Nether's Gate Tavern Jygust 31 MT

[Ssinith DIllil]

Melissa weighed the options in her head and the things she had to do. She had a debt to pay and hiring someone to watch her as she visited her son would dig her in a deeper grave. Oh, how she longed to see her son, but she knew that approaching the place would be suicide if Fraed went to such lengths to step in.

"I can't leave the place, nor the other girls who need it... but I can act as a headquarters. So long as the boy is safe, that might be best if there's hell over the hill. Still... if whatever shit your in is about to hit the fan... it might drag over to where they're at."

She fell silent for a few moments as a thought crossed her mind. She didn't like being a manipulator and it showed in the flickers of her energy, but the dark side of the female psyche was about to show itself.

"Say... If Fraed is close enough to block your power, maybe he's close enough to hire. He may not like it, but you can bullshit him into thinking that after seeing my son happy, I was satisfied with the answer that he was alright. He could help you with your fight and you can squeeze info out of him. I'll lend you whatever energy you need, but I'm not leaving this tavern. I'm not the only one I'm taking care of around here."

[Torc Blackfoot]

Torc thought about everything. Finally, he spoke, “I understand that your responsibilities would require that you be here. There is a way for me to collect what I need without you being connected, but I would need the amulet that Fraed had given you, or some kind of jewelry with a stone in it.”

“As for Fraed, I don’t think contacting him today would be in my best interest. However, I do think your idea has merit and I don’t want to dismiss it.”

OOC: Couldn’t think of anything else, besides can’t really force the issue.

[Ssinith DIllil]

"That's just it... I left it to my son after he was born, but before he was taken. He needed something to remember his true mother by. You're going to have to get Fraed's own, or happen to visit my son yourself."

Melissa sighed, knowing this was going to be tricky. A part of her heart went out to his foster parents, tears welling up in her spirit.

"I'd hate to take it from my son. I did love the man and that amulet is the only proof our son has of that fact. Those folks eyes... you don't look at an adopted son like that. Damnit all... I've had two girls that I've hired who have had to give up their kids in the same way... Theirs ended up in even more broken homes. I was able to bring one of them in when they came of age, and I thought I'd bring my son back in a sanctuary after a rough life... I never thought Fraed would give this much of a damn."

She rested her head against his chest, her strong demeanor starting to waver before him.

"If I have to use money to find my son, I'd rather use it to help you at the same time. You can probably find Fraed sometime tomorrow after he's cooled off a bit. We can cover it up as my way of repaying you for helping me... I do need the honestly thank him for at least stepping up even when he stepped away."

[Torc Blackfoot]

Torc took his time to think about his response. The amulet he had requested would have been nice to have, but wasn’t necessary. Torc had been thinking that an necklace with a stone; jade, amber, cat’s eye, or even a small diamond, would do. The stone was apart of the earth and had great grounding properties. However, without the stone being connected to the ground, Torc had realized that the excess energies for magic could be stored within the stone until needed. Finally large scale weaves or long hours of weave casting could be done by a single caster. Yet he was unsure which stone was better for the task. Just because diamonds were clear and precious didn’t mean they would serve his purpose any better then cat’s eye or quartz. Besides Torc didn’t believe that he would need to store any more then a couple of months worth of excess energy in the stone.

“Melissa, I was hoping for the amulet to cast a spell on it, but I don’t need it. If you have any jewelry with a stone embedded within it, it will do. The ring or necklace doesn’t even need to have a precious gem, cat’s eye or quartz will do. However, glass jewelry will not do. I want to create a reseviour within the gem to hold excess energy’s. This way at the end of every day you can place excess energies into the stone, and should battle ever come here, I can ask you for the stone to augment my own abilities.”

It would also mean that Torc would not have to deal with Fraed again. The man was probably one hell of a battlemage. Probably, better then any tricks that Torc could come up with, but he was also very emotional about Melissa. What would that emotion do if the two of them were to fight side by side, would jealously awaken in the middle of the battle? Would Fraed kill Torc by not pushing himself to the limit? Torc was afraid of the kind of reaction the man had.

