Vignette - Druid

“What path have you imagined, Candidate?”

“I dream of the legends surrounding the Druids of old. I will tattoo my magics upon my skin, I will anchor it in ancient trees. I shall make a forest my home, each blow I take shared by thousands of trees, Each tree that dies a wound upon my body. Let my enemies, beast and human alike, enter the enchanted depths, let them be twisted in circles and lost in the mists until, at last, they feed the forest with their blood and flesh.”

“What of the rest of your species? Will you stand apart?”

“...No, the forest will surround the hidden glens, let the norms hide within, so long as they respect and honor the Forest it will respect and protect them in turn.”

Chapter 3

He learned to both love and hate the Mirror. The opportunity to truly know yourself was without price. But oh, the cringe worthy memories of childhood squabbles and indiscretions. Of his first clumsy kiss, of other firsts that were even more awkward. They were important moments in his life. He was proud of his past self for daring to try. Those first fumbles were necessary and the shame that came from many of them motivated him to improve. It was still unpleasant to remember.

He had to repeat this process for every foolish moment, every wound to his pride was brought, kicking and screaming, into the light. He had to recognize the mistakes, to study and understand why they occurred and from understanding at last move to acceptance. It was mind breaking work.

To accept the good with the bad as part of who he was and then to move past them. He studied these events for lessons that needed to be learned, then forgave himself his tresspasses. It took time, more than he was comfortable giving at the moment.

Then again, the Mirror was not going anywhere and he had seven years ahead of him.

The delay was useful in another way. It allowed his mind to recover from Akil’s voice. While stressful the Mirror worked on different mental ‘muscles’ then the golem’s resounding voice.

It was time though, he had made his choice. It was made when he could find no other options. Screw you Robert Frost and your paths less traveled, he would make his own path.

“I want to chart my own course.”

“Congratulations Timothy Mason on picking the higher path. May your Path be true and far reaching!”

He started, “Not just Candidate?”

“One must be worthy of a name. Many sophants of your world will never be acknowledged as more than Candidate. Strive, and someday make your name worth remembering.”

He shook his head, Akil’s voice was slowly getting stronger, he did not have time to waste on pointless questions. “What can you tell me now about magic?”

“I will not be able to tell you as much as you might like. Your path must not be prejudiced by my assumptions. As you figure things out for yourself I will notice and will be able to expound on what you know. You must dream deeply, stretch your imagination and pick a goal. No matter how silly it may sound, pick something outrageously high in the sky.”

“With a long term goal acquired, come back to Earth and plan a series of small steps in the direction of your goal. Do not attempt to plan out the full path. You know far too little of the world, of the universe, for that to be possible. Focus on small incremental improvements that will aid you in surviving in the dangerous world above.” As Akil’s mental voice boomed the word ‘above’ the void cleared to reveal a blue jewel of a planet against a star filled backdrop. He gazed at that oh so familiar ball of earth and water. Home, his heart pounded in his chest, the longing for familiar sights and familiar people suddenly bursting out within him, before being pushed down and carefully stored away for later.

“As you think about this we will start the awakening process. Sit down and relax. We will be focusing on your willpower so get comfortable. Don’t let your fleshy needs distract you.”

Akil waited patiently for him to try several positions. Timothy considered it, but he was not some asian guru or yoga enthusiast, he could not bend his legs into pretzels for a “lotus” or some such. Comfortable for him was lying on his back, hands behind his head, ankles crossed staring at the ball he called home. With a small grin he broke off one of the tall grasses and stuck it in his mouth. Sometimes you had to go with the classics.

“Now do not attempt to speak for this period of time. Focus on your task not on questions or worries. This will not be done quickly. It might take you several months in this place to connect to the magic around you. You will need to spend several hours every day doing these simple exercises. ”

A dandelion seed floated into his field of vision gently swaying with the wind.

“Your will can move the magic around you, the magic can change the world. Focus on this seed, make it move, make the magic move it. This is not some path of spoonbending. It is simply a way for you to feel the interaction of your Will with magic. Should you survive long enough you may have to teach this to others, so pay attention. Here it will take months. There it might take years. Between one and two usually, though for some, never. Not from lack of talent, there is no such thing. It is from a lack of attention span. A lack of willpower.”

He took a deep breath and attempted to relax his mind, to focus on nothing as he remembered from some vague meditation guides he once read.

“None of that!” Akil roared so loudly his vision narrowed and his thought process crashed to a sudden, painful stop. “Forget what you read in some asinine self-help book! You need to WILL the seed to move. This is not a relaxation guide or self actualization nonsense. This is about setting your will over the forces that govern all worlds! You must FORCE the seed to move.”

