"You know, you're going to fall off if you keep this up. Or, worse still, you might have your...
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Prologue/Chargen, Part I of III
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No, this (probably) won't be a magic school quest. Yes, this is the dimensional traveler (Drifter) quest I mentioned earlier. It also won't interfere with updates for my other quests; if anything, it might help.
Don't worry about trying to make the quest go or stay travelling in a specific direction—at least, not on my account. I'll probably be fine with whatever direction it ends up going. After all, that's arguably the point of open-world questing. Even if it turns into SoL, it'd still be a different kind of SoL than Ignition's.
I think the capitalization of Scout, Healer, etc. looks a little weird. Think I should give them lowercase letters or is this fine?
Don't worry about trying to make the quest go or stay travelling in a specific direction—at least, not on my account. I'll probably be fine with whatever direction it ends up going. After all, that's arguably the point of open-world questing. Even if it turns into SoL, it'd still be a different kind of SoL than Ignition's.
I think the capitalization of Scout, Healer, etc. looks a little weird. Think I should give them lowercase letters or is this fine?
"You know, you're going to fall off if you keep this up. Or, worse still, you might have your nose eaten by a flying shark."
You step away from the ship's railing and halfheartedly glare at the Scout responsible for the unnecessary comment. Like all Scouts, he's wearing a dark green cloak and grey mask, both of which offer concealment and anonymity. According to every Scout you've asked about it—which is to say, only the one right in front of you—it's so the organization can be judged as a whole rather than by individual. You're not sure it actually works; they do nothing to conceal their voice, behavior, or mannerisms.
You also feel it's a bit ridiculous to be wearing a heavy cloak in the middle of high summer. The poor Scout is probably melting in there.
...Wait, he's probably expecting a response, isn't he? What were we talking—right, flying sharks.
"Can they do that? Fly, that is. I thought creatures exposed to mana change to better survive in their environment. Why would an underwater predator get the ability to fly?"
The Scout shrugs.
"There's always a bigger fish out there. You're basically asking 'How can pegasi possibly exist?' And yet, that adaptation is common enough for them to earn their own name and even pass it on to their descendents. Don't underestimate the ability to go somewhere your enemies can't follow."
You'd honestly expected a much shorter response than that. It seems like practically everyone in your home village was fond of giving nonsensical answers to you in the hopes you'd stop asking questions. It seldom worked.
"Were you a teacher before you became a Scout?"
The cloaked figure snorts.
"Good grief, no. I was enough of an obnoxious little git when I was going through classes. If I'd been in the shoes of my teachers, I would've strangled myself long before graduation."
"Will you strangle me for asking questions?"
Because if so, I'm going to be dead long before we reach the academy.
The Scout crosses his arms and stands up a bit straighter. You get the feeling he's regarding you with some measure of disbelief.
"You're asking me if I'll strangle you for asking questions," the Scout says slowly. "Do you not see something wrong here?"
"If one more question was enough to drive you to murder, I'm not going to survive the trip anyway. If I ask, I might not have to worry and it'll save us both time either way."
You think your explanation was perfectly reasonable. Judging by his quiet snort, the Scout doesn't agree.
"Shouldn't you be off practicing for your entrance exams?"
That's not a no.
"You're the one who told me my Talent alone is enough to guarantee automatic entry and free tuition. Until I get a magic teacher, speaking with you is still plenty educational. You looked bored anyway."
"I'm wearing a mask, how would you even…?"
What is your Talent, anyway? (Use preference/number voting; 1 means it's your favorite, 2 would be your second choice, etc. up to 6)
[] Conjurer
You've always been loved by the small, lowest-class elementals living in your home village. You don't know why, especially since they tend to be as smart as the average dog.
Other mages apparently need complex rituals to summon any kind of elemental, including the weakest. You? If you're holding enough of their element, you can skip all that and summon them almost instantly. The Scout who "discovered" your Talent claimed you'll be able to do the same for any other elemental you've established a rapport with.
...If all elementals are like the ones in your village, you think it might be a good idea for you to learn how to make sweets.
Other mages apparently need complex rituals to summon any kind of elemental, including the weakest. You? If you're holding enough of their element, you can skip all that and summon them almost instantly. The Scout who "discovered" your Talent claimed you'll be able to do the same for any other elemental you've established a rapport with.
...If all elementals are like the ones in your village, you think it might be a good idea for you to learn how to make sweets.
[] Healer
You can bring someone you're touching to perfect health (for their age) in rather short order. The process consumes a significant chunk of your mana reserves and you can seldom do more than a half-dozen people each day. That number can dip up or down a little depending on what you're working on; you've found diseases to be significantly easier than wounds, but there seems to be a minimum cost per-heal.
When you tested the "minimum" by healing the same person repeatedly with no extra wounds in between, you could only do it twelve times before running out. You've also been told your Talent, like all others, will become stronger with use and appropriate training.
You can heal yourself. It's a little easier than healing other people, but not by much. Since you still feel pain and don't want to be magically exhausted in an emergency, you try to avoid making it so you'd need to.
It is possible for ordinary mages to partially imitate the effects of your Talent, but it's more expensive in terms of mana expenditure, takes longer, can actually harm the subject if the mage messes up, and is quite hard for said mages. Self-healing is apparently significantly easier for them, but not so much for most non-specialists to bother. Despite all that, you've been told "Theres no such thing as too many Healers."
When you tested the "minimum" by healing the same person repeatedly with no extra wounds in between, you could only do it twelve times before running out. You've also been told your Talent, like all others, will become stronger with use and appropriate training.
You can heal yourself. It's a little easier than healing other people, but not by much. Since you still feel pain and don't want to be magically exhausted in an emergency, you try to avoid making it so you'd need to.
It is possible for ordinary mages to partially imitate the effects of your Talent, but it's more expensive in terms of mana expenditure, takes longer, can actually harm the subject if the mage messes up, and is quite hard for said mages. Self-healing is apparently significantly easier for them, but not so much for most non-specialists to bother. Despite all that, you've been told "Theres no such thing as too many Healers."
[] Shaper
If you establish physical contact with any part of a stone, dirt, or metal object, you can make it move in accordance with your will. You're terrible at details right now—you've usually just used your Talent to make small stone huts—but you should be more precise as you practice and/or receive training. With enough of it, you should even be able to make tools, jewelry, or other delicate objects.
When you tested, your Talent was able to move affected objects slightly faster than you could walk. Shaving off sections of a larger object is relatively easy; making straight cuts is harder. You're not sure if you'll get faster as you get better, but you're learning toward "Won't."
If you're moving an object with your Talent, your Talent's influence on it will vanish should you break physical contact. This usually means it'll stop moving and fall to the ground, or simply slow down if there were other things helping it along.
When you tested, your Talent was able to move affected objects slightly faster than you could walk. Shaving off sections of a larger object is relatively easy; making straight cuts is harder. You're not sure if you'll get faster as you get better, but you're learning toward "Won't."
If you're moving an object with your Talent, your Talent's influence on it will vanish should you break physical contact. This usually means it'll stop moving and fall to the ground, or simply slow down if there were other things helping it along.
[] Scout
While you aren't a member of the official organization, you can naturally sense the presence of magic in others near you. If someone is a mage or has recently had their bodies be directly enhanced by magic, they qualify and you'll be able to sense where they are in relation to yourself as long as they're within range.
Your Talent is active at all times and works independently of your normal senses. Meanwhile, normal Scouts need to use a 10+ second spell and spend a little mana just to scan a single target. You think their version doesn't even let them look for more than a few seconds, making theirs utterly useless for mass scanning or combat.
Your Talent also lets you sense the presence of some magical monsters. You're haven't been exposed to enough for you to figure out what the criteria is.
Your Talent is active at all times and works independently of your normal senses. Meanwhile, normal Scouts need to use a 10+ second spell and spend a little mana just to scan a single target. You think their version doesn't even let them look for more than a few seconds, making theirs utterly useless for mass scanning or combat.
Your Talent also lets you sense the presence of some magical monsters. You're haven't been exposed to enough for you to figure out what the criteria is.
[] Haunted
The ghost of your long-dead cat, Wisp, continues to follow you around. He can't interact with anything and nobody else can see him, but he's still willing to help guide you to food, water, the occasional dropped coin, and similarly scouted secrets... when he feels like it. He can be a tad unreliable. Either way, Wisp's haunting is enough to earn you a spot at Alistore's state academy. Apparently, Wisp couldn't manage it unless you already had large enough magical reserves for you to become a full-fledged magician.
Although you're pretty sure you weren't supposed to overhear Scout saying this part, you might also be one of the rare individuals capable of becoming a natural Medium. Or, put less politely, a Necromancer. After all, you don't remember binding Wisp to you, yet here he is.
Although you're pretty sure you weren't supposed to overhear Scout saying this part, you might also be one of the rare individuals capable of becoming a natural Medium. Or, put less politely, a Necromancer. After all, you don't remember binding Wisp to you, yet here he is.
[] Imperfect
Most magicians slowly expand their own mana supplies from exposure to, or consumption of, safe amounts of mana. Your own do expand, but not as much as normal; the "lost" mana instead changes your body in a manner near-identical to the adaptations of non-human creatures. For a long time, you dreamed you might be a dragon in human form. That got shot down when this Scout scanned you; apparently, you're just weird. Unique, in fact—at least, in his experience.
Sadly, the village you grew up in was rather lacking when it comes to ambient mana. So far, you only have heightened senses, narrow cat-eyes, and a few black-striped white feathers growing out around your elbows. You're really not sure what the last is all about.
You don't know what would happen if you're exposed to dangerous amounts of mana. You can't convince anyone to tell you what happens to normal mages in those cases, only that you could probably feel it happening and that it isn't worth gambling on your Talent to protect you.
Sadly, the village you grew up in was rather lacking when it comes to ambient mana. So far, you only have heightened senses, narrow cat-eyes, and a few black-striped white feathers growing out around your elbows. You're really not sure what the last is all about.
You don't know what would happen if you're exposed to dangerous amounts of mana. You can't convince anyone to tell you what happens to normal mages in those cases, only that you could probably feel it happening and that it isn't worth gambling on your Talent to protect you.
...And are you a boy or a girl? (Use standard X voting. Part of the next vote will be for your age: 14, 16, 18, or 21.)
[] Male.
[] Female.
Character Sheet
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You grew up in a fairly isolated farming village. Your never knew either of your parents; nobody seems to have any idea who your mother was and your father, a weak mage, never returned from a hunting trip into the woods. Everyone, including you, believes he's dead.
In your father's absence, you turned into a bit of a community project; almost everyone in the village contributed to raising you in some way or another. You usually wouldn't even spend more than a few months living in a single household before you were shuffled off to the next. Of course, as everyone in the village knew everyone else, this wasn't much of a hardship for any of you.
That being said, some of them liked to give you nonsensical answers when you asked them what they believed to be too many questions. This usually failed utterly when you followed up with your usual "Why?" and refused to take "Because it is!" as a valid answer.
Contrary to what some passerby seem to believe, nobody in the village was a cannibal. None of you have any idea why some of them seem to think that and it even became a bit of a community joke after a while.
For whatever reason, the numerous elementals lurking around your village have always seemed to adore you. Even the fire elementals have been careful to keep their distance even as they dart around and play with you, something which is apparently quite unusual; they're famous for carelessly igniting flammable (yet shiny) objects.
While you weren't anywhere close to the most sought-after girl in the village, you did have a few boys who seemed to fancy you. Letting them down felt awful, especially when you didn't realize they felt that way until the gifts actually started arriving. You thought they just liked spending time with you.
You don't think anyone in the village was surprised when a Scout came along and claimed you had the potential needed to become an excellent magician. No, really? What gave it away? Was it the half-dozen air elementals darting around you?
Regardless, you left the very next morning and haven't looked back.
You have a metal penny knife, a wooden cup, and four small leather pouches on your belt. One pouch contains coal, the next dirt, another a handful of rocks, and the last contains fourteen small silver coins. It's not a huge amount of money, but you think it might be enough to last you half that many days on your own. Or at least, it would've been if you hadn't ended up someplace strange...
You also have a waterskin, which is arguably the heaviest object you're carrying.
Inventory and personal skills are outdated and will be fixed next. Elementals have been updated.
You've been very careful not to give people-names to the elementals you've met. Unlike the names of people, the names given to elementals can actively affect their personalities if they're weak enough. If they don't eventually get smart enough to name themselves, you might give them names when they're significantly more powerful and won't be defined by them.
Air: 0/5.
Dirt: 0/4.
Stone: 0/3.
Class 0 elementals fit in the palm of your hand, are human-shaped, technically genderless, and made out of their component element. Water elementals ripple as they move around. Stone and dirt are often still enough they're mistaken for dolls. The "bodies" of air elementals are more like vague guidelines; at pretty much all times, at least part of them is in the process of ignoring their outline and and flowing freely. Fire elementals look more like little balls of flame if you don't look closely enough. If you do, you might notice the permanent human-shaped patch of yellow at the center of the flames.
Although you haven't gained the ability to summon wood elementals, you have seen a few. They appear to change color and pattern depending on the type of wood they last touched; if they didn't like you, you'd pretty much just have to look out for little green orbs (their eyes) breaking up the pattern of a tree's bark.
Class 1 elementals seem to be four or five centimeters larger than their weaker relatives.
Thus far, you've only seen C1 water elementals; their forms are more reliably detailed and they're capable of producing short, high-pitched noises to express their emotions. 'Squeaks' and 'chirps' seem to be appropriate descriptors for most of them.
You don't know very much about class II elementals; your own didn't spend enough time at that rank for you to get a good look at them.
Your Class 3 elementals stand at about eighteen centimeters in height.
Your Stone and Dirt elementals have large, blocky limbs about half the length and width of their own torso. At least their skulls seem to fit the altered proportions.
Your fire elemental's core is slightly smaller than the bodies of your other elementals, but seems to be otherwise normal. It used to be colored yellow; now, the rest of its flames are yellow while its core is a red-tinged orange. Instead of being a floating fireball, even the surrounding flames seem to be taking a roughly human-shaped form.
Your water elementals seem to have settled on solid forms, ones which are starting to form faces eerily similar to your own face. The resemblance is, thankfully, difficult to notice; whenever they move even the slightest amount, the water composing their body ripples as though something were dropped inside them. You're still not sure if the resemblance to you is normal.
Your air elementals seem to have decided that legs are overrated. Apart from the wispy tail replacing said legs, their form seems to have solidifed into a transparent, vaguely feminine outline. You can't tell if they're going down the same path as your water elementals and imitating your face.
Your stone and dirt elementals are now capable of communicating with an odd, purr-like rumbling. Your air and water elementals can use chirps, squeaks, sighs, and... giggles? Finally, your fire elemental can chirp, change the brightness ofhis its flames, and change their sound so they produce violent crackling.
Fire, Summoned: 1/1
Air, Brought: 2/2
Dirt, Summoned: 2/2
Stone, Summoned: 1/1
Water, Summoned: 3/3
Your only Class 4 at the current moment is also your newest elemental overall, a light elemental. You're guessing he's about twenty centimeters tall, giving him a good two or three centimeters over your Class 3 elementals. You haven't been able to get a good look at him yet; he's much, much brighter than he was as a Class 0, to the point where looking at him hurts your eyes.
You're not sure if he doesn't know he should reduce his own brightness or if he simply can't yet. You have yet to hear him make a sound.
Light, Brought: 1/1
Class 0
Fire: 0/3.Air: 0/5.
Dirt: 0/4.
Stone: 0/3.
Class 0 elementals fit in the palm of your hand, are human-shaped, technically genderless, and made out of their component element. Water elementals ripple as they move around. Stone and dirt are often still enough they're mistaken for dolls. The "bodies" of air elementals are more like vague guidelines; at pretty much all times, at least part of them is in the process of ignoring their outline and and flowing freely. Fire elementals look more like little balls of flame if you don't look closely enough. If you do, you might notice the permanent human-shaped patch of yellow at the center of the flames.
Although you haven't gained the ability to summon wood elementals, you have seen a few. They appear to change color and pattern depending on the type of wood they last touched; if they didn't like you, you'd pretty much just have to look out for little green orbs (their eyes) breaking up the pattern of a tree's bark.
Class 1
Class 1 elementals seem to be four or five centimeters larger than their weaker relatives.
Thus far, you've only seen C1 water elementals; their forms are more reliably detailed and they're capable of producing short, high-pitched noises to express their emotions. 'Squeaks' and 'chirps' seem to be appropriate descriptors for most of them.
Class 2
You don't know very much about class II elementals; your own didn't spend enough time at that rank for you to get a good look at them.
Class 3
Your Class 3 elementals stand at about eighteen centimeters in height.
Your Stone and Dirt elementals have large, blocky limbs about half the length and width of their own torso. At least their skulls seem to fit the altered proportions.
Your fire elemental's core is slightly smaller than the bodies of your other elementals, but seems to be otherwise normal. It used to be colored yellow; now, the rest of its flames are yellow while its core is a red-tinged orange. Instead of being a floating fireball, even the surrounding flames seem to be taking a roughly human-shaped form.
Your water elementals seem to have settled on solid forms, ones which are starting to form faces eerily similar to your own face. The resemblance is, thankfully, difficult to notice; whenever they move even the slightest amount, the water composing their body ripples as though something were dropped inside them. You're still not sure if the resemblance to you is normal.
Your air elementals seem to have decided that legs are overrated. Apart from the wispy tail replacing said legs, their form seems to have solidifed into a transparent, vaguely feminine outline. You can't tell if they're going down the same path as your water elementals and imitating your face.
Your stone and dirt elementals are now capable of communicating with an odd, purr-like rumbling. Your air and water elementals can use chirps, squeaks, sighs, and... giggles? Finally, your fire elemental can chirp, change the brightness of
Fire, Summoned: 1/1
Air, Brought: 2/2
Dirt, Summoned: 2/2
Stone, Summoned: 1/1
Water, Summoned: 3/3
Class 4
Your only Class 4 at the current moment is also your newest elemental overall, a light elemental. You're guessing he's about twenty centimeters tall, giving him a good two or three centimeters over your Class 3 elementals. You haven't been able to get a good look at him yet; he's much, much brighter than he was as a Class 0, to the point where looking at him hurts your eyes.
You're not sure if he doesn't know he should reduce his own brightness or if he simply can't yet. You have yet to hear him make a sound.
Light, Brought: 1/1
Last edited:
Prologue/Chargen, Part II of III
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Winner: Conjurer.
Close Runner-up: Haunted. Bonus: Moderately Improved Necromantic Affinity.
[X] Female
Character sheet updated.
...And how old are you? (Use Preference (1, 2, 3, 4) Voting. The differences in starting mana storage and regen are minor.)
[] 14
+ You're pretty sure you're only a tiny bit behind most of the other people your age in terms of knowledge.
+ For whatever reason, many people seem to be less prickly when you're asking them questions.
+ You've found others to be more willing to forgive your misbehavior than they used to be.
± People still think of you as a kid no matter how often you object.
± You can't safely absorb as much environmental mana as you'll be able to when you're a few years older, but you can do a little more with the same amount.
− You are mature! Honest!
− Many other kids your own age are morons.
