The tri-clinic closed very early on temple day, which often meant it tended to be quite packed by mid-morning.
Just after the sun had risen, Caen was already at the tri-clinic. He was on dispersal duty today: the dematerialization of sprites.
Sprites formed when there was an imbalance in the ambient mana within a region. Many factors...
2025-09-15 12:10:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe first portion of Caen's mind was focused on casting a spiritual scan.
The second portion of his mind watched his own soul structure, specifically his aura, noticing the changes that occurred within it. Both Sh'kteiro and Hshnol had mentioned how spell constructs were primarily formed upon the auras of spellcasters. Caen had begun...
2025-09-14 12:00:15 +0000 UTC View PostSh'kteiro didn't recognize the diagrams, and he couldn't easily get in touch with anyone who might until he returned to Vishnen.
At the phrontistery, Preceptor Wijin was having a meeting, so Caen had to wait outside his office.
“Caen,” Preceptor Wijin said when he stepped out of his office. The elderly man wore a dark...
2025-09-13 12:02:08 +0000 UTC View PostCaen left them and began heading for the Valiant’s lodge. He lifted his backpack to examine the glyphs that had been scrawled on his bag as he walked.
They weren't there.
Caen came to a stop, shocked. He hurriedly retrieved his notebook and was relieved to find that the copied glyphs were still intact. He could reproduce them from ...
2025-09-12 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostIn an instant, he'd reshaped Chasma into a round buckler on his forearm, engaging absorption on its exterior.
With the smaller portion of his mind, Caen channeled light from the Plane of the Speculant Eye through his being.
He emitted two beams in quick succession into Binam's eyes. The man recoiled with a yelp, placing both ...
“We only do fetches with people we know,” a Valiant in scale armor said. “Sorry, cherche.”
Caen sighed and walked away.
“The guy moves like he's injured,” someone said in a low voice.
This was the seventh party Caen had approached.
Gatherers weren't a...
2025-09-10 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post“Five affinities!” Vai exclaimed. “Heh. The runt of the litter’s finally growing up. You should be proud! Tahal's horns and tails, I know I am.”
Caen, Zeris, and their uncle were floating in the morning sky before the great and magnificent form of Parthra. This was an instance of revisitation, and Caen had been externally observi...
2025-09-09 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostThey got their things from Guinevere's room and left the estate. Guinevere escorted them down the cobblestone road till they found a carriage that was headed into town.
When Caen mentioned how he wasn't really into biking like she and Zeris, Guinevere told him that she'd take him freerunning sometime. She said it was a fun exercise t...
2025-09-08 12:00:26 +0000 UTC View Post“Wreather and Parity,” Caen repeated under his breath, running those words over in his mind and trying to see how they measured up against the other ones he'd come across.
“I have no idea what those terms represent,” Guinevere said.
“Do they have substages too?” Zeris asked.
Guinevere nodded. “Yeah. But Nimmy says...
2025-09-07 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThey went through a few more rounds of testing, using the fragment, of course. Zeris and Guinevere kept ramping up the intensity each time with very interesting results. Chasma remained merely curious.
By the sixth round, even Mimicking Guinevere's Lightning affinity, Caen still dropped to a knee from the magnitude of the shock. Lightning ...
2025-09-06 12:00:18 +0000 UTC View PostFarmer Brah'm gave Caen a vase of nutrient-rich soil—he’d retrieved this out of nowhere—and explained that Caen would need to diversify his fragment's ‘diet’ routinely and not casually. Broadening what exactly his fragment could feed on was very important, the man said, as this would determine how strong his fragment would bec...
2025-09-05 12:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day, dawn met Caen meditating on the roof.
His mind felt sharper, his thoughts clearer, his focus firmer. It was as though his consciousness had been replaced by something greater. Plans he'd been formulating over the past few days seemed to crystallize now. A time construct hung in the corner of his vision. He'd cast it by ...
2025-09-04 12:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostThey cleared the table and did the dishes after dinner. Aunt Grena had retired to bed, and Vensha had gone down to the commune saloon to meet up with friends. Caen sat at the dining table with Zeris and Uncle Teiro.
“Are you sure you won't stay the night?” Sh'leinu asked from the living room where she and Ergen sat, cuddled on the couc...
2025-09-03 12:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostWhen he stepped out of the Plane, Caen was struck by how unpleasant… everything was. The air was only slightly dusty and had smelled somewhat clean on his way here, but now it seemed lacking. Even the ground beneath his feet seemed… wrong and unbalanced.
The sun was only starting to rise. Caen geared up completely and began the trek do...
2025-09-02 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostAuthors's Note: Today makes a month since I started posting this story. Thank you so much for your support. It means the world to me. I can't wait to show you all the fun stuff I have in store.
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Absorption—the fragment's ability to feed on matter—worked a little like its resilience. Caen cou...