His head still smarting, he uncurled slowly from the fetal position and tried again. Attempting to forget about his body while focusing his entire mind on that seed, to make it obey his will. It hurt after a while, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and his eyes began to ache.

“Enough for now. You will have to work on focusing your mind without involving your body. Your eyes and head only ache because you kept them tense. Go spend some time thinking about your life goals. We will start again tomorrow.”

And so he did, as days turned to weeks, and weeks to months. His days began to follow a pattern. He would wake up and go for a jog. Nothing extravagant, just a wake up 30 minute jog. But each morning he attempted to make it a little faster. Not just for fitness but for will. To force his body to go just that much faster, that extra step longer. It was probably the oldest will building exercises in the world. The old world at least. The thought gave him pause. He would have to see if there were better methods in the new.

Following this he would request extravagant breakfasts from Akil. If he could see the breakfast in his head, then Akil could provide it. Eggs Benedict, Belgian waffles, steak and eggs, french toast, and so many more.

Breakfast was followed by a slow amble about his little world. Deliberately avoiding the track. The symbol of a pre-blazed endless track that led nowhere was antithetical to everything he was attempting to do. He would amble around and over the path, but never along it. Thinking about what he wanted from life, what he dreamed of as a child before he put it aside to grow up into cubicle farms and company happy hours. It was a liberating thing to free himself of all the unspoken rules of polite society. Do this, don’t do this, never admit to thinking this. Always show support for these hot button issues. Never reveal your true beliefs and thoughts. So many quiet chains society created. So many he never really thought about till now.

The next portion of his day was how he managed to see his old life so clearly. The Mirror of Self, it was with it’s help that he finally recognized just how much he had conformed to fit in. It was not something to feel ashamed of. You had to play the game to succeed in life and he had learned to play it well. He was proud of himself for that. But the board had changed. There are no rules but those he wrote for himself. “♪Oh, how I want to break free!♪”

He stared into the Pool and into himself. To gradually recognize his predilections, to decide what to keep and what to change. To make damn sure the changes of previous days took. And when he inevitably backslid he could notice and do something about it.

Introspection was hungry work. He would follow it with an elaborate lunch. This place was a foodies paradise! New York style Jewish Reuben sandwiches , Guamanian BBQ. Beef Wellington, Tai Curry, Italian Pastas and Chinese dumplings! Every day he would try to dig up something new from his memory. A quiet memorial for all the great foods the world might have lost forever. Rest in peace, you were the best of us!

Following lunch came another ambling walk to settle the food and to reflect further on his path. As midday shifted towards evening he would again lie in the grass and train his will, sometimes on a grass seed, sometimes a droplet of rain, sometimes to move a dust bunny acrossed a smooth piece of slate. Hours spent resisting frustration and boredom. Without the proof that success was possible, supplied daily by Akil, it would have been hard for him to continue. Perhaps more than just hard. Perhaps impossible.

When he could no longer keep his mind focused Akil would dismiss him to his rest. A quick snack, as he was usually too worked up to eat heartily, and a chapter or so to read in bed. Letting the voices of the masters help him to forget his troubles. Simply enjoying the moment. Until sleep carried him away and he could begin the cycle once more.

Two and change long months of work followed before the breakthrough. His thoughts resonated with the magic and what before was pointless flailing suddenly snapped into focus. He had been flailing because he could not ‘see’ or ‘hear’ the target, wildly striking in the wrong direction wondering why he could not find the pinata. Finally he struck true and now he knew what success felt like. The feedback from the strike let him ‘see’ the magic field blossoming in his mind, a sense he had always had but never noticed. So many strings, a simple pluck and he could listen to the shapes, see the notes, taste the colors. All these things and none of them. A full sensory experience that his mind interpreted in terms of the five senses but it used none of them.

“Congratulations Timothy! Your world has forever changed.“ Akil joined him in rejoicing at the long anticipated success. But after a brief pause Akil continued. “I can offer no further help until you decide on the outline of your path.”

Thankfully these months had been productive in many ways. With the Mirror’s aid, he had plumbed his heart and found what he wanted from life. Then had gone beyond it. The Mirror brought the subconscious desires into perspective.

But his Conscious ruled his mind, not the subconscious. He would learn from his desires but he would not be restricted by them. They would not be the tail that wagged the dog.

He wanted knowledge, to understand magic in its entirety, to observe the world in all its splendor and all the creatures in it. To learn their many secrets and make those secrets his own. To understand and conquer himself.

Only then could he be more than the sum of his genes, hormones and upbringing.

He had found his goals, but the path to get there was not something he could fully see. He just had a few hints that might guide him in the right direction.

