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School of Sorcery
- Thread starter Chandagnac
- Start date
- Original
Flashkannon
Aqua Iconographer
- Location
- TM 91
[x] Send an illusion to give her a message. (Write in: what message and what form should the illusion take?)
-[x] simple words, "Hello, we found a mirror and can see you. Who are you?"
-[×] If that doesn't work, huck some debris (but not at her)
Somehow I thought Elys was a blonde all this time? How odd.
That said, I am really liking the synchronicity between the two quests! This is a really cool effect!
As well, I hope your birthday is pleasant, Chandagnac!
-[x] simple words, "Hello, we found a mirror and can see you. Who are you?"
-[×] If that doesn't work, huck some debris (but not at her)
Somehow I thought Elys was a blonde all this time? How odd.
That said, I am really liking the synchronicity between the two quests! This is a really cool effect!
As well, I hope your birthday is pleasant, Chandagnac!
- Location
- St. Petersburg
When did that happen? I was not aware Elys had a growth spurt. It's probably due to the divine spark, but I completely missed it.
Being confused for an adult (were it not for baby face) at 11 years is somewhat notable.
I don't get it. I know blood is potent, but what does it have to do with portals? And this specific portal to boot.
Of course, now that we OOC know it's the Underworld, there may be some connection through that, but I am not sure this could have been thought of rather than guessed, unless I am forgetting about some magic principle or other.
[x] Hold on to a piece of rubbish while poking it through the portal.
Let's see if nothing terrible happens with physical objects. Illusions are well and good, but you can send illusions into vacuum and they'd be just fine.
[x] Send an illusion to give her a message. (Write in: what message and what form should the illusion take?)
-[x] Ask Venta to send in her double. Try to communicate "It's not safe here. Can we join you?"
Of course, it's not safe there either, but they wouldn't be adventurers-in-training if they thought things through!
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
Heh, this isn't the first time I've had this conversation. Some years ago, Whisper1 drew a picture of Elys playing with Mishrak. I liked it, but I had to inform her that I didn't imagine Elys as being a blonde: I imagine her as having a more Mediterranean/North African appearance.
(Yeah, it seems like people automatically tend to assume that fairytale princesses should be blonde.)
I'm glad you like it. It won't be for long, but I hope it'll be fun while it lasts.
Thank you very much.
Way back at the start of Jana's story arc in The Tinpot Princess and Her Many Travels (the one where she goes to Truinon and asks the Forgotten God to make her his Chosen), she complains that Elys is rather tall and well-developed for an eleven-year-old. I think her exact words are "ugh, she's only eleven, but she looks like she's about fifteen."
(Normally I would quote it, but I'm on my phone right now, so I'm finding it difficult to quote from multiple different quests.)
It's a minor thing and I didn't expect you to have remembered this, but it was established in A Hedge Maze Is You that blood contains traces of soul energy.
In this case, it wasn't the blood itself that opened the portal, but the soul energy contained within the blood.
Also, the otherworld behind the mirror is not actually part of the Underworld. Hurondus was a traveller of multiple worlds.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
Yes, but what is the connection? Did it act as a power source?
Why does it take a trace of a soul energy to activate a portal, but exposure to spells (which I think are just condensed ambient magical energy) has no effect? Just because souls are much denser in the output? I imagine they must be quite powerful to allow elves to burn their souls for magic, but how much would there be in a drop of blood?
Oh, and Happy Birthday, of course!
UHH. Well, THAT'S news. I mean, yeah it was implied via one of his leftover open portals in A Hedge Maze Is You that he had a portal to the moon (though sadly, I don't think any of the actual characters who might have saw that portal would have been able to guess what that was, so no help for Zora Alishanda). And his favorite weapon was to briefly open up a small portal to the inside of the sun itself, which depending on the size or power or whatever, had... predictably cataclysmic results for whatever he aimed it at. But, other than the Underworld, which I assumed to basically be just the deep underground of this world (though extremely magical, and directly ruled over by either demons or the Forgotten God depending on what part of the Underworld)... Hurondus being able to blight entire other full fledged worlds with his presence, that seems... like a new unpleasant revelation! Heck, not counting small pocket dimensions, even the existence of other potentially inhabited worlds is unexpected, in this universe where we know the story of how the elder gods created everything. I... guess there were briefly kind of mentions of alien life among the books in Hurondus's tower, but those were mixed in with so much other random silly stuff that was never relevant and was implied to have been possibly just made up by the authors of those books... I dismissed it as a joke.
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
Soul energy and magical energy are not the same thing (but soul energy can be converted into magical energy). The mirror will only activate if it is fed with both magical and soul energy.
Also, a peculiarity of Dorian's bloodline* makes it easier for him to activate the portal in this way than it would be for other people (who would probably require a key).
*I.e. what Madam Zyn did to him.
