« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
the blood of the covenant is the least of our weapons
The Graveyard Rose meets a town that's off to a good start.
Permalink Mark Unread

The sword swings for her head, She gets her scythe up just in time. She is NOT a fighter. Not even a battlemage. The Maggot Lord swings again, a crushing oberhau. Her scythe meets it again, corroded thrice-cursed steel on the not-wood of the weapon’s haft. Cannons roar in the distance. Rockets burst overhead. The siege of Nuln goes poorly. As evidenced by the fact that the archmage of the amethyst order is engaged in a FIGHT. In melee. Like some musclebound idiot. 


Tamurkahn, Maggot Lord, aspirant to the throne of chaos, leader of the greatest warband of ruinous powers the empire has ever seen. Her opponent. He stands tall and grotesquely disfigured, skin marred by a terrible wasting pox, weeping sores, festering wounds. Par for the course, she supposes, when one serves the god of decay. Incidentally a very large part of the reason why she doesn’t. 


Her dragon roars behind her, a pained trumpeting sound, and she knows it’s brawl with Tamurkahn’s… mount… goes poorly. The moment of distraction costs her; the maggot lord’s blade lances out in a lightning-fast jab from Ohs, catches the gap in her armor just so beneath the arm, and ends in Fuchs. Blood wells but it’s slow to come and viscous. Inhuman and dead. The contagions in his blade try to set in her wounded flesh but the magic of her creation seems to stave it off. He pulls back to finish her and inhuman reflexes preserve her unlife. Barely. 


About her, the vast foundries of Nuln burn. Landships and steamtanks lie ruined all about like a giant’s toys cast down in a fit of pique. Daemons caper on the rooftops. This could all have been avoided. So easily. But no, humans are stupid. Humans refuse to listen to warnings when ignoring them is the easier path. 


The dragon bellows again, agony thick in her reptilian voice. And then she’s dead. 


Her beautiful incarmine dragon. Her friend and companion for centuries. More than a mere mount. The dragon’s death throws are titanic, the burst of wild magic tears asunder the winds of Sysh, and then the archmage of the amethyst order is… elsewhere…

Permalink Mark Unread

Elsewhere is apparently a riverbank. A noisy one, crowded with boats, soldiers in leather armor splashing to shore. Men are shouting, something brushes past her and then jumps back. There's more shouting, and stomping of feet nearby.

Permalink Mark Unread

Not Nuln? Well, there’s a relief  

Elspeth reaches out and feels for the winds of magic. As long as Shyish is strong here, so is she. As long as there are no powerful artifacts nearby, these people shouldn’t be a threat. 

She continues to bleed slowly, and misses her dragon.  

Permalink Mark Unread

The winds twist forcefully about her, and an echoing fog cast by her sudden arrival dissipates into the distance. She can feel Shyish settling into the ground, and the beings around her, but only in the immediate vicinity. The broader world is silent and still, and if she peers a bit further she notices only a few lines of power, blindingly sharp and perfectly straight. Most are far away, drifting slowly, but one terminates somewhere in the nearby crowd.

A man is shouting at her.

"Ma'am! Do you require medical attention!? Please identify yourself and your affiliation!"

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth looks- with her eyes as well this time. 

Do the winds gather about this one? Is there the sheen of a magical artifact anywhere about him? 

…her lover is dead too… that hurts as bad as the open wound in her side. Aches like the absence of her dragon… 

 

Elspeth carefully composes her features. Wherever this is, whoever these people are, she is the archmage of the Amethyst Order. They will not see her weep. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The man is a soldier, dressed for battle, with a large, circular shield and a bronze helmet, but otherwise equipped with layers of leather and thick cloth. The winds hardly react to him at all, and he bears no magic with him. His mind is quiet too, muted, but he fainty expresses concern and confusion and wariness in equal measures.

He waves at her as she opens her eyes, repeating his questions.

Permalink Mark Unread

Then he is very little threat and she can afford to look around a little more before she approaches the wearisome task of talking to someone… 

 

He is dressed for battle- unless whatever passes for a town watch here goes preposterously heavily armed. Is there a battle nearby? There is a crowd- of soldiers? Are they heading anywhere in particular? Forming a shield wall against a horde of slavering madmen pledged body and soul to the ruinous powers? 

Permalink Mark Unread

Something like that! A few dozen troops in similar gear, carying short swords and spears, seem to be disembarking from boats. They all appear to be human. They're lining up a hundred meters further inland, but there aren't any sounds of fighting and she can't see an enemy from here.

The one line of magic seems to be terminating in a man standing by the boats. He isn't wearing armor and only has a sword, not a spear, and is supervising the unloading of a wooden bowl large enough to fit a man inside.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, that’s a relief. No rampaging Northmen in sight. And at least the place is less on fire than Nuln was. 

The man with access to the winds is the only obvious threat here… on a scale of one to four, how magically attuned does he seem? It would be wise to assess that before she attempts to peer into his mind…

Elspeth supposes that it’s probably time to respond to the soldier, but she doesn’t know what sort of explanation will make sense to- she tries not to assume, a muscle bound oaf. Instead she continues to assess the situation, because that at least does make sense to her. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Hardly on fire at all! But still a little bit on fire. There's a cloudy but thin plume emerging from past the line of soldiers, as though someone is trying to burn something damp.

Strangely, despite the searing line of magic intersecting the man, the winds seem to refuse to get near him. Or perhaps are blocked? On closer examination there is a gap in the winds where he stands, and they will not approach within about a meter of him. Within that space sits a cluster of pointalist fragments of power, arranged in tiny structures. They are all extremely weak, with even the strongest, the terminus of the distant line, barely what she might consider a 1 on a scale of wizards.

The soldier addressing Elspeth asks if she can understand him.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Yes,” she replies, and tries to read the wizard’s mind. “Where am I?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

The magical prism surrounding the wizard seems to be some sort of defense. It isn't hard for her to breach, requiring only a little finesse to do so without shattering it outright. Even within it, his thoughts are muted, but she can tell that he is preparing his spells, charting out plans to use flying magic (involving the bowl?) to watch the enemy (small monsters, goblins?) from above. He has shields, but he doesn't expect to be able to keep them active for long, he hopes they don't have anything bigger than arrows. He'll wait to enchant the communicators until the last minute, also to save power. His commanding officer is confirming the plan, but he remembers it fine. He seems to manipulate his spells as tiny clusters of magic in points and lines, and Elspeth can tell the arrangement is meaningful, but he isn't dwelling on the details.

