RP:Tense Meeting Tween Teacher and Student

Caltarok having finished his tea and chat with Odh was a little at a lost at what to do. He wandered back into the coral castle pondering over how Odh suggested talking to Lanlan about the 'hunting' craft that he learned partially from Slyphrena before her disappearance and from the necessity of survival before in getting food and escaping dangerous situations. Looking around the castle, Caltarok was curious just how well he could bend the light and air… not only in what some called an 'invisibility' spell but perhaps to create a less than substantial copy of something? This spark of inspiration perhaps was due to Odh's suggestion. Mumbling, "Luxomancy and illusions? Could it be possible?" The human-formed dragon dressed in well-traveled worn leathers and a cloaking resting against his back lifts a hand slightly but keeping it at waist level. Focused solely on practicing, Caltarok calls his magic feeling the current of energy that to his mind represent the air and what he was beginning to recognize more with dealing with the light. The latter was only just begging to bloom within him; but guiding the lights current with the wind current. First, Caltarok started the spell around his own body causing sections to blend in and out as the sprite had instructed him trying to get the feel before letting the magic spin away and next to the pot he was using as his base from the illusion to replicate. So enwrapped in his concentration and thinking the castle was only occupied by Odh, Caltarok would be oblivious to anyone else that may come or go within the walls.

Lanlan was smoking himself mindless in a secret study, obscured from the rest; apprentices, blacksmiths, servants, the occasional archmage...those who for now were permitted free reign of his castle. While his neck arches back and droops at an uncomfortable angle, he stares blankly up to the ceiling. Until a tremble begins at the long tip of one of his eyebrows, casting a slight tremor down to his brow ridge. So he’s stirred by curiosity to his feet, and bundles a cloak around himself, which was essentially a comforter with sleeves, to keep him warm in these god-cursed nights. In a few moments after Caltarok’s experiment begins, Lanlan appears, from apparently nowhere, as he passes through a wall made of smooth stone. If the surprise doesn’t break Caltarok’s concentration, Lanlan would dismiss the illusion with a wave of his hand, dispersing its components to the breeze. “Tell me who you are.”

Caltarok with a start backs up hands going for his sword instinctively before recalling where he was inside the castle. Not fully relaxing but making no further action that would soon free his sword from its sheathe. Caltarok would respond a bit breathy as if he had been asked to run a marathon than expected to answer with truly catching his breathe. "I am Caltarok Vonnegut. I had a meeting with Lord Odh that only just concluded." Beginning to turn slowly, Caltarok began to call a little more heavily upon the magic within himself unsure if the stranger was friend or foe… and well, any hunter with their lick of salt always tended to tread more on the safe side assuming the stranger a foe. "Who in be ye?" Caltarok knew from Odh that the castle 'belonged' to a Lanlan, but he had failed to memorize everyone from the Gingerbread shop and couldn't place Lanlan's voice immediately as being one of those in attendance that night.

Lanlan was too subdued to react to the potential danger, and instead leaned against the wall and ponderously pulled out a small metal case, and opened it, and picked up a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. There it seemed to light itself. He took one puff, held it between his fingers and squinted at it suspiciously. “I’m Lanlan and this,” he gestured to everything, “is mine.” He turned and mumbled something about someone who thinks they can do whatever they want now that they’re archmage. Then he finishes his mumbly outcry with, “It’s my house!” He gestured, using only his long, long gray eyebrows, to the pot. “You think if you just leave a lazily crafted illusion of the real thing you’ll be able to take that thing home with you, huh.”

Caltarok raises an eyebrow… the thought hadn't actually occurred to him in trying to take the pot. Though he did think that if he could get a good illusion that he make the other vanish behind another illusion spell. But he had picked up some of the coral rocks he found lying about. Perhaps this is what Lanlan was referring too? Grabbing the small pouch holding said stones, Caltarok would toss them at Lanlan not thinking the elf actually meant the pottery that Caltarok was practicing with. "I'm sorry. I didn't know the rocks were that precious to you sir or that you would mind a few pebbles. But I haven't crafted any illusions of them and for what I was trying. Well Odh said something about your magic and mine overlapping… So I was curious if I could even make any sort of illusion. But it seems, I cannot. The spell just fell apart." Caltarok offers a humble smile at least, "Though if this all yours, I presume this was your doing?" Caltarok would motion towards the giant multi-colored sand dollar mosaic that makes up the floor of the castle. "It is quite impressive and it is good to meet you, Lanlan."

