Unquestioning, Ulric began to do just that. The pressure in his chest went away instantly and the waves of pain stopped, as if he'd imagined them. He had not godsdamned well imagined that. It hurt like the mother of all heartburn.
"Did the waves of pain stop?" checked the Elf, his arms crossed angrily.
Ulric merely nodded. He was getting his breath back from the constricting, flaring waves of core resonance.
"Good. Be aware, this is a temporary measure, a stopgap. Once the mana instability has started it cannot be halted, your core is already at its limit for compressing and refining unaspected mana safely. What you are doing now is buying time by diffusing the mana throughout your body. That will not stop additional mana from being pulled into your system. Come! We must leave the Arcanum and you must not return to any place with a heavy manasphere until you awaken." The Archmage said, hustling him up the stairs.
Taipan supported him from the other side, somewhat unnecessarily. He wasn't weak, physically, he just had to concentrate to keep his mana cycling.
Outside the amphitheater, away from the dense manafield inside, Ulric immediately felt the difference. He continued to cycle his mana but it no longer felt so urgent. He released a deep breath of relief.
"That was far more abrupt than I was prepared for." He told the Elves with forced levity.
Neither was amused. Taipan was making an effort to remain steady but Ulric could see the small signs of her distress. He tried to suppress his own worry.
"I cannot believe none thought to inform me that the Glade Chief was still unawakened. How? I have been near dozens, hundreds, of Human mages. None of them have your capacity or regenerative power. What in the Deepest Dungeons is going on here? Never mind, Glade Chief, Ulric, excuse me but I need to [Scan] you." Gother said, brooking no nonsense.
His eyes flashed white and his expression shifted slightly.
The old Elf's hand started stroking his long beard absently, eyes distant.
"Mercy of the Ancients." Gother whispered, a small chip in his steady disposition. A considering glance took Ulric in.
They always did that. Whatever they saw, Ulric didn't have enough context to understand what it was that was so disturbing. Gother got over it soon enough, his businesslike aura returned.
"You are truly gifted by the Goddess of Eternal Watchfulness, Ulric. That gift may be your undoing. You are deeper into the crisis than I knew; with so much mana running through your body, your core is under greater pressure than normal. Please, tell me that my pupils have taught you about core awakening, since none of them bothered to inform me that this was on the horizon." the old Wizard implored, thoroughly miffed at being left out of the loop.
Here, Ulric could give him good news.
"They did, Lady Bathe focused most of her instruction on diffusing mana into my own body and in regulating the flow of mana through my core, in preparation for awakening. The circulation exercise is, more or less, exactly as she said it would be during the crisis. For the rest, it's been explained to me. I just wasn't prepared for how, heavy, the pressure would be." Ulric explained, feeling the need to defend his tutors.
Gother nodded dismissively.
"Indeed. Very well. I am afraid that, now that the moment has come, you must make a decision Ulric. Your core cries out for a direction, a manaform into which it can attune. Just as a Greater beast metamorphs into one of several varieties, so too must those who develop their arcane capacity be transformed. Have you considered which harmony you will choose to attune?" his mentor probed.
Ulric had. He'd thought long and hard on it. He'd had little else he could do while he lay in that bed considering every decision, every action that had led to his being there. He wouldn't change a thing. This, his second life, was to be a riot of joy, violence, conflict, and struggle.
"The choice was made long ago Master Gother. I'm not sure that it was ever entirely mine to make. Such is life. I will go out into the wilds today and challenge the storm." Ulric told the formerly pacifist Archmage.
He saw understanding in the eyes of the Eldest Iriel'en. Here was a man who had witnessed loss on a scale Ulric could not fathom. Could not begin to appreciate. Instructor Gother was a man who did not need or want others to have that appreciation, he knew the cost and had lived his life to try to ensure that none of his people would ever pay it again. Ulric felt sympathy for the older Elf and hoped he could do as the old man hoped: protect his children.
"Today is best. To wait longer gains you nothing and risks much. Very well, Ulric Glade Chief. May the Heartwood protect, the skies provide, and the roots guide as you become a true mage. Remember, the mana is a thing that is but nothing must necessarily be. All is possibility. Your will, that is what creates the future. As seeds become saplings I hope to observe your growth on the morrow." Spoke Gother, the words sounding like something of a ritual. An old one.
The old mage departed then, unwilling to drag things out.
