The Mage's Garden

[Vereshin]

t H e M e​

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Night held the Sith temple of Bastion in a still trance and Vereshin returned to the seat of Sith learning to teach students officially. Having never set foot in a temple since his days as an Acolyte, ones which he would like to forget along with the institutions which perpetrated them, the mystical Sith organized his chambers for the evening. A vast hall entwined with a labyrinth of passageways and staircases. Trapdoors concealing forbidden texts and cursing those who attempted to bypass them, arcane trinkets and spheres dangling from ceilings all adorned the encompassing space.

Bare feet padded across the center of the hall before a watering can within Vereshin's grasp. He stopped and waved a hand and by nothing else, the shape of his form multiplied and escaped into active duplicates representing his appearance exactly. The duplicates of Vereshin all held a watering can and strode around the hall, each lightly watering his black roses situated in pots across surfaces. A spiral staircase lead his student for the evening to the chambers, who would be greeted with the sight of four Vereshins all wandering around as though nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Welcome Acolyte Zena. Please make yourself comfortable." Vereshin said with a slight giggle, anticipating the possible fright the young woman might receive upon greeting the scene. He sat down in a grand chair at the end of the hall and gestured to an array of cushions on the floor for Zena to sit on. The sorcerer snapped his finger and the duplicates of himself disappeared. The water they had given the plants had been real. Vereshin's servant, a young lavender skinned Keshiri entered the room baring a tray of tea and set the edges down carefully on a coffee table between the Knight and the Acolyte.

Vereshin waved a hand in dismissal and the servant exited behind them. He sipped an alcoholic drink from a side table and downed the remainder, swapping the spirit for tea. "My name is Vereshin, but you may call me Vi." He offered, refraining from revealing his Darth title, a name he reserved only for his own master and official apprentices. "Are you proficient in using the Force, Zena? Which areas are you interested in practicing?" Vereshin asked as he waited for the tea to infuse.

A pause held between them as he waited for Zena to collect her thoughts. Many Acolytes arrived to the Sith unsure of which path to take, or they practiced multiple, unrelated areas and did not particularly succeed in any. Vereshin determined to assist the young woman to forming a solid path to which she may devote her time and energy. He retrieved his silver cigarette case from the pocket of his suit pants and flipped open the lid. He placed a cylinder between his teeth and raised an eyebrow in the direction of Zena.

"Zena, light my cigarette." Vereshin ordered in a monotonous and soft voice. He removed the smoke from his teeth and held it outward. The task would prepare him in testing the Acolyte's present skill in the Force. He slipped his glasses off and hung them over the collar of his black cardigan, which he wore over a dark grey shirt. The thin tattoo of an inverted triangle glared in contrast against the pallid skin of his ankle.

[member="Zena Tarro"]

 

[Zena Tarro]

[SIZE=10pt]Zena slid her hand down the polished wood railing as she stepped down the spiral staircase. It led into what she saw was a great hall of sorts, with other staircases and doors leading to places unexplored and unknown to her. Multiple lifeforms wandered about with watering cans, attending to potted plants around the room. Not able to clearly make them out with her Force sight, she lifted back the first layer of the heavy veil covering her face to reveal a slit just large enough for her to see. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, bewilderment overtook her as she realized that they were all the same figure. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]She almost jumped when one of the figures spoke, telling her to make herself comfortable. She spotted him, near a chair and a low table at the end of the hall. With a snap of his fingers, the rest of his copies vanished, leaving only him and what she saw as his mischievous face. Carefully approaching him, she knelt one of the cushions and arranged her voluminous robes about her. She gave a deep nod in lieu of a bow. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Sensing another lifeform, she looked up to see a fair, purple-skinned woman carrying a tray and set it down before just as quickly being dismissed by Vereshin. She’d never seen a humanoid woman with skin that color, even on a world with as rich a slave trade as Shawti. “I have a basic proficiency in moving and sensing objects, using the Force to augment my physical capabilities, and creating sparks and small flames. I am also able to use the Force to see, which is what I am most practiced in.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]After a small pause to think, she said, “I am not certain as to my path yet in the Sith. I think that is something that takes time. Time must be spent practicing my skills within the Force, but I would like to learn new things as well. Do you think that lighting would be beyond me at this point?” [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Grasping a cup of tea, she took a sip before speaking once again. “What species is your slave, if you don’t mind me asking? She must have fetched a fine price, for I have never seen one such as that before.” If the woman was a willing (or not so) servant or friend, it didn’t register. Slaves were so prevalent on her homeworld the idea of an unowned one serving someone wealthy or of status was unheard of. Nor was it rude to openly ask how much a slave fetched at market.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Watching him bring a cigarette out of a small case, she assumed that he would either pull a lighter out of his pocket, or summon the young purple skinned woman to come out and light it for him. When he looked at her expectantly and asked her to do it, Zena jerked back, acting as if he had just asked her to perform an explicit sex act. The shock and disgust was reflected strongly in her Force aura, although she was still unaware. Wondering if Vi somehow knew of her old slave master, or anything else for that matter, she quickly made an effort to outwardly compose herself. With a deep breath, she drew upon a small trickle of the Force and extended her hand outward. A small flame appeared above her pointer finger, which she touched to the end of his cigarette. Just as quickly the small flame disappeared. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Settling herself again, her eyes glared at him defiantly. She was clearly not pleased. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt][member="Vereshin"][/SIZE]