− You've been told other people your age are going to start to be unusually distracting soonish. Some of the other villagers even seemed surprised it hadn't happened yet.
− If you're wandering around on your own, people tend to wonder what you're up to. It's plain out unfair. Even though they're usually right.
± Others.
[] 16
+ You're reaching your peak in terms of the amount of mana you can safely absorb at once, yet you still get more out of a given amount than those a few years older than you.
+ Other people your age seem unusually willing to do nice things for you and give you minor gifts.
+ As long as you look like you know what you're doing and don't draw too much attention to yourself, you can often go out on your own without anyone questioning you.
± Some people think you should be old enough to handle yourself, others still treat you like a child.
− You're pretty sure you'll be a bit behind in your education. You're sure you can catch up if you try hard enough.
− Many other people your age are moronic idiots.
− You keep having inappropriate and distracting daydreams about other people.
± Others.
[] 18
+ Some people may still mistake you for a kid, but you are a legal adult now and can go out on your own.
+ You know how to take care of yourself in forested wilderness. Monster-infested or otherwise high-mana areas don't count.
± You're expected to be able to take care of yourself by now.
± Several different people have given you what are undeniably supposed to be courting gifts. Letting them down gently was just so awkward.
± You've reached what's likely to be your upper lifetime mana tolerance. Unfortunately, the amount of permanent storage and regen you can get from a given amount of mana is starting to slide downward.
− You think you're past the point where you can reasonably catch up to others your age.
− BEGONE, IMPURE THOUGHTS!
± Others.
[] 21
+ Nobody will bat an eye if you're running around on your own.
+ Few people will give you the stink-eye if they see you drinking alcohol.
+ You're mostly past the point where you're, er, paying excessive attention to attractive members of the same race. Either way, you've learned how to deal with it and have gotten past your first "crush."
+ You know how to take care of yourself in wild mountains, forests, plains, and swamps. Monster-infested or otherwise high-mana areas don't count.
± You've hit what's likely to be your lifetime limit for the amount of mana you can safely absorb at once. Unfortunately, your regeneration and storage don't increase as much as they used to.
± You're expected to be able to take care of yourself by now.
− People are much less forgiving of your mistakes and perceived misbehavior compared to how they used to be.
− Your lack of a proper education will be especially noticeable to those who care; you're pretty sure people are supposed to be graduating by the time they're your age, not starting.
± Others.
[] 14
[] 16
[] 18
[] 21
What's your name? Use approval voting for your name; you may vote X for multiple options. The winner will be the name with the most votes.
[] Ember
[] Blossom
[] Anna
[] Terpsichore
[] Ismene
[] Melia
[] Write-in
Close Runner-up: Haunted. Bonus: Moderately Improved Necromantic Affinity.
[X] Female
Character sheet updated.
...And how old are you? (Use Preference (1, 2, 3, 4) Voting. The differences in starting mana storage and regen are minor.)
[] 14
+ You're pretty sure you're only a tiny bit behind most of the other people your age in terms of knowledge.
+ For whatever reason, many people seem to be less prickly when you're asking them questions.
+ You've found others to be more willing to forgive your misbehavior than they used to be.
± People still think of you as a kid no matter how often you object.
± You can't safely absorb as much environmental mana as you'll be able to when you're a few years older, but you can do a little more with the same amount.
− You are mature! Honest!
− Many other kids your own age are morons.
− You've been told other people your age are going to start to be unusually distracting soonish. Some of the other villagers even seemed surprised it hadn't happened yet.
− If you're wandering around on your own, people tend to wonder what you're up to. It's plain out unfair. Even though they're usually right.
± Others.
[] 16
+ You're reaching your peak in terms of the amount of mana you can safely absorb at once, yet you still get more out of a given amount than those a few years older than you.
+ Other people your age seem unusually willing to do nice things for you and give you minor gifts.
+ As long as you look like you know what you're doing and don't draw too much attention to yourself, you can often go out on your own without anyone questioning you.
± Some people think you should be old enough to handle yourself, others still treat you like a child.
− You're pretty sure you'll be a bit behind in your education. You're sure you can catch up if you try hard enough.
− Many other people your age are moronic idiots.
− You keep having inappropriate and distracting daydreams about other people.
± Others.
[] 18
+ Some people may still mistake you for a kid, but you are a legal adult now and can go out on your own.
+ You know how to take care of yourself in forested wilderness. Monster-infested or otherwise high-mana areas don't count.
± You're expected to be able to take care of yourself by now.
± Several different people have given you what are undeniably supposed to be courting gifts. Letting them down gently was just so awkward.
± You've reached what's likely to be your upper lifetime mana tolerance. Unfortunately, the amount of permanent storage and regen you can get from a given amount of mana is starting to slide downward.
− You think you're past the point where you can reasonably catch up to others your age.
− BEGONE, IMPURE THOUGHTS!
± Others.
[] 21
+ Nobody will bat an eye if you're running around on your own.
+ Few people will give you the stink-eye if they see you drinking alcohol.
+ You're mostly past the point where you're, er, paying excessive attention to attractive members of the same race. Either way, you've learned how to deal with it and have gotten past your first "crush."
+ You know how to take care of yourself in wild mountains, forests, plains, and swamps. Monster-infested or otherwise high-mana areas don't count.
± You've hit what's likely to be your lifetime limit for the amount of mana you can safely absorb at once. Unfortunately, your regeneration and storage don't increase as much as they used to.
± You're expected to be able to take care of yourself by now.
− People are much less forgiving of your mistakes and perceived misbehavior compared to how they used to be.
− Your lack of a proper education will be especially noticeable to those who care; you're pretty sure people are supposed to be graduating by the time they're your age, not starting.
± Others.
[] 14
[] 16
[] 18
[] 21
What's your name? Use approval voting for your name; you may vote X for multiple options. The winner will be the name with the most votes.
[] Ember
[] Blossom
[] Anna
[] Terpsichore
[] Ismene
[] Melia
[] Write-in
Last edited:
Prologue, III of III (Final)
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Winner: 16
[X] Melia
Your character sheet has been updated.
When no further words are forthcoming from either of you, you strongly consider returning to the railing. Thinking of the Scout's warning only helps highlight its sheer absurdity.
"Wouldn't a flying shark take off a lot more than just my nose? I mean, eww? You might as well have safety walls instead of a safety railing at that point."
The Scout shrugs.
"It was a joke. Treat it like one. Unless your situational awareness is absolutely terrible, you'd see it comin—"
A horrible cascade of cracking wood interrupts the Scout as the deck abruptly tilts sideways. You have just enough time to see the Scout grab on to a railing before you find yourself falling away from him at a rather alarming rate.
You can see 'your' air elementals darting around your head and generally acting entirely too calm for the situation you're in. You can't see any sign of the water elemental who'd been sitting on your shoulder.
You twist your upper body to look behind you and immediately regret it. You can see several stone cones sinking back down into the waves below, indicating you're not actually looking at any sort of natural landmark. Either way, you really don't want to land in the water.
Apparently, you don't have to. A flood of mana leaves you just before reality tears itself apart in your path. As soon as you and two of your air elementals have passed through the rift, it closes behind you, leaving you somewhere both different and completely unfamiliar to you.
Not a good combination.
Use preference voting.
[] A ruined stone tower.
Your fall seems to have been broken by the soft nest of some animal or another. Fortunately, you don't seem to have landed on anything living.
The cracked and crumbling walls of the tower are covered with patches of moss and blackened scorch marks. You can see the rotted remains of wooden stairs along the wall, leading both upward and further down the tower. The fact that several of them are sagging does not say good things about their stability.
Good thing nature seems to have provided. While there is a giant hole in the wall, an oak tree has grown into it and seems to be providing enough stable branches for you to climb down to the thick forest below. Climbing back up while carrying something would be tricky, but you're sure you can figure something out.
[] A snow-covered wasteland.
...At least, that's what it feels like. You blame the abrupt change in both humidity and temperature. If you're going to be a little fairer, you're pretty sure you're just at the top of a hill or small mountain.
Thanks to all the snow, it's actually quite difficult to look around yourself. All the white is blinding. Still, you're able to make out a collection of green, unnaturally snow-free trees a few hundred meters downhill. You can't tell if the flashes of colored light from the grove are from magic or something else.
[] A camp.
You think you broke someone's tent when you fell. You also think you're too confused to care; not only are you somewhere you've never been before, it's also nighttime. It was barely mid-afternoon back on the ship.
The haphazard collection of brightly-colored tents andtripping hazards support ropes provide little hint as to the camp's precise nature. You can see the glow of torchlight from nearby, yet none of it is close enough to really illuminate you. You can hear metal objects being banged and scraped against one another, but since there's more laughter than shouting, you don't think it's any kind of real fight.
[X] Melia
Your character sheet has been updated.
When no further words are forthcoming from either of you, you strongly consider returning to the railing. Thinking of the Scout's warning only helps highlight its sheer absurdity.
"Wouldn't a flying shark take off a lot more than just my nose? I mean, eww? You might as well have safety walls instead of a safety railing at that point."
The Scout shrugs.
"It was a joke. Treat it like one. Unless your situational awareness is absolutely terrible, you'd see it comin—"
A horrible cascade of cracking wood interrupts the Scout as the deck abruptly tilts sideways. You have just enough time to see the Scout grab on to a railing before you find yourself falling away from him at a rather alarming rate.
You can see 'your' air elementals darting around your head and generally acting entirely too calm for the situation you're in. You can't see any sign of the water elemental who'd been sitting on your shoulder.
You twist your upper body to look behind you and immediately regret it. You can see several stone cones sinking back down into the waves below, indicating you're not actually looking at any sort of natural landmark. Either way, you really don't want to land in the water.
Apparently, you don't have to. A flood of mana leaves you just before reality tears itself apart in your path. As soon as you and two of your air elementals have passed through the rift, it closes behind you, leaving you somewhere both different and completely unfamiliar to you.
Not a good combination.
Use preference voting.
[] A ruined stone tower.
Your fall seems to have been broken by the soft nest of some animal or another. Fortunately, you don't seem to have landed on anything living.
The cracked and crumbling walls of the tower are covered with patches of moss and blackened scorch marks. You can see the rotted remains of wooden stairs along the wall, leading both upward and further down the tower. The fact that several of them are sagging does not say good things about their stability.
Good thing nature seems to have provided. While there is a giant hole in the wall, an oak tree has grown into it and seems to be providing enough stable branches for you to climb down to the thick forest below. Climbing back up while carrying something would be tricky, but you're sure you can figure something out.
[] A snow-covered wasteland.
...At least, that's what it feels like. You blame the abrupt change in both humidity and temperature. If you're going to be a little fairer, you're pretty sure you're just at the top of a hill or small mountain.
Thanks to all the snow, it's actually quite difficult to look around yourself. All the white is blinding. Still, you're able to make out a collection of green, unnaturally snow-free trees a few hundred meters downhill. You can't tell if the flashes of colored light from the grove are from magic or something else.
[] A camp.
You think you broke someone's tent when you fell. You also think you're too confused to care; not only are you somewhere you've never been before, it's also nighttime. It was barely mid-afternoon back on the ship.
The haphazard collection of brightly-colored tents and
I'm not too happy with the writing of this chapter; it felt very choppy. Oh, well. 'Tis past now. Your first action (after trying to figure out WTF just happened) if a given destination is picked will be to explore your landing site in a little more detail.
Last edited:
Chapter 1 & Appearance
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Winner: A ruined stone tower.
You carefully extract yourself from the collection of soft moss, grass, branches, and miscellaneous other soft junk you'd landed on. You can't see any feathers, bones, tufts of fur, or other hints to tell you what sort of creature lives in it. Since the entire rough circle looks like it's about half a meter across, you sincerely doubt it's just some tiny little bird.
A preliminary scan of the 'room' provides no information on where you are or how you could've gotten here. Patting your clothes down turns up a similar lack of anything informative. Meanwhile, your friends don't seem to share your confusion or concern and are happily poking their faces into every crevice and hole they can find.
Gingerly sitting back down on the nest, you turn your thoughts back toward the moments-long chain of events which led to you coming here. Although you'd been under the impression sea monsters weren't dumb enough to head so close to shore, it would seem you were unlucky enough to find an exception.
You aren't too worried about the Scout. Their job is to find potential mages in even the most remote areas; even if he can't outright kill whatever the monster was, you'd be shocked if he couldn't flee from it.
So, back to you. Although it was over too quickly for you to actually feel fear, you know you really, really hadn't wanted to land in the water. You lost a bunch of mana, reality decided to tear itself apart, and here you are.
Which means... what, exactly?
You aren't stupid. Although you'd thought portals traveling between places only existed in fairy tales, you're fairly certain you just provided the mana for one. Having it be a jagged tear as opposed to a proper circle is a little frightening, but since you can't see any seams in midair, you aren't too worried about damaging the universe. You could be the victim of a mental illusion inflicted upon you by the monster, but...
...1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512...
...Your mind doesn't feel muddled enough for that. Your butt and lower back both ache too much for you to be a ghost, so you're clearly not dead. With all those eliminated, you think it's safe to say you just tore a hole in reality despite the apparent impossibility of doing such. Whether it was directly or with the assistance of an artifact is a little irrelevant until you actually have enough mana to repeat the feat.
Even if you can manage to find a way to consciously repeat the feat, you don't think it's a good idea to even try until you're full up on mana. Turns out, tearing holes in reality consumes a lot of power. What a shocker.
You feel like you should be a bit more worried than you actually are, but after the week you've had, this just feels like another new adventure. Maybe your obligatory freakout is just delayed a little? You do feel a little shaky.
...Whatever. No point dwelling on it.
Even with the massive drain from the portal, you still have more than enough mana to summon your friends. They may be weak, but they can still make a difference over a large period of time. Just off the top of your head? Stone elementals could slowly fashion stable hand-and-footholds out of the tower's walls and water elementals could provide you with a reliable source of fresh water. If you can manage to communicate what you want to them, water and dirt elementals might even be able to help you recognize what plants are and aren't safe to eat. Of course, all that assumes you aren't rescued soon.
Rough course plotted, you crouch down and grab the closest fallen rock. Imagining one of the stone elementals from your village, you impose its image over the provided element and mentally push.
For the first time in your life, you encounter resistance and a rather significant drain on your mana reserves. You can even feel your arm getting weaker and weaker as time goes on. You think your subsequent freakout is rather reasonable; you try to halt the stream, let go of the rock, something. Although you do manage to get to your feet, your hand simply refuses to open.
Eventually, you catch the tiniest flash of light and the drain stops. Inside your palm, you can feel the rock flowing into the tiny humanoid shape of its new occupant. You carefully turn your palm toward the ceiling and open your hand.
The stone elemental you summoned stares up at you with smooth, pupiless eyes. Personally, you think he still looks cute, but you can definitely see how some people would find elementals creepy.
You mentally gauge your remaining mana and decide to experiment a little; even if it does drain you as much as last time, you should still have enough for another elemental and then some. Since air is everywhere, you don't need to do anything special to summon one of the elementals who came through the portal with you. Its translucent, uncertain shape forms in the palm of your right hand without any problems.
Resummoning the stone elemental gives the same results. No unusual flashes, no extra drain, just a tiny dip in your mana reserves.
Your speculation is cut short by the distant sounds of conversation from outside. You hastily scramble to your feet and travel to thegaping hole in the wall natural window.
A few dozen meters away, you can see two people hacking their way through the undergrowth of a thick forest. Or rather, one of them is cutting a path while the other is following the path her partner made. Both of them have black hair and relatively dark skin, the one in the front is male, and the other is female. Both are wearing brown armor made out of what you think is leather. The female is carrying a quiver and large bow on her back while the male is (ab)using his sword to get through the forest.
You don't recognize the language they're speaking in, nor why the woman in the back seems so frustrated compared to her patient partner. You think both of them might have different accents, but you're not sure. To make matters worse, your vision and brain both start to feel increasingly fuzzy and uncertain; you quickly sit down before you outright fall out of the tower.
After about twenty seconds, the dizziness fades and is replaced by blessed comprehension. Although it's subtle, you also think their accents vanished.
"-And I'm saying you're an inbred moron," the archer argues. "Contrary to what you seem to think, an abandoned outpost does not equal ancient treasure. No part of it is in a cave, I don't think they knew how to build sturdy cellars back then, and everyone back there knew about it. It'll have been searched a thousand times over by now."
Her partner sighs and shakes his head.
"It's an unguarded, low-effort target which can itself act as shelter if we don't find anything. Will it have been searched before? Definitely. Will the treasure-seekers have had magic detectors? Doubt it. Best case scenario, we might find a buried smuggler's cache or something. Worst case scenario, we walked about two hours out of our way and are in a good place to stop for the night. Truly a hardship."
"And then what? You and I both hate digging and we don't even have a claim to the land. Unguarded does not mean legal."
The swordsman stops and blinks, forcing the woman behind him to stop moving as well.
"...You know, I honestly hadn't thought of that."
The archer buries her face in both hands and screams into them.
"Yes! That's my point!"
Her partner winces and spins around. "Wake up the whole woods, why don't you?"
The archer slowly looks up and takes several deep breaths. You can't interpret her expression from this distance.
"Eugene, you know I love you, but I really want to strangle you sometimes. This is one of those times."
Eugene mutters something under his breath. Whatever it was, it earns a single snort of laughter from his partner.
[] Call out to them and say hello.
-[] You're more than a little bit lost. Would they happen to know the way to Alistore's state academy?
--[] For the record, you blame the gaping hole in reality which brought you here. Yes, you're sure you're not dead.
-[] Ask how far away the closest settlement is.
-[] They mentioned a magic detector. Can you look at it? You haven't heard of portable versions before, assuming one of them isn't a Scout.
-[] You have some dirt elemental friends who might be able to help. They're not very smart, but you might be able to train them to retrieve underground objects? Or something like that.
[] Remain hidden and let them pass by.
-[] Once you're sure they're gone, climb down and head in the direction they came from. Following the literal path of destruction shouldn't be too hard.
-[] Carefully scout the area around your temporary home. If you're going to use it as a base camp for a little while, you'll need to make sure such a plan is actually reasonable.
[] Write-in
Vote by preference/number.
[] Headband
[] Crown
[] Match
[] Magic
[] Studying
You carefully extract yourself from the collection of soft moss, grass, branches, and miscellaneous other soft junk you'd landed on. You can't see any feathers, bones, tufts of fur, or other hints to tell you what sort of creature lives in it. Since the entire rough circle looks like it's about half a meter across, you sincerely doubt it's just some tiny little bird.
A preliminary scan of the 'room' provides no information on where you are or how you could've gotten here. Patting your clothes down turns up a similar lack of anything informative. Meanwhile, your friends don't seem to share your confusion or concern and are happily poking their faces into every crevice and hole they can find.
Gingerly sitting back down on the nest, you turn your thoughts back toward the moments-long chain of events which led to you coming here. Although you'd been under the impression sea monsters weren't dumb enough to head so close to shore, it would seem you were unlucky enough to find an exception.
You aren't too worried about the Scout. Their job is to find potential mages in even the most remote areas; even if he can't outright kill whatever the monster was, you'd be shocked if he couldn't flee from it.
