Chương 29: Chapter 27 ~ The World as Will and Vegetation (Vol 1)

06/11/1111 EotTS 09: 00 Sunlight slipped through the spaces in the window shutters, casting golden bars along the floor, and gently waking Gysel. The alarm clock had not been set the night prior, as the sixth was an off-day, and therefore did not need such a strict time to rise, but the sun had decided otherwise. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes, then raised Kawvel off her chest into the air above her.

"Good Morning, Kawvel." The stuffed bear did not respond, but his paw slipped out from beneath Gysel's thumb, swinging down and shaking in the direction of the pots that had been placed on the windowsill two days prior.

"Excellent, thank you, Kawvel." Sitting up, throwing off the covers, and swinging her feet out, Gysel got out of bed. Setting Kawvel on her pillow, she walked to her wardrobe to dress. Gysel opened the wardrobe, looked inside, and listlessly sifted through the hangers—what is there to wear?

well, gardening is to be done to-day, so something simple and brown would be best, these overalls will work, as will this short-sleeve cream top, the overalls should cover most of the top, and if there are no sleeves, there was no reason to worry about getting dirt on them. Gysel pulled the clothing from the wardrobe, and dressed, making sure the brass buttons of the overall's straps were attached properly (as the right one had fallen off about a year prior).

"We are going for breakfast, Kawvel... No, you cannot get honey; it will make your fur crusty, we have been through this before." Gysel said, as she took Kawvel and dropped in him into the corduroy overall's large (and rather spacious, at least for Kawvel) front pocket. Taking a pair of thick, woolen socks from the wardrobe, she put them on, then put on her boots, and finally departed for breakfast.

06/11/1111 EotTS 09: 39 Halfway through her breakfast and mindlessly chewing wishing to get to something productive as soon as possible, Gysel watched someone walk past her on the other side of the gardens glass wall: it was a man carrying a pot with a plant in it, and realized she might not have to go into town at all. Stuffing the rest of the sandwich into her mouth, she stood, then sat back down as it was far too much of a mouthful to chew while walking; choking to death was not in the day plan.

Once she was finished chewing, she hurried back to her room to get the pots and then returned to the cafeteria to find a way into the garden. Working her way along the wall, she eventually found the double doors leading in. Opening them, she stepped inside and was immediately subjected to the degree of humidity contained within: it was awful; feeling sweaty was bad enough, but this was far worse.

There was nowhere in the known world with a climate like this (to the north of the continent was forest, then the north-pole, then ocean; to the east there was ocean, more ocean, and then the west-side of the continent; and to the south the was ocean, and then the penguin-land, also formally called the south-pole by sailors and academics) and it seemed completely superfluous to keep annual summer plants in the kind of environment, but alas, it was between this and a trip into town, and five minute in this environment and some dirt under her nails was far better than having to navigate a new store.

At a brisk pace, she made her way through the rows of planters, looking for blue jasmine. All of the flowers were in bloom, but Gysel had no desire to admire them when she would not be able to differentiate their smell from the mixture of the whole garden. She found the blue jasmine at the end of the third row.

Placing her pots on the ring of the planter, she started picking up dirt by the fistful and filling her pots; mugwort would not care what soil it was grown in, so the soil for both plants could betaken from the same planter; it would also make the escape quicker.

"What do you think you're doing!" Someone yelled when Gysel just got started on filling the other pot. She did not stop moving scoops of the dirt into the pots and ignored the voice, even if the words and the growing footsteps that accompanied it were directed the soil-stealer. The steps stopped next to her, and she could see a pair of long leather boots in her peripheral: this was probably one of the gardeners.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes," Gysel said.

"Then what do you think you're doing?" Gysel kept shoveling dirt into the pot, but did not answer. The gardener dumped the full first pot back into the planter as Gysel finished filling the second. Quickening, Gysel started refilling the first pot. The gardener dumped the second one, confiscated it, then took the pot from Gysel's hand and confiscated it as well. With annoyance (despite being fully in the wrong) Gysel glared at the gardener.

"You can't walk in here and do that," he said, as he lifted the pots out of Gysel's reach and backed away, towards the door.

"Why?" Gysel followed the man; it was best to leave with grace in situations like this, as if one were to jump for the pots, and try to run, it would risk breaking the pots, and that would certainly not please Luhnylla.

"Because this belongs to the school and not to you." He made a motion with his foot to the door. Leaving would end the confrontation, but it would also mean that soil would have to be acquired in town: perhaps the face that usually worked on Wyohla would work on the gardener.