He took the first hint from his morning run. Building willpower by constantly surpassing the past self. To reach just that extra step or extra second against the pain in his muscles and the desires in his heart. The pain was necessary. It was the coin that purchased willpower.

The second hint was in his desires. He loved his food. Loved the taste and the feeling of being stuffed. But did he love it more than his goals?

No.

The goal was far more important.

Was he willing to give it up if it helped him reach his goals?

Yes. Though it would hurt him to do so. He loved good food. Hurt was pain. Pain was gain. A way to build willpower through his everyday life.

But this was nothing new. Ascetics had attempted it for a long time. He needed something more. He needed to make it magical not merely physical or psychological. It needed to be epic.

And in epic tales he found the last hint.

Self sacrifice.

In the many legends and stories the recurring theme that most resonated with him was this base concept. That Odin gave up an eye and hung for days to gain wisdom and knowledge. Gandalf stood on the bridge and bid the others run. All things have a cost, it's just a question of what you are willing to pay. The greater the sacrifice the more the normal limits of humanity did not apply.

It required pain, it needed to hurt! A confirmed vegetarian sacrificing meat would be pointless. It also required choice. No one respected a rug. It was not noble or respectable to constantly be walked on. To suffer due to factors beyond his control would not give will power. Quite the opposite. It would destroy it. Will power required him to fight against the pain to become greater. Laying down and taking it did not qualify.

His first magic, his guiding light, would be this self sacrifice. To use magic to get more out of the sacrifice than others did. Even in the old world runners could build will power. In a world of magic he expected to get far more out of it. If they got 5 units for the trade of their time and pain, he would negotiate with the universe for 10!

He would not have to completely give up all his comforts and pleasures. On the contrary, regular reminders of what he was missing would be needed. A masterful meal once a month, An hour of reading before it, and a comfortable bed to sleep in after. Then back to bland healthy food and sleeping on the floor.

Oh man did he have expensive tastes! He chuckled in self ridicule but did not change his mind. In time other sacrifices would present themselves. Perhaps painful permanent ones. For now, it was best to start small.

This was the backbone, what then the arms and legs? He needed something flexible. It was not a sacrifice to forgo luxuries when he didn't have access to them. He needed that constant temptation to progress. So he had to create a very high standard of living, then not take advantage of it. He also needed to survive.

Survival is good!

Survival boiled down to Food, water and shelter. He barely remembered a snippet on Maslow's hierarchy, but was pretty sure there was more to it than just these three, but they would do for a start.

So how could he use magic to fulfill all these conditions? What did he need and what could he give up to make it so. The triple constraint triangle adapted to magic was something like Speed in one corner, Power in the next, and Flexibility in the third.

As always, pick two. He needed to be flexible and powerful. He did not need to be fast. Let others cast spells with a snap of the fingers, he would have to plan ahead and use his flexibility to make specific spells that would accumulate power over time.

With those conditions it was obvious what he needed. Runes. He would write commands to the magic field on rocks and stones. Charge them up in the magic field and trigger them when needed.

He had even made a list of what he would need to accomplish. First, was safety. He needed to be able to make a stronghold. Maybe a bunker, maybe a walled city, he would have to play it by ear. But regardless construction tools and methods were necessary. Along with defensive weaponry. “♪Make an example of, a representative sample of….!♪”

Second he needed food, to hunt it, farm it or some other magical shenanigans. Best to keep his options open and not make a box to think in.

Third was clean water. He does not want to deal with shitting his brains out due to a name he couldn’t quite recall. “Akil will unclean water still be a danger after the world refreshes?”

“The variant you are thinking of, with painful diarrhea and partial paralysis, will not, but other contaminants might be.” he boomed, it felt much quieter now that his will was improving.

So construct, kill, grow and clean. Perhaps also some way to heal. Infections and diseases killed a lot of people in history.

“It still bothers me that you root around in my head so much Akil“

“If it makes you feel any better your thoughts are far too trivial for the Proctor to bother with. Your privacy is assured because no one cares.”

His eye twitched, Was that supposed to be comforting?

“When your time here comes to an end I will be repurposed, cleansed of your thoughts and memories. Now enough of this silly side issue, please continue.”

With a frustrated growl “Why when you can read my mind, you know where I am going with this!”

“Sophonts of your species are odd creatures. Verbalizing their issues helps them to solidify their understanding. You need to speak your questions for your own benefit. Not for mine. Also your sanity tends to crack if you have no one to talk to.”

DAMN him for making sense. “...Very well, you have seen the Path I outlined have you not?”

