[center]
[h1]Dawn of Excelsium[/h1][h2]Father of Weircraft[/h2]
[/center]
"I hate you! I hate all of you!" The old man, Aristel, yelled as he threw the various objects from this bench and out of his house. Round stones, bits of bark, carved bones, all of it was thrown out the doorway as garbage. He then collapsed in a crying fit upon his workbench. He was old. So old. He had witnessed the gods make this world into what it was. When he had seen it he knew: there was more to this world than met limited, mortal perceptions.

Ever since he made it his life's duty to uncover its secrets. And since then decades had passed. He had only recently found himself in Excelsium, and he had eagerly taken to the worship of Excelsis, hoping the god of Eminence would bless his study of the world.

But no, Aristel made no headway. He worked as a farmer during the day but ever since the Great Light ignited the sky, the world of life had gone into a frenzy. Tending the fields was impossible. For now, food was manageable. So he could devote more time to studying the greater world. Except none of it yielded any results. He never could figure out the esoteric essences of the material world no matter how hard he tried. And now, in his old age, he had grown beyond desperate and finally fell into despair. Was his entire life just a farce? A mistake born from young idealism or over-imagination?

Someone knocked on his door. Aristel did not respond. Still he heard his door open. "Who in the name of all that is holy would come in here [i]now[/i]!?" yelled the old man as he looked up from his empty bench. Before him stood Meris, the giant avatar of Excelsis. Warden of Mortality. Aristel fell to his knees immediately. It was more a response to the divine aura than anything else.

"Rise, Spark-Given. We must talk." Said Meris, his voice was graven and severe. Moments later, two chairs appeared for Meris and Aristel to sit down upon. "You have suffered many defeats, mortal." The avatar continued. "And yet Excelsis himself has deemed you fit for a... nudge."

Aristel recovered from his momentary bout of zealotry. The overwhelming aura of divinity ebbed away. He got on the chair and looked at Meris. "You sound...disapproving of this?" He said. He had noticed the slight, almost mortal inflection in the avatar's words.

"You are a failure," Meris said. "Your greatness never manifested. Your spark never even encountered a catalyst. By the laws of eminence you should be allowed to waste away." Aristel swallowed deeply. Those were hard words to hear. Luckily, Meris continued: "However, my Lord has deemed it necessary for mortality to be... accelerated. Thus, certain enlightenments are deemed necessary." Meris didn't move but Aristel's entire vision was immediately consumed by light.

Not his sight but his mind was flooded with a thousand visions. He saw himself standing in a thousand locations at once, doing weird things with his arms, speaking strange words, gazing deep into fire, gathering feathers from weird birds. None of it made sense. The visions were too much. He screamed out in pain as he felt his mind breaking. Right at the edge of what a mortal man could endure the visions stopped as suddenly as they came.

"What... did you do?" Aristel asked.

"A push. You are blessed and cursed. Your Spark is forcefully ignited. If you remain here, it will consume you with no result. The answers you require lie beyond the horizon. Wander, Aristel of Excelsium. Return when you have encountered your catalyst, and you've been victorious. Or die."

[center]~[/center]

Those had been some harsh words coming from an avatar. Aristel remembered them clearly. Even as he was trekking over some truly strange landscapes. All around him there was white. He had tasted it, and it was foul. The whole place was covered in white, crystalline sand that smelled horrible. It was hot and exhausting here.

He wasn't exactly sure why he was wandering through the white, stinking hellscape that was these sand plains. All he knew was that his Spark yearned for something hidden within it. So he wandered. His lips were chapped and dried out. A day ago he had drunk the last bit of his fresh water. As he walked, he realized that he was feeling unusually driven. Before Meris' visit he would never have thought of bearing starvation or wilting like a plant for lack of water. Now... somehow... some vague promise made it all seem worth it.

His eyes were getting dry. That was a strange sensation. Especially because they made noticing things far away difficult and just now he thought he was seeing the first thing rise out of the saltflats. "Hopefully I'm not hallucinating." He said to himself as he got closer.

The thing he had found was massive and made of various stones. His mind was racing as he got closer. What was it? He kept getting closer, then heard a rumbling coming from it. It wasn't a building. It was a creature! A living, yet somehow immobile creature! "Hail!" Aristel yelled as he ran over. "Hail! You live too! Something alive in these god-forsaken la-"

Light flashed from the stone creature, and again Aristel's mind was assaulted by visions.

[center]~[/center]

The woodland madman they were calling him. They were the wandering tribes of the area. He was half-blind and spoke weirdly as he walked through the forests, gathering strange bits of the world. Some tribes visited him, believing he possessed divine wisdom to share. He had none. None of them were important. When he spoke, he spoke of things they couldn't understand. Perfect circles, the essences of the world, the hidden esoteric meanings of every shape and object in the world.

