This isn't where Raafi went to sleep. He'd set his bedroll up on a comfy patch of moss under a tree, and now - he still has the bedroll, at least, and his pack, but the tree and moss are nowhere to be seen, replaced by a strange metal room with still, stuffy air and an implausibly clear night sky out the window.
"Hello?" he calls, getting to his feet.
"I have some mild spells we could try, if you want to do that today - Hold Person and Lullaby and bardic fascination, that's probably enough to give you an idea of it, and I can prepare a casting of Inflict Minor Wounds when I do my devotions later if you want to check that. The more powerful stuff we'll need Raafi for - we can cast divinations to see how it'll go without actually trying it, but we do need the ability to try it."
"Depending on how minor the wounds are that might not be informative - you can give me a papercut, it just doesn't go very deep or last very long. What do Hold Person and Lullaby do exactly?"
"Lullaby makes you drowsy and inattentive, and Hold Person makes you think you can't move for a few seconds. And Inflict Minor Wounds is only a little stronger than a papercut, we might want to try Inflict Light Wounds instead - that's more like a solid punch, but I can heal you right afterward if it works."
"Can you aim? If there's any risk healing would work oddly on me, I'd rather it be on a piece I can replace. Wing, ideally, I've in fact kept these for a hundred and fifty years but I wasn't expecting to when I installed them and they have no nerves where they attach."
"How long does it take? Tomás seems like a thirty minute lunch sort of guy."
"- huh, I noticed that but I can still move and stuff." He waves an arm.
"That can just happen sometimes, with a spell this weak - the question is more whether it took an effort to throw it off, even a tiny one."
"If it was really tiny I'm not positive I would have distinguished it from noticing something was trying to happen at all."
"It's more obvious than that unless you're especially good at it, but some people are. More likely you're resistant, though."
"I'm up for trying the lullaby one and then you can explain 'fascination'."
"I'll need to do them in quick succession, actually, I don't... have my pipes with me, unless you'd like to make some. I have a spell for that but it only lasts a couple minutes."
"Ah. Not worth what it'd do to his mood, I don't think. Bardic fascination makes me very distractingly interesting for a few seconds while I'm playing."
"If you don't mind making your own pipes I'll try that and the lullaby."
She nods and whistles a short tune; a set of reed pipes appears in her hands with the last notes. She plays them, a perky melody at first that transitions after most of a minute to something slower and sleepy.
"You play well, but again I noticed something was trying to happen and it did not happen."
"Thank you," she grins. "It's much less likely all three failed on their own, so that seems promising."
"There are other schools of magic; that doesn't usually make much of a difference, but I'd want to check anyway in your shoes, and with something where throwing it off still has a partial effect - the inflict spell is like that."
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post