Dungeon Battle

by Andrew Bardsley

  Ok, thought Ahava, this reads very much like the scientific papers I used to read.

  Ahava read further into the article. The introduction about Metaphysics outlined how it could be used to change the essence of reality. The 'Classical Elements Metaphysics System’ shown in the H-Stats application detailed the classical elements from the understanding of the ancients of earth, water, air, fire, and ether, which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. The following sensible qualities decided the elements, as Fire is both hot and dry; Air is both hot and wet (for air is like vapor); Water is both cold and wet; Earth is both cold and dry; and the concept of ether was used to explain several natural phenomena, such as the traveling of light, gravity, and space-time.

  This is really heavy stuff, thought Ahava and carried on reading, while intently gazing at the screen:

  Each of the elements has three properties. Fire is sharp, subtle, and mobile while its opposite, earth, is blunt, dense, and immobile; they are joined by the intermediate elements, air and water, in the following fashion.

  The article detailed that the elements exist in the world around him in different degrees. The concentration of the elemental energies depended on the surrounding environment. If he was close to seas, lakes or rivers then there was a greater concentration of the water element. When he was around a fire, then the concentration of the fire element would be high. There were other examples detailed as well, but Ahava wanted to move on to how to use the elements.

  Going back to the article, it stated the following point that Ahava found useful:

  The flux rate value in the H-Stats application described the amount of the element he could channel;

  The value would increase with use of the elemental power or interaction with the elements in the form it was found in the environment or living creatures;

  The flux rate could be transferred to and from Ahava into materials and other living creatures;

  When channeling the elemental powers the power came from the environment. An example the text explained was if he was using the fire element to produce a flame, the surrounding temperature in the environment would drop;

  The channel of the elements could be both positive and negative, i.e., for fire you could heat up an item with a flame or use the power to remove heat that would freeze items;

  In addition, the elemental powers could be stored in materials that represented the elements that could be drawn upon for a use at a later date;

  Aristotle's Rhetoric Emotions was a system that described the emotional and intellectual interaction between creatures. The flux rate worked on the same principle as the elemental powers. The only difference was that power came from creatures, including himself; and

  All elements and emotions could be mixed for different properties and effects.

  Ahava put the computer tablet down, on the now-cold stone floor of the cave. Jumping up with excitement and pacing around the small cave, he felt the first real happiness since arriving. He had always loved playing the Magician in any game, as the idea intrigued him. This system seemed to have an element of what could be considered magic. With rising excitement, he went back to reading the article on the tablet.

  At the bottom of the article was a link to a video clip on how to start using the system. Before Ahava could click on the link an information box popped up on the tablet screen. Ahava read it:

  Top Tip

  These elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the four humors: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water). Medical care was primarily about helping the patient stay in or return to his/her own personal natural balanced state.

  OK, thought Ahava, a combined use of the elements of fire, earth, air, and water can be used for healing. That is useful to know, as I will certainly need healing if things carry on being as dangerous as they have been today.

  Ahava finally clicked on the link to the video clip. The application ’H-TV' started up and ran a video of a man in strange robes talking. The style of the video was like the ‘Open University’ program that used to run during the seventies. It was very dry and factual, with bad lighting and backdrops.

  What Ahava understood from the 10-minute tutorial was that the control of the powers was all down to his imagination. There were no chants or other magical trickery involved in this system; the power could be used by any part of his body or any inanimate object he infused with the power; the control depended on the sensitivity of feeling he had, i.e., he could get finer control using the tips of his fingers, as they were most sensitive to touch. All the different powers could be mixed for different effect; it was up to him to experiment to gain understanding. The flux values gave the distance from him the powers could reach and the size of the effect, and each decimal was roughly equal to a millimeter.

  Putting the computer tablet back in the laptop bag. Ahava got up and rubbed his hands together with excitement. He had always enjoyed experimenting. He had even done three years of research as an engineer.

  Right, he thought, time to have a go. I will try out the fire first, as it may have the most direct effect.

  Moving to a darker part of the cave and facing the back wall, so he could see the fire as it formed, Ahava pointed his index finger up and away from his body. He imagined a flame coming out of the top of his index finger. What appeared was a small flame, about two centimeters big, coming from the top of his index finger. The flame was yellow in appearance, like a candle flame, but with no soot coming off the top. The first thing he felt was the excitement of what he had just done. Then a sharp burning pain on the tip of the index finger hit him. Letting the flame disappear, he waved his hand in the air to try and cool it and then sucked his finger. Slowly the pain subsided and he was left with a burn mark on the tip of his finger.

  Still ecstatically happy with what he had achieved, he thought about what he had done wrong. Ahava remembered from the tutorial that the flux values also determined the distance the elemental power would reach from his body. With this in mind, he tried again, with his middle finger, imagining a flame about two centimeters from this finger. The time the same flame appeared just two centimeters above the middle finger. He screamed with excitement and waved the flame around in the air.

  For a while Ahava just stood there watching the small flame; it seemed like it could go on forever. He now experimented with turning up the power. Nothing happened. He then slowly thought about lowering the power, and the flame size got smaller and dimmer until it went out. The next thing he tried was having a flame come from each of his fingers on a hand. This produced four small flames a small distance from each finger. All the flames were smaller than the one he had created before. Then he tried a flame on the top of his palm, which was a slow, lazy flame over the entire area of his palm.

  This is great, thought Ahava, but not very powerful. Maybe that will come in time when the flux value increases. The next thing I should try is mixing another elemental power with fire.

  He decided to try air. Again, he imagined a flame out of his middle finger. After he had a steady flame, he imagined adding air to the flame. The flame immediately turned a light shade of blue. This was like when using a Bunsen burner in a chemistry class; when opening the air vent the flame changed from a yellow to blue. This gave a much hotter flame. Ahava moved over to the wood pile and directed the flame onto a piece of wood. This started to burn a two-centimeter hole in the wood. Playing around with the flame, he imagined it as very thin. The flame was still two centimeters long and about as thin as a pencil lead. The flame had a greater intensity. Ahava moved it across the wood and it acted like a small cutting touch.

  Very pleased with what had happened so far, Ahava spent the next few hours experimenting with different elemental powers and variations on different mixtures of the powers.

  Ahava thought that his findings could be summed up in the following points:

&nb
sp; One, fire produced fire, as expected;

  Two, with the earth elemental power he could change the shape of rocks, stone, and dust, At the moment he could only make fine needles and indents about a finger width. But if he moved his finger over the rock slowly, he could slowly form it into the shape he wanted. It just took a long time;

  Three, the air elemental power pushed air like a fan. If he added a small amount of fire then the air was hot. With a small amount of negative fire, the air was cold;

  Four, the water elemental power seemed to pull water out of the air, forming droplets that got bigger over time. He then could move the water around and control its shape;

  Five, ether was a difficult elemental force to understand. Initially he formed a strange bubble above his finger that distorted the light going through it. He tried it with the other elemental forces;

  With air two things were apparent: you could get a sense of the space around and what was in it. This was like a three-dimensional model you could examine from all sides. He could also levitate small objects;

  Using earth with ether gave him a sense of what elements were in the earth or rocks. Using the earth elemental power, he could then separate out the materials and shape them. As with everything else, this took a long time;

  Six, Earth, water and air together enabled him to shape wood; and finally,

  Seven, Earth, water, air and fire together enabled him to heal some of the scratches he got from moving the wood earlier today. He also healed the burn on his finger.

  After all of what happened today, Ahava fell asleep by the fire. During the night he dreamed of his family.

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