"So why a circle!?" He rambled on as he was drawing the circle around a tree trunk. Most of the tree lay a bit further. The trunk had broken because of a storm. "Because it moves around. it goes around. No angles to get caught in. Very important! If it gets caught, it concentrates. You don't want it to concentrate!" Aristel yelled as he pointed his stick at a curious little Imantail. "If it concentrates, it goes beyond control. Always circles!" He yelled, a she continued his work. He drew more circles at the edge of the main one around the trunk.

"Then you have to have the formula right. And the offering. I've got it... i think. I'm not sure what will happen if I don't. Maybe I explode." He stopped drawing the new circles for a minute and looked sideways. A deer had joined the Imantail, as if the natural world was coming in to check on him. "I'll be fine. I have to be fine. If I explode now, how on earth will they make figures of me? And they'll have to make figures of me." He mumbled to himself as he kept drawing. Then he put in each new circle an object. A bone, a piece of sinewy flesh, and bread.

"Oh great power of motion. I call upon you. Bless this tree. Give it your power. Make it move. I beseech you, oh powers of portations, bless-" He kept the chant up for thirty exhausting minutes. He didn't know how he knew the chant beyond that the golem of the saltflats had somehow... taught it. Or rather etched its knowledge in his mind.

It was a significant first attempt for mortalkind to call upon certain forces in a very organized manner. An admirable one too. Sadly, it was not a perfect one. The bread was wrong. The Ideal of Motion that was being called took one metaphysical look at the ritual and knew the mortal had screwed up. As Aristel finished the chant the Ideal decided to send its message.

"Bless this tree trunks with locomotion!" Aristel finished the chant and felt every muscle in his body stiffen. This wasn't the plan. With arms held up high he fell backwards into the ground. His body was paralyzed, as if his own locomotion was stolen. But how!?

[center]~[/center]

Hector was brought before the crazed old man at Excelsium's edge. As Scion of War he was amongst the first and foremost Spark Gifted of the growing village. "They say you're either dangerous or a genius." He said to the old man. "I'm here to judge. Who are you?"

"Aristel! Name's Aristel. I'm not dangerous, I am a genius!" He spoke with infallible confidence but his ragged appearance made it difficult to believe. Luckily, Hector was known to be merciful.

"What are you a genius of?" Asked Hector.

"Weircraft!" Aristel said. "I am the first founder of esoterism! And the creator of Weircraft! Excelsium will find it very useful. Especially in this life-choked world now."

Someone leaned into to Hector and said something. He frowned and sighed, then looked at Aristel again. "What is this weircraft and please, be quick about it."

"Why, it's this!" He gestured behind him, towards the towering field of wild wheat that had grown twice the height of a man. Everyone frowned for a second. They mumbled about it being just the while plants. Until something groaned from inside the field. A large, lumbering shape appeared. It was a walking tree trunk. it was walking on its roots. People screamed and panicked. Hector shot upright and grabbed his spear. The walking tree trunk groaned as it reached the edge of the field and then settled down. A soft glow from the softer wooden "joints" of the roots vanished. The tree trunk returned to being just that.

"See!" Aristel proclaimed. He hadn't moved at all. The moving tree trunk was behind him. He had given it a simple motion command: wait about fifteen minutes and then move across the field. Stop at the edge of the field. It was all he wanted it to do, as a demonstration and it had worked flawlessly.

A lot of people in Excelsium were terrified of the sight. A lot of them but not Hector, who looked at the madman Aristel, who was balancing on a perilous knife's edge. "You can teach this?" Hector asked.

"Yes!" Aristel proclaimed proudly.

From higher up the hill, in the village, Meris watched with a passive expression. The mortal's mind was damaged by the intervention. He would live long enough to act as a founder of this 'Weircraft' but it would be his students who would bring prosperity with it to Excelsium.

[hider=Summary]
Meris “blessing” - In-Domain Specific Target - Avatar
Aristel’s spark was forced to burn. Due to a lack of a catalytic event in Aristel’s life, the flame would consume him if he didn’t go out to find such a catalyst.
(-1 Conviction, Lucid action performed by an Avatar)

We find Aristel, an old man, getting angry because his research isn’t giving him any of the information he wants. Meris visits him and forcefully activates his spark, giving him the option. Either he goes out to find his catalyst, or he dies. Consumed by the flame.

Next we see Aristel traversing some salt flats. He reaches a stranded knowledge golem, who etches some information in his brain.

Then we find Aristel attempting the ritual for the first time. He is trying to animate a tree trunk through asking for the aid of the Ideal of Motion. It fails. Aristel used a wrong ingredient. He is paralyzed.

Finally he returns to Excelsis and shows a tree trunk moving. His ritual was a success. But he is old. He will teach Excelsis the foundation of ritual Magick.[/hider]