So, back to you. Although it was over too quickly for you to actually feel fear, you know you really, really hadn't wanted to land in the water. You lost a bunch of mana, reality decided to tear itself apart, and here you are.
Which means... what, exactly?
You aren't stupid. Although you'd thought portals traveling between places only existed in fairy tales, you're fairly certain you just provided the mana for one. Having it be a jagged tear as opposed to a proper circle is a little frightening, but since you can't see any seams in midair, you aren't too worried about damaging the universe. You could be the victim of a mental illusion inflicted upon you by the monster, but...
...1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512...
...Your mind doesn't feel muddled enough for that. Your butt and lower back both ache too much for you to be a ghost, so you're clearly not dead. With all those eliminated, you think it's safe to say you just tore a hole in reality despite the apparent impossibility of doing such. Whether it was directly or with the assistance of an artifact is a little irrelevant until you actually have enough mana to repeat the feat.
Even if you can manage to find a way to consciously repeat the feat, you don't think it's a good idea to even try until you're full up on mana. Turns out, tearing holes in reality consumes a lot of power. What a shocker.
You feel like you should be a bit more worried than you actually are, but after the week you've had, this just feels like another new adventure. Maybe your obligatory freakout is just delayed a little? You do feel a little shaky.
...Whatever. No point dwelling on it.
Even with the massive drain from the portal, you still have more than enough mana to summon your friends. They may be weak, but they can still make a difference over a large period of time. Just off the top of your head? Stone elementals could slowly fashion stable hand-and-footholds out of the tower's walls and water elementals could provide you with a reliable source of fresh water. If you can manage to communicate what you want to them, water and dirt elementals might even be able to help you recognize what plants are and aren't safe to eat. Of course, all that assumes you aren't rescued soon.
Rough course plotted, you crouch down and grab the closest fallen rock. Imagining one of the stone elementals from your village, you impose its image over the provided element and mentally push.
For the first time in your life, you encounter resistance and a rather significant drain on your mana reserves. You can even feel your arm getting weaker and weaker as time goes on. You think your subsequent freakout is rather reasonable; you try to halt the stream, let go of the rock, something. Although you do manage to get to your feet, your hand simply refuses to open.
Eventually, you catch the tiniest flash of light and the drain stops. Inside your palm, you can feel the rock flowing into the tiny humanoid shape of its new occupant. You carefully turn your palm toward the ceiling and open your hand.
The stone elemental you summoned stares up at you with smooth, pupiless eyes. Personally, you think he still looks cute, but you can definitely see how some people would find elementals creepy.
You mentally gauge your remaining mana and decide to experiment a little; even if it does drain you as much as last time, you should still have enough for another elemental and then some. Since air is everywhere, you don't need to do anything special to summon one of the elementals who came through the portal with you. Its translucent, uncertain shape forms in the palm of your right hand without any problems.
Resummoning the stone elemental gives the same results. No unusual flashes, no extra drain, just a tiny dip in your mana reserves.
Your speculation is cut short by the distant sounds of conversation from outside. You hastily scramble to your feet and travel to the
A few dozen meters away, you can see two people hacking their way through the undergrowth of a thick forest. Or rather, one of them is cutting a path while the other is following the path her partner made. Both of them have black hair and relatively dark skin, the one in the front is male, and the other is female. Both are wearing brown armor made out of what you think is leather. The female is carrying a quiver and large bow on her back while the male is (ab)using his sword to get through the forest.
You don't recognize the language they're speaking in, nor why the woman in the back seems so frustrated compared to her patient partner. You think both of them might have different accents, but you're not sure. To make matters worse, your vision and brain both start to feel increasingly fuzzy and uncertain; you quickly sit down before you outright fall out of the tower.
After about twenty seconds, the dizziness fades and is replaced by blessed comprehension. Although it's subtle, you also think their accents vanished.
"-And I'm saying you're an inbred moron," the archer argues. "Contrary to what you seem to think, an abandoned outpost does not equal ancient treasure. No part of it is in a cave, I don't think they knew how to build sturdy cellars back then, and everyone back there knew about it. It'll have been searched a thousand times over by now."
Her partner sighs and shakes his head.
"It's an unguarded, low-effort target which can itself act as shelter if we don't find anything. Will it have been searched before? Definitely. Will the treasure-seekers have had magic detectors? Doubt it. Best case scenario, we might find a buried smuggler's cache or something. Worst case scenario, we walked about two hours out of our way and are in a good place to stop for the night. Truly a hardship."
"And then what? You and I both hate digging and we don't even have a claim to the land. Unguarded does not mean legal."
The swordsman stops and blinks, forcing the woman behind him to stop moving as well.
"...You know, I honestly hadn't thought of that."
The archer buries her face in both hands and screams into them.
"Yes! That's my point!"
Her partner winces and spins around. "Wake up the whole woods, why don't you?"
The archer slowly looks up and takes several deep breaths. You can't interpret her expression from this distance.
"Eugene, you know I love you, but I really want to strangle you sometimes. This is one of those times."
Eugene mutters something under his breath. Whatever it was, it earns a single snort of laughter from his partner.
[] Call out to them and say hello.
-[] You're more than a little bit lost. Would they happen to know the way to Alistore's state academy?
--[] For the record, you blame the gaping hole in reality which brought you here. Yes, you're sure you're not dead.
-[] Ask how far away the closest settlement is.
-[] They mentioned a magic detector. Can you look at it? You haven't heard of portable versions before, assuming one of them isn't a Scout.
-[] You have some dirt elemental friends who might be able to help. They're not very smart, but you might be able to train them to retrieve underground objects? Or something like that.
[] Remain hidden and let them pass by.
-[] Once you're sure they're gone, climb down and head in the direction they came from. Following the literal path of destruction shouldn't be too hard.
-[] Carefully scout the area around your temporary home. If you're going to use it as a base camp for a little while, you'll need to make sure such a plan is actually reasonable.
[] Write-in
OOC Vote: Appearance
Vote by preference/number.
[] Headband
[] Crown
[] Match
[] Magic
[] Studying
Chapter 1.1: Dimensionally Challenged
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Winner: Match
[X] Call out to them and say hello.
"Hello?"
You pause as the echoes returned by the tower sound significantly different from what you'd meant to say.
...Ooookay then? So, I guess my voicebox has a filter now. Totally going to need to see a mage about all this later; I don't think I had a language Talent before, did I? An artifact, then?
"Hello, feminine voice which we nonetheless can't see the source of," Eugene calls back.
Oops?
You lean forward and eye the closest set of branches. Although the ground is a distressingly long way away, you're pretty sure there are more than enough stable handholds to effectively remove the chance of falling.
"Um, I'm - I'm in the tower? Please give me a minute, I'll climb down."
You tuck your dress up, rather wishing you'd worn something else when you'd gotten up this morning. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; you'd worn your other clothes on previous days and they were still a little damp. After making sure they aren't in too much danger of snagging on a passing branch, you place your stone elemental on the back of your neck and start working your way downward.
Making your way down without ripping your clothes takes a great bit longer than expected, but fortunately, Eugene and his partner seem content to wait. You make a mental note to change into something more practical before you're next torn from one dimension and deposited somewhere else.
...Wait, what?
You stop on one of the lower branches and try to figure out where that thought came from. Ideas which don't have a good explanation are supposedly one of the easiest ways to tell you're being affected by a compulsion or illusion. If it doesn't fit, don't permit.
Admittedly, an illusion might not even be harmful in this case. You're pretty sure some diplomats use especially detailed ones to help compensate for where their own knowledge of local language and customs might be lacking. Of course, you're pretty sure you would've noticed the long rituals necessary to put one of those on you, and—focus, Melia!
Your ability to sense mana in yourself is still rudimentary at best, but you have to at least try. You start searching your body unusual mana, vaguely noticing the two travelers hurrying toward you as you do so.
It doesn't take very long for you to find something which clearly doesn't belong: a network of magical threads permeating the center of your chest, inside where your mana reserves are stored and where your body generates new mana. None of them seem to be doing anything apart from holding themselves in place, although you do notice a cord leading downward. Eventually, it splits in half to travel down both legs, and from there, vanishes out the bottoms of your feet. Your senses aren't refined enough to distinguish between the cord and environmental mana, so you can't figure out what it's doing past that point.
You turn your attention back to your reserves and try to figure out if the threads are doing anything harmful. Some of them are sitting inside your mana, while the other parts are in the empty space formerly occupied by mana you've already spent. Although it's difficult for you to actually know what you're looking at, the threads inside your unused mana reserves feel slightly smoother than those outside. Sturdier. The difference is minimal, but you have the feeling it'll get more pronounced as time goes on.
My anchor. When it leaves, so will I.
You frown.
Hello, mysterious thoughts which sound like me yet clearly aren't. Explain.
No answer is forthcoming. You hadn't really been expecting one, but an explanation would've been nice. Still, what little information it's given you doesn't paint a particularly promising picture. If you need an anchor to keep yourself from 'leaving,' that implies there's some sort of an effect trying to take you somewhere else. Despite that fact, you don't feel like anything is pulling in either direction. Until you actually looked, you felt normal, if a little exhausted and jittery. And what about the mention of being in a completely different dimension? You'd thought that was flat-out impossible.
Plus, where did the extra mana come from? You're pretty sure the threads are made out of more of it than you actually spent on getting here. Did tearing reality apart yield energy instead of costing it? How come you suddenly need to be anchored to the ground when you've never needed one before? How did you make the anchor in the first place? What happens when it breaks? Do you just get transported somewhere else and make a new one, do you need to be careful to have full mana reserves so you can make a new one, why can't you feel any sort of translation spell, how does it all work?
"Hey, you okay?"
You reluctantly turn your attention back to the outside world. You have so many questions, yet you don't think anyone here is going to be capable of answering them.
Eugene is holding out both arms, apparently offering to help you the rest of the way down. You're happy to accept and are even happier when he doesn't hold you for longer than absolutely necessary.
-[X] You're more than a little bit lost.
"Sorry, I was thinking. I'm fine. Um, would you mind telling you who you are? I'm Melia Foster."
You shift to more comfortable footing while Eugene glances back at his partner. She shrugs.
"Eugene Favre. The beautiful lady who will probably kill me in my sleep one day is—"
"—Perfectly capable of introducing herself," she interrupts. "Ines Favre. What are you doing here, sweetie?"
I'm not a candy.
You do your utmost to keep the flash of resentment from affecting your words and body. It's not like she meant anything by it.
-[X] Ask how far away the closest settlement is.
"I'm trying to figure out where 'here' is. Even lambs would have a hard time getting as lost as I am right now. So, um, would you be so kind as to tell me where and how far away the closest settlement is?"
Eugene hesitates before waving back the way they came. "About an hour thataway? I think you had a pretty good spot to wait for your protector, though. Where is he?"
Ines jabs one elbow into Eugene's side.
"Or she," he adds quickly.
In a completely different dimension, apparently.
"I honestly have no clue. But, um, I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to actually wait there for him. Maybe take shelter in there if I can take care of myself, but..."
You shrug helplessly. Eugene exchanges another unreadable look with his wife.
"Sooooooooooooooooooooo," Eugene drawls, dragging the word out long past the point where it should've been given a merciful death. "Are you sure you don't want to wait for your guardian?"
You blink several times in quick succession. 'Guardian' felt like the same word as the earlier 'protector,' but somehow more accurate?
Weird.
You pick your words carefully to avoid lying. "The last I saw of him, we were on a ship. I just got up and suddenly I'm in the woods. I think it's safe to say waiting for him is not a good idea."
Eugene quickly inhales through his teeth while Ines winces. You're not sure how to interpret their reactions.
"Listen, it's been nice meeting you, but we should really get you back to civilization. This isn't the sort of place you want to try camping in."
Did I say something wrong?
Ines unknowingly helps you relax by leaning forward and stage-whispering to Eugene. "That little hole-in-the-ground counts?"
"Yes, dear."
"We really are out in the sticks, aren't we?"
Eugene turns and raises one eyebrow. "How is this any different from the last six months of our lives?"
"The beer is worse."
"...Fair enough," Eugene concedes, turning back to you. "In all seriousness, it isn't safe here. I can think of half a dozen predators who could gobble you up in one bite."
Ines snorts. "Don't exaggerate when we're dealing with monsters, dear. No, they could give her a mortal injury with one big bite. Eating her would actually take quite a bit longer."
Eugene leans back again. "I don't think you're helping."
"Better she have realistic expectations than think giant snakes are going to show up. So, Miss..." Ines stops, wincing. "Sorry. Terrible with names. What was yours again?"
-[X] You have some dirt elemental friends who might be able to help. They're not very smart, but you might be able to train them to retrieve underground objects? Or something like that.
You carefully retrieve your stone elemental before answering, holding him in both palms. Both Ines and Eugene immediately freeze and stare at it.
"Melia," you repeat. "And you don't have to escort me straight back. I heard something about digging and your hatred of it? Well, I'm friends with some dirt and stone elementals who might be able to do it for you. Well, no, I'm sure they could help, we'd just have to get what we want across. They're not very smart."
You choose to omit the part where illegality was mentioned. You didn't actually outright say you'd be their accomplice—and plus, you've been taught that something is only really illegal if the relevant laws are enforced. Otherwise, it's just feel-good writing from a bunch of people who never had to do any real work.
It takes a while for Eugene to tear his gaze away from the tiny elemental and actually answer you.
"By the time we'd finish any search, it'd already be past the point where you could make it back to the village. But, uh, I'm not actually sure that's a good place for a mage to settle down for a while. Do you just want to come with us? I think we could lend you some proper traveling clothes for the next two-three days. There's a guildhall there in case you want to contact your guardian."
You hesitate and gnaw on your lower lip. You still feel like you're much calmer than you should be, but as long as that lasts, you intend to take full advantage of it.
"One moment, please."
You step back, lean against the tree behind you, and close your eyes. Your anchor looks about the same as it did when you last checked on it. If you keep your mana reserves about 3/4s empty until further notice, it might last...
Despite the severe lack of information on how you'd actually determine its lifetime, an answer still manages to float to the top of your mind.
Five days. Longer if there's mana shielding it.
You hiss through your teeth and try to figure out what you actually want. Having your numerous questions answered, that's obvious. Getting a message home to tell them you're fine would be nice, but likely quite difficult. Artificially making an elemental remains on your list of long-term dreams, emphasis on 'long-term.'
You still want to become a real mage instead of someone who merely has a Talent, but if you aren't simply brought home when the anchor breaks, you won't really be able to attend any sort of school any time soon. Making sure you're always absorbing as much mana as you safely can will be difficult—if this dimension is anything like your home, people seldom settle in areas with high levels of mana—but it's by no means impossible.
Finding a way to actively repair your anchor would be nice, but that goes right back to needing to become a proper mage. You can barely control your own mana right now, let alone cast any spells. Of course, if your mana is 'shielding' the anchor, that implies there's something it needs to be shielded from. Spells don't just deteriorate on their own; people used to think that, but it's long since been proved their environment and other factors are responsible. You expect the same will hold true for your anchor.
Actually making friends will be difficult if you keep getting abducted by an effect you don't understand, which you're really not happy about. So, you suppose you should settle on that as an eternal goal: figure out what factors affect the lifespan of your anchor.
Summoning more elementals from home would be a good idea if you're always pulled through tears in reality; your two air elementals came with you, so if you can get them to cooperate, you should be able to bring any other summons along as well. Bringing them to higher-mana areas or feeding them solid mana should help them get stronger, and the more powerful they are, the better their ability to keep you safe. Right now, they're only good for distractions or, in the case of fire elementals, intimidating animals and carnivorous plants.
For shorter-term goals, you should probably get more supplies so you're better prepared the next time you're pulled from reality. You don't even have any rations on you.
While you're not sure if this still holds true in a different dimension, you've heard prices tend to rise depending on the population of the area. Assuming your currency is accepted—you'd be very surprised if it isn't—it might be cheaper to stock up in the village instead of the town Ines and Eugene mentioned.
You squeeze your forehead and wish you had a clearly superior path to follow. Your life was a lot simpler a week ago.
[] Agree to go with Ines and Eugene.
-[] Although, if you could maximize the time spent sightseeing, exploring, treasure-hunting, etc., that would be nice.
[] Travel to the village.
[] Thank them for their offer, but you should be fine on your own. You have elementals to look out for you.
-[] Explore the area you're currently in, including the tower. You'd like to determine if you were just randomly dropped here or if there was a reason.
[] Ask more questions.
-[] They mentioned a guild? You're assuming it's for mages; what sort of things do they do?
-[] Do they have any advice for someone who just ended up in a different dimension and has no idea how, why, or what she should do next?
-[] Just ask whatever comes to mind without worrying about secrecy or concealment.
-[] Write-in
[] Write-in
[X] Call out to them and say hello.
"Hello?"
You pause as the echoes returned by the tower sound significantly different from what you'd meant to say.
...Ooookay then? So, I guess my voicebox has a filter now. Totally going to need to see a mage about all this later; I don't think I had a language Talent before, did I? An artifact, then?
"Hello, feminine voice which we nonetheless can't see the source of," Eugene calls back.
Oops?
You lean forward and eye the closest set of branches. Although the ground is a distressingly long way away, you're pretty sure there are more than enough stable handholds to effectively remove the chance of falling.
"Um, I'm - I'm in the tower? Please give me a minute, I'll climb down."
You tuck your dress up, rather wishing you'd worn something else when you'd gotten up this morning. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; you'd worn your other clothes on previous days and they were still a little damp. After making sure they aren't in too much danger of snagging on a passing branch, you place your stone elemental on the back of your neck and start working your way downward.
Making your way down without ripping your clothes takes a great bit longer than expected, but fortunately, Eugene and his partner seem content to wait. You make a mental note to change into something more practical before you're next torn from one dimension and deposited somewhere else.
...Wait, what?
You stop on one of the lower branches and try to figure out where that thought came from. Ideas which don't have a good explanation are supposedly one of the easiest ways to tell you're being affected by a compulsion or illusion. If it doesn't fit, don't permit.
Admittedly, an illusion might not even be harmful in this case. You're pretty sure some diplomats use especially detailed ones to help compensate for where their own knowledge of local language and customs might be lacking. Of course, you're pretty sure you would've noticed the long rituals necessary to put one of those on you, and—focus, Melia!
Your ability to sense mana in yourself is still rudimentary at best, but you have to at least try. You start searching your body unusual mana, vaguely noticing the two travelers hurrying toward you as you do so.
It doesn't take very long for you to find something which clearly doesn't belong: a network of magical threads permeating the center of your chest, inside where your mana reserves are stored and where your body generates new mana. None of them seem to be doing anything apart from holding themselves in place, although you do notice a cord leading downward. Eventually, it splits in half to travel down both legs, and from there, vanishes out the bottoms of your feet. Your senses aren't refined enough to distinguish between the cord and environmental mana, so you can't figure out what it's doing past that point.
You turn your attention back to your reserves and try to figure out if the threads are doing anything harmful. Some of them are sitting inside your mana, while the other parts are in the empty space formerly occupied by mana you've already spent. Although it's difficult for you to actually know what you're looking at, the threads inside your unused mana reserves feel slightly smoother than those outside. Sturdier. The difference is minimal, but you have the feeling it'll get more pronounced as time goes on.