"I am going with you." Taipan declared.
That was not an option. Call it a premonition but Ulric had a feeling in his guts that any living thing close to what he was about to experience wasn't going to make it out alive. That didn't comfort him greatly since he wasn't going to have much better odds himself.
"Sorry Taipan, this is a solo run. Don't worry about it, I sort of did this once already, and turned out just fine. You guys never got to see the awesome scars I used to have in the Before." Ulric joked, carefully not mentioning that he'd been legally dead for a hot minute.
She was going to argue, because of course she was, but Ulric stomped on it. The last thing he needed was worrying about her safety while he was up to his eyeballs in whatever the hell was about to happen.
"Taipan, this isn't an option. If you're around I'll lose focus and that will be the end of that. The best thing you can do is be safe and sound while I bring this Watcher's gift to order. You've done a near complete one-eighty in the last couple of months, you're not gonna blow all that away now are you?" Ulric asked, being unfair to her.
Sometimes you have to play dirty, especially when feelings are involved.
She knew it too, going by her scowl. He'd seen far less of that of late. This time though, her discontent wasn't based on his humanity or her own perceived slighting by the world itself. She was angry because she cared. He wasn't so sure how to deal with that. Maybe they could sit down and figure it out when he got back.
He gave her his most confident smile, "I'll be back late, don't wait up. We'll clear tomorrow morning's schedule though, eh?" he wagged his eyebrows up and down to exaggerate the implication. It was her father all over, which drove her nuts.
Scoffing, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. But I will not be getting your breakfast for you. You will walk with your own legs, I am a Shadow, not a dinner cart. Ancestors Watch over your path Ulric."
He was proud of how well she hid her unease. Truly, she'd grown as a person. Ulric had lost his hesitation about leaving his back to her, he trusted her completely now. Which was odd for him. Maybe he'd grown as a person too? Unlikely, he was still an asshole.
He turned then and strode from the hall, out into the pavilion. Once in the cold air of the fading Winter afternoon, Ulric broke out into a jog. He hadn't been fooling around with Gother, he really had already made this decision. He didn't know how he'd managed to forget this day was coming, blame his tunnel vision on trying to prevent ever ending up in a hospital bed again from a random pedophile coat wearing mage's fireball. Regardless, his mind had been made up long ago about which direction to go.
The fortress blurred around him as he ran. Daylight was running out, he had to get out of the city. What came next had to be where no one else could get hurt. He started to weave through stalls, hurdling carts, and jumping thicker crowds, using the building walls as springboards to traverse the usual city hustle of wartime preparation.
He came to a balcony rail, beyond which was the forest far below. He jumped the rail, snagging it with a hand to redirect his momentum, swinging down onto the pavilion below. His feet hit together and he rolled stealing the impact to reduce the strain on his knees. He did it again, jumping the rail, swinging to the level below, and then again, and then again, until he stood in the abandoned Elven capital, her people hidden away.
Now Ulric turned on the speed, racing away through arboreal sky bridges. He knew where he wanted to be, he'd spotted it from high above. There was a bluff that overlooked a small lake. It had a great view of the forest around, the distant mountains, and, through a small window of leafless branches, the curve of a sliver of the Zelus river. It was a fine place. Not too far either, only a half an hour's run.
Ulric took a small chance jumping down from the city built into the trees, falling some twenty meters to the soft forest floor below. He crouched as he landed, his legs absorbing the fall, knees bent. Easy. He'd always wanted to do that. Taking off at a dead sprint, Ulric blurred between trunks, suppressing the urge to laugh. He'd never have been able to do this again in his old world. He'd gained so much since coming to this world. It was a gift, was Varda.
Nothing was perfect though. As he came to the top of the bluff, granite beneath his feet grey and grainy, broken stone at the base marking the passage of time, he considered the problem, panting as he recovered from the intense run.
The problem was the people. More specifically, the problem was the people in charge. Ulric had no doubt that most of the folk of Prespang were honest, decent people just trying to live their lives. Just like the Orlethrem. Somehow, a sequence of events had been set into motion that had conspired to drive these peoples into conflict. Someone had something to gain from creating grudges that lasted generations. The current situation was like a boil, and infection that had to be lanced, to draw the worst of the sickness out. That didn't treat the cause though. No, for that, a deeper medicine was going to be needed. Ulric had decided, lying there screaming through the stroke of a brush on ruined flesh, that if no one else would do it, he would be the cure for what ailed this world. At least, for what he was able to fix. A small group of wealthy, powerful men, leading others to sacrifice them at the altar of their own greed? He could sleep well at night if all it took to stop so much meaningless suffering was to turn those few into ash.
