Chapter Five: Practice And Heirlooms
Zufli and Sha'alith stayed mad at each other for, oh, about a day. Immediately afterward Sha'alith remembered the moment of confidence he had felt with her, when he told her about his mother, and felt horrible for how he had acted. Zufli cried for a few minutes and then threw herself into practicing her summoning, feeling a moment of comfort in her bird companion. The next day Sha'alith apologized, then they started showing each other some of the things they could do with magic. Soon it was forgotten.
Kavu'fon saw the fight through a nearby ward and was ready to intervene if the boy did something, but was surprised when Sha'alith did not resort to violence. From his violent background, Kavu'fon expected him to get mad and attack, and instead he used his skills of manipulation to hit a very hard verbal blow. He never started to draw on his mana, which left the old Witch Doctor pleasantly surprised. It seemed he was in control of himself well enough to be trusted. He knew kids disagreed all the time, so the spat did not worry him.
When Kavu'fon finished the book, which was called "The Works Of Shamen: A Collection Of Storm Magic" and in which he found some disturbingly powerful lightning spells, he started the daily training again. He made an edited copy of the book, with the most dangerous and destructive spells removed, and made it available for the two young trolls to read on their own if they so wished. With training in operation again Zufli made fast progress with her summoning, soon she was able to keep her bird spirit tethered to the physical world for a minute and she was getting even better all the time. Sha'alith, on the other hand, knew little about magic other than the basic, though powerful, attack spells from the book. So, while Zufli learned more about attack magic and how to use her axe, Sha'alith was learning the basics of less aggressive spells. Although it created tension, the fact that the two were competitive in their learning was a good motivator. Sha'alith cited the fact that she could use two different types of magic as a reason for her continually superior performance.
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Time passed. Lots of it.
Zufli grew to be taller than normal, and though she became a bit stockier it was nothing compared to the way humans used the term. "Stocky" to a human usually conjures a mental picture of a person with built arms and muscles, and a troll's lanky nature made such things impossible. Though strong, her body did not show it in such ways. She was somewhat bigger than Sha'alith, which irked him to no end because he was older. Her tracking, sneaking and hunting abilities were all honed until she could creep up on either of the two males at any time of day. Her axe, originally rather big for her, lost most of its already light weight as her arms adjusted to its regular use. A new weapon was introduced to her when Kavu'fon carved a practice spear for her, and soon her size and skill level called for a full one, which she used to hunt things larger than the small mammals that had previously made up her available game. As she grew, her mana, both types, grew with her. Some of this was because of the mana-building exercises Kavu'fon put her through but they didn't affect her special mana, which seemed to grow without help from her. She mastered summoning her small dark bird, whom she named Nightfeather because of his pigmentation, and started using him to scout over the mountains, the human base and other islands in the archipelago. Kavu'fon also taught her the complex techniques used to call wards and how to tame larger spirits before summoning them to do her bidding. Her mana, although she found it could be used in desperate cases, was less practical for these more advanced Witch Doctor magics and it saddened her that she almost never used it anymore. She felt she was wasting a gift that should give her an advantage, and it frustrated her.
Kavu'fon monopolized on Sha'alith's sly cunning and his ability to manipulate, teaching him logic, reasoning and how to talk his way out of situations. Being manipulative himself, though for a good cause, Kavufon's lessons indirectly taught the young troll that violence was not the only solution. It helped the young troll learn to stay calm and in control for small disagreements, and how to try and avoid battle if he ever found himself away from the Hut and faced with a humanoid adversary. Another reason for the focus on his oratory skills was because, unlike Zufli, he was not very talented in summoning and wound up being able to Hex only the smallest and least magic-resistant of creatures. Like Zufli's, his mana grew because of the mana-building exercises, but not as fast or to the same extent as hers. His strength in relation to witchcraft was storm magic, probably because of his father's adeptness in the same field. However, the attack aspects of the destructive sorcery were just part of it. Sha'alith found himself a few spells from "De Book," as he and Zufli called the edited reference book provided by Kavu'fon, which had more elaborate effects than just physical harm. There was a spell called Purge in it that was supposed to cleanse a target of all magical interference, good or bad, and cause the target's body to clench, leaving them sluggish and jerky for a few minutes. After tinkering with the power and mechanics of the spell for a while (several months), and with a little help form Kavu'fon, he was able to alter and customize it. He could now remove the magic from a person with very little interference to the body, and he could go the opposite way and completely paralyze the victim with lightning. Another affect he discovered was that it seemed to fry a little bit of mana as well. He tried to refine the spell more, such as focus on mana destruction or maybe select only certain magical affects to be purged, but found it was impossible for him to control the energies at such a fine level.
Then there was what the two could accomplish together. With her newfound abilities and his adept persuasion skills, by the time she was six and he was seven they were able to convince Kavu'fon that it was safe to go explore some of the island. From then on they would occasionally go out around the mountains, following the path to Sha'alith's old camp, and explore the jungle. Nightfeather would always be keeping watch from the sky, so they only occasionally ran into trouble.
