T. A. Star
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33 - The Art of Cultivation
🕑 Added 2024-07-04 00:00:04 +0000 UTC
Phoenix and Dazien ended up running into the Obsidian Caster at the Alliance of Adventurers’ headquarters as they sought out Director Trayvious. Informing both women at the same time about the imminent threat of more than just high-Caste monsters in the near future.
Agatha thanked them for the confirmation of their suspicions and let them know she would be meeting with the Duke later to discuss more plans for their defense. This included more letters to the Queen in Blomstra and moving forward with the potential activation of the Emergency Caster Recruitment program to bolster their defenses further.
Kara, on the other hand, told them to get back to the World Tree, and she would be there in a few minutes to attend their newest training session: cultivating their cores.
Phoenix was fairly certain the golden voxen was either insane or pranking them when they were all taken to a moderately sized room with barrels for each of them to sit upon. Carefully perching atop one while sitting in a lotus position felt odd to her but the three voxen in the room seemed perfectly comfortable with the action with their tails splayed out behind them to brush the floor.
They had been positioned in a circle, close enough that their knees just barely brushed against one another. Uriel was on her left with Saiya on her right, the latter already humming a gentle song to boost the effects of their meditation via her [Meditative Guide] passive ability.
Passive Ability: Meditative Guide
Type: Boon (magical, song)
Current Caste: Sapphire 1
Crystal Effect: Sing a song of guided meditation, enhancing the effects of meditation to nearby allies.
Sapphire Effect: Increases regeneration of all resource pools for nearby allies while meditating.
“Now,” Kara began, and she felt Uriel tense beside her for some reason, “I’m sure Lord Wayland was simply waiting for you all to reach Sapphire since this doesn’t become necessary until one begins to approach Emerald,” the Obsidian explained, “But I think it’s never too early to learn and might help some of our… slower members catch up.”
Presley was sitting in Kara’s lap as she spoke, and Phoenix asked, “Can you cultivate a core, Presley?”
“No,” the child replied simply.
“Floravals and their Emanations cultivate like other avals. They just grow up,” the Paladin expounded, “The rate and cap are different for each species, but Emanations usually match their originator and the World Tree is already Obsidian. Presley will likely catch up in a few years.”
“Years?” she questioned, “But she’s been growing so fast lately.”
“Well, yeah. The early Caste levels go pretty fast, but they become exponentially slower as you go, even when you’re an aval that doesn’t need to actively seek out suitable challenges to progress.”
“So they don’t have cores at all?”
“Not like a Caster. Their entire body basically serves that purpose in a very loose sense. This lack of spiritual core, though, is why they can’t bond to Aspects and why monsters aren’t as interested in eating them into extinction.”
“I’m sorry, but did you say monsters eat Caster cores?” she asked in wide-eyed confusion.
“They’re drawn to the magical potential,” Uriel clarified for her, “That’s the theory at least, though still strongly debated.”
“What? Like they’re jealous?”
“You can understand why it’s being debated,” the cinderen chuckled, “There are very few monsters capable of controlling their hunger in order to answer questions on ‘why,’ and the ones that can might not feel obliged nor be representative of the whole.”
“And we’re getting off track again,” Kara interjected, giving the two Crystal Casters pointed looks, “The goal here is to help guide your experiences into strengthening your core. It’s a fairly automatic process at lower Castes. Mundane to Crystal, you simply absorb some Aspects to unlock your Magic attribute, which generates your Class. Crystal to Sapphire you just learn to relax a little after a hard day,” the voxen explained.
“But Sapphire to Emerald, you have to delve a bit deeper into who you are and what you want to become. Your core isn’t a physical thing to be plucked out of you but an internal representation of your soul.”
“Representation? Like an aura?” Rayna asked curiously.
“Similar, but auras are the external equivalent. While those seek to expand, your core needs to condense. To do that, we stuff it full of our experiences and solidify them as a part of us. We are our experiences.
“As far as how you go about cultivating that core, however, is a very personal experience that even I can’t fully guide you on. Some people claim to just picture a ball of mana they try squeezing or spinning like yarn. Others claim it’s a garden they tend to or animals they feed. For me, it was focusing beams of light into my own personal sun.
“Now,” the voxen repeated with a muffled clap of furred hands, causing Uriel to flinch again beside her. The Wayfarer turned to give him a puzzled look, but Kara was still speaking, “I want you all to clear your minds and try to fall into your souls.”
Phoenix closed her eyes and tried to relax while focusing within herself. She thought the instructions rather vague but she did have a mental picture of where her aura went when she retracted it, so she began there and tried to continue following it inward.
She had to admit, it did feel a bit like falling as she arrived in what appeared to be a small hexagonal room with mostly bare shelving along the walls from floor to ceiling. A few of the shelves had books resting upon them but there didn’t seem to be any order to them at all. The room was mostly dark, but that didn’t hinder her vision at all as she walked around the cozy space to select one of the books that had an emblem of a stylized sun on the cover.
When she opened it, a stream of floating lettering passed beside her, glowing slightly as it added text onto the blank pages she had found within. Her gaze followed the path of the magical letters upwards to see a chaotic swirl of the alphabet making up the ceiling.
More streams of letters were trying to make their way into other pages on the shelves around her, and she realized it must be a bit difficult for them to write within a closed book. She found herself smiling; it seemed that she was going to have to help with writing her own story.
Rayna saw floating bits of crystals that she knew were meant to be part of the larger one in her center. The problem she was having, though, was that she wasn’t positive how she was meant to combine them.
The only clue she had was the variety of different instruments circling the open space she had found herself in. It felt like she had been transported to one of her favorite places back in Epa Toivo. The large expanse of orange sands met a bright blue sky in every direction she looked, and she was in its center.