Peace, unfortunately, wasn't in the cards. Not for him.
If he'd wanted peace he should have minded his own business all those days ago, should have let those animals take a beaten Elf child to do who knows what? He couldn't. He couldn't ignore the pain of a child. He couldn't ignore the war of annihilation carried out against a people who loved life so much that they'd devoted an entire subculture to becoming the swords and shields that would defend the rest. He couldn't stand aside while these Deep Woods folk, who had shown him kindness, him, an ages-old enemy of their kin, now grieved over the slain. Friends and lovers of centuries were murdered in their homes, crippled by the scores by an attack of incredible savagery. He couldn't forgive the Bane.
No, Ulric had thought about what he wanted from life, about what he was prepared to do to live as he saw fit. Ulric had decided what he needed to become. He suppressed a smile when he thought about those foolish children running through the storm, daring the skies to punish them. An insane gamble, bravery born of ignorance, and Ulric had drawn the joker all those years ago. As he seemed destined to do at every cut of the deck.
There'd never been any other choice had there? It had always been the lightning. Ulric Einar was drawn to it and it to him.
His mind relaxed and he circulated his mana feeling the unfamiliar weight of it. There was a resistance now that alternated with wildness. At times resisting his pushes, at others moving as if driven by a buffeting wind. As he'd been told to do Ulric began to attune his core to Ceraun, the mana that reflected the electromagnetic force of this strange world. Both the same as his old world and not. The essential ideas were similar. Similar enough that it came to his call easily.
Ulric's core rippled as the unaspected mana within began to resonate with the concentration of lightning inside him. He closed his eyes and brought his focus to bear. He was tired, both physically and mentally. This would have happened at the end of the day spent training. Not fresh after breakfast, nooo sir. That isn't how the dice spun for him. But it wouldn't matter. This was a matter of willpower and concentration. He had those in spades.
Ceraun chased itself endlessly. Always dissatisfied was Ceraun, always seeking a balance that was ever so slightly never to be found. Ulric could sympathize. He'd spent one life on dissatisfaction. The trick was to enjoy the imbalance. To ride the currents as they came. He couldn't control the waves, they would roll in uncaring whether he was there or not. He had learned instead to only worry about how he was going to ride them, to take them as they came. Ceraun could learn a thing or two from him, he thought humorously.
The next step was to form a shell of his own mana, expelling it even as he controlled the flow inside. Lessons from Vedyr in controlling elemental forms helped him direct the energy to his mental image of a sphere around his body, isolating him from the wild mana around. At first he felt nothing, the shell of energy was incomplete, slowly he closed the gaps, molding it, spreading Ceraun into an even coat. For some reason, imagining a conductive metal shell, the Guassian flux equations dictating the interaction of the field to cancel itself within the shell, assisted his concentration greatly. There was a violet flash as the shell manifested and Ulric stopped feeling any of the gradually adding pressure, as the external world was being held at bay by his barrier.
Thunder rumbled distantly. Ulric's eyes snapped open. Thunder? In the Winter? He couldn't stop now. Concentrating Ulric began to cycle Ceraun from his core into his body, making sure it remained completely internalized. He had to replace all the volatile unaspected mana within his body with Ceraun. He suffused his body with it. Pushing the electrical magic into his tissues, forcing unaspected mana to either match this frequency or be ejected. He had that oddly not quite hurting but not right sensation of holding an electric fence radiating through his bones and forced his eyes shut again.
As the shell completed, a cold gust blasted into his body forcefully enough to cause him to take a step to regain his balance. Rolling thunder shook the ground. Ulric concentrated harder. Slowly his muscles drank in the energy he provided, then his organs, then his very bones. So slowly, he replaced the resonant mana with Ceraun.
He'd disposed of quite a bit of wild mana in the process.
Brightness greater than the falling Twins flashed his closed eyes. Sound filled the air immediately, a sizzling crack that was followed by a boom that shook his body.
More wind now. Coming from unpredictable directions. Ulric's eyes opened again. Nobody had mentioned this. Shor's description said the awakening process was completely an internal thing, a matter of focus and training, like juggling.
