Fall 1, 122
Makt was a bit uneasy getting up that morning. He had felt a little motion sickness from practicing with zephyr the other day, but this felt different somehow. It was as if he wanted to just lay in bed and stay there all day. But he couldn't do that - he had promised himself that he would practice zephyr again and he was going to follow through on that.
As he got ready he tried to put negative thoughts out of his mind. A man he had met the other day at his job kept popping up in his mind. He wanted to be powerful like that man. Just the thought of him made jealousy well up in Makt's emotions. The worst part was that he enjoyed the feeling in some twisted bitter way. Perhaps it was the emotional manipulator in him, or perhaps it was because he didn't have a girlfriend… he couldn't tell.
Makt soon found himself standing a ways away from the marketplace. He was near enough to gauge whether he should run off to the jewelry shop but far enough away to where he wouldn't be causing much of a disturbance if things got weird. He thought back to the previous time he had use zephyr magic.
He had, for the most part, simply pushed himself around. It was an experience that no longer made him feel overly queasy and he sincerely hoped that the feeling would be eliminated entirely with time. More interesting, however, was that a friend of his, Setyr, had recently gotten good enough at Exodus to try creating portals. Makt was going to be helping him out today with some testing.
Setyr held out his palms and started to focus his aether into the air in front of him and tried to create another portal. He didn't care what its functionality was, but he wanted to make something, anything. He watched as his aether swirled in place and the air started to shimmer. He coaxed more aether into the space and witnessed the air in front of him become more and more distorted until he could not see past it. This was a different kind of portal than he had made before. Or at least, it looked different. He carefully moved his hand behind the portal and could not see through his hand which confirmed his suspicion - he could not see through his hand.
Makt put a hand on Setyr's shoulder and encouraged him. It was the man's first galdr, so he was nervous. His teacher had told him to practice, but not to push himself too hard. Makt parroted this advice, as it was always good to take things slowly.
Setyr's breathing slowed as he moved back into his original position and held out his palms. He would move his palms in small circles, trying to time his breathing with his motions. The portal grew from about an inch in diameter until it was about a foot in diameter. Makt stopped picked up a rock. He didn't know a single thing about how portals worked, but he knew that there had to be something special about this distortion in space.
He took the rock and threw it at the distortion and the rock disappeared. Makt had to double take and make sure that the rock hadn't simply landed on the floor. "Where did that rock go?" the two of them thought as they started looking all around. There was absolutely no telling where the rock had gone which made Makt think about how portals must have an exit point. "I probably sent the rock somewhere," Setyr said, "maybe I should poke my head in there and have a look around."
Something about sticking a head into this strange shimmer made Makt very uneasy. He felt it was better to do a couple more test runs than to trust something so foreign. He voiced this opinion then took a twig and placed half of it through the simmer and pulled the twig back out. They still didn't notice where the exit point was.
"Maybe you could try making the portal over again," he mused as impatience started to creep up on him. Setyr started panting and realized that he was starting to feel a bit tired. He almost didn't believe that he was feeling tired from just this, but he quickly severed his aether from fueling the portal any more. His relief was immediate and he plopped down to think about what his next move would be.
Makt knew that something was wrong with this distortion. Perhaps his friend needed to make a specified exit point for the portal? He was almost certain that there was no practical use for making a murder hole in the middle of the air that drained this much energy. And so Setyr would create another portal by spinning his aether and would quickly create another portal a couple feet to the side. Makt took a stone and tossed it through and by the grace of the godheads the stone disappeared from one portal and appeared out the other portal. Makt and Setyr shouted in unison at that and met each other's eyes.
When the exuberance finally died down, Setyr tried to control his breathing and continue with his experiments. If this portal would allow him to transport living thing unharmed then this would be so much better than blinking in many ways. Makt scooped up a couple ants off the ground and tossed them into the portal and watched as they fell from the other. They landed on the ground, got up, and kept walking as if nothing had happened. Makt wanted to shove his hand through the portal as a final test, but he still felt uneasy. They needed a human test subject and he didn't want it to be him.
Getting a test subject was a matter for another time, however. For now, Setyr wanted to make a bigger portal. What good was creating portals if he couldn't even fit through it? He gathered up an even larger amount of aether and rotated his hands steadily but in much wider arcs. He would witness a human sized portal start to manifest, but as soon as it took shape like the others it faded. Setyr shook his head. "I'm done, I don't want to go too hard."
Makt nodded, "no shame in that. I need to practice my Zephyr now anyways." He casually waved his hand and leapt two feet in the air when a resounding BOOM shook the ground. He'd cast magic and had clearly created the sound, but he hadn't been expecting that to happen.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. He never thought that he would have accidentally discovered the ability to create loud sounds just like that. In the chaos Setyr severed his aethereal connection to the portal and it disappeared. "What in the world was that about," he wondered. Had he done something wrong? He had thought that this would be a powerful tool. They parted ways after that.
The only thing going for Makt was that he looked just as surprised from the sound as anyone else. He doubted anyone was paying enough attention to him to know that he was the cause, especially with how short of a time that the sound waves persisted. He quickly scurried off and got out of sight before he could draw any unwanted attention. This was easier said than done however, since he was an incredibly poor actor and he naturally drew looks from his suspicious appearance. "If I knew zephyr would make such a ruckus I would have done this in privacy!"
"Well aren't you a looker," an older lady said slyly, pulling Makt to her by the arm. Makt still hadn't fully adjusted to his change in looks as he'd gotten a little older and the mostly fortunate side effect of being not ugly. "Maybe this isn't so bad. I can just talk to this woman for a couple minutes and head on home. I feel tired. I need to be careful not to go too far next time."
"Hi there good looking," Makt said with a stutter, "Did you hear that booming sound? I wonder what it was."
"Oh I'm sure it's nothing, are you headed somewhere? You look like you could take a breather, with company perhaps? I haven't seen you around here before." The woman wasn't particularly attractive to Makt, but he wasn't picky. Any time with a woman was worth it.
"Why is she being so forward," Makt would think as he gave a forced smile. He was spending way too many brain cells coming up with what to say. He decided to just go for it, "why yes, I suppose I could use a break. How about we lay down together and have some fun?"
The woman gave him an incredulous look as if she had come out of a trance, "pardon me? Get out of here you swine!" She would push Makt away and walk away. Had Makt not been turned down by quite literally every woman he had ever met he would have been disappointed. However this was no different than any other so he decided to never use that line again. "One of these days you'll get it right," he told himself, "maybe if you weren't so stressed out from all the training you could have kept your head on straight!" He chose to believe the excuses he was feeding himself and headed on home to wrap up his day.
