The Way of White-Hot Translucence
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:59 pm
TIMESTAMP: Ash 30th, 122
NOTES: Elementalism Expert Quirk, Fire Bonding
NOTES: Elementalism Expert Quirk, Fire Bonding
- - -
Ash 30th, 122
Brewing within his soul a profound sense of discontent, Aardwalden came to the cold reality that much of the prior four days had been for naught. He was not yet a mage who could accomplish everything he set out to do, perform any feat he set his mind, body, and spirit to task against. A Rune Forge would not happen here, in an unknown, hostile land with little support. Even if he could, it might take him years, and that was an irresponsible prospect to the industrious gnome.
Many of the components were the creation of Master Scriveners, many of them Runesmiths of some calibur themselves. He had no source of anti-magic to control the energies, nor could he sense them. To tamper beyond his means was to meet disaster upon himself, his soul, and the others on the expedition with him. There was simply no alternative.
Aardwalden had to explore northward himself. He had to return to Solunarium, to the comfort of his forge, or else face a fierce guilt of abandonment fostered within him. How could he have stepped through that door?
The idea of quartz glass had stuck in his mind, the properties of both its constituents familiar to the gnome. Glass was a para-element of earth and fire, of sand and heat. Could he not blaze crystalline rock to a kind of obsidian?
While Aardwalden’s body was a kind of marble, he worked with quartz more regularly. Dragonshards - or at least Lodestones - were a type of quartz. With these thoughts in his mind, the gnome had a seat beneath the orange hue of a setting sun, lifting his melted hand to himself. Long ago, he could not manipulate the earth of his own body, but he’d fostered a connection to it in recent months.
Congealing within his hand a roil of aether, Aardwalden besought the elements for aid. The earth would give him quartz, and the fire would give him heat. A small, crystalline marble formed in, beginning to glow as its bonds fused together harder, becoming smooth and translucent. Feeling the kindness of the twin elements bonding together so tightly brought a smile to the old gnome’s lips.
The hard, hot glass rapidly cooled within his hand, and Aardwalden held it up to his eye, peering through its translucent surface. This quartz crystal was even more translucent than regular glass, and as he attempted to squeeze and shatter it, the material abided him without complaint. Tough. He lifted his hand up and down, weighting the large marble. Lighter than quartz, maybe by a fifth at least.
Some days ago, Aardwalden had lost a finger on his non-dominant hand, mistakenly wielding fire beneath the waves of the ocean while attuned to only to the distant hills he now sat comfortably within. Now seemed the time to amend that issue. Holding the marble to the melted stub where his finger used to be, Aardwalden asked the quartz glass to melt and shift at his direction, sculpting slowly as it alighted with scalding white heat once more.
The tips of his other fingers tingled, themselves glazing over as he referenced his other finger, finely shaping the stone as if he were working metal upon the forge. Before long the glass fused to his knuckle, and he carried on the reaction to transmute small amounts of his hand to this new material.
Delighted, Aardwalden curled in the finger, finding it numb for lack of pathways. Hopefully his body would not reject it. It seemed he could transmute some of his stony body to this new material, but why stop there?
With another finger on that same hand, Aard asked the earth of the hill, and the flame again for help. It began to roll slowly down his hand with a thin vein of light flashing and smoking, burning away the stone and leaving quartz glass in his wake. Once that entire digit was converted to glass, Aard curled it inward in a bid to test its functionality. To his surprise, his finger curled, the glass alight beneath the surface with the twinkling motes of his aetherial veins suspended within.
Carrying the burning stone glass up his arm, Aard watched his hand turn translucent, squeezing the fingers that still worked. Beneath the comfort of the hill, the earth listened, but the flame was a stubborn thing, and he could feel its pulsations growing more tumultous, the transmutation beginning to sear with a bit of pain as he crossed his elbow and climbed his bicep, tracing and smoothing the same joints his body alreaddy possessed.
