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What can you do about it?
Nothing.
What can you do about it?
Nothing.
What can you do about it?
Nothing.
What can you do about it?
Nothing right now.
What can you do about it?
The feathers.
-----------“No way,” said Twig.
Yes.
---“No,” said Mushroombird.
I could.
“But you should not. Because they take your energy,” said Twig.
I can spare some.
“Because they take essence,” added Twig.
I can spare some. I will be better afterwards.
“You might never wake up,” said Mushroombird.
Maybe.
“Midnight is waiting,” said Twig.
There was a long pause.
“Yes,” said Yves.
There was another pause.
“So what are you going to do about this,” Mushroombird gestured at him, as a whole.
She sat behind him on the Chest of Useless Artefacts, which was set from front to back on the sled. Twig occupied the space to his left, having squeezed in at the front between the chest and the railing of the sled, from where she let her legs dangle.
Yves turned away from both of them and faced forward. He looked at the sun-stricken desert, which gave him absolutely nothing to look at. He had left the Zwischenland for the desert five days ago. It was midday. The sun stood high overhead, casting the desolate hills of sand in hues of gleaming white and burning yellow. The sun burned his face.
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Part of the Lightshifter illusionist curriculum involved creating humanoid and beast characters. Regardless of how a wizard planned to integrate his craft into his past-academy life, it became standard practice to invent a pair of characters of each major race. Students began by sketching these characters as soon as they were capable of creating grand visuals, to then continue refining and perfecting them over the years. By the time of their final examinations, these characters were expected to be fully-fledged and lifelike illusions, either visual or physical, depending on the student's spectral disposition.
Among his arsenal, Yves had a go-to duo representing every race found on the continent, from wizards and ker to bormen and shamans, and even humans. Except witches. He did not do witches. Not anymore. Because NO. Twig and Mushroombird were his shamans.
Yes, you have noticed the weird names. No, this is not how shamans typically name themselves. No-one will be able to tell you why, but for some reason, it became an unspoken rule at Emery Thurm that it was not the student illusionist himself, but rather his commilita, who bestowed the names upon any new creation. And for some other random reason, Yves had found himself surrounded by morons who had turned it into a competition to give the most absurd and denigrating names possible to each other's masterpieces.
That said, Twig and Mushroombird are good names. Believe it or not, they are really good names, especially the former, which is probably the pinnacle of nomenclature you can achieve during your entire student career. Yves had gotten away lightly, as he had typically been among the best and fastest to complete a new illusion deserving of a name. It is simple reasoning, really. If you dared to give a truly horrible name to the creations of the guy who finished the assignment before you, you knew he would be coming for you once you caught up. So you better save all your creativity for the loser who finishes last, because then you can go all out.
So while Yves currently endured the blistering sun next to Twig and Mushroombird, there were other wizards out there dealing with Shitstain, Dwarffucker and a plethora of variations of Iam Fake. Yves’ first human was called Iman Illu-Son. He had never introduced him publicly after passing the assignment.
On the subject of dwarves. With dwarves, the dynamics shift. Obviously, for them you want the names of your creations to be as derogatory and humiliating as possible. The common wizard has no reason to pay respect to the common dwarf, and the common dwarf is too much of a Stumpfist Shortstack, Midget Mudbeater and Lowblow Rockbottom to recognise the superiority of wizard society — Rockbottom was Yves’ first dwarf, and he greatly enjoyed the non-existent subtlety of the pun. His other one was Snotbeard Ironshit, who even got a backstory with the name: his father was called Ironchin, but when recording his son in the dwarven Heritage Book, he was too dumb to spell his own name correctly, replacing the "c" with an "s" and rendering the "n" so poorly that it resembled more of a "t". The Prince Regent came up with that gem.
