Repeating my previous actions of taking mana from my Core, then manipulating it along the channels and into the heart of the fire – not the fire heart, mind – I am determined this time to exert control over the process.
Expecting the strong suction and not wanting to once more fail, I stubbornly apply my Will to the mana which seems to be attempting to become one of Dali’s clocks, forcing it back into a ball shape.
The suction increases in strength and a tug of war eventuates. But Battles of Wills are something I’ve become better at in recent times – time to see if I can win one against a fire.
I feel like I’m playing a game with a dog. The force on the other end yanks at the ball of mana, constantly aiming to deform it and consume the strains of mana that filter through the channels. I, on the other hand, refuse to let the mana go, seeking to keep it in the ball shape which is the easiest way of holding it. The mana, just like the dog toy of the metaphor, has no opinion on the matter.
As time stretches, neither of us gaining any ground, I start questioning exactly what I’m doing. Why am I trying to pull the ball away from the fire? The whole point was to feed the fire – but in a way that offers me control over it. I can’t do that if the ball remains in my channel.
But I can’t do that if the mana is split apart and devoured, either. My mind races even as my mental eyes search the battleground for inspiration. A good part of the problem is how the connection ends. Instead of being a channel wide enough for the ball to move along as it is, it splits the units of mana up into fractions, meaning they lose their cohesion and I lose control at the same time.
What if…? I ask myself thoughtfully. It’s a bit of a task – most of my attention needs to be focussed on the battle I’m having over keeping the ball of mana together – but I manage to spare a little for my new idea. My thoughts are thus: if the fragmented way the connection ends is causing the problem, can I change it to instead be a solution? In short, I focus on a single channel and attempt to force it to grow.
At first it resists. Strongly. It’s something of a struggle – holding the ball of mana together at the same time as also trying to force the connection open a bit. Like trying to shove open a stubborn door with the previously playing big dog now on the other end of a leash and trying to pull in the opposite direction. Something has to give.
And then it does.
The connection, like the metaphorical door, resists until it passes a certain tipping point. All of a sudden, the strand widens, absorbing the other strands in its expansion. Instead of being like a tree, a single trunk widening into many different branches, it’s now like I’ve forced all the branches to come together to continue the trunk, spearing into the heart of the fire.
Instead of reducing, as I was more than half-expecting, the suction doubles. The ball of mana slides forwards into the newly widened connection before I can stop it. I grasp at it desperately, my mental fingers locking around it just before it disappears into the fire’s heart.
If I was aware of my physical body, I reckon that my own heart would be beating like crazy right now, as I only just manage to hold the ball of mana back from being sucked into the centre of the fire. With control over it reestablished, I slowly let it continue moving along the connection to the end.
Even when it drops out of the connection and into the fire heart itself, I refuse to lose control over the mana. I don’t worry myself with the hows and whys of the situation – if I start wondering how I’m able to keep control of a ball of mana in the middle of a fire, I will start doubting, and that will spell immediate failure.
No, instead, I approach this with the same confidence that I approach Flesh-Shaping. It’s my mana, whether or not it is in my body – of course I can maintain control over it. And then my mental presence has also dropped from the connection, though I feel its steady presence at my ‘back’, reassuring me that I haven’t been somehow cut off from my body. I keep the mana close to me, establishing my ownership over it. In a strange sense, it feels like the ball of mana is inside my mental presence, rather than the feeling I always had with Flesh-Shaping of my mana clustered around me.
The fire objects. I feel it tearing at my presence, trying to rip through to the mana I hold within, uncaring about the damage it might do to me. It hurts in a strange ephemeral way. While only a small campfire which has only been in existence for half an hour or so, I somehow sense that the flame around me is ancient, connected in a way to all fire that was, that is, and that will be. Like all fire is of the same body, an existence which spans eons.
Fortunately for me, although it feels ancient and powerful, I also sense that it is limited to its context. Even as it burns in fury at my presumption of entering into its domain and withholding precious fuel from its grasp, it eats through the fuel it has at hand, weakening itself in the long run. There is plenty of oxygen to consume, but the branches and leaves it feeds from are limited.
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I’m at a little of a loss and end up falling into my usual approach when facing a mental battle. Bargaining.
I will give you mana, but you must listen to me, I say to it, speaking without a mouth to something that doesn’t have ears.
The fire roars wordlessly, its hunger and its rejection both as clear as each other. It claws at me with burning tendrils, wearing the mantle of a conqueror and demanding tribute from me in the form of the mana I hold.