 

[Vereshin]

As Zena approached him, Vereshin took note of her heavily layered attire and noted that she must have hailed from a traditional world. He set down his shot glass on the table beside his chair and levitated the teapot through the Force, carrying it over each cup and pouring the steaming liquid halfway to the china edges without spilling a drop. As the cup was lower to the ground and too far away from his chair, he carried it through the Force and brought the handle to his fingers. He sipped deeply and savored the delicate taste while listening to Zena explain her proficiency with the Force.

"Manipulation of electricity is a basic skill and one of the first methods of casting young sorcerers learn." Vereshin said as he sipped his tea. He raised an eyebrow in a slight expression of disapproval as she assumed that he owned slaves. He regarded the practice of owning another human to be primitive and distasteful, especially the thought of having one live with him and bother him when he did not want to be disturbed. "Jola is not a slave. She is an employed servant who works for me at her own will." Vereshin politely explained. Jola served him while he lived in the temple and his housekeeper, Ana took care of his personal residence and his cat while he was away.

Vereshin sought to test Zena's proficiency in lightning by ordering her to light his cigarette. A sly smile of satisfaction crept upwards into his cheeks as she jerked back in disgust. That the Acolyte regarded herself as any better than his servant when compared to a powerful Sith was a fact which amused Vereshin. He watched her intently as she glared and reached forward with hesitation, conjuring the flame and lighting the end of the cylinder. "You drew on your rage and used it to channel your power. That is good." Pleased with her, he brought the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled deeply, blowing smoke into the air and sitting on the smell of cloves.

"Emotions are the fuel which feeds the power of a Sith, but they must be contained and utilized effectively, lest a Sith be ruled by them." Vereshin explained as he rose to his feet with the cigarette one hand. In the other, he held the teacup and set it down on the saucer with a discrete clang. "I want you to contain the passion and disgust you are experiencing now and channel them into your reach." Vereshin said as he took another long drag on the cigarette before resting it in the groove of an ashtray. "Stand back, splay your hands. Feed your hatred into the particles beneath your grasp and heat them." As he instructed, Vereshin took one position at the end of the hall opposite Zena.

"Casting lightning is similar to casting fire, in that they are both a means of manipulating energy and heat." He extended his fingers and held them at the level of his diaphragm and the air between began to crackle with brilliant lavender sparks. A sphere of luminescent purple energy formed between his grasp and bolts of electricity danced around the surface. Vereshin levitated the sphere around the room to demonstrate the ability before waving his hands and causing it to flicker and die. He splayed his hands again in preparation. "Aggravate the charges between your palms and accelerate the heat as you proved before." He slid his hands into his trouser pockets while allowing Zena to gather her focus.

[member="Zena Tarro"]

 

[Zena Tarro]

Zena watched carefully as she noticed that he was using the Force to hold and manipulate his teacup as deftly as if he used his own hands, yet without any visible concentration. She tilted her head in confusion at hearing Vereshin explain that the Keshiri woman was not a slave, but a servant willingly placing herself under him. Such things existed on Shawti, but it was relatively uncommon. Slavery in Zena’s mind wasn’t right or wrong, it simply was. Her thoughts towards it were relatively blasé, but she could read mild offense on his face.