My anchor. When it leaves, so will I.
You frown.
Hello, mysterious thoughts which sound like me yet clearly aren't. Explain.
No answer is forthcoming. You hadn't really been expecting one, but an explanation would've been nice. Still, what little information it's given you doesn't paint a particularly promising picture. If you need an anchor to keep yourself from 'leaving,' that implies there's some sort of an effect trying to take you somewhere else. Despite that fact, you don't feel like anything is pulling in either direction. Until you actually looked, you felt normal, if a little exhausted and jittery. And what about the mention of being in a completely different dimension? You'd thought that was flat-out impossible.
Plus, where did the extra mana come from? You're pretty sure the threads are made out of more of it than you actually spent on getting here. Did tearing reality apart yield energy instead of costing it? How come you suddenly need to be anchored to the ground when you've never needed one before? How did you make the anchor in the first place? What happens when it breaks? Do you just get transported somewhere else and make a new one, do you need to be careful to have full mana reserves so you can make a new one, why can't you feel any sort of translation spell, how does it all work?
"Hey, you okay?"
You reluctantly turn your attention back to the outside world. You have so many questions, yet you don't think anyone here is going to be capable of answering them.
Eugene is holding out both arms, apparently offering to help you the rest of the way down. You're happy to accept and are even happier when he doesn't hold you for longer than absolutely necessary.
-[X] You're more than a little bit lost.
"Sorry, I was thinking. I'm fine. Um, would you mind telling you who you are? I'm Melia Foster."
You shift to more comfortable footing while Eugene glances back at his partner. She shrugs.
"Eugene Favre. The beautiful lady who will probably kill me in my sleep one day is—"
"—Perfectly capable of introducing herself," she interrupts. "Ines Favre. What are you doing here, sweetie?"
I'm not a candy.
You do your utmost to keep the flash of resentment from affecting your words and body. It's not like she meant anything by it.
-[X] Ask how far away the closest settlement is.
"I'm trying to figure out where 'here' is. Even lambs would have a hard time getting as lost as I am right now. So, um, would you be so kind as to tell me where and how far away the closest settlement is?"
Eugene hesitates before waving back the way they came. "About an hour thataway? I think you had a pretty good spot to wait for your protector, though. Where is he?"
Ines jabs one elbow into Eugene's side.
"Or she," he adds quickly.
In a completely different dimension, apparently.
"I honestly have no clue. But, um, I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to actually wait there for him. Maybe take shelter in there if I can take care of myself, but..."
You shrug helplessly. Eugene exchanges another unreadable look with his wife.
"Sooooooooooooooooooooo," Eugene drawls, dragging the word out long past the point where it should've been given a merciful death. "Are you sure you don't want to wait for your guardian?"
You blink several times in quick succession. 'Guardian' felt like the same word as the earlier 'protector,' but somehow more accurate?
Weird.
You pick your words carefully to avoid lying. "The last I saw of him, we were on a ship. I just got up and suddenly I'm in the woods. I think it's safe to say waiting for him is not a good idea."
Eugene quickly inhales through his teeth while Ines winces. You're not sure how to interpret their reactions.
"Listen, it's been nice meeting you, but we should really get you back to civilization. This isn't the sort of place you want to try camping in."
Did I say something wrong?
Ines unknowingly helps you relax by leaning forward and stage-whispering to Eugene. "That little hole-in-the-ground counts?"
"Yes, dear."
"We really are out in the sticks, aren't we?"
Eugene turns and raises one eyebrow. "How is this any different from the last six months of our lives?"
"The beer is worse."
"...Fair enough," Eugene concedes, turning back to you. "In all seriousness, it isn't safe here. I can think of half a dozen predators who could gobble you up in one bite."
Ines snorts. "Don't exaggerate when we're dealing with monsters, dear. No, they could give her a mortal injury with one big bite. Eating her would actually take quite a bit longer."
Eugene leans back again. "I don't think you're helping."
"Better she have realistic expectations than think giant snakes are going to show up. So, Miss..." Ines stops, wincing. "Sorry. Terrible with names. What was yours again?"
-[X] You have some dirt elemental friends who might be able to help. They're not very smart, but you might be able to train them to retrieve underground objects? Or something like that.
You carefully retrieve your stone elemental before answering, holding him in both palms. Both Ines and Eugene immediately freeze and stare at it.
"Melia," you repeat. "And you don't have to escort me straight back. I heard something about digging and your hatred of it? Well, I'm friends with some dirt and stone elementals who might be able to do it for you. Well, no, I'm sure they could help, we'd just have to get what we want across. They're not very smart."
You choose to omit the part where illegality was mentioned. You didn't actually outright say you'd be their accomplice—and plus, you've been taught that something is only really illegal if the relevant laws are enforced. Otherwise, it's just feel-good writing from a bunch of people who never had to do any real work.
It takes a while for Eugene to tear his gaze away from the tiny elemental and actually answer you.
"By the time we'd finish any search, it'd already be past the point where you could make it back to the village. But, uh, I'm not actually sure that's a good place for a mage to settle down for a while. Do you just want to come with us? I think we could lend you some proper traveling clothes for the next two-three days. There's a guildhall there in case you want to contact your guardian."
You hesitate and gnaw on your lower lip. You still feel like you're much calmer than you should be, but as long as that lasts, you intend to take full advantage of it.
"One moment, please."
You step back, lean against the tree behind you, and close your eyes. Your anchor looks about the same as it did when you last checked on it. If you keep your mana reserves about 3/4s empty until further notice, it might last...
Despite the severe lack of information on how you'd actually determine its lifetime, an answer still manages to float to the top of your mind.
Five days. Longer if there's mana shielding it.
You hiss through your teeth and try to figure out what you actually want. Having your numerous questions answered, that's obvious. Getting a message home to tell them you're fine would be nice, but likely quite difficult. Artificially making an elemental remains on your list of long-term dreams, emphasis on 'long-term.'
You still want to become a real mage instead of someone who merely has a Talent, but if you aren't simply brought home when the anchor breaks, you won't really be able to attend any sort of school any time soon. Making sure you're always absorbing as much mana as you safely can will be difficult—if this dimension is anything like your home, people seldom settle in areas with high levels of mana—but it's by no means impossible.
Finding a way to actively repair your anchor would be nice, but that goes right back to needing to become a proper mage. You can barely control your own mana right now, let alone cast any spells. Of course, if your mana is 'shielding' the anchor, that implies there's something it needs to be shielded from. Spells don't just deteriorate on their own; people used to think that, but it's long since been proved their environment and other factors are responsible. You expect the same will hold true for your anchor.
Actually making friends will be difficult if you keep getting abducted by an effect you don't understand, which you're really not happy about. So, you suppose you should settle on that as an eternal goal: figure out what factors affect the lifespan of your anchor.
Summoning more elementals from home would be a good idea if you're always pulled through tears in reality; your two air elementals came with you, so if you can get them to cooperate, you should be able to bring any other summons along as well. Bringing them to higher-mana areas or feeding them solid mana should help them get stronger, and the more powerful they are, the better their ability to keep you safe. Right now, they're only good for distractions or, in the case of fire elementals, intimidating animals and carnivorous plants.
For shorter-term goals, you should probably get more supplies so you're better prepared the next time you're pulled from reality. You don't even have any rations on you.
While you're not sure if this still holds true in a different dimension, you've heard prices tend to rise depending on the population of the area. Assuming your currency is accepted—you'd be very surprised if it isn't—it might be cheaper to stock up in the village instead of the town Ines and Eugene mentioned.
You squeeze your forehead and wish you had a clearly superior path to follow. Your life was a lot simpler a week ago.
[] Agree to go with Ines and Eugene.
-[] Although, if you could maximize the time spent sightseeing, exploring, treasure-hunting, etc., that would be nice.
[] Travel to the village.
[] Thank them for their offer, but you should be fine on your own. You have elementals to look out for you.
-[] Explore the area you're currently in, including the tower. You'd like to determine if you were just randomly dropped here or if there was a reason.
[] Ask more questions.
-[] They mentioned a guild? You're assuming it's for mages; what sort of things do they do?
-[] Do they have any advice for someone who just ended up in a different dimension and has no idea how, why, or what she should do next?
-[] Just ask whatever comes to mind without worrying about secrecy or concealment.
-[] Write-in
[] Write-in
Voting will be locked for 30 minutes after this goes up.
(Unlocked now. Note to self: provide clearer base options for a while.)
(Unlocked now. Note to self: provide clearer base options for a while.)
Last edited:
1.2: Journey
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Agree to go with Ines and Eugene.
-[x] You don't mind exploring or treasure hunting though. It's not like delays will make you more lost.
You finally open your eyes. Both Eugene and Ines are giving you rather odd looks.
"I'd like to come with you, please. That being said, I'm not in any sort of a rush. I don't mind if you want to detour to explore, treasure hunt, that sort of thing. It's not like rushing would make me less lost."
Ines starts to reach up with one hand, visibly hesitates, and lowers it.
"We can't be too far from where you live, sweetie. Our neighbors are the only ones who bother to learn Reinchesh. Does 'Fallow' sound familiar?"
You shake your head.
"I'm pretty sure what I think I'm saying and what you're actually hearing are two entirely different things. I don't know how or why. You both had different accents earlier, and now you don't? And more importantly, I couldn't even understand you. Then I got dizzy, sat down for a bit, and suddenly everything you're saying makes sense; your lip movements even seem to match what I hear. I think it might be some kind of an illusion."
Ines frowns and points toward your earth elemental. It stares back at her with smooth, pupilless grey eyes.
"Are you sure this isn't your Trial? You seem awfully comfortable with that spirit."
[X] Ask more questions.
-[X] They mentioned a guild? You're assuming it's for mages; what sort of things do they do?
--[x] You're pretty sure you got here in a magical accident of a sort. Your best bet for figuring out what happened would be another mage.
-[x] Just ask whatever comes to mind without worrying about secrecy or concealment, except keep dimensional travel and anchoring a secret.
You shake your head.
"What's a Trial? If it's some sort of proficiency test, you should know I don't even know how to properly control mana yet. I'm Talented, that's all."
Ines and Eugene both frown. After exchanging helpless looks with his wife, Eugene turns back to you.
"It's rather like a virtue test for those who wish to be mages. They temporarily give you the kind of power you'd have after a bit of training, then set you loose to see what you do with it. If you abuse the power, they take it away, give you a tattoo with the current year, and tell you to return in a number of years based on the level of abuse. Some people are blacklisted forever, some only for a few years. This?" Eugene waves toward your elemental. "That's a perfect example. The ability to charm spirits isn't something to be underestimated, nor should the gift of tongues be overlooked."
You shake your head slowly.
"Where I come from, we don't have those. They just train any powerful or Talented individuals they can find, provided they agree."
"You'd have to be from someplace far, far to the west. We learned better after—"
Eugene abruptly stops and shakes his head, choosing the perfect time to make you impatience.
"You know what? Let's get going. My legs are starting to ache a bit; we can chat about where you might've come from after we set up camp. Ines, could you lend Melia some of your old clothes? She should save what she's wearing until later."
Eugene deliberately turns his back and starts hacking his way past the tower, probably to give you some distance. You turn a hungry gaze toward your othervictim source of knowledge.
"After what?"
Ines grimaces and swings her bow off her back. After a bit of fumbling, she manages to undo the strings at the bottom of her quiver and reveal an extra space built into the bottom. A bundle of wrinkled green clothing is thrust toward you.
"The Second Winter. It's a long story. Essentially, an expert mage was expelled from the Guild of White Magi after he was found selling higher-level foci to students who weren't yet ready for them. There were rumors for a long, long time, but it wasn't confirmed until a student died from it."
You accept the clothes and duck around to the other side of the tree. Ines snorts quietly, but doesn't try to violate your desire for privacy and just continues.
"He traveled to the east, captured the Winter Queen's son, and forced the queen herself to cover the land in ice and snow. Not all at once—that wouldn't have been enough—but starting at the east and slowly heading west, driving the creatures and monsters ahead of the storms. The guild had to actually free necromancers so we wouldn't go the way of our eastern neighbors.
"Even after the one responsible was dealt with, it still wasn't over. A few of the necromancers—rather predictably if you ask me—went back to their old ways, so they had to be put down. Then we had more half-trained copycats stealing the eggs of wyverns to enrage them, luring hydras up from the depths, and so on. We even had a few incidents of specific murder-by-monster."
Ines goes silent again.
"Well, I say 'we,' but I wasn't even old enough to remember when it happened. Anyway, to be perfectly honest, your country's method seems downright irresponsible. Even one mistake can have effects lasting for decades; some of those displaced by Second Winter still haven't gotten their lives back together. How are you supposed to know if someone is going to abuse the power if you don't test them?"
You start to shrug, then remember she can't see you.
"It's not like they suddenly start existing when they show up at the academy. And anyway, I've been told being evil just isn't profitable enough to make it worth it. Even if someone does go bad, there are more than enough good adventurers to deal with them. Dragons, too, if they're paid enough. And I think maybe even monsters? Not sure there. I've heard enough stories involving the method that I think releasing basilisks into their homes is supposed to be a good way to deal with them."
"...Huh."
When no further comments are forthcoming, you move on to your next question. "You mentioned a 'Winter Queen'? I don't think I've heard of her before."
You hear a relieved sigh from the other side of the tree. You finish getting dressed, carefully fold your clothes, and step back around its oversized trunk.
Ines appears to size you up before nodding once and gesturing for you to follow her. She starts to head down the path Eugene made before you speak up.
"Um, one second." You look up at the tower and raise your voice. "Everyone, I'm heading out!"
Within seconds, the other two air elementals dart out of the tower and fly down to you. One of them settles down in your hair while the other wriggles into the pile of clothing you were wearing a minute ago.
When you look back at her, Ines is staring at you with an unreadable expression.
"Okay, we can leave now. So, who's the Winter Queen supposed to be?"
Ines blinks twice before shaking her head and setting off again.
"It's a hereditary title. Supposedly, their line passes on all the magical power of one queen or king to their first-born. Stories say they were more versatile a few generations ago, but now they've got so good at using ice magic they're incapable of using anything else. I think. Check it yourself if you care to. Regardless, I think the guild is supposed to have stolen the details of the ritual long ago, but their version just kills both participants. Suffice to say nobody has really been willing to work through all the trial-and-error needed to work out what the problem is; if anything, it serves as a good reminder of how deadly blood magic can be."
"Blood magic?"
Ines stops for just long enough to direct a puzzled frown toward you.
"You seriously don't have that where you come from?"
"If we do, I haven't heard of it. I wasn't even a student before what I think is a magical accident sent me here."
Ines snorts. "Well, suffice to say you should stay away from it. I'm not a mage; ask one when you get to the guildhall if you really care that much."
"Yeah, um, about that? I'm not a member of that guild; they don't have a branch where I come from. Do you think they'd still be willing to actually help me?"
Ines stumbles once and immediately recovers. "Of course? It's their sworn duty to help those who can't safely help themselves. They just won't teach you more than basic control until you're given, and pass, a trial."
"How long does basic control take?"
Ines sighs. "I don't know, I'm not a mage. Do you always ask this many questions?"
"Yes."
Ines stops abruptly, forcing you to stand on your heels and lean back to avoid running into her. Eugene seems to have cut out a small-ish circle around an orange crystal about the size of your arm and is currently crouched next to it.
"What's that?"
Eugene looks up and grins proudly. "Magic detector. Cost us an actual arm and a leg—"
"—And the rest of a suit of runic armor," Ines finishes. "It hasn't paid for itself yet, but we're getting there."
You crouch down next to it and try to look for any obvious markings.
"How does it work?"
"No clue," Eugene says blandly. "Not a mage."
You peer suspiciously over at Eugene's deliberately-impassive expression.
"If you're trying to say that to get me to stop asking questions, you should know that's not going to work. Just tell me and I'll try to cut back a little."
Eugene quickly shakes his head and raises both hands. "No, no, I'm serious. I really don't know. Ask the guild when you get there."
You squint at Eugene, still not sure whether or not you should believe him.
"...Riiiight. Okay. Well, what does the guild do besides 'help those who can't safely help themselves?'"
Ines answers before Eugene can. "Buys and sells magical items and services, trains new mages, performs research, hunts monsters, and so on and so forth. They're closer to a group of friends with similar ideals than anything else."
-[x] Have they ever heard of Alistore before?
"OK. Have you ever heard of Alistore?"
Ines and Eugene lapse into silence, appearing thoughtful. Eventually, they both look at one another before Ines answers for both.
"The name doesn't really kick anything. I wouldn't worry too much about that fact; neither of us is a mapmaker. I don't even remember the name of the town we're headed to or the village we just came from."
Eugene clears his throat. "Strausile and... something. I admit I can't remember the village either."
Right on queue, the orange crystal turns significantly darker. Or, more accurately, it's no longer glowing from the inside. You didn't even realize it was until the light vanished.
Eugene sighs and carefully picks the detector back up.
"Nothing. I'll go find somewhere which isn't too exposed, I guess. Melia, uh... could you give me your hands for a second?"
You press your clothes to your waist with both elbows and hold them out for him to look at.
"Why?"
Eugene tucks the detector under one elbow and turns both hands over several times. You're not sure what he's looking for, but he doesn't appear too unhappy with whatever he finds. He ultimately nods and turns away.
"Do you know how to safely collect firewood?"
You cross your arms to better hold your clothing, still not sure what that was all about.
"Um, yes and no? I'll need an axe and to check each tree for elementals first."
Eugene grins, raises his hand, and appears to think better of whatever he was going to do with it. He lowers it and gestures for you to follow him.
"Let's fix that."
-[x] Try to take pointers on wilderness survival / preparations or procedures for trips like this as you travel. Also exploration if you get up to any.
Two and a half days later, you're more than ready to call it quits. Whenever you tried to ask a question which wasn't immediately relevant, you were usually told either "I'm not a mage" or "Save your breath for walking." You admit the latter might've been good advice, but still, bor-ring! It doesn't help that you weren't really comfortable spending too much mana summoning your friends, not yet. You just summoned one fire elemental, one water elemental, and two dirt elementals.
You feel like your caution paid off; summoning all four after you woke up ate a bit more than half your reserves, but you didn't need to use any more mana after that. Your anchor did deteriorate overall, but if you keep your mana topped off, you think it'll last for another five days. You're pretty sure your original estimate was correct; "shielding" your anchor just really did make a big difference.
[] Override Permitted (Write-in number and type of extra summons; max +12 total elementals)
Ines and Eugene still answer some of your longer-term questions. You were able to get in a few over dinner and around bedtime. Apparently, the country you're in, Reinche, was part of a larger empire before its component states decided to break themselves off via a long, bloody, and magical civil war. The empire in question has since collapsed, its official name purged from records and discouraged from speech to avoid others following in their footsteps. You think that measure is more than a little excessive, but you weren't exactly among those "enslaved."
In the distant past, obscenely powerful mages seem to have ruled over much of the world while commoners were used as pawns in pointless wars. You weren't able to pursue that line of questioning without making it clear you're not from this world at all.
