Wayfare Magic

In silent skies we speak
In dead words, we sing a tune
To a time that was forgotten
For the hope that we would see again
When the stars open their eyes
Do you know the folly of your effort
When your words died in your throat
Do you know that it is not you
Who controls the power you hold,

Where symphony once rang, we sing
In words alive, bright, and full
To the future that is ours to know
For the hope that we would meet again
When the stars open their eyes
Do you know the power you hold
For your words breathe new creation into being
Do you know that it is you
Who controls the gift they gave you

Walk through these halls and hear your footsteps ring through the vastness, listen to the echo back, and it's echo beyond. Open your ears to the world around oneself, listen closer. Drown out the cacophony of thought, drown out the songs you hear. Deeper still in this cavern of sound, silence your curiosity, for you need wonder left to endure. Silence the world around you Child, her song is quiet.
Her voice was the one, this afterglow. The one of creation, the one of beginnings, the one of endless potential. Her voice to ring our past the boundaries you know, past life and death, past time and space, past to where existence ceases to have meaning. Her voice remains, listen Child. Silence your fears, Silence the noise, feel the weight of it in between here and now. Between the spaces of nothing and everything.
Listen deeply, hear her voice. Remember that song, Child, for it is also your own voice. Two become one, one to become all. Where four singers created this Grand Symphony in this Divine Quartet, join your voices with theirs and bask in the glory of their song.
Trust not the songs you hear now, though. Those songs, your song, your voice. Tainted. Darker notes of a fifth discordant song. It clouds the mind from the truth; it hides in the light, pretending to be everything. Trust not the voices of the Shadows, Child. Fear their song, by the gods, Child. Fear it.

First Lessons

by Thereasonwhy

The Guild teaches a magic system that does not exist in any other disciplines in any capacity, yet synergizes effortlessly with those same systems. Whereas the College of Welkford that teaches the magics of the body, to heal, to grow, to cure, they cannot manipulate to the full extent. A Wayfare can and may heal without ever learning the same magic. A Combat Mage or the Sage of Huron can bring an unfathomable amount of destruction, untold terraforming, and even seal the wounds of this earth. Yet, a Wayfare can and will bring greater changes. Through force or mind, it matters so very little. The magic of the mind can change and alter perception and cloud the reality of the weave, yet a Wayfare needs no tricks to change reality around them.

The casters are chosen for a plethora of reasons, for joining the Guild is based off merit and skill. Anyone may request to become a member, but to ascend into the higher Branches of the Tree requires the trust of the One. To become one of the few, though, the inner circle, the ones who know... is a different option altogether.

"We can all ascend, eventually we all will. It is a gift given to us by that distant Song."
"What do you mean, Enlightened?"
"In time, you will learn."

Requisites all Acolytes must possess are such: be willing to open the mind to a degree not thought possible, to free oneself of limitation. Doubt is not a thought nurtured in any of the guild halls. A caster cannot ascend higher if they are proficient in physical based magics. Healing magic, combat, and even the vast majority of utility spells, a caster should not be comfortable with. For the Guild sees these types of magic as verifiably false. A weakened form that will never grow to its full potential. They acknowledge they are powerful, very much useful, yet the Guild can teach much more should one ascend higher.

Deeper Understanding

Much of what the Guild teaches is about how things move through the Branches of the Great Tree through a principle called: Fractal planes. Where they teach acolytes how to cast basic teleports from point A to point B. They teach that the Fabric of reality that one sees with their eyes is only one layer to the Song. Should the acolyte be able to manifest this in their mind, and pull these two points in the fabric closer together, and then close them, they have learned the first real lesson.

The Wayfares practice this with increasing difficulty, as students are able to push and pull, to raise and lower the pitch of this instrument, this thing we call reality, they are asked to pull from further and further away. They will be asked to hold the portal open for longer and longer until the second lesson stands firm.

The Second Lesson

They teach a truth of the world that many other systems and religions find heretical. That a mortal can influence reality around them. A small soul still holds great strength. They teach acolytes that the voice of their soul is the source of this ability to grab at the world around them and influence it. As soon as the acolyte can understand that their mortal hands can do what a god can, they will learn the next fundamental truth.