Lanlan would stoically watch the pebbles bounce off his chest and fall with gentle taps onto the ground. “No...not the rocks. The...the dam--That!” He’s never cooked a day in his life. “Never mind.” Lanlan’s lips would purse and his eyes would squint suspiciously at Caltarok. His mind was molasses, but thoughts were trickling. “ How does our magic overlap? You’re saying you’re an illusionist too? An aspiring one, oh. And no. It looked like that when I bought it.” He smiles proudly, “Though I must admit it -does- suit me doesn’t it. That half anyway. The other parts all decrepit. Destroyed.” He suddenly sniffed deeply, having not taken a breath in a few seconds. “So it’s lessons you want is it,” he says as he starts wandering toward the decrepit half of the castle. “I can see why you would come to me. I am the finest illusionist there is after all.” His meander took him past room after room, where he lazily peeked through doors and windows, just looking, not seeing. “So what’re your...intentions,” he says with apathetic jazz hands. “Why do you want to know illusion magic.”

Caltarok would watch and follow the meandering of the elf. He half wondered if the elf was crazy or just plain ol' drunk. Not that Caltarok cared beyond knowing what he was dealing with. "I-I-I…" Caltarok hesitated. That's a good question… why did he truly want to know illusion magic? It wasn't that he was a thief or anything. He thought about it a while before steaming ahead, "I don't have an honest answer to give. What I do know is what I had to learn out of necessity. But perhaps, I want to learn for the sake of learning? To see where my boundaries are then to see if I can push past even those. But for now, I want to be useful to all of you in the battle ahead. To be able to wield my magic beyond making it harder for someone to spot me, to see distances, turn drawings on pages to rendering to give scale and life. But mostly… to learn for learning sake?" Caltarok would stand there and whisper a little under his breath as a distance memory of his kin fluttered by, "Maybe even to give stories life during their telling like my folks could."

Lanlan chuckled a little, “Don’t have an honest answer to give...that’s good, that’s good. That’s what it takes. A little dishonesty.” Their little walk eventually takes them outside the castle and across a bridge-covered moat. “Learning for learning’s sake, it never works. You could be an entertainer, but you could do that with other magic too. You’ll get bored. But illusions,” he says as they turn a corner and find a beggar. “Are perfect for stealing and killing and lying.” Lanlan eyed the beggar in his heap, with all his belongings in a sack at his side. A hairy, dirty, smelly human. And with a scar on his left cheek that connected to his mouth, giving him a permanent and hideous smirk. He was sitting half asleep on a ratty old blanket, frayed at the edges and with a corner torn off, crudely. A dog perhaps. “The thing no one tells you,” says Lanlan with another puff from his eversmoking cigarette, “is just how well acquainted you need to be with your source material.” Then Lanlan pulled out a sheathed knife, with matching rubies in the dagger’s hilt and at the tip of the sheath. “If you’re going to help us in the battle ahead, the fun stuff will have to wait. First, you have to be willing to kill for us.” Lanlan handed him the dagger as he peered for the first time, into Caltarok’s eyes. “Can you kill?”

Caltarok taking the dagger looks at Lanlan, then at the beggar. Tossing the dagger back to Lanlan, "Can I kill? You don't have to worry about that. I have no qualms with taking a life if it serves a purpose. But I don't care to shed blood needlessly even if I am being tested." Caltarok did pull upon his magic while staring the elf down with an icy stare. "I am not like the mistress of shadow and forest or like some red scales that I feel the need to bathe myself in blood to prove my strength. Nor am I so righteous that I would go out of my way to think I can save all lives. I kill only when necessary to protect that which I want or to satisfy my need to consume." Waving to the beggar, "This fulfills neither requirement in my eyes. But perhaps you be happy with this?" Caltarok with reflexes honed through repetition unshoulders his bow while pulling one of the poisoned arrows that he was experimenting with. In a matter of seconds, the arrow is notched and released in such speed and aimed purposely to graze the leg of beggar. A second arrow is quickly notched and aimed at Lanlan. "Just like the arrow I released this one has been tainted with a desert rose crushed and mixed with a liquid. Nice thing about it is that I do carry the antidote and doesn't kill right away. I am not just a mage. I am a hunter, sir. So I know poisons and which to use for my kills so the poison not only kills but dissipates nicely enough to allow the meat to still be suitable for consumption."

