There is a sub-basement room in Gilham Manor, the Whiskey Riders' new outpost in Sou'Brook, that most of the Riders don't know about yet. When they were clearing out the years of junk and making it livable, Quiz found the servants door to the underground cellar and decided to not mention it to the group.
Quiz now stands in the room, manipulating a ball of glowing light in his tiny hands. It fills the space with orange-red shadows and beams. He tosses the ball to the figure near him. "Catch it."
Sedriks' reflexes are instant and fingers snap upwards, but the ball shifts harmlessly through, ghostlike and insubstantial.
Azais playfully laughs from the stairwell. Quiz shakes his head, snaps his fingers, and the ball of light flies back to his palm. "It's not so much grabbing it as it is... you need to grab the space around it."
Sedriks focuses, thinking and hooking his thumbs into his armor, steadying his breathing.
"Hold it without holding it," Quiz continues. "Your hand isn't carrying weight; it's carrying a map for the light." He throws the ball again.
Sedriks' fingers rise again, and for a moment the ball wavers, flickering like a candle in acknowledgement, but unyielding as it smoothly cruises past Sedriks. "I dinnae understand, what do ye tell it, how do ye guide it if not with yaeself?"
"You need to guide it with something that's not yourself, that's the thing." Quiz frowns, the frustration of not having the words evident on his face. He turns to the elf. "Any advice, Azais?"
She nods. "It may be hard for your brain to stop thinking so literally, so have patience. Like Quiz said, you sense around the Magik; think of it as incredibly fragile."
"Something that's not myself?" Sedriks says.
"Remember, you're tapping into the Aether — asking for helping from something that isn't immediately yourself."
"Asking for help from what though?" The note of frustration is evident in Sedriks voice. Quiz, listening quietly, raises one eyebrow in interest as he wordlessly retrieves the glowing ball again.
Azais stretches out her hand. "There are 'forces or powers' in this world, Sedriks. Things that everyone feels but can't quite explain. People find comfort in calling these 'Gods' —of many names. It's really not important though because what some people choose to see a 'divine power' is used to make certain choices in their lives - others use it to create Magik. It's like a presence thats ever there. I find when Im doing magik this feeling is what I focus on.
Quiz nods but says nothing, and tosses the ball to Azais. She catches it, then freezes the flame out.
"Magik can change. It's how Quiz can cast fireballs and I create ice. Its not a stagnant, identified thing." She closes her hand over her frozen flame and it pulls into her palm.
"You wield it how you most want."
With a flick of the wrist, Quiz conjures another ball of light, nods at Sedriks, and tosses it. Sedriks eyes are closed, as though listening, and as the ball of light flies, almost imperceptibly he hums low, too quiet for even Elvish ears to hear. The sound wraps around the light, turning the flame from orange to a violent green, before it sputters out — choked.
Sedriks opens his eyes, and looks about for the ball, finding it already past him again and swears beneath his breath softly.
Azais' head whips quickly to Quiz..."I've never seen a green flame before," she whispers tentatively.
Quiz frowns and then freezes. "What did you.. What were you doing just then? Listening? Um... I've seen that look on your face before..." he trails off.
"I dinnae know, just listening for any of those powers or gods ye spoke of. Didn't do much though I guess."
"I beg to differ..." Azais mutters.
Quiz smiles. "Sedriks, I think... OK. You're looking at this like a combat. Like the aether is something you can strike, or parry. Or you're looking at this like a concert. Like the aether is your instrument. It's neither."
He rubs his palms together as he surveys the lithe bard "Instead, look at your hands. Think of your hands as your viola. Not as the things that play it. _You_ are the instrument. How would you move your hands to play... yourself?"
Sedriks frowns, thinking. Azais locks eyes with Sedriks and begins to make a small, perfectly round crystal sphere of ice.
"Pretend it's not magic," Quiz says. "It's music."
After a few seconds, she tosses it to Sedriks. He keeps his eyes on Azais, not looking directly at the sphere of ice. A slow blink and a loose breath, this time a more audible hum, strange and a little too sotto for the bard's usual voice. The sphere tumbles through the air... then abruptly begins to slow down, spinning sideways against gravity into a lazy curving path.
The bluish light from the sphere catches the grin on Quiz's face. "That's the expression. Like when you're in the middle of performing! It's not focus. It's... like you're realigned to a tune within."
Azais speaks in a liquid voice that echoes with the hum. "Move it slowly around you. As smoothly as if you are drawing your sword from your side"
The sphere twists slowly, like a child's marble on a slope as it begins a long curve, rolling the wrong way for how it moves. Slowly, it begins to move with more surety, more quickly. Sedriks' eyes close in focus, as the sphere spins.