Of course, once you leave the academy, no-one stops you from inventing different characters and bestowing your own very appealing names upon them. But the truth is, you never forget your first creations. Imagine dedicating months and years to honing your illusion magic. Envision how, throughout all these years, you struggle and scruffle from initial mental sketching to realising astounding physical embodiments of all your craft and skill. Eventually, you perfect your first powerful, mesmerisingly detailed and so utterly, utterly lifelike ker, with skin that boasts the most unique and outstanding hues of red, nothing short of living art. After investing so much time and effort, he becomes ingrained in your memory, impossible to erase from your mind. He will be the foundation of your mental arsenal for the rest of your life, your reference for all subsequent ker creations, and the benchmark against which all of them are measured. And whenever you encounter real ker, observing their pattern of movement and facial expressions in an attempt to improve your mimicry, you will always think of Bloody Wanker.
Well. Regarding Twig and Mushroombird, there is really no need for a Who’s Who, if you look at them.
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image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_Mushroombird-Twig_Shaman.png]
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Twig was Yves’ first shaman and also his first attempt at creating a humanoid female. Up until then, he had only crafted his wizard duo. Shamans offered a significant degree of freedom in their design. You could start with an individual of any race you preferred. It only took slight modifications to create a shaman who had just embarked on his transformation journey. Also, if you still struggle with anatomy and natural movement, you can plausibly cloak your shaman in thick coats and furs to conceal any intricate extremities or complex body parts during motion. Given that shamans originate from various races and undergo diverse transformations in appearance, it is difficult to go wrong. As long as all the requisite body parts are present, you make individuals, not mistakes.
Besides, from a more un-academic perspective, creating shamans was simply exciting. It took years of training and guidance to craft complex beings that truly appeared lifelike. After an eternity of theory and countless foundational exercises, of strictly following instructions and meticulously copying the masters' examples one limb at a time, you could finally unleash your creativity. You could choose the race to start with and freely tailor the progress of the shaman transformation according to your individual preferences.
Twig represented Yves' maiden attempt at creating a female figure, and if he were to be frank, in that regard she had been far from flawless. Yves had just begun crafting lifelike illusions. Following the completion of his two wizards, transitioning to the female form had presented a considerable challenge. Rather than starting from scratch with a completely new frame, Yves had opted to utilise the well-established body of his wizard Atrap as a foundation, and had improvised from there by basically slimming him down. This is why Twig looked so much like a young tairan woman who had exhausted all her body’s reserves in an insane growth-spurt that had left nothing for her to grow into womanhood.
When Yves first conjured her into existence, she had surpassed him in height, and even now, she stood just as tall as him, with long and graceful limbs, albeit with conspicuously large hands and feet — back then, trimming away portions of an arm or leg had proven much simpler than thinning the intricate structures of fingers and feet. Also, it had been the year of the Tournament, which had left Yves short on time and preoccupied with far more life-threatening matters than his master’s potential disapproval.
True to her name, Twig's upper body and hips lacked the feminine curves one would expect from her race, descendants of the tairan. Yves had sold this to his examiners as a deliberate choice to make her something of a wanderer or herder, a beast shaman who spent her days exploring, running and climbing rocky forest terrain.
Well, Master Iridin accepted his explanation, but obviously, he did not buy it. He had always been keenly aware of his students' abilities and their tendencies to conceal imperfections in their creations. Even now, whenever Yves worked on a new creation and encountered a particularly challenging section, one that he either had to master or obscure, he could not shake the echo of Iridin’s ever-persistent scrutiny: "A design of will or a lack of skill?"
Master Iridin had challenged Yves to make his next shaman an obvious female. The result of that challenge was Mushroombird, who also descended from tairan, but stood significantly shorter than Twig and boasted much more pronounced feminine features. Yves had made her proportions count in all the right places. And then, to top it off, he had adorned her with a meticulously detailed coat of feathers.
Birds are among the most challenging creatures to imitate. Feathers, with their intricate structure and flexibility during movement, demand intense focus on detail. Yves excelled in conjuring birds, and he had transferred those skills to the design of Mushroombird. He had crafted for her a coat made of white duck feathers, complete with an equally elaborate hood. At the time, he believed there was nothing about furs or feathered garments that could not somehow be justified as shaman's attire, and so he went all out. While Twig represented an artistic choice born from Yves' past limitations as an illusionist, Mushroombird, a beautiful female adorned in the most delicate robes of feathers, had been a full-on brag.
