More and More Imbuers’ Local

A single voice intoned the chant.

Other voices joined the first in staggering succession as if each new chanter required a sense more substantial than mere hearing to recognize the invitation. As the number of chanters grew, others joined more quickly until the swell of the chant could not be ignored by the remaining few—save one, the chant’s initiator.

Thima, toak-Slay, had ceased chanting once sufficient others took up the imbuing chant. It waited silently but not unmovingly for the remaining Imbuers to join. Thima then maneuvered the crowded dais to the edge and signaled for the next hoop to be lowered into place. It worried they would fail in their task.

The unseen audience—hushed to silence on their benches in the steep [auditorium]—drew a collective breath as the second hoop descended from the darkness. Lit from a bright point at the apex of the chamber, the silhoutted ring channeled a cone of light on the chanters below that transformed into a cylindar of rays as it dropped to match with the first. Had a blonde-haired girl, arms out and twirling in the evening air, stood in the center she might have been able to touch the insides of the ring. Had a tall man hoisted the iron torus in his grip, he could have put thumb to fingertip. The three well-recommended Translators laid the second ring atop the first with the sound of felt on felt. And now the work was back to Thima.

When its manager, Mrs. Vayda Carn, had first asked it to stay a moment in the conference room following the status meeting half a year ago it had not even known there was a project to be specially selected for. In fact, Thima’s breath ceased for the entire time Mrs. Carn gently closed the door to the room and singled it out. It assumed it was being let go.

“Thima, you may have heard we are working on something new,” she said like a question. Thima breathed in. It shook its head no. “Good. If you haven’t then we’ve been successful at least in that so far. I need a team leader for an uncommon portal imbuing.”

Mrs. Carn waited there for a nod or an ascent of some kind. Thima had noticed her habit of making all conversations like a classroom lesson and wondered regularly if the woman hadn’t been an early-grade elementary teacher before she came to [magic corp name]. Thima accepted what she’d said; Mrs. Carn continued.

“You’ve done well since coming to [magic corp name]. Worked under [some well respected retired guy]. You are not as senior a choice as we might have made, but your…”

“Neutrality,” Thima interjected into the slimmest of pauses.

“Yes, your neutrality. Our truncated and brief investigation into this imbuing leads us to believe that will be of value to our success.” She waited.

Sequel: emotion | thought | decision | action

A flush of pride warmed its face and it smiled a little. Thima pondered this. It’d never given much thought to its imprecisely defined gender as a contributor to its magic.

517 words on day 826

Returning to Imbuer’s Local 451

Back in Writemonkey. I’m blaming my low production this past week on the near inexplicably clunky feel on Scrivener fullscreen. That means I better show up today, or it’s just me.

Imbuers Local #451

Revisiting Imbuers Local #451

A single voice intoned the chant.

Other voices joined the first in staggering succession as if each new chanter required a sense more substantial than mere hearing to recognize the invitation. As the number of chanters grew, others joined more quickly until the swell of the chant could not be ignored by the remaining few—save one, the chant’s initiator.

Thima, toak-Slay, had ceased chanting once sufficient others took up the [song]. It waited silently but not unmovingly for the remaining Imbuers to join. Thima then maneuvered the crowded dais to the edge and signaled for the next hoop to be lowered into place. It worried they would fail in their task.

The unseen audience—hushed to silence on their benches in the steep [auditorium]—drew a collective breath as the second hoop descended from the darkness. Lit from a bright point at the apex of the chamber, the silhoutted ring channeled a cone of light on the chanters below that transformed into a cylindar of rays as it dropped to match with the first. Had a blonde-haired girl, arms out and twirling in the evening air, stood in the center she might have been able to touch the insides of the ring. A grown man could put thumb to fingertip when hoisting the iron torus in his grip.

248 words on day 825

Recalling Professor Palmer’s Admonitions

“She gestured in a timer and left the ankle to cool for a bit while she thought about how to apply compression…”

Recalling Professor Palmer’s admonitions to look for non-magical solutions to problems first, Karen looked around for anything she might wrap her ankle with. If there was a compression bandage or even just a strap of cloth to be found among the roadside detritus, the rest area was keeping them secret. She wondered if she could shred her pajamas into strips, but it seemed unlikely and unappealing. Her ankle hurt but not badly enough to end up topless at a roadside picnic table, so she inventoried her familiar spells. She had a bursting spell she’d used on water balloons, but nothing in that incantation suggested to her that she could invert the effect to squeeze instead. Heat, no. Cold, no. Fire, no! Illumination, no. Levitation, hmmm…no. Translocation, no…wait.

Karen incanted a spell to move her foot to the right and held it in reserve while incanting another to move it to the left. Imagining an ankle sandwich, she slowly released the two, but her foot lurched to one side then bounced back to the other skipping back and forth on the heel till she quit both spells.

“Yaieee, that hurt.”

She thought if she’d just worn socks she might have been able to shrink one and create enough compression to stop the swelling. Maybe four translocation spells—like a box—would work, she wondered. Karen cringed thinking how painful that might be having her foot bounce around in four directions and not just two.

[Bleah. This is not at all interesting.]

Finished fucking around with the ankle, the author now directed Karen to give some thought to unwarding her phone…

…but tomorrow.

[running out of time so I’ll just list a few things as notes for later:]
– looks for something non-magical for compression first because of Professor Carrol’s training about avoiding magic if you can
– cant find anything so she tweaks a ‘push’ spell into the shape of a C, but ultimately can’t keep it in place
– next she works on breaking the ward on her phone. She can’t but she does discover a timer there and has to decide between calling 911 and waiting for and explaining it all to a Highway Patrol officer or just waiting
-eventually she gets back home where she puts her decision to protect herself in to action

406 words on day 798