizing that this would require a lot of work, not just in the amount she had to do but how much resting would be necessary between each step. If there was someone else to help her, it would of course go much easier. Though, she supposed doing it by herself would get her more practice. She wasn't sure which she preferred at this point.

Upon finishing her walk of the obselisk's circumference, she paused. There was one way she could combine two steps. If she used the earth from inside the obelisk to make the anvil or basin, then that was one less thing she would have to raise! She mused for several moments. It would probably be smarter to make the basin from out of the earth within the obelisk, as that would likely be soft earth, and the anvil would have to be the hardest earth and rock of it all, whereas the basin just had to be solid enough to hold water.

She took a few steps away from the obelisk and looked at her energy bar. Wasn't quite full yet. She decided it would be best to wait until it was full, as she would rather be safe than sorry. She would have to wait for that bit to refill anyway before going on to the next step, so it wasn't as if she'd be wasting time at this point. As she stood now, the worse time waster would be to accidentally enter a state of MIND DOWN. The time she would have to spend unconscious and recovering her energy in that form would be the largest waste of all. So she sat back down upon the ground, and started to mentally plan out how exactly she would extract the earth from within the obelisk to create the basin which she would use to store the water of her forge.

 

A figure would crest a nearby hill, and draw closer at unnerving speed. It would still take her several minutes to grow from a speck on the horizon to the 5'4 figure that now stood on the perimeter of the grassy work site, doubled over and panting with exhaustion. She swallowed between gasps, then inhaled deeply and begun the closest thing to speech she could manage at present, still gasping for breath between broken paraphrases;

"Holy shit.. I'm still not... used to that... give me... a... Minute."

She would raise her left hand to excuse herself for the moment. Though the completion of her training quest had imparted upon her the core knowledge of Mudras and how to use them, they had not prepared her for the immense physical demand they would place on her body. The speed Mudra was her least favorite to train, as she could completely exhaust herself in a matter of minutes if she was not careful in restraining herself from pressing too hard, though the inhuman speed it granted was exhilarating to say the least, and she had not yet completely maximized the techniques potential.

Still sucking for breath, but somewhat capable of speaking in complete sentences she introduced herself and stated her intentions bluntly "I'm Dempsey, from Stokbon. I need you to smash some things for me. You do magic tool stuff, right?"

Her journey to this remote work site was prompted by her other recently acquired skill; Alchemy. She needed a few poor grade items broken down and processed into alchemical reagents for an experiment she was conducting. She didn't feel the need to explain this quite yet, and simply offered "I have money or whatever.. I just need help with this. there aren't many crafters in Terraspehere who can do this yet, and it's starting to become a thorn in my side. So.. what's your price?"

@Sera Phim

 

Sera looked up when another woman appeared, surprisingly quickly, but was gasping for breath. The woman was a Felis, like Sera wished she had started as, and rather... curvy. Were Sera not already taken, she might have flirted with the girl a bit. But her heart, and soul, belonged to another. "Take your time," Sera said as the woman gasped for breath. She checked her own energy. It was almost time for the next step in her project. She had realized that one extra step would be necessary - just making an anvil out of earth or rock would not nearly be enough, it'd be far too brittle. She would have to melt whatever she used, most likely earth, and reshape that into the anvil to rid the earth of it's naturally occurring weak points, which would case it to break if she struck it with a hammer. An anvil that broke when hit with a hammer was a useless anvil.

As such, Sera placed her hand on the ground where she was going to be placing the anvil and began to trace something into the dirt with her finger. "Feuerfeiern, höre meinen Rat um Hilfe. Dieses Zeichen, das ich auf den Boden gebe, wenn es berührt wird, schmelze die Substanz, die es berührt. Laß es Flammen brennen heiß mit Zorn, und machen die Erde und Rock brachte es formbar wie Lehm in meinen Händen," she chanted. The mark she traced into the ground began to glow red, and she quickly jumped back. She let out a heavy breath and began to wait for her energy to restore once again. That spell itself hadn't taken a crazy amount out of her, but it was enough she would need another break. Much shorter this time, though.

