[muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

[geonomy]

Who: You! Me! Everybody!
Broadcast: idk but we've sure got a pretty broad cast of folks eh, eh
Action: HECK YEAH PLANET MINGLE
When: 10/7 until plot update or recaptcha

It's a deep, deep forest filled to the brim with fungi, mysterious life forms, and pitch black darkness. Explore if you dare and discover all these things and more! Just don't get lost...

Comments

[experiencepoints]

... That sounds like her. I'm glad.

But... "used to"?

[The concern is obvious in her voice.]

[wolfehawke]

Well she can't very well send me letters here in the fleet, can she?

[He wishes. He misses those so much.]

[experiencepoints]

[She laughs a little, relieved. She is glad that's what he meant.]

I don't know. If anyone could figure out a way, through magic or just being too nice for the Atroma to deny, I bet it's her.

[wolfehawke]

Hah, can you imagine? If there was television in Thedas I'm sure she'd watch this. She likes watching people be themselves. She would people watch in the Alienage or in the Hanged Man when we'd meet for Wicked Grace. Somehow, she's shrewd and sanguine at the same time.

[experiencepoints]

[She groans again, before addressing the air.]

Daisy, if you're watching this somehow, either find a way to get us out of here, or at least find a way to get us some privacy, please. It is really hard to get a mood going with Opal with the fear of being watched.

[SIGHS.]

If she can see this, that should get her attention, and she'll be here soon.

[wolfehawke]

[That little diatribe pulls another round of guffaws from Adalwolfe, who bends over double laughing until Nightingale is done.]

Ahh, yes, Daisy to the rescue with her ball of twine to bring us all home. Perfect.

[He smiles, laughter still pulling at the corners of his mouth.]

I know what you mean about getting in the mood, though. We make do but it's still such a weird thought knowing that however many viewers are going to see your ass and there's nothing you can do about it.

[He is perhaps not as upset about that as he could be, but then again Adalwolfe doesn't have as much shame as most people.]

[experiencepoints]

[Nightingale kind of understands, she has literally zero body shame.

On the other hand, she has a lot of shame about showing feelings, and a romantic mood is about as full of feelings as you can get.]

Look, she was near-constantly walking in on us back at the castle, no matter where we were. Along with the rest of our teams. If anything's going to get her here, it's the chance to make my life even more unintentionally awkward.

[wolfehawke]

Sound logic to me.

[He kicks the seed pod idly, suddenly homesick for all this talk, but he tries not to show it.]

You were going to try a spell with my staff, weren't you?

[experiencepoints]

Yeah, that's right.

[... wait, but this guy's from Thedas, so....]

But mine doesn't involve blood, so I hope that won't affect your staff or anything?

[wolfehawke]

[...Ah. Right. If she only knows Merrill's magic...]

Blood magic isn't actually the predominant form our magic takes. Actually it's taboo and frowned upon heavily. I don't practice it.

[experiencepoints]

Oh. ... That's right, her memories were like that were like that... I thought it was just because she's an elf.

[She takes a deep breath, holds out the staff, and closes her eyes.

This magic is new to her. As far as she knows, it's new to anyone in her world. It's similar to others, but it's still totally unique. To channel mana, especially a completed spell, into an object? It's not that hard to make a one-use item if you're an incredible master- Teleport Stones or the like- But an infinitely reusable one? That can have its spell swapped out at will?

She honestly doesn't know how it works. But she knows how to do it. She doesn't know the theory, but she knows the steps. She doesn't know the why, but she knows what to do.

As she grips the staff, she lets out a slow breath. With her breath, fire curls down her arm, snaking in a spiral and leaving her arm behind, fire burning from and coiling around the staff, without consuming or touching it. The fire itself seems to bubble, with little explosions popping out of the coiled flames.]

[wolfehawke]

[It's surprising to see how magic from another world works, to feel how the mana coalesces into a spell and interacts with his focus. Or... seem not to touch the staff at all but instead wind its way around it like a snake around a branch. He's never seen magic act quite like that. He's sure he could make it, though maybe not with fire as he's not as practiced with that, but the mana itself is easily enough manipulated into a helix, but it would take a different kind of coordination and mental acuity than Nightingale is showing here, and mostly he's surprised the fire doesn't blast from the dragon's mouth at the head of the staff instead of curling and popping around the shaft of wood in her hands.]