The feeling of sickening disgust that twisted her stomach only grew as she watched the Sith sit there with his nonchalant attitude. Completely oblivious to her discomfort, she would have guessed, until he remarked that her feelings were “good.” Good? This was intentional? She sat there, stewing and barely listening to him as he talked. Something about channeling her emotions and emotions vital to Sith, all things she had heard one form or another. Suddenly noticing he was standing up, she did the same, and took a spot several paces away yet still facing him.

Her eyes lit up at his dazzling display, with the shower of purple sparks between his hands turning to full-blown lightning in an instant. Thankfully he mentioned that it was similar to generating the flame that she produced before. Extending her hands in front of her and splaying in her fingers, Zena did her best to channel her emotions. The change in her emotional state could be felt leaking into her Force aura, going from simple disgust to blazing anger. Thoughts raced through her mind--every single time she was mistreated as a slave, her time under her old master, and the time she killed him--and pushed all of it into her hands. Heat, heat! The heat grew in her hands, and with it pain. A shower of sparks erupted from the palms of her hands, quickly turning to a flash of a small flame before suddenly disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Coughing, she fanned away the smoke from her face before cracking her knuckles, about to start again. Although Vereshin had mentioned that generating lighting was similar to generating flame, she found that he was wrong. Not from her failure, but from the technique. Whenever she successfully produced fire, it wasn’t from a fury within, but a very conscious decision and concentration of where to direct Force energy.


Setting her eyes upon him in a steely gaze, her head took an arrogant tilt. "Clearly you have had experience in differentiating the two. Certainly, the technique is identical! Tell me, are you a genius in other areas of the Force too?" Her voice oozed contempt and sarcasm.

Bracing herself for another go, she did exactly as she did the first time, opening herself up to to the Dark Side. Directing the energy to her hands again, she focused on her hatred and negative experience. But this time, the heat turned into a searing jolt that coursed through her forearms and down to her fingertips. Sparks danced again, and more, streams of dazzling red electricity that abruptly stopped soon after they began. It would take time to build up the length and intensity that she could sustain. She looked up at him again, with a defiant and challenging gaze, as if to say, you were wrong. And I am right.


[member="Vereshin"]

 

[Vereshin]

Zena was correct in her assumption that casting lightning and fire were not exactly the same. Unfortunately, the manner in which she made note of her observation was rude beyond measure. Had she proposed the insight in the form of a question inquiring about the differences, Vereshin would have been impressed and gladly explained. Given the nature of her response, he decided she needed to learn another lesson. The line of his mouth turned downward and the display Zena produced waned and died in a cloud of smoke beneath his arcane hold.

The magus stood with his hands behind his back and beneath the hold of his prowess, Zena would freeze where she stood. He gently lifted a hand before the young woman and gripped her mind through the Force. A sensation of indescribable horror overcame Zena as she would be transported to a slave ring surrounded by bidding Sith Lords. Having failed her training, she had been returned to the lot in which she had begun. She was naked and in chains. In the crowd was Vereshin who gazed upon her in disgust with a glint in his brilliant eyes. The sensation of her skin peeling from her flesh occurred within her mind and felt physical to the point of being real. The vision ended and Zena returned to reality. She was thrown to her knees and splayed across the floor at Vereshin's feet.

"I know the difference between fire and lightning, you dull woman." He spoke with a monotonous tone lacking in any nuance or concern, as though the vision had never taken place. "They are not unrelated in terms of casting either through sorcery." Methods of casting fire included augmenting reactive elements through alchemy while Vereshin utilized the approach of generating heat through electricity. "Both techniques are a means of manipulating energy." As Zena lay gasping at her feet, he raised both hands and cast a brilliant display of lightning. He concentrated the particles and the voltage exploded into a small nova of lavender flame which he rotated in a ball between his hands.

"Fire can be cast by augmenting oxygen through alchemy or by the product of current and voltage of electricity to produce heat." Vereshin explained as the ball crackled in his palms. A barrier conjured through the Force between himself and the flames served as a protective shield. He finished and waved his hands, causing the ball of fire to vanish into a cloud of smoke. He waited for Zena to either listen and apologize for her attitude or continue to be impudent. If she maintained her display of arrogance, she would suffer further.

[member="Zena Tarro"]