Well, well, well... I.

[Praetorum]

Timestamp: 23rd of Ashan, Arc 722

It was clear from the moment Prae entered the classroom that he was going to draw a lot of attention. For one thing, he was the only mage in the room, as far as he could see. For another, he was about three feet taller than anyone else, including the teacher. 



To be honest, Prae was sort of used to it by now. The height difference wasn't usually quite this stark, and Prae was honestly surprised not to see any other mages in a class dealing with wells, but it wasn't much of a surprise. Or even a problem. The closest thing to an issue there was was, well....


"Er... I don't think we have any chairs in your size," Professor Lucius Vindle said apologetically, one ear flicking backwards. 



"That's alright," Prae replied, making his way to an open corner of the room. "I can sit on the floor, it's fine." 



The professor nodded, then returned to his papers, shuffling through them until he found the one he was looking for. "Alright, I see nine students here, which means we're all present. Just to be clear, this is Basic Ensorcelling—anyone not here for that class should probably go double check the room number." There were a few chuckles at that, but no one stood to go. Straightening up, the professor made his way to the front of the room, and cleared his throat. 



"Right, then. Ensorcelling. Ensorcelling, ensorcelling. How many of you think you know what ensorcelling is?" 



Prae raised his hand sheepishly, feeling very much like a school child all over again. Luckily for him, so did everyone else. Looking around, the teacher pointed at a student, seemingly at random. "Ensorcelling is like, making magic weapons and stuff, right?" The human said, sounding somewhat nervous to have been called upon. 



"That's certainly one use of ensorcelling. Anyone else? How about you?" He pointed at another student, a mole cadouri who bounced in her seat. 



"It's about making magic stones useful, right?"


"Correct. We call these magic stones 'wells', and ensorcelling is the art of refining and using them. I want to be clear to all of you from the very beginning, however. In this beginner class, we will not be refining any wells." There were a few disappointed noises, and a few surprised ones. Prae made neither—he'd seen how rare wells were outside of Yaralon, and had sort of expected this. "None of that, now. Wells are dangerous things. Instead, in this class, we will be learning and practicing the basic skills you need to not blow yourselves up when you get your hands on a real well."


Not a bad approach, Prae thought. You didn't put live steel in the hands of someone who didn't know what they were doing, and a sword wasn't likely to explode if you swung it wrong. 



"I will be bringing wells to class, to teach you to identify them, and teach you to spot pressure points in them, but there will be no actual refining in this class. Even if you tell me you have experience, or that you're immune to explosions, or what not. Am I clear?"


There was a wave of nods around the room, some more reluctant than others. Prae wasn't too fussed. He was interested in ensorcelling, having brought a handful of wells back and forth across the world, but he wasn't in a hurry to get to the practical, and dangerous, aspect of the craft. 



Eventually, though. Prae could only imagine how useful it would be to use those firestones he had. 



"Well," the professor said. "Let's begin."

[Praetorum]

"Seeing as wells are the heart of ensorcelling," Professor Vindle said, "I suppose we should start there. What are wells? You there, in the back." Prae blinked owlishly. "Yes, you."


"Well... wells are magical stones that you can find in fractures? They have a lot of ether in them, which has specific effects when refined by ensorcellors," Prae said, somewhat hesitantly. It had been a while since he'd heard one of Marken's lectures, and most of what his old mentor had said about wells was the risk you ran by flaying one. But he had retained a little of what he'd heard, and he had been traveling with a pile of wells in his pack for the last few arcs. 



"Not a bad descriptor." Lucius nodded. "Wells are not magical stones that contain ether, however—they are ether, condensed and crystalized into solid form." Prae's eyes widened slightly at that, but he supposed it made sense. He'd never thought to look too closely at the wells with either attunement or ethersight, but he had noticed that there was an awful lot of ether in them, more than in, well, most things that weren't living. That didn't have souls, rather. 



"What we do as ensorcellors is, we take a well, a messy tangle of raw ether, and we refine it. Think of refinement as...untangling a ball of string, or smoothing out a wrinkled piece of parchment. The ether that a raw well is made of is all tangled up, compressed in some places and spread in others, like peaks and valleys of ether concentration."


Like what and what now?


"We level out those areas of high or low ether, until the surface of the raw well is all even. Then, we start to cut away at the surface to form the shape we desire—I will teach you about that, and the next steps, in the next class. To-trial, we will deal only with the very first steps—cleaning and shallow tapping."