A hint of weariness overtook Aard in that next moment, and the gnome with a warm, glass arm finally allowed the fire to fizzle away of its own desire. The excitable earth had to be stopped, quartz spreading out where the glass fused to his shoulder.
Curling his elbow inward, Aardwalden ran his fingers over the Stoneborn nerves, marveling at the function he retained. His body was now far less brittle, the creaking of his elbow gone and quiet. The limb even seemed more dexterous, even with the damaged nerve endings that he thought might heal in time.
There was a profound beauty to the internal channels of a Stoneborns veins, suspended in the solid glass quartz. He glowed now, faintly, more than before as his arm cast a blue glow over the dimly lit cave he’d hollowed out from the hill. Would he have ever done this to himself if not for needing to lessen his weight so that he might take to the sky?
That was the true goal, after all. Flight. To manufacture enough Aerolyth, and bind it together solidly enough that he could control an ascent and force himself forward at speed. Several days remained yet before he could make that transition. Attuned to the earth, Aerolyth of any strength would be a grand challenge for him to conjure below ground. First, he would finalize his body in the coming days. Sequentially, meditating to the fire for its grace. It seemed displeased, just as it refuted him within the shelf beneath the ocean days before. Less so than that time, but it made itself known to him again.
Returning to the furnace he built of quartz some time prior, Aardwalden asked the earth wielding his Scrivened circuitry to crumble, the Magmatyte blustering hot dribbles of hissing magma. Reaching in, he took hold of the Dragonshard with his glass fingers forged of rock and fire. Just as he thought, he was able to touch the upset crystal without harming himself, and he carried it aloft to the center of the commons he’d dug out largely by hand days before.
Having a seat there upon the smooth stone, Aardwalden set the crystal down and stared, feeling that natural source of flame lingering beneath the bonds of that more friendly earth. Like the blistering depths of Mount Sorokyn, the crystal swirled with lakes of lava beneath the surface, and for now he gave the flame no command.
Fire, not air, was the element Aardwalden always struggled with. He was calm, it was temperamental. At least with the wind, there was a sense of curiosity and joviality to its dance across the sky. Fire wanted to be worked with purpose, to consume, and to share its wrath. Taming it had always been his truest test as an Elementalist, and for years hence his initiation, he could scarcely conjure a mote of flame and have it listen.
“You wish to consume?” he spoke with wonder. Of course. Maybe. Aardwalden rose, then returned with an arm of dry, carefully selected twigs. Tucking them around the Magmatyte, he placed his hand upon the stone and fed a very small portion of his aether through it, giving rise to a trickle of hot magma that drizzled down to the next below. Flames began to grasp and gasp to life, leaping towards his fingers with delight. “Are you happy now?” he asked. “You seemed happy when you took my finger. I should have listened, old friend. The forge - Master Thonar always fueled it himself, a fire in his eyes. I always thought you wouldn’t listen because you respected him more. Now I know that really, he tended to you with great love in his heart.”
Aardwalden invited the flame to dance up his arm, living upon the glass in harmony with his soul. It did not seek to burn him any longer, even if it could not. He could not feed it with his own emotion, but he could respect it now that he knew how. Like a butterly upon his arm, he held the fire to the smoldering twigs and let it live out its life, then quietly thanked the earth and the flame for all it had done for him in this prior week. It changed, it bonded, it gave and it took. He had only love for the elements, and he could feel the warmth in his soul beginning to blossom as he finally found kinship with fire. The bond would never be as strong as that of his Arche, but he had fostered a great deal of mutual respect with the troublesome element.
Feeling his hunger and tiredness both strengthen, Aardwalden inhaled the essence of the Magmatyte before him, letting his veins populate with gradients of vibrant orange to blue, his eyes shimmering now with both colors. Aardwalden often glowed blue from the Aetherite he chose to consume, but maybe now. While the shard dimmed and the flames smoldered to ash, the glass-armed gnome fell still and let his mind slip towards the call of a trance, dreaming of fire and earth, and the welcoming heavens far above.