Soul structures involved far too many elements to keep track of; there were sounds, vibrations, visual representations, physical, mental, and even spiritual impressions. Nothing truly stayed the same. All these elements oscillated and alternated between various phases. It was all typically overwhelming, and Caen was still unable to interpret mos...
2025-08-31 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe spells used to manipulate Parthran fragments were not quite Saffronan. But they did use spirit patterns—though of a different model—and even had visualizations of a sort. Apparently, the dryads used a different system altogether. They were able to send out signals with their spirits that interacted with some sort of receptor within their...
2025-08-30 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostCaen's entire existence coalesced into a whole. Restored. Terror. Dread.
I just died. I just died.
AND NOW YOU ARE WHOLE. OF WHAT USE IS POWER IF I CANNOT SAFELY EXAMINE THE THINGS THAT INTRIGUE ME? IT IS WISE FOR YOU TO FEAR, BUT KNOW THAT I SHALL DO YOU NO HARM.
At these words, the terror abated. Caen was float...
2025-08-29 12:00:21 +0000 UTC View PostThe hole was blocked by a web of white strings that did not budge when he pushed at them with his hands. It seemed to be some sort of cotton-like substance, and he could not connect to it, which meant that it wasn't alive.
He used a spell to carefully pry it apart. There was more of it filling up the hole that led up an incline. Caen...
2025-08-28 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostCaen soaked contentedly in a pool of water as he made some plant tendrils on the wall beside him writhe. The water was very pure, and Caen had found that the pools here seemed to clean themselves somehow and had a rejuvenating effect on his skin. Parthra was no doubt behind all this. His clothes lay drying on the floor.
He was now able to ...
2025-08-27 12:00:27 +0000 UTC View PostApparently, they could both enter through the hole in the wall. Steps, like Yildriv had described, led all the way up to the third layer.
Yildriv dropped to his knees and kissed the black ground, while making quiet promises about a poem he would write in the tree's honor.
“Do you need help with your Flora problem?” Caen ask...
2025-08-26 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostCaen jolly ol' chap sat at a round table with some of the fragmental dryads of Parthra. They dined on the fifteenth layer of the ancient tree, celebrating Rlarlarla's acquisition of a fragment of incomparable quality. They were all in treeform, except for Rlarlarla, who preferred mixform at such occasions.
“I had a conversation wit...
2025-08-25 12:00:20 +0000 UTC View PostA rush of static energy startled Caen awake. He sat up quickly in a groggy haze, reaching with one hand for a glaive that wasn't there while his other hand wrapped around the dagger by his thigh. Then he realized that it was not in fact his alarm ward system that had woken him up.
Yildriv, the flamboyantly dressed Artificer, stood with his...
2025-08-24 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe dryad barkeep prepared a pie for Caen. He produced a round, fleshy fruit of some kind and gradually transformed it right before Caen's eyes. The dryad's soul structure revealed that this was a working of Flora magic, which intrigued Caen to no end.
“What spell and modifier combinations did you use to achieve this?”
<... 2025-08-23 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostMafrolem, Yildriv, and several other accounts were apparently right about something: Parthra was incredibly impervious. Caen could not even so much as dent the bark with his daggers. He'd chipped off one of the blade's tips while testing this out for himself.
The exterior of the tree was not smooth, however. It had pits and crevices and sl...
2025-08-22 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostCaen made his way to the top of the stairs carefully as he gazed around him. Parthra's soul structure was truly dizzying. The second layer was a vast, dark-walled cavern with two main exits. He moved quickly to the side and sat on the ground, trying to make out a prominent thread cluster in the Tree's soul. The feel and configuration here were u...
2025-08-21 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostParthra was the name of the great tree that sat at the center of this Plane. The majesty of its size alone was so awe-inspiring and made Caen feel very tiny.
Every resource he'd read in the past about this Plane had done it a huge disservice. Then again, Caen had never had access to a very dependable and robust source of information....
2025-08-21 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostOnce the last tree was felled, what followed was a night of celebration.
After the Chancellery had done away with meal tokens, alcohol had still remained very expensive and inaccessible. That changed now. Caen was just as impatient to leave Odaton as he was dismayed.
During the celebration, he went into the Plane to continue traini...
Many days passed, and Caen fell into an easy routine. He continued his boosted magical exercises and practiced Flora magic on the awakened trees, but he usually made time to share supper with Zeris and Guinevere at the aides’ hall most evenings.
The passive augmentations from his Blood-healing affinity were refreshing. He still nee...
2025-08-19 12:00:16 +0000 UTC View Post[I'm coming too!] Guinevere called.
[It's just Fire magic,] Caen sent back. [But you're welcome to join us.]
[Sweet!]
Caen and Zeris had made plans to practice with Ardor, but they'd been busy with other pursuits. Ever since she'd learned how to Impassion her fire, Caen's mind had been contemplating what a shared spell with dou...
2025-08-18 12:00:22 +0000 UTC View Post