smol ma'ar
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Poor kid. She tries to smile at him periodically. 

She casts Prestidigitation and turns her tea blue and warms it up and makes it taste like tea from home.

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She has Urtho's rapt attention. "Incredible. And how did you come to be in Predain?" 

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"- it's a very long story. So firstly, the country I live in was ruled by an evil god. Golarion's gods are, uh, they vary more and the dimensions they vary on are more relevant to humans, some of them are Good and some are Evil. Asmodeus ruled Cheliax and He taught that humans having free will was a mistake and that our true purpose was servitude to Asmodeus. When you die in our world, if you're evil, you go to Hell, Asmodeus's afterlife, where He tortures you until you are obedient to Him, and Cheliax was arranged so that everybody would be evil, we were encouraged to do evil things all the time and so on.

 

And one day a man from Velgarth showed up with an army and conquered Cheliax. His name was Leareth. He was a powerful immortal mage who had assembled his army in Velgarth, for a mission of his there, but then he heard about Cheliax and dropped all of that to fight Asmodeus and fight Hell. I, uh, got to know him, after the war, and I learned a little bit more about Velgarth from him. But, uh, one of the things I learned from him was that much of the continent is a wasteland of distorted magic, caused by a catastrophe that happened two thousand years ago, when extraordinarily powerful magic weapons were used in a war between two great mages."

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Urtho has a very expressive face, and he's expressed a dozen variants on shock and horror and dismay by the end. 

"Do you," he clears his throat, licks his lips, "do you - know how long that - would be in our future? The year? I'm - obviously it hasn't happened yet, and you must be coming to me to stop it, just, I can't think of who would -"

His jaw goes slack. His face is very much the face of someone who's just made the connection that he has extraordinarily powerful magic weapons hidden away in his basement and that this is plausibly related to Carissa's tale. 

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"You and Leareth. The immortal one who invaded Cheliax. It - I think it can be avoided, I think it was a misunderstanding. He scared you, because he was ambitious, because he was the kind of person who has an army and conquers Cheliax, but - Cheliax needed to be conquered - he never went after Tantara."

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Urtho looks unhappy about this. "I would be alarmed by that. Mages are - we are dangerous enough with just our magic, and - it is such an easy path to go down, to feel we know better - that we are better than others, because we are powerful. Conquering kingdoms as well is a risky road. But - if he did not go after Tantara then I am unsure how we would have ended up fighting." 

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"I don't know very many details. I wish I'd asked him. And I don't know the year. But - I know in the future you regretted it - he, uh, resurrected you, our gods can resurrect people, you made me this -" She shows the bracelet.

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"Did I really." For a moment his eyes light up again, some of the horror exchanged for curiosity. "May I see it for a moment?" 

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"Yes, of course." She takes it off. "It was a wedding present, my husband has the other one, and he's a mage, and can shield me through it."

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"Oh, fascinating." He turns it over in his hands, eyes going unfocused. Blinks a few times. "It is a very odd tale you are telling me, but this certainly does look like my own work." 

He hands the bracelet back, and his eyes dart to Ma'ar. He smiles at him. "And the child? Where does he come in - is he yours?" 

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"When I was pulled through to this world by a powerful mage from mine - she didn't explain what she'd done or why, I only have guesses - he was nearby. He's a mage. He's orphaned. He was herding cattle in Predain. He wanted to come with me. You - have a school, right -"

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"I do, yes." He leans forward in his chair, reaches for Ma'ar's forehead. "May I look -?" 

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Ma'ar startles and shrinks back in the armchair. 

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Urtho stops, withdraws his hand and looks uncertainly at Carissa. 

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"I can translate for you. What do you want to look at?"

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"To check for Gifts. It will not hurt. I did not mean to surprise him. He seems very jumpy - has he been like that since you found him?" Urtho seems concerned. 

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"His parents are dead and the cattle herders are constantly raiding each other because there's a drought and people tried to kill us on the way to Antho. I think he - doesn't expect strangers to be good news, really, not much. I bet it'll get better with time."

"He wants to check for Gifts," she says to Ma'ar. "So you can go to the school here."

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Ma'ar nods, warily, and then makes eye contact with Urtho. He's forcing himself not to reach for the hilt of his dagger, because drawing attention to your magic weapon in front of a much more powerful mage is a terrible idea. 

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Urtho smiles warmly at him, smile-lines fanning from the corners of his eyes. Slowly, without any sudden movements, he reaches out again, and rests his fingers lightly on Ma'ar's head, closing his eyes. 

He stays like that for a couple of minutes, then sits back, smiling more widely. "Mage-gift, like you said. Adept-potential, though he's not all the way there yet, and moderate Mindspeech. A fine set of Gifts to have." 

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Carissa translates. "Adept potential means you can use nodes - once you're grown and trained, that is - and you'll be able to Gate and do things like that."

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"Oh." He glances at Urtho, then at Carissa, and smiles the widest that she's seen so far. "He'll let me go to the school?" 

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"He says, 'he'll let me go to the school?'"

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"Of course! I'd be delighted to have you." 

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She translates that, in case his face doesn't give it away.

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He grins and bounces and then tumbles over from his chair and hugs her. 

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