If you travel about a week to the north, you should reach Fallow, a bustling trade city built along a massive river leading into the ocean. Ines took one look at your apparently-insufficient funding and bluntly told you not to even try getting a spot on a ship. Apparently, you can expect to spend about three of your tiny silver coins for each day of the voyage. Settling down in a town or city would be even worse; Eugene claimed prices in cities and towns can be twice as much as what they are in villages or more. On the bright side, people also apparently have higher wages there. You're confident your elementals could help you get and hold down some sort of job if you should need it.
Speaking of jobs, if you—when you get back home, you think it would be a good idea to study healing. Only a few people seem to know how to do it on this one, and judging by Eugene's description, you're pretty sure those individuals are Talented.
Your path toward Strausile might've actually taught you a lot about the mana distribution of this world; their water seems to have much, much higher concentrations of it than you're used to, but the only place with a higher-than-minimal level of ambient mana was a broken-down stone hut. What's more, Eugene's little detector found something about four meters underground at said hut. Teaching your dirt elementals to actually get it for you wasn't too difficult; you just had to bury one of your coins a few times and praise them when they got it back for you. When you moved to burying your coin directly above the object in question, they retrieved it and the small silver ring below. Ines and Eugene said your fourth-tenths share of the proceeds would likely take care of you for a few extra days once they'd actually sold it.
Anyway, if this were your homeword, you're pretty sure you would've had to take at least one or two detours around higher-mana or monster-infested areas. Here? You just traveled in a relatively straight line.
Asking questions related to what you're doing goes over much better. By the time you actually reach Strausile, you've learned the basics of surviving in "warm or cold forests" and towns, including how to make your own basic tools out of stone and wood. Unfortunately, while you're positive you'd be able to take care of your basic needs, you still don't like your odds if you actually encounter anything which wants to eat you. Climbing trees apparently just slows most predators down and doesn't really stop them.
As for towns, you've been told you should divide your money among multiple places if you ever have too much of it, should always bar your door and window when you're sleeping in an inn, should really secure your coinpouch with something sturdier than leather cord, and shouldn't go out after dark. Avoid beggars even if they seem sympathetic. If you don't see any other people around, get somewhere else quickly but without running or looking panicked. Ignore comments which might seem rude; they often are, but confronting the people responsible never really helps. If a man gets in a fight with you, kick him between the legs and run.
Looking at Strausile, two things immediately sprang to mind.
One: The variety of skin colors is significantly larger than you'd expected. Almost one in every four people have skin colors which really don't seem natural to you, like green and blue-black. You force yourself not to stare too much.
Two: It's smelly and loud. Even from outside the gates, it feels like a wall of sounds and smells is blocking your way.
Glancing down at your air elementals, you find they agree with your assessment. One is sticking her tiny tongue out while the other seems determined to stay hidden in your original clothes. You bathed, changed back into your own clothing, and gave the loaners back to Ines a few minutes ago.
"Melia?" Eugene prompts. He waits to continue until after you turn to him. "Keep one hand on your coin-purse as long as you're in there, alright? And don't leave the guildhall until we get the ring appraised and your share to you."
You nod silently, still feeling more than a little dazed.
Once inside the city itself, you end up adding another observation to your list: Everyone is rude. Admittedly, it's not like they're singling you out for special treatment; not respecting the personal space of other people seems to be expected here. You don't like it, especially when you need to be careful not to let your fire elemental hurt anyone.
Despite your discomfort, you're able to make it to the guildhall without incident. You feel like the term guildhouse might be more accurate, or maybe guildchurch? The three-floor white stone structure seems huge, larger than twenty other town buildings put together.
The entryway to the guildhall is a significant improvement over the crowds outside; you can only see two dozen or so people chatting among themselves, waiting in cloth chairs, or both. A young, black-haired woman with dark purple skin (which still seems weird to you) sits behind a large wooden counter and in front of a pair of wooden doors, reading through a single sheet of yellowed parchment. Glowing white orbs illuminate the room which, while relatively large, is only about half the size of the community hall back in your own village.
You let Eugene and Ines go first. You haven't even settled on what you want from this place.
Your elementals look around with obvious interest, interest which seems to be mirrored by several other people in the room. You can't tell if they're staring at you or your elementals.
Either way, you turn to the closest one, a grey-robed young man with normal brown skin, and smile brightly. "Do you know how long it usually takes someone to learn the basics of controlling their mana?"
"Uh-" he quickly looks around the room. "To make it twitch a little? A bit less than a week. Why?"
"Personal interest."
This time, you're sure he's staring at one of your air elementals when it peeks out from your hair. You think his interest might be related to how you have yet to see any new elementals on this world; your friends seem to be the only ones, which is really odd.
As usual, options aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, nor are they all-inclusive. No base option will initiate a timeskip.
[] Tell the receptionist you have a bit of a private (magical) problem you'd very much like help with and would honestly be shocked if nobody was interested.
-[] It's teleportation-related. Your own homeworld thought it was borderline impossible, so that should be enough to get them interested.
-[] It involved a gaping tear in reality. You're not kidding.
-[] Refuse to elaborate further until and unless they bring you someone who A, knows how to keep secrets, and B, actually knows what they're doing.
--[] If they actually cooperate, tell the individual in question about how you got here.
[] Ask if they could help teach you the basics of controlling your mana. You're not from around here and can't afford to go through a full trial, but you're mortally certain you'll be needing it sooner or later.
Basic mana control is required to use any non-Talent, non-ritual magic.
[] Follow Ines and Eugene to the appraiser. Who knows, you might learn something.
-[] Afterward, ask if there's any sort of community board for job listings. You feel like it would be a good idea to get some more money while you still can. Is there is, look at it.
[] Write-in
I ignored my standing policy of not posting new chapters after 7:00 PM for this. In the future, would you guys prefer I keep it intact and wait until the next day?
-[x] You don't mind exploring or treasure hunting though. It's not like delays will make you more lost.
You finally open your eyes. Both Eugene and Ines are giving you rather odd looks.
"I'd like to come with you, please. That being said, I'm not in any sort of a rush. I don't mind if you want to detour to explore, treasure hunt, that sort of thing. It's not like rushing would make me less lost."
Ines starts to reach up with one hand, visibly hesitates, and lowers it.
"We can't be too far from where you live, sweetie. Our neighbors are the only ones who bother to learn Reinchesh. Does 'Fallow' sound familiar?"
You shake your head.
"I'm pretty sure what I think I'm saying and what you're actually hearing are two entirely different things. I don't know how or why. You both had different accents earlier, and now you don't? And more importantly, I couldn't even understand you. Then I got dizzy, sat down for a bit, and suddenly everything you're saying makes sense; your lip movements even seem to match what I hear. I think it might be some kind of an illusion."
Ines frowns and points toward your earth elemental. It stares back at her with smooth, pupilless grey eyes.
"Are you sure this isn't your Trial? You seem awfully comfortable with that spirit."
[X] Ask more questions.
-[X] They mentioned a guild? You're assuming it's for mages; what sort of things do they do?
--[x] You're pretty sure you got here in a magical accident of a sort. Your best bet for figuring out what happened would be another mage.
-[x] Just ask whatever comes to mind without worrying about secrecy or concealment, except keep dimensional travel and anchoring a secret.
You shake your head.
"What's a Trial? If it's some sort of proficiency test, you should know I don't even know how to properly control mana yet. I'm Talented, that's all."
Ines and Eugene both frown. After exchanging helpless looks with his wife, Eugene turns back to you.
"It's rather like a virtue test for those who wish to be mages. They temporarily give you the kind of power you'd have after a bit of training, then set you loose to see what you do with it. If you abuse the power, they take it away, give you a tattoo with the current year, and tell you to return in a number of years based on the level of abuse. Some people are blacklisted forever, some only for a few years. This?" Eugene waves toward your elemental. "That's a perfect example. The ability to charm spirits isn't something to be underestimated, nor should the gift of tongues be overlooked."
You shake your head slowly.
"Where I come from, we don't have those. They just train any powerful or Talented individuals they can find, provided they agree."
"You'd have to be from someplace far, far to the west. We learned better after—"
Eugene abruptly stops and shakes his head, choosing the perfect time to make you impatience.
"You know what? Let's get going. My legs are starting to ache a bit; we can chat about where you might've come from after we set up camp. Ines, could you lend Melia some of your old clothes? She should save what she's wearing until later."
Eugene deliberately turns his back and starts hacking his way past the tower, probably to give you some distance. You turn a hungry gaze toward your other
"After what?"
Ines grimaces and swings her bow off her back. After a bit of fumbling, she manages to undo the strings at the bottom of her quiver and reveal an extra space built into the bottom. A bundle of wrinkled green clothing is thrust toward you.
"The Second Winter. It's a long story. Essentially, an expert mage was expelled from the Guild of White Magi after he was found selling higher-level foci to students who weren't yet ready for them. There were rumors for a long, long time, but it wasn't confirmed until a student died from it."
You accept the clothes and duck around to the other side of the tree. Ines snorts quietly, but doesn't try to violate your desire for privacy and just continues.
"He traveled to the east, captured the Winter Queen's son, and forced the queen herself to cover the land in ice and snow. Not all at once—that wouldn't have been enough—but starting at the east and slowly heading west, driving the creatures and monsters ahead of the storms. The guild had to actually free necromancers so we wouldn't go the way of our eastern neighbors.
"Even after the one responsible was dealt with, it still wasn't over. A few of the necromancers—rather predictably if you ask me—went back to their old ways, so they had to be put down. Then we had more half-trained copycats stealing the eggs of wyverns to enrage them, luring hydras up from the depths, and so on. We even had a few incidents of specific murder-by-monster."
Ines goes silent again.
"Well, I say 'we,' but I wasn't even old enough to remember when it happened. Anyway, to be perfectly honest, your country's method seems downright irresponsible. Even one mistake can have effects lasting for decades; some of those displaced by Second Winter still haven't gotten their lives back together. How are you supposed to know if someone is going to abuse the power if you don't test them?"
You start to shrug, then remember she can't see you.
"It's not like they suddenly start existing when they show up at the academy. And anyway, I've been told being evil just isn't profitable enough to make it worth it. Even if someone does go bad, there are more than enough good adventurers to deal with them. Dragons, too, if they're paid enough. And I think maybe even monsters? Not sure there. I've heard enough stories involving the method that I think releasing basilisks into their homes is supposed to be a good way to deal with them."
"...Huh."
When no further comments are forthcoming, you move on to your next question. "You mentioned a 'Winter Queen'? I don't think I've heard of her before."
You hear a relieved sigh from the other side of the tree. You finish getting dressed, carefully fold your clothes, and step back around its oversized trunk.
Ines appears to size you up before nodding once and gesturing for you to follow her. She starts to head down the path Eugene made before you speak up.
"Um, one second." You look up at the tower and raise your voice. "Everyone, I'm heading out!"
Within seconds, the other two air elementals dart out of the tower and fly down to you. One of them settles down in your hair while the other wriggles into the pile of clothing you were wearing a minute ago.
When you look back at her, Ines is staring at you with an unreadable expression.
"Okay, we can leave now. So, who's the Winter Queen supposed to be?"
Ines blinks twice before shaking her head and setting off again.
"It's a hereditary title. Supposedly, their line passes on all the magical power of one queen or king to their first-born. Stories say they were more versatile a few generations ago, but now they've got so good at using ice magic they're incapable of using anything else. I think. Check it yourself if you care to. Regardless, I think the guild is supposed to have stolen the details of the ritual long ago, but their version just kills both participants. Suffice to say nobody has really been willing to work through all the trial-and-error needed to work out what the problem is; if anything, it serves as a good reminder of how deadly blood magic can be."
"Blood magic?"
Ines stops for just long enough to direct a puzzled frown toward you.
"You seriously don't have that where you come from?"
"If we do, I haven't heard of it. I wasn't even a student before what I think is a magical accident sent me here."
Ines snorts. "Well, suffice to say you should stay away from it. I'm not a mage; ask one when you get to the guildhall if you really care that much."
"Yeah, um, about that? I'm not a member of that guild; they don't have a branch where I come from. Do you think they'd still be willing to actually help me?"
Ines stumbles once and immediately recovers. "Of course? It's their sworn duty to help those who can't safely help themselves. They just won't teach you more than basic control until you're given, and pass, a trial."
"How long does basic control take?"
Ines sighs. "I don't know, I'm not a mage. Do you always ask this many questions?"
"Yes."
Ines stops abruptly, forcing you to stand on your heels and lean back to avoid running into her. Eugene seems to have cut out a small-ish circle around an orange crystal about the size of your arm and is currently crouched next to it.
"What's that?"
Eugene looks up and grins proudly. "Magic detector. Cost us an actual arm and a leg—"
"—And the rest of a suit of runic armor," Ines finishes. "It hasn't paid for itself yet, but we're getting there."
You crouch down next to it and try to look for any obvious markings.
"How does it work?"
"No clue," Eugene says blandly. "Not a mage."
You peer suspiciously over at Eugene's deliberately-impassive expression.
"If you're trying to say that to get me to stop asking questions, you should know that's not going to work. Just tell me and I'll try to cut back a little."
Eugene quickly shakes his head and raises both hands. "No, no, I'm serious. I really don't know. Ask the guild when you get there."
You squint at Eugene, still not sure whether or not you should believe him.
"...Riiiight. Okay. Well, what does the guild do besides 'help those who can't safely help themselves?'"
Ines answers before Eugene can. "Buys and sells magical items and services, trains new mages, performs research, hunts monsters, and so on and so forth. They're closer to a group of friends with similar ideals than anything else."
-[x] Have they ever heard of Alistore before?
"OK. Have you ever heard of Alistore?"
Ines and Eugene lapse into silence, appearing thoughtful. Eventually, they both look at one another before Ines answers for both.
"The name doesn't really kick anything. I wouldn't worry too much about that fact; neither of us is a mapmaker. I don't even remember the name of the town we're headed to or the village we just came from."
Eugene clears his throat. "Strausile and... something. I admit I can't remember the village either."
Right on queue, the orange crystal turns significantly darker. Or, more accurately, it's no longer glowing from the inside. You didn't even realize it was until the light vanished.
Eugene sighs and carefully picks the detector back up.
"Nothing. I'll go find somewhere which isn't too exposed, I guess. Melia, uh... could you give me your hands for a second?"
You press your clothes to your waist with both elbows and hold them out for him to look at.
"Why?"
Eugene tucks the detector under one elbow and turns both hands over several times. You're not sure what he's looking for, but he doesn't appear too unhappy with whatever he finds. He ultimately nods and turns away.
"Do you know how to safely collect firewood?"
You cross your arms to better hold your clothing, still not sure what that was all about.
"Um, yes and no? I'll need an axe and to check each tree for elementals first."
Eugene grins, raises his hand, and appears to think better of whatever he was going to do with it. He lowers it and gestures for you to follow him.
"Let's fix that."
-[x] Try to take pointers on wilderness survival / preparations or procedures for trips like this as you travel. Also exploration if you get up to any.
Two and a half days later, you're more than ready to call it quits. Whenever you tried to ask a question which wasn't immediately relevant, you were usually told either "I'm not a mage" or "Save your breath for walking." You admit the latter might've been good advice, but still, bor-ring! It doesn't help that you weren't really comfortable spending too much mana summoning your friends, not yet. You just summoned one fire elemental, one water elemental, and two dirt elementals.
You feel like your caution paid off; summoning all four after you woke up ate a bit more than half your reserves, but you didn't need to use any more mana after that. Your anchor did deteriorate overall, but if you keep your mana topped off, you think it'll last for another five days. You're pretty sure your original estimate was correct; "shielding" your anchor just really did make a big difference.
[] Override Permitted (Write-in number and type of extra summons; max +12 total elementals)
Ines and Eugene still answer some of your longer-term questions. You were able to get in a few over dinner and around bedtime. Apparently, the country you're in, Reinche, was part of a larger empire before its component states decided to break themselves off via a long, bloody, and magical civil war. The empire in question has since collapsed, its official name purged from records and discouraged from speech to avoid others following in their footsteps. You think that measure is more than a little excessive, but you weren't exactly among those "enslaved."
In the distant past, obscenely powerful mages seem to have ruled over much of the world while commoners were used as pawns in pointless wars. You weren't able to pursue that line of questioning without making it clear you're not from this world at all.
If you travel about a week to the north, you should reach Fallow, a bustling trade city built along a massive river leading into the ocean. Ines took one look at your apparently-insufficient funding and bluntly told you not to even try getting a spot on a ship. Apparently, you can expect to spend about three of your tiny silver coins for each day of the voyage. Settling down in a town or city would be even worse; Eugene claimed prices in cities and towns can be twice as much as what they are in villages or more. On the bright side, people also apparently have higher wages there. You're confident your elementals could help you get and hold down some sort of job if you should need it.
Speaking of jobs, if you—when you get back home, you think it would be a good idea to study healing. Only a few people seem to know how to do it on this one, and judging by Eugene's description, you're pretty sure those individuals are Talented.
Your path toward Strausile might've actually taught you a lot about the mana distribution of this world; their water seems to have much, much higher concentrations of it than you're used to, but the only place with a higher-than-minimal level of ambient mana was a broken-down stone hut. What's more, Eugene's little detector found something about four meters underground at said hut. Teaching your dirt elementals to actually get it for you wasn't too difficult; you just had to bury one of your coins a few times and praise them when they got it back for you. When you moved to burying your coin directly above the object in question, they retrieved it and the small silver ring below. Ines and Eugene said your fourth-tenths share of the proceeds would likely take care of you for a few extra days once they'd actually sold it.
Anyway, if this were your homeword, you're pretty sure you would've had to take at least one or two detours around higher-mana or monster-infested areas. Here? You just traveled in a relatively straight line.
Asking questions related to what you're doing goes over much better. By the time you actually reach Strausile, you've learned the basics of surviving in "warm or cold forests" and towns, including how to make your own basic tools out of stone and wood. Unfortunately, while you're positive you'd be able to take care of your basic needs, you still don't like your odds if you actually encounter anything which wants to eat you. Climbing trees apparently just slows most predators down and doesn't really stop them.
As for towns, you've been told you should divide your money among multiple places if you ever have too much of it, should always bar your door and window when you're sleeping in an inn, should really secure your coinpouch with something sturdier than leather cord, and shouldn't go out after dark. Avoid beggars even if they seem sympathetic. If you don't see any other people around, get somewhere else quickly but without running or looking panicked. Ignore comments which might seem rude; they often are, but confronting the people responsible never really helps. If a man gets in a fight with you, kick him between the legs and run.
Looking at Strausile, two things immediately sprang to mind.
One: The variety of skin colors is significantly larger than you'd expected. Almost one in every four people have skin colors which really don't seem natural to you, like green and blue-black. You force yourself not to stare too much.
Two: It's smelly and loud. Even from outside the gates, it feels like a wall of sounds and smells is blocking your way.
Glancing down at your air elementals, you find they agree with your assessment. One is sticking her tiny tongue out while the other seems determined to stay hidden in your original clothes. You bathed, changed back into your own clothing, and gave the loaners back to Ines a few minutes ago.
"Melia?" Eugene prompts. He waits to continue until after you turn to him. "Keep one hand on your coin-purse as long as you're in there, alright? And don't leave the guildhall until we get the ring appraised and your share to you."
You nod silently, still feeling more than a little dazed.