I refuse.
I gave you life, I threaten. I can take it away. I send the fire images of earth being poured upon it, its ashes doused in water, its burning twigs scattered and its flames fading into nonexistence.
The fire roars at me in defiance, its tendrils battering at me once more. I don’t know how I’m withstanding its attacks, but although the tendrils hurt, they aren’t actually doing much damage. My presence stands against the flame, mostly unscathed. As for the pain, that’s something I’m increasingly used to and it doesn’t faze me.
But I’m not making headway. Maybe another approach. This time I send images of sitting by the fire for untold amounts of time, admiring the beauty of its flickering flames. I show it making a campfire, building a pile of twigs and leaves, then striking sparks to set light to it. I mix in other images of lighting my hearth fire and keeping it going by adding fuel whenever needed. I finish up with some images of reawakening the fire in the mornings, gently blowing the dimly glowing embers into full light, the almost-burnt out fire flaring up once more.
We could be partners, you and I, I wheedle, hoping that honeyed words might work better than threats. Certainly, the fire doesn’t roar at me in defiance, and its tendrils stop clawing at me so fiercely. It almost seems to be listening. I already give you life for your warmth and your beauty. All you need to do is listen to me and heed my requests and I will give you mana to help you burn brighter.
The fire crackles and its tendrils writhe around in indecision. It’s very odd to ascribe emotion to a fire but I can’t help but do so. I sense that I’m getting somewhere, but haven’t yet overcome its reluctance to bow to me, to anyone.
I send it more images, this time of our journey through the vine-strangler forest. I show it how the tree recoiled from the torch once I’d lit it, how the flames had kept me and my companions safe as we travelled through the brooding copse. I showed it the salamander, how its flames had consumed a tree and burned it to ashes in a short amount of time.
Imagine how much more powerful these flames would have been with mana to feed them as well as wood? The tendrils around me flutter, flicking towards me, then away, before repeating the movement.
Deciding to take a risk, I allow my presence to open up like a cloak, revealing the mana within. I don’t give it the mana, exactly, but I do tantalise it with what it could have, if only it agrees to follow my direction.
A tendril slowly, tentatively approaches me. I wait, feeling more like a hunter waiting for my prey to enter the trap than one of the parties in a business deal. I don’t know why – surely this is more of the latter than the former, offering benefits to both myself and the fire. But despite the ancientness of the flame, there is an innocence at the same time. Again, an odd thing to ascribe to fire, but an undeniable impression all the same.
The tendril hesitates as it reaches the limit of my presence. Through some indescribable means, I’ve made a route through to the mana ball, but I’m still present, though that makes little sense to think about. It’s hard to conceptualise even for me – and I’m the one doing it – but I’m working off instinct more than anything else. All I know is that the fire tendril should be able to reach the mana, but that it will have to come onto my turf to do so. And to do that, it will have to consent to the bargain which I have set out.
For a long moment, everything is still, the fire not even drawing on its oxygen or fuel. And then it decides.
The tendril flashes into me, piercing the ball of mana and consuming it. Unlike before, the fire doesn’t suddenly grow brighter or bigger. Instead, I sense my mana suffusing the flames – and still under my control.
I focus on the fire shifting to one side and see its tendrils do just that. I focus on it consuming one particular branch; it does. Finally, I focus on it stopping the consumption of fuel at all.
This is harder, as it goes completely against what the fire desires to do. I win the battle of wills there, but the fire switches to eating my mana instead. When my mana is consumed, the fire returns to burning its usual fuel with a vengeance, and I sense that my control over it has expired.
Again, fire shouldn’t feel emotion, but I get the distinct sensation of disgruntlement from the fire – like it’s angry that I tried to stop it burning, that that was against our agreement. Suddenly feeling bad, I pull another couple of units of mana from my Core and drop them into the fire heart, sending my own feelings of appreciation to it.
The disgruntlement changes to eagerness and it happily consumes the couple of units. I can’t help but feel that I’ve just given the dog a treat.
I watch the fire a little longer. The connection I have to it has thickened, stabilised. I sense that it will take more effort to sever, though I suspect that if I put the fire out, the connection will go with it. As for the fire itself, it has returned to how it was before, no hint that anything has changed.
My contemplations of the flames are brought to an abrupt end as I feel my internal matrix beginning to shift.
Have I earned Fire-Shaping? I ask myself, dashing eagerly back to my Core space to find out.