The skies had blackened, thunderheads raced high above. Silver lances crossed the clouds. Their cries followed them, tolling the atmosphere with spent power. Ulric watched as one bolt became two. Two became a dozen.
As the cycling energy inside him built, became purer, unified itself in an eternal chase, so did the frequency of the lightnings above grow.
Ulric felt it, way up there inside those clouds. Ceraun. Wild. Unlimited. Free to race back to itself. It beckoned to the force inside his core. Called to itself. It challenged and his resonating core beat a pulse in harmony with it. The arrogance of a mortal creature to call lightning and try to remain separate from it.
Ceraun reached for him, to take him into its flow. An arc as thick as an oak tree parted the darkened sky and dropped on top of him. Sound vanished. So did sight. Ulric was nearly scoured from existence. There was only the raging torrent of violet light, driving against his shell, circulating, diving into his core, trying to shatter him. Trying to take his feeble irrelevance and make it as brilliantly powerful as itself. Trying to help him.
He was a child again, running between the safety of a shelter and the tree. He felt the touch of the storm, felt it's hunger. It didn't understand this weak, lonely creature. Nothing was ever alone, all the universe came paired. Here. Come and see. Without feeling the any passage of time Ulric was, somehow, looking down on this strange new home of his. Clouds spun, or at least, they would have had not the whole world been frozen. There, above the clouds, reaching into the eternal dark of space, was a vast web of lightning, it hummed a sound beyond the understanding of a human. Ulric knew he was looking at Ceraun itself. Not the name for a form of mana. No, he was looking at the god, the sentient force that was the consciousness of that mana. A great sprite, connecting eternity to the flesh of Varda, it danced, bridging the cosmos.
He felt it, across every storm, weaving through every cloud, sometimes incandescent, mostly invisible, riding fields of might be's the potential for things to join together, the pain of separation, Ceraun was all of those things. It was beautiful. He burned to be part of it. To BE it. But he had things to do, people who needed him to hang around. He had connections of his own, now. It hurt, having to turn aside from this unity, to remain separate. Hurt like nothing he'd ever thought he could feel, inside him. Not yet. One day he would come back. Not yet. Images flashed through him, faster than he could consciously grasp but instilling themselves into his fading will. Of Brighteyes holding the mask Ulric had carved, joy on his childish face. Of Idra'se, hard-faced but gently guiding him through his failures to walk. Of Bald'rt smiling with his wives. Of Christ grinning as they strove to improve. Of Serlic's stern gaze, the Hunter who'd given his life to guide his kin into the unknown. Of Taipan, her scowling emerald eyes hiding her concern. Not Yet.
Memory flooded back into him and he stood where he had been from the beginning, atop the bluff. His senses had returned. Clouds were dissipating above. He smelt ozone. And fire. Looking around, Ulric saw what came of rejecting the flow, of separating oneself recklessly. Ulric witnessed the folly of trying and failing to chain lightning. Trees obliterated, smoking. Blackened scars on the granite in some places. Glowing glass in others.
The shell he'd created was gone. It had served a purpose when he'd made it but it was trying to isolate him and Ceraun did not isolate, it bridged gaps. Ulric felt the mana inside his core, the living pulse of it racing endlessly in its need to find itself. Gone was the uncertainty, the desire of his mana to become something, now all was lightning. He'd awakened.
An unsteady breath escaped him. This wasn't how it had been described. Never a religious man, he had no trouble whatsoever reconciling what he'd seen with what he felt. That…thing up there. It was real. He felt the faint edges of it. And it knew of him. It had welcomed him, had embraced him to bring him into its existence. Ulric knew that if he'd accepted that, he'd be an elemental. A being of pure, conscious energy. It had been close. He'd never felt so…part of everything in his whole life. So close. But not yet.
On shaking legs, Ulric started to make his way back to the fortress city of the Iriel'en. He didn't know what he was going to tell anyone. The experience had the feeling of one that would only be understood by someone who had been there, up above the clouds. He knew one thing: he owed the Elves his life. If Ulric had been taken up into that flow as he'd been before, isolated and alone, he'd have gone with it. Nothing of his humanity would have remained. He'd have joined the rest of Ceraun, part of the eternal lightning. There had been that truth in its existence, all things are connected or will be, to reject that and become separate was to be destroyed.
Sooner or later.