Once inside the city itself, you end up adding another observation to your list: Everyone is rude. Admittedly, it's not like they're singling you out for special treatment; not respecting the personal space of other people seems to be expected here. You don't like it, especially when you need to be careful not to let your fire elemental hurt anyone.
Despite your discomfort, you're able to make it to the guildhall without incident. You feel like the term guildhouse might be more accurate, or maybe guildchurch? The three-floor white stone structure seems huge, larger than twenty other town buildings put together.
The entryway to the guildhall is a significant improvement over the crowds outside; you can only see two dozen or so people chatting among themselves, waiting in cloth chairs, or both. A young, black-haired woman with dark purple skin (which still seems weird to you) sits behind a large wooden counter and in front of a pair of wooden doors, reading through a single sheet of yellowed parchment. Glowing white orbs illuminate the room which, while relatively large, is only about half the size of the community hall back in your own village.
You let Eugene and Ines go first. You haven't even settled on what you want from this place.
Your elementals look around with obvious interest, interest which seems to be mirrored by several other people in the room. You can't tell if they're staring at you or your elementals.
Either way, you turn to the closest one, a grey-robed young man with normal brown skin, and smile brightly. "Do you know how long it usually takes someone to learn the basics of controlling their mana?"
"Uh-" he quickly looks around the room. "To make it twitch a little? A bit less than a week. Why?"
"Personal interest."
This time, you're sure he's staring at one of your air elementals when it peeks out from your hair. You think his interest might be related to how you have yet to see any new elementals on this world; your friends seem to be the only ones, which is really odd.
As usual, options aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, nor are they all-inclusive. No base option will initiate a timeskip.
[] Tell the receptionist you have a bit of a private (magical) problem you'd very much like help with and would honestly be shocked if nobody was interested.
-[] It's teleportation-related. Your own homeworld thought it was borderline impossible, so that should be enough to get them interested.
-[] It involved a gaping tear in reality. You're not kidding.
-[] Refuse to elaborate further until and unless they bring you someone who A, knows how to keep secrets, and B, actually knows what they're doing.
--[] If they actually cooperate, tell the individual in question about how you got here.
[] Ask if they could help teach you the basics of controlling your mana. You're not from around here and can't afford to go through a full trial, but you're mortally certain you'll be needing it sooner or later.
Basic mana control is required to use any non-Talent, non-ritual magic.
[] Follow Ines and Eugene to the appraiser. Who knows, you might learn something.
-[] Afterward, ask if there's any sort of community board for job listings. You feel like it would be a good idea to get some more money while you still can. Is there is, look at it.
[] Write-in
I ignored my standing policy of not posting new chapters after 7:00 PM for this. In the future, would you guys prefer I keep it intact and wait until the next day?
Last edited:
1.3: Side Effects
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Tell the receptionist you have a bit of a private (magical) problem you'd very much like help with and would honestly be shocked if nobody was interested.
-[X] It's teleportation-related. Your own homeworld thought it was borderline impossible, so that should be enough to get them interested.
[X] Ask if they could help teach you the basics of controlling your mana. You're not from around here and can't afford to go through a full trial, but you're mortally certain you'll be needing it sooner or later.
It doesn't take long for Ines and Eugene to finish up and hurry through one of the doors behind the receptionist. You take a deep breath, smile, and step forward.
"Good afternoon. I have a bit of a private magical problem I'd like help with. Given as it's related to teleportation, I'd honestly be shocked if nobody is going to be interested."
The receptionist jerks her head away from your elementals and visibly forces herself to focus on you. Her gaze continues to wander.
"Could you give me some more details, please? That word has been used to describe everything from portals, to certain types of illusions, to vanishing in one place and reappearing in another. We have yet to find anything worthy of the term."
You swallow and glance around, all too aware of all the people watching the elementals sitting or hiding on your person.
"Could we go someplace a little more private first? Like you said, it's weird."
The receptionist cranes her neck to look at the nonexistent line behind you.
"I suppose I have no reason to object. If you could come with me?"
The woman gets up from her seat and beckons you forward. Without even waiting to see if you've gotten all the way around the counter, she opens up the leftmost door and ushers you inside. The cubical chamber beyond is covered with scorch marks and completely devoid of any sort of furniture. The only other exit is at the exact opposite side of the room.
"Now, what is it you wanted?" she prompts.
You take a deep breath and clasp your hands in front of yourself.
"I fell through a gaping hole in reality which knit itself shut behind me. At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm in another dimension. Is that enough?"
The receptionist's eyebrows shoot upward. After spending a few seconds looking at your elementals, she shrugs and reestablishes eye contact.
"What's your name?"
"Melia Foster. I'd, um, also like to learn the basics of controlling my mana while I'm here, if that's possible."
She covers her mouth to hide a loud yawn and turns around.
"Ask again after your first topic is dealt with. You can either wait in the lobby or stay here, but I recommend waiting in the lobby. It might take a while to find someone willing to look into it."
In place of a verbal answer, you follow the receptionist back into the room you initially came from and occupy the seat furthest from any other people. It's surprisingly comfortable.
Coaxing an air elemental out of your hair takes some work, but you're able to compromise by making a little 'hiding place' using your cupped hands. You're pretty sure everyone can still see her.
You're not sure how much time passes before someone comes to fetch you. Specifically, a middle-aged man with white hair, light skin, and, creepily enough, white eyes. You don't let that stop you from following him through the empty chamber, up the spiral staircase beyond it, through the boring white hallway beyond that, and into a rather cluttered office. Or a laboratory, you suppose. The papers, beads, various stones, chalk, and books make it difficult for you to figure out which it's supposed to be.
The mage gestures for you to take a seat in the middle of a chalk circle. You do your utmost to ignore your baseless uneasiness and comply.
As soon as you're fully seated, he spends the better part of ten seconds flicking his fingers about and muttering under his breath. Eventually, he holds up both hands, his thumbs and index fingers making a small square between his head and you. He peers through it for about fifteen seconds, his eyebrows visibly climbing higher and higher before he drops his hands back down to his sides.
"I'm sorry, I seem to have forgotten my manners. I'm Morgan Fount and I'm told you're Melia Foster. I strongly suspect I was grabbed just because of our initials. Regardless, would you prefer Miss Foster, Melia, or something else?"
"Melia is fine. So, um, should I explain the problem, or...?"
Morgan pulls out a chair across from you and takes a seat.
"Please do."
You take a deep breath and continue to ignore the niggling paranoia claiming this is a bad idea.
"I'm fairly certain I'm not from this dimension. Apart from the knowledge of such which somehow popped into my mind shortly after I got here, your ambient mana levels are much lower, you have people with skin colors outside the darker-lighter set I'm used to, you seem to have a lot fewer monsters, I haven't seen any elementals, and numerous other little differences. I was on a boat headed for the state magic academy, I think—"
Morgan holds up a hand. "Hold. How do they train mages where you come from?"
You gnaw on your lower lip and try to remember if the topic ever came up.
"...In groups of ten or fifteen, I think? I never actually got to go there."
Morgan frowns, sighs, and gestures for you to continue.
"Right. Okay, um, I think some kind of a monster attacked the ship and made it tilt at a really alarming angle. I fell through the air for a second or two, reality tore itself apart in front of me, and I fell through the resulting gap. More importantly and the reason I'm here instead of laying low, I seem to need some sort of an an anchor to avoid floating out of this dimension and going to yet another one. At least, that's what thoughts which sounded like me but clearly weren't said? I'm sorry if I'm incomprehensible."
Morgan gives you a kindly smile and stands up.
"You're doing fine. Now, could you climb on the chair without disturbing the circle? Thank you."
Morgan helps hold the chair in place while you carefully climb atop it. You're more than a little relieved when he takes several steps back to look below you instead of crouching down.
After about half a minute, he shrugs and turns around.
"Stay there for a minute, would you? I'm going to go see if it goes through the floor as well."
Without bothering to wait for an answer, Morgan ducks out of the room and shuts the door behind himself. You can hear a series of quiet thuds as he hurries away.
As soon as he's gone, both your air elementals dart away from you and begin exploring the room. You try to devote an equal amount of attention toward both of them with mixed success.
Fortunately, Morgan returns before they can do anything worse than batting a few beads across the surface of a nearby desk. One of the elementals goes back to hiding in your hair while the other simply freezes and tries to look innocent.
Their antics are thoroughly ignored by Morgan, the mage appearing deep in thought.
"I'm assuming the 'anchor' you mentioned is the network of roots coming from your feet? Either way, do you know how they came about?"
You shake your head. "Um, that is, it's probably that and I don't know how it got there. I mean, I was missing a lot of mana when I got here, but what little I can see of it looks like it used more mana than I lost, so..."
You shrug helplessly. Despite the low amount of information, Morgan still appears interested.
"You wouldn't happen to have been bleeding at the time, would you? Or have been lent power by your little spirits there?"
You shake your head. "No to both; I landed in an animal's nest and my friends are the lowest class. I don't think all my friends combined could pay for it."
Morgan hmms thoughtfully, then blinks and tilts his head to one side.
"You do know why that's odd, correct?"
"...Mana doesn't come from nothing?" you hazard.
"Close. We're dealing with two magical laws here. One, the Law of Invulnerable Mana, states that mana is never destroyed, it is spent. Even if you ignite a stockpile of crystallized mana, it'd still be expended to produce the resulting flames, explosion, etcetera. Meanwhile, the Law of Limited Mana states mana cannot directly make more of itself. It can fuel a living being and give them the ability to make more, gather mana from other places, etcetera, but no spell will give you more mana than you started with unless other factors are involved. I can't imagine a rip in reality could be responsible for the difference; even if you somehow gained mana from opening the rift, I expect you'd still have to spend an equal amount closing it back up again."
You blink and frown. Something about that just doesn't seem right.
"What about if the rift being open generates power? I mean, dimensional travel was thought to be impossible where I come from, and..."
You trail off and squint suspiciously at Morgan.
"You're not just humoring me, are you? You're taking what I'm saying at face value."
Morgan snorts and waves down with one hand. "I can see your 'anchor' constantly deteriorating without any visible cause or transferal. That mana is being spent on something, you have spirits too tiny to even exist climbing all over you, I see no reason for someone to make such claims without telling the truth, and one of my more brilliant colleagues insists everything, everywhere, is somehow moving at all times. I'm willing to admit there's plenty I don't know. By the way, you can sit back down now."
You blink and look at your feet. You hadn't even really noticed you were still standing.
Morgan continues while you gingerly lower yourself back down.
"That being said, just because I'm willing to believe you doesn't mean I can truly help you. This is unknown territory with a history consisting of you, yourself, and you. I might be able to cobble together some sort of stopgap or replacement anchor if we have enough time, but... well, do you happen to know how much time we have? I believe I'm only capable of seeing part of the anchor itself. For all I know, the other parts are in worse condition."
You finally decide to listen to your voice of paranoia and try to be as vague as possible.
"A few days. Maybe even a bit less than a week?"
Morgan sighs and rubs at his face with both hands.
"...You shouldn't be expected to deal with anything like this until you're older. Remind me to send you off with some sort of care package; even if I don't understand how to free you from this, I should at least be able to help you survive the experience."
"'Care package?'"
You earn an odd look from the man.
"Supplies," he translates. "Things I'd hope would help you survive on other worlds. Food, money, clothing, and a protective amulet or necklace. Maybe a storage sensor or two, if I can figure out what I'd need them to tell me later. Perhaps a reference notebook with my observations, theories, and a few basic magic lessons for yourself? Assuming you can read, of course. I'll see if I can find out how people research Flickering Wyrms, that might help."
"I can read, but what are those?"
Morgan's face visibly brightens, his tone shifting from somber and serious to a little cheerful.
"Flickering Wyrms, or Flickers for short, are one of the most dangerous established monster species I can think of. They shift over to some kind of a parallel space, move into position, and return to our own even as their jaws are closing around a victim. Horrible, horrible things and the death of many a would-be monster hunter. They're not traveling to other worlds, not like you apparently are, but it's really the closest thing I can think of."
Morgan pauses and reaches forward to pat your hand. He quickly jerks it back when your summoned fire elemental decides the physical contact is worthy of investigation. Even after he pulls away, the little elemental continues to float in the space between you and him.
"...Right. Hello, floating fire spirit." Morgan looks back up at you. "You should know you're handling this admirably well. I expect most girls your age—perhaps even most boys, for that matter—would be panicking right about now. Our world isn't a very friendly place; I can only imagine how frightening ones with unknown dangers could be."
You shift uncomfortably and carefully put your hands between Morgan and the fire elemental, avoiding actually touching him or his flames. While they've always been careful not to hurt you from close proximity, they can't really do much if you establish physical contact. It avoids your hand and floats back toward you in the process.
"I've actually felt unnaturally calm since this whole thing started. It's starting to get a little creepy, to be honest. I feel... empty."
The veil of calm rapidly recedes from your mind, allowing you to feel the full brunt of the fear and anxiety it's been suppressing.
Everything is happening too quickly, I don't know where I'll end up next, my families are probably worried sick, how am I even supposed to tell them I'm okay, will I even be okay, this adventure sucks—
When you feel the blanket of calm prickling at the top of your head, you desperately grab at it and slam it back down into place.
You're not ashamed to breathe an audible sigh of relief and slump back in your seat as serenity settles. Even a brief lapse apparently feels awful. Feeling like your emotions have been covered with a wet blanket honestly seems preferable to outright panic.
After quite some time, you take a deep breath and conjure a weak smile for Morgan's benefit. The older man is paused halfway to his feet, eyeing your fire elemental with visible nervousness.
"On second thought, I think I can do without the extra stress."
Morgan takes a deep breath and sits back down.
"That honestly doesn't seem at all healthy. Listen, you're saying you've felt like this since you first fell through the rift?"
You nod slowly. Morgan takes it as permission to continue.
"I think you might feel better overall if you just let it run its course. I can go elsewhere if you want to be alone for that; I believe I've done everything I can for now. I'll need to look into different methods of detection before I can do more. In the meantime, I believe I can offer you food and lodging here for as long as your anchor lasts. It would also help if I could show you, your anchor, and your little spirits to some of my frien—colleagues. I can only afford to give you so much on my own; if we could convince them to help out, it would go a long way. I don't expect it to be too difficult."
[] Accept Morgan's offer of alone time and lift the veil.
[] Leave the veil in place until, at the very least, you're in a better position. Even if it does dampen your positive emotions as well, it's better than being paralyzed from fear at an inopportune moment.
-[] You'd prefer if your problem didn't become even less of a secret than it already is. Morgan's offer of assistance is already more than you expected.
-[] Hesitantly agree to be gawked at. This dimension is a lot like your homeworld, but who says the next one will be nearly as familiar or safe?
--[] But you'd prefer if he didn't mention the dimension-hopping thing. You're (apparently) weird and you need help; won't that be enough?
[] Write-in
-[X] It's teleportation-related. Your own homeworld thought it was borderline impossible, so that should be enough to get them interested.
To save time, I'll be treating a lack of refusal to elaborate as a willingness to actually do so.
It doesn't take long for Ines and Eugene to finish up and hurry through one of the doors behind the receptionist. You take a deep breath, smile, and step forward.
"Good afternoon. I have a bit of a private magical problem I'd like help with. Given as it's related to teleportation, I'd honestly be shocked if nobody is going to be interested."
The receptionist jerks her head away from your elementals and visibly forces herself to focus on you. Her gaze continues to wander.
"Could you give me some more details, please? That word has been used to describe everything from portals, to certain types of illusions, to vanishing in one place and reappearing in another. We have yet to find anything worthy of the term."
You swallow and glance around, all too aware of all the people watching the elementals sitting or hiding on your person.
"Could we go someplace a little more private first? Like you said, it's weird."
The receptionist cranes her neck to look at the nonexistent line behind you.
"I suppose I have no reason to object. If you could come with me?"
The woman gets up from her seat and beckons you forward. Without even waiting to see if you've gotten all the way around the counter, she opens up the leftmost door and ushers you inside. The cubical chamber beyond is covered with scorch marks and completely devoid of any sort of furniture. The only other exit is at the exact opposite side of the room.
"Now, what is it you wanted?" she prompts.
You take a deep breath and clasp your hands in front of yourself.
"I fell through a gaping hole in reality which knit itself shut behind me. At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm in another dimension. Is that enough?"
The receptionist's eyebrows shoot upward. After spending a few seconds looking at your elementals, she shrugs and reestablishes eye contact.
"What's your name?"
"Melia Foster. I'd, um, also like to learn the basics of controlling my mana while I'm here, if that's possible."
She covers her mouth to hide a loud yawn and turns around.
"Ask again after your first topic is dealt with. You can either wait in the lobby or stay here, but I recommend waiting in the lobby. It might take a while to find someone willing to look into it."
In place of a verbal answer, you follow the receptionist back into the room you initially came from and occupy the seat furthest from any other people. It's surprisingly comfortable.
Coaxing an air elemental out of your hair takes some work, but you're able to compromise by making a little 'hiding place' using your cupped hands. You're pretty sure everyone can still see her.
You're not sure how much time passes before someone comes to fetch you. Specifically, a middle-aged man with white hair, light skin, and, creepily enough, white eyes. You don't let that stop you from following him through the empty chamber, up the spiral staircase beyond it, through the boring white hallway beyond that, and into a rather cluttered office. Or a laboratory, you suppose. The papers, beads, various stones, chalk, and books make it difficult for you to figure out which it's supposed to be.
The mage gestures for you to take a seat in the middle of a chalk circle. You do your utmost to ignore your baseless uneasiness and comply.
As soon as you're fully seated, he spends the better part of ten seconds flicking his fingers about and muttering under his breath. Eventually, he holds up both hands, his thumbs and index fingers making a small square between his head and you. He peers through it for about fifteen seconds, his eyebrows visibly climbing higher and higher before he drops his hands back down to his sides.
"I'm sorry, I seem to have forgotten my manners. I'm Morgan Fount and I'm told you're Melia Foster. I strongly suspect I was grabbed just because of our initials. Regardless, would you prefer Miss Foster, Melia, or something else?"
"Melia is fine. So, um, should I explain the problem, or...?"
Morgan pulls out a chair across from you and takes a seat.
"Please do."
You take a deep breath and continue to ignore the niggling paranoia claiming this is a bad idea.
"I'm fairly certain I'm not from this dimension. Apart from the knowledge of such which somehow popped into my mind shortly after I got here, your ambient mana levels are much lower, you have people with skin colors outside the darker-lighter set I'm used to, you seem to have a lot fewer monsters, I haven't seen any elementals, and numerous other little differences. I was on a boat headed for the state magic academy, I think—"
Morgan holds up a hand. "Hold. How do they train mages where you come from?"
You gnaw on your lower lip and try to remember if the topic ever came up.
"...In groups of ten or fifteen, I think? I never actually got to go there."
Morgan frowns, sighs, and gestures for you to continue.
"Right. Okay, um, I think some kind of a monster attacked the ship and made it tilt at a really alarming angle. I fell through the air for a second or two, reality tore itself apart in front of me, and I fell through the resulting gap. More importantly and the reason I'm here instead of laying low, I seem to need some sort of an an anchor to avoid floating out of this dimension and going to yet another one. At least, that's what thoughts which sounded like me but clearly weren't said? I'm sorry if I'm incomprehensible."
