Willow's End - Jera Skyspear
Elvish words/phrases linked to Glossary OR hover mouse to see translation.
Lightning

Both Jera and her father tend to attract lightning and, as it turns out, survive direct strikes, provided there's an exit to water nearby. It's not the light, certainly. Nor is it the heat; It's the current. The power wants to go somewhere. She has to find a way to ground herself. The actual earth beneath her feet would be a ground but it's too resistant, especially rocky soil. So, water is usually necessary. From the outside, she appears as a bright blue-white figure, as if her usual form is coated in fluid light, glowing around her so densely that her features can barely be seen. The coating of light seems alive and crackles with energy. Staring directly at her could damage the onlooker's eyes permanently.

In the meantime, she is storing the power in her body and anyone who touches her will know it, for a second or two at least, until it leaves her and loads them, likely killing them. There may be an area around her which isn't safe either, for she could easily arc. She is generally aware of people or creatures around her who might be in danger from her state. She could in fact direct the power aggressively, if need be, but it will crackle outward in a jagged spike, being a smaller version of its original form and still somewhat wild.

She has control of her body but cannot make sudden movements and must maintain control over the power/energy until she determines how best to release it and where. If she were to be attacked while in this state, the results are unpredictable. A metal weapon would likely draw her energy to the wielder and kill them. Magical attacks could deflect back with added force. Even if an attack managed to destroy her body, that would release the lightning back to its original form and it would behave just as wildly as ordinary lightning, dancing until it came in contact with a sufficient ground.

During the 'possession' of the lightning and its power, Jera is in ecstacy. She could get lost in it and very strongly wants to. She feels drawn to letting it reside there, not wanting to release it. However, on some level of awareness, she knows that she must release it. Eventually her body would be consumed by it and, like light radiating from a dying torch, she would gradually dissapate to nothing but tiny bits of light scattered so broadly as to be invisible. To recover her whole self, she needs to find a ground as soon as possible.

Once she has grounded, latent static charges could be an after effect but relatively harmless. Because of the power surge she receives and the draining of it when grounded, Jera requires a rest period following a direct strike. She will first be in what she calls a suyoll (reviving) trance. It is a dark (lightless) and powerless state but survival instincts will prompt the gradual return of the trancer. It's very much like the deepest most restful and restorative sleep, yet she experiences a depression of body and spirit. In a sense, she grieves the loss of being filled with the light and its power. Her body is simply drained of nearly all her own energy. To the unwary, she would seem to feign death but her body just needs time to readjust to normal power levels.

Essentially, Jera has grounded but has not balanced (or centered) and so she must work her way back to an energy equilibrium. She loses most of her own life force to the water as well as releasing the power she took in, for they were joined. Once she's conscious again, she'll be dehydrated and possibly feverish, so she'll need rest and fluids. The appropriate herbal teas would help with the fever and return of energy. A quicker fix is to get her to a node, a cross connection in the leylines, where her balance can be restored with the help of someone who can tap into leylines or nodes and make a 'bridge' or connection for her. Taking her on the Road would also speed up recovery. She is veritably a void or vacuum of lifeforce and needs a refill.

And... depending on the size, power and duration of the strike, she might be temporarily blinded (no matter how quickly she closes her eyes). Her pupils contract to near nothing and will be reluctant to dilate back to normal again for a while. Her vision goes from almost blackness then gradually (hours? days?) she is able to see more light, more motion, then colors but out of focus, then things will begin to sharpen up again. To another, her eyes would be entirely the pale blue irises sparkling with silver and only the barest dot of black in the center. She would seem to be focused on something very far away or without focus entirely, like any other blinded person.

Most of the current from a lightning strike passes over the surface of Jera's body, creating an external flashover. There may be a more significant burn at the point of entry and exit for the power, but that should heal and fade. Otherwise, Jera would be blushed all over like a mild sunburn, but not in a smooth even way. Likely pale pink fern-like striations would appear across her skin, eventually fading. Her hearing will be temporarily compromised as well, but should return as the rest of her recovers.

Obviously, she doesn't wear metal much and only on very rare occasion directly against her skin. Wearing metal doesn't make her more attractive to lightning, but a metal object on her skin could provide an undesired focal point for the lightning's power and burn her severely in that location. She possesses a cloak clasp of her clan sigil, a silver lightning bolt within a circle. This is a replica in fine but ordinary silver. The real one is safely kept at her home, along with a few other artfully done items, all made of Mithril, like a very handsomely decorative calyx and athame for ceremony. She has a small secured pouch of mithril nuggets to use in trade, if needed. They're small enough to be believable 'findings' but even that much is of great monetary value. However, she does not want any such metals in contact with her skin at the moment of a strike.

(Ponderings here... If she held something in her hand during a direct strike, wouldn't it infuse the object with light[ning] and make it mithril? Would have to be careful about that. Nothing like wearing a ring because it might zip around her finger and burn her finger off. Would have to be something she can hold and completes no circuit. Like if she held a sword aloft or held a silver dagger or even a silver nugget in her hand? Will have to think on that. ---- Er... come to think of it. No. Holding it wouldn't work. She could have it nearby, like the sword on a stone or standing in the ground and then she could feed the lightning into it. BUT any metal touching her skin would sear the shape onto her skin like branding her. She [may] have one of those already, a rite of passage and a mark of her clan, the sigil burned into her skin like a brand. Maybe she first found out about her tolerance of a direct strike while in a storm and she hadn't time to get set for the workings yet, so she was wearing her sigil on a cord, the emblem hanging beneath her clothing at the juncture of her ribs, just below her breasts? Undecided.)

Alternative to water grounding: Have Ashe or someone stand their sword in the ground. They must back away. Jera can then approach the sword and grip it with both hands simultaneously to complete a circuit. The sword, being metal and a better conductor than a flesh body, will take absorb the lightning charge and send excess into the ground. Jera would collapse. Her hands would be burned from the concentrated exit into metal. The sword would be mithril.

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