The soldier in front of her speaks.

"This is Oikon, by spoke 6-Boar, just upstream of the Brackish Sea? There's going to be fighting soon, there are goblins here. May I ask your destination, Lady Mage?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Not here. There was an accident” don’t dwell on the dying shriek of her dragon… “Fighting against whom? Have you ever heard of the Empire? Of Nuln? Or Sigmar Heldenhammer?” The name burns her a little but she’s said it enough she barely notices. 

The wound in her side still hasn’t closed. She hasn’t fed in far too long. Her lover always found it so distasteful. She can feel the soldier’s heartbeat, this near. Can feel the blood rushing in his veins. But she has centuries of practice ignoring those urges. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I've heard of an Empire, but I don't know a Nuln or Sigmar. We're fighting the goblins. They come from Imperial territory but we don't know who sends them."

He smells human, too. Healthy.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that’s distracting. 

“The Empire I hail from is composed *almost* entirely of humans with a few halflings and other assorted species thrown in. We war almost constantly with orcs and goblins. If goblins come from imperial territory, then it is not my empire, and if you have not heard of Nuln then I am no longer in the known world. How imminent is this battle?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not long. We burned their boat, they'll have to make a charge for ours if they want off this block. They aren't good swimmers. I know there's plenty of humans under the Empire, here, but I'm not sure there's many in it, if you catch my meaning. I hear it's titans and giants who rule, there."

Permalink Mark Unread

“In that case, I have no particular compunctions about doing large amounts of violence on your behalf. I would of course wish to verify that your side is the just one. Some things which look monstrous do not act it, and vice versa. Are they likely to attack on sight if I attempt to speak with them, and broker a ceasefire? Do they speak Riekspiel- or whatever you call what we are presently speaking?” 

Dangle a carrot before asking about parleying with his enemies… the countess had said humans react well to the former and poorly to the latter  perhaps this way she can confirm his words without upsetting him.

She will of course continue to monitor his thoughts for falsehood. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Proboscidean, here. We're close enough to the Empire for that, and the goblins speak it too. If you go over alone they might set an ambush, or send one out to distract you before stabbing you in the back. They might try to convince you to kill us, but they'll say anything, so they aren't very convincing. Promise you your weight in gold, things like that. Or they might leave if you paid them to and moved them somewhere, but they'd raid wherever you put them in a day or two."

The man is honest. He's thinking of attempts at negotiating with them, and the wide variety of interesting failures.

Permalink Mark Unread

That seems fairly conclusive. 

“Very well,” Elspeth agrees and is largely satisfied. “In that case, is there anything you haven’t told me, which you believe would significantly affect my willingness to assist you?” 

Whether he answers truthfully or not is irrelevant. The fact that she asked should mean he will think of anything she would be interested in. 

Permalink Mark Unread

She's with the Empire and hopes they'll lose a few soldiers in the fight? No, that doesn't answer her question. If she's working with the goblins, should he prevent her from just walking over to them? Sets a bad precedent. He'll make sure to tell the mage to be ready to retreat.

"I don't know who you prefer to fight for, ma'am. I don't think the other cities would prefer us dead or our wheat trampled. The goblins seem to prefer it, but I think they mostly want to take things, and wouldn't send warriors if we gave them what they want."

Permalink Mark Unread

“In that case, I am happy to lend my services such as they are. If your tier one wizard over there is anything gauge of your overall combat abilities, I will be significant assistance. If there is time, I would appreciate the opportunity to coordinate with him. If not, tell me which way to go and I will help as I can.” 

Elspeth wonders briefly if they would object to her resurrecting their fallen as weights. That’s less likely to get dispelled than a purple sun of Xereus, especially if any enemy wizards are saving their dispels for a potential purple sun… 

Permalink Mark Unread

"There should be a moment, I'll call the captain and the mage."

He shouts and gestures for them to approach. The two jog up. Both look confused, and the captain asks the soldier to introduce the arrival.

Permalink Mark Unread

“I apologize, other points of conversation took priority.” To give them her surname, or not… if they haven’t heard of Nuln, then they’re unlikely to make the connection- not that most people IN Nuln made the connection either. “My name is Elspeth Von Drakken. I am the Archmage of the Amethyst Order of Nuln. I am a wizard of the fourth tier, and a loremaster, and I am willing to lend my assistance such as it is. I am injured and weakened, and the winds blow weakly here, but that should still be a significant amount of assistance.” To tip her hand, or not to… ah fuck it. “If worst should come to worst, I am stronger, faster, and more durable than a human.” 

How’s that for diplomacy? Countess Emmanuel would have been proud… that sends another pang of loss through her but Elspeth hastily suppresses it. Battlefields are not good places to be distracted by grief. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The captain bows. "We appreciate the offer of aid, Archmage Elspeth Von Drakken, though we have no context for these titles. These are not the most dangerous of combatants, but their blades are sharp, and every hand reduces the number that can escape to attack another farm." The mage steps forward to ask a question. "Is 'wizard' your species? Or are you rited? I can't see it, is it disguised?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I do not know the term ‘rited,’ but I have significant power, if that is your question. No, wizard is not my species. What is your school of magic? Wind?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"School? I was trained by the Lord Archivist. There aren't any schools of magecraft close enough for a student to attend. The archivists sometimes visit the elves to exchange techniques. By rited I mean this," he holds his hand out, and she can sense magic flow into a tiny grid of points. Examining them closely, they do seem to have a "color", not unlike the colors of the winds of magic, but the colors are hard to distinguish, and none clearly correspond to the eight winds. "-my signature. Magename? Or do you have natural magic? It feels like natural magic, I don't sense any nodes on you."

Permalink Mark Unread

“By school, I mean one of the eight winds of magic. Where I was taught, people largely learn to manipulate one of the eight winds and then highly specialize within their chosen wind. Mine is the Amethyst Wind, Shyish. It is highly effective, but with occasional unfortunate aesthetics. Others include the lore of light, or fire, or beasts, life, metal, etcetera. I could speak at great length about the minutia of magical theory and I have devoted many lifetimes to its study, but I suspect we don’t have time for that. My species has innate magic, but my primary powers are learned, if that is what you mean by ‘natural.’”