Because of the strain on food that Sha'alith brought, the two years between him joining the group and the first expedition were a bit lean. No one starved, but for the first time in her life Zufli experienced real hunger, so once they were able to leave she expanded her hunting range and prey. She always took precautions with Nightfeater on lookout and plenty of mana on hand to summon and run if she stumbled into anything dangerous. Soon after the first exploratory voyage into the jungle she was going out and taking down small lone hydra and occasionally diminutive variants of the overgrown turtles to supplement the meager diet of fish and plants. She never grew out of her distaste of fish.
There were a few times when Zufli ran into trouble. Three were on hunts and one was while she and Sha'alith explored. All of the times it was because nearby enemies, usually easily avoided, were attracted by fighting. On the hunts it was because Zufli had missed clean, silent kills with her spear and the creature being hunted screamed in pain and rage. When Sha'alith had been with her they were arguing about something stupid when several large Hydra heard them. In all of the situations she summoned wards and creatures, exhausting her mana but buying time, then ran as fast as she could. In the encounter Sha'alith was in he decided to throw a few lightning spells before retreating and received a scar, a necklace of hydra teeth and a near death experience for his trouble. The wound he received was a large slice on his upper arm from a poisoned fang, so Zufli had been forced to field test the incredibly difficult Healing Wave spell that Kavu'fon had taught her only a few days prior. Because of the poison it didn't heal quite right and the result was a large burn-like scar. Sha'alith didn't complain about how far ahead of him she was for a long time after that.
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By the time she was twelve Zufli knew everything Kavu'fon was able to teach. She was at the age where normally a child would leave and make a home for themselves, but because they were already in the only safe place on the island she could not go far and the idea of leaving was a bit pointless. However it did mark her independence from Kavu'fon and that she was an adult, so Kavu'fon decided it was time to present her with the items he had saved for her from the battle that her mother died in.
"Zufli," she heard him say one night.
It was late, so she was in her room playing with Nightfeather and getting ready for bed. "Yes?"
"Come here, I have somet'ing fo' ya." She threw her day clothes back on and went to see what the old Witch Doctor wanted. Sha'alith poked his head out of his room to see what was happening, but stayed back, unsure if anyone was in trouble. Kavu'fon was standing outside his bedroom door holding an unfamiliar staff in one hand and a bundle of gold-trimmed clothing in the other. "Zufli, when yo' mot'er died I took some t'ings from de battlefield. Now dat ya are old enough I t'ink ya should 'ave dem." He stepped forward and held the staff out. It was made of a gnarled branch with three forks, the middle continuing up and the two short side branches poking out almost perpendicularly to form a crude cross. Securely tied to the junction of the forks was a small kite shield with a dark blue emblem on it. The most noticeable feature was the large rent in the metal of the shield, directly across the emblem. "De staff has a amulet in it dat I grew inta' it. It will increase yo' mana when ya hold it. Dis shield on de staff was wielded by de man dat hurt yo' mot'er. De hole is where she, d'ough gravely wounded, crushed t'rough ta his arm. Carry it in memory o' her bravery an' sacrifice." Zufli reached out and took the staff, immediately noticing the mana around her thicken when she touched it. Moving past that, she brought the shield close to her face, inspecting the bent metal and mangled patterns of blue with wide eyes. Nightfeather flew over and hovered awkwardly in front of it to get a good look at the metal, but found no purchase and settled down weightlessly on Zufli's shoulder.
Before she could muster a response he continued. "D'ere be more." He unrolled the colorful garment and handed it to her. "Dis be enchanted cloth. I don' know what it does, but it was worn by de witch dat almost killed ya in de womb. She is de one dat, I believe, caused ya ta be able ta use de human magics. De pattern o' red at de top is de blood of de man who held de shield," he motioned at the staff in her hands. "Wear dis and remember dat, d'ough ya were small and defenseless, ya survived and came out stronger dan ever. Ya survived an' dey did not"
It might be prudent here to point out how very different trolls are from humans. A teenage human girl would probably run away screaming if presented with such ghastly reminders of the violence that had resulted in the death of at least one and probably both of her parents. Zufli, being much more hardened to violence, instead took them just as Kavu'fon said, as a totem to her mothers bravery and as a witness to her own resilience and strength.
"Um, t'ank you, Kavu'fon," she said. She looked back up at the old Witch Doctor surprise still evident upon her face. "I don' know what ta say."
"Ya don't have ta say not'in' at all. It be gettin' late, ya should get ta bed."
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After Kavu'fon taught Zufli everything he could, he decided to give her the original version of "De Book" and let her teach herself. After looking through the spells that had been edited out she found the one that seemed to be the most powerful and started learning it. It was called Monsoon and a scrawled note under the instructions described it. "A storm that calls forth bolts of lightning over a large area. After initial casting, constant attention is needed to control the lightning and target only enemies, leaving the caster vulnerable to attack. Spell is extremely powerful and uses incredible amounts of mana. Will leave the caster drained for a variable, but generally long period of time. If in battle, use with extreme caution." She saw this spell as the culmination of Shamanism and put time towards it, but not as much as Kavu'fon would have had her do if he was teaching her the spell.