The cat cadouri reached into his pouch then, and pulled out a pouch. Striding over to the table in the middle of the room, he opened the pouch, and poured some two dozen stones into a bowl in the middle. "Now don't get all excited, these are common pebbles. But they will do nicely to teach you the first, and possibly most fundamental skill of ensorcelling." Turning, he raised a single pebble up to his face, examining it with a stern expression. "Washing."


That drew a few giggles, which Lucius looked somewhat annoyed by. "I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for your raw materials to be clean before you even begin to consider refining it. Any sort of impurities, even a speck of dirt, could drastically alter the results you get when tapping the well. Consistency in results is vital to your continued survival, and therefore... washing. Today, I will be teaching you all proper techniques for washing your wells. There are bowls in the back—please take one and gather around the table."

[Praetorum]



Praetorum, already at the back, simply turned and grabbed a bowl from the shelf behind him. Then, eyeing the rest of the students and considering their average height, he began taking more bowls down from the top shelves and passing them to other students as they came by. 


Once everyone had a bowl in their hand, the teacher instructed the students to fill them all with soapy water. "Now, here—" he pulled out two pawfuls of brushes from his bag "—are brushes in all sizes. You'll each take a pebble and wash it, and then show it to me, and I'll judge how well you've done. Remember, be thorough. I don't want to see a single smudge on these things by the time you're done with them. And don't forget to refill your bowl frequently! No point scrubbing these things if the water you're using is filthy."



So, Prae did as he was told, and grabbed a stone to wash. The one he settled on was about the same size as the dreamstone well he had, slightly bigger than the firestones, small enough to fit in a human's palm. It was, not filthy, but a little dingy, with dried mud and dust stuck to the surface. Ducking it into the bowl of soapy water, Prae grabbed the biggest brush on the table—everyone else seemed to have been nice enough to leave it for him—and began to scrub. 



Prae was no stranger to washing things—his family had been quite small by empire standards, and there were always chores for the children to do. But he'd never washed a stone before, or never very thoroughly. The dust washed off easy with a single pass of the brush, but the rough texture of the stone meant that in places, the mud clung stubbornly into crevices and cracks. It took some firm brushing to get the bristles of the brush where Prae needed them to go, but after a few dunks and scrubs, Prae had a rock that he thought was probably clean enough. 



Looking around, Prae saw that a few of the students had moved on to their second stones, while the rest were either finishing up or waiting to show the teacher their stones. Giving his own a once over, he joined the latter group, hovering at the edges until Lucius turned to him with one paw extended expectantly. 



"Hmm, not bad, not bad," the professor said, examining the rock when Prae handed it to him. "Almost perfect, but you must mind the fine details. See this little crack over here?" A sharp claw popped out of the cat's finger, and traced where a fine line cut the surface. "You see the problem?"


Prae took the stone back, and squinted at the crack, turning the stone this way and that. At first, he saw nothing, but then the light caught the stone in just the right way, and Prae caught a glimpse of rough texture in the crack. "There's still a bit in the back."



"That's right," Lucius said. "You'll want to angle your brush sideways to get those, and maybe choose a brush with finer bristles." Prae nodded at that, padding back to his station to select a smaller brush. 



Back to scrubbing it was.

[Avalon]

Review & Rewards

Name: Prae

Points awarded: 10 (Awarded via UCP)

Knowledge:
Ensorcelling: Ensorcelling is the art of using and refining wells
Ensorcelling: Wells are dangerous things
Ensorcelling: Wells are solid ether
Ensorcelling: The ether that a raw well is made of is all tangled up
Ensorcelling: Any sort of impurities, even a speck of dirt, could drastically alter the results you get when tapping the well
Teaching: You didn't put live steel in the hands of someone who didn't know what they were doing

Renown: N/A

Skill Review: Appropriate to level.

Notes:
The image of Prae sitting on the floor, raising his hand, amuses me to no end!

I appreciated the course this solo took with ensorcelling. Ensorcelling 101would be basics and safety matters, and I think at Saoire's, this would be doubly so. I don't know a lot about ensorcelling, so I learned right along with Prae and the other students.

It was also very Prae-like that he took bowls down and passed them to other students. I know it was a proximity thing, but still.

I enjoyed the back and forth in the classroom setting. It was very obviously a basic class, and your writing of such, in my opinion, was spot on. You handled the npcs well (see what I did there?) and it really helped the whole thing feel natural.

I can't wait to read Prae's further adventures in ensorcelling!

Avalon