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, no, we should be getting out there in a minute. But that doesn't sound at all like the way that magecraft works! If the domains are conceptual like fire or beasts, it sounds more like natural magic. How many people could learn your 'winds' if they tried? Does talent for it run in bloodlines? I know that natural fire magic runs in sorcerous bloodlines, sometimes. Or I've heard there's fire-men in the south, at least, who have the natural magic but look human."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Where I come from, anyone can theoretically learn magic but few are capable of the proper ways of thinking to learn anything beyond the basics, and errors can result in explosions… or worse…

Magical theory aside, which I will happily speak on for years at a time if given the opportunity, I did have two major questions about the upcoming battle. Well, three now. Four maybe. Three, and a sub-question. The first: of these giants and titans? How powerful are they, what are their principle powers, and are they likely to be present in the upcoming battle? The giants my country has fought stand over a hundred feet tall, and a force of your size would not be speaking confidently of victory without a large number of cannon which I do not presently see. 

Secondly, what is your plan, and how best would someone with a large amount of primarily offensive magic fit into it? 

Thirdly, because it seems as though your understanding of magic is very different from mine, does your sort of wizard do dispels, and would you expect to be able to dispel my magic? I should perhaps work a spell for demonstration if that would help, though I am wary to expend power given the weak winds here and the upcoming battle. The sun-question here naturally being; are we expecting to face enemy magic here?” 

It seems as though it would be unwise to mention that literally her whole family are practitioners of necromancy, and most were involved in a terrible unholy war against the living…

Permalink Mark Unread

The captain speaks, again. "The Empire is ruled and lead by beings often called titans, or giants, but we know little else of them. None have visited our city, or any of our neighbors. I know they are changed beasts, like how elves and goblins are changed men, but they are wise and cunning, unlike monsters. They can speak like humans, and are good strategists and mages. They are large, much larger than a man, but not so large as that. Sixty times the weight of a man, perhaps, but not sixty times the height. I do not expect to see one today, but the goblins have grown more numerous, and if the goblins are truly their servants I would expect to see one eventually."

His plan is simple. Form a line of shields, have some of the men limp to present a weak point, bait the goblins into a charge, then bring down spears and break the charge. Goblins break easily, and if they can defeat the main force quickly, the mage can mark and track any who run, or catch them if they make it to another shore.

The mage is happy to test dispelling, but also needs to conserve power. There's a few things he could try. He could make a permissions field that blocks all magic, he could try to shred the spell, he could try to siphon power from it, he could try to seize control directly. Regardless, the goblins rarely have mages. He's never seen one, and the few that other soldiers have reported used only the most simple of spells. Flame strikes or force blades, in general, with poor aim that a trained mage can usually distort. Goblins mostly use magic for sabotage, in groups larger and more clever than this.

Permalink Mark Unread

“If they are unlikely to have meaningful magic then there seems little point of testing dispels now, when it is important to conserve power. Approximately how many goblins are we expecting?” The countess had always said to use “we”… it makes her seem like the in group. Another quickly suppressed pang of loss. The countess was only human and unwilling to become something more. Whether it be today, or a few decades from now, mayflies are always fated to die… she tells herself that it makes it hurt less…

Permalink Mark Unread

The soldiers are incapable of reading her clearly enough to notice the pain. For perhaps-obvious reasons, they're a little distracted.

"More than us, but not a large horde. Perhaps fifty, per the original report."

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh. OH. Is that all? And they’re worried about some escaping? Well, Elspeth ought to demonstrate her worth early. It will save time later, and lead to fewer conversations with muscle-bound idiots. 

“That is a smaller force than I was expecting. I will remove it for you. Assuming they are not naturally ageless, I can even prevent any who escape for surviving more than an hour.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

The men look surprised, but not incredulous.

"I don't know much about the lives of goblins, but I would expect them to age. The Lord Archivist writes that some of the first elves still remain, but even they appear older than other elves."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Then I will solve your problem for you. You know more about their psychology than I do. What would you expect to cause them to group up? The tighter their formation, the larger the chance that I can rate them all with curse of years, and then the resultant surge of Shyish should allow a purple sun which they would be unable to dispel?” Worst case, the reserves in her Black Periapt should cover it, but with how weak the winds are here, she doesn’t want to risk burning through reserves that she may struggle to recover. 

Elspeth is very much looking forward to trying a purple sun outside of a research room, but it would be responsible to tag them all with a curse of years first… and embarrassing should any escape. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The winds remain thin and languid, but a little livelier than they seemed in the distance when she first arrived.

"They press together when cornered. If you can strike firmly at the center, we can risk a charge of our own, and send our mage to hassle them from the rear instead of remaining distant. I would not expect they can dispell strange magics."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Are there any terrain features against which they could be cornered? I would rather not risk mortal lives if it could be avoided.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"This block is two farms. They've demolished the one, they'd demolish the other if we pushed them up against it. If we move quick we might be able to cut them off before they get closer, run them up to the cross-canal. They might try to swim it but they aren't good swimmers."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Then let’s try that. Corner them against the canal, and I can exterminate them. If your men can get behind them, even better.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Understood. Time to move, then."

The soldiers run to the line, calling the others together and briefly explaining the plan. They start moving in a wide arc towards the field where the goblins are grouping, planning to rush them towards the cross-canal that meets the spoke-canal further downstream.

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth gathers the winds of magic, and readies a curse of years whenever it looks like the goblins are sufficiently grouped that it will reach all of them. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The goblins begin moving forward to meet the oncoming soldiers. Spears and swords raised the two forces clash.

Permalink Mark Unread

The Oikonian soldiers are larger than the goblins, with broad, round shields that the goblin weapons can't pierce. They manage to push the edges of the line inwards, shifting the mass closer together and back towards the water.

Permalink Mark Unread

They are forced back and back, into a tight group, exactly as planned!

Permalink Mark Unread

This is the cue General Sirati has been waiting for!

Suddenly there is a titan carrying 12 goblins and a force of a hundred more directly behind the human line. The fields beneath them immediately turning to hard-packed earth, General Sirati passes her spyglass to one of the goblins on her head.

Permalink Mark Unread

The humans whirl about, reorienting to being surrounded. The mage yells in a magically-amplified voice. "Before they spread, Lady Wizard!"

Sure enough, the teleported goblins are rushing away from the titan to meet the soldiers and block a retreat.

Permalink Mark Unread

Is that… some kind of hairless mammoth? It doesn’t matter. They’re all in range for a curse of years. She pulls the winds of magic tight about herself, and weaves them into a complex tangle. All metaphorical gears and shafts and relays of power. Elspeth lays it carefully, just so, over the assorted goblins so that the spell hooks into their mortality. 