Song's Afterglow

While only the Enlightened and the God's Eye's know the history and the source of this energy, it can be utilized by all. Understanding that it is there is only the first step; to understand that all magic uses this energy is one step closer to knowing the truth of this world. Acolytes are taught to center their minds on their heartbeat, a steady drum to set the tempo of this song. To understand that the world around them is but a song to be played with is the reality of this Fabric. A change in tempo, pitch, tune, or key changes what happens.

As such, if the acolyte understands this lesson, they will understand the first lesson. The call of their soul as they grab hold of this song is but another note being played. However, these students of this grand symphony sometimes wonder why this song is an echo of what it used to be. They begin to wonder why they are taught that reality flows in great streams like winding branches. They begin to wonder why they are taught about a song that ripples out in space and time, while being told that it is all a Fabric.

Should the student question this, they will be given the choice: Ascend, or opt out. Those who find these questions troubling often opt out. They are expelled from the guild, but they are still allowed to return. Though the student is never again allowed to be taught the lessons of the Guild. Should the acolyte choose to Ascend, they will become Heightened and be taught the next lessons of the magic.

The song they are being taught that manipulates the plane of reality is broken. A song interrupted, silenced. A scream of an onlooker to fracture that silence. That shattering of this song to be pulled in unnatural ways into the semblance of something remembered. Vast pieces of broken planes pulled into the shape of a Great Tree, though the reality around them is broken, it is all still connected and therefore still able to be influenced by the song.

The Basis of the Magic

The Magic of the Wayfares is this:

A soft and soundless song that permeates every facet of reality. A song that can be played with through the soul, a gift given from a time long ago. To play the song of a god through a Divine Spark. But, it is also the understanding that this song is broken, through a scream felt far out into that same distant causality. To be a Wayfare is to be able to sing that same song and understand that it influences the world.

Powerful Wayfares

Gjorn Fourth king of Dwarves is an enigmatic caster on the Branches of the Tree. Having solved many of the conditional aspects of their magic baring them from returning home to The Elsewhere. He pioneered Branch Walking to allow for travel between realities without being seen, that is to say, without the Black Ring from manifesting to wherever the Caster had foolishly called on forces that they didn't understand. He is currently one of the most powerful casters to walk the continent, having learned to use this magic by the first Wayfare herself.
God's Eye's: Odeza: Scout Realm is a preeminent pioneer in the school of magic. Once finding herself trapped in the same threats her predecessors once did, unable to return home without being followed. She constructed great networks of communications that were never noticed by the Black Ring, able to warn others. Able to give orders, able to transfer information far more freely between the upper echelon of the Guild, only her voice was teleported to a target. A trick that was quickly adopted by a great many others.
Gods Eye's: Netzet: Scout Cosmos is considered one of the few masters of the physical world. His ability to manipulate matter is unmatched, being on par with the lords of old. His will defined what the world looked like, his flair for imagination line with his own dry sense of humor. He is well known in the world for having wiped a mountain off the map during the First Great War. Having teleported the bottom of the ocean to the peak of that great stone bulwark, the pressure alone caused a shockwave that echoed across the world several times.

Queen of the Fae is an entirely unknown figure within the organization of the Guild; however, every member swears fealty to her and her alone. One of the four Original gods that walked the world, one of the original voices one must hear to use her magic. The Originator, the First Wayfare. Her scream at witnessing her family fall tore the fabric apart, shattering the world. Because it is her voice that shattered the world behind her as she escaped the Shadows, her song is prevalent in the utilization of the whole school of magic. Teaching the surviving Children what she had done, they had built this new school to travel back to the world they had left behind for The Pocket she had sewn into the fabric of reality.
Though much of this became a one-way trip for the first waves of Wayfares returning to the shattered world. Originally having the mission to be her eyes to watch what was happening and then to report back to her. However, this proved impossible as the use of her magic was immediately noticed by the Black Ring, suspected to be the Shadows. A suspicion that had been proven time after time, as time went on, they learned to sing her song in different notes, off-key, backwards, and flipped. Her song would still work, just in a way that kept them safe while they toiled to find a way home, until Gjorn had come.
The Queen was quick to learn what he had done as he first Branch Walked into the Pocket dimension. Using his knowledge to perfect the school of magic even more. Tuning her own voice in a way that could no longer be heard by the Shadows, gifting her Wayfares and God's Eye's the ability to use the full range of their abilities. To truly use their power in metaphysical aspects.