“Well Melissa if you insist on contacting Fraed, then I will be here tomorrow. However, my personal opinion is that the man is too stubborn to reason with. I might not know him the way you do, but battlemages tend to focus on attack and defense instead of general forward movement. Still if you think you can convince him to help, then that is more repayment then I deserve.”

[Ssinith DIllil]

"Oh! Like that sort of thing? ... Well, if the bastards who I owe coin to find out, they'll be after it. I think I do have a small pendant of rose quartz, but I'm not really sure if it's big enough for what you're lookin' for. I have no idea what your magical... things are supposed to do."

Melissa paused for a moment to think, trying to come up with a plan.

"Even when we were an item, he knew I had to go into that part of the shady business. I didn't do it often enough to not know who the father was, but so long as he knew it was business, he didn't care who I laid because I had to feed myself in those tough times. He couldn't exactly fund for me, knowing if the College got wind of his nightlife, that would really ruin him. If we just put it as a business arrangement and leave it at that, he shouldn't get all that nutty. When it comes to other men, he knows I'm his... when it comes to our son, however, I'd even agree that's another ball of wax. If the boy appears to have nothing to do with it, I think we might 'ave a chance."

[Torc Blackfoot]

Torc thought about the pendant and wondered if size mattered? What was the size of a drop of will? What was the size that it could be condensed down to? Would the weave of the pendant have enough space between its threads to hold any amount of will? These questions haunted Torc, however, the answer of the pendant was to complete not to try.

If Torc was able to condense the will about the threads of the stone, and if he was able to stabilize the reservoir then Melissa could simply put on the pendant before bed and it would drain her a small amount of will right before she went to sleep. She then could rest and recover for the next day without any drain feeling.

“If you would get the amulet I will see if the stone will hold what is needed. As for Fraed, I have many opinions on the College and what idea’s they place on their students, needless to say I think that there are many answers for any problem. If you feel that he would be open… for hire of his services, then I am more then willing to have help with the upcoming fortifications and possible combat outside the city.”

“Besides, while I wait for this person to visit, I might as well have something to think over whether it be the pendant or what kind of help that we may receive from a decent Battlemage.”

[Ssinith DIllil]

"Heh... if he's here and our son's here, of course he's going to protect the damn city."

Thinking on rose quartz, quartz itself was a high conduit for energy, but rose quartz was for more emotional energy. Still, if it was raw energy and not a particular energy, it could work. Something the size of a small pendant could hold a charge of energy, but to make it truly effective it would have to be made into a rune.

[Torc Blackfoot]

Deep in thought Torc, listened to Melissa. She kept thinking that Fraed was close. However, the one thing divinization did was to shrink vast distances into a sliver of a board. Scry was help surpass vast ranges and made an image as if one could look out the window at it. Torc review the vision from the scrying. The mountain range was in the back of the boy’s view, and the shop probably was around a fairly large town or city. Still that limited the boy’s place to border estates, not Pax. If perhaps Torc saw the same mountain peaks outside then he would say that Melissa was correct, in which she very well may be.

Yet, it troubled Torc, why she assumed that Fraed was close was beyond him. Sure, if Torc had a boy and was worried that he would be place in danger, he would be close to prevent it. However, Fraed was also worried that due to him, the boy would be placed in danger. So Fraed could have placed a protection weave on the boy and be any where in the kingdom.

However, if Fraed was close… then it was possible that Fraed had been hired to attack Pax. It made sense, a senior battlemage hired to squash on kind of uprising. If the boy was located in Pax, then he could be sure that the collateral damage wouldn’t spread to any area close to his son. Both the college and the mage get what they want, and Fraed gets to keep his son’s whereabouts a secret.

As for the rose quartz pendant that Torc waited on Melissa to fletch, he began to construct a plan. A picture of the rose quartz thread structure appeared in his mind’s eye. He would begin by shifting some of the white frosted lines found within the rose quartz into the rune of will or thought. Though this would change the appearance of the object, those with keen eyes could see the rune within the pendant, it would not change its properties. Across the surface of the stone, Torc would have to make micro warding runes of energy.

Torc could almost see the scattering of light that micro fissures would cause. Torc imagined that though the original rune within the stone would be big, as each drop of energy was deposited into the stone the rune would form smaller version of its self on the rune. It was like spokes on snowflakes. Each line came off a larger line or frost. Every line seemingly random, yet when one looked at the entire structure it was complex and yet compact. That seemingly complex structure would help distill the energy’s from Melissa, allowing a stable storage of energy.