Simultaneously, because she recalls that goblins occasionally bring magic- and one can assume whatever wizard cast the teleportation came with- she raises her hand. The Ruby Ring of Ruin gleams there, sunlight refracted red and orange. Brighter than it should, until a roiling smoking ball of condensed flame streaks up towards the hairless mammoth thing. 

A flashy bound spell that draws its own power, to distract any potential wizards and draw out dispels. The subtler more dangerous one to doom every single goblin present to age through the entire rest of their lifespans in an hour or less. 

Permalink Mark Unread

73rd Curator of the Oncoming Night Sirati waves her trunk, watching the battle before her, and raises a great wall of force between this strange mage and the fighting. Flame collides and splatters against the transparent wall.

"Archers, mage to the rear!"

Permalink Mark Unread

The wall behind falls and the goblin archers focus their fire beyond it, and their saggy, wrinkled skin sags and wrinkles further, their hair begins to turn from black to grey, but what do goblins care? They shoot and fight.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that’s an unconventional way of stopping a simple fireball. Less efficient too. Interesting. 

Arrows rain down around Elspeth, but she doesn’t particularly mind. Mundane wood and… steel? Flint? Doesn’t matter. Mundane materials will not end her life. And if any are too serious, she has only to upend the hourglass…

Many are deflected by her ward, but not all. Nowhere near all. Many more shred her robes, but scatter off the gromrill scales she wears beneath. Some find their mark though. In her hand, her wrist, where her neck and shoulder meet  lines of blood scored along her skull. She ignores the damage. None is sufficient to incapacitate her, and what is pain beside the twin loss of her lover and her dragon? 

Already the conflict has drawn Shyish to the field, sufficient for a purple sun. If the enemy wizard- wherever they may be- is creating walls of force instead of dispelling, perhaps they can’t dispel? In any case, they won’t know to save their dispels for a purple sun if they’ve never seen one before…

 

Purple Sun of Xereus. She draws the winds of magic to herself once more, and sets them turning a great metaphorical driving gear. Power splits, and refracts back on itself, again and again, denser and denser. And then… a good target? The densest concentration of goblins? Try to break the horde? That sounds right to her. Mammoths are frightening, but without a controller- or with a panicked controller- they aren’t much threat. She casts. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The soldiers have pressed together, holding back goblins from both sides with spear and shield. They push back, trying to avoid the surge of magic.

Permalink Mark Unread

Sirati, the 39th Feather of War, does not appreciate this new magic. Oikon was not meant to have such magics!

Where will she govern now?!?

She's going to try and grab this bad weird purple thing and its surrounding space, and drop it on this new problem.

Permalink Mark Unread

The purple sun of Xereus isn’t actually a sun. Isn’t properly physical even. A spherical patch of nothing, back lit by sickly purple no matter which direction one views it from. It hovers a few feet above the battlefield and goes where Elspeth directs. Everywhere it passes, goblins are sucked screaming into the nothingness. Not smashed, nor crushed. Not ripped asunder. Simply made to not be. Elspeth is careful not to let it get too close to friendly lines. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Wow! What a bad purple thing!

The 19th Warlock of Bones (most people don't particularly want to be a Warlock of Bones) creates a cylinder of force around this strange natural mage, and pushes a plunger down on top of it.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that is inconvenient, but not actually fatal. Elspeth finds herself plungered down into the ground. What a sticky unpleasant situation. 

Elspeth is not a battlemage, and it takes her longer than it should to remember that enemy wizards are a thing. Being plungered into the mud certainly reminds her though. Ineffectual, but evidently the enemy wizard realized that killing her would cause the purple sun to dissipate… she looks with not her eyes to see where the winds ebb and flow. Who is this enemy wizard? 


Elspeth will start attempting to claw her way out of the mud. So much for her lovely purple and green Nuln College of Magic robes…

How are the allied soldiers faring, come to think of it? Saving them was, after all, the whole point of this stupid fight. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The sight of dozens of goblins ripped from the ground and into a deadly void has broken the original goblin line, and the soldiers have taken the opportunity to shift to a tighter formation. Apprehension rolls off of them, and several are injured, but for now all are still standing.

Permalink Mark Unread

Security Official Sirati is much more invested in killing this weird bad mage than ever before!

What if the contents of her magic container suddenly super-heated? Will this be enough to stop all the bad weird magic?

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, that will incinerate Elspeth which is really unbelievably annoying. It will also trigger the hourglass though, so here is Elspeth standing beside the container, apparently unburned but very annoyed. 

It is very much time for the enemy wizard to be dead. Especially with these bizarre un-dispelable spells. Where are the winds of magic gathering- that strange hairless mammoth thing? Is the wizard riding the mammoth? Elspeth feels like a fool. Of course the wizard is the mammoth. Why had she assumed titans and giants would be humanoid? Well, if she can see it… 

Elspeth would very much like for this mammoth wizard to have many rupturing brain aneurisms. Right now please. And the battle- not to mention the purple sun itself- have stirred up the winds of Shyish enough that this spell shouldn’t be any trouble at all. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh no! So ends the life and exploits of the Silver Missionary, General Sirati, 19th Warlock of Bones, 39th Feather of War, 73rd Curator of the Oncoming Night, 114th Paragon of Fear, Security Officer of the Myxini Empire. 

Cut down in the prime of her youth! With so much of her career still to come!

Permalink Mark Unread

With the titan convulsing on the ground, the humans are able to break out from within the remaining goblins. They begin spreading out to encircle the force, moving to recreate the original plan.

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth will cast one more curse of years, just to ensure she gets them all. The brief magical duel, and the purple sun’s slaughter have stirred Shyish more than enough of that. She’ll stash as much of the remainder as she can in her black periapt, because what if she needs it later? 

Now seems about right to collapse… what else needs done? She gives an experimental tug on one of the arrows, but the vicious barbs tear at her flesh so she leaves them alone. What else? The purple sun of Xereus will continue until she dies or until she dispels it. A responsible archmage would not leave that as a problem for others… she sends it on one more pass through the densest concentration of goblins then dispels it. Anything else? No? Then Elspeth will go ahead and collapse now. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Some time later, Elspeth awakes to the unmistakable feeling of having an arrow wound poked with a searing brass rod. She's lying on an oiled leather pad, with two (nude, oiled) surgeons standing over her. The arrows have been removed, and they're attempting to insert heated rods into the wounds, poking around for a moment before coming back with a needle and gut. She isn't tied down, but a soldier (also nude and oiled) is standing by ready to hold her in place or offer wine.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well this is the third strangest way I’ve ever woken up,” she says. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah, Lady Wizard. I apologize for the discomfort. We find marking a wound with bronze and fire to prevent almost half of potential blood poisonings. I have some wine for you, it may help."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I… suppose that’s at least as effective as just pouring wine on the wound. You don’t happen to have any healing potions laying around? In any case, my species is rather immune to infections.” 