It had been well deserved bragging, because Mushroombird had been a PROCESS; all capitals.
Twig had been right there. Yves had designed her while slimming down Atrap, slapped on some furs, and had been more or less done with her. With Mushroombird, he started from scratch, crafting her natural tairan features first before having her undergo the shaman transformation. His first design was this:
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This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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You can already see the first traces of the final bird design. However, she didn't like the bird heads.
"Bird skulls," emphasised Mushroombird, "Four bird skulls."
So Yves picked another theme:
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Guess what, she did not like that one either. She liked it even less.
"It was a close tie," said Mushroombird, "Bird skulls or a giant insect on my forehead."
She exaggerates. It had only been insect wings, and not an actual animal. Also, this was from a decade ago, when Yves was not yet that familiar with common shaman attire. The perfalter wings, her elaborate hair and all the furs were an artistic choice to show off his skill with delicate matter.
Yves discarded the insect and went back to the feathers. After a few more variations, he settled for this design:
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And with every hour he worked on turning her shaman, the feathers just multiplied exponentially until she finally looked as herself.
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Did he perhaps go overboard? Possibly. Yes. Mushroombird stood out. But that is a good thing. Imagine yourself in a room or marketplace full of various different individuals of all races. If you were told that one of these individuals was in fact an illusion, who would you look for first? You would go for the most inconspicuous. Someone trying to hide his falseness, a static figure in the background. You would not start your search with the most exposed and attention-hogging individual. As noticeable as Mushroombird was, you would try your hardest to look past her.
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Creating convincing, interacting faces demands concentration and skill. Tairan-descendants are closest to wizards in terms of facial anatomy, which had helped when creating Twig and Mushroombird. However, Yves' two wizard illusions had been far from perfect back then. He had still been learning. This had made the mask-like faces of the shamans even more appealing, as they helped conceal his shortcomings in skill — which is why the illusionist curriculum moves right onto shamans as soon as you are able to create halfway passable copies of your wizard self. Both Twig and Mushroombird exhibited prominent features of the white, rigid, mask-like faces typical of shamans in the early years of their transformation. That said, Yves knew how Mushroombird looked before her transformation and had, by now, also settled on a pre-transformation version of Twig:
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image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_Shaman_Twig-2.png]-
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For those who have never interacted with shamans, it might feel strange to be stared at which such a lack of facial expressions. There is a fine line between feeling extensively judged by such a stoic, frozen expression, and feeling not judged at all, seeing the lack of reaction as an affirmation of neutrality or even disinterest. When talking to shamans, your own perception of which side of the line you are on may change from one moment to the next. Yves often felt that Mushroombird was more social and empathetic, while Twig was the more judgmental of the two. That said, Twig was also straightforwardly direct, no pun intended, which Yves greatly appreciated.
Over the years, as Yves designed enticing females of all races, he had never considered changing Twig. Her design had grown on him, and if anything, he had made her figure more athletic, and her strikingly large feet and hands more crafty and flexible, but never shorter. Along with her fitting name, her unusual appearance was her identity. Yves was content with that. He did not feel that the perfection of his craft lay in the perfect replication of beauty. This did not mean that he did not recognise physical beauty or how Twig diverged from the standard tairan-turned-shaman — there existed a strong consensus among wizards about which races and traits looked appealing and which did not.
During Yves’ student days, beauty had been a sign of progress, craftsmanship, and artistic skill. Once the creation's functionality, flexibility, and mobility became a given, an appealing appearance served as a reference point to compare and evaluate the students’ various works. More importantly, you did not, for dear life, want to be known as the one guy who got off by purposely creating hideous female characters. That’s a reputation you could never live down.
In order to create credible illusions, Yves had learned to distinguish and show health, strength, and age through appearance, stature, and posture. He understood how to create imposing males and females for all major races' eyes — which sometimes diverged quite drastically from the common wizard’s perspective. Interestingly, some aspects were nearly universally appealing, amongst them symmetry. There were illusionists who prided themselves on creating the most remarkable males and females, especially ker and tairan. They competed, performed, and, if you would like to believe the more controversial rumours, entertained.