"I just need a little." Gysel asked, face contorting.

"If you had have asked first." He pulled the door open with his elbow, then propped it with the heel of his foot. The noise of the cafeteria flooded in. Gysel exited and turned back to the gardener. The humidity quickly vanished, only licking at her face from the doorway.

"Go into town and buy your own." The gardener handed Gysel the pots and stepped back into the garden. While he was shutting the doors, Gysel heard him mutter: "Damn student; always so cheap." Defeated, Gysel headed back to her room to drop off the pots, then head into town.

06/11/1111 EotTS 10: 39 Gysel walked slowly through the crowded streets of Thoranyn with her head down, only glancing up and above the rim of her glasses to see what stores surrounded her; for all intents and purposes, this wandering about was completely listless, as which stores did, or did not, contain the sought-after soil, was a complete mystery: the store where the seeds were purchased might work, but a florist or a standard garden store would be the better choice, but which ones were they?

Stolen story; please report. There was a tap on Gysel's shoulder, a large hand, the hand of a man, and she stumbled forward, away from it, clutching her chest, and Kawvel, then whipped around to see who it was: it was Visi.

"Hello, Gysel," He said, giving a brief smile, the squint gave it away, as his thick beard did not budge. He did not have his overcoat on to-day, instead its purpose was replaced by a thick wool sweater. It looked tight around his arms and chest, like Ardhy's tops tended to.

"Hello." Gysel shifted her hand so it was no longer before her heart, instead it was clutching Kawvel's head.

"You scared me."

"Sorry. I did call out to you. What are you in town for? I've never seen you out and about by yourself."

"I am not by myself; I have Kawvel. I am looking for dirt for growing jasmine and mugwort."

"Hmm." Visi ran his fingers through his beard.

"Wyohla took you shopping?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where you are going."

"No."

"Do you want help?"

"Yes."

"Then follow me." He started walking in Gysel's original direction. She followed closely behind him; he was large enough that crowds would move for him instead of the other way around; the crowds still closed fast, but if Gysel kept Visi's pace, and stayed on his heels, there was nothing to worry about.

"Why are you in town?" Gysel asked.

"I'm walking to the academy to see Lyma," Visi answered, as he veered to the right at the fountain.

"Figured I would look at the used bookstores and clothing stores on my way there. Do you want to come with me?"

"I don't have money."

"Then how do you expect to get the soil."

"I have some change from the other day that I hope will be enough for the soil."

"You know. If you wanted to, you could tutor people. I'm sure if you put up some signs saying you are willing to tutor people in Operative Alchemy studies people would be more than willing to pay you for your time."

Theoretically, being a tutor (especially one who possesses such a high degree of proficiency in Operative Alchemy) would be easy work, for easy money, but being a pedagogue required the presence of certain set of skills which were lacked in the potential tutor, and the lack of certain set of inhibitions which were present in the most knowledgeable student in subject of Operative Alchemy in the whole of the Thoranyn Academy of Alchemy and Magick, leaving said student with no faith in the possibility of possessing the ability to be a tutor, for two reasons: firstly, one would be required to spend significant amounts of time with multiple new people in a relationship that is purely professional, so between the pressure of the new person themselves, the need to stay on topic through out the entirety of the allotted tutoring time, and the desire to make them feel satisfied with their choice of tutor, the pedagogue would be rendered a stuttering mess, now, while this would fade over time as the pedagogue gets acclimated to the presence of the student or students, most students would likely cease their lessons, and seek out a more social, focused, and e—e—e—easy to understand tutor far before this point would be reach (like most people tend to do outside the realm of education and professional relationships); secondly, in the case of the student doing poorly, it would certainly be viewed as the fault of the tutor for not explaining the material properly or displaying the practical application in clear steps, thus, leaving the career of the tutor upon the performance of the student, and not the knowledge of the pedagogue.

After a few moments of silence, and a queer look from beneath the knit-brow of Visi, Gysel responded: "No."

"Then you should see if Wyohla will give you an allowance," Visi laughed. Even if Visi had only be regarded as a friend for roughly six days, his habit of providing quick, functional solutions to problems, always made him a joy to have around: a skill likely learned from managing the trouble-some Togwaer Twins.

"I will ask her. Do you think she will agree?"

"She probably will; she's commissioned clothing for Ardhy's cats on multiple occasions." The hat and boots now made a lot more sense—on the topic of Ardhy, what had Visi tried to say the other day at Wyohla's? it was an explanation of sigils was it not, the would be useful to know.

"Can you tell me about how the sigils work? You did not get to explain the other day, and I am curious," asked Gysel.

