1st of Glade, 4623
‘Where there is light, there are shadows;
A constant of nature that ebbs and flows;
For they are two sides of a coin;
Both separate entities yet conjoin;
For one must understand the other to grow truly;.’
A constant of nature that ebbs and flows;
For they are two sides of a coin;
Both separate entities yet conjoin;
For one must understand the other to grow truly;.’
It was a moonless night in Genteven, with the thief sitting on top of a random rooftop, merely letting his gaze drift far and wide into the starry abyss that clothes the sky in its glimmer. Slowly coming to terms with who he was now, the amber-eyed thief played around with a small orb of silvery light illuminating a small radius around his hands. The globe reminds him of candlelight, and the sight was beautiful, in Jared’s opinion, the lingering sensation of warmth the thief had on hand at any time.
He moved the orb slowly from left to right between his hands, throwing it like a ball to play with. The thief takes a moment to concentrate on the orb’s luminosity, letting it ebb and flow from various degrees of brightness, albeit not as intense, to avoid being caught by many eyes.
In some strange sense, the way that the orb of light flickers brilliantly despite it being all so small to the world reminds the Draedan that even though he was a simple drop in the ocean, neither rain nor snow stopped Jared from finally answering a question that he yearned to answer from the time he was born.
One of the odd things that Jared noticed when using this strange raw magic that was essentially light itself was being able to generate light through his divinity, yet when comparing it to Umbralplasm. It felt different; there was no need for resistance in moving photons of light away and creating liquid shadow; there was no sense of gravity or density to light compared to shadows.
“Remember Jared… Light is perceivable just as the dark… Both are blind but in different ways… Both need each other to give meaning and definition. Without light, shadows are intangible with no defined form, a concept people are afraid of… The unknown… Yet with the light, a purpose is given, illuminating the void and acting as a sole guide, opening the unseen and giving the abyss a nature like no other.”
The amber-eyed thief mutters as he continues to concentrate on maintaining the orb’s form, allowing the light to fluctuate in beat with his internal emotions, glowing brightly before fading to embers and reigniting anew.
Controlling what was essentially light felt jarring to newly-born Draedan as the manipulation of darkness was part of his primary identity. Now it was nothing but flickering candlelight, but with that came a new perspective, a new facet to Jared's worldly views.
"Sometimes I wonder if this was the right thing to do… I know who I am now… but it is quite scary… don't you think…."
The thief merely kept to himself, curling into a ball by drawing his legs and knees towards himself as he pondered deeply about everything he knew.
His control over divinity was finite, and the thief couldn't manifest. So what did his soul yearn for? And what did it genuinely desire… As the thief gazes at the distance, with his only companion being the light silvery orb of light that flickers from his control over alabaster light.
The Gentevenarse male briefly takes a moment to coat his entire being in a thin veil or bubble of light. Listening closely to his mark of Light on what it could become. As Jared concentrates on the light warping around his being, the light feels rather hot to the pale-skinned rogue. Finally, the manifestation of Bulwark appears, leaving a faint distortion of light that was perceived by the naked eye.
"Huh, this isn't too bad… a little bit exhausting, but this is how it all began, Jared… You didn't become a master of Nightfall over days of practice…. Think of the fundamentals. Getting better at the small things first sets up for greater success, practice and refine… that was one of the many mantras you followed, no?"
It was hard for the thief as most of what he relied upon was his innate mastery over Nightfall to get him out of situations, and now that it was gone. So he was essentially an ordinary man again but with a few differences, Despite feeling healthier, slightly more imaginative and radiant. But, of course, that would amount to nothing if the thief in question were to die on the spot.
“Come on, Jared… Or should I say Vendrel… You need to work hard and be able to grow further than you can ever reach with your two callous & weather-beaten hands. Maybe it is time to further work on your skills rather than relying so much on magic…
You have already experienced first-hand the effects magic does on the body, and I don’t think. I will need to work on understanding locks more and how to open them without leaving many traces behind… I am starting to get rusty on my skills since I was so focused on making Nightfall my most potent tools, but that is now a mistake I must bear.”
Needing to take a break from fumbling around with Ray, the thief clenches his right hand into a fist, enclosing the silvery ball of light and snuffing it out; the slight drain on his divinity quelled for the time being. Once the sensation was clear, the thief opened his right hand again, staring at his palm covered in callouses and faint scars that looked like chicken scratches to anyone. In reality, this was all due to the amount of effort the new draedan had to endure to reach this point, a journey of simply being a mortal man in an unforgiving world that leaves a wake of change with each second that passes.
“Funny that I was at my peak yet so close to death’s door, but faith seemed to have another thing installed for me… I can’t let that go to waste and must continue this path… Surprisingly it is rather lonely… I feel more of an outcast than ever, even among other thieves and scoundrels… A price for a second chance, I guess….”
The thief takes a moment to pull out the blackened sheen set of lockpicks that was given to him by Arkash. A token of a promise that he would try to help him remove the plague that was the umbralplasm that was nestled around his soul but that promise would be forever be enshrouded.
“Ironic… The world is filled with promises but are constructed by liars….”
The amber-eyed magus lets the tips of his left fingers drag across his new tools; from what Jared could gather, these lockpicks were durable enough to sustain a heavy load without breaking under pressure. Something that the thief would appreciate more since his access to Umbralplasm was gone for all he knew, but that did not mean that he could slack off.
“I should find a locksmith and see what stuff I could grab from them… It probably would be hard to break into one, but it is all for the practice and more. Maybe another point of casing that I would need to do now.”
The Alistian chef couldn’t help but smile underneath his tattered black cloth, which drapes across the lower half of his face, covering the bridge of his nose and mouth before loosely drifting into the wind at the base of his chin.
Letting his gaze drift upon the ground and watching the quiet streets of Genteven as if a raven was seeking something valuable. A brief moment of anxiety washes over the raven-haired thief as he looks around to see if there are any potential threats that he could identify from his peripheral vision.
Only then did the thief spot someone from a distance leaving a building, possibly a workshop, a store, or a guard house. Nevertheless, it was something of interest to the thief.
Standing up from his spot among the many roofs the thief habitually perched himself on. The semi-young yet slightly withered thief takes a moment to warm up his muscles, stretching them on the spot due to being stationary for an extended period of time and muttering to himself before setting a firm gaze at the building of interest.
“Well, no use in dwelling about it now… It is time to work and hone your skills for the better.”
With his words said, the thief takes to action and takes a moment to take a couple of steps back, allowing additional space to leap from one rooftop to another. For a moment, the sensation of jumping through the air brings out a moment of glee that radiates from Jared’s body, briefly emitting a spark of his divinity, for he was genuinely able to be who he was supposed to be and no longer starved on figuring who he was, but now a new journey begins.