Elspeth doesn’t know whether to be relieved or very concerned that they didn’t notice her lack of a pulse. Now… how to tactfully explain that drinking blood would solve her problems? Countess Emmanuel would have known. That thought sends another pang of loss through her. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"A potion? Most would not be relevant to you unless you wished to help us experiment. Are you feeling lethargic? I have a potion of goat's blood for anemic lethargy, or of coca and honeyed wine for melancholic lethargy."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I…” Elspeth frowns. This may actually be easier than she thought. “Goat’s blood would help in fact. Not as much as some things, but likely easier to acquire. No, I was speaking of potions which cause your wounds to flow closed without infection, or restore lost blood, or knit sundered bone. If your people do not know the making of such things, I would be happy to teach and fully expect the process to be generalizable. To my knowledge, it doesn’t require conscious manipulation of the winds of magic and so should be possible to reach even your sort of wizard.” 

If they’re willing to accept her help off the battlefield then Elspeth doesn’t have to go through the unpleasant process of being incinerated again! 

Permalink Mark Unread

"We do not know of such medicine that can close wounds and knit bones! I would pay dearly for such techniques, though the city would outbid me! The mages would like to hear you speak more on these winds, as well. They sense strange magics moving about you, but have not found the patterns far from you or your spells. But would you like to try the potion? Or the blood itself, I can have some brought in if you can make use of it."

The surgeons have stopped trying to sterilize her wounds, but are still attempting to suture them.

Permalink Mark Unread

“You don’t need to do that. The blood itself would be fine. I would of course be happy to share my knowledge. All I truly want from my eternity is a nice tower somewhere where I can learn and teach. This, I suspect, is a low enough price any would be willing to pay.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I should hope so! We have few towers, but to devote study to tower construction would be a small price next to potions that close wounds!"

He steps away to retrieve the blood.

"My goat's blood is four days old. Boiled, then sealed under wax. Would a fresh goat to slaughter be superior?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“It would, but this will be sufficient.” Eeeeeew animal blood. Oh well. Asking for human blood would be weirder, and it’s not like Elspeth actually has to be healthy as long as she manages to avoid battlefields in the future. She drinks, and her wounds flow closed- slowly for her. She hopes no one notices the fangs. 

“It doesn’t actually have to be tower-shaped,” Elspeth continues after discreetly wiping her mouth. “Nuln found that most convenient because it was a bustling metropolis of like… a few hundred thousand I think the last census was? Otherwise, I think wizards often prefer towers because ‘wizard’s tower’ is a trope where I come from. It… doesn’t have to be shaped like a tower. I digressed.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

The surgeons look very impressed.

"Is this healing an ability granted by your wizardry? Or is it other natural magic of your race?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“It is innate magic of my race, but it is possible to replicate with my wizardry.”

To tell them that her race is infectious, or no? If she were to ask if this place has vampires they may guess she is one. Though the fact that they haven’t already is itself evidence they do not… 

Elspeth will look into their minds to see if they have any suspicions. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Their minds continue to be muted, difficult to see clearly, but they do not seem suspicious. The surgeon who spoke is mentally compiling his report for the archivist, and takes a moment to briefly estimate the wealth produced by this manner of healing. Apparently the locals think in fiat currency, though his mind briefly brushes over a conversion to silver. The assistant surgeon is cleaning the tools in boiling water, and independently compiling his own report. The soldier is a little concerned about how much blood she drank, and is definitely considering whether she's a monster, but seems to figure that anyone willing to make overtures of helping the city is at least easier to deal with than the goblins (and apparently titans)!

Permalink Mark Unread

“Yes, well. Um. I assume the goblins have all died off by now?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"As far as we can tell. They seem to have grown weaker with passing minutes. Those who tried to swim, drowned, and those who tried to hide were found later, dead or dying. Was this the goal of your magic?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Yes. Your forces expressed desire that none be allowed to escape, so I attempted to ensure that none did. I would have offered to accept prisoners, but I was led to believe that was not feasible.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"We've taken goblins as prisoners before, but it isn't very useful. They don't say anything that can help us, and even under constant supervision they still cause plenty of damage. If another titan attacks us we'll want to capture them."

He accepts the jar of blood back, when she's done.

"Is there anything else that would be helpful to you? The archivists are waiting to ask you questions until you've recovered further, but if you have questions for us, I can let them in."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I have recovered. Though I would appreciate being less naked before I meet anyone else.” She looks around. Pearl hair net, ring, hourglass, scythe… “Where is my armor? Nevermind. I assume you have it somewhere and another battle is not impending? Um. Probably I should speak to whoever is responsible for overarching strategy decisions? I know nothing of your lands, your country, or your situation, but if another attack is possible, we should figure out what of my knowledge is most important to get people working on quickest… Morr but what I wouldn’t give for a battery of good Nuln great cannon next time we had to face a Titan…”

Permalink Mark Unread

"We have your robes and armor. The robes are in poor condition and we do not know if they can be repaired. The armor is here."

He gestures at a basket in the corner.

"Do you want it now? I have new clothes for you as well. Strategic decisions are the domain of the Lord Archivist, but he may send a military advisor instead. I'm sure one of them will be available to speak with you."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Probably the robes can be repaired but they are merely mundane so there is little point. I would take a fresh set of clothes, and then speak with whomever you deem most urgent.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

He brings in some local clothing. They don't appear to have invented tailoring to the degree that it's possible for clothing not to fit.

"Do you want me to call an archivist here? If you're feeling well, you could also meet them at the administrative center."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I am feeling as well as can be expected.” Elspeth dresses quickly and tries not to add FASHION to the growing list of things she needs to share with these people. She will wear her armor more to keep it from being misplaced than anything, though giving a martial impression also wouldn’t be amiss. She will monitor the men’s minds though, and if they seem to be getting the wrong message, she will leave it. “I know more things than magic alone, though I was considered an expert at that where I come from. I am happy to share what knowledge I can, and will gladly do so in whatever order you think most prudent. The administrative center may be more comfortable for your archivist than… a surgical ward I assume?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

They have fashion! It just consists entirely in dyeing, draping, and cinching. Not in cuts or sewing.