"Of course!" Visi looked back to Gysel with a wide smile, well, it was probably a wide smile, but it appeared as a thin line of teeth barely visible behind the beard. This was a bad idea, was it not...

"Please talk, while we walk."

"Sure, sure. So, at the very basic level, everything is a representation of Yahldox, which is the irrational metaphysical force that drives reality, the Will of reality in a way, well, this is argued, some think that the Yahldox is actual a mirage produced by ignorant creator who is trying to claim creation by obscuring it with Yahldox, but I, like most, don't really believe that. Anyway, the Yahldox is then separated and divided based on how it is perceived by man—these subdivisions are called Shskthalt.

So, everything is a representation of the Yahldox, and Shskthalt are a way of classifying these different representations of the Yahldox, no matter how unique they are. Does that make sense?" Visi opened the door to a bookstore.

"I think so," answered Gysel.

"I actually have a good way of explaining this, follow me." Holding the door open, he ushered Gysel in, then walked around her, taking the lead. The store was smaller than the book store by Bwouker's, but just as deep and similar in smell. Tall, wooden bookshelves sprouted out of the floor and ran up the walls, high enough that ladders on brass rods were required to reach the upper shelves.

The dark, large stone blocks that were used in the construction of the building were visible above the shelves, but only in the small patches lit by the wall sconces, leaving everything outside of light of the sconces was a uniform black void. Two long rows of wooden shelves (only small enough so they did not need a ladder) ran parallel with the walls and disappeared into the dim lighting. Visi waved to the middle-aged man behind the desk, and pushed forward, deeper into the store.

The hardwood floor creaked under his feet, as he walked to a shelf containing cookbooks, and removed one on pastries.

"This book is reality," Visi said, displaying reality, and flipping through its lard-stained pages with flour packed in spots on the margins nearest the spine.

"The book cover is Yahldox where everything originates from; the rear cover is you, where the information ends. The chapters, or recipes in this case, are the Shskthalt, the different divisions and form of Yahldox. It is important to know that Yahldox is what is known as the 'thing-in-itself' as it continues to persist even when you are not perceiving it; the recipe for oat-meal cookies is still present even if you are reading the recipe for pumpkin muffins. Got that?"

"Yes?" Gysel said slowly.

"Good," Visi flipped to the table of contents, and pointed to the page number of oatmeal cookies.

"You now know that oatmeal cookies are on page '75', but you have not perceived the actual recipe for the oatmeal cookies, but you know they exist. That page number is a Sigil, it allows one to become aware of the Yahldox as Shskthalt of oatmeal cookies, and gives them the ability to bring it into existence."

"So, if I want an oatmeal cookies, and I have the sigil for oatmeal cookies, and I look at it long enough, I will get an oatmeal cookie?" A nice, slightly undercooked oatmeal cookie would be wonderful right about now.

"No, you still need the ingredients to make oatmeal cookies. Think about how Ardhy still needed the wood and the air in order to make a fire. A sigil points to fire, or the deity associated with fire, but it cannot be used to create fire without the materials needed to make fire."

"But how does that actually create the fire?"

"We have no idea. It just does. That is sigillography as a whole, it just does. We know what does what, but not why." Visi shut the book, slid it back into its slot, and began wandering off towards the philosophy section.

"So what is the point?" Gysel asked, as she followed a long; there was nothing needed at the bookstore that could not be found at the Academy, and if something was needed, that was not at the Academy, it had yet to be perceived.

"Of sigils?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen them used on a large scale, or have you only ever seen them used in place of normal fires, or ice?"

"I have only heard of them beyond domestic contexts in a story Ardhy told the other day about someone vaporizing himself with moonlight. Even in the textbook I have been reading, the sigils are used for very basic things."

"So you have never read a military history book?" Visi said, as he pulled four of the same book from the shelf, flipped through them, and then headed for the counter.

"No."

"They use them on large scales in a lot of sieges, and in city construction. A lot of big capital cities, are rumored to be based on highly complex sigils, allowing for better fortifications and preparations for different."

"So they are only practical on a very small scale, or a very large scale?"

"Yes. More or less, you can also use them for transmutation, I feel like that would interest you the most, not like turning lead into gold, but combining things. They are also practical in Ritual Magick, but I am not a theologian, that would be Wyohla, she knows a lot about that stuff." Paying for the books, Visi removed a folded canvas bag from his back-pocket, shook it open, put the books inside, and headed for the door.

"We still have a few more places to go, is there anything else theory related you want to know?"