Unquestioning, Ulric began to do just that. The pressure in his chest went away instantly and the waves of pain stopped, as if he'd imagined them. He had not godsdamned well imagined that. It hurt like the mother of all heartburn.
"Did the waves of pain stop?" checked the Elf, his arms crossed angrily.
Ulric merely nodded. He was getting his breath back from the constricting, flaring waves of core resonance.
"Good. Be aware, this is a temporary measure, a stopgap. Once the mana instability has started it cannot be halted, your core is already at its limit for compressing and refining unaspected mana safely. What you are doing now is buying time by diffusing the mana throughout your body. That will not stop additional mana from being pulled into your system. Come! We must leave the Arcanum and you must not return to any place with a heavy manasphere until you awaken." The Archmage said, hustling him up the stairs.
Taipan supported him from the other side, somewhat unnecessarily. He wasn't weak, physically, he just had to concentrate to keep his mana cycling.
Outside the amphitheater, away from the dense manafield inside, Ulric immediately felt the difference. He continued to cycle his mana but it no longer felt so urgent. He released a deep breath of relief.
"That was far more abrupt than I was prepared for." He told the Elves with forced levity.
Neither was amused. Taipan was making an effort to remain steady but Ulric could see the small signs of her distress. He tried to suppress his own worry.
"I cannot believe none thought to inform me that the Glade Chief was still unawakened. How? I have been near dozens, hundreds, of Human mages. None of them have your capacity or regenerative power. What in the Deepest Dungeons is going on here? Never mind, Glade Chief, Ulric, excuse me but I need to [Scan] you." Gother said, brooking no nonsense.
His eyes flashed white and his expression shifted slightly.
The old Elf's hand started stroking his long beard absently, eyes distant.
"Mercy of the Ancients." Gother whispered, a small chip in his steady disposition. A considering glance took Ulric in.
They always did that. Whatever they saw, Ulric didn't have enough context to understand what it was that was so disturbing. Gother got over it soon enough, his businesslike aura returned.
"You are truly gifted by the Goddess of Eternal Watchfulness, Ulric. That gift may be your undoing. You are deeper into the crisis than I knew; with so much mana running through your body, your core is under greater pressure than normal. Please, tell me that my pupils have taught you about core awakening, since none of them bothered to inform me that this was on the horizon." the old Wizard implored, thoroughly miffed at being left out of the loop.
Here, Ulric could give him good news.
"They did, Lady Bathe focused most of her instruction on diffusing mana into my own body and in regulating the flow of mana through my core, in preparation for awakening. The circulation exercise is, more or less, exactly as she said it would be during the crisis. For the rest, it's been explained to me. I just wasn't prepared for how, heavy, the pressure would be." Ulric explained, feeling the need to defend his tutors.
Gother nodded dismissively.
"Indeed. Very well. I am afraid that, now that the moment has come, you must make a decision Ulric. Your core cries out for a direction, a manaform into which it can attune. Just as a Greater beast metamorphs into one of several varieties, so too must those who develop their arcane capacity be transformed. Have you considered which harmony you will choose to attune?" his mentor probed.
Ulric had. He'd thought long and hard on it. He'd had little else he could do while he lay in that bed considering every decision, every action that had led to his being there. He wouldn't change a thing. This, his second life, was to be a riot of joy, violence, conflict, and struggle.
"The choice was made long ago Master Gother. I'm not sure that it was ever entirely mine to make. Such is life. I will go out into the wilds today and challenge the storm." Ulric told the formerly pacifist Archmage.
He saw understanding in the eyes of the Eldest Iriel'en. Here was a man who had witnessed loss on a scale Ulric could not fathom. Could not begin to appreciate. Instructor Gother was a man who did not need or want others to have that appreciation, he knew the cost and had lived his life to try to ensure that none of his people would ever pay it again. Ulric felt sympathy for the older Elf and hoped he could do as the old man hoped: protect his children.
"Today is best. To wait longer gains you nothing and risks much. Very well, Ulric Glade Chief. May the Heartwood protect, the skies provide, and the roots guide as you become a true mage. Remember, the mana is a thing that is but nothing must necessarily be. All is possibility. Your will, that is what creates the future. As seeds become saplings I hope to observe your growth on the morrow." Spoke Gother, the words sounding like something of a ritual. An old one.
The old mage departed then, unwilling to drag things out.
