[open; dated 4/20] // dream fades before dawn

[fionnuisce]

Characters: Waver and open!
Setting: Floor 25
Format: Action, but I will try to match.
Summary: Someone doesn't cope well with screwing up.
Warnings: None yet.

[Since his revival, Waver hadn't slept. He certainly hadn't eaten, considering the miserable state of the cafeteria's choices. Not that he thought it mattered; there were more important things to do.]

[Twice, twice now he'd failed and gotten himself killed. This time it wasn't the death itself that bothered him (though painful, it had at least been quick) so much as it was the circumstances surrounding it. If he hadn't hesitated, if he hadn't faltered, if he hadn't been terrible with one of the most basic forms of magecraft...a thousand 'if' possibilities had run through his head countless times over by now.]

[Waver could be found sitting in the meadow on the twenty-fifth floor, and in time he'd surrounded himself with scattered and discarded notebook pages--upon which were drawn sigils both magical and alchemical in nature. It was clear he'd spent hours there (if not a day or two) doing...what was he doing? There was a small knife in his left hand, which Waver seemed to be using to cut various parts off flowers; sometimes focusing on only one, and occasionally several at a time.]

[However many he'd damaged, the green-suited magus would then hold out his hand and appear to be in deep concentration. If he was lucky, a pale green light would flicker and crackle around his hand, and the flowers would appear to slowly repair themselves.]

[...But he usually wasn't lucky. Waver estimated that even after endless hours' practice, his healing magecraft would only work approximately five times out of ten, and would only heal effectively three out of those five. No matter; he had absolutely no intention of leaving this floor until he got it right. What had begun as a harsh realization of the need for practice had rapidly spiraled downward into an obsessive task of repeated motions and stubborn fixation.]

[For him, healing was a difficult thing, one which all his thoughts had to be focused on. Unfortunately, he was thinking of far too many more troubling things; his obsessive practice had turned to an exercise in futility.]

Comments

[fionnuisce]

What do you know of your world's magic, if I could ask?

[proteusmoon]

Mages usually choose to study one field or another— that is, white magic or black magic. Only the greatest of magic users become skilled and talented enough to ascend to the rank of sage, and utilize both classes. White magic is mostly defensive spells and non-elemental offensive magic. Black is always elemental in nature, such as creating fire and ice or poisoning a target. Mana is required to cast any spell and the size of one's mana pool varies from person to person, usually depending on how much magic they have mastered.

[fionnuisce]

Seems simple enough, in concept. Those kind of things all sound like pretty standard magecraft where I come from, though. Is it really so rare to be able to use both?

[proteusmoon]

Well, I've only given you very basic examples of magic types, but yes. When a child decides to pursue a mage career, they are usually introduced to both black and white magic in order to better learn where their strengths lie. My friend Rydia is a summoner. He has built a bond with eidolons — spirits of immeasurable power — that is strong enough that he can summon them from their home in the Feymarch to aid him in life at any time. When he was a child, he knew both black and white magic, but he has since decided to focus on black magic and he is now one of the most powerful mages I know. He can summon meteors from the heavens, if he wants to.

[fionnuisce]

...okay, that's different. Summoned creatures aren't too out of left field, but not nearly on that level. Meteors from the sky aren't much of a thing either, as far as I know.

5 years later...

[proteusmoon]

Such feats are rather rare. Another friend of mine, named Tellah, unfortunately... lost her life after performing such powerful magic.