A shimmering stasis field of Force energy…

[Corvus Raaf]

Under any circumstance, Corvus loved to spend time at the Meditation Pavilion. It was probably her favourite place in the whole of the galaxy.

She typically used it for quiet and reflective learning but today she was about to train two of her Padawans in a less demure Ability - Force Barrier. So she came armed with a small box containing all manner of props to help them in that training. All that was missing were the students, but as Corvus was early, she knew she'd be along any moment now.

She was unsure if they’d met but as they both wanted to learn the same thing, she figured it made a lot of sense.

[member="Dair Cotarin"] | [member=["Kaia Vullen"]

 

[H3xle]

The meditation pavilion. As a newcomer, Dair had spent a great deal of time in there. The serenity of the place, he had been told, would allow him to advance his meditative training to control the dreams and memories of his younger life. Since becoming a padawan, however, he had spent less time there than he would have liked. He didn't think it had become a crutch, instead more like a place he could unwind in ways that were simply impossible other places.

Now, his Master was teaching him a new force power in the meditation pavilion. He was excited for two reasons, one was that he had a reason to return to the Meditation pavilion and two was that he loved to learn new ways to interact with the force. He never felt anywhere near at ease as when he was deeply in tune with the force, letting it flow through him and direct him. Now he was going to be communing with the force in a new way, in the meditation pavilion. He couldn't think of a better way to spend a morning.

He stepped into the quiet serenity of the pavilion and looked around for a moment before spotting [member="corvus raaf"]. He turned to her and walked over, unable to help his exuberant smile. He did, however, manage to keep his voice pitched low enough so as to not disturb anyone who might be nearby meditating.

"Greetings, my master." He said with a bow that was possibly more formal than Corvus liked. Dair mentally reeled himself back in. In a place like this he needed to remember to control his font of energy and not let excitement overwash him.

[member="kaia vulllen"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

Kaia was not far behind Dair. She walked quickly with a certain spring in her step, yet not making much more noise than one walking normally. She had spent some time in the meditation pavilions, but perhaps not as much as she should. Often, she had taken her meditation elsewhere, closer to the trees and the wild plants.

She did recognise Dair, they had both been on Antar. She could not remember any other shared experience, yet Kaia had great respect for the older Padawan. She walked up next to Dair and bowed to each in turn, her perpetual grin ever present. She was perhaps not as tactful as Dair when it came to controlling her energy output, but she preferred not to speak in the pavilion unless she absolutely had to. She was also still a little uncertain how to politely speak to a more experienced Padawan.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus smiled - as ever. "If you haven't met formally before, consider this a formal hello. The funny thing is, you must be something like the fifth and sixth Padawans to ask for Force Barrier training in the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd make this a team session. More interactive."

"So," Corvus rummaged in the box at her side and pulled out a stun blaster. Her smile widened and then she put it away. "Just kidding...although before the lesson it out, it's likely you'll be trying to stop it."

"What I intend to do is give you instruction, you practice on each other and I step in with tips as and when. And, as is often the case when learning a new Ability, I'll ask you to both start by Meditating. Centre yourselves and once I sense you're ready, we can proceed."

[member="Kaia Vullen"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

Dair nodded silently, schooling his features into calmness as he sought his center. He closed his eyes and let the serenity of the pavilion wash through him on waves of the force. He let himself drift into the icy center that was his essence in the force, letting it suffuse his limbs and body with its icy power. Re-invigoration was not the goal, however, and Dair shifted his body accordingly.

As this was a power to be used in battle, Dair decided that a standing meditation was called for, as he would only use battle abilities from the ground in the most dire of circumstances. He shifted his feet to be slightly more than shoulder width apart, then bowed his knees until his thighs were at roughly a forty-five degree angle to his calves. His feet were pointed forward and his butt was positioned as if he were sitting in a sling. His back was perfectly erect, his head and neck unbowed and his face forward as well. Dair took several deep, steady breaths. With each one he sank deeper and deeper into a meditative state, the feel of the calm ice in his core exuding from his skin in a peculiar aura of frost.

Dair continued the deep breathing, letting his hands rest on the forward part of his thighs as he did so. Now, however, he would open his eyes. They were unfocused, allowing the peripheral to occlude the sharper sense of sight. With each deep breath, Dair took in the serenity of the pavilion and the force, and with each exhale he would release tension and emotion.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] [member="Kaia Vullen"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

As Corvus pulled out the stun blaster, Kaia seemed almost thrilled at the prospect of blocking a blaster this early, even if it was hilariously unlikely to succeed. Yet, she was not disappointed in it being a joke.

