Everything about the way new places sensed felt amazing to Gwendolynn. Ever since she started traveling, she slowly became more and more addicted to the lifestyle of a vagabond, falling in love with the thought of waking up in a different world each day. This world was no different in the amount of awe she was struck with. Along their travels, Meqirith had shown her spells that could manipulate nature, but she never imagined that everything in nature could be moved through magick. This time, she was standing in the shadow of what was one of the single most massive buildings that she had ever seen, if it could even be called that. Most buildings of stone were made of several stones piled together, but this was one massive solid piece of bedrock, carved and shaped by magicks so powerful Gwendolynn couldn't even imagine the number of mages and days it must have taken to create just this one building. It looked like an entire mountain had been reshaped into this cylindrical shaped stone fortress that held absolutely no weak points or entrances.
"So how…." Emily started, looking in just as much awe at this thing as Gwen was. Her question was cut off by Meqirith approaching the building, and placing his hands both palms first onto the side of it. They could hear him grunt slightly, as his arms started to glow a bright green through his sleeves. He continued to push into the structure, and from his palms, lines swirled and danced out from around them, which eventually settled into a rectangular shape that resembled a door. He pulled his hands away, and the green essence that flowed from his hands to the stone structure seemed to stretch and bend, as he twisted his entire body attempting to pull away from the structure. Gwendolynn and Emily stared in awe as he worked such powerful magicks, silently questioning if they had any chance of assisting him.
"I swear," Meqirith gritted through his teeth, as a slight crack formed between the doorway of light he had made and the rest of the structure, "This gets more..." he strained again, "and more difficult each time….." soon the mana essence tethers snapped away from one of his hands, and he shook it in defiance of the sharp splitting pain that overcame his right palm. Reaching his hand toward the door, he would reattach his green aura to the doorway that was being formed when suddenly Olive Juice approached the doorway, seeming a lot more bored with the entire situation than the other two observers.
"You…..may wish to back away for now," Meqirith warned the smaller one, expecting the door to fly open as it always had as other temples. Olive Juice simply tilted his head in confusion, and placed his hand on the double door that was formed by Meqirith's magick. Against Meqirith's pull, he simply pushed, and the doors slid inward with what seemed like no effort at all for him. The Magick tethers snapped painfully away from Meqirith's hands, and he fell backwards, rolling twice before finally steadying himself.
"Olive…." was all that Gwendolynn could say before he turned and rolled his eyes at the two. He made a pushing motion with his hands, then shook his head no before making a pulling motion.
"Does….that mean that it's a push door and not a pull door?" Emily asked, half confused, half entertained. When Olive Juice excitedly nodded yes, Emily broke into laughter, and looked back at Meqirith. "And how many of these doors have you broken already?" she joked at him as he adjusted his hood.
"I'm going to go out on a limb," he said, bringing himself to a standing position, "And say 'literally every single one I've done this too' if that's the case." He chuckled at his own misunderstanding. "You'd think they could put a sign on the doors or something."
"That's if we could see the doors to begin with." Gwendolynn commented, admiring how evenly the doors had opened. The rock appeared cut by nature itself where the door appeared, perfectly fitting back together like a shattered vase if they would be moved into the right position. The rest of the party walked past Gwendolynn, who chose to admire the doors on this place by swinging them a few times. When she had the one wholly closed, the green trace of light that still outlined the doors vanished, and the piece had become perfectly solid stone once again. "Woah…" was all she could say.
"Oh…." Meqirith turned to see her discovery. "Would you look at that…..the doors do return to stone if they're closed properly….."
"I can't imagine you've ever seen that come about with how barbaric you are." Emily giggled again, which made Meqirith roll his eyes. "If I ever invite you to my place I'll just leave the door open to save you a lot of trouble and me a lot of repairs." she continued to joke. Gwendolynn turned to see the inside of this temple, and it was just as massive on the inside as it appeared on the outside. The ground was made of solid polished marble, and there were random areas where different parts of the marble would become different colors. The parts where the colors would overlap would change their hue, with Blue and Yellow becoming Green at their intersections, and at the middle of this gigantic floor was a simple Black Diamond where all of the rows of colors had led to. Looking up, there were even clouds inside, and beyond the haze she couldn't even tell where the ceiling was, or if there even was one at all. She wondered if there was a window somewhere that allowed the clouds to drift inside, but they hovered far too low for that possibility. Other than that, the inside of the room was completely bare, with no furniture, windows, or anything for that matter.
"Welcome," Meqirith commented, catching her in the middle of her wandering, "To the Temple of the Elvish God. The place where I duly follow the only deity I would probably find myself in worship of."
