The Flow

Wielding a magical Power in The Shadow Spinner ended up moving away from the obvious usage and towards the Flow. The Flow is when a person summons enough Power to circulate through their body. Each Power has a different effect with the Flow which is what made it so much fun to think about and write. I’ll go over the effects of the Flow for the main characters in The Shadow Spinner. There are more, of course, as the meet Fahrad (the last Champion) and fight two of the Twisted, in the second book, but I’ll leave that for another post!

N’Halia – Lightning

The effects of Lightning are a bit tongue-in-cheek. Most of the Powers of the Flow are a mix between the simple usage of the Power and a physical effect. When I think of Lightning Powers, I think of someone who is really fast. But, as a physical therapist, I couldn’t resist mixing in an actual effect of electrical stimulation.

It’s common in physical therapy to use mild electrical stimulation over someone’s muscles to increase their strength to aid the recovery process. This is exactly what the Flow with Lightning can do. It increases muscular contraction – meaning the person is stronger and faster. I also applied it to the brain which runs on electricity, of course. So a Lightning wielder can also think and react faster. While this probably seems really unfair, I kept everything within human limits. This is in contrast to the other Champions whose strength exceeds normal limits.

Araina – Force

The Flow with Force does exactly what you think it would. The wielder becomes stronger and faster. Unlike Lightning, there is no boost in mental speed or reflexes though. However, since the person is essentially emanating Force from their body, they have increased resilience to physical damage. This is why anytime Araina gets hit with a blunt object, she rarely is injured more than bruising or a light strain.

Shoku/Stapes – Light

Light increases your influence on the world and the world’s influence on you.

Your influence on the world. This is why Stapes and Shoku can have so much influence on people. When they Flow Light, they attract more attention and their words are much more persuasive. This also works on a physical level. While their strikes wouldn’t be stronger, they would be more dangerous. The reason that Light wielders don’t Flow when they fight is because that’s a two-way street.

The world’s influence is increased. This means that it’s much easier to hurt someone who has Light flowing through them. In a fight, where even just blocking a strike might be painful, this would be an incredible disadvantage.

Hermit – Shadow

Spoiler! Kinda?

Hermit is the Shadow Spinner and I always thought it was relatively clear what Shadow does. It allows him to Fade from the influence of the world, meaning things don’t really hurt him. While this is kinda kept secret in the beginning of the book, I never really intended it to be incredibly mysterious.

This is actually a big part of why Hermit is… Hermit. He’s spent thousands of years not being influenced or hurt by anything. That’s why he’s so casual about everything from fighting to storming into what’s basically a suicide mission. He doesn’t take anything seriously because he has no reason to.

To make everything fair, he also doesn’t influence the world so much. You may notice that he rarely actually hurts anyone. He’s able to use his staff to hit people, but he never fights with his hands. He’s also not noticed by most people, hence why he’s so good at sneaking around and stealing. Then again, he does often eventually get caught red-handed, but hey, Shadow can only do so much!

Next up

Next post will be talking about a small detail: other weapon choices in Hoops.