Sera turned back toward her guest as the guest spoke again. "Dempsey... Dempsey... you look sort of familiar, can't really place where from. As for magical tools.... no, sorry. I'm a weaponsmith. I can use magic, and I can smash things just fine, and I can use magical tools themselves to accent that, but I don't know how to make magical tools. I wish I did though..." she muttered. "It'd be a lot of help to Lu- uh, to my girlfriend, if I could..." Sera turned away for a moment. Because of Lucia's power set, she knew that not everyone in this world would be too appreciative of the woman, or anyone who associates with her. As much as Sera didn't like using such a juvenile word as 'girlfriend' to describe Lucia, it would have to serve for general talk with others.

"So what did you use to move so quickly like that?" She asked the woman. "I don't sense any form of magic from you, aeromancy or pyromancy being the two that help increase people's speed. I will admit, I don't know much about the different masteries in this world, beyond what I've learned from other people and experimented with myself. Oh, and you might want to stay clear away from that red glowing mark. Anything that touches it is going to get hit with flames upward of a thousand degrees. I need it to melt the rock I'm about to move from out of that obelisk there so that I can shape it into an anvil."

She frowned once again. "Man, I really wish I could help. I'm kind of broke right now, as you might be able to tell by the fact I'm making a forge to practice with way out here, in the middle of nowhere, isntead of just paying to rent one. There are rumors that some new blacksmithing recipes will be coming out soon, and if I can I would like to get ahold of them. But, even then.... I'm running into the issue of I'm paying so much for the recipes, and not really making a profit on what I make because of how much the recipes were, but if I charge anymore for what I craft, then people won't be able to afford it." She sighed. "Sorry, that's not really your problem, it's my own."

Sera smacked her forehead. "Oh, my goddess! I'm so rude! I am so sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet! My name is Sera Phim, I run the Fine Constructs weapon crafting service, where everything we make is fit for a goddess," she said, her voice turning sing-song at the end. Her crafts had to be fit for a goddess, she thought. It was a goddess that was her muse and reason for this all anyway.

 

"AAaahhhhhmraaa Waaallllaaaa!!" A scream could be heard as Felix started to fly across the hills. Earlier he tried using his magic for the first time, a simple fireball spell, to get the feel of fire. Felix felt like the game may have been invented by a sadist. The words for the spell were jumbled and hard to pronounce. It felt like singing the alphabet backward for the cops while drunk. Still, Felix was curious to see if it work. Drawing the rune on the ground he recited the spell as best he could read it "Macht des Feuers, wachsen und brennen Die tödlichen Flammen zu essen und zu lernen. Bring mir Hitze, um mir zu helfen, aufzutauen. Werfen Sie linen Brennen den Feuerball!"

A higher tiered low-level spell was too much for the noob to handle. The system allowed the spell to work, it just backfired. The fireball launched out and hurtled itself towards Felix. At this point he wish he trained in dodging or a very similar field, it was a very painful, the blast launching him like a canon sideways. It almost felt like he was flying and then he fell. Felix gingerly dropped on his back, like a heavy sack of potatoes. Several meters from his primary position.

Felix held his eyes closed for a second before groaning to get up. The soreness in his body the constant reminder of him being alive. His eyes opening to the faces of two females before him. Another cat and a human by the looks of it. He stood and bowed before issuing an apology. "Sorry about that! Trying to get used to things around here." He stood straight and checked his vitals. His health and energy levels took a bigger hit than what he expected. He guessed getting hit by a fireball would take a fair amount of damage from anyone.