Gwendolynn wandered about, following the paths of colors across the floor with her feet as though she was following a balancing beam. She held her arms outright, and feigned maintaining her balance as she followed first the Yellow arc, then the green, then blue, all the way around until she found herself standing at the edge of one of the sides of the black diamond in the center of the room. She knelt down to inspect it closer, to see that very small characters were engraved into the floor. These characters were once again familiar, but still strange. Something about them seemed like she knew what they said, but she didn't know exactly what they said….and they were very bittersweet. Some kind of sorrow mixed with rage was written on the floor here.
"Erysipelas" Meqirith spoke from behind her. She jumped again.
"DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SNEAK UP ON ME?!" She shouted, landing on her bottom as she spun to the source of her terror, frowning at Meqirith as he smiled down at her.
"You were trying to read it, weren't you?" He questioned.
"Yeah…." she confessed, looking back at the words still sitting. "You said it?"
"That is correct." Meqirith stated, "It is Elvish, and during my time studying the race that I had lived with--"
"Say it again!" Gwendolynn interrupted him. He raised an eyebrow in response, before sighing.
"Erysipelas" he said, this time a bit quieter. "I'd prefer not to say it too loud, since it's a spell."
Gwendolynn repeated the words, letting the consonants roll off of her lips, and she embellished the 'as' sound at the end, feeling her fingertips start to warm up slightly. Looking down, her hands were on fire, which caused her to freak out and jump to her feet before shaking her hands violently. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT WHY DIDN'T IT BURN?!?!!?" Gwendolynn asked no one in particular, taking solace in the fact that Meqirith would probably respond anyways.
"I said it was a spell, didn't I? It's a very basic fire spell." he concluded his short lesson.
"But that's not why I remember it," Gwendolynn said.
"Oh?" Meqirith asked, again with his brow raised, "Then from where?"
"Well….." Gwendolynn started.
"They're words to a song." Emily interrupted, looking down at this black diamond as well.
"Song?" Meqirith now turned to her, "That's fascinating."
"Why would magic words be in a song that's taught to children?" Emily ventured, and Gwendolynn had been thinking the exact same thing.
"Because songs are magic," Meqirith's lesson was once again short. "In singing, you can express sides of yourself that words may often fail. Have you ever felt yourself singing a song that meant more to you than words that you could've ever imagined?"
"Yeah…." Gwendolynn turned to look at the black diamond, "It was my favorite song growing up, actually….." she mused, looking at her hands again.
"Then you should already be able to fully feel this spell without needing my help too much. Do you remember the song?" Meqirith continued.
"I don't think we could forget it if we tried." Emily teased, and Gwendolynn nodded in agreement.
"Well," Meqirith turned away from the group, "Let those memories serve you well, Gwendolynn and Emily, for they may be exactly the tool we need." he returned to face the pair after he was a good ten meters away or so. "What I want you to do now, Gwendolynn, is feel everything that the song you are speaking of ever meant to you, and direct it at me." Meqirith raised his own hands as if he was preparing a spell.
Gwendolynn looked at her own hands in disbelief. "Okay, instead of that, how about I just, like, shoot at the ground or something?" she asked sheepishly.
"And what, let your mana run amuk and engulf your friend standing next to you?" Meqirith chased.
"I can back away, and I'm also really on board with Gwendolynn's idea of not shooting fire at each other." Emily interjected, but again Meqirith shook his head.
"She's already proven to be a strong mage," Meqirith reasoned, "If she unleashed too much power, I'd at least like to be able to control it." he turned his look of determination into a soft smile, "And just because you're aiming at me young one, don't think that means you need to hold back. Use everything you've got, alright?" He lowered his stance, readying his hands with his palms pointed at Gwendolynn.
Gwendolynn took a deep breath, and looked at Emily who backed away cautiously. She remembered the song that was sung to her on longer winter nights as a way of lulling her to sleep in spite of how brutal the cold had been some nights. She remembered the warmth of who she once thought her parents holding her on this one night in particular where no matter how tightly they sealed off everything, it seemed like the freezing cold of the air would come down the chimney against the fire, blowing just as much cold into the house as the fire could carry heat, and only the chill remained between the bursts of both cold and hot air that buffeted them. She remembers this as what was considered to be the absolute worst winter that they had ever endured, and for a second she considered the fact that by learning this song, her parents might have saved their lives. She wondered if they had been using mana without even knowing it, or if humans could even wield Magicks. She lifted her hands, and opened her eyes, focusing all of her memories on Meqirith. A part of her wanted to sing the entire song, but as she drew breath she could feel the fire already welling up inside of her body just from the sheer thought that she was about to cast a spell. Without meaning to, she held her breath hoping for the burning to subside, but instead it seemed to grow more and more with each heartbeat. In a sudden exhale, that took all of her breath out of her lungs, she practically screamed "ERYSIPELAS!!!" The flames from her hands grew brighter and brighter, as her vision would become more and more dark, and soon she couldn't really see. She could feel every essence of her being poured through the spell, and it was like the heat in her body was leaving her through her fingertips. First her feet would become cold, then her lower legs, and her ears, as this massive gout of flame shot relentlessly at her target she couldn't even see behind her spell anymore. Next her knees would grow cold, and her nose, and somehow even her shoulders. As the cold crept in around her body, the flames continued to diminish in size, and she fell to one knee, letting her hand fall as well. She blasted the ground around her with the slight ember that still came from her hand, and the heat singed her knee. She could only really tell through watching it happen though, since the lower half of her body had become numb with cold, and soon she collapsed to the floor, unable to think, or move, or talk, or see.
