Basic Elem. Manip. (Caelen)

[Arath Faringal]

Arath took a deep breath in the morning air. It felt good to be alive. Especially after so long of not being so alive. He still couldn't believe that he had been asleep for so many months. But that was the past, and now was all that mattered.

 

After a week of further down time in the infirmary, he was ready for work. In truth he was glad for this current assignment. After so long in bed he was not in the best of shape, and a little out of practice with Saidin. This class was normaly taught by the dedicateds, but for Arath, it was a great chance for him to practice again.

 

He fingered the pins at his neck. For him it had only been days since he had recieved the dragon pin and become one of the youngest Asha'man. Eighteen years old now . . . so many months lost . . .

 

Arath refocused as he saw someone approach him across the training grounds. The man matched the description he had been given. 'Right then,' thought Arath summoning the void. 'Lets get to it.'

 

"Present yourself soldier." he said cooly. "Name, age, origin, and anything else I need to know." As much as he didn't like it, it was always best to start with the formal pretenses. He'd warm up in a while, but this was an army afterall.

[TaeaDawn]

Oh, this could be fun! Caelen gave an exagerated bow (even for him) and twilred about the hat he had been wearing over his hand and then back up onto his head. "Well I would be the incredible Caelen Sarafayan, Soldier and nodoby, extraordinare. I hail from the fair far off lands of Far Madding. As for anything else you might need to know, I don't put out on the first date, at least not with a large meal and something divinely chocolate afterwards." He said, batting his lashes at the young man.

 

He gave a bark of laughter then and smiled. "Or I could just be simple Caelen and i'm here to learn what I can."

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath stared blankly at the other man for a moment, wondering if he had heard him correctly. Divinely chocolate? What in the Light . . .? He eyed the soldier carefully for a moment, checking for signs of madness. But he seemed normal. Just . . . strange. If there was any madness, it wasn't Saidin induced.

 

"Right. Simple Caelen it is. Well then, Soldier Caelen, you seem like a man that likes to have fun." Siezing Saidin, Arath sent out flows of air and whisked the hat off of his head. He sent it flying up to rest on a small platform of air about twenty feet above them. "Lets see what amusing way you find of getting your hat back. And as a further incentive . . ." A small ball of flame burst into life in Arath's hand. With a small nudge he sent it floating lazily into the air toward the hat. "I'd say you have about fifteen seconds to put out the fireball or move the hat. Your call soldier," he added with a grin.

 

OOC: I hope you're not overly attached to the hat . . . I'm afraid its not gonna survive this lesson. :twisted:

[TaeaDawn]

((Awe...poor hat... :P)

 

 

Caelen watched his hat go flying off with an amused look on his face. The amusement went away when his precious hat suddenly caught fire. He'd felt the weave and he was exicted enough about that, but it was a bloody fine hat to be lighting on fire like that! Fire! Hat on fire! What do you do to get the hat and get rid of fire? Water! He wasn't very good with water, but he worked a small weave of it, managing to douse his hat before the entire thing was destroyed.

 

Well, no. It was destroyed. Charred. And wet. It was defintely not going to work with his outfit anymore.

 

"Well, I guess that means I shouldn't wear hats to class anymore." He said with a grin.

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath looked with a surpressed chuckle at the surprised, and somewhat disgusted look on Caelens face. "Well, I guess that means I shouldn't wear hats to class anymore," he said good heartedly.

 

"I guess it means you should react faster. Battles often times do not go to the strongest, the bravest, or the best prepared. They go to the guy who starts moving first."

 

Arath took a deep breath. "Alrighty. I'm going to teach you a few things now." Channeling earth, Arath reached into the ground and pulled up a small amount of mud. With air and earth weaves she shaped it into the form of a hat, more or less equal to Caelens charred one. Air sent it flying up into the air to rest next to the real hat above them.

 

"Okay soldier, I will demonstrate what I want you to do. You will now use four of the elements to perform a series of events . . . centered around your hat still. First, use air to get it down. Like so. Then, drain all of the water from it. An Asha'man cannot disgrace himself by wearing a wet hat."

 

Arath looked up at the wet, burnt hat. Truth be told it would be a disgrace to wear that thing at all now. Especially for a soldier. Best to put it out of its misery. "Then, I'm afraid that we must make an example of this hat. You will place it here, and incinerate it." Arath raised a small earthen table from the ground. "Once it is reduced to ashes, you will respectfully bury them. Using earth weaves."

 

Arath showed the soldier one more time using the earthen hat model, then stood back to watch what Caelen would do.