Morgan gives you a kindly smile and stands up.
"You're doing fine. Now, could you climb on the chair without disturbing the circle? Thank you."
Morgan helps hold the chair in place while you carefully climb atop it. You're more than a little relieved when he takes several steps back to look below you instead of crouching down.
After about half a minute, he shrugs and turns around.
"Stay there for a minute, would you? I'm going to go see if it goes through the floor as well."
Without bothering to wait for an answer, Morgan ducks out of the room and shuts the door behind himself. You can hear a series of quiet thuds as he hurries away.
As soon as he's gone, both your air elementals dart away from you and begin exploring the room. You try to devote an equal amount of attention toward both of them with mixed success.
Fortunately, Morgan returns before they can do anything worse than batting a few beads across the surface of a nearby desk. One of the elementals goes back to hiding in your hair while the other simply freezes and tries to look innocent.
Their antics are thoroughly ignored by Morgan, the mage appearing deep in thought.
"I'm assuming the 'anchor' you mentioned is the network of roots coming from your feet? Either way, do you know how they came about?"
You shake your head. "Um, that is, it's probably that and I don't know how it got there. I mean, I was missing a lot of mana when I got here, but what little I can see of it looks like it used more mana than I lost, so..."
You shrug helplessly. Despite the low amount of information, Morgan still appears interested.
"You wouldn't happen to have been bleeding at the time, would you? Or have been lent power by your little spirits there?"
You shake your head. "No to both; I landed in an animal's nest and my friends are the lowest class. I don't think all my friends combined could pay for it."
Morgan hmms thoughtfully, then blinks and tilts his head to one side.
"You do know why that's odd, correct?"
"...Mana doesn't come from nothing?" you hazard.
"Close. We're dealing with two magical laws here. One, the Law of Invulnerable Mana, states that mana is never destroyed, it is spent. Even if you ignite a stockpile of crystallized mana, it'd still be expended to produce the resulting flames, explosion, etcetera. Meanwhile, the Law of Limited Mana states mana cannot directly make more of itself. It can fuel a living being and give them the ability to make more, gather mana from other places, etcetera, but no spell will give you more mana than you started with unless other factors are involved. I can't imagine a rip in reality could be responsible for the difference; even if you somehow gained mana from opening the rift, I expect you'd still have to spend an equal amount closing it back up again."
You blink and frown. Something about that just doesn't seem right.
"What about if the rift being open generates power? I mean, dimensional travel was thought to be impossible where I come from, and..."
You trail off and squint suspiciously at Morgan.
"You're not just humoring me, are you? You're taking what I'm saying at face value."
Morgan snorts and waves down with one hand. "I can see your 'anchor' constantly deteriorating without any visible cause or transferal. That mana is being spent on something, you have spirits too tiny to even exist climbing all over you, I see no reason for someone to make such claims without telling the truth, and one of my more brilliant colleagues insists everything, everywhere, is somehow moving at all times. I'm willing to admit there's plenty I don't know. By the way, you can sit back down now."
You blink and look at your feet. You hadn't even really noticed you were still standing.
Morgan continues while you gingerly lower yourself back down.
"That being said, just because I'm willing to believe you doesn't mean I can truly help you. This is unknown territory with a history consisting of you, yourself, and you. I might be able to cobble together some sort of stopgap or replacement anchor if we have enough time, but... well, do you happen to know how much time we have? I believe I'm only capable of seeing part of the anchor itself. For all I know, the other parts are in worse condition."
You finally decide to listen to your voice of paranoia and try to be as vague as possible.
"A few days. Maybe even a bit less than a week?"
Morgan sighs and rubs at his face with both hands.
"...You shouldn't be expected to deal with anything like this until you're older. Remind me to send you off with some sort of care package; even if I don't understand how to free you from this, I should at least be able to help you survive the experience."
"'Care package?'"
You earn an odd look from the man.
"Supplies," he translates. "Things I'd hope would help you survive on other worlds. Food, money, clothing, and a protective amulet or necklace. Maybe a storage sensor or two, if I can figure out what I'd need them to tell me later. Perhaps a reference notebook with my observations, theories, and a few basic magic lessons for yourself? Assuming you can read, of course. I'll see if I can find out how people research Flickering Wyrms, that might help."
"I can read, but what are those?"
Morgan's face visibly brightens, his tone shifting from somber and serious to a little cheerful.
"Flickering Wyrms, or Flickers for short, are one of the most dangerous established monster species I can think of. They shift over to some kind of a parallel space, move into position, and return to our own even as their jaws are closing around a victim. Horrible, horrible things and the death of many a would-be monster hunter. They're not traveling to other worlds, not like you apparently are, but it's really the closest thing I can think of."
Morgan pauses and reaches forward to pat your hand. He quickly jerks it back when your summoned fire elemental decides the physical contact is worthy of investigation. Even after he pulls away, the little elemental continues to float in the space between you and him.
"...Right. Hello, floating fire spirit." Morgan looks back up at you. "You should know you're handling this admirably well. I expect most girls your age—perhaps even most boys, for that matter—would be panicking right about now. Our world isn't a very friendly place; I can only imagine how frightening ones with unknown dangers could be."
You shift uncomfortably and carefully put your hands between Morgan and the fire elemental, avoiding actually touching him or his flames. While they've always been careful not to hurt you from close proximity, they can't really do much if you establish physical contact. It avoids your hand and floats back toward you in the process.
"I've actually felt unnaturally calm since this whole thing started. It's starting to get a little creepy, to be honest. I feel... empty."
The veil of calm rapidly recedes from your mind, allowing you to feel the full brunt of the fear and anxiety it's been suppressing.
Everything is happening too quickly, I don't know where I'll end up next, my families are probably worried sick, how am I even supposed to tell them I'm okay, will I even be okay, this adventure sucks—
When you feel the blanket of calm prickling at the top of your head, you desperately grab at it and slam it back down into place.
You're not ashamed to breathe an audible sigh of relief and slump back in your seat as serenity settles. Even a brief lapse apparently feels awful. Feeling like your emotions have been covered with a wet blanket honestly seems preferable to outright panic.
After quite some time, you take a deep breath and conjure a weak smile for Morgan's benefit. The older man is paused halfway to his feet, eyeing your fire elemental with visible nervousness.
"On second thought, I think I can do without the extra stress."
Morgan takes a deep breath and sits back down.
"That honestly doesn't seem at all healthy. Listen, you're saying you've felt like this since you first fell through the rift?"
You nod slowly. Morgan takes it as permission to continue.
"I think you might feel better overall if you just let it run its course. I can go elsewhere if you want to be alone for that; I believe I've done everything I can for now. I'll need to look into different methods of detection before I can do more. In the meantime, I believe I can offer you food and lodging here for as long as your anchor lasts. It would also help if I could show you, your anchor, and your little spirits to some of my frien—colleagues. I can only afford to give you so much on my own; if we could convince them to help out, it would go a long way. I don't expect it to be too difficult."
[] Accept Morgan's offer of alone time and lift the veil.
[] Leave the veil in place until, at the very least, you're in a better position. Even if it does dampen your positive emotions as well, it's better than being paralyzed from fear at an inopportune moment.
-[] You'd prefer if your problem didn't become even less of a secret than it already is. Morgan's offer of assistance is already more than you expected.
-[] Hesitantly agree to be gawked at. This dimension is a lot like your homeworld, but who says the next one will be nearly as familiar or safe?
--[] But you'd prefer if he didn't mention the dimension-hopping thing. You're (apparently) weird and you need help; won't that be enough?
[] Write-in
1.4: Coping
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Renewed personal rule: Do not attempt to set deadlines for stories. It ultimately leads to slower updates instead of faster due to the extra stress / differing mindset.
...That and I'm increasingly convinced that, any time I try to set a personal deadline for a quest, real life will go out of its way to make sure I fail to keep it.
Anyway, this chapter gave me trouble even when I had time to write for it, but it's past now. I'm out of practice writing angst. Fortunately, I shouldn't need to do any more until further notice.
...That and I'm increasingly convinced that, any time I try to set a personal deadline for a quest, real life will go out of its way to make sure I fail to keep it.
Anyway, this chapter gave me trouble even when I had time to write for it, but it's past now. I'm out of practice writing angst. Fortunately, I shouldn't need to do any more until further notice.
[X] Accept Morgan's offer of alone time and lift the veil.
-[X] Ask for a safe place where your friends won't cause any harm if they flip out a bit.
"That might be a good idea," you say slowly.
After a moment of thought, you continue at a more normal rate.
"Could you bring me somewhere my friends won't do any damage if they go into a temporary frenzy? An empty and fireproof storage room would probably be enough."
Morgan stops halfway to his feet and sits back down.
"Do you think that's truly necessary?"
You shake your head.
"I don't think so, but it's better to be safe than sorry, isn't it? I'm pretty sure they think that if I'm upset, something had to cause it. If something caused it, they can try to chase it away so I feel better. If they're going to chase it away, they need to find something to chase, and..." you shrug helplessly. "You know. It's led to some very disgruntled squirrels and countless dead insects."
Morgan eyes your elementals, smiling faintly. After an uncomfortably long time, he shakes his head and gets up, gesturing for you to follow him out of the room. You comply.
About five seconds of walking later, another question demands your attention.
"How come my elementals are too weak to exist? I thought they all started out this way."
Morgan shakes his head and briefly glances back at you. He quickly returns his gaze to the hallway ahead, appearing slightly ashamed. You're not sure why.
"We're not certain, but it's widely believed spirits are formed when too much environmental mana is combined with an excessive quantity of a single nonliving substance. No matter how much mana is gathered, only a single spirit will be created; as a general rule, they'll know nothing of the world around them and will be innocently destructive until an older spirit can teach them how the world doesn't grow back if they break it. I'm assuming it works differently where you come from or you've found a way to weaken existing spirits."
You try to comb through your vague memories of how they're supposed to work. You're pretty sure elementals are just born from large concentrations of their element. Although, now that you think about it, there has to be more than that; elementals only get weaker when their physical forms are destroyed and, as far as you know, are immortal otherwise. If there wasn't something keeping their numbers from growing too quickly, they would've conquered the world long ago.
Still, thinking about it does remind you of an example which doesn't fit Morgan's statements.
"What about wood elementals? Trees are alive."
Morgan leads you into an empty stone room nearly identical to the one nearby the guildhall's entrance. Unlike the earlier room, most of the floor is covered with a layer of thick green moss, with the exception of a scorched black circle at the very center. The room is dimly illuminated by one glowing silver sphere at each of the four corners of the room.
"I don't believe those exist on our world. At any rate, here we are. Are your spirits strong enough push open an unlocked door?"
You crouch down and poke the moss underfoot. While it is plenty soft, you're not going to trust it until you're certain there aren't any insects living in it.
"Not yet. Why do you keep calling them 'spirits' when I keep calling them elementals?"
Morgan tilts his head to one side, frowning. "Could you please repeat that?"
"They're called elementals, not spirits," you stress. "I'm pretty sure there's a difference."
Morgan slowly shakes his head.
"You're using the same word twice. I believe we may be losing something in translation. How does your world avoid being overwhelmed with mana if spirits are never formed from it?"
We don't.
"I think it just keeps building up where I come from until it's... 'spent?' Spent to expand a magician's personal mana regeneration or to change another living creature. By the way, I don't suppose you're willing to tell me what happens when someone absorbs too much mana at once? Nobody will tell me."
Morgan blinks and frowns faintly.
"I don't see any reason I shouldn't, just know I cannot promise your world is the same. Here? It usually leads to amnesia, a weakened body, sickness, a complete inability to use magic until your pathways recover, a vastly decreased tolerance for absorption for the same amount of time, and, in extreme cases, death. I may be forgetting some other issues as well. You'll be able to feel when you're close to your limit, yet the symptoms are different for everyone; headaches are the most common, but some start to develop stomachaches or worse. I don't suppose your world has a reliable method of measuring precise quantities of mana? Everything we've tried is too unreliable for more delicate experiments."
You silently shake your head. You start trying to think up another question before Morgan feigns a cough.
"Right, privacy. I should go. If you need anything, you know where my office is."
Morgan hurries out of the room and slams the door shut behind himself. You don't even really get a chance to thank him. Reviewing the contents of the room, you're soon able to settle on what you should do first: check the moss for any signs of insects.
You manage to burn a couple minutes on tearing up small patches of moss and pulling them apart. No matter how many you search, you can't find even an ant. You force yourself to stop when you find yourself continuing despite the obvious conclusion.
Gathering displaced moss to make an improvised pillow doesn't take nearly as long as you'd prefer. A quick test shows you don't need to stack up layers for extra padding; a single one seems to be sufficient.
Staring up at the ceiling, you're once again forced back to what you're supposed to be doing.
...I should stop stalling.
You try to remove the veil at a slow pace—and fail miserably. A deluge of unpleasant emotions and subjects immediately crash down into your mind.
What happens if I fall somewhere inhospitable? The ocean? Icelands? The lair of a monster? Is that why nobody's ever heard of someone with this Talent? We don't live long enough to go home? What will everyone back home think? How will the Scout explain it? He saw me fall into the rift, but would he actually tell them that? Would anyone believe him? How do I tell everyone I'm okay?
How will I know who I'm supposed to trust? Nobody lied about anything really important back home. I'm not a real mage yet and my friends are weak. Can I trust Ines and Eugene? (Why wouldn't I trust them? Where did this come from? They're nice.) Is there even any point to making friends if I'm just going to be torn away from them?
What happens if one of the rifts closes with someone or something partway through? Is that even possible? It didn't snap shut until after everyone was clear. Was that just luck or is it a true function?
Why are Talents a package deal, anyway? Tearing apart reality, anchoring myself to it, and understanding other languages? My first Talent, having spirits love me and being able to summon them without a real spell? ...Wait, why am I even thinking about that? I'm supposed to be having a meltdown and that doesn't fit in.
You deliberately direct your attention away from your thoughts and try to take stock. Your throat feels like it's closed up, your eyes hurt a little, you have a runny nose, most of your elementals are hugging you, and you're fairly certain more time has passed than you thought. The only elemental which isn't hugging you, your fire elemental, is darting around the room with obvious agitation.
Still, even with all that...
Morgan was right. You do feel better overall, especially now that you can let your growing excitement squash fear and dread. Really, your biggest concern is how people back home are going to worry about you. If you can get a message home and figure out some way to make sure you don't fall somewhere dangerous, you expect this whole thing could actually be pretty fun. You were already planning on moving away from home anyway; if you tilt your head and blind yourself squinting, this isn't too different. If this dimension is any indicator, you could even argue that it'll be safer than your homeworld.
Except for the part where I won't be in a heavily-guarded magical academy and shut up mind I'm trying to be happy.
Before, you belonged to a group of individuals rare even among magicians, the Talented. Tales of people raised and/or beloved by elementals indicate that you're not exactly the first of your kind, no matter how rare your Talent might be. Now? You're unique. You never heard of anybody who got to travel to other worlds before.
If you felt like it, you could even steal from people without any real consequences. Maybe. Depending on how your method of travel works, that might be a bad idea. And anyway, you wouldn't do that unless they really deserved it, and possibly not even then.
...Well, you suppose you do have another concern: what to do next. You don't really think it's worth worrying about Morgan's colleagues and their reactions; he's definitely better at reading people than you are. Even if your secret stops being one, that would only be a problem if you both return to this dimension and area at some point. You honestly can't think of any good reasons not to meet with them.
Given the high mana content of this dimension's water supply, you think it might be a good idea to summon all the water elementals you possibly can and encourage them to spend as much time as possible in it. You're fairly certain your own magic won't be suitable for combat until further notice. Morgan seems like he's going to take care of supplies, which was arguably your biggest problem. If he can get you notes on basic mana control, you might not have to spend any time learning it right now.
You're pretty interested in the stories, history, and legends of this world, but that doesn't seem like it would help you wherever you end up next. You suppose you can cross that off your list for a while.
Maybe you could try to get Morgan to prioritize some supplies he might not think of? Like, a portable mana detector. It'd make hunting for treasure much easier. Something to detect living creatures would be helpful for avoiding monsters, something to boost your strength would make carrying your belongings easier...
You sigh and carefully pet each of your non-fiery elementals in turn. Now that you're actually capable of such, you honestly feel like you're a little useless right now.
[] Summon your other two water elementals.
[] Tell Morgan you're feeling better, wait until Ines and Eugene have given you your share, and explore the town you're currently in. You might spot something useful.
[] Ask Morgan if he could try to get you some unusual supplies.
-[] A portable mana detector.
-[] Something to detect living creatures.
-[] A strength booster.
-[] Lightweight cooking tools. You know how to cook real food, but sticks aren't nearly good enough for your purposes.
-[] Something to make you fireproof. You want to hug your fire elementals, darn it!
[] Ask Morgan for advice. When in doubt, consult your elders.
-[] Could he help you find a job while you're here? Every bit counts.
[] Over the next few days, do your utmost to get basic control over your own mana. (Timeskip)
[] Ask Morgan to help you test how different environmental changes interact with your anchor. His own ideas would also be welcomed. (Timeskip)
-[] Write-in Experiments
[] Write-in
Last edited:
1.5: Progress
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Tell Morgan you're feeling better, wait until Ines and Eugene have given you your share, and explore the town you're currently in. You might spot something useful.
[X] Ask Morgan if he could try to get you some unusual supplies.
-[X] Lightweight cooking tools. You know how to cook real food, but sticks aren't nearly good enough for your purposes.
-[X] Something to detect living creatures.
Your elementals immediately cheer up when you stop moping around and force yourself upright. They still sit on your head and shoulders, forcing you to keep your back consistently straight to avoid dislodging them. You're half convinced they do it on purpose. Your fire elemental circles around your skull in an exceptionally distracting manner.
To your vague surprise, Morgan is sitting just outside, holding up a book bigger than his own chest. He looks up and uses one thumb as a bookmark as you approach.
"Feeling better?"
You nod silently and swallow a mouthful of saliva. When that doesn't help your throat enough, you grab your waterskin, pop the lid open, and swallow a mouthful of it.
It still isn't enough to keep your answer from sounding like a croak.
"Much."
You swallow another mouthful of water and try again. You'd like to drink even more, but unfortunately, you're forced to close it up before your water elemental can dive inside. She knows she's not supposed to go inside your drinking materials, yet that only seems to encourage her.
"Much better," you repeat. "I'm fine with being shown to your friends. Also, could you please add something to detect living creatures to my list of supplies? And lightweight cooking tools would be really nice as well. Calmed-me is apparently fine with eating horrible-tasting crud, but I'm not. Also, if I could borrow some large container to soak my water elementals in, that'd be nice. I'd like to let them take advantage of your world's weird water supply."
Morgan twists his nose to one side and frowns.
"Container, easy. Cooking tools, also easy. I think we can get you a life detector, but it wouldn't give you any extra senses like you might be expecting. It'd just tell you where any moving non-humans happen to be and you'd have to look at it for that. Still want it?"
You nod quickly, not trusting your voice.
[X] Tell Morgan you're feeling better, wait until Ines and Eugene have given you your share, and explore the town you're currently in. You might spot something useful.