On the other side of the chamber, Meqirith held his palms toward the oncoming giant fireball, with his hands ready. He channeled his mana to his hands, and almost effortlessly caught the fireball as it made an impact. He would slide back only an inch or two after assessing his stance and realizing that his feet weren't quite stable enough for this level of mana. He couldn't even see the caster through this massive blaze, but he could feel her effort waning on the other side of the spell, and he decided that now was as good a time as any to put an end to it. "Kieru," he spoke boldly, as he slapped his hands together, extinguishing the fire from the entire room all at once. First the fire would split in half from top to bottom, then those halves would split in half as well, and those would split again, until very small flames simply winked out of existence completely, leaving a surprisingly small cloud in their wake that would waft upwards and join the rest of the cloud-like fog above their heads. Meqirith looked across the room, and saw Gwendolynn laying face down and unconscious in the center. From the size of the initial blast, he had expected so much more of a follow up, but he remembered how young Gwendolynn was, and that Magick would take time, even for an elf. He raised his hand to scratch the back of his head, and looked over to see if Emily was reacting, and of course she was.
Emily stared at both of them, her eyes wide with shock and panic. First her eyes followed the fireball, then they watched in awe as this man, this mage, this half-elf whatever he was, caught it?! Then he crushed it in his hands, like it wasn't the size of the frickin moon or something! How long had he been practicing magick to be able to do such a feat? She was almost shaken by the mere power that both of these two had displayed, and felt a pang of hopelessness knowing that humans would never be capable of such things. Her eyes drifted back to Gwendolynn, only to see her friend laying face down on the floor. She rushed over to Gwendolynn, and cradled her on her lap before trying to shake her awake. "Gwen!! GWEN!!" she called, shaking her friend, "Wasn't that a bit much?!" she spat at Meqirith, who was now walking toward the pair.
"In my opinion? I'd say she went all in with the first few seconds. The trick is to maintain the stream of flame as long and consistently as possible, which allows you to--"
"TO HELL WITH YOUR LESSON!!" Emily shouted, her fear showing through, "Will she be alright?!" She questioned. Meqirith put his finger to his chin in thought.
"Almost certainly. Practicing Magick puts a strain on one's body, however, and it looks as though she really gave it her all. If you push too much mana into a spell, it will drain every aspect of you, including your emotional and spiritual bodies, down to the very force of you that keeps you alive. Very few spells are truly that taxing, and almost any spell that's considered basic like that one will make the caster faint before they're actually able to do any real damage to their bodies. If I were to, say, use a spell that would break someone's soul or if I were to try to alter the weather or anything insane like that with a spell, then that would have a chance of killing me if I wasn't prepared properly. With a simple fire spell, however, she should be fine. She should note, however, that being the caster doesn't make you immune to fire, it just makes you significantly less likely to take damage." Meqirith squatted down beside the couple, bringing his gaze to meet Emily's. "Now, imagine had she just aimed at the floor. We'd all be in a world of hurt." he drove his point home, and Emily broke eye contact as Gwendolynn coughed herself awake again.
"Hey!" Emily started, "You alright?" Gwen gave her a slight smirk, her eyes barely fluttering open.
"Definitely not." she responded, before her eyes closed again. Emily once again glared up at Meqirith, who was looking upwards himself. He studied the clouds that hung overhead.
"I wonder…." he started, scratching his short and disorderly beard, "If that's the key to getting up there….." he ended his statement, looking back down at Emily.
"Oh no!" she objected, "We aren't having Gwen do that again, alright?!"
"Fine fine," Meqirith smiled, "But what if someone more practiced at Magick did that?"
"Who do we….." Emily looked around the room to see the small child they had brought with them sitting off to some other side of the room, leaning up against the wall…...doing hand stands?! "THAT LITTLE!!" She shouted, startling him causing Olive Juice to drop his hand stand landing promptly on the top of his head before he lay prone on the ground.
"I feel like he knows a lot more than the rest of us, and that he just may be able to help us." Meqirith concluded, turning his head toward the child.
"What do you plan to do?" Emily asked, looking back to Meqirith.
"Well, since he doesn't talk very much, perhaps he could simply show us what he knows, huh?" he asked. When their gaze returned to Olive Juice, he was back to doing handstands using the wall for stability, his arms feebly wobbling beneath him. Meqirith rose, and approached this strange, small boy whom he had barely gotten to know anything about.