Wrapped in Storms

 
Shields
I force Berek to practice flying at slow speed for an hour.
He learns to control his speed and direction accurately, and quickly switch direction and speed.

Then, I show Berek the patterns to use for the shield.
And he practices with the shield while he flies slowly.

Making the flying shield is easy, but holding it in place is harder.

“My attention wanders sometimes,” says Berek, after he lands, “and the shield drops.”

“You need to make it a habit,” I say, “so you don’t have to think about it.”

“Combine the feeling of movement, of being the energy stream, with an image, and sensation of a shield around you.”

I fashion special clothing, face mask and boots for him, out of a light, strong material.
“Even stone, won’t tear this clothing,” I tell him.

“What’s this for?” he asks.

“Put it on, Berek.”
“You’ll need it for the next step in the training.”

When he’s ready, I direct him to fly at medium speed, wherever he wants, and I follow.

Then I fill his path with a cloud of hard crystal fragments.
It seems to follow us, wherever we fly.

“When you let the shield fall, the fragments will collide with your clothing.”
“It will sting and bruise you, but the clothing will protect you against getting cut.”
“This may seem a little extreme, but it’s the fastest way to build the habit of holding your shield.”

We fly for six hours, and the simulation makes him feel as tired as he would in the outside world.

Whenever the shield falls, he’s battered by the crystal cloud.
And he quickly restores his shield to stop the pain.

As the hours pass, despite his fatigue, the habit builds.
The last thirty minutes, we fly without the cloud of particles, and his shield stays up the whole time.

When we land, he looks tired.
I use my healing skills to restore his strength, and heal his bruises.

“Feel better now, Berek?”

He nods, and smiles.
I show him the energy patterns for the clothing and the particle cloud.
“You need to practice flying with the cloud for twenty minutes a day, for the next two weeks, to strengthen the shield habit.

“Ok, ina,” he says.
“What’s next for today’s lesson?”

“Mayla!” I call loudly.

She appears instantly.

“How long have we been in the simulation in real-world time?”

“The language training was about an hour and a half.”
“But the flight practice was only about 20 minutes,” she answers.

“The simulations can go much faster for some skills,” she says, looking at Berek, “but not for others!”

“We want to learn more about shields, Mayla,” I say.

“The flying shield,” she says to us, “is a great all-purpose shield against physical and energy attacks.”
“You’ve anchored the shield, so it will stay up whenever you fly.”

“But there are known ways to penetrate the shield, because it’s so popular.”
“So you need to learn how to build your own custom shields, which will be harder to penetrate.”

The next few hours, she shows us how to weave different patterns together to make our own custom shields.
We begin with simple, fundamental forms, like fire, stone, water, and wind.

We layer the new shield on top of the flying one, so we can use our learned habit to keep up our new shield.
And the flying shield helps protect our bodies from some of the elements and forces that we use in the outer shield.

Berek and I have fun, composing shields of unusual combinations of materials.
Some are useful, and some are just strange, or laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

“I think that’s enough, Berek,” I say at last.

“Ok, Mayla, let’s end the training for today.”

“Not yet, Yagrin,” she says.
“There are a few more skills that I need to teach you.”

 
Weapons
“Can’t we wait for another time?” I ask.

“It’s ok,” she says.
“The others have finished their chosen training and are enjoying different parts of the city.”
“I’ve told them that you’ll be finished in another ten minutes.”

“What do you have in mind, Mayla?” I ask.

“There are certain things you need to know about the city’s capabilities, and control systems.”
“Without this knowledge, you won’t be able to advise me about important decisions.”
“I’ve already slipped that knowledge into you.”

I think about the city, and remember the model that I saw from outside the wall.
With my new knowledge, I understand the use of various buildings and rooms in the model, at least for most of the building rings.

And I know how to operate the city’s weaponry, and access secured parts of the library.

“Ok, Mayla,” I say.
“The information is in place.”

“I also have explicit instructions from the DreamHunter,” she says, “to provide training to the one who opens the city, on his first day of training.”
“The DreamHunter also told me to include any of the guests that join you in the first day’s simulation.”

“But I hesitate to provide some of this training to Berek.”
“He’s so young!”

“What’s the training?” I ask.

“The first part of it teaches how to build and use various advanced hand weapons, control disks, and inhibitors.”
“The second part teaches how to control storms and weather, and use them as weapons.”

Berek and I look at each other, without speaking.
“Both of us are particularly interested in the training with storms,” I tell Mayla.

“I’m not sure if Berek should get the trianing in hand weapons, though.”

“The DreamHunter seemed particularly certain,” she says, “that whoever shared the simulation with you, must get the training.”

“Berek,” I say, “can we keep this a secret from your parents?”
“I know they wouldn’t approve of it!”

“I don’t like keeping secrets from them, ina,” he says.
“But I will if you ask me to.”

Physical and energy patterns for twenty different weapons, inhibitors, and disks slip into our minds, along with knowledge of how to shield ourselves from these.
Mayla has us practice creating the weapons and disks, and using them against threatening machines that she puts in the simulations.

Berek, I notice, is better at it then I am, at least when I don’t use my Gen speed.
Our practice lasts for about three hours of simulated time.

Then she shows us how to to put a shield on weapons or things so they can’t be flowed.
This is the shield that they use in Tshuan, that I can penetrate using the grandmother pattern.

