Shohmyoh — Roleplayer Guild

	The trio continued through the Ballygren Plains.  A cool wind lazily swept through the fields, a welcome contrast to the relentless rays of the solstice sun.  In the distance stood a mighty oak tree that seemed to bid the group come as the wind played with its thinner branches.  The Band decided that a quick break wouldn't stall them long, so they sought refuge from the heat under the tree's massive shadow.

	Viluppo sat down in the shade and wiped the sweat from his brow.  He turned to Solace, prepared to ask how he can travel so far in this weather wearing such heavy-looking armor.  Instead his attention was drawn to something much smaller: a flower growing at Solace's feet.  Its delicate twisting stem supported a bright red style, where multiple thin stamens protruded out into the summer air.  Springing forth from the flower's center were five creamy white petals, each with a single red dot in the middle.

	Turning to his comrades, Viluppo motioned to the flower.  "Normally I don't care much for flowers, but this one is rather rare!  I don't know its real name, but everyone in Coleander calls it a neverlily.  They only grow in areas with very large pools of divinare, and they tend to die rather quickly when planted anywhere else.  I haven't seen one in years."

	The blue-eyed boy stood up and stretched.  "While we're on the subject, would either of you mind if I shared with you what I know?  About divinare, I mean?  It never hurts to review the basics from time to time.  You see, I was well recognized as a skilled manipulator of magic back at West Anders Higher Academy.  I had once written a speech about divinare use for lower students, but I never received the chance to use it.  So, I hope you'll allow me to do so now."  Solace and Oz noticed a cadence of pride in Viluppo's last sentence.

	"Divinare is like the air we breathe; we cannot see it or hear it, but it exists nearly everywhere; in nature, in beasts, and in us.  And like air, divinare is finite and can be depleted, but also restored, over time.  Divinare is what allows us to do things that generations before us only dreamed about; to make fire dance between our fingers, to bend the earth to our will, to heal the sick and forge more potent weapons.  Its discovery could easily be called one of the most important events in our time."

	"But how does one take hold of this magical clay of the earth and mold it on a whim?  The answer, quite literally, lies within.  Every living thing in this world, and some non-living things on top of that, have their own unique rhythm.  Imagine the feeling of your heart, how it continues to beat steadily, endlessly, of its own volition.  Now, imagine your entire body, the very core of your being, possessing such a beat.  That is your rhythm.  No two are the same, but all share some common traits, just the same as any two minstrel songs you can name.  This rhythm is the lantern that lights the way to all magic.  However, it is not enough to merely feel one's own rhythm; one must be able to grasp the rhythms of the world around him, and understand how they relate to his own."

	Viluppo pointed to the neverlily.  "Take this flower, for example.  I have already learned quite well what my own rhythm feels like, but now I must feel the rhythm within the flower."  At that, Viluppo went quiet, his eyes losing their enthusiastic luster as he focused.  

	Somewhere within Viluppo, not quite in his ears but not quite in his mind, he heard something.  It was a melancholy noise, evoking a familiar feeling of utter mortality.  The feeling that all things perish at some time or other.  Viluppo concentrated on this noise, pushing deeper into its aural depths.  The noise began to condense, to stabilize, until it changed into a clearer sound that Viluppo immediately recognized: the sound of the wind brushing through a grassy meadow.  Gracefully, repeatedly, on and on.  That was the flower's rhythm.  

	Viluppo slowly let his focus on the flower's rhythm wane as he imagined his own rhythm, the sound of many small footsteps marching forward in perfect harmony.  With both rhythms ringing clear in his head, the boy loosened his grip on his own rhythm, allowing it to fade back into the recesses of his innermost self.  It grew softer and more muffled until the flower's rhythm had all but overpowered it.

	Immediately the neverlily reacted.  It lurched forward, nearly snapping itself in two.  Without warning, the lily's five petals shot into the air, all of them with force of a marksman's arrow.  The flower lilted after this amazing feat, the color rapidly disappearing from what remained of it.  The Band members looked up to see that two of the petals had firmly lodged themselves into one of the tree's branches.  

	Viluppo turned back to his companions and grinned.  "That... is channeling divinare: allowing another rhythm to claim victory over your own.  Doing this surrenders the divinare inside of your body, agitating and releasing the divinare from the other source.  This is the basis on which a great deal of magic is founded."  Glancing at the dead flower his presentation left in its wake, Viluppo chuckled.  "I was going to show you my presentation on binding divinare too, but I guess I pushed the neverlily too hard.  So I suppose I'm done for now.  I hope I didn't bore you."
        
       "But I've gone on about myself enough; I'd like to know more about you two."
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^Prozac at work

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