Lanlan frowned grumpily when Caltarok handed him back the dagger, spoiling all his fun, so Lanlan just stares unblinking the entire time into Caltarok’s eyes, willing him to back down. “That’s all great, but if I’m your teacher, you have to do what I say. Regardless of whether you think it’s right, or wrong, or important, or needless.” Then? Lanlan keeps staring at him, even when Caltarok unstrings his bow and shoots the arrow that barely pricks the beggar. But that tiny cut was enough! The beggar, who was apparently just a balloon full of compressed air, begins flying through the air! He’s propelled by the rapid expulsion of air that sends him spiraling toward Lanlan and Caltarok, until the floppy sack of beggar-colored rubber lands at their feet and peers up at them with a dopey grin. Yet Lanlan’s red-eyed burning stare doesn’t falter. Even with the arrow pointed so intently at his face, it nearly touches his nose. Suddenly a voice calls to Caltarok from a few steps away. “STAB.” Several rolls of red tape suddenly explode out of Caltarok’s side, like the fake blood used in theatre productions. “You’re dead,” Lanlan says as he dispels his invisibility, and appears almost entirely as a different person. Eyes alert and full of energy, brandishing a wide grin. Similar to the one that his copy would wear if Caltarok looked back on it, except that one also had its tongue out. “Alright! Lesson one is in the books. Did you get all that down, by any chance?”

Caltarok closes his eyes briefly acknowledging what Lanlan did with the illusion. Releasing a pulse of magic much like a sonar rippling outward from him, Caltarok would ensure the new appearing Lanlan was the true one. Caltarok would lower his bow replacing his arrow back in his quiver. The arrow previously shot would tug free before flying back to Caltarok to be snatched from the air currents and returned to his quiver. "I think so… misdirection and distract?" Caltarok took the lesson with what humility he could muster. But he couldn't help seeking payback for the lesson, he cast his gaze over Lanlan looking for any metallic articles of clothing that be close enough to skin to do. If such piece was found, Caltarok would begin rapidly heating the metal to cause some discomfort. Otherwise, he would make do with flipping a nearby small stone with enough aeromancy to possible 'ding' Lanlan on the back all the while with an innocent look on his face. "Though how did you give the illusion substance to withstand the rocks earlier? I fear right now all I can do is bend light and ripple the air to help with the movement of clothes."

Lanlan nodded sagely, “Right, right misdirect, distract…” Then he took another puff of his very real cigarette. “What the…” He unsheathed his dagger again and let it clang off the cobblestones of the road. Then his gaze snapped back to Caltarok angrily. “You dare try to attack me? After I so benevolently shared my knowledge with you?” He huffed and turned away. “That’s not very gracious of you. Now you’ll never know how I give my illusions substance.”

Caltarok just smiled at Lanlan, "As you said, an illusionist needs to learn how to misdirect and strike from a blind side of a distracted target. Much like I would when I am hunting. But that was just a little payback for the trick you pulled, though the lesson was appreciated." In the time that Lanlan's back was turned, Caltarok would cast his own spell layering it so that he would vanish from view behind varying layers of magic. Although Caltarok didn't stop there, he layered it with spells that would muffle and cancel the sounds of his movement. Thinking Lanlan's pride was hurt too much by the unruly apprentice and dragon; Caltarok would move to leave. "I am sorry though. I just don't like being made a fool."

Lanlan was still very sore, he wouldn’t even pick up his own knife. “Oh you don’t want to be tricked but you want to trick others? Hmph. I’ll have to have a word with the archmage about this, this...insubordination. He and I are good friends, you should know that.” Lanlan looked over to see that the apprentice had vanished. “Oh now you’re just going to disappear. Fine!” And he stomped back to his castle. This is a Mage's Guild RP.