Ash 30th, 122
Brewing within his soul a profound sense of discontent, Aardwalden came to the cold reality that much of the prior four days had been for naught. He was not yet a mage who could accomplish everything he set out to do, perform any feat he set his mind, body, and spirit to task against. A Rune Forge would not happen here, in an unknown, hostile land with little support. Even if he could, it might take him years, and that was an irresponsible prospect to the industrious gnome.
Many of the components were the creation of Master Scriveners, many of them Runesmiths of some calibur themselves. He had no source of anti-magic to control the energies, nor could he sense them. To tamper beyond his means was to meet disaster upon himself, his soul, and the others on the expedition with him. There was simply no alternative.
Aardwalden had to explore northward himself. He had to return to Solunarium, to the comfort of his forge, or else face a fierce guilt of abandonment fostered within him. How could he have stepped through that door?
The idea of quartz glass had stuck in his mind, the properties of both its constituents familiar to the gnome. Glass was a para-element of earth and fire, of sand and heat. Could he not blaze crystalline rock to a kind of obsidian?
While Aardwalden’s body was a kind of marble, he worked with quartz more regularly. Dragonshards - or at least Lodestones - were a type of quartz. With these thoughts in his mind, the gnome had a seat beneath the orange hue of a setting sun, lifting his melted hand to himself. Long ago, he could not manipulate the earth of his own body, but he’d fostered a connection to it in recent months.
Congealing within his hand a roil of aether, Aardwalden besought the elements for aid. The earth would give him quartz, and the fire would give him heat. A small, crystalline marble formed in, beginning to glow as its bonds fused together harder, becoming smooth and translucent. Feeling the kindness of the twin elements bonding together so tightly brought a smile to the old gnome’s lips.
The hard, hot glass rapidly cooled within his hand, and Aardwalden held it up to his eye, peering through its translucent surface. This quartz crystal was even more translucent than regular glass, and as he attempted to squeeze and shatter it, the material abided him without complaint. Tough. He lifted his hand up and down, weighting the large marble. Lighter than quartz, maybe by a fifth at least.
Some days ago, Aardwalden had lost a finger on his non-dominant hand, mistakenly wielding fire beneath the waves of the ocean while attuned to only to the distant hills he now sat comfortably within. Now seemed the time to amend that issue. Holding the marble to the melted stub where his finger used to be, Aardwalden asked the quartz glass to melt and shift at his direction, sculpting slowly as it alighted with scalding white heat once more.
The tips of his other fingers tingled, themselves glazing over as he referenced his other finger, finely shaping the stone as if he were working metal upon the forge. Before long the glass fused to his knuckle, and he carried on the reaction to transmute small amounts of his hand to this new material.
Delighted, Aardwalden curled in the finger, finding it numb for lack of pathways. Hopefully his body would not reject it. It seemed he could transmute some of his stony body to this new material, but why stop there?
With another finger on that same hand, Aard asked the earth of the hill, and the flame again for help. It began to roll slowly down his hand with a thin vein of light flashing and smoking, burning away the stone and leaving quartz glass in his wake. Once that entire digit was converted to glass, Aard curled it inward in a bid to test its functionality. To his surprise, his finger curled, the glass alight beneath the surface with the twinkling motes of his aetherial veins suspended within.
Carrying the burning stone glass up his arm, Aard watched his hand turn translucent, squeezing the fingers that still worked. Beneath the comfort of the hill, the earth listened, but the flame was a stubborn thing, and he could feel its pulsations growing more tumultous, the transmutation beginning to sear with a bit of pain as he crossed his elbow and climbed his bicep, tracing and smoothing the same joints his body alreaddy possessed.
A hint of weariness overtook Aard in that next moment, and the gnome with a warm, glass arm finally allowed the fire to fizzle away of its own desire. The excitable earth had to be stopped, quartz spreading out where the glass fused to his shoulder.