“Berek,” I say, when the practice is finished, “I want you to promise me that you won’t ever use those weapons unless you need them to protect yourself or others.”

“I promise ina,” he says.

“Promise again, Berek,” I say.

He’s surprised at my request for a second promise.

“I promise, ina,” he says.
“I won’t use the weapons unless my life, or the lives of others are in danger.”

“Good,” I say.

 
Storms
“I know Yagrin,” says Mayla, “that you can create small storms.”
“I saw your performance in Tshuan.”

“Can you see everything going on throughout the world?” I ask her.

“Yes,” says Mayla.
“I can observe and record events, anywhere in the world.”

“I don’t like the idea that I’m always being watched,” says Berek.

Mayla laughs.
“I can observe everything, but I don’t.”
“Mostly I focus on the Bizra, the guild council, and Tshuan.”

She turns to face me.
“I also follow the actions of a few masters that have caught my eye.”

“Anyway, Yagrin,” she says, “what I’m going to teach the two of you is completely different from the way that you made the storms.”

“Not with flow?” asks Berek.

“No,” she says.
“In a way, it’s more similar to healing than flow.”

“Healing!?” I ask.

“Yes,” she answers.
“Think of the entire planet as an immense physical body.”
“And realize that the world has an energy body, connected to the physical one.”

“Do you know anything about healing, Berek?” she asks.

“Not really,” he answers.

I explain to Berek about the healing sense, sometimes called the listening body, or healing eyes.
When we use this sense, it shows us the balance of energy and other forces at work in a physical body, a building, or a mountain.

We can use healing energy to push any system back into balance, or to take control of the forces at work within the system.
I’ve used this with physical objects, as well as people.

“I’m guessing Mayla,” I say, “that you can show us how to apply the listening body to the entire world.”
“And use healing energy to restore the world’s balance.”
“Or take control of the forces that drive weather.”

“Exactly, Yagrin,” she says.

“But the world is too large,” I say.
“How can anyone connect with the whole world at once?”

“The key to it,” says Mayla, “is to connect with the world’s energy body.”
“And the grandmother pattern will help you do that.”

“Yagrin,” says Mayla, “pour your listening body through the grandmother, and onto some major physical feature of the world, such as an ocean, or large mountain.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll teach Berek some basic skills in healing.”

I try it.
And I get an image of the whole world, at a high level.
And I can see the major forces at work.

If I focus my attention on a single force within this high-level structure, the detail about that force opens up to my eyes.

“I can see it all, Mayla,” I say, “but it’s too complex for me to understand how to take control of the forces.”

“You’re looking at the challenge in the wrong way, Yagrin,” she says.
“When you influence the circulation, or breathing in someone’s body, you don’t look at individual cells, or the chemical processes within a cell or the blood.”
“Instead, you focus on large areas like organs, or systems like breathing, and your healing force somehow finds the way to control the processes.”

“Just think of an area of the planet that you want to affect, and the weather or other system behavior that you want to see.”
“Your healing energy, together with the grandmother, and the world’s energy body, will direct the energy to make it happen.”
“You don’t have to consciously understand the details!”

I try to bring a cloud into existence on the mountain top.
Using my healing sense, and the grandmother, I feel my way to the location of the mountain top, within the world’s physical body.

And I pass healing energy through the grandmother, with the intention to make a cloud.
I get a little fog, but that’s it.

I look around, and Berek is gone.

“Where’s Berek?” I ask.

“I moved him to a separate simulation, temporarily,” says Mayla.
“I don’t want the two of you distracting each other, as you work on different skills.”

“It’s not working for me,” I say.
“I tried to make a cloud here, and all I got was a little fog.”

“You’re connected,” says Mayla, “but it’s too abstract.”

“But you told me to work through the grandmother,” I say, “and not worry abou the details.”

“You don’t have to know the details,” she explains, “but you have to feel them.”
“Try again, but this time I want you to feel a strong desire for that cloud, and focus on the image of yourself in the place where you want something to happen.”

I try again.
This time, the cloud seems to pour onto the mountaintop a few inches from me, and then spread out to cover the mountain.

Then I raise a wind to blow the cloud away.

Finally, I bring an immense lightning storm, much bigger than the little one that I flowed in Tshuan.
This one is much bigger than I could create with flow.

By staying focused on the storm, and where I am, and my intention, I’m able to direct the storm, and see the lightning strike only in the places that I choose.

I let the storm dissolve.

“Good Yagrin,” says Mayla.
“Berek is finished with the basics of healing, but he’ll need another training session in the future to learn to use the healing skills to control weather.”

“Bring him back,” I say.
“I want to show him the storm.”

“Berek,” I say when he arrives, “I have something wonderful to show you.”

“Ok, ina,” he answers.

“Fly with me, Berek, I say, and I rise up into the sky above the mountain.

Berek follows, along with Mayla.

“Use your energy eyes to watch the mountain below,” I suggest.
“Your physical eyes won’t be able to see through the clouds.”

Then I bring the storm.

It wraps around us, leaving the world dark.
At my direction, the storm treats us like its children, cradling us in a small area of calm.

Below us, the storm is unrelentingly powerful and violent, with lightning strikes that punish the mountain.

I look over at Berek.
He enjoys this, as I do.

After a few minutes, Mayla interrupts.
“It’s time to go, Yagrin.”

Berek and I are a reluctant to leave, but I nod to Mayla.
And the simulation ends.