Instead, with her independence from the structured lessons Kavu'fon had given her, she had more time to practice areas of magic other than the Witch Doctor spells Kavu'fon taught her. She looked through "De Book" for a anything that worked well with her type of mana, but didn't find anything. She had already mastered Hex using her mana and tampering around with it could not make it better than it already was, so she went to the first page of "De Book," found the most basic lightning spell in it and practiced it using her mana. It was still highly inefficient in its energy consumption but the extra mana her new staff gave her made it possible, if still difficult. Once she had a good handle on it she started contorting the magic, much like what she had observed Sha'alith do when he crafted his variations of Purge. She had tried her hand at this type of magical engineering before with the mana Kavu'fon had taught her, but the forces she was medaling with had seemed to be resisting her every move. Now, when she started altering the lightning with her own mana she found that it was much easier maneuver the subtle energies.
The outcome was rather startling. While playing around with "De Book's" instructed way to call forth the lightning, she tried to force the magic to happen with less than the needed mana. There was a bright flash and a puff of heat, but she noticed a lack of the ambient static electricity that usually formed when using lightning spells. She did it again and studied how the lack of energy affected the spell, kept the altered version of the spell and added more energy. She didn't make an all-powerful lightning spell, but she did reinvent fire.
After she first discovered how to summon fire Zufli had difficulty replicating the results. She found the fire took very little mana, that was not the problem, it was just that it was hard to get the mana to turn into fire because it was so different from anything else she had done before. Knowing all she needed to do was practice, she threw herself into improving her technique. She focused so much that she inadvertently cut back heavily on hunting and practicing Monsoon. Several alterations and weeks of constant practice later and she was able to call a small fire at will without burning herself (another setback was that she kept having to use mana for Healing Wave on her hands, and although it used a different mana it still left her exhausted). When she was good enough to start creating an attack spell out of the formless fire she found it took much less energy than any attack magic from "De Book." She could not be happier; she had finally found a practical use for her mana.
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While Zufli was busy delving into unknown magic, Sha'alith was still diligently practicing his more modest magical skills. Being a year older than Zufli, he had gained 'permission' to leave if he wished, but that didn't help the fact that being alone on the dangerous island with no secret hut to retreat to would be certain death. Because he was still nowhere near Zufli's skill, when he stayed he asked Kavu'fon to judge how much Witch Doctor magic he could ever reasonably master and teach him that much. He knew it was not even close to Zufli's ability, but he wanted to be the best that he was able. Knowing he would not ever be able to summon or hex efficiently, Kavu'fon set the goal of learning just Healing Wave, because focusing on one branch alone was doable.
It took him the year between his and Zufli's passages into adulthood, but about the same time she stumbled unto the summoning of fire Sha'alith was able to cast a weak Healing Wave consistently. His strength was still storm magic, so now that he had Witchcraft under his belt (as well as it ever would be), he turned to the spell that Zufli had been practicing, Monsoon. He borrowed the original version of "De Book" and carefully copied everything about the powerful spell so that he could read it over as many times as he needed without having to worry about giving the book back. Then he tackled the spell head on, practicing the technique and trying to understand the reasons behind them. The texts did not lie, the spell needed an immense amount of energy. His mana reserves were substantial, but he knew they were nothing to Zufli's and he was worried if he even had enough for the spell so he started doing the old mana-building exercises Kavu'fon used to incorporate into his lessons.
To Sha'alith's delight, his progress with Monsoon went much faster than it had with Healing wave. He was back in his element and everything came easily. Within two weeks he had completed all preparations and was ready to try the spell.
All was well with the small world that the three trolls lived inn. Zufli was rectifying a lifelong disappointment, Sha'alith was finally ahead of Zufli in something, and Kavu'fon was able to let his old body rest instead of getting up early every morning to whip two young trolls into shape. No one noticed the dark cloud brewing on the horizon.
AN/ I just found an age comparison guide for races in the WOW wiki and found that, though I was correct in assuming trolls age faster than humans, it is not quite as fast as I predicted. It says humans reach full adulthood at age 20 and trolls reach it at 17. An intelligent person (human, that is) can reach full sentience by 14, and that is what I mean by 'adult,' so the same conversion is not too far off from my 9 year old estimate. In the story I didn't stick to that estimate anyway, so this ramble is completely pointless.
I have found while writing this that the accent for trolls, which is based on Jamaican, is much more fun to write than Zoiks's speech impediment from my other story. This is one reson why I think this story can go the distance.
I drew a map of the Echo Isles for this story, but deviantart would not let me upload it. :( When I get it to work I'll tell you where you can find it.