Yves did not share these ambitions. Now that crafting beauty and perfection had become second nature to him, his focus had shifted. You could say that he was spoilt, because whatever ker or tairan you crowned the most beautiful on the continent, he could replicate them — and then make them even more beautiful. Any individual you found to be the most unique, he could multiply. He could create the love of your life and the lover of your most intoxicating dreams, as you would never find them in real life. He could design them exactly like you wanted them to be, with all the traits you wished to see.
But this was exactly it. It was not just about seeing. You never only wanted to see. Beneath all this distinction, recognition and pursuit of physical beauty lay the longing to touch. Within all this fixation on perfection lay the craving to claim and possess. To Yves, the fixation on external beauty was a reflection of innate desire. Such desire can be satisfied and it can be very much exhausted - especially if you find yourself curious enough to investigate all these controversial rumours. Mind you, it helps quite a bit to be influential and wealthy enough to afford an equal level of discretion.
But what remains after seeing and touching and claiming and possessing such perfection? Time may pass, desire may resurge to be satisfied again, but what is the point? What does beauty give you, except for momentary pleasure?
“There is something like love at first sight, you know,” said Mushroombird, “amongst other races.”
“Can you honestly believe in love at first sight?” Yves deliberately stressed the words. “In the literal sense? How do you not see the hypocrisy in this? If you do not even know whether the person you see is real or an illusion, what more is this love than physical temptation, the call of desire in disguise?”
“That is a quite disappointing perspective,” said Mushroombird.
“Disappointment is not a valid counterargument,” replied Yves.
“Rude. Well then, your perspective is not very romantic.”
“How could it be, when there is nothing more superficial than a first glance? What does beauty offer, when I can create as many beautiful beings as I want?”
“Like me,” said Mushroombird.
“Like you,” agreed Yves.
“I wouldn’t say that you can’t experience love at first sight because you are a wizard or an illusionist,” said Twig. “But now, hear me out. Sure, the love you feel for a person —“
“The love you think you feel,” corrected Yves dryly.
“Please don’t interrupt,” said Twig.
“Rude,” said Mushroombird.
The fuck, thought Yves.
“Anyway,” continued Twig. “The love you think you feel for a real person can be false. And sure, it can be something simpler, like lust. But in the same way, it can be real. Even if you fall in love with an illusion, even if the person is fake, the feeling can still be real.
If you really think about it, how you perceive a real person is never the same as how the real person truly is. It is what you piece together and come to understand from all that you learn about the person and experience with her. But still, you only ever create your own version of that person. So even if the person is real, with her own body and Rothar and past, you nonetheless make her an illusion in your head.”
Yves tried to think this through, “Still, if you suddenly found out that all the people in your life, all beings around you were illusions, would you not live completely differently?”
“Are you asking me?” asked Twig. “Me, personally?”
“I am asking myself,” Yves was just thinking out loud. “To know that others are real restrains you in your interactions.”
“Your consciousness restrains you,” said Twig. “Feelings of empathy and social obligations.”
“Because you know that you have an impact on people, and the world, in general,” added Yves, “while illusions are only there to impact and gratify and satisfy you.”
“Eww,” said Twig.
“Rude,” said Mushroombird.
“Disgust is no valid counterargument,” said Yves.
“It is an argument against you, though,” said Mushroombird.
“Apologies,” said Yves.
“She is not wrong,” continued Twig. “If you want to start nit-picking and distinguish real people and illusions, then why are we here? Think about it, what are you even looking at? Who are you even talking to right now?”
“It might just be caution,” said Mushroombird. “Not to seek love in what you see, I mean.”
“How so?” asked Yves, strangely and strongly relieved that she got this conversation back on topic.
“Please don’t,” said Twig.
“Because you know how easy it is to taint, distort and destroy a beautiful body,” said Mushroombird.
“You look much too nice to say such things,” said Twig.
“Thank you. I also think that it must be quite difficult to think about love if you constantly have to think about dying,” continued Mushroombird.
“Wasn’t I supposed to be the straightforward one?” said Twig.
“Love is not natural for wizards,” said Yves. “It is a call to bond and reproduce amongst lesser peoples.”