They don't dwell on her wearing the armor, though the soldier has a small concern that metal armor is uncomfortable.

"Well, surgery room, yes. I think there's worse places in the city to talk, myself. I put in the tile so the floor wouldn't always be so stained, but now I think it looks striking! The muralist did a lovely job. Oh, but yes. If you're from far enough away, the archivists will likely want to buy everything you know. I'd buy plenty of it myself, but they'd know better what's most valuable, and as I said, they could outbid me anyway. The administrative center is just south of here, the one with the wall, behind the trade center. I can show you there, but the wall is distinctive."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I would appreciate a guide in this unfamiliar place.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Of course! I'll send you with a soldier, if you'd find that acceptable. My assistant and I need to cleanse ourselves."

He calls in another soldier, while the three oiled men go to wash up.

The day is getting towards evening, and the city is starting to grow dark. It is dense, but not tall, and mostly built of mud bricks or quarried stone. The surgeon's door faces directly over a large river, muddy and very still. Dozens of boats are traversing the river, heading up or downstream, or along canals dividing streets. But the surgeon is on the same block as the administrative and trade centers, and can be reached on foot. The road is stone on this block, but across the river are dirt paths. The winds of magic are nearly silent, here, coiled tightly around Elspeth. The searingly precise lines of local magic, however, are denser than on the battlefield, and are particularly active further down the river.

The administrative building is the only one with a wall, though not the only one with guards. It is built something like a fortress, with layers of stone sloping inwards into a building that is large, but has little usable interior area. The soldier presents a bronze tablet stamped with writing to the guards at the door. They place it onto a pedestal, activating some of the local magic. One of the guards has the same distant magical connection of the mage from the battle, and, apparently satisfyed, returns the tablet to the soldier.

Permalink Mark Unread

Fascinating! Elspeth will be able to teach them much more than she had expected- fresh water, and water born diseases especially- but she will also unexpectedly be able to learn here. Never before has she seen the winds of magic behaving so, and the security speaks well of its innovators. Speaks well of their receptivity to inconvenience in the name of prudence as well! Indeed, comparing it to the steam-powered industrial sprawl of Nuln, Elspeth is painfully reminded of the magistrates’ reluctance to impose her suggested screening at the city gates when farms had first been found burned and daubed with the trifurcate sign of the god of decay… so much whining about lost profits when their very existence was on the line… 

Elspeth draws herself back to the present with some effort: these people may be more receptive to her advice than were the people of Nuln. Elspeth may be able to find a home here! 

Permalink Mark Unread

Inside the wall is a courtyard, with a path circling the building. In a corner is a fountain apparently fed from an overhead aqueduct. A young woman is pacing along the path, manipulating a magical construct that's significantly more detailed than the spells used by the military mage. She interrupts herself and comes towards Elspeth.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well aqueducts and fountains speak promisingly of their fresh water hygiene! Elspeth will wait to be introduced because she does not know anything about etiquette here. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are you the visitor? I'm Dainan, I'm here to interview you! Thank you, Pomyrion, I have a room here for her."

The girl doesn't look quite like the other Oikonians, with long ears and different bone structure. She is suffused with magic, both that of local mages and some more reminiscent of the proper winds. Also apparent to Elspeth's magical senses is a sort of magical battery, a rectangular prism constructed of precise magework, containing a dense cloud of energy.

Permalink Mark Unread

The soldier bows and gestures at Dainan.

"Lady Wizard, this is Dainan Kelandanos, apprentice archivist and soldier, daughter of the Lord Archivist." He turns and gestures at Elspeth, as well. "Elspeth Von Drakken, Archmage of the Amethyst Order of Nuln, wizard of the fourth tier, and loremaster."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I've heard, yes! I think the top priority is to find the location of Nuln, but after that I just want as broad of a first-pass overview as possible. Would you like to come see some maps?"

Permalink Mark Unread

That these people can make something like her Black Periapt is encouraging. 

“Yes,” Elspeth replies. “Please. And perhaps a brief overview of your culture, government, and situation?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, of course! Would you prefer the formal design document, or the informal summary?"

She ushers Elspeth inside the building, down a stone hallway towards a central room with several branching doors.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Whatever is easiest.” She’s so cute and energetic! “Um, perhaps also a general overview of your technological level? I haven’t seen any cannons, and those would have been extremely useful against the Titan…” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't know what a cannon is? For river-boar hunts we sometimes use a pulley bow, like we'd use if we knew a ship was going to attack us. Normally we just use a mage, but the titan was also a mage, so I don't think that would work. Um, let me see... Our neighbors think we're pretty rich, and I think that's mostly accurate. We have more reserve grain than Delos, and they're the only ones who tell us those kinds of numbers. Delos has a few printing presses now, too, but we send people to maintain them. I don't think anyone else around here has figured those out yet. I think our best recent invention is that we recently started tracking how long children live in days? So we could run a bunch of studies on what kinds of things doctors should do and get really quick results, since babies die faster than adults get infections and stuff. And that said we needed a lot more boiled and filtered water, so we got a bunch of mages to make a really big filter at the aqueduct reservoir, and that seems to be working well. We have less dysentery than three years ago. Only by about a third, from the archive reports, but I think it might be a bit more than that cause people are less likely to report a case when they get sick more."

She pauses for a moment.

"Um, for the laws and government it's probably quickest to read them? We don't have that many, less than Delos... Though some things they do with laws in other cities, we do in other ways? But those are about fishing and stuff, they probably won't come up right away."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I am very impressed by your aqueduct and printing press. It took the empire- uh, a different empire than the one you’re fighting- it took the empire thousands of years to figure out that water is better clean, and that people who drink contaminated water can become sick. I think many of the farming hamlets still didn’t have modern water supplies. 

Uh… a cannon is a… hmm. You know, I’ve never met someone who didn’t know about black powder firearms? Do you have a handful of flour for demonstration purposes? I digress. I apologize. It comes from living so long I think. I forget how long I’ve spent on a thought… yes, hearing about your laws and government sounds excellent. Also, aside from martial prowess, what do your people value? Art? Music? Is this a treasuring and caring for the elderly sort of place, or is this a you get ahead in ritual challenges and as soon as you can’t win challenges you die sort of place?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thousands of years? Aqueducts aren't much harder than buildings with two floors, Oikon was founded less than a hundred and seventy years ago... Oh, sorry! I can do the laws, just a moment..."