"I am going with you." Taipan declared.
That was not an option. Call it a premonition but Ulric had a feeling in his guts that any living thing close to what he was about to experience wasn't going to make it out alive. That didn't comfort him greatly since he wasn't going to have much better odds himself.
"Sorry Taipan, this is a solo run. Don't worry about it, I sort of did this once already, and turned out just fine. You guys never got to see the awesome scars I used to have in the Before." Ulric joked, carefully not mentioning that he'd been legally dead for a hot minute.
She was going to argue, because of course she was, but Ulric stomped on it. The last thing he needed was worrying about her safety while he was up to his eyeballs in whatever the hell was about to happen.
"Taipan, this isn't an option. If you're around I'll lose focus and that will be the end of that. The best thing you can do is be safe and sound while I bring this Watcher's gift to order. You've done a near complete one-eighty in the last couple of months, you're not gonna blow all that away now are you?" Ulric asked, being unfair to her.
Sometimes you have to play dirty, especially when feelings are involved.
She knew it too, going by her scowl. He'd seen far less of that of late. This time though, her discontent wasn't based on his humanity or her own perceived slighting by the world itself. She was angry because she cared. He wasn't so sure how to deal with that. Maybe they could sit down and figure it out when he got back.
He gave her his most confident smile, "I'll be back late, don't wait up. We'll clear tomorrow morning's schedule though, eh?" he wagged his eyebrows up and down to exaggerate the implication. It was her father all over, which drove her nuts.
Scoffing, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. But I will not be getting your breakfast for you. You will walk with your own legs, I am a Shadow, not a dinner cart. Ancestors Watch over your path Ulric."
He was proud of how well she hid her unease. Truly, she'd grown as a person. Ulric had lost his hesitation about leaving his back to her, he trusted her completely now. Which was odd for him. Maybe he'd grown as a person too? Unlikely, he was still an asshole.
He turned then and strode from the hall, out into the pavilion. Once in the cold air of the fading Winter afternoon, Ulric broke out into a jog. He hadn't been fooling around with Gother, he really had already made this decision. He didn't know how he'd managed to forget this day was coming, blame his tunnel vision on trying to prevent ever ending up in a hospital bed again from a random pedophile coat wearing mage's fireball. Regardless, his mind had been made up long ago about which direction to go.
The fortress blurred around him as he ran. Daylight was running out, he had to get out of the city. What came next had to be where no one else could get hurt. He started to weave through stalls, hurdling carts, and jumping thicker crowds, using the building walls as springboards to traverse the usual city hustle of wartime preparation.
He came to a balcony rail, beyond which was the forest far below. He jumped the rail, snagging it with a hand to redirect his momentum, swinging down onto the pavilion below. His feet hit together and he rolled stealing the impact to reduce the strain on his knees. He did it again, jumping the rail, swinging to the level below, and then again, and then again, until he stood in the abandoned Elven capital, her people hidden away.
Now Ulric turned on the speed, racing away through arboreal sky bridges. He knew where he wanted to be, he'd spotted it from high above. There was a bluff that overlooked a small lake. It had a great view of the forest around, the distant mountains, and, through a small window of leafless branches, the curve of a sliver of the Zelus river. It was a fine place. Not too far either, only a half an hour's run.
Ulric took a small chance jumping down from the city built into the trees, falling some twenty meters to the soft forest floor below. He crouched as he landed, his legs absorbing the fall, knees bent. Easy. He'd always wanted to do that. Taking off at a dead sprint, Ulric blurred between trunks, suppressing the urge to laugh. He'd never have been able to do this again in his old world. He'd gained so much since coming to this world. It was a gift, was Varda.
Nothing was perfect though. As he came to the top of the bluff, granite beneath his feet grey and grainy, broken stone at the base marking the passage of time, he considered the problem, panting as he recovered from the intense run.
The problem was the people. More specifically, the problem was the people in charge. Ulric had no doubt that most of the folk of Prespang were honest, decent people just trying to live their lives. Just like the Orlethrem. Somehow, a sequence of events had been set into motion that had conspired to drive these peoples into conflict. Someone had something to gain from creating grudges that lasted generations. The current situation was like a boil, and infection that had to be lanced, to draw the worst of the sickness out. That didn't treat the cause though. No, for that, a deeper medicine was going to be needed. Ulric had decided, lying there screaming through the stroke of a brush on ruined flesh, that if no one else would do it, he would be the cure for what ailed this world. At least, for what he was able to fix. A small group of wealthy, powerful men, leading others to sacrifice them at the altar of their own greed? He could sleep well at night if all it took to stop so much meaningless suffering was to turn those few into ash.
