[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

[cloakand_danger]

So it is. [He shrugs a little, but there's no trace of the wary diffidence he showed when they began speaking of elves, at least.]

In any case, magic clearly works differently between your world and mine if humans can learn it at all. ...Would you show me a spell of the...what was it, 'arcane' element? I'm curious as to what it would feel like to my mana sense.

[arcanepower]

[Belth has taken all the diffidence for himself, though he visibly brightens when Yuan asks for a spell. This is what he has studied all his life for-- not parlor tricks, but real magic, with incantations and runes and maps of leylines.]

Ah, yes! It's only fair, since you demonstrated for me before.

[He holds out both arms. Small arcane runes burn into the air around them, until purple lightning sparks from his fingertips. He makes an arc, an elegant thing that stretches from one hand to the other, and then he snuffs it out by closing his fists.]

[cloakand_danger]

[It looks like lightning, but it feels...strange. It's definitely magic, but it doesn't even feel the way that non-elemental magic is supposed to. He makes a face.]

...It's like seeing a color that doesn't exist. Very interesting, but I think staring at it too much would give me headaches.

[arcanepower]

You might become accustomed to it. [He tilts his head, and there's a brief flicker of a smile.] Though that tends to be the problem of magic in general. Because arcane magic is so close to raw mana, it can be... addictive to those who use it.

Does-- does your world have that problem?

[cloakand_danger]

[Yuan shakes his head.]

...No, not at all. Although...it's also true that very few people come in contact with raw mana to start with. The Summon Spirits guide and shape the flow of mana throughout the world, with the help of their servants and elemental monsters, converting it into elements as they do so. [If he remembers any of this when he gets home, maybe he'll ask Martel if that system provides some kind of insulation against harm as well as spreading life-giving mana through the world.]

[arcanepower]

[Well... that's probably a good thing.]

You have something converting the mana into elements? But... why? Does your world not have leylines, as Azeroth does?

[cloakand_danger]

[Yuan shakes his head.]

I've never heard of such a thing. What are they?

[arcanepower]

[Wow, no wonder his world has mana problems.]

Leylines are passageways of arcane magic that span the entire world. They flow beneath the surface, sometimes intersecting and creating places of great magical power. The way they're arranged allows magic to be distributed to every part of the land... so if someone tampers with them, it can cause problems for things that need mana to survive. [Like dragons. Though if dragons are the ones doing it, that's a great premise for a war.]

Quel'thalas, my homeland, was built on a nexus of leylines.

[cloakand_danger]

Interesting. ...There are places in the world where mana seems to accumulate. The temples of the Summon Spirits are built in mana-rich places.

[He grimaces.] I've tried asking them whether they go to places where the mana is thick, or if the mana is thick because they go there. From this, I learned that Summon Spirits do not like to give straight answers.

[arcanepower]

What is a Summon Spirit, if I might ask? [And why do they have temples? He's still trying to wrap his head around this weird-ass planet that the half-elf is from, but it is very interesting so far.]

[cloakand_danger]

Well, as I said, they help to guide the flow of mana from the Great Tree, which produces it. The Tree itself also has a Spirit representing it, and there are a few others, but most of them are elemental spirits. There's one for each of the eight elements, except that Light has two - one for the Sun and one representing the moons.

As for what they are...they're conscious beings composed entirely of mana. I can't remember just now if the Elves brought them when they came to settle the world, or if they came into being after it was seeded with mana fragments, but they've been there as long as life itself, doing their part to make our world inhabitable for life.

[arcanepower]

A world tree? [Ohh, this is interesting and familiar territory, for sure.] How interesting that your tree produces mana. Ours revitalizes the land in a similar way, but it is very much the realm of druids and dreamwalkers. A tree could not nourish my people.

[Anyone else would be intimidated by the infodump, but not Belthazar.]

It makes sense, then, that they would have some dominion over it. Still, to hear that you have elementals in charge of your world's lifeblood-- it seems risky if they are anything like the elementals we have on Azeroth.

[A pause.]

When you say elves settled your world, do you mean a widespread and prolific migration across the continent, or are you implying they came from somewhere else?

[cloakand_danger]

The spirits are guardians, whose entire purpose is to manage their domain and guide the younger races. They're not dangerous unless provoked, and most of them will refrain from killing someone who challenges them. [And then there's Volt, but let's not go there right now.]

Good catch: the elves actually came to Aselia from a different world. I don't know if it's where they originated, but they traveled on a mana comet called Derris-Kharlan until they found a planet that they could reshape and settle. They rained mana fragments down from the sky until the surface had enough mana to support life, then began to move down to the surface. ...At least, that's what I've been told.

[arcanepower]

I see... The elemental lords don't give a whit about us, and they have been known to overstep their boundaries in terrible ways. I have heard that the elementals on other worlds are more cooperative, however.

[Well, he read about it. Shamanism is more interesting than he'll admit.]

-- Your elves are space travelers?

[Belth looks a bit like Yuan just turned his world on its head, and maybe he did.]

I have so many questions. Like: why did they leave their original home? Were they running from someone? How long were they adrift? Why did they choose your world instead of a different one, if they had the power to make it habitable? How long did it take to settle the world? Where did humans and animals come from?

[cloakand_danger]

[Yuan holds up his hands palm-forward to stem the tide of questions, although the continued smirk on his face says he's at least amused rather than annoyed by them.]

All good questions, kid, but I think you're forgetting the part where the elves don't tell people much about anything. I have no idea why they left, where they came from, how long they traveled that way, or anything more than I've said about the settling of Aselia...except this: apparently Origin, the king of the Summon Spirits, created humans in order to give the elves the gift of companionship.

Given that humans now control most of the surface of the world, that may not have been his best-thought-through plan. Not that I'm really about to give him grief over it myself. [Not that he wouldn't sass Origin if given the opportunity, but half of his own parentage probably isn't the wisest topic.]