The Spellbook:

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane

Domains of Influence

• Temporal disruption: Manipulate time to a degree, while moving backwards or forwards in time isn't possible for a mortal, sideways is always a possibility. Pausing time causes far too many imbalances; moving from timestream to timestream can adjust positioning, informational gaps, to see the dead once more. The possibilities are limitless when moving between timestreams, or one should say, realities.

• Material Manipulation: The truth in front of you is but one song. What you hold in your hand is but one note in this grand symphony; change the note. Change water to earth, lead to gold, reality to fiction. The truth is subjective to the viewer of the world, divine or not; the chemical and physical world are but vectors to this truth.

• Teleportation: Distance means nothing, the original fabric of the world was but one piece, now shredded. Bring those pieces together, and with your voice, with it, be stitched together for a moment. Finding one point to another is a simple endeavor until the mind realizes its true potential. Mass amounts of people and cargo can be moved in a single instance, or a well placed dagger in the dark...

• Weaving Minds and Souls: We are our own song, our own symphony made from the music that was lost. To hear your own notes is another matter; to understand your rhythms and beats is to know. To hear the crescendo an octave above is to change what is needed. Lest we forget our own tune, let the instrument of your soul strum the strings of the mind. Change.

Discordant Notes

• Liminal existence: Lest we forget our place in this song, our notes still must harmonize with her Great Song. To abuse this magic is to be noticed by darker things, Shadows of what was to be. Their eyes to manifest in your mind, to rip and tear to know where you had learned her cursed voice. The Caster may very well lose all sense of self and have their notes changed by the very enemies that stole the gods power from them.

• Partial Transport: Sounds much less disgusting than it truly is. A failed teleport can be just as lethal as it is horrifying. Failing to teleport an entire verse in the song can result in pieces being left behind or ending up in a destination that cannot support life. Like a planet without an atmosphere, for example.

• Broken Strings: Playing with the fabric can be complicated, as you toy with the same forces of creation, so too do you play with the tools that made you. Failed spells cast on oneself can break fundamental portions of one's own song; an irreversible condition can lead to many things: deformities, illnesses, mental diseases, the silencing of one's own song (inability to ever cast magic again), or unpleasant ways to die.

• The Black Ring: Hush now, child, you have been noticed by them. As the ring of Eight Eyes surrounds you, speak not, breathe not, try to fade away. They watch you, they know you now. You have spoken too loudly, you sang with the voice they wish to silence. You can never escape them; we cannot take you back, we cannot allow them to follow you to the Sanctuary. You no longer exist to us, for they will follow. Succumb to their corruption if you will, but never speak our names, never give them the knowledge we gave you. Cruel they are.

Related Content:

• God's Eye Odeza

• Gods Eye's: Netzet: Scout Cosmos

• The Day the gods Went Silent

• Lecture of A Wayfare Acolyte

• Wayfare: Duty of a God's Eye's

• The EndSong

"And go, my wayfaring children, be my eyes into a poisoned world. Watchers of broken skies, become enlightened and safeguard the paths back to this place between worlds. This place, Elsewhere."

Show spoiler

The magic is born of a distant figure, born out of the grief of tragedy. Should one ascend to the Highest heights, one would meet the true leader of the Wayfares and gain a true understanding of the world and how it functions. The Queen of the Fae commands the Guild alongside The Elsewhere, her actions during the fall of The Quartet are the reasons that reality is shattered. That song was ended when Vilorlith fell.