She had never seen quite the stance Dair entered for meditation before, and the icy aura was quite peculiar to her. She noted it for later, as she sat down on her knees. As pre-practice centring meditation goes, she preferred to keep it as basic as possible. Her legs folded under her, her butt resting on and a little between her heels. Her hands rested on her thighs; the left one cupping the right and her thumbs lightly touching, making a straight line between her hands. Her back was straight and her gaze.. Well it could be difficult for others to tell, but it was relaxed and turned inwards. Her breath quieted as she inhaled through the nose and exhaled through the mouth.

She had the sensation of trickling water and sinking, which usually was a good sign for her centring. The sensation sunk into her abdomen, her physical centre. Meanwhile, her breath anchored her mind and emotions, exhaling stress, worry, fear, aggression, and inhaling serenity, stillness, peace, and the distinct scent of the pavilion, which always brought her to a certain easiness. She gathered all the good things in her centre and expelled the stored up bad things so that the Force may flow through her better.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Aware they were both centred, Corvus kept her voice low and calm, barely above a whisper but clearly audible.

"Now pull the Force to you. Allow it to fill your body. And once you've done that, imagine turning the Force into a barrier. And push it out from your body. Initially this barrier might be you-shaped, like some suit of armour. But push it out so it becomes a sphere"

"Some imagine it to be a bubble, almost liquid in consistency. Others imagine it to be a shell. It matters not. What's important is that you believe it will be a protection against projectiles or even gasses."

[member="Kaia Vullen"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

As his Master spoke, Dair continued to draw in deep breathes and exhale them slowly. She instructed them to fill themselves with the force, visualize a barrier and push it out. The first two were fairly simple things for Dair, he sedately drew in the force, lletting it flow through the icy pool and fill him with cool power. He ensured that he was as full as he could get without straining, such strain would break the meditative state he had formed.

In the years he had been training on Ossus, Dair had realized that the force manifested to him and through him as ice. With that in mind, Dair visualized a bubble of icy force forming around him. He painted the image in his mind, attempting to make it perfect. When he was satisfied with the visualization, Dair began to push. He pushed the icy bubble out from himself and into the air around him. He placed the edge of his bubble a little less than half way between himself and Kaia, not wanting to impede on her own attempts with it. Visualizing the placement and the entity, he pushed harder and tried to manifest the barrier.

Dair had focused to hard on the ice portion of his barrier, trying to make it to physical, not fluid enough. Something went wrong as Dair formed a three inch wide ring of ice all the way around him, at the exact placement that he had wanted his barrier to be. The ice continued to build until it was roughly three inches high, before Dair realized that he was doing this wrong. He stopped and looked, staring dumbfounded at the ring of ice around him.

On Cyrillia he could have sworn that he had manifested ice in some way, but he didn't really remember. Crashing through that wall had knocked him a bit silly and Dair had put it off as a fluke or just a force push that had taken his seeming ubiquitous ice theme to the next level. This was the first time that he had actually manifested ice without a battle raging around him. He'd have to ask about that, but it wasn't germane to the ability they were practicing.

Finding his center, Dair once again sought to visualize the bubble. He stayed away from trying to make it ice, going with the liquid idea that Corvus had said some do. He spent a few minutes visualizing a mostly transparent bubble of liquid around him that would be impervious to projectiles and gasses. Once he had the idea in his mind, Dair pushed it out, going much more carefully. He kept the idea in his head that this was to be a mutable bubble, and slowly a liquid bubble seemed to grow up out of the ice ring that had been laid down before. It was shot through with various fractal patterns, much like ice would or snow flakes, but it shimmered as if purely liquid.

Now would come the strain of having to maintain it. Dair settled further into his stance and focused on breathing and maintaining the barrier.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] [member="Kaia Vullen"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

Pull the Force to you. Allow it to fill your body.

She pulled the Force to her, as instructed. It felt as though she was standing under heavy, refreshing rain, which flowed into her centre. She lacked Dair's experience with the Force, and so she used more time gathering it, moulding it, leading it while letting it flow.

Imagine turning the force into a barrier. And push it out from your body.

She imagined a bubble automatically, as she let it expand the first one popped right after leaving her body. She started again, moulding the next bubble thicker, more condensed before she expanded it. First it felt like inflating an external Kaia, but she moulded it into a ball, or a balloon. This was hard work, it was difficult to find the balance between expanding and maintaining the liquid bubble. Too fast, and it would burst, too slow and it seemed to retract inside her as if there was a leak.