Torc began to think as the rune grew so would the cloudiness in the stone, or would the cloudiness shift closer to the rune, showing an almost perfectly clear red quartz with a complex white rune within.

Torc also decided to set a small siphon spell into the chain. It would slowly drain the excess will energy of a person to a safe level and store in the stone. Once the clasp was undone, the siphon spell would coil back into the stone and wait till the clasp was done and life energy was available. That way if Melissa felt sick or wish the stop of collecting of energy, all she had to do was undo the clasp.

Torc also knew that he would have to have the weave tap into Melissa’s energy. To properly teach Melissa how to freely give her will into the storing crystal would take many months, and Torc was afraid that he couldn’t wait.

Wondering if the runes and his general plan was good, Torc tried different combinations of runes or techniques that might increase his success. Yet without inspiration he felt that core plan was acceptable.

And so he waited for inspiration or for Melissa to bring her pendant.

OOC: If you think something else might help, please go ahead and offer it up as inspiration.

[Ssinith DIllil]

Melissa sighed as she handed the pendant to him. Apparently, she wasn't so sure that the plan would work. Did she have too much faith in Fraed? The look on her tired face reflected a headache, and somewhat of a heartache.

Were the pendant pure quartz, even one the size of half a pinky finger would be sufficient. The surgery he was imagining, though, would be harder than it looked because of the hard weave of the stone. Quartz was one of the harder substances, moreso than normal rock. The pendant was not on a chain, but on a leather strap, the small chunk of quartz on the end with a silver holder. It was worth a decent penny.

"My mum was going to give it to me for my wedding day, but she passed early. I don't dare let them know I've got it."

Small it was, and he would need the arcane eye of a lapidary to inscribe on the inside of the rune. An alchemist would make life much easier if they could make a potion which could open the links on the tight energy that made the stone, then it would be like cross stitching. With the energy of the leather, despite its age, connecting the life energy to Melissa or whomever wore it to the pendant wouldn't be hard at all... the hard part would be reaching the center to scribe the rune.

Considering that the rosey aspect of the quartz was the aspect that made emotional energy a better conduit, to get the effect he was looking for, he would surely need the touch of an alchemist or a magical surgeon to turn the rose quartz into pure quartz. An alchemist would be the better for the latter, seeing as if they pull that part of the quartz out, it could be saved later for another precious potion. Once as pure clear quartz, the process would be much easier, but the rune itself would be easily seen by the naked eye.

[Torc Blackfoot]

Torc continued to examine the crystal, and as he did so he began to realize that his first plan could not be done without considerable investment of time. Movement of the inner threads of the quartz worked against its strength. Also, craftsmanship and time was needed to form the runes on the outer shell. Torc had originally thought to indent the crystal, now coupled with his inexperience and sentimental value from Melissa, Torc knew he would have to approach the problem differently.

Torc searched his mind looking for some type of knowledge or experience to help him. A part of his mind drifted back too childhood. He remembered watching Old Madam Cowslip, spinning down sheep wool into thread. Torc would watch through the window, his chin on his hands seeing the old woman spin the great wheel and watch as her crooked and yet agile fingers took unbound wool and made it shiny and thin thread.

Torc remembered the sound of the great wheel turning as Old Madam Cowslip pushed the peddle with her leg. The swoosh of the spokes moving through the air and the soft humming from the old weaver brought an almost peaceful air to the little room she sat in. Everyone townsperson respected Old Madam Cowslip for her skill at needlework, but few every suspected the skill and care that she took in spinning. How she would labor for tides and sometimes days sorting through all the wool. She never missed a spin on the wheel or a turn of her spindle, for each thread was tight and spun with a skill that rivaled any other. Aye, many admire her quilts, but few admired and understood the work that she did.

It was then that Torc wondered if perhaps the crystal could act like a spindle as well. Could excess energies be woven around the structure threads of the crystal. The enchantment could be like a great weaver wheel. Slowly it would take the excess energies of Melissa through the leather thong. The silver could act like a fly wheel pushing the excess energies into a finely spun thread. The thread would be much more condensed then some pool on bare energies.

