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Two girls are moving their hands through the air and speaking together in perfect parallel.
Two girls are looking expectantly at a circle of red chalk on their floor.
Two girls have done something exceptionally stupid.
Isabella in Elcenia
kaolinandbone
Isabella accepts the chair gratefully from whomever delivers it! Her lower legs are starting to fall asleep from sitting seiza-style.
Pulling volume one off of the stack of encyclopedias, she carefully leans her parasol against the pile, settles into a chair, and flips to the index. Let's see what sorts of things exist in this world, shall we?
Pulling volume one off of the stack of encyclopedias, she carefully leans her parasol against the pile, settles into a chair, and flips to the index. Let's see what sorts of things exist in this world, shall we?
The index includes a lot of things, many of which are listed, handwritten, in the index as proper nouns unexplained except via their subsections (for instance, "Oridaan" is next to "Oridaanlan history" and "Oridaanlan physical geography" and "Oridaanlan dialects" and may be assumed to be a political unit). The world has rabbits and chocolate and wine and clouds and a moon and oceans. It has merfolk and elves and dragons and vampires and wolfriders. It has several unrelated kinds of magic.
kaolinandbone
Isabella is happy that this world includes chocolate! She checks to see if it has tea as well before flipping to the section on the local vampires. The various other magical races can wait: for the moment, she needs to see what her hosts' reactions would be to her asking if she can bite people. She can go without for quite some time, but it would not be comfortable, and if she's really stuck here for a year then she would risk sliding into torpor and that would be rather problematic.
There is tea.
The vampires bite people. There is a short section on vampire religion, which asserts that one of the handful of facts vampires have allowed to leak about their faith is that it forbids them to bite people without permission. Apparently they prefer elves most of the time, dragons when they can get them, and the average person can be bitten by a vampire of about their size once every three weeks if the vampire eats a normal amount once weekly. (At least one country has stabilized into a population of almost one quarter vampires and three quarters elves, which implies very snug arrangements for sustenance.) Vampires here have children in a humanlike fashion and have peculiarly-calculated lifespans and can each turn into bats, which they must do to sleep. They are pale and dark-haired and do not have circulatory systems or digestive ones. They can echolocate. Their bites are painless and can be easily healed by lights if one prefers this cosmetically.
The vampires bite people. There is a short section on vampire religion, which asserts that one of the handful of facts vampires have allowed to leak about their faith is that it forbids them to bite people without permission. Apparently they prefer elves most of the time, dragons when they can get them, and the average person can be bitten by a vampire of about their size once every three weeks if the vampire eats a normal amount once weekly. (At least one country has stabilized into a population of almost one quarter vampires and three quarters elves, which implies very snug arrangements for sustenance.) Vampires here have children in a humanlike fashion and have peculiarly-calculated lifespans and can each turn into bats, which they must do to sleep. They are pale and dark-haired and do not have circulatory systems or digestive ones. They can echolocate. Their bites are painless and can be easily healed by lights if one prefers this cosmetically.
kaolinandbone
Lights? Isabella flips to the section on this world's apparent biomancy-equivalent. And wait a second, of course this world has celestial bodies, that is a normal thing, does this room have windows, why did she not check that as soon as she arrived-
Well, she checks now.
Well, she checks now.
There is a window. The curtains are closed; most of the light in the room is from the glowing ceiling.
kaolinandbone
Alright, good. That's good. Her hand runs along the weathered wood of her parasol's handle. A single window... Indirect light through glass, her parasol, and her clothes doesn't pose much of a threat to her unless she's astonishingly clumsy. Even if someone opens the curtains, she should be fine.
She lets out a shaky breath. Alright, back to the encyclopedia. What is a light, exactly?
She lets out a shaky breath. Alright, back to the encyclopedia. What is a light, exactly?
Lights are a kind of inborn magic user, making up three to four percent of the population evenly distributed across species in most places. They can cup their hands together and make a ball of colored light (color consistent per and varying between lights) which, if contacted by a sick or injured non-light, heals them entirely and very fast. Some countries have socialized healthcare based on lights. Complex health problems must be addressed by lights with training or by witches or wizards with medically oriented magic; lights can't do literally everything.