Peace, unfortunately, wasn't in the cards. Not for him.
If he'd wanted peace he should have minded his own business all those days ago, should have let those animals take a beaten Elf child to do who knows what? He couldn't. He couldn't ignore the pain of a child. He couldn't ignore the war of annihilation carried out against a people who loved life so much that they'd devoted an entire subculture to becoming the swords and shields that would defend the rest. He couldn't stand aside while these Deep Woods folk, who had shown him kindness, him, an ages-old enemy of their kin, now grieved over the slain. Friends and lovers of centuries were murdered in their homes, crippled by the scores by an attack of incredible savagery. He couldn't forgive the Bane.
No, Ulric had thought about what he wanted from life, about what he was prepared to do to live as he saw fit. Ulric had decided what he needed to become. He suppressed a smile when he thought about those foolish children running through the storm, daring the skies to punish them. An insane gamble, bravery born of ignorance, and Ulric had drawn the joker all those years ago. As he seemed destined to do at every cut of the deck.
There'd never been any other choice had there? It had always been the lightning. Ulric Einar was drawn to it and it to him.
His mind relaxed and he circulated his mana feeling the unfamiliar weight of it. There was a resistance now that alternated with wildness. At times resisting his pushes, at others moving as if driven by a buffeting wind. As he'd been told to do Ulric began to attune his core to Ceraun, the mana that reflected the electromagnetic force of this strange world. Both the same as his old world and not. The essential ideas were similar. Similar enough that it came to his call easily.
Ulric's core rippled as the unaspected mana within began to resonate with the concentration of lightning inside him. He closed his eyes and brought his focus to bear. He was tired, both physically and mentally. This would have happened at the end of the day spent training. Not fresh after breakfast, nooo sir. That isn't how the dice spun for him. But it wouldn't matter. This was a matter of willpower and concentration. He had those in spades.
Ceraun chased itself endlessly. Always dissatisfied was Ceraun, always seeking a balance that was ever so slightly never to be found. Ulric could sympathize. He'd spent one life on dissatisfaction. The trick was to enjoy the imbalance. To ride the currents as they came. He couldn't control the waves, they would roll in uncaring whether he was there or not. He had learned instead to only worry about how he was going to ride them, to take them as they came. Ceraun could learn a thing or two from him, he thought humorously.
The next step was to form a shell of his own mana, expelling it even as he controlled the flow inside. Lessons from Vedyr in controlling elemental forms helped him direct the energy to his mental image of a sphere around his body, isolating him from the wild mana around. At first he felt nothing, the shell of energy was incomplete, slowly he closed the gaps, molding it, spreading Ceraun into an even coat. For some reason, imagining a conductive metal shell, the Guassian flux equations dictating the interaction of the field to cancel itself within the shell, assisted his concentration greatly. There was a violet flash as the shell manifested and Ulric stopped feeling any of the gradually adding pressure, as the external world was being held at bay by his barrier.
Thunder rumbled distantly. Ulric's eyes snapped open. Thunder? In the Winter? He couldn't stop now. Concentrating Ulric began to cycle Ceraun from his core into his body, making sure it remained completely internalized. He had to replace all the volatile unaspected mana within his body with Ceraun. He suffused his body with it. Pushing the electrical magic into his tissues, forcing unaspected mana to either match this frequency or be ejected. He had that oddly not quite hurting but not right sensation of holding an electric fence radiating through his bones and forced his eyes shut again.
As the shell completed, a cold gust blasted into his body forcefully enough to cause him to take a step to regain his balance. Rolling thunder shook the ground. Ulric concentrated harder. Slowly his muscles drank in the energy he provided, then his organs, then his very bones. So slowly, he replaced the resonant mana with Ceraun.
He'd disposed of quite a bit of wild mana in the process.
Brightness greater than the falling Twins flashed his closed eyes. Sound filled the air immediately, a sizzling crack that was followed by a boom that shook his body.
More wind now. Coming from unpredictable directions. Ulric's eyes opened again. Nobody had mentioned this. Shor's description said the awakening process was completely an internal thing, a matter of focus and training, like juggling.
