[X] Tell Danny nothing. It's not like you've been talking to him lately anyways, and you can decide to tell him later when you have more proof.
[X] Meditate on your past life.
-[X] Your abilities, the cons, the benefits, and any tips/hints
You can't help but let out a sigh of relief as you see your Dad drive away for another day at work. He tries his best to be a good father, but damn if his best isn't good enough. Last night at dinner he asked if you thought you would be fine returning to Winslow. The fact that he could ask that with a straight face shows how little he actually knew about what you went through.
You let out a huff and close the blinds. No reason to let poor familial relations sour your mood when you could be learning more magic. Sitting criss-cross on the floor, you close your eyes. When you meditated before, you just thought of nothing, and hoped something came to mind. Now, though, you have a better idea of what you are doing.
You focus in on the source of your magic. You felt it yesterday when you held the sweatshirt you enchanted. The power comes from somewhere beyond your body, then flows into you through your blood. Following the flow backwards, you reach into your soul...
"Daaa! I'm ready! I had my first blood a whole week ago! Ma says you're just lazy."
You jump up and down in front of your dad. He looks up from the wand he is carving, a faint smile on his face.
"I guess you are, and I guess I am. Well, let's get this over with. Now," he says sternly, though the smile never leaves his face, "tell me the basis of our craft."
"Magic comes from stories and magic. I know all the rules, Da," you grumble. He's already made you waste a whole week when you could be learning magic; making you recite rules you've known for years is boring!
"You might know the rules, but do you know the why behind them? Why's are the important things for us crafters, not rules." Da settles in on his bench, and you roll your eyes as you know you're in for a lecture.
"Take the law of living reagents. 'The importance of the means by which a reagent is offered forth is dependent on the life force of the reagent.' The rule means that stone or metal can come from anywhere; only the state it is in when the ritual starts matters. With plant matter, the history matters. With animal reagents, not only the item's history but also your own interactions with it will affect the ritual. For reagents from Living Spirits, well, don't try to use those without a good deal of care and consideration.
"Now, knowing all this is fine and dandy, but if you focus on the rules, you'll miss the the forest for the trees. Remember the first law: 'Magic comes from stories and magic.' Magic coming from magic is simple; you need magic to make magic. Magic from stories is complex. Every rule, including the first, comes from this axiom. A stone has a story, and thus can take part in magic. The stone cares not for its own story, though, so it is the stories people tell of the stone that matter. A tree has a story, and it will always work towards telling it. It cares not for who listens, or what others say, so the story a crafter tells matters equally.
"Animals have stories, and depending on their strength of mind, they may greatly care who listens. A crafter must always be careful when working with beings capable of thought, as the story they tell themselves can easily overpower any story you try and force upon them.
"Enough philosophy. Let's design your first ritual. Recite what I've taught you about implements."
You barely stifle a yelled, "Yes! Um, I mean, yes, Da. An implement allows a crafter to imbue a ritual with magic without the sympathetic link of blood. In order to do so, the ritual to create the implement must include all methods you wish to perform with it. Traditional implements use numerology, runic symbolism, verbal commands, physical actions, reagents, elemental mysticism, and sometimes temporal and spatial symbolism. If you don't include a method while making the implement, then you won't be able to use that method while enchanting with the implement.
"The ritual to create the implement involves tying the implement to its owner with each method. Each method must either represent the owner of the implement, or work to increase the power of the implement. A person may have as many implements as they wish, though a new implement should always be created through blood, and not with a previous implement."
Your da beams at you, and pats you on the head. "Good, good..."
Your eyes open. For a minute, you revel in the feelings the memory sparked in you. You were so excited to finally be able to perform magic, and the contentment that flooded through you when your da praised you is something you haven't felt for a long time.
Finally, you make yourself get up as your stomach grumbles at you. It is three in the afternoon, long after you should have eaten lunch.
As you make yourself a sandwich, you jokingly consider ritualized food preparation. You are fairly certain it would work, but you should probably wait to experiment until you have created an implement. You don't think people would be eager to eat food that had your blood in it, even if it was magical food. Plus, you are pretty sure that there are some downsides to using your blood in a ritual, even if you can't remember what they are yet...
Sandwich in hand, you sit yourself down at the table in your living/dining room and think. It looks like you have a choice in front of you. You can either go ahead with creating an implement to save your poor fingers, or can try to figure out more rituals first so you actually have something to use your implement for.
If you decide to make an implement, you'll need an object to be the implement, as well as a number of methods to represent yourself through symbolism. You may want to meditate and see what your alter-ego used for her ritual.
You grumble to yourself around the sandwich in your mouth, and go to fetch some homework from your room. While you are deciding, you can at least do something useful with your time.
[] Meditate on your past life.
-[] Write in on a specific topic you wish to focus on.
[] Design a ritual to create a personalized implement.
-[] Write in.
[] Explore your abilities.
-[] Write in what you wish to attempt.
[] Do something else.
-[] Write in.
(QMN: Here's a short post. We're off to a slow start, but things will kick off once we get out of our week at home. Whoa, I pulled a lot of magical metaphysics out of my ass in order to write this dream sequence and plan for future ones. Hopefully it makes sense. If it doesn't, tell me what seems like nonsense and I'll rewrite it. Also, I fully expect to do a lot of meditation this week, but be brave! We still have a couple hours before Danny gets home, so we can experiment with our magic
and meditate tomorrow (today was Tuesday). While you technically have three choices, you can feel free to choose all three, at least for this first week when we have plenty of free time.)
(QMN: Added one line. Hopefully that makes creating an implement a little clearer. If it doesn't, eh, just meditate on it
)