Turning to go he noticed the smithing stuff around him. His eyes glinting with a thought coming into his head. Turning back to the ladies he examined them more closely. The human looking one had more of the solid build he believed to used the stuff like this. "Excuse the interruptions and late introductions. The name is Michaelis, Felix Michaelis. You would not be looking for an apprentice, would you? I can work for very little. I am working on my cooking mastery, and will not require much. Just a chance for you to teach me some skills. I really want to learn how to be a weaponsmith." At this point, Felix widened eye pupils, perked his ears, and curled his tail. Going for the sad puss in boots look, with his slightly singed body and all. "I promise to do as you say. I can even use fire magic! Not well what-so-ever but I can still use it. I can be very useful!" Felix was doing his best to lay it on thick. He wanted to lower the chance of her flat out rejecting him.

@Sera Phim , @Dempsey Fabijain

 

Dempsey panted a few more times as she watched the woman speak for a good while before finally introducing herself as well "I'm Dempsey. I don't think we've met.. which is odd. I tend to get around pretty frequently. Anyway, first time for everything, right? Strangers are friends you haven't met yet and all that." She paused to wipe sweat from her brow and shrugged at the disappointing news that she wouldn't be AS useful as she'd originally hoped. Still undaunted, she continued.

"Well, I'm not too picky about HOW they get smashed, though It would be nice to have a skilled artesian do the honors because I'd like them to retain some of their magical properties, but hey.. I'm already here right? And it's not like it's That hard finding discarded grey rank equipment laying around. You'd be amazed what people leave lying around just there for the taking."

She trailed off for a second before piping up again "I 'acquire' things, you see. You, my good lady, seem to be in need of stuff that can be 'acquired' and reprocessed into valuable materials, and all I would ask for in exchange is the tailings and leftovers for my various experiments. With an influx of various wonderful and free materials, there's really no limit to how much you could profit from even the simplest of finished products. I don't see why a bit of gold couldn't enter the equation once we've gotten you up and on your feet, either. "

To drive home her point, she produces a gleaming fish scale from her pack and holds it on display. "This little gem came from a fish-man mage I personally beat to death with my bare hands. It's loaded with fishy goodness, and quite possibly a bit of aquamancy mojo as well. Now, I don't make a point of traveling the countryside with a pack full of ill-gained goods for obvious reasons, but I do take requests"

She straightened and offered a simple, almost innocent smile smile to punctuate her statement. She needed work and services, and this Sera woman seemed to be a bit out of her element as far as the hands-on portion of acquiring them went. This could work to everyone's favor. She was about to lay on a bit more salesmanship when they were joined by a third, who seemed to appear out of nowhere in much the same fashion as she had. She fell silent and waited for the customary introductions to be made, entertaining herself by trying to coax her dove into revealing itself as she feigned disinterest.

@Sera Phim @Felix Michaelis

 

Sera eyed up the boy as he arrived. Another weaponsmith? How interesting. "Well, at this point in time, I'm not really looking for an apprentice," she said. "But, if you want to practice out here with me, you're welcome to." She paused for a second. "That being said, if you can't control your fires, that's a good way to get burnt. There used to be an NPC weaponsmith I competed with. His store strangely went out of business, not too long ago," Sera shrugged. She hadn't done anything to Lachlan to make him switch professions, but if the boy read that into what she said, she wouldn't stop him. Though at the same time, she wouldn't mind having some competition.

She mused at what the girl said - Dempsey, she'd said her name was. "You.... acquire things?" Sera asked. She thought for a moment. "When you say 'acquire' things, how rare of things are we talking? Say I had a girlfriend who was looking for a very specific, very powerful, but very... frowned upon... object. Would I be able to hire you to help her find that object?" Sera asked. If this woman could help Lucia get the book she was looking for, it would be a goddess send! However, she didn't want to go into too much detail yet, both with because she wasn't sure to what degree she could trust the girl, and because they had been joined by Felix.

Sera looked between her two guests. "Not to be rude, but I do need to continue the next step with my training. We can all continue talking while I rest from this next spell, though."