When she touched one of the floating crystals, it made a low resonating hum for a few seconds before falling silent again. Another crystal made a high-pitched ding like someone flicking an empty glass. Yet another sounded like a loud trumpet.
She glanced around again at the instruments and moved over to examine one of those instead. Going to a type of drum she recognized, she gave it a light rap and heard the sound echo behind her, furred ears twitching towards it.
The bard watched the small swarm of crystals as she hit the drum again and saw one of the crystals light up in response and match the sound, abruptly moving itself closer towards the center gem. She gave a feral grin; it was time to make some music.
Dazien found himself inside of a strange armory. In the center of it seemed to be a treasure chest full of oddly shaped pieces of metal of different hues and engravings upon them.
He carefully observed as one of the metal pieces seemed to float through the air on its own accord, making its way to a broken sword being displayed vertically upon a golden stand. Half of the blade seemed to be missing as it aimed toward the floor, but the little piece of metal attached itself to it, forming more of the missing object.
The warrior glanced around at the other objects in the room being displayed. Suits of armor, broken shields, and various weapons aside from the plethora of swords. There were also murals lining the walls. Images of some of his greatest triumphs and lowest failures.
Most of the walls were still blank, however. He walked back to the chest of colorful metallic shards and pulled one out, examining it more closely, then walked over to one of the broken shields that seemed to match its coloring. Placing the piece neatly into one of the holes, it seamlessly melded into the whole.
Dazien chuckled as he muttered to himself, “Looks like I really did internalize that lecture about finding the pieces to my puzzle.”
He glanced around the armory again at all the empty patches waiting to be filled with answers. If only the rest of his life so easily supplied the missing pieces. With a sigh, he got to work, puzzling out his soul.
Saiya thought she had been transported into her little restorative retreat at first with its soft white walls surrounding a tranquil garden. However, this wasn’t the usual garden and instead of a clear sky, it was sprinkling rain everywhere.
It seemed more somber than her retreat or the face she showed to others around her.
She wasn’t quite sure what she was meant to do as she stood at the edge of the large garden of white, pink, and red lotus flowers. Then she realized the ground wasn’t dirt, it was water. Dark and murky, that she couldn’t see the bottom of.
When a drop of rain fell onto the surface, it gave off a brief flicker of pale blue light before clouding again. It was a confusing sight to behold but one thing she knew she wanted to happen was to see the water become clean… purified… healed. It seemed an impossible task though.
She discovered that she was able to walk along the surface of the lake garden here. As she knelt to gently caress one of the petals of a red lotus at her feet, the flower seemed to respond to the touch, moving closer as if to hug her in return.
Saiya gave a sad little smile and carefully cupped the lotus, lifting it from the water. When it broke free from its stem, it bloomed further, spreading itself completely open until it fell apart, the petals drifting onto the water.
Instead of sinking into the murky lake, the petals formed a ring and a small reflection of a memory glimmered within the now clear blue water. A memory of her friends sitting around a campfire while happily talking.
The Healer looked around the large lake with thousands of flowers covering it and began to pluck the memories of her experiences and let them cleanse the dark waters, detailing her journey through life.
Uriel struggled with the task.
It was difficult to relax enough in the first place to take a peek into his soul that he had zero desire to explore. Even when they normally meditated, he struggled to keep his mind from wandering to the dark corners of his memories. Instead, he often focused on trying to stay calm and relax his body more than his mind.
This fact alone was probably more to blame his stunted growth on than the collar and manacles normally silencing his magic. Out of the entire group, he was the one who had been a Caster the longest and yet he was still lagging behind them. He blamed the years of being chained and not allowed to use his abilities for a large portion of that delay but he had been actively fighting now for months alongside his party.
A tickle on his nose had his eyes open to find red irises staring back at him and he started in surprise at Kara’s proximity and the offending tail that had brushed his nostrils.
“You’re not meditating properly at all,” the voxen reprimanded quietly, “Didn’t Lord Wayland teach you better than that?”
“He tried,” Uriel grumbled, trying to adjust his position atop the barrel.
“You’re choking yourself,” the Paladin complained, “Both externally and internally. It’s a miracle you’ve gotten as far as you have.”
He gave a frustrated sigh, “I know. I just–” he clenched his fists at the warring desires within him before trying to explain, “I want to get stronger for them,” he gestured towards the others, “But I don’t think making my powers even more terrifying is exactly a positive thing either.”
“You do recall me blowing up an alien vessel and army of monsters, right?” the Obsidian Caster asked with a raised brow, then glanced over at the Wayfarer on his right, “And your princess here isn’t much better, considering she drops burning meteors from the sky and destroys everything in an explosion of starlight sparkles.”
Uriel wasn’t sure what to say to that. He hadn’t thought of Phoenix’s powers as anything but beautiful despite their destructive capabilities. While he burned, froze, blasted, and rotted people to death, she created dreams and hope. Starlight sparkles of wonderment.
“I think out of everyone here, you need to learn this technique the most,” Kara stated firmly, “You need to take a good hard look at who you are, Uriel Karislian, and who you want to be… but I have a feeling I’m not the first one to tell you that.”
He grimaced and admitted, “No. You’re not.”
“Well then, now’s the time to learn. Remove those chains, and I’ll help keep your aura in check. You can’t accomplish this while silenced like that.”
Uriel sighed again but obeyed, removed the golden cuffs, closed his eyes, and tried to relax again. This time, he let his mind wander inward instead of focusing on what his body was doing. When he finally managed to fall into that inner trance and get a peek at the storm of devastation that awaited him… he ran from it.
