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Post by eclipse on Jul 28, 2011 8:52:12 GMT -5
Willow coughed and tried to blink the soot out of her eyes, using it to hide her other reactions. That had been rather frightening for her; she had never expected it, and now that it was over she was surprised she wasn't burning at all. Why did you say something to the pony who's been making fireballs explode?!! she thought to herself, chastising herself for not being more careful. Couldn't you have just been more patient, idiot? You could have died!
Finally done clearing her head of what had just happened (and done shouting stupid until it was echoing around in her head like a mantra), Willow shook her head and tried to regain a focus on what was occurring in front of her. She had heard something about a game from Watermark (but of course had missed the details,) and Trixie was trying to encourage Magmarhyme to play Watermark's silly and meaningful games. Of course she goes straight from exploding to sputtering, Willow sighed, sitting back on her haunches. Would it be rude if she excused herself to towel off? Probably not, but if she mentioned it Watermark would probably just give her a quick shower. Best stay here and see what he had planned.
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Post by Watermark on Jul 28, 2011 11:54:36 GMT -5
"Alright then, as you wish Magma. Willow," he said, opening a page from the book Trixie bought him, his very own note book, and showing the formula to Lantern Golems to her, "Study this and give it your best shot, then I can show you how to play the game. Now, this game was used by Ash Rider to teach his disciples how to properly control golems, and it's very mentally exhausting. But if you play it every day, you'll master golems in no time!"
Watermark cracked his neck a bit as he sat to study the random game terrain he had just created, "Well I was going to have you practice with Magma, Willow, but it appears she thinks the best Fire Mage in history doesn't really know his stuff. So, I'll just run it by you a couple of times."
Looking over at Magma again he frowned, "Unless Magma decided she wants to truly master golem-making?"
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Post by magmarhyme on Jul 29, 2011 11:00:05 GMT -5
Magmarhyme looked at Watermark. She looked at Willow. Watermark. Willow. Watermark. She narrowed her eyes and mentally sighed, careful not to sigh outwardly as well. There was clearly no use in having free will around the camp, or so was Magmarhyme's new assumption. Watermark had a way of twisting everything he said or did to force his plan. She silently wondered if she really belonged here; Magma began to feel like she was back at home with her controlling parents.
She looked at Watermark again as he made eye-contact with her. Her recent failures still gave her no enthusiasm toward the game, despite now knowing the original creator of the training course. The last thing Magmarhyme wanted to do was fail at Ash Rider's training too to add to her list. Still, at least she wasn't going to lose to Watermark - although she felt like she already had several times.
"Whoa! Ash Rider? I wanna try! I'll try it," she said, putting in as much fake enthusiasm as she could muster. "It sounds totally fun and awesome and Ash Rider is great and can teach me so much!"
Completely fake. But it sounded excited and happy when it left Magma's mouth. She really was thrilled to be learning something like this, but she couldn't help but grudge Watermark's twisted manipulation. She shrugged it off and turned to Willow.
"Maybe you're golems won't explode," she said with a laugh. The subject change lightened her mood.
She turned to Trixie now to let Willow and Watermark focus. "Storm clouds?" It sounded like an entertaining story to pass the time.
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Jul 30, 2011 23:34:38 GMT -5
Trixie shook her head idly at Magma's persistence in not wanting to continue training. That was the only way she would get any more powerful, and Watermark managed to make it fun. Well, sometimes. The rest of the time it was inhibitively frustrating to try something so advanced and have Watermark just blow it past like a game. The last time watermark had played that 'game' with her, so to speak, she wanted to toss him into one of her storm clouds and zap him silly.
"Yes. Storm clouds." Trixie turned to Magma, and spoke in a very unsatisfied tone, the thoughts of her cloud training bringing back her bad memories. But, as bad as memories as they were, and no matter how hard she had failed, it was all part of training. With success comes failure. Lots of failure. She shook her head to clear her mind and presented Magma with another smile. "Watermark has me train by creating storm clouds, big, black, thundering monstrosities. A lot harder to control than they might sound, and they already sound pretty tough to handle."
She crossed her hooves and sat down comfortably. Willow's lesson would take a while, and Trixie didn't have any work to do.
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Post by eclipse on Jul 31, 2011 2:09:15 GMT -5
"Knowing light, they'll probably just fade into the aether," Willow replied to Magma, chuckling a little but knowing it could be a serious problem. That was both the advantage and disadvantage her lanterns had, when she had been selling them; they faded with the sunrise. They would stay faded unless she built them very carefully. This spell was a lot more complex than her lanterns, she could already tell, and she hadn't even started reading the notes yet.
She frowned even deeper as she started reading the notes. It was ridiculously convoluted, and neither the notes nor the spellbook explained the procedure in terms she could understand. She understood light as having a specific personality and nature, but the way this described things seemed to imply she was supposed to overlay another personality over top of that one, that of an animal that they were familiar with. It sounded simple enough but... She had never even imagined that she could override the light's personality; it was inconceivable. Or, had been...