She began to chant under her breath, her syllables hard and guttural. Her chant was long and complicated, but when she finished, she waved her hands toward the obelisk. The stone seemed to rip itself from inside of it, creating an hole into the now hollow structure that would soon be used to house flames. The rock and earth she removed floated to above the sigil she had placed on the ground earlier. Flames leapt up, melting the earth and rock into molten magma. Because it was still earth at it's core, the magma still obeyed Sera's commands, and shaped itself into an anvil. It sat down on the ground, and Sera released the spell, dropping to the ground herself.

"Now, as soon as that cools, I can hammer against it without it breaking. The whole thing is utterly inefficient in any combat situation, but it serves a decent purpose when it comes to making a forge. Though, it won't be near as good as any professionally cast anvil."

She turned toward Felix. "If you would like to help, gathering some branches to burn to start a fire within the furnace would be nice. Make sure they're dry, as much heat as possible with as little smoke as possible is what we'd want. If you do that, I would be willing to show you a thing or two."

(@Felix Michaelis @Dempsey Fabijain So sorry this took a while to get to, guys.)

 

Normally Felix would try his hardest to argue the point that he could be of use. After thinking it over for nine seconds give or take, he decided against it. Since the start of the game, Felix thought about making an ultimate weapon, a sword of sorts that would leave every wielder in awe at the sheer magnitude of it. For an unexplained reason, lately, he was just not feeling it. Yeah, weapons sounded fun but he wanted a different feeling of sorts. Felix was having second thoughts about being a weaponsmith. The fire inside him for weaponsmithing dying as steadily as it rose.

Felix took a mental note at the word 'girlfriend' by his standards he must not be the only person brave enough to be out in the game. Not that he could blame her, it feels amazing to be out without all the terrible backlash of being in a same-sex relationship. The worst a disapproving person could do in the game was slice your head off effectively killing you. It was a non-issue compared to the fact that a character could come back in the game.

On the other hand, Felix thought the other cat-person was a 100% organic nut factory. You could almost smell the crazy, and he loved it. Hijacking stuff with some magic water magic is pretty badass. Felix could not help but compare her to one of his favorite movie actresses, Scarlet Johansen, this lady could be a game version of black widow and it was very cool. If Felix was not gayer than the front row at a Barbara Streisand concert, this would be the one he hits on.

"Oh right sticks!" Felix snapped back into action. He quickly walked to the grove of trees a hill over. While he could still see the two ladies a bit away, he was out of earshot. The usage of magic is pretty cool. According to my skill book, I use fire magic it will be interesting to see what I can do in the future. The thought of being able to mow down bad guys with giant flames would be cool in most people eyes. Being himself as always Felix wanted to be different. To him, fire was more than just the destruction and death as a lot of people viewed it. Fire sparked the beginning of all without it nothing could survive.

Felix picked up three sticks of various sizes and seven fallen branches, picking the darker dried pieces. As instructed he brought them to the forge and put them inside settling for a basic tepee-like pattern. "You don't have to teach me at all. I think just working, in general, is a learning experience." Felix spoke to the forge lady, the Catwoman appeared more silent when it came to addressing him. Not that he minded at all if she did not like other cat people who was he to judge. Being a cook and a fire magic specialist gave him more of an innate understanding of starting fires. He scrapped the wood across each other, the dried sticks breaking apart into smaller parts. The smaller dry wood Felix clumped into a ball and placed underneath the tepee-like sticks. Not wanting to loose out Felix wanted to work on his magic as well. Settling for a longer incantation, he mumbled staying still in front of the furnace, Felix concentrated. Bracing himself as he finished Felix waited for the furnace to explode. Instead, a small flame caught on the branches inside igniting the tinder wood. Felix watched as the flame slowly grew.

(@Sera Phim and @Dempsey Fabijain appologies for all the mistakes and bad writing. I am not use to RPing ;-;)