[TaeaDawn]

Caelen might be a fool to most eyes, but when it came down to it, he had a good memory and he watched Arath with an intensity that would surprise a good many people that had met him in his life so far. He watched the Asha'man create the look alike hat and demonstrate the weaves he wanted Caelen to work.

 

The weaves of air weren't bad, with only a small amount needed to work the hat down. Draining the hat took more from him, and more skill that he had been using on his own so he took his time to get it right.

 

The hat was dropped on the erath-made table then and with a long suffering sigh, he sent a blast of fire to finish the hat off. It was nothing more than a pile of char when he was done and he plowed into the earth with the One Power, creating a burial place for his hat.

 

Once done, he bowed his head deeply, his hand over his chest. "May the mother welcome you home." he said in a very serious voice as she sent the last of the earth over his friend of old. "Goodbye hat."

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath watched intently as Caelen worked through the weaves he had requested, ready to throw up protective shields in any moment, especially with the fire weave. It was amazing how many soldiers could cause explosions trying to light a simple candle.

 

"Very good," he said with a nod. "It was a sad thing, but it had to be done." Sending out flows of earth he sank the stone table back into the ground and smoothed over the hats burial mound, leaving no evidence of the deed.

 

"Now then. We move on to the more practical part of this lesson. As you know, once you learn how to use the power, soldiers are to perform all of their daily chores with Saidin. It is the fastest way to reach your potential. Having said that, lets put you to work."

 

Arath turned around and strode off toward the woods. As they approached the large trees, Saidin flared up inside of him again. Air and fire leapt forward and marked a large X on one of the biggest trees. "I'm told that the inn is running low on wood for the kitchens. You will be doing Storm Leader Covai a favor by fetching him some.

 

"First, you cut down that tree. And then you start cutting it into useable pieces. The problem is, that this is a rather healthy tree. The wood will be wet, and not incredibly useful. You'll also have to dry it out."

 

Arath gauged Caelens reaction to his new assignment. "Finally, all of this wood does no good so far from the inn. Carry it there. All of it. With Saidin." Arath thought for a moment. How could he make this more interesting?

 

"One last thing before you begin. The Black Tower gains its strength from new people who bring new talents and abilities. These abilities usually only show themselves when there is a need. This means, that you had better be creative. You will NOT use air while doing all of this. At least not alone. Mix it with other elements and try to find new ways of doing things. I don't care if it isn't efficient, because this is a learning experience.

 

"And since I'm such a nice guy, I will help you. Once. I will do one weave to help you out during this whole exercise. But you get to decide it. So make it a good one. Understood?"

 

Arath stepped aside and motioned Caelen forward to the marked tree which towered over them. "It's all yours."

[TaeaDawn]

Chopping firewood? That was his grand lesson? He decided that one day when he had become an Asha'man that he'd have a talk to the people running this place and get a little more drama and magnificence in their work. All this hard work with no show was really quite tearing to a man's psyche.

 

Alright then. Chop down a big honkin' tree with no air. How do you chop a tree down? An axe. He'd seen someone doing something similiar with air, but decided to give it a try with fire instead. He started small, working a small razor thin weave of fire and then started sharpening it with spirit. It got bigger as he continued working, making sure the weaver was holding well as he did so. Finally, he sent the weave into the tree, chopping it down efficiently. He smiled at his teacher, then turned his mind to the next challenge.

 

Water. Water needed removed. Could he do that? He wasn't too strong with water, but he wasn't completely incompetant with it. At least he didn't think so. Maybe he could just.. sorta... pull the water out. No, he didn't think he was strong enough for that. Or skilled enough. So, back to fire it was. Slowly, he started heating the wood with flows of air. He managed to get it mostly dry when the thinner end started to smoke and caught fire and he had to use a water weave to dump water on it and stop it. He started again, this time more slowly and focusing on sections of the tree at a time instead of trying to do the whole thing at once. Much more successful that way and he looked back at his teacher again.

 

"Alright, so I think i'd like some help on this one. I'm thinking we could make a platform of air and spirit to put all the wood on and carry it back on that. What do you think?" He asked.

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath watched carefully as Caelen performed his tasks, examining his weaves for any new potential tricks. The soldier was definitely favoring fire, but considering the ban on air, there were not so many options.

 

"Alright, so I think i'd like some help on this one. I'm thinking we could make a platform of air and spirit to put all the wood on and carry it back on that. What do you think?"

 

Arath looked for a moment at the dismembered tree, thinking on the request with a slight frown. "And to think, you could have asked for a gateway alongside the inn's woodpile. Well, platform it is. We'll see what I can do."

