Adrift in Silence

Chapter 4 Part 3

Lucina laid her weary head on the fluffy cloud, staring into the vast darkness, and in that moment, she felt as though she was looking into herself. "Markus?" she quivered.

"Yes?" he asked.

She rolled over to face him and asked, "It's too dark, could you make a night light?"

Markus rose from his cloud bed and stared up at the sky and said, "How about a billion." Markus unleashed a flurry of Nexium into the sky, shattering it like a glass ceiling, and out poured countless specs of starry light. They swirled in the sky like falling stars, arranging themselves in a spiral galaxy, not unlike earth's sky in the dead of night. Lucina sat up and stared in awe at the star-studded sky her Master created just for her. Her eye's glimmered with excitement and hope as a single tear of joy fell from her tired gaze. Overwhelmed, she fell back on her bed and fell asleep in no time, content that her Master and the heavenly light above kept watch over her.

The very next day, after Markus swept away all the manifested light, he prepared his student for her first spell. "So, Master, what are we doing today?" she asked, stretching her arms behind her back, waiting patiently.

"I was going to begin your Fornum lessons, but we are running short on time, if you can believe it," he explained.

"So, what now?" she asked.

"To catch you up to speed with the others, I am going to teach you how to cast spells," he replied.

"But I can't call out to the Nexus," she queried.

"You are calling to your inner power, the Nexium within, you only need to embrace the signs the same the others do with their voices," he assured her. "Since we both have been to the Shadow Realm, I can show you how to tap into that realities Nexium," he explained. "Ready yourself." Lucina placed her headphones over her ears and pressed play on her device. She closed her eyes and within a few minutes, she had tapped into her power and maintained its flow.

"I am going to teach you a very simple and handy technique," said Markus, preparing himself. "However, this Realm is not conducive to Shadow Nexium," he explained, "but we can change our environment to meet the conditions." He raised a series of pillars, blocking the light to cast dark shadows. "The conditions for this spell can be met in a variety of ways but for today, we will pull the mist from the water and the shadows cast from the pillars to a diversion. Observe," he demonstrated, dipping his hand into the water.

"AHS O OLC!" he uttered, pulling a cloud of mist, doused in a shadowy substance, from the water below. A cloud of black vapors, slightly illuminated in a dark indigo hue, rolled off his hands. "Scatter!" he cried out, opening his hands to the sky as the mist scattered into a vast cloud. "This spell is quite versatile, able to be manipulated in various ways. You could cast outward as a distraction, or at your feet for a quick getaway. The Latter is best suitable for now, Lucina."

"Okay, how do I do it?" she asked.

"So, the first step is to think it, visualize it in your mind," he instructed, poking at his temple three times. Lucina closed her eyes and visualized a cloud of mist and shadow condensed in her hands, ready to break free like a smoke pellet.

Markus continued, "Step two, feel the Nexium within your environment, the particles of water, the coolness of the shadow. Once you have grasped them, intertwine them, bend, and warp reality to your imagination, your will." Lucina nodded and dipped her hand into the water, feeling the liquid and the darkness underneath.

"Third is utterance, to use as few words as possible to call out to the Nexus. To conjure the spell, typically one usually uses spoken words, but I want you to sign it with your hands, mouth the words to yourself if you must." Lucina took his advice, imagining the spell, thinking the words, uttering them to herself and signing them over and over through the water. Her Drifter mark began to glow, just like her master's, and her hands started to dim faintly. Wisps of shade swirled around her hands forming into a condensed sphere, ready to burst. She pulled the mass from the water, holding the power of Nexus in her hand.