Setting the books aside, she sighed and tried to pick a light that she was most comfortable working with. Better to choose something unique and with a personality that wouldn't buckle, and something that she knew rather well. Going over the various lights she was comfortable with in her head, she sighed and shook her head at each one in turn. Some of them were too weak to work at this time of day, others were too challenging for her to maintain... Finally she settled on a light source, one that was fairly comfortable to her (being her first proper mage lantern), and began trying to work.
She started slowly, weaving an orb of light, a mottled blood red that she remembered from when she first discovered her special talent, feeding it energy spiraling out from her horn and working a touch of the sunbeams around them to make it stronger. She made it the same way she made the more durable of her lanterns, slowly and carefully, with anchors in natural light that the temporary ones didn't have; the longer this could last without her the more likely that she would succeed.
Once she had the soft glow of a lunar eclipse lighting her face successfully, she stopped feeding it power and let it stabilize, then started to try and figure out the next part. The part that didn't make any sense to her at all... she tried to think of an animal the same way she thought of a light. Something that was as close to her as she felt the brooding but tender and fleeting light of this eclipse was. Coming up with something, she focused her energies back on the orb and tried weaving what she saw of the animal into and on top of the light.
It was very slow going; she kept on fearing that she'd get rid of the light, so whenever it fluctuated she stopped and let it stabilize again. The form wasn't going to change until she was done, she was pretty sure; at least, she hoped she had read that right.
Finally she decided to finish up what she had, and hoped she had done it right. After a soft red flash, a lithe little baby fox hopped forward, glistening with a tender red light. She let herself relax a bit; she hadn't been sure if it would work.
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Post by Watermark on Aug 3, 2011 5:09:53 GMT -5
"Good! Good!" Watermark clapped happily, "Now then, send it right to this spot here!" He pointed at one of the starting positions with a grin.
"And Magma! You can put yours right here!" He gestured at the other, "No flying though! Has to walk!" He grinned, and as soon as both golems were in place, before even giving the two time to study the field, or location of obstacles, he yelled, "START!"
NOTE (A picture displaying the map will be posted in one moment, but remember your characters did NOT have time to study it!)
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Post by magmarhyme on Aug 4, 2011 12:07:21 GMT -5
She looked at Willow's little fox. "It's so cute! You should name it!" Magmarhyme smiled at Willow and her own golem, the hummingbird, started flying circles around the fox. "I think I'll call mine Tine!"
She clicked her tongue at Watermark and spoke to him, "My mom said hummingbirds don't walk. Can mine just... I don't know - hover really low?" Magma blinked several times when Watermark called for them to begin.
Frustrated, she shook her head. "Don't worry, Tine! We'll be fine!" Magmarhyme shouted to her creation, blatantly ignoring its complete lack of sentience. "Good luck," she added with a smirk toward Willow. The bird moved forward slowly into the maze, almost slamming directly into the nearest wall as it gained distance from Magma. She closed her eyes and concentrated. It walked by hopping and fluttering its wings in between landings to glide about a foot each time. It was incredibly slow as Magmarhyme tested her golem's capability.
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Aug 5, 2011 12:21:47 GMT -5
Trixie crossed her legs and watched the game play out. Magma really was having a tough time with her little hummingbird and getting it to walk, while Willow seemed to be faring fine, directing her fox smoothly through the maze of obstacles. She noticed Watermark's utmost concentration, watching and evaluating his students' progress and techniques.
As for the game, it seemed simple enough, just get your golem to the far side of the maze. Pretty straightforward. But knowing that this was one of Watermark's challenges, it was anything but straightforward. Trenches and obstacles were dotted about the maze, making the trek to the finish just as much of a 'creative solutions' exercise as it was training to maintain and control a golem.
Trixie got bored soon enough, it was only so much fun to watch Willow and Magma competing through the maze, so Trixie got herself up and walked over to Watermark to watch the competition from there. She didn't say anything though, as his evaluation of his students was evident by the stoic expression and narrowed eyes of concentration on his face.
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Post by eclipse on Aug 5, 2011 15:15:19 GMT -5
Just follow the right wall, Willow directed absentmindedly. Follow the right wall and it'll eventually get you out. She was using that thought to control her golem, while trying to figure out a proper strategy, looking ahead of her golem. So far she hadn't been very successful at figuring out a more accurate path through the maze; it was confusing, and she had to stay focused on making sure that the golem kept moving so she couldn't devote her whole attention to it. At least it had saved her from running into a few traps; she'd caught them just before her little fox walked into them.
It didn't save her from all of them, though; she muttered angrily as she fell into a pitfall and had to direct her attention to climbing out. Magma's lucky hers can fly. "It's possible to see through the eyes of these little fellows, isn't it?" she asked as the fox lost its footing and slid back into the pit. "This would be a lot easier if I could see the footholds." she sighed and shook her head, focusing on getting it out. Once she had succeeded, she went back to her original strategy. Follow the right wall. Slow but effective.
"I think I'll call the little one Nacht," she said casually to Magma, worming her way through a passageway she'd just noticed and trying to see where it opened up.
