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Chapter 27: The Ritual!
🕑 Added 2023-05-14 19:36:58 +0000 UTCThe breastplate was a little too big for him so he kept it away in the warehouse. The knife could come in handy in small spaces and if it was anything like the sword, then it won't break against a steel weapon. The arm guards were again, a little too big for him.
Maybe when he grows up completely, they would fit him but he won't wear them even then. The steel armour and sword worked fine for him and these bronze armaments were cultural heritage. They would look good hanging in the solar of his future castle.
"Sigh, is there really nothing else?" Damian was very disappointed with this treasure hunt. He wanted something practical like the way of Skin-changing into an animal or achest full of gold and silver.
Damian placed his hands on the leftover bones of the Seadragon and stored them in the warehouse. Maybe, when Damian had time after the war, he would give Dyger Seadrake a proper burial.
"Captain, look over there!!"
Damian suddenly heard Sirius shouting and pointing his finger to the ground which was exposed after he had stored the bones away.
"All hail the Old Gods!" Damian cheered in jubilation when he saw what he had uncovered.
It was a medium-sized chest whose wood has rotten away and only the bronze frame remained behind. Because of the dirt around the chest, the gold jewellery and the silver coins and cups adorned with rubies in it did not spill around and remained as it is.
Damian happily sunk his hands into the coins, grabbing a handful of them in his fist and letting them fall back from the height one by one. The sounds that were generated by it were like heavenly music to his ears.
After having enough fun, Damian started picking up the pieces of jewellery and the silver cups one by one, trying to gauge their value or find something out of the ordinary.
His efforts were rewarded when Damian found an animal hide beneath all the gold. The hide should be centuries old yet it had not decayed yet. Damian wanted to find out why.
"Martin, come and here read what's written on its surface." Damian beckoned the guard to come and help him with the translation.. He was very hopeful about getting something good this time.
"Captain, this is indeed what you needed. The hide has the information on how to skin change into another animal." Martin said after reading the first few lines of the hide. He then went on to translate the procedure to Damian who listened with rapt attention.
To become a Skinchanger, one has to have the blood of the first men and a magical bloodline bestowed by the Old Gods in them. The bloodline, if awakens, helps the person in become a warg who can enter the mind of an animal and control them from afar.
There is another branch that helps the person in changing their form into an animal that is compatible with them through a ritual. But this skill is rarer than being a warg and needs some type of understanding of the animal anatomy to become successful at it. Not every warg can become a Skin-changer even if they had the knowledge of the ritual but every Skinchanger also has the ability warg if they try.
Talented and gifted warg can control hundreds of animals and just like that gifted Skinchangers or shapechangers can change into scores of animals of their desire though there is great danger in both paths and one should heed all the warnings and never break the laws that come with them.
Only one in a thousand is born a skinchanger and only one Skinchanger in a thousand is born a Greenseer. But in the hide, it is clearly written that with practice and research, it is possible for a person to elevate oneself to the levels of Greenseers who can control nature and see through the eyes of the Heart trees.
Dyger Seadrake deduced that the requirement was to increase the magic in one's body to a certain level as every Greenseer had a greater amount of magic in their body than a simple Warg or a shapechanger. Most cannot increase the magic reserve in their body naturally, one can only train to better control it.
But there are rituals and spells and other ways in this world, mostly unsafe, to increase the mana inside one's body. When a person is successful at that, he has the possibility to become a Greenseer. Though it is only a theory and there isn't a known person who could achieve this feat.
The ritual was written clearly on the hide and it was bloody and dangerous. The ritual demanded the person to have some success at being a warg to gain the experience of being that animal consciously.
If that is not possible then the person must study the anatomy of the animal he wants to transform his body into to get a better chance at success. There were cases of some talented and gifted skin-changer turning into an animal on instinct or under great stress or threat of life. But half of them couldn't change back into the human form and permanently became an animal and after a period of time, they lost their human self and truly turned into that animal in both body and conscious.
Therefore, it was necessary to have deep knowledge of both human and animal anatomy that they are compatible with. As for how to know what animal is compatible with you, there are different ways to find that. Some know it on an instinctive level, and a few find out after they try it the first time that is very dangerous and the best way is to look at what kind of animal one dreams the most when the person sleeps.
The second thing the ritual demanded was the blood and bones of the animal you wish to change into, but there have been cases where a man or woman turned into an animal without having any of these. But to be on the safe side, you should have a pint's worth of fresh animal blood and its bone.
The third part is the spell itself which is drawn and written in Runes of First Men. If it's in front of the Heart Tree then it is better as the Old Gods watch over the ritual and provide help to the person if they deem him or her worthy. The activate the spell, the person needs to immune the spell with magic or spill their blood on the drawn circle.
The latter way is not a sure way. If you cannot activate the spell by spilling the blood, then you have no hope of becoming a skin-changer. It is both a good and bad thing, as you don't have to go through the dangerous procedure of skin-changing.
The fourth and the most helpful part of the ritual, if it is successful, is that the person needs an anchor of some sort nearby them to turn themselves back into human form after changing for the first time or they risk losing their mind after turning into the animal. It could be an item you are deeply attached to or a person you love as that would help you remember that you were once a human.
Most fail at this step and forever remain as the beast.