 

Arath closed his eyes and siezed Saidin once again, thinking about how to form this thing. To make a platform was simple enough. To create one big enough might be a challenge. "Copy what I do as best you can," he ordered, and set to work. Threads of air and spirit wound and coiled, thicker than ropes and weaving a solid, floating air mass. Arath frowned again as he sorted out the problems in the weave. He couldn't keep it stable after a certain size. It was a problem for all Asha'man to create large air ramps or platforms. A problem for Saidin.

 

"Bah ... that will have to do," he muttered more to himself than to Caelen. This air cart wouldn't carry more than a third of the wood from the giant tree. Tying off the ends of the weave he looked at his creation and nudged firmly with another air flow. It drifted nicely in the direction he had shoved it.

 

"Alright then. When you finish with your cart, I'll link them together and you can load them up. And I'll let you use air this time to do it. Some things just don't need to be complicated."

 

OOC: Just curious, could you post your OP scores here so I have some idea of what you should be able to do?

[TaeaDawn]

"A gateway isn't imaginative." Caelen reprimanded his teacher. "Everyone here seems to know how to do them. Well, I don't but i'm sure with the proper time and place and much spectacle I will someday learn it."

 

Truth be told he'd not throught about a Gateway. He didn't know how to make one and he hadn't thought about getting it from one place to another so quickly. He'd travelled with wagons before though and his mind had made the jump there instead. Something to think about, of course, how his previous life had intruded on his current one.

 

He began working the weaves as he'd watched Arath. The second platform was ready and he continued to learn from the man as he linked them together. Starting to transfer the wood from the pile to the platform was easy enough once started and it was done quickly enough. They had to go back to pick up the next load of wood, but once the cutting was done it had really been busy work. Minus the working hard past which Caelen prefered not to mention. Heroes in stories never did mundane things like lifting wood until their arms were about to fall off, but if Caelen had to do much more today he was likely to get very grouchy. He didn't do tired well.

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath surpressed a chuckle as Caelen loaded the wood onto the air cart. The man had a lot of habits that seemed hard to break. He had enthusiastically begun to load it all, but by hand. Arath said nothing on the first load, simply letting Caelen tire himself out. After a quick demonstration on how to guide the cart with more air flows he had allowed the soldier to make his delivery, where he had unloaded all the wood again, by hand.

 

Deciding to spare his student the muscle strain, Arath stopped him halfway through loading the second time around. "Soldier. The point of this is to give you practice with the power. You have this mundane task before you as a chance to exercise your ability. Your channeling ability is just like using any muscle in your body. If you want to strengthen it, you have to use it." Arath paused for a moment to see if the message had sunk in. "That being said, if one more piece of wood touches your hand, I will break it. Your hand, not the wood. All of your chores on the Farm from here on out are to be done entirely with Saidin. Understood?"

 

To demonstrate his point, Arath siezed the source and lifted a massive quantity of wood depositing it with ease on the air cart. "Do it like this. Understood?"

 

Without waiting for acknowledgement Arath turned and walked off a short distance to sit against a tree. "Once you finish with that I'll show you some other, more entertaining, exercises." Mixing several elements together Arath formed balls of light in various colors and set them swirling in intricate patterns in front of him.

[TaeaDawn]

Caelen felt half a fool as he realized what he'd just done. Now, he was more than willing to play the part of the fool but he prefered it to be an act, not a true state of being. Well, you live and you learn, he thought as he began loading the air platform with the rest of the wood.

 

It was a bit distracting to see the other man playing with the colored balls and he had to force his attention back to his work a few times, thinking how much fun they would be, but finally he managed to get the work completed.

 

"As you requested, and I will not be forgetting to use Saidin for my chores. I shouldn't very well like to lose the use of my hands anytime soon." he said with a grin.

 

[Arath Faringal]

"Very good," replied Arath as Caelen approached him. The twirling balls of light all vanished save one blue ball, which raced over to float above his hand. "This will be a control exercise more than anything. One you can practice on your own time with minimal risk. To increase strength, add more balls of light. But first, these are formed like this." Arath let the ball dissolve, and began to form a new one above his hand. Air wound into a small ball and small threads of fire thread throughout it. Once complete the small globe flared into life, giving off a soft blue glow.

 

"This is the most basic form. Go ahead and make one now. But be careful. If you put in too much fire ..." Arath fed a little more fire into his globe and it erupted into a live fireball, which he threw into the middle of the practice ground.