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Post by Watermark on Aug 12, 2011 3:47:12 GMT -5
(This is pretty much the maze, but be aware - this game is EXTREMELY mentally exhausting. They won't even be able to finish it on their first run. Neither of them. Which is exactly why Watermark let them play it. Red lines by the way, are possible ladder placements, if your character wants to move a ladder there and the blue circles are boulders blocking paths through the walls) "Focus!" Watermark barked, "Or you'll just run into things, or fall off. Either that or your golem will dissipate!" Prancing around them, playing close attention, he asked, "None of you is obstructing the other, this game is not about speed, it's about strategy and quick thinking!" Prancing over to Magma's side now, "Raw power isn't everything, try outsmarting your opponent!" And at that, he backed off, knowing both of them will lose anyway. It took him weeks of trying before he could even finish it. And years more to be able to actually get good enough to win the occasional game. Attachments:
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Post by magmarhyme on Aug 13, 2011 17:05:40 GMT -5
"Outsmarting. Right," she said as she looked at Willow sidelong. She already felt this was a losing battle and her earlier fatigue was making her hummingbird awkwardly crash into walls at any given moment. At one point, it turned around entirely and started going BACKWARD. Finally, she came across a bridge formed by a ladder on the left of her path. She crossed the bridge with three near-falling experiences and turned her bird around. Outsmarting time!
In a move she knew would sap a majority of her remaining energy, her bird partially bursted, still maintaining at least half its form, and set the ladder aflame. The bird turned around and continued it's gliding hop-along down the path, reforming into a full bird as it did so.
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Aug 16, 2011 11:13:56 GMT -5
"Say, Watermark?" Trixie began to ask, her focus still captured by the two little animals working their way through the maze. "Do you per-se have any 'fun' kinds of training or challenges like this one-" She gestured to the maze and the golems as if Watermark didn't know."-for my kind of magical training, by any chance?"
She turned back to watch Magma and Willow fighting their golems through the labyrinth. "This kind of training adds a competitive aspect and spirit to it, which makes the learning more fun and thus the students are more eager to 'go at it'. And let's face it, all that my training is made up of is making clouds." Her sentence ground to a halt as she was saying it and attempted to fix her error. "B-But it's still good, hard training! Dont get me wrong! But it's just not as exciting as something like these two are doing." She looked back to maze. "If you, y'know. Know what I mean."
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Post by eclipse on Aug 16, 2011 15:32:05 GMT -5
So much for the right wall, Willow said as Magma burned the bridge she had been about to follow. She could ignore it, but she was pretty sure she had seen something along that path, and not in the direction Magmarhyme had gone off in, and she didn't want to look for another way to cross the path. What do I do now?
She looked around quickly, trying to figure out what to do. Winking, she suddenly thought, wondering if she could pull it off. That'd make the ladders totally unnecessary, as well as making solving this maze easier. She wouldn't teleport to the end even if she did know where it was, of course, but it would save her from falling into traps again.
After a few more minutes of planning she had figured out how she was going to get it done. She couldn't do a proper teleport, of course, not even of herself... but her golem was made of light, and light was the fastest thing in existence. She would just have to unform and reform the golem temporarily. She focused her magic and cast it at Nacht.
It worked, somewhat; the golem suddenly became ethereal, a trail of light, but she could still sense the golem in it and direct it; it moved across the chasm, and she moved to reform it. It was a lot harder to reform than it was to take it apart, even though the framework was set; she had used most of her magic to 'teleport' the golem. Finally after struggling, her fox came back, but it seemed less solid now; it was bleeding loose magic, and she wouldn't be able to stop it.
Oh dear Luna, please hold together for the rest of this game, she said, almost praying. She was exhausted thanks to her little stunt, and she didn't know how long she would be able to feed it magic so it could keep its form. Please... She tried not to show her exhaustion, tried to show an air of confidence that her spell had worked.
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Post by Red Charge on Aug 21, 2011 4:51:11 GMT -5
(Carry on without Watermark until you both get too exhausted to continue)
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Post by magmarhyme on Sept 16, 2011 16:22:39 GMT -5
The hummingbird managed a few short hops before Magma was unable to move it further. She leaned her head down as if pointing her horn directly toward her golem would allow it to survive. She shook her head and opened her eyes, only to find the bog spinning around her as she swam against a current of lethargy. There was nothing more for her to do with herself; she had nothing left.
A gust of wind trailed across the bog and maze, and the flames that composed the hummingbird were whipped up and whisked away by the gentle breeze, trailing away, dissolving from the head to the tiny feet. One last flutter of its tiny wings accompanied its disintegration and flight into fleeting nothingness. Only a small thump accompanied Magma's collapse. She tilted to one side and joined the floor at a harsh angle, her body nearly rolling completely over from momentum.
The bog was gone for her as sleep finally overtook the poor filly. She had given it her all, but the power within the golem had sapped the unicorn of her own strength. Her pupils rolled back as her eyes shut - her consciousness vanished before she could feel the striking pain of hitting the ground.
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