“It is easy to resent what you don’t have,” added Mushroombird.
“I thought you were the nice one”, said Twig.
“None of what you say negates my argument,” said Yves. “The amount of personal involvement has no impact on objective reasoning.”
“Yeah, well, can you deny that your lack of good experiences gives you a negative outlook on the whole subject?” challenged Mushroombird.
“I thought we were here to make him feel better,” said Twig. “You’re just adding emotional pain to the physical pain.”
“It is true that involvement grants experience and insight,” said Yves, “but an objective argument is not less valid per se because the beholder, subjectively, is less involved in the issue.”
“Or not involved at all,” added Mushroombird.
“You know that he knows these things, right?” said Twig. “If you want my opinion —”
“Which he also knows,” interjected Mushroombird.
Twig shrugged, “I think It’s just you. Plain and simple. You like other things than beauty.”
“Yes. Sure. That is the reason. Believe that,” said Mushroombird.
It was true. External beauty held no sway over Yves. It was voices. Voices captivated him.
He felt that he could not reproduce voices like he could reproduce beauty. Yves could perfect anything he saw. He could eradicate any of reality’s imperfections, and craft exemplary beauty with no comparison. He could reinvent perfection, but he could not create such voices or music.
No, that was the wrong way to put it. Yves could create a myriad of auditory illusions, infusing them with an equally wide range of emotions, both clearly distinguishable and subtle. But while he could acknowledge and even marvel at the beauty of his creations, yes, even create what appeared most appealing to him personally, Yves struggled to capture the truth he sought in the voices of strangers.
He crafted people that appeared indistinguishable from the real thing, but he could not do the same with voices. Because appearance, to Yves, was superficial; a body revealed many things, but it did not show the entirety of a person. While external appearance could change drastically over a short period of time, voices persisted in their character. To Yves, what he heard when others spoke held more truth than what he saw. A voice revealed a person from within. Even in moments of calm, you can discern underlying aggression, just as angry outbursts could not conceal inherent kindness. Voices carried characters and emotions more real than anything Yves could convey through a facial expression or pose.
Voices were the most real thing Yves could find in others. He could only imitate and pretend. Listening to his own creations felt like listening to his own voice and character, just distorted.
While desire may lie in fleeting beauty, love transcended the visual and anything a body could give. For Yves, love was in a voice that gave long-lasting comfort. It resided in heartfelt songs that resonated deep within and in voices that carried kindness — they were the rarest of all, and yet, you recognise them the instant you hear them. And even if you hear them just once, you can never forget them. Such voices held the heart, and they healed it.
The voice did not have to say “I love you”, that is not what he meant. Love was deeper, not in the words but inherently embedded in the voice. The words were almost irrelevant. They could be as simple as “I am glad you are well”, or “Take care”, or “Welcome home”.
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“Why are we even talking about this?” asked Yves. It was an honest question.
“You started off by thinking that you made me exceptionally beautiful, because Twig is not,” answered Mushroombird.
Twig stared at her.
Mushroombird looked away to adjust her elaborate feather coat, “Which was, of course, very rude of him. And also very wrong of him. For shame.”
Now both stared at Yves, with their mask-like faces that were suddenly much too neutral for comfort.
Yves turned away from them again, facing forward. He looked at the sun-stricken desert, which still offered him nothing but burning sand. He said, “Sure.”
“You are, of course, also beautiful,” said Mushroombird. “In your own, uniquely-proportioned way.”
“Thank you?” said Twig.
Yves looked over his shoulder, back down at her.
“Let me try again,” she said, resetting her pose. “Thank you?????”
Now she was just messing around.
“All right,” Twig reset again, now taking on a more confident expression. “Thank you. I know.”
Yves smiled. A decade ago, he had created Twig as a swift runner, a skilled climber and an enduring wanderer, and he never wanted her to change. Over the years, he had gifted her various coats and furs, but he had never concealed her tall and athletic form, nor her uniquely-proportioned feet and hands. He had actually done quite the opposite, highlighting her features with rather well-fitting clothing.
Mushroombird, on the other hand, had never lost her duck feathers, because it simply did not get better than that.
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