There's a chapter of A Hedge Maze Is You with the title 'Men are from Kerondar, Women are from Norna'. That title may seem inexplicable if you haven't seen the post* in which I explained that there are other planets in the same
*
For instance, the red planet of Kerondar/Kullath was created by the Elder God of war and striving, who envisaged it as a place of eternal war, violence, and struggle. However, after Keron/Kull was tricked into seemingly fatally weakening himself, a series of horribly destructive wars damaged the red planet's ecosystem and atmosphere to the extent that it can barely support life. The few survivors of Kerondar's/Kullath's various intelligent races live in domed cities with their own sealed environments, cut off from the arid, irradiated wasteland all around, which is littered with the mouldering skeletons of colossal monsters...
No, wait... I found that post I was looking for. Here it is:
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- Pronouns
- She/Them
i pictured elys as an anime french person, but with tanned skin, maybe with auburn hair and associations with purple and perhaps blue. i can imagine her as morrocan or some other kind of north african though.
edit: quelle female knight makes me think purple, with like yellow quelle accent colour. idk why.
edit: quelle female knight makes me think purple, with like yellow quelle accent colour. idk why.
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Huh, interesting. And yes, I see how that corresponds to our own solar system; Keron/Kull (god of war) has the equivalent of Mars (AKA Ares), Aea (goddess of time) has the equivalent of Saturn (AKA Cronus/Cronos/Kronos, the titan father of the first Olympians, who was also sort of the god of time Chronos), Ymgar/Rynn (god of the ocean) has the equivalent of Neptune (AKA Poseidon), and the old Death god has the equivalent of Pluto (AKA Hades). Also interesting in where it seemingly diverges from that; I can't see much of a connection between Nymandor and Mercury/Hermes, or The Fates/Norns and Venus/Aphrodite, or Vlakorath and Jupiter/Zeus.
...you sure do love Chrono Trigger year 2300 AD.
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Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
Hmm...
Well, here's the only one of Whisper1's drawings of Elys I have saved:
I came up with the Elder Gods before I came up with the planets associated with them. Nymandor, the Fates, and Vlakoroth were the ones that didn't quite fit the pattern.
Vlakoroth is kinda similar to Typhon, an enormous serpentine creature in Greek Mythology who was the father of many monsters. He challenged Zeus (i.e. Jupiter) for rule of the cosmos. That was enough of a connection that I decided that the planet associated with him would be the equivalent of real-world Jupiter.
Whereas Mercury is the messenger of the gods, Nymandor is their guard and gatekeeper. Mercury was the god of commerce and trade, thieves and travellers, and was known for his incredible speed; Nymandor is a god of gates and boundaries, watchers and guardians, and (instead of moving quickly) he twists space to make distances much longer or shorter than they should be. He is slow, but implacable. Legend has it that he will continue to pursue Telthalus across the void forever. You could almost describe Nymandor as Mercury's opposite, so it amused me that the planet associated with him would be the equivalent of real-world Mercury.
The planet associated with the Fates is the equivalent of real-world Venus because love is very often associated with destiny and I was feeling especially cynical that day.
I can see why you might think that.
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Flashkannon
Aqua Iconographer
- Location
- TM 91
Ah, forgive me, for I have imagined tropey appearances. I will now subscribe to your canon appearances!
Who doesn't, though?
Also, I imagine Telthalus has a bit of a "Who's on First" moment before he found out his wife was on the moon
- Pronouns
- She/Them
guys (and the rest) i dont think an illusion is going to work, whats to stop the portal from simply consuming the illusion as fuel? imo we should send a more mundane message through.
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The Girl in the Mirror (Part Four)
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
The Girl in the Mirror (Part Four)
"Let's send her a message," you say.
Using a ritual to craft another illusion – this time, it takes the shape of letters forming the words 'Hello, we found a mirror and can see you. Who are you?' – and send it floating through the portal. However, the letters that drift too close to the edges of the mystical doorway quickly dissipate, seemingly drained away to nothing, making your message unreadable. Also, the other letters rapidly begin to disintegrate, much faster than they would have under normal circumstances: unless you'd failed to cast the spell properly, it should last much longer than this.
By the time your message drifts close enough to the woman in the mirror that she catches sight of it, it is completely illegible. Nevertheless, you have succeeded in attracting her attention: she turns around, looking directly at you and your friends. There is a pondering expression on her face.
Meanwhile, Philander picks up a stick – it's a long, perfectly cylindrical piece of wood that was lying on top of one of the crates – and pokes it through the portal. It passes through to the other side unscathed. He waggles it back and forth. It remains intact. He smacks it against the outer edge of the portal. Evidently, it is as lethally sharp as it looks: the stick is sliced into two pieces, one of which lands in the dust on the other side of the portal.
Very carefully, Phil takes a step back, lowering the hand that still holds the other part of the bisected stick. "All right, don't touch the edges," he mutters. "Not unless you want to lose fingers. Or worse."
"Duly noted," you reply, in a whisper.
"Maybe we could use it as a weapon against those older students who've been chasing us," Isolia suggests, sotto voce. "I don't mean kill them, just… um, never mind."