She triggers a spell that magnifies a section of the magework surrounding her, and then shifts it around until she finds what she's looking for and triggers another spell. An illusion appears, producing visible light, showing an image of writing. She grabs it out of the air, it apparently has some solidity, and hands it to Elspeth.

"The writing is a little small, sorry. I can make the page bigger, if you want. That's the basic structure. Laws, enforcement methods, insurance mandates, territory boundaries, definition of citizens, land and resource use fees, arbitration fees, stuff like that. I'll think about the other parts while you read?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm, okay. So it's kind of hard to talk about what's different about us, when probably everyone you know is way more different from us than we are from everyone we know, right? But in comparison with our neighbors, we spend more on infrastructure and hygiene, and more on musical instruments. Less on dye, and we use a lot of papyrus but we grow that locally, and we make some ink locally but we import a lot of that. We write a lot of things down that other people don't write down? We don't just track imports, we track all sales at all shops. A lot of cities keep some records, but we consult them all the time, for everything, and the archivists make a lot of important decisions. In a lot of places, soldiers make most of the decisions? And we don't really do that, it's the archivists instead. But I'm also learning to be a soldier, and part of the reason why is to check if it helps more than we thought."

"We think of ourselves as caring a lot about making good decisions? And we try to handle a lot of things peacefully which other cities handle by just telling the guards to force people. Like, in some places they make everyone make their bricks the same way, and they arrest you if you make the bricks wrong. But we have a thing where you can tell us what you think your bricks are good for, and how strong they are, and the archivists will secretly buy some and test them, and if you were right about them we give you a sign with a little magic so you can say how good the bricks are and people will trust you. And then people know to be cautious of bricks that haven't been tested. I guess maybe we can only do that because everyone knows how to read? And that's kind of unusual, most places there are a lot of people who can't. But I don't know if that's really the kind of thing you mean by culture? We do a lot of that stuff cause we tried it and it worked, and we'd do it differently if we thought that would work better."

"I'm not sure what you mean about treasuring the elderly or them dying, though? Elderly people live the same way anyone else does? They work, or if they were successful they live on their savings? And they pay for insurance or have a lot of kids, and if they can't work, the kids or insurance company supports them? But that's the same as anyone. I guess a lot of older people have more important jobs, in management roles? So maybe the first one, of your options?"

Permalink Mark Unread

While Elspeth has been reading and Dainan has been talking, they've reached a meeting room. It's a fortified, stone space, with wooden chairs and a wooden table. There are no windows, but behind wooden grates on the walls are bright magical lights.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well, I have to say that I’m encouraged by what I hear. A lot of my difficulty in Nuln was in convincing people to try something new, and it sounds like your city has done a good job of solving that problem. This answers my questions I think. How do I fit into this?” 

In reading the laws, does anything seem particularly relevant to vampires who have no particular desire to hunt unwilling humans? 

Permalink Mark Unread

The laws definitely prohibit stabbing people without their permission. They don't exclude non-humans from requirements or protections, and they don't prohibit stabbing people or consuming human flesh or blood (or in fact killing people) if the participants agree. They do recommend archiving a verified contract to reduce the risk of later misunderstandings.

"So, you've mentioned a few times that you think you know a lot of things we don't. And that's great, that's really valuable! So I think the highest priority is to see if we can figure out where your home is. But if we can't figure that out, I want you to explain things across a really broad region of what you know, and then I'll want to narrow in on a few things that are really inconvenient or valuable to us to see if you can help with those. And once we've figured out some top priorities, we should figure out how difficult they are to implement. If they're easy, we should try and get as many people working on them as possible, and pay you out of the discovery share. Or if they're difficult, we'll need to put a group together to study and implement them, and we can structure it like a normal company. Do those options make sense to you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

What a refreshingly sensible legal system! 


Elspeth will explain the surrounding geography of the Old World but does not particularly expect any of it to be recognizable. 

“I have indeed mentioned knowledge which your compatriots have indicated is not known here. Do you have a handful of flour or sawdust? I could demonstrate the principle behind firearms and cannons fairly easily. Um. Stop me if I ramble. Your healers seemed especially interested in potions which can heal grievous wounds in a matter of moments- there are many potions I know how to brew, and many others which I do not, those are just the ones your healers were most interested in. If my belt pouch survived the battle, it contains all the ingredients I would need to make a small number for demonstration. If not, most of the ingredients grow well in environments such as this. I would caution you though: such potions will result in fewer people of all ages dying from miscellaneous disorders. This of course is a good thing, however fewer deaths does mean more mouths to feed and so it would be wise to be careful and aim for a corresponding increase in food production… Um… if you don’t know about crop rotation yet, I can improve food yield in the long term. Um. I have seen only bronze weapons thus far. I know how to make blast furnaces which can get extremely hot, and can teach how to work iron and steel which are much stronger than bronze. I can teach steam power which is a means of causing carts and ships to move without an animal pulling or wind pushing. The obvious use of a steam powered cart is cheaper faster trade, and this can be compounded by means of rails, however such carts can also be armed and armored and used in war fighting. And then of course the black powder I was speaking of. A means of rapidly projecting iron projectiles the size of a grown man’s torso many miles and with great accuracy- and with the force to pulverize stone walls when they land.” 

Elspeth thinks for a moment, and peers into this girl’s mind. 

“I realize it is easy for anyone to claim fantastical knowledges, which is why I am so eager to give a demonstration.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

Elvish maps are made using scrying magic, and the archives have an accurate sketch over an area nearly five thousand miles across. However, it doesn't especially look like anything Elspeth would recognize from home. Oikon is apparently located where a large river splits into a sprawling river basin and meets an inland sea.