Is that normal for your magic?

[experiencepoints]

I have no idea. I invented this entire branch of magic about a month ago, about ten seconds before I ended up on the hospital for a month.

[she sounds very blunt about it.]

I am figuring it out as I go, honestly.

[wolfehawke]

Hm. Well it's definitely some sort of elemental magic, but it's... I can't explain it, it just feels different. How does it work?

[experiencepoints]

It's... It's, sort of, um....

[oh, god, why this.]

Okay, let's start with this. Do you know what a Spellblade technique is?

[wolfehawke]

Is that the thing Knight-Enchanters can do, where they summon a spirit blade, or do you mean giving elemental properties to weapons with magic?

[experiencepoints]

The second one.

My grandfather was, as far as I know, the only Spellblade in the world. He gave his attacks the properties of some spells, He was a physical fighter who had none of the weaknesses of that way of fighting- Her power and versatility were unparalleled, and combined with my grandmother, they were probably some of the strongest in the world.

But there's a lot of reasons why Spellblade techniques shouldn't work. The metal's conductivity of mana, bypassing physical resistances, everything. So, I've been trying to recreate his techniques with my weapons, using something I encountered back in those 'calibrations' as a base. I've never gotten it to work until I was a hair away from dying.

Thanks to that moment of inspiration, I can do it, but... I'm still working out the 'how'.

[wolfehawke]

That seems more dramatic than what my boyfriend knows how to do. He can give weapons an edge so the wounds they inflict will burn or freeze or various other elemental properties, but I've never seen anything that looks like that. It seems like a sustained fire spell that you can swing the weapon with and deal both sorts of damage, is that right?

Me, I'm only ever able to funnel my mana through my weapon to strengthen and direct a spell.

[experiencepoints]

No, no, it's a little more, um...

... It might be easier to show you than to tell. We need to find a target to fight. Can you stop one of the animals around here without killing it?

[wolfehawke]

Uh... I could freeze something, if we see anything.

[He means that quite literally. He has a bunch of things he knows, but his main innate element is ice and he specialized in Force magic.]

Can you not cast it on the seed pod or something?

[experiencepoints]

That'll work.

... The... seed pod? Of course not. That would be bizarre.

[wolfehawke]

So your magic always has to be cast at a living being or am I missing something here?

[experiencepoints]

No, not necessarily living. It's...

[She rubs her head, trying to think of how to explain it.]

... To vastly oversimplify, it has to be something I can recognize as either an ally or an enemy, and a discrete unit in its own right. The seed pod is just an item, and part of something else besides.

Aside from spells like Quake, but Quake is a stupid spell and I'm not going to be using it.

[wolfehawke]

Oh alright, I think I understand.

[Sort of. He still doesn't see why she can't just send off a fireball at whatever rock or plant happens to be around, but if she needs to be that technical than he's not going to question how her abilities work.

He looks around, trying to find some kind of animal. There don't seem to really be the regular allotment of squirrels, chipmunks, and general forest critters bustling about but he does manage to spot a bird on a branch a few yards away and sends a quick burst of ice at it, freezing it solid to its branch.

From here it looks a decent size, but once he wanders a bit closer, he finds he'd vastly underestimated. It's near four feet long with sharp talons and the razor beak of a corvid. Maker's breath, he's glad it hadn't just swooped at them all on its own.]

[experiencepoints]

Perfect.

[She walks forward, pleased, not even caring about the size of it. She doesn't seem to think it's unusual in the slightest, honestly.

She swings his staff at it, connecting with a satisfying 'thunk'. Except that thunk is drowned out, because the instant contact is made, that frozen bird is suddenly the center of a thirty-foot-tall column of exploding fire blasting out of the ground. (The stream of fire and the bursting explosions from it, of course, resemble almost identically the fire coiling around the staff.)

Of course, when it fades, that bird is very dead, but the fire doesn't appear to have touched anything else. The ground, the trees, nothing else is so much as even a slight bit warmer after that display.]