You raise an eyebrow at that: even if she doesn't want to kill them, it seems like an unusually bloodthirsty idea and rather out of character for her. Their earlier rough treatment and attempt to use her as a hostage must have deeply upset her.
On the other side of the portal, the woman is still deliberating: she seems very unsure of what to do next.
What will you do?
[] Wait.
[] Step through the portal.
[] Create another illusory message. (Write in: what does it say?)
-[] This time, you don't need to send it through the portal. If you create it in front of you, she should be able to see it.
[] Call out to her. (Write in: what will you say?)
[] Do something else (write in).
And now, this quest is at the exact same point at the latest update in Chosen by the Dragon God. What happens next depends on how you vote.
Please vote!
Please vote!
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- Pronouns
- She/Them
something like; found a mirror, saw you in it, are being chased by older students out for blood. who are you? can we come in?
illusions wont cross the linguistic barrier right? but the characters dont know there is such a barrier yet.
illusions wont cross the linguistic barrier right? but the characters dont know there is such a barrier yet.
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- Location
- Earth
[X] New illusion, that doesn't go through the mirror, with the same message as last time.
This seems straightforward to me.
Also, yikes on that edge of the mirror portal, that's dangerous. Could be useful for very precisely cut stone blocks. We could go into business selling stone blocks cut to a mirror polish.
This seems straightforward to me.
Also, yikes on that edge of the mirror portal, that's dangerous. Could be useful for very precisely cut stone blocks. We could go into business selling stone blocks cut to a mirror polish.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
The portal interacts negatively with our spells, devouring the magical energy.
She doesn't appear to hear us, and we'd rather not shout, or we might attract attention from someone else.
Just throw in a note. It can pass through the portal just fine.
- Pronouns
- She/Them
we have her attention now, we dont need to send anything through anymore
[X] New illusion, that doesn't go through the mirror, with the same message as last time.
Flashkannon
Aqua Iconographer
- Location
- TM 91
[x] Create another illusory message. (Write in: what does it say?)
-[x] This time, you don't need to send it through the portal. If you create it in front of you, she should be able to see it.
--[x] "Hello, miss goddess. Humble greetings. Who are you, and how have you come to be in this mirror world?"
I...
I don't got a good explanation for this one, I just think it'd be funny to see Elys react to being called a goddess.
-[x] This time, you don't need to send it through the portal. If you create it in front of you, she should be able to see it.
--[x] "Hello, miss goddess. Humble greetings. Who are you, and how have you come to be in this mirror world?"
I...
I don't got a good explanation for this one, I just think it'd be funny to see Elys react to being called a goddess.
- Pronouns
- She/Them
[X] Create another illusory message. (Write in: what does it say?)
-[X] This time, you don't need to send it through the portal. If you create it in front of you, she should be able to see it.
--[X] "hi, we found a mirror, saw you in it, and we are being chased by older students out for blood. who are you? can we come in?"
-[X] This time, you don't need to send it through the portal. If you create it in front of you, she should be able to see it.
--[X] "hi, we found a mirror, saw you in it, and we are being chased by older students out for blood. who are you? can we come in?"
Flashkannon
Aqua Iconographer
- Location
- TM 91
It's in the other thread, but it was all I'd hoped for!
Incidentally, this is off topic, but I'll say it here so I don't necromance a thread that has been over for months (err, don't necromance it unnecessarily; I had a good reason with this one!). I just finished reading Sorry Your Time Traveling Priviledges Have Been Revoked. Can confirm, it is a masterpiece, everyone here who hasn't read it already should do so.
Frida is the greatest. One of the best main protagonists I can think of. And is also the only character in anything who I can describe as being simultaneously nicer, meaner, smarter, and dumber than she pretends to be. The supporting cast is also all fantastic; my favorites are a tie between Evarvae and Al-Khidr, but really they're all great. Wish a couple more characters had gotten epilogues though... Glitch in particular, what he did after the story seemed especially uncertain, at least for a major character like him. Ones who were especially minor and don't have enough to fill a whole chapter could have shared the post, separated into different sections a couple paragraphs long each. For example, something more on the surviving Pandemonium demons? Was Janus among the survivors? Or Valen, or any others we knew at all? And what about the Dung Villagers we briefly met; we didn't really go back to the village after the thing with the vampire, so it was hard to get a good idea of just how much damage was done there. And we never really did find out what the deal was with Nonette... I mean, that makes sense since even she never knew what her deal was, but still. Oh, and I think Dr. Szechhh's fate, while slightly implied, was only explicitly stated briefly in one non-threadmarked post that I happened to read through sheer luck, so... that could have been done better.
And yes, even hidden behind a spoiler tag I am still going out of my way to avoid saying anything too specific, because I just hate spoilers that much.
And yes, even hidden behind a spoiler tag I am still going out of my way to avoid saying anything too specific, because I just hate spoilers that much.