“Yes, but it would be good for you to summarize it.” His Incessantly cheerful booming voice rang out once more. Months of exposure made the unrelenting cheer worse than a monotone, but for a very brief moment it became almost formal “What path have you imagined, Candidate?”

“I will use Self-Sacrifice to tune myself to my path and make my progress on it deep and stable. I will take the concept of Sacrifice into my practical magic, to Sacrifice speed in favor of power and flexibility. In particular I will use runes to write orders to the world and as my will is stronger than an inanimate object, it will obey.”

“My starting steps will be to create runes that will solve the following problems. How to build a stronghold, how to kill to defend the stronghold, how to grow food faster, how to purify our drinking water and last how to keep myself and others healthy in the face of wounds, infections and diseases.”

“Nicely Summarized Timothy, so starting at the beginning with building a stronghold what symbol are you thinking of?”

“Simply “Strengthen” I suppose. I will put it on a rock wall to keep out the wildlife. Simple seems best to start with. You can create whatever I have in my mind, correct Akil? Will you make me a stone wall?”

“Picture what you want clearly..” He imagined a simple mortared rock wall. Merely 5 foot high, a foot thick and square around a 10ftx10ft interior space. “Got it, look behind you.”

Ghostly mist formed an outline consistent with his desires then slowly solidified into solid rock.

Walking over he realized he would need something to write with! A chisel appeared at his feet without any fuss. Still this was going to take a while!

It took over a day to carve “Strength” on each stone of the south, south being arbitrarily decided as the direction of the Pool of Self, facing wall in tiny little letters. Each word encompassed in a circle. It took him several more days of playing with it to resonate each rune with the magic field. After doing so they began to charge up on their own.

Finally he was ready for a small scale test.

“Akil please demonstrate a standard beast equivalent attack on that wall.” he pointed on the only reinforced wall.

“As Candidate requests” Wait, candidate again?

A ghostly bristle back wild boar the size of a clydesdale gathered mist and slowly solidified. It raised its battle cry “Squeeeeel” and charged, tusk’s lowered and eyes tinted with madness. Charged at… and right through the wall and the wall behind it before losing solidity and at last blowing away on the wind.

“...Shit. What went wrong?” He scratched his head, baffled.

“...Timothy you have a number of books of poetry in your mental library. Have you not noticed that no english word ever means only one thing? Strengthen can mean many things! It is imprecise. With so many possible meanings how does it know which to use? For that matter what were you thinking when you wrote Strengthen? You were vacillating between a half dozen different ideas.”

“If you don’t know what you mean, how is magic supposed to?”

Akil’s cheerful voice was so much more annoying when he was lecturing.

“Second, even if it had worked you only strengthened the rocks. Not the mortar.”

Crap, I am a moron.

“Third, do you know how to make mortar? Do you think you will be able to quickly find it on the Earth above? If this is your idea of planning ahead then I do not hold high hopes for your survival!”

He cringed away from the sphinx, three days not only wasted, but wasted in an entirely avoidable way!

He took a walk. Aimless but not pointless.

The tall grass slowly brushing across his outstretched palms. The breeze ruffled his hair and cooled his temper. The library came and went. The stars were beautiful, endless. Perfect and unchanging.

The cottage came and went as well.

“...haaaa.” He came at last to a stop.

Tantrums were not productive.

They happened when you lashed out at shame instead of learning from it.

Enough wallowing, it was time to get back on the horse.

His eyes focused, dissolution faded into determination.

Of the three issues, the first was the biggest. He could not use english. There were too many possible meanings to words. He needed to be more specific. He needed to actually create his own language of ‘Runes’. Simple symbols that encompassed a specific meaning, not merely a word in a circle.

Strength might be a flexed bicep, but that referred to muscular strength. It was not appropriate for a wall. He wanted the stone to take blows without breaking. He needed it to be durable rather than strong. What symbol then makes him think of durability. maybe a chest piece of armor? Would that be protection rather than durability? It would, he decided, but that was a good thing. Keeping the stone from taking damage works as well as allowing it to take more damage.

He took two similar flat rocks from the broken wall. A request to Akil grew two pedestals to waist height. One rock to each of them. Then he engraved the outline of a breastplate on one of them.

He engraved it but did not empower it with his will yet. He did not have a clear understanding of what “protection” would encompass. He needed to fully fix in his mind the meaning of this symbol. To endow it with all the things “Protection” should have.

What is “Protection”? The ability to spread the force of impact evenly across the entire object being protected. The ability to ablate damage and prevent it from penetrating through. To slowly store up magic and spend that magic to shield the underlying object. He had to be careful not to make it specific to stone. Flexible, it needed to be usable on many different things.

This was going to take a while.