Ines and Eugene don't even say goodbye. Oh, they leave eleven small silver pieces and six larger copper pieces behind, sure, but that's it. Well, that and a note saying 'Personal emergency, stay safe.' Still, not enough. You kinda liked them.
Your attempt to explore the town ends in horribly horrifying h... um... scraw it. It fails, okay? You don't even make it down the full length of the street before someone tries to snatch your coin-pouch and flee. 'Tries' being the operative word; your fire and air elementals immediately dart over and maul his hands until he's forced to drop it. The dark-haired man still manages to escape while you're still grappling with the situation.
The experience is still more than enough to ruin your mood and send you back to the safety of the guild. If it takes less than five minutes for someone to basically attack you when you have a fire elemental floating above your head? This town isn't worth exploring.
[X] Summon your other two water elementals.
Summoning your other two water elementals takes about a quarter of your reserves for the day. You think it was worth it.
[X] Over the next few days, do your utmost to get basic control over your own mana. (Timeskip)
Morgan never does take you out to be gawked at. You think a handful of people—not many and definitely less than ten—might show up with Morgan while you're focused on training. All of them leave after a minute or two.
In the end, your stubborn persistence pays off. Carefully sketching the outlines of your own mana network forces you to distinguish where one pipe ends and the next begins. On top of that, your anchor gives you plenty of false positives and figuring out the difference between it and your own threads helps you get even better.
When you finally get all that down, you're assigned to track and sketch the progress of a single clump of mana as it moves through your body. You end up cheating a little; doing it the normal way seemed just as futile as trying to pick out a single drop of water inside an entire glass. Since each thread seems like it should be traveling in a relatively straight line whenever it needs to pass through a conduit, you focus your attention on where you know the threads should be.
That turns out to be the easy part. You end up focusing your attention on a patch for the brief instant it takes each section to move around a given thread. Tracking it beyond that? You basically need to guess based on how quickly the mana is flowing and hope you can spot something helpful.
Hours of frustrating failure later, you manage to spot a single tiny bead of strange-feeling mana getting stuck on a thread when it should've simply moved around it. The bead is dislodged within seconds and doesn't seem to want to follow the same path as the mana surrounding it; instead, it seems like all your other mana is constantly forcing the bead out of the way. Whenever the bead impacts one of the walls of your conduits, it simply stays there for a few seconds before being dislodged, moved slightly downstream, and forced against a wall again.
Over time, the bead becomes smaller and smaller even as it feels less and less... foreign? You're pretty sure it'll completely vanish long before it would turn completely normal.
You pause as a thought strikes you, losing track of the bead in the process. You quickly grab a nearby cup and swallow a single gulp of water.
Several dozen foreign beads appear in the middle of your main mana reservoir after only a few seconds. You focus your attention on a single one, watching as it exhibits the exact same behavior as the one you discovered by chance.
Two days after you first started, you've finally gotten your personal detection and tracking to the point where you're allowed to start trying to actively manipulate mana inside your own body. You still think Morgan was full of crap when he mentioned 'clumps.' You never found any. Of course, Morgan also says being able to detect environmental mana inside your own supply shouldn't be something you're capable of for several more months. You're not sure if he's a bad teacher or you just perceive it differently.
When it comes to sensing mana outside your body, you're still incapable of doing anything more than vaguely sensing the mana levels of the surrounding area.
You also learned quite a few things you hadn't been aiming for, all of which you relayed to Morgan. You figured you might as well.
- When a bead of environmental mana is dislodged from one of the walls of your network, it leaves a thin layer of itself behind. Over time, the discarded portion is eaten by said network. Or, well, 'is absorbed' or 'sinks into' would probably be more appropriate. You still think your version sounds cooler.
- When a bead of environmental mana is dislodged from your anchor, the part of it which is left behind becomes totally indistinguishable from the rest of the anchor within a minute. It doesn't disappear and seems to act just like every other part of a thread. Based on that, you're pretty sure it's being used to reinforce your anchor.
- Your anchor feels like it's stuck between being made out of your own mana and made out of environmental mana.
- Every single last thread of your anchor overlaps with at least one part of your network at one point or another.
- The 'core' of your anchor, the part which all other threads branch off of, is clinging to the top of your reservoir. Or merely pressed up against it. You're not sure which.
- While your anchor isn't equally thick across all its sections, it seems like individual threads are.
- Something you knew already: mages who completely exhaust their network get sick. You're guessing it's because, without at least a little personal mana to carry it along, environmental mana will just gather wherever it falls instead of spreading itself across your network like it's supposed to. You doubt this will be a problem unless you try to dip below your personal assessment of what constitutes an 'empty' supply.
It turns out you already had the barest basics of mana control down, courtesy of your Talent. All you need to do is strain part of your body in the right way to push mana out from it. Simple, right? Nope. Keeping them open for just long enough to release a specific amount of mana proves to be insanely difficult; any paths so created will automatically close whenever you aren't actively keeping them open. On top of that, exerting twice as much effort won't necessarily give you twice as much mana. The mana itself interferes, making it easier or harder than it should be for any given quantity. Or rather, it's easier to release more mana, but harder to get the amount you'd originally intended.
Apparently, mana hadn't actually left your body all the times you used your Talent. At least you know enough to save you from the uncomfortable gauntlets trainees would usually use to immobilize the other parts of their hand.
The conduits traveling to your your feet, hands, and throat are the only ones close enough to the outside for safe exterior mana usage. Oh, you could use any other part of your body, but it'd would be slower, would have to pass through significantly more flesh, and would 'wreak havoc' along the way.
If you push mana outside of your body without any actual targets, it'll just dissipate uselessly. Spells themselves are instructions for the way mana is meant to be spent. Morgan freely admits he doesn't know why tweaking a single line's angle in a fire spell design could change the temperature, visible light, power requirements, or something completely different.
'It's just the way it is.' At least he's actually trying to understand why the world works like that, I guess. I still hate hearing that.
Since you already somewhat know how to move your own mana, you're given a small glass ball and told to pour mana into it in bursts. Depending on how much power you pour into it, it'll change color from bright yellow all the way to crimson. If you give it too little, it turns yellow, which would be a failure and would mean wasted power if it were a real spell. If you give it too much, it turns red. Your goal color is orange.
To make things even more frustrating, you're told to switch to a different orb with different power requirements every five minutes. You can't decide if it helps you learn faster or slower. It's annoying either way. Pretty much the only thing which keeps you going is watching your fire elemental float behind the glass orb and change color to match it. You hadn't even known they could do that deliberately; you were under the impression they automatically matched whatever fire they were closest to.
Every so often, you take a break to watch your water elementals play in an enclosed glass vase filled with water. You think the girls might be just a teensie bit larger than they were when you first started immersing them in this world's water. Unfortunately, you were forced to use a cloth to cover the vase instead of the proper seal you'd hoped for. Your earth and stone elementals kept 'freeing' them whenever you used anything more solid.
The first time you switched out the slightly-depleted water of your elementals, you poured the old liquid into a mug and slowly drank it yourself. It took five refills (plus the original) for you to develop a headache and the feeling you were in danger of vomiting. Even though you stopped immediately, neither went away for several hours. While unpleasant, at least you know what it feels like when you're nearing the danger zone for mana absorption. Apparently, its official name is 'mana poisoning.'
After working with the orbs from early afternoon until bedtime, you go to sleep with your reserves at about a third of their maximum.
As soon as you wake up, you check on your anchor and try to guess how much time it has left. You're pretty sure that if you keep training your control, you'll empty your reserves later today and have your anchor break the following morning or afternoon. Meanwhile, half of your 'spells' are still yellow while the other half are red.
Or... well, you could try breaking the anchor early. You feel like you're capable of it now. You're rested, you're at full mana, and Morgan might let you take a training orb instead of whatever extra supplies he could gather in the next day or so. You even think you might get something out of an early break—more options? Better options? Both? Something else? The voice in your head isn't being very helpful on that front.
[X] Automatically included: Pick up the supplies Morgan has gathered so far and ask him if he's figured out anything else.
[] Keep training your control.
[] Switch to focusing on something else. You'd like to prolong your stay here for as long as possible.
-[] Precise inscription. You'll need it if you're going to be using any solid spell designs.
-[] Accurate dictation. Apparently, getting even a single word wrong in a chant can give you explosively unstable results.
[] Gather your supplies, say goodbye to Morgan, and break the anchor early.
-[] Let him watch.
[] Ask Morgan if you can take a training orb with you.
[] Write-in
Elapsed time (Timeskip): 3 afternoons, 3 evenings, 3 nights, 2 mornings.
[X] Ask Morgan if he could try to get you some unusual supplies.
-[X] Lightweight cooking tools. You know how to cook real food, but sticks aren't nearly good enough for your purposes.
-[X] Something to detect living creatures.
Your elementals immediately cheer up when you stop moping around and force yourself upright. They still sit on your head and shoulders, forcing you to keep your back consistently straight to avoid dislodging them. You're half convinced they do it on purpose. Your fire elemental circles around your skull in an exceptionally distracting manner.
To your vague surprise, Morgan is sitting just outside, holding up a book bigger than his own chest. He looks up and uses one thumb as a bookmark as you approach.
"Feeling better?"
You nod silently and swallow a mouthful of saliva. When that doesn't help your throat enough, you grab your waterskin, pop the lid open, and swallow a mouthful of it.
It still isn't enough to keep your answer from sounding like a croak.
"Much."
You swallow another mouthful of water and try again. You'd like to drink even more, but unfortunately, you're forced to close it up before your water elemental can dive inside. She knows she's not supposed to go inside your drinking materials, yet that only seems to encourage her.
"Much better," you repeat. "I'm fine with being shown to your friends. Also, could you please add something to detect living creatures to my list of supplies? And lightweight cooking tools would be really nice as well. Calmed-me is apparently fine with eating horrible-tasting crud, but I'm not. Also, if I could borrow some large container to soak my water elementals in, that'd be nice. I'd like to let them take advantage of your world's weird water supply."
Morgan twists his nose to one side and frowns.
"Container, easy. Cooking tools, also easy. I think we can get you a life detector, but it wouldn't give you any extra senses like you might be expecting. It'd just tell you where any moving non-humans happen to be and you'd have to look at it for that. Still want it?"
You nod quickly, not trusting your voice.
[X] Tell Morgan you're feeling better, wait until Ines and Eugene have given you your share, and explore the town you're currently in. You might spot something useful.
Ines and Eugene don't even say goodbye. Oh, they leave eleven small silver pieces and six larger copper pieces behind, sure, but that's it. Well, that and a note saying 'Personal emergency, stay safe.' Still, not enough. You kinda liked them.
Your attempt to explore the town ends in horribly horrifying h... um... scraw it. It fails, okay? You don't even make it down the full length of the street before someone tries to snatch your coin-pouch and flee. 'Tries' being the operative word; your fire and air elementals immediately dart over and maul his hands until he's forced to drop it. The dark-haired man still manages to escape while you're still grappling with the situation.
The experience is still more than enough to ruin your mood and send you back to the safety of the guild. If it takes less than five minutes for someone to basically attack you when you have a fire elemental floating above your head? This town isn't worth exploring.
[X] Summon your other two water elementals.
Summoning your other two water elementals takes about a quarter of your reserves for the day. You think it was worth it.
[X] Over the next few days, do your utmost to get basic control over your own mana. (Timeskip)
Morgan never does take you out to be gawked at. You think a handful of people—not many and definitely less than ten—might show up with Morgan while you're focused on training. All of them leave after a minute or two.
In the end, your stubborn persistence pays off. Carefully sketching the outlines of your own mana network forces you to distinguish where one pipe ends and the next begins. On top of that, your anchor gives you plenty of false positives and figuring out the difference between it and your own threads helps you get even better.
When you finally get all that down, you're assigned to track and sketch the progress of a single clump of mana as it moves through your body. You end up cheating a little; doing it the normal way seemed just as futile as trying to pick out a single drop of water inside an entire glass. Since each thread seems like it should be traveling in a relatively straight line whenever it needs to pass through a conduit, you focus your attention on where you know the threads should be.
That turns out to be the easy part. You end up focusing your attention on a patch for the brief instant it takes each section to move around a given thread. Tracking it beyond that? You basically need to guess based on how quickly the mana is flowing and hope you can spot something helpful.
Hours of frustrating failure later, you manage to spot a single tiny bead of strange-feeling mana getting stuck on a thread when it should've simply moved around it. The bead is dislodged within seconds and doesn't seem to want to follow the same path as the mana surrounding it; instead, it seems like all your other mana is constantly forcing the bead out of the way. Whenever the bead impacts one of the walls of your conduits, it simply stays there for a few seconds before being dislodged, moved slightly downstream, and forced against a wall again.
Over time, the bead becomes smaller and smaller even as it feels less and less... foreign? You're pretty sure it'll completely vanish long before it would turn completely normal.
You pause as a thought strikes you, losing track of the bead in the process. You quickly grab a nearby cup and swallow a single gulp of water.
Several dozen foreign beads appear in the middle of your main mana reservoir after only a few seconds. You focus your attention on a single one, watching as it exhibits the exact same behavior as the one you discovered by chance.
Two days after you first started, you've finally gotten your personal detection and tracking to the point where you're allowed to start trying to actively manipulate mana inside your own body. You still think Morgan was full of crap when he mentioned 'clumps.' You never found any. Of course, Morgan also says being able to detect environmental mana inside your own supply shouldn't be something you're capable of for several more months. You're not sure if he's a bad teacher or you just perceive it differently.
When it comes to sensing mana outside your body, you're still incapable of doing anything more than vaguely sensing the mana levels of the surrounding area.
You also learned quite a few things you hadn't been aiming for, all of which you relayed to Morgan. You figured you might as well.
- When a bead of environmental mana is dislodged from one of the walls of your network, it leaves a thin layer of itself behind. Over time, the discarded portion is eaten by said network. Or, well, 'is absorbed' or 'sinks into' would probably be more appropriate. You still think your version sounds cooler.
- When a bead of environmental mana is dislodged from your anchor, the part of it which is left behind becomes totally indistinguishable from the rest of the anchor within a minute. It doesn't disappear and seems to act just like every other part of a thread. Based on that, you're pretty sure it's being used to reinforce your anchor.
- Your anchor feels like it's stuck between being made out of your own mana and made out of environmental mana.
- Every single last thread of your anchor overlaps with at least one part of your network at one point or another.
- The 'core' of your anchor, the part which all other threads branch off of, is clinging to the top of your reservoir. Or merely pressed up against it. You're not sure which.
- While your anchor isn't equally thick across all its sections, it seems like individual threads are.
- Something you knew already: mages who completely exhaust their network get sick. You're guessing it's because, without at least a little personal mana to carry it along, environmental mana will just gather wherever it falls instead of spreading itself across your network like it's supposed to. You doubt this will be a problem unless you try to dip below your personal assessment of what constitutes an 'empty' supply.
It turns out you already had the barest basics of mana control down, courtesy of your Talent. All you need to do is strain part of your body in the right way to push mana out from it. Simple, right? Nope. Keeping them open for just long enough to release a specific amount of mana proves to be insanely difficult; any paths so created will automatically close whenever you aren't actively keeping them open. On top of that, exerting twice as much effort won't necessarily give you twice as much mana. The mana itself interferes, making it easier or harder than it should be for any given quantity. Or rather, it's easier to release more mana, but harder to get the amount you'd originally intended.
Apparently, mana hadn't actually left your body all the times you used your Talent. At least you know enough to save you from the uncomfortable gauntlets trainees would usually use to immobilize the other parts of their hand.
The conduits traveling to your your feet, hands, and throat are the only ones close enough to the outside for safe exterior mana usage. Oh, you could use any other part of your body, but it'd would be slower, would have to pass through significantly more flesh, and would 'wreak havoc' along the way.
If you push mana outside of your body without any actual targets, it'll just dissipate uselessly. Spells themselves are instructions for the way mana is meant to be spent. Morgan freely admits he doesn't know why tweaking a single line's angle in a fire spell design could change the temperature, visible light, power requirements, or something completely different.
'It's just the way it is.' At least he's actually trying to understand why the world works like that, I guess. I still hate hearing that.
Since you already somewhat know how to move your own mana, you're given a small glass ball and told to pour mana into it in bursts. Depending on how much power you pour into it, it'll change color from bright yellow all the way to crimson. If you give it too little, it turns yellow, which would be a failure and would mean wasted power if it were a real spell. If you give it too much, it turns red. Your goal color is orange.
To make things even more frustrating, you're told to switch to a different orb with different power requirements every five minutes. You can't decide if it helps you learn faster or slower. It's annoying either way. Pretty much the only thing which keeps you going is watching your fire elemental float behind the glass orb and change color to match it. You hadn't even known they could do that deliberately; you were under the impression they automatically matched whatever fire they were closest to.
Every so often, you take a break to watch your water elementals play in an enclosed glass vase filled with water. You think the girls might be just a teensie bit larger than they were when you first started immersing them in this world's water. Unfortunately, you were forced to use a cloth to cover the vase instead of the proper seal you'd hoped for. Your earth and stone elementals kept 'freeing' them whenever you used anything more solid.
The first time you switched out the slightly-depleted water of your elementals, you poured the old liquid into a mug and slowly drank it yourself. It took five refills (plus the original) for you to develop a headache and the feeling you were in danger of vomiting. Even though you stopped immediately, neither went away for several hours. While unpleasant, at least you know what it feels like when you're nearing the danger zone for mana absorption. Apparently, its official name is 'mana poisoning.'
After working with the orbs from early afternoon until bedtime, you go to sleep with your reserves at about a third of their maximum.
As soon as you wake up, you check on your anchor and try to guess how much time it has left. You're pretty sure that if you keep training your control, you'll empty your reserves later today and have your anchor break the following morning or afternoon. Meanwhile, half of your 'spells' are still yellow while the other half are red.
Or... well, you could try breaking the anchor early. You feel like you're capable of it now. You're rested, you're at full mana, and Morgan might let you take a training orb instead of whatever extra supplies he could gather in the next day or so. You even think you might get something out of an early break—more options? Better options? Both? Something else? The voice in your head isn't being very helpful on that front.
[X] Automatically included: Pick up the supplies Morgan has gathered so far and ask him if he's figured out anything else.
[] Keep training your control.
[] Switch to focusing on something else. You'd like to prolong your stay here for as long as possible.
-[] Precise inscription. You'll need it if you're going to be using any solid spell designs.
-[] Accurate dictation. Apparently, getting even a single word wrong in a chant can give you explosively unstable results.
[] Gather your supplies, say goodbye to Morgan, and break the anchor early.
-[] Let him watch.
[] Ask Morgan if you can take a training orb with you.
[] Write-in
Elapsed time (Timeskip): 3 afternoons, 3 evenings, 3 nights, 2 mornings.
Any preference on whether or not I should use 'Ranks' to mark what you think of your own progress, similar to what Ignition has? For example, in this post, you would've gotten:
(Ability Improved: Personal Mana Control: [0 -> 1])
(Ability Improved: Internal Mana Sense: [0 -> 1])
(Ability Improved: Personal Mana Control: [0 -> 1])
(Ability Improved: Internal Mana Sense: [0 -> 1])
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