This post has the following content warnings:
Tarinda in Velgarth
+ Show First Post
Total: 1690
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"It's quick!" :I usually spar with a script, but the fights themselves are improvised, the script usually just says who wins. Maybe specifies that at some point I have to wreck a chandelier or jump out a window or whatever:

Permalink

"Huh, neat, that sounds different but sort of fun. Anyway, what else do you have questions about so far? I could finish going down the list of Vanyel's Gifts - he's the most powerful person in Valdemar, it's why he's a hero with songs about him." 

Permalink

"Dara can you not." 

Permalink

:I don't need the songs but knowing what all the Gifts are sounds like it might be important. Not his in particular, just in general:

Permalink

"All right. We covered mage-gift, Mindspeech, Farsight, and Foresight. There's also Fetching, which is moving objects around with your mind - either instantly from one place to another, or just moving normally but without touching them. Healing lets you heal people. Vanyel technically has it but barely. Empathy is like Mindspeech but for emotions. Bardic is...sort of like the projective half of Empathy, but specifically using music? It sounds weird put that way but it's a thing, there's a whole Collegium for Bards in Haven. That's our capital city, sorry." 

Permalink

:Wow, interesting. We have what's called 'smart music' where the machines invent it to suit a context but it's not magic, it's just really fun:

Permalink

Vanyel glances over, intrigued. "That sounds fascinating." 

Permalink

:When Page has more language it'll whip something up for you if you want and I can read it off, I can sightread well enough:

Permalink

"I would like that." 

Permalink

After a few beats, Dara goes on. "Trying to remember which Gifts I'm missing. Firestarting is - what it sounds like, it just starts fires. That's it for Gifts Vanyel has, it's most of them but there are a few more. Mindhealing fixes problems with people's minds, I don't know much about it. There's Animal Mindspeech that can talk to animals. Maybe a few more really rare ones?" 

Permalink

:Wow, what do animals say?:

Permalink

"I read a book on it once. Mindspeech is a bit of a misnomer because animals don't think in words. Animal Mindspeakers can read their thoughts - which depending on the animal can be mostly just senses and instincts, or closer to what we'd recognize as thoughts - and can tell them to do things, with practice. I don't know what the animals think is happening, whether they hear a voice in their head like we would or if it's something different. Anyway. Birds see more colours than us! An Animal Mindspeaker figured that out. And dogs can hear much higher-pitched sounds than humans can." 

Permalink

"They can!"

Permalink

“Did you figure that out with machines in your world?”

Permalink

:With science but I don't think specifically so much machines:

Permalink

"Ooh, what other things have you figured out with science in your world?" 

Permalink

Vanyel is quiet, but keeps glancing at her, looking thoughtful and maybe a bit worried. 

Permalink

:How to build all the machines, and what all the matter in the world is made of, and how light and sound and heat and stuff like that work, and where species come from, and why weather does stuff, all kindsa things:

Permalink

"Oh! Why does weather work the way it does? I wonder if it's the same here. We can do magic on the weather - well, mages can - and it's affected by nodes and ley-lines and such even when no one's doing magic on it. I don't think we understand it perfectly because sometimes weather magic doesn't work or does a weird different thing you weren't expecting." 

Permalink

:We don't have nodes or ley-lines so the explanation Page can feed me won't be accurate to here! I can read it off anyway if you want but I do not actually know that much science myself, I'd just be transmitting what it tells me:

Permalink

"I'm still curious to hear it!" 

Permalink

Then Tarinda can chatter about weather in between asking for more vocabulary for Page to chew. :Also it can see through my eyes if you have any books I can flip through:

Permalink

"Some. We can stop a little early tonight and do that, if you like." 

It's into the afternoon now, and they've just arrived at a well. It's sitting in the middle of a sea of grass, with no particular structures around it, though the remains of campsites are visible. Vanyel suggests they stop, eat some lunch, and Tarinda can swap to riding with him on Yfandes. 

Permalink

:I need to eat a lot on a timescale of like a week, because some of my added stuff runs on calories, but I can do with less for a few days if you're on short rations, I know you weren't expecting me. Oh, also, I have candy in my pocket:

Permalink

"The rations we have are very boring but if you don't mind travel-bread and pease porridge we have lots!" Dara says brightly. "I think twice as much as we thought we'd need to get to Jkatha. It makes me nervous not having enough food with us." 

Total: 1690
Posts Per Page: