driftfleet | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who: Lup + anyone!
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Heron / Iskaulit
When: Nowish

Hey there, fleeter friends, let me pick your brain for a few minutes, get those creative juices flowing.

If you could have any kind of magical weapon, armor, or a fancy artifact- what would it be, and what could it do? The theoretical sky is the limit, here, this is just a fun thought experiment.

[Toooootally theoretical. She's not fishing for new stuff to work on, no sir.

Lup can be found easily enough in person as needed, either in her room or in the kitchen on the Heron, or messing around in the smithy onboard the Iskaulit. It's project time.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mm... well, I can probably help you with that one. Fire's my speciality, and I know a thing or two about necromancy. Lemme try it-

[Barry would be more useful for the latter, but she's well-read and experienced enough to give it a bit of extra flavour.

She takes a few steps away from him, gesturing for him to keep his distance, and focuses on the staff intently, calling upon her own arcana. The best way to get a feel for a magical artifact's properties is to use it, and it's much faster than having him explain. Thankfully she always has elemental spells on tap, so it's easy enough to toss a couple of cantrips at the wall: targeting one of the room's chairs (the rickety one, she hates that one anyway) she casts Frostbite, giving it a few seconds for the ice to spread. It's already cracking in a dozen spots when she follows up with Firebolt, and the whole thing erupts in flames.

Once that's done (and the poor chair is a smouldering pile of scraps) she whistles again in quiet admiration and offers the staff back out to him.]

Yeah, okay, that tracks. That first spell's meant to be weaker than the second, but the level of power felt about the same. I could feel the boost while casting ice magic.

[Once her hands are free she whips out her communicator, snapping a quick photo of the chalkboard she'd been working on, and starts erasing one side of it to make room for new notes.]

[ Once she's finished testing out his staff, he moves toward her, glancing over her chalkboard notes. ]

I am certainly no artificer, but I have a bit of knowledge in Thaumaturgy should you need someone to bounce ideas off of.

Thaumaturgy? That's cleric shit, dude.

[She has no idea what that even means in her universe, though she suspects it's very different.

Taking a piece of chalk, she draws out a very rudimentary sketch of his staff, with lines dragging out from the head, blade, and runic portions of the design.]

Magical endeavors. Helpful wonders. Essentially, things such as time magic or a potential cure for the Blight.

Huh. Yeah, that's more of a mixture of schools where I'm from. Thaumaturgy itself is just a single spell, time magic is transmutation, most cures are abjuration... I'm pretty sure we've got some very different terms and concepts when it comes to the arcane.

[She starts jotting all this down, though, because that'll be useful later.]

I love talking magic theory as much as the next person, but I'm not totally sure of how helpful it'd be if we spend all our time trying to get our terms straight.

The terms are a bit different, surely, but the ideals are quite the same when you take it down to its base. I would love to be present for the process if only to document how your own world's magic works.

Hell yeah, you can be a part of it if you want, sure. Fair warning, though- augmenting a magical object can take hours, even days, for the more basic jobs. A magic staff of this caliber, one that's already enchanted on multiple levels? We're talking weeks. And that's not even getting into the material component cost.

[Basically it's a time sink and a half, and hopefully he's been saving his coin.]

You assume that we don't have unlimited time being trapped in this place. In return, I could share with you the notes I was able to procure about domestic magic from another world.

Money is not a concern. [ He does well enough, he's good for it. ]

In that case, you have my attention- on both counts.

[Because money is always great, and magical theory? Tickles those old bones, thank you very much. Give her some deep-dive research any day of the week and she'll be a happy camper.

She'll have to figure out the actual cost later, but there's some gaps she needs to fill in first.]

Mmkay, first question: do you need to keep the existing enchantments as is, or would this be more of a replacement dealio? Like removing the ice bit and swapping it out for fire, for example.

[ Well, aren't they just a match made in nerd heaven? He loves research. ]

I would not be opposed in swapping enchantments. Since my ability to wield fire directly aids my necromancy, that is far more convenient than an ice enchantment.

[Hell yeah, nerdy magic brofist.]

Rad. That'd make it easier, actually- believe it or not, it's less work-intensive to remove and replace one than to augment a new spell onto a pre-existing one.

[Honestly, she's expecting that the possible clash between his world's magic and her own will be the most challenging part. But hey, she loves a good challenge, so that just makes it tasty.]