 

"We've lost more than one soldier to simple light globes here. Form it a few times to get a feel for it, then experiment. Thread other elements through it for other colors, change size and density for stronger or weaker light. Then, besides the obvious advantage of being able to see at night, I want you to tell me a few practical uses for these lights. Be creative."

[TaeaDawn]

As he had done since his arrival on the Farm, Caelen started off the new weave slowly. He wasn't some youngster so overwrought with excitement or nerves that he was foolish enough to do something too fast and watch himself explode into bits and pieces. He prefered his bits and pieces just where they were, thank you very much, so he slowly wove the air and added the fire with meticulous attention. It seemed a bit at odds with his flamboyant nature, but then again, he'd lived this long by learning when it was ok to be flamboyant and when it wasn't.

 

As the ball came into being he let it dissolve and then created another much more quickly. He wanted to play more and see what would happen, but as his instructor mentioned, he would be able to do more on his own, though he did add spirit to see the change it would induce. Instead his mind began wandering on other things a ball of light could be used for.

 

"Well, the first thing I can think of would be to fool someone into thinking you were more than you are. At night the ball of light could be seen from far away and your enemies might think you had more campfires than you really did." He said, trying to think like a soldier.

 

"If you could manipulate it to be much brighter then a quick change of light could blind your enemy."

 

Two down and one more to go. He tried to think of something else a small ball of light could be good for. What did you use light for. Reading. Seeing. Growing things. "I don't know if this would work, but if you had need, could you use a light like this to grow plants? Could you use a similiar ball as a source of heat and light for crops if the weather hadn't been kind?" OK, not a very soldierly thing to think of, but he had been a regular man all his life. He could think of a number of times when a small garden in the middle of winter might have made a difference in his families waist lines.

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath thought for a moment about the last idea. "It's an interesting thought, but I don't know if it would work very well. The intensity of such a ball would make it errupt into a fireball like I showed you. Maybe with a large circle of people controling it. But its a good idea. Shows creativity.

 

"Your other ideas are good. False campfires, flares, all things we do. Here's another one which is a little more ... well ... its an interogation technique we used on a darkfriend we caught snooping around here once. It requires a lot of finesse, but nothing better for getting information from non-channelers. You bind the person with air and force open his mouth. Then you just form a small weak ball of light inside his mouth and draw it out. Use some spirit on him to make him drowsy, then tell him that the light ball is his soul. You wouldn't believe how cooperative he was."

 

Arath chuckled to himself at the memory. The darkfriend had screamed like a girl. Arath had enjoyed that too much. He'd had too much experience with darkfriends as a child and the chance to repay them had been ... pleasant.

 

"Alright then. I want you to keep practicing with the lights. It's an easy, and usually harmless way to get practice with Saidin. Try making multiple balls and increase your control by swirling them in interesting patterns. Also, remember to do all of your chores with the power. You aren't to do so much as wash dishes by hand. And one last thing I want you to do, is create a little statue for me. Like this." Using earth and air, Arath reached into the ground and pulled up a small quantity of dirt. A little water changed it to mud, and he began to mold it into a small figure. A wolf. Fire flashed through it and hardened the figure into stone. "I don't care what you make, just make sure its recognizable, and that it doesn't fall apart in my hands. It will take you quite some time to get it right, so that's your assignment until our next class.

 

"Now then. If you have any questions at all, now is the time to ask. If not, you are dismissed."

[TaeaDawn]

Caelen was all about spectacle and he apprecaited the need to get information from Darkfriends in unusual ways... but that seemed a bit...well.... crazy came to mind right away. He didn't hold too well with torture, mostly because he didn't think he'd like it himself all that much but it wasn't up to him really and he was just trying to get by in the world. As a power mad Asha'man. Some points of view just took a little gettin' used to, he decided.

 

Now, the ball of lights seemed to be more interesting, or at least more comfortable to think about so he starting working on those again when his instructor started playing in the mud. He thought it was a little early in the day for a facial himself, but to each their own.

 

When the small animal carving came from it, he smiled at the other man. "Nice wolf." He listened to Arath continue then and nodded his head at the other man. "No questions at all. Sir." Was he supposed to call Asha'man sir? He wasn't very good at formalities. He could try sometimes though.

 

As the other man walked away Caelen lowered himself to the ground and began working the weaves. Just the right touch of water... some fire... earth... all just.... ugh... mud.

 

It wasn't until after dinner that he finally managed to get what he wanted. His step was much lighter as he went back to his rooms with the figure in hand. He was rather looking forward to his next lesson. He could wait to show up and present the animal. It would be something to remember him by. After all.. he was certain that he was frequently called a jaska-- donkey.