Curling his elbow inward, Aardwalden ran his fingers over the Stoneborn nerves, marveling at the function he retained. His body was now far less brittle, the creaking of his elbow gone and quiet. The limb even seemed more dexterous, even with the damaged nerve endings that he thought might heal in time.
There was a profound beauty to the internal channels of a Stoneborns veins, suspended in the solid glass quartz. He glowed now, faintly, more than before as his arm cast a blue glow over the dimly lit cave he’d hollowed out from the hill. Would he have ever done this to himself if not for needing to lessen his weight so that he might take to the sky?
That was the true goal, after all. Flight. To manufacture enough Aerolyth, and bind it together solidly enough that he could control an ascent and force himself forward at speed. Several days remained yet before he could make that transition. Attuned to the earth, Aerolyth of any strength would be a grand challenge for him to conjure below ground. First, he would finalize his body in the coming days. Sequentially, meditating to the fire for its grace. It seemed displeased, just as it refuted him within the shelf beneath the ocean days before. Less so than that time, but it made itself known to him again.
Returning to the furnace he built of quartz some time prior, Aardwalden asked the earth wielding his Scrivened circuitry to crumble, the Magmatyte blustering hot dribbles of hissing magma. Reaching in, he took hold of the Dragonshard with his glass fingers forged of rock and fire. Just as he thought, he was able to touch the upset crystal without harming himself, and he carried it aloft to the center of the commons he’d dug out largely by hand days before.
Having a seat there upon the smooth stone, Aardwalden set the crystal down and stared, feeling that natural source of flame lingering beneath the bonds of that more friendly earth. Like the blistering depths of Mount Sorokyn, the crystal swirled with lakes of lava beneath the surface, and for now he gave the flame no command.
Fire, not air, was the element Aardwalden always struggled with. He was calm, it was temperamental. At least with the wind, there was a sense of curiosity and joviality to its dance across the sky. Fire wanted to be worked with purpose, to consume, and to share its wrath. Taming it had always been his truest test as an Elementalist, and for years hence his initiation, he could scarcely conjure a mote of flame and have it listen.
“You wish to consume?” he spoke with wonder. Of course. Maybe. Aardwalden rose, then returned with an arm of dry, carefully selected twigs. Tucking them around the Magmatyte, he placed his hand upon the stone and fed a very small portion of his aether through it, giving rise to a trickle of hot magma that drizzled down to the next below. Flames began to grasp and gasp to life, leaping towards his fingers with delight. “Are you happy now?” he asked. “You seemed happy when you took my finger. I should have listened, old friend. The forge - Master Thonar always fueled it himself, a fire in his eyes. I always thought you wouldn’t listen because you respected him more. Now I know that really, he tended to you with great love in his heart.”
Aardwalden invited the flame to dance up his arm, living upon the glass in harmony with his soul. It did not seek to burn him any longer, even if it could not. He could not feed it with his own emotion, but he could respect it now that he knew how. Like a butterly upon his arm, he held the fire to the smoldering twigs and let it live out its life, then quietly thanked the earth and the flame for all it had done for him in this prior week. It changed, it bonded, it gave and it took. He had only love for the elements, and he could feel the warmth in his soul beginning to blossom as he finally found kinship with fire. The bond would never be as strong as that of his Arche, but he had fostered a great deal of mutual respect with the troublesome element.
Feeling his hunger and tiredness both strengthen, Aardwalden inhaled the essence of the Magmatyte before him, letting his veins populate with gradients of vibrant orange to blue, his eyes shimmering now with both colors. Aardwalden often glowed blue from the Aetherite he chose to consume, but maybe now. While the shard dimmed and the flames smoldered to ash, the glass-armed gnome fell still and let his mind slip towards the call of a trance, dreaming of fire and earth, and the welcoming heavens far above.
- - -