Fire backup

  Each of the houses in the Society of Sorcery has a fairly large "research room"; in this space Rhulan stands in the center with a ring of unlit candles around her, holding in her hand a single tall white candle, "tap twice to activate flame," she mutter as she *tap* *tap* s the candle on the corner of a pedestal, the whick ignites. She takes this candle and touches the flame to another candle, it ignites as well.

   "Very good," says Rhulan, "now,"

  She raises her index finger, "Candle Flame.", and a tiny flame like that of a candle floats above her finger, she ignites the candle to the left of the self lighting one.

   "Now, fire magic absorption experiment part 1."

   She grabs the flame of the self lighting candle, absorbing the flame into her hand as well as a tiny whisp of purple mana, the candle its self dissentegrates as Rhulan's fingernails turn black and elongate, the partcles of the candle fading into purple sparkles that flow into her hand.

   "I can feel it," she says, "While it seems to be a subconcious fill bar, I can feel I am filling it with fire magic; when it reaches the top I should be able to awaken a fire cataclysm transformation like the light one...and that Mystic Monster Netherian Succubus form...hmm, but this feels inadequet, I'd have to absorb a thousand times the number of candles in this entire city to accomplish this."

   She *smiles*, "I have lived over five centuries now, and this has always been part of my power set; to imagine that I had one of those powers they'd joke about. The whole, a power one could have their entire life and never know about. Or rather, aspects of a power that without specific conditions would never present themselves...magic, to absorb it and utilize it like this. Which brings me to.."

  She reaches out and grabs the flame lit by the self lighting candle, smothering the flame out, "The heat was deflected by my defense aura, but otherwise nothing, normal fire does nothing for the fill bar."

   She reaches out and grabs the one she lit herself smothering it, "Hmm, as I thought same as before, only difference is total immunity not even needing a defense; as expected, the natural astral defense against one's own power deflecting it into exotic space prevents absorption or deflecting it back into this space."

   "That leaves some of the odd ball candles they had here and the special elements,"

   One by one she taps them, a flame that looks like it is made of water, a cold flame, a glowing ball of electricity, a glowing sandstorm tornado, a violet sphere, and a ball of darkness.

   She grabs the dancing water, it looks strange as the water sweeps out like tendrils and is absorbed into her skin via blue glows, "a different bar...magical water. I see, I can deduce of course natural water does nothing...or I would have felt this numerous times before now. So a water cataclysm as well...hmm...I wander if other elements count."

   She grabs the violet sphere, it flashes violet and is absorbed, "Normal mana absorption, nothing new, I already unlocked that cataclysm of course, but I can conclude there is no need for a refill, this is a one time then permanently unlocked."

   She grabs the electric ball, some sparks dance about her fingers but she can feel yet another bar being filled for magic electricity. Grabbing the dark ball the same happens, only her hair turns black for half a second, and a shadow creeps up her hand seemingly distorting her hand into a shadow claw briefly, "A...much shorter bar it feels like, I might be able to pull this one off but...it feels...wild...aggressive...I will need to explore that aspect away from here."

   She tries to grab the glowing sand storm, but while there is a violet flash and she absorb the mana the sand just flies around thanks to the momentum, "So...I can't absorb geomancer magic specifically, just the mana. Huh...so much for all elements."

   She reaches out to cold flame, quickly pulling her hand back and *growling* through gritted teeth as she holds her hand, "The fuck!" she hisses as steam rises off her hand and glares at the cold flame. She has flown in space, walked on frozen worlds, all thanks to her celestial aura though, but even without it, cold never really bothered her before, but this...it bit right through her and was pulling her mana power out.

   "I...have a weakness," she hisses, "magical cold..."

   She glares at the cold fire and remembers seeing the others here practicing magic at the colliseum, Ice Bullet, Ice Sphere, Ice Spear, Frozen Lance, Ice Golem, Frost Blast, Ice Shield, Blizzard, ect... All sorts of attack and defense magic using magical ice; a common form of combat magic...and she has a weakness to it apparently.

   "They can never know," she declares, "let's try it like this,"

  A blue aura rises around her body, making her glow, an intense version of her Celestial Aura, the powerful version of her natural defense aura. She tentativly places her hand through the cold flame, it feels like its draining at the aura, but at least she isn't feeling any pain.

  "I know I can adapt," says Rhulan, "I will just need to practice my Celestial Aura and defense spells and skills against ice magic to cover this weakness. I had better keep practicing, I may have more.

   ******