Lights also don't have to eat, if they get enough sun, although they do need to drink a lot of water.
Lights also don't have to eat, if they get enough sun, although they do need to drink a lot of water.
kaolinandbone
That implies interesting things about the spiritual presences in this world. If only she knew more than basic theory of shamanism.
Speaking of which, let's investigate the sections on celestial objects. What mystical significance do they have on this world? ... Do spirits even exist in the way she expects? Vampires are apparently somewhat different in this world, as is magic. She should probably not assume anything about how spirits work.
Speaking of which, let's investigate the sections on celestial objects. What mystical significance do they have on this world? ... Do spirits even exist in the way she expects? Vampires are apparently somewhat different in this world, as is magic. She should probably not assume anything about how spirits work.
The moon is a large hemispherical gray rock which spins and orbits the planet. The sun is a large ball of fire which also orbits the planet, around the southern bit.
The planet is square.
The planet is square.
kaolinandbone
Wait, what? Square? Does that mean that there's edges? Isabella investigates: is this a flat world, or is it a cube or something else that would require even more interesting gravity?
The world is about ten miles thick (this measurement brought to you by he middle of the ocean; the parts with mountains are thicker). It is only inhabited - by anything, including plants - on the top, but if you go to the edge you can step off and swing around to the side and walk to the bottom.
kaolinandbone
So gravity points 'down' while simultaneously causing orbits. Or maybe the orbits are done by something different, after all this is a crazy world with only half a moon. Why doesn't anything live on the underside of the world, since apparently the reason isn't "it'll fall off?"
The encyclopedia coughs up a summary of colonization attempts. Apparently nobody wants to live there because looking at an expanse of flat nothingness is depressing and you need to import topsoil to grow anything. No projects have accumulated sufficient stable populations to warrant putting in a teleportation circle.
kaolinandbone
And that offhand mention of teleportation circles implies interesting things about how common magic is in this world and its local cultural position. Though she supposes the children learning magic in school ought to have tipped her off.
Well. At this point, it appears that speaking to Keo about her unusual dietary requirements is unlikely to get her killed.
Keo? Have a moment to talk about my species?
Well. At this point, it appears that speaking to Keo about her unusual dietary requirements is unlikely to get her killed.
Keo? Have a moment to talk about my species?
kaolinandbone
Offworld Vampire. Have a moment to drop in? Even if I do have mental powers myself, talking to you in my mind when you're nowhere near me is unsettling.
kaolinandbone
"I am uncertain what constraints local vampires have, but mine are that it has to be from an intelligent being, as close to human as possible, as fresh as possible. From the living vein or artery is best, but as long as it's still warm it's probably good. That's a time restriction, not a temperature one. So, a minute or two. Even dead blood can be of some help, though."
She pauses. "Though it's possible that nobody here qualifies as 'human' enough for my magic's purposes, in which case we will either need to summon some of my blood-servants from inside my castle or I will be spending most of my time here unconscious."
She pauses. "Though it's possible that nobody here qualifies as 'human' enough for my magic's purposes, in which case we will either need to summon some of my blood-servants from inside my castle or I will be spending most of my time here unconscious."
"There are humans. Saasnil's a human, for instance. I don't know that we'll want to summon people for you while you yourself are still confined to ward but we can send your servants a letter and summon blood they draw for you, if local humans won't do. What kind of quantity on what kind of schedule? Are you hungry now?"
kaolinandbone
"I'm not hungry currently. Weekly for comfort, monthly for... Not exactly survival, as my local type of vampire I'm immortal unless I die in very specific circumstances, but for me to continue functioning. If I don't eat for much longer than that, I will begin to uncannily resemble a corpse, up until someone with a pulse strays too close to me, at which point we will both regret the situation."
"We'll try you on some of Saasnil's blood. Will a measure -" Keo looks around and picks up a drinking glass from Korulen's desk. "This glass would hold about five measures, full - will a measure be enough to tell if you'll do all right on local humans?"