Now, if I'm not mistaken, your staff's made of multiple components, right? That's how the magic meshes together the way it does?

I would certainly believe that of magical artifacts, yes.

[ Eh, they can worry about that part when they cross that particular bridge. It's not as if Dorian is going to be a hands-off customer, especially if they're using two different forms of magic. The combination will be remarkable to see whether or not it actually works. Though if he's suddenly out his staff, he will be thoroughly displeased.

He likes it, it's creepy. ]

That's correct, though Maker knows precisely what. It was picked up in a particularly...questionable area.

Well, I meant more like-

[She steps back over to him, to get within range, and taps each part of the staff in turn: the skull, the grip, the rune, and the blade.]

These components, as in the individual parts. They all have their own magical aura sort of wafting off 'em, you get me? And it would be easier to enchant it if we dismantled the whole thing and went straight for the source.

[ He looks absolutely reluctant to do so, but nods. If it will help in the long run, it's best to take things down to basics. ]

I suppose you're right.

Hey, don't sweat it, my dude. I'll take notes and put it back together like nothing happened at all. Trust me, I am very good at what I do.

[ He waves a hand dismissively. ]

I've gone far longer than a few weeks without a focus.

That's fair. Hopefully it won't take too long, though. Even if the magic isn't 100% compatible, two heads are still better than one. Might cut down on the time a little bit.

[She returns to her notes, jotting down a few more details as they talk- mostly what she'd gleaned from the existing enchantment, and the prospective changes.]

So, remove ice augment and replace with fire... okay, yeah. Totally doable. What kind of necromancy stuff do you do?

Precisely. There's always a chance that more discovery is to be made, especially with two different schools of magic at work.

[ Dorian makes himself comfortable leaning against the wall as they talk. ]

While there are a great number of things that I can do with necromancy, most spells involve binding the spirits attracted to death to make them do my bidding. Several spells have the ability to instill the fear of death into my enemies, which has some rather unfortunate side effects for them, potentially immobilizing them with their own fear. I can siphon their energy to use it for myself, the more people I kill, the stronger my magic becomes for a time.

Oh! I have the ability to summon a Simulacrum if you're unfamiliar with the term, it is essentially a likeness of myself in the form of a spirit. I can mark an enemy, and when they die, their spirit will continue to fight on my behalf..I can inflict a curse upon them and use a fire spell to cause them to explode. Shortly before I arrived here, I mastered the ability to control time within a small radius. I typically use that one to increase the speed of the Inquisition, which makes getting into fights so much less of a hassle.

[ Well now he's just boasting. ]

Yep, sure sounds like a lot of necromancy. Are we dick-wagging, now? Because I've got one where I tell someone to die and they just do it, instantly.

[She sounds amused rather than annoyed, though; she grew up with Taako and has a healthy ego of her own, so she's used to bragging. In a sense he's in good company.]

Haste and Slow- those're common enough spells, but Simulacrum is serious shit where I'm from. Yours is a spirit, you said? What's it capable of, and how long does it last?

Oh, please do! [ He looks impressed, and Dorian is wanting to ask questions of his own about her abilities. How can you not admire a fellow mage's abilities? ]

A spirit, yes. It essentially takes my place in battle if I'm incapacitated, though I haven't tested its endurance fully. One can assume that it will last until my mana is depleted, though it ceases once I'm roused again. It can cast any of my abilities, though it tends toward the strengths of my staff.

[Oh, well then.]

Interesting... same name but different functionality, then. In my world a Simulacrum can exist as a separate creature, a duplicate of whoever you cast it on, for as long as it has life- or as long as it hasn't been damaged to the point of the original creature's "death", at least. It can do any spell you know, but it can't regain its power and can't really be healed.

Fascinating! Something like that in Thedas would require blood magic, I do believe. That form of magic is strictly taboo, only for the weak of mind.

[ That's not a very positive opinion of blood magic. For reasons. ]

Huh... can't say I'm familiar. I mean, you can use blood for it, but any part of the body would work just as well- hair, nail clippings, stuff like that. And there's plenty of spells that use blood as a component for casting, but that's just normal necromancy.

[Probably just an extra specialization that doesn't exist in her world, or something.]

Why's it taboo?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only