Torc’s would use the crystal as a spindle, wrapping the spun thread in tight circles around the crystal. Since the crystal was a natural ground any release of the energy would enter the crystal. The enchantment would keep the threads spun tightly about the crystal, holding them ready for the time when Torc needed it.

Before acting Torc took the time to think through his idea once again, weighing the benefits and risks.

[Ssinith DIllil]

Further still did few appreciate what had to be done to wool before it had to be spun... washed, brushed, making sure all the dirt was removed before it was spun. It would be hard to tell if the energy he desired would be wool or cotton, which required many seeds to be plucked out of the plant before it could go in.

Melissa would have to be his sheep, and his shears had to be kind enough to just take wool and not skin. Wool was thick and it was often hard to tell how deep it went. There were also seasons for wool, and it had to grow back.

What could also be done is find lesser stones to 'store the wool' and merely use the pendant as a spindle. Though it would take some weaving the 'thread' into storage bundles (like winding them into balls), if he managed to find some natural rocks outside of town in the wild, they could work if he put runes on them to make them perform that function.

[Torc Blackfoot]

Torc enjoyed the time of quiet introspective thought, while he was waiting for Melissa informant. Lately, it seemed that things were spiraling out of control, and time for thought and imagination was slowly going to the wayside. There Torc sat feeling the wood grain below his left hand. In Torc’s right the quartz pendant laid against the background of his calluses harden hand. The leather thong that had been threaded through the silver clasp fell down the backside of his hand.

The leather had the soft sheen of age, yet the natural oils from Melissa skin had soaked into the thong keeping it soft. The craftsmanship that had gone into the jeweler and the silver was simple yet strong. Much could be said about a humble mans worth. The simple twists and turns pushed into the silver by the man’s tool spoke of sure movements that come with age and experience. Just like the Old Madam weaver Torc remembered from his village. Age and experience was within each stroke of the loom.

For a second Torc looked at his own hands seeing the age and skill he had learned as a woodsman. Scraps from thorns, scars from animals, and an almost oak like sinew underneath a paper thin tan skin, all of it came from the woods and yet the forest had yielded her knowledge for those with the patience and intelligence to listen. The yarhens of hunting and skinning had taught Torc independence and of his own desires. For he was no more a lone wolf then a goose in his gander.

Nay, Torc was an organic and dynamic man, he blended his experiences together growing with his trials while they made him stronger. The battle of Pan’s Isle had shown him horror of man, it had shown him killing and death, yet the quiet of the forest had shown him life. The activity of the squirrel was fast and yet it had purpose. Its actions on the bottom of the forest floor weren’t foolish. The squirrel sought nuts for the winter, it knew that the energy expended today would help it come tomorrow.

Torc felt that the squirrel’s lesson had yet to truly sink in. He had gathered his people making sure that they saw towards the future just as much as the looked to the now. His master, Maximillian, put his energies to moving the paths of time toward a free future. All around him was the lesson that the squirrel had to offer, and so it was with this task that Torc thought about what the forest and the squirrel had to teach him.

Rose quartz had energies, supposedly emotion energy very well. However, the first lesson of magick found him. Everything is Energy, Energy is Everything. Emotions, fire, stone, and will were all made from the same thread. The energy thread that mages saw all were woven into the same universal rope, and the only thing that stopped Torc from tapping that energy was his own mind.

Melissa had spoken about this being a present from her mother for her wedding day. Emotions had already charged the pendant that was in his hands. The squirrel had started his gathering long before Torc had decided the tree would be a fine place to store nuts. Torc merely needed to understand the squirrel’s movements and help him build his hoard of food. The stone was capable of all the storage Torc needed, it was only his lack of understanding that kept him for accessing the stones reserves.

Softly, like a leaf falling in the gentle breeze Torc reentered the aether to truly study and mediate around what was already stored inside the pendant. He had been looking to create a mechanism that already existed naturally in the pendant. Now with study and mediation Torc hoped to understand the natural process of the quartz and how he could enhance it. Once that information was riddled out of the stone, he could then ponder over how the energies stored within the stone could be used to replenish him during times of great need.