The skies had blackened, thunderheads raced high above. Silver lances crossed the clouds. Their cries followed them, tolling the atmosphere with spent power. Ulric watched as one bolt became two. Two became a dozen.
As the cycling energy inside him built, became purer, unified itself in an eternal chase, so did the frequency of the lightnings above grow.
Ulric felt it, way up there inside those clouds. Ceraun. Wild. Unlimited. Free to race back to itself. It beckoned to the force inside his core. Called to itself. It challenged and his resonating core beat a pulse in harmony with it. The arrogance of a mortal creature to call lightning and try to remain separate from it.
Ceraun reached for him, to take him into its flow. An arc as thick as an oak tree parted the darkened sky and dropped on top of him. Sound vanished. So did sight. Ulric was nearly scoured from existence. There was only the raging torrent of violet light, driving against his shell, circulating, diving into his core, trying to shatter him. Trying to take his feeble irrelevance and make it as brilliantly powerful as itself. Trying to help him.
He was a child again, running between the safety of a shelter and the tree. He felt the touch of the storm, felt it's hunger. It didn't understand this weak, lonely creature. Nothing was ever alone, all the universe came paired. Here. Come and see. Without feeling the any passage of time Ulric was, somehow, looking down on this strange new home of his. Clouds spun, or at least, they would have had not the whole world been frozen. There, above the clouds, reaching into the eternal dark of space, was a vast web of lightning, it hummed a sound beyond the understanding of a human. Ulric knew he was looking at Ceraun itself. Not the name for a form of mana. No, he was looking at the god, the sentient force that was the consciousness of that mana. A great sprite, connecting eternity to the flesh of Varda, it danced, bridging the cosmos.
He felt it, across every storm, weaving through every cloud, sometimes incandescent, mostly invisible, riding fields of might be's the potential for things to join together, the pain of separation, Ceraun was all of those things. It was beautiful. He burned to be part of it. To BE it. But he had things to do, people who needed him to hang around. He had connections of his own, now. It hurt, having to turn aside from this unity, to remain separate. Hurt like nothing he'd ever thought he could feel, inside him. Not yet. One day he would come back. Not yet. Images flashed through him, faster than he could consciously grasp but instilling themselves into his fading will. Of Brighteyes holding the mask Ulric had carved, joy on his childish face. Of Idra'se, hard-faced but gently guiding him through his failures to walk. Of Bald'rt smiling with his wives. Of Christ grinning as they strove to improve. Of Serlic's stern gaze, the Hunter who'd given his life to guide his kin into the unknown. Of Taipan, her scowling emerald eyes hiding her concern. Not Yet.
Memory flooded back into him and he stood where he had been from the beginning, atop the bluff. His senses had returned. Clouds were dissipating above. He smelt ozone. And fire. Looking around, Ulric saw what came of rejecting the flow, of separating oneself recklessly. Ulric witnessed the folly of trying and failing to chain lightning. Trees obliterated, smoking. Blackened scars on the granite in some places. Glowing glass in others.
The shell he'd created was gone. It had served a purpose when he'd made it but it was trying to isolate him and Ceraun did not isolate, it bridged gaps. Ulric felt the mana inside his core, the living pulse of it racing endlessly in its need to find itself. Gone was the uncertainty, the desire of his mana to become something, now all was lightning. He'd awakened.
An unsteady breath escaped him. This wasn't how it had been described. Never a religious man, he had no trouble whatsoever reconciling what he'd seen with what he felt. That…thing up there. It was real. He felt the faint edges of it. And it knew of him. It had welcomed him, had embraced him to bring him into its existence. Ulric knew that if he'd accepted that, he'd be an elemental. A being of pure, conscious energy. It had been close. He'd never felt so…part of everything in his whole life. So close. But not yet.
On shaking legs, Ulric started to make his way back to the fortress city of the Iriel'en. He didn't know what he was going to tell anyone. The experience had the feeling of one that would only be understood by someone who had been there, up above the clouds. He knew one thing: he owed the Elves his life. If Ulric had been taken up into that flow as he'd been before, isolated and alone, he'd have gone with it. Nothing of his humanity would have remained. He'd have joined the rest of Ceraun, part of the eternal lightning. There had been that truth in its existence, all things are connected or will be, to reject that and become separate was to be destroyed.
Sooner or later.