Quiz nods. "Now, enough of this... whaddya call it? Five finger exercise? Try a scale."
Azais shatters the ball into dust.
As the sphere shatters, Sedriks, seemingly unconnected whispers a few strange notes. The dust fragments of ice turn ashen and green, like fragments of bark or bone, before being devoured by tiny licks of flame.
Opening his eyes, Sedriks staggers slightly, off-balance. The fiery cloud swells and roils just slightly.
Quiz sees the accident seconds before it happens. "Get down!" he yells, rushing across the room and tackling Sedriks around the waist. His hand snakes into his pocket and whips out a tuning fork, vibrating already, as he aims it at the burning cloud.
With the opposite of a bang, it quickly dissipates.
Sedriks blinks, seemingly now aware again, laying near the wall of the cellar alongside Quiz. The cellar now smells strongly of burned wood and something... floral?
Azais waves her hand in front of her face. "Seems you may have an affinity for the earth."
Quiz pants like he just ran a marathon, sudden exertion sweating down his face. "Don't know...may not... element... aether is... dangerous..."
"Ye look like ye've seen a ghost or somesuch" Sedriks kip-ups to his feet, then surehandedly helps the gnome rise as well.
It takes Quiz a moment and a few sips of water to steady himself, before the mages turn on Sediks. "What do you recall?" "Or... what did you hear?"
"Some kind of music, there's always a kind of music these days, notes, and somethin else. Like when ye hear the wind pushing through the trees, but focused."
Quiz nods at Azais. "'Things that everyone feels but can't quite explain,' was it?"
"Exactly," she smiles.
"I want to try one final thing, if you're up for it," the pyromancer says to the bard.
"Certainly."
Azais get her tuning fork at the ready. "Sure"
"Go back to that alignment place, hearing the song that blows through the trees. And when you're ready... play a solo. Don't try and duet with my magic, or Azais', or anyone else's. Play your own tune."
Sedriks closes his eyes again, balanced with a dancer's poise and a languid minute rolls by.
"Whatever form it takes," Quiz softly says, "whatever sound it makes. Just let it play."
Breathing evenly, whispers of music begin to emerge, a soft and lyric countertenor voice.
The dirt and stones of the cellar grumble slightly, trembling in upsetting counterrhythm to the whispered music.
Quiz shakes his head at Azais and her ready tuning fork. "Let it play a moment more." She nods, and they intently watch.
Beneath Sedriks' feet, the dirt falls away, though the bard doesn't seem to move.
Instead, from the ground a branch-like hand emerges, leveraging up a weird antler-crowned head atop a too-lean bramble body. Glittering star-like eyes regard the human with rapturous delight, before it leans upwards and whispers into Ceridwen's ear.
It smiles, a curious, twisting, pleased grimace before ghostlike shambles and the hole itself vanish as though they've never been. There is a long silence.
Quiz blinks and smiles thoughtfully. "A gentle earth rumbling, is that all? Azais, you may be right. Sedriks might be a geomancer."
Azais appears at a loss for words. "...well wasn't that something," she says, eyes slightly narrowing in contemplation.
Sedriks suddenly ceases singing, sagging to his knees with fatigue. He blinks awake and shakes his head, dispelling the cobwebs.
"I think thats enough for one night," Azais says, walking over with a bit of care, as they help the bard to his feet. Magik is more taxing than people think."
"Aye, I feel I've played a whole concert in a moment."
"Sounds about right," Quiz nods. "That's how it feels most of the time."
"You'll find ways to ease it"
"You should keep playing. But geomancy is dangerous. All raw elemental magic is. I'd suggest making sure you have one of us nearby while you're getting the hang of it."
Azais chortles. "I'd suggest both after what I just saw"
Quiz frowns at her words. "It was just an earth tremor, and it seemed to be mostly under control." She holds his gaze for a second before shrugging and turning away. The gnome turns to his exhausted friend. "Sedriks, you did well."
"Indeed you did."
"Aye, thank ye. Ye are both good teachers. Though now I think I need some sleep. Feel as though I've run a long mile."
"Until next time," Azais says. She quietly leans over and whispers "Ceridwen, we need to talk when you're recovered."
The bard doesn't say anything but there is the tiniest of nods in her direction. Quiz appears not to notice the exchange as the trio head up out of the cellar to Gilham Manor.
The four sets of dusty footprints behind them go unnoticed.
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