RP:Darkness Found

• RP:DARKNESS FOUND

• Mages Training Center

As you enter this large room, you notice you are standing behind a clear wall of magic. On the other side are numerous mages using everything type of spell one can imagine. Fire bolts flying ice crystals all around, some even summoning great beasts of battle. None of the spells seem able to move outside the barely visible barrier, and you guess that is its main purpose. You see some of the mages are using quarterstaffs and pikes, trying to learn the art of combat to complement their mastery of the mystical. Others are very young, and this type of fighting is more to learn discipline, rather than excel their special abilities. This definitely must be the place people that come to actually practice and learn magic. Your only way to exit is down, or cross the barrier to the east. An old man suddenly appears next to you in a shimmer of gold, sparkling, light.

Studying one late night in the Mages Library, Vasha was making her way along the dusty shelves of thousands of books, tombs, and scrolls. Running one slim finger along the spines of the books, her mouth worked silently as she read the titles. Noticing a battered and age darkened scrape of paper stuck behind a large tomb she stops. Carefully she pulls it out and rushes over to the table she had been using; the surface was scattered with her notes. One lone candle burned low as she bent down close to it; the better to read what she had found. Excitement widens her soft, brown eye’s as she realizes what she had come across; the paper spoke of a shard. It explained that if she crushed it into a fine powder and added it to the ink she used that the powers she invested into her tattoo’s would increase and work every time she placed one on a person. Clasping the scrap gently to her ample bosom she twirled on her toes in happiness and whispers a soft prayer to whatever Deity was smiling down on her. This was what she had been hoping to find. All the hours and days she had been searching this dim and dust covered place had finally paid off. Now the only problem was where to find some of these shards. She thought it out for awhile before she remembered seeing something that might have been what the paper spoke of. Quickly she gathers up her notes and she stuffs them into her bag and exit’s the library to head to a forgotten part of the mines she had explored when she was younger and still living on her families farm. Cautiously she enters the cave mouth and makes her way inside to move deeper and deeper into the bowls of the earth. Stopping for a moment the young mage holds out her hand and mutters a spell making a globe of mage light appear to float just above her palm. Pinpoints of light reflect from the cavern wall, covering her form with sparkling bits of refracted purple light. Raising her hand to better see what was causing it she finds what she was looking for. Imbedded in the rough surface of the caves walls were small shards that was sending the purple lights to dance about the mage. Another command spoken sent the mage light to hover in the air by her head as she pulled out her pick and worked the shards from the cavern wall. After what seemed like days she was able to free enough to fill a small pouch that she closes and ties at her waist. Using the back of her hand she wipes the sweat that had formed there from her efforts and she notices a strange glow coming from the tattoo covering it. ~Now what caused that I wonder~ she thinks. Shaking her head she dismisses the phenomenon as a trick of her eye’s caused by the mage light. Gathering her things she rushes from the cave and back to the Mage tower. Upstairs in one of the workrooms she sits at a table and pours the shards out onto the worn and magic scarred surface. Vasha starts to look them over and thinks about how the paper said to crush them. Rising from her seat she goes to a cabinet along one wall and takes out a mortar, pedestal and a glass bottle and returns to place them next to the stones. ~Maybe I should crush them one at a time~ she thinks as she places one in the hollowed out bowl. Gently at first she pulverizes the stone to a fine dust, purple in color sits on the bottom of the bowl. Satisfied with the outcome the young mage makes quick work of the rest of them. Once done she pours the powder into the glass container and removes her ink bottle from the pouch that held her tools. With deliberate movements she carefully pours the ebony ink into the bottle holding the shard dust and then places a cork in the top. Her hands tremble with a slight tremor as she picks it up to blend the ingredients and her lids squeeze tightly shut as she whispers another prayer that this would work. Over and over she lightly swirls the liquid. Lifting up the glass container she is surprised that it had blended so well in such a short time. There was a barely noticeable purple glow to the solution, but the instructions said this was to be expected. Taking her seat again she pulls out her needles and rune stone. ~The best way to test this will be on myself~ the thought bounces around inside her head as she rolls up her sleeve on the unmarked as yet arm. Swiftly she sends herself into a light trance and begins the tattoo, but right away she can feel a difference. ~Nothing wrong~, or so she thought and she continues with her work. Her hand, wrist and up to her elbow is covered with eye pleasing lines and swirls. Laying her needle down next to the bottle of ink she takes a cloth and starts to wipe her hand clean of excess ink and blood. Suddenly Vasha is assaulted with a dizziness that sends her to the floor; her eye’s roll up into the back of her head as her body arches and her heels drum the hardwood floor in a fit. The power pounded along her veins after sinking into her bloodstream from the new “ink” of the tattoo she had placed on her hand and arm. It was racing towards her brain, ripping her nerves raw along the way. It was too much for her body to handle. Convulsions wrack her body from head to toe and foam pours from her mouth as scream a scream is tore from her throat. Minutes tick by and slowly the fit passes and she slumps to the floor as if all her bones had turned to water. The room is deadly quiet except for her panting. Awareness comes to the young mage in fits and starts. Rolling over to push herself onto her hands and knee’s Vasha uses the side of the table to help her back into the chair she had fallen from. Her body sore and weak as a newborn kitten she rests her head on the cool surface of the table as her strength returns. ~What went wrong? What happened to me? I feel so….so different.~ She tries to make sense of what had happened. Without warning an halo of unearthly brilliance flashes from her hand and arm where she had placed the new tattoo and in shock she jumps to her feet. Bursts of power, a foreign mana moves through the marrow of her bones. The powers was inside her. She could feel it burgeoning, invading her being and she wanted to scream and laugh and weep with the glorious terror of it. This was what she desired yet feared to grasp, and it was fear that had lead her to fail so many times in the past with her experiments. Slow tears forced themselves out between her lashes and trickled down her cheeks as the dark mana made it’s way through her veins. She couldn’t believe that her soul hadn’t shattered yet from the force that worked inside her. Suddenly her body arches back and the next thing she knew she was shrieking in fury or delight or sheer, unfettered madness from the pain. The scream goes on for what feels like an eternity and Vasha knew that she couldn’t withstand the bombardment much longer before she became insane. She battled to keep a hold on her mind, but the hold was slipping, threatening to spin out of control. Sick, soul-numbing terror was lodged like a parasite in her gut. Her stomach recoiled and contracted; she clapped a hand over her mouth as a vomiting spasm threatened to overcome her. Slowly it passes, but then she couldn’t move, couldn’t utter a sound as her senses strove to assimilate what had just took place. Trying to regain some form over control, curious emotions played through Vasha’s chest like mice scurried through dry grass. Extending her arm with the new runic tattoo she studies it as if it belonged to another person, but then she knew what she had and the lines of pain that had etched her face like acid fell away. A weird pressure pierces her eye’s and she rushes back to the table to grope in her bag for the small mirror she kept in it. Holding it up she gazes into it and what it reflects back to her causes her hand to spasm and she drops it to break into tiny pieces on the floor around her feet to glitter as if the star‘s had fallen from the heavens to grovel at her feet. Her once normal brown eye’s had dramatically changed. The iris, pupil, and sclera had completely filled in with a blackness so deep and dark that nothing of her old eye color remained, but her sight was still working. She could see perfectly, better then before the change actually. Objects were sharper and colors more bright. Raising her gaze to look about the room her expression became rapt, triumphant. This would work to her advantage. Now the concept of failure was beyond her. The power was hers and she knew how she must use it.