Believe it will be a protection from missiles or even gasses.

When it took a sizeable form it was still a fair bit smaller than Dair's shield. It shimmered with a certain opalescent quality, and quivered a little like bubbles tend to do, but she believed it would protect her. She smiled contently inside the bubble, though maintaining it was as taxing as creating it. She sure hoped this would become easier with practice.

[member="Dair Cotarin"] | [member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus nodded to both. "Excellent work. Now early on you'll find it can be quite tiring to maintain a Barrier. With time and practice it can become stronger and you can keep it fixed for longer. The key is that every time it is damaged, you have to pull more Force to repair it."

"So, given there are to of you, I want you to take these first," she offered them a handful of sponge balls. "Take it in turns to throw them at each other's Barrier. Once you're able to maintain it, we can move on to something more solid."

"Oh, and Barriers keep what's out, out and what's in, in. So you'll need to lower your own when you want to throw things."

[member="Kaia Vullen"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

Dair nodded and lowered his barrier. He kept the visualization in his head, however, to cut down on the time it would take him to throw it up again.

He reached over and took some of the offered sponge balls, the rest he would leave for Kaia. He didn't assume that any of the ones he was about to throw would break through her barrier, and so wanted to let her have an equal number of shots at him before they had to go collect the sponge balls.

"I'll throw first, Kaia." Dair said as he moved the pile of six small sponge balls to his left arm. He took one and cocked his arm back. He took a moment to aim, then threw the ball as hard as he could without losing accuracy. He aimed for the far left edge of her barrier first. The following five shots would be aimed in a line from that far left shot across the middle to the far right. His aim was to see if there were any weaker spots on the barrier. He figured in the second round he could try to overwhelm one spot.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] [member="Kaia Vullen"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

Keeping track of what goes in and out made things much more difficult, but far from impossible.

Lower mine when I throw, keep it up when he throws.

She nodded in agreement as Dair had decided to take the initiative on the throwing of sponges. Her bubble withstood the first sponge by wobbling in the general direction of the sponge. The more concentrated sponge-throws tore a hole in her barrier, but it was quickly patched up. She gathered her own sponges quickly and aimed from behind her bubble. This was rather amusing to her, like a childish game. Perhaps she would even bring the out the child in Dair.

She threw her sponges in something of a sporadic pattern. The first she threw right after dair had thrown his, as she tried to test how fast he could get his shield back up. The next ones she threw at the peripheries of Dair's shield. She threw one at the middle as well, to insure he did not focus all his power on the peripheries.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

Dair had not been expecting immediate counter attacks, so the first sponge hit him square in the nose. The softness of it made him chuckle slightly as he worked his mind hard to pull the barrier back up before the others hit him.

As he had thought, the more spaced out they were the more likely he would be able to keep the barrier up. Every hit drained him a little, but he kept the barrier up through the rest of her assault. It was harder, though. Dair had to keep from trying to focus on one area, lest he let another place weaken. It almost took him when she threw her last at his center, the barrier bent around the sponge ball but didn't break. Dair bent down to grab the sponge balls near him and knelt down. Kneeling, he had a smaller space to focus on, though he had to change his mental paradigm slightly to adapt to the smaller area. He threw a single ball as he shifted to a smaller size, aiming a fast sponge ball towards her feet, thinking that people might protect their chests more. He then pulled up his barrier and waited. He would try her trick and wait for her to throw to try and see how fast she could get hers up.

[member="Kaia Vullen"] [member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

It seemed Kaia's instincts had paid off, she giggled heartily as Dair got a faceful of small sponge.

The fast ball almost burst Kaia's bubble, she made a mental note to protect the rim just as much as the centre. As Dair waited, she gathered immediate sponges for a retaliation. She tried to attract one with telekinesis, but as she felt her barrier immediately weaken she let it be and instead fortified her barrier.

For a short while, Kaia and Dair seemed to have a minor stare-down, each waiting to catch the other one off guard. In the end, Kaia took the chance and threw a quick sponge. She did not aim too much, but instead relied on the sheer speed of her tossAs long as she hit his barrier, it was good. If Dair threw then, she would likely end up letting his sponge through her shield.

[member="Corvus Raaf"] | [member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

Dair tried to time it. He saw the fast sponge coming in, he prepared to take his barrier down and throw at the same time. He wound back and let fly at the same time that he let his barrier down. The sponge that [member="Kaia Vullen"] threw had just started impacting his barrier, and while slowed, still tagged him on the hand as he released his sponge. He had initially aimed the fast sponge at the center mass of Kaia, but the slow sponge knocked it a bit off course.

Dair grabbed his last sponge and threw it hard again, then pulled mentally to get the barrier back up. He couldn't help but smile, this seemed like a great game to train with. He was sweating as if he were in a sauna or had just run uphill for an hour in fairly warm temperatures. He was pouring a lot of energy into taking down and pulling up his barrier, as well as repairing it whenever it got hit. He didn't know how long he was going to be able to continue the up and down with the barriers, but knew that with practice the length of time would increase.

[member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

With each ball thrown back and forth, Kaia grinned and giggled. She was having tremendous fun, even though it was difficult and strenuous.

Kaia caught Dair's off-course sponge in her hands and got ready to throw it straight back, but just as she was taking aim, Dair's second hard toss broke through her barrier and tagged her straight in her forehead. Her own sponge sailed high and came falling down to the exact peak and centre of Dair's bubble. She brought her bubble back to form and toughness, although it still wobbled ever so slightly.

[member="Dair Cotarin"] | [member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[H3xle]

As is wont to happen in things that must always include some form of comedy (as all things should), Dair's barrier was stopped, impeded by an object that was passing through where it's peak was going to be at the same point and time that it was going to be created. Dair looked up as he strained to complete the barrier, the incomplete one breaking the mold in his brain and siphoning off power to finish. He saw that the sponge ball was being held perfectly still in the peak of the barrier.

Dair couldn't help it, he was sweaty, a little tired and possibly having a bit too much fun with this exercise. He collapsed to the floor laughing, the barrier fell and the sponge landed lightly on his nose. Deep down, Dair knew that in a battle situation he would be in trouble right now. However, training was to help find the holes in abilities and plug them, so to speak. Dair just needed a few moments to laugh, then he sat up and wiped tears from his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Master. I'm sorry Kaia. I just couldn't help but laugh. How many times will a barrier end up catching an object like that?" He pushed himself to one knee and sat on his other heel, looking between both women. "Would it be ok if we rested a moment, then maybe up the game from sponge balls?" He sounded almost excited to try to hold off something bigger or badder than a sponge ball.

[member="Kaia Vullen"] [member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus smiled at both their progression and the enthusiasm they poured into the learning. For this was not training, they were working together to progress.

So she collected in the sponge balls and took out the rubber variants. These were solid and would leave a bruise if thrown and they hit the skin.

"OK, as you request, I'm upping the ante. These will," she bounced one on the floor with a loud thud, "Hurt if you don't block them and they'll drain the Barrier quicker, so it will take more Force to replenish it."

And so she handed them over, half to each of them. "When you're ready."

[member="Dair Cotarin"]

 

[H3xle]

Dair nodded as he stood. He placed his hands above his head and stretched as he closed his eyes. He focused on slowing his heart rate to normal resting rate with nothing but concentration. He then began to let the force flow into him, letting it slowly refill him with its energy. His master had said the rubber balls would drain the barrier faster, which meant he had to make it more efficient.

'Point defense systems don't shield uniformly, they pick the place where they will defend based on what is incoming...I might be able to do something similar...' He thought, glad that something good came out of his recent battles. Learning was always a good thing.

When he felt ready he took the balls and focused on the barrier. It was slowly getting easier to pull the barrier into place, mental muscle memory. Once it was in place, he adjusted it. He took some of the force power from the rear of the barrier and held it back within himself. He could then use this to help firm up the points of impact...maybe. It also meant that his rear arc was practically uncovered except by the barest barrier. He then looked to Kaia to see if she was ready.

[member="Kaia Vullen"] [member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Kaia Vullen]

When Dair took a moment to laugh and catch his breath, so did Kaia. She leaned back until her upper back touched the floor her knees still under her thighs. Kaia chuckled and tried to calm down, to catch her breath and reconnect with the Force properly. Waves of exhaustion washed over her as she realised just how much energy she had spent, but as she connected to the Force and let it flow through her, it felt as though some of her exhaustion was washed away with every exhale.

When Corvus brought out the new balls, Kaia sat up quickly and corrected herself. She nodded at Corvus words and sharpened her concentration for the task ahead. Upon receiving her half of the balls, she could indeed feel that they would hurt some upon impact. She reinforced her bubble, which wobbled just a little less than before. She did not have the insight Dair had when it came to protective systems, and so her field was evenly reinforced.

"I'm ready!"

She nodded, her grin ever-present.

[member="Dair Cotarin"] | [member="Corvus Raaf"]