"Lots of that sounds useful! I'll call for some flour from the kitchen! Food production is definitely a priority. Most of our annual production is wheat, and we have to use up the reserve every decade or so. Military spending isn't that high, but it's been growing... I think the Empire uses iron for more things, so if they're getting more aggressive we might need to be prepared for better weapons. And we could use metal for lots more things if we could process iron quickly. Do you know if your furnace can melt it? If we could cast iron, that would be way cheaper than a blacksmith's time. Other major economic sectors are woodcrafts, clean water, and papyrus production? Any thoughts for making those cheaper?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Blast furnaces can render iron fully liquid, and precisely modulate the carbon content for more strength and corrosion resistance. You can also alloy in other metals such as nickel for corrosion resistance, but that feels like another digression. I’m sorry. Um. Nuln was known for our forges, firearms, steam engineers, and mage craft, not so much woodworking. I’m afraid I have few insights there except perhaps for very specific knowledge of ship hulls. For clean water, that was always one of my pet projects but no one wanted to listen. It would have been expensive to put in quality sewers, you see, and the wealthy could always just cure resultant ailments with potions. Those with money didn’t particularly care what happened to those without. It was one of the more frustrating aspects of Nuln… I would be delighted to collaborate on that, but your cistern and aqueduct are probably the biggest progress you could make there. That, and sterilizing the water via boiling and filtering. Steam power can be used for pumps though, and that can aid with distributing clean water directly to homes, and with removing waste water. I confess, I know nearly nothing about papyrus. We had the printing press in Nuln, but we used either parchment or paper, depending on how long we needed it to last. I think Araby and the tomb kingdoms used papyrus, but I’ve never been to either of those places. My kind don’t particularly like the sun and it was very bright there.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sewers? Do those matter much? We just collect the water for the aqueduct upstream of where people dump waste. The ability to raise water without magic would be helpful, though. We have some machines that can do it, but it is difficult to move enough, and more weight above the filter makes it faster. We need to send mages every few days to raise more. How does paper work? We know how to make parchment, but it's very expensive compared with papyrus and we store long-term records as nodes, anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Paper is essentially flat thin wood pulp. I know only the very basics there. It was produced elsewhere and never a point of interest for me, I confess. Steam engines will continue to run as long as they are supplied with a steady stream of fuel- be that wood, coal, or charcoal. A common practice in Nuln was to place the engine in an easily accessible location, have cheap unskilled labor shovel in the fuel, and then transmit the force wherever you needed it by means of gearing and shafts. They could quite trivially get the force transmitted several hundred feet away, but then a pump could pressurize a pipe and force fluid through it over very great distances. 

Adequately disposing of waste is very important, yes. Otherwise it will leech into the ground and fester. Merely living near waste water can be almost as bad as ingesting it. If, for example, one empties chamber pots or other bodily waste into streets or canals, and then lives in a building overlooking them, one can still become sick.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"We hadn't noticed that! Neat! I can have some people try making 'paper' off of the description, too. But let's keep going broad. Do you know how to let people need less sleep? Or a better solution than entry fees for if foreigners come to the city and don't get insurance but do something where a local would need it? Do you know how to tell when it's going to rain? And then we also need to talk about your magic. We need to figure out if we can learn it or if you need a bloodline, and also if there's anything we can generalize to natural magic from what your know about yours."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I know certain potions can allow someone to continue functioning for a few days without sleep, but often with consequences when the potion wears off- immediately dropping and sleeping for a day, for example. I’m afraid I don’t know much about entry fees. That wasn’t a system we used. If a foreigner broke a law, they were simply imprisoned and if it was a serious law, they were executed. It… wasn’t a good system but I didn’t know how to improve it, and people were resistant enough to change that I had to pick my battles as it were… 

As for telling if it will rain? Um? I would assume your people know how to look outside and see if there are dark clouds visible. Im afraid I’ve got nothing beyond that.

I too am very curious about the interactions of our magics. I can function near indefinitely as long as the winds of magic are sufficiently energetic to allow it, but it almost looked like your wizards are drawing it to themselves? I would be very interested in learning that, if possible.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Rited mages produce mana in their bodies, and can draw it from their personal node. We sometimes store mana in constructed buffers, but that can be dangerous and it leaks or explodes if you add too much. A human mage mostly won't run down if they have time to convert something, normally we use heat in the ground. I use a buffer because I carry my archives and I want a lot of safe margin on them, and because I'm half-elf, and elves have smaller personal buffers than humans. But if I were doing something big, like if I was putting up a building or another water filter, I'd have a dedicated and temporary buffer and all the mages would work from it, with one standing by just to make sure the level didn't get too low or too high. I can sense some magic around you, but I don't know the name for the energy type, so I don't know how I'd draw on it. Maybe if I just place a buffer around it? Cause it's already magic?"

In the meantime, someone has arrived with a bag of flour.

Permalink Mark Unread

A half-elf! So elves CAN mate with humans after all…


“Fascinating. I have never before heard of the winds of magic behaving in such a manner. If I didn’t know better, I would guess it were an entirely different universe with an entirely different set of magical laws… actually…” Elspeth shakes herself. “Anyway. I made myself a similar device- where I come from it is called a Black Periapt. It can hold an arbitrary amount of power safely, and does not leak, but is extremely difficult to make, and the more overzealous witch hunters would call it heresy. You are welcome to try to use the power contained within. It would tell us something very interesting whether you could or couldn’t. I would, at some point, like to try siphoning off the- I don’t know if you see it the same way I do- that strange winds-of-magic-teather you seem to have. If it worked, I could add some to the Black Periapt each day, and then use it next battle without having to wait for the killing to stir up Shyish…”

 

Elspeth will take a pinch of flour, and light one finger on the opposite hand with a tiny trickle of magic- she is no pyromancer, but making a flame is one of the easiest things a wizard can do. “This would work with a candle,” she says, “but I don’t see any around and this seemed convenient. Pay attention, you should feel a slight breeze.” 


Elspeth tosses the pinch of flour into the flame. The fine powder burns near-instantly with a bright flash and a faint wave of force. 

“Powder burns swifter than solids- sawdust will burn faster than a log, for example, and burning creates force. By burning more swiftly, you can create all of that force in a shorter period of time. Black powder burns more swiftly still, and more energetically.”

 

Elspeth makes a rough tube of her hand, packs a pinch of flour in the opening, and the touches her flame to it. Another flash, and a puff of unburnt powder blows out the opposite side of her hand-tube. The redness and blistering on her palm are already fading. 

“If you construct a metal tube, and place within a pre-measured amount of black powder and an iron or stone ball fitted to the tube, you can project the ball out the end in much the same manner- but with much greater force. I have seen thumb-sized balls from infantry-portable firearms punch through multiple steel chest plates and the people within. Larger devices of course being correspondingly more destructive.” 

 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wow! A bunch of things were really confusing about that! What's heresy? You're welcome to try drawing from within the buffer, but we should maybe make a smaller one first in case you rupture it! Why does killing people make your magic stronger? Are you resistant to fire or was that more of the healing magic you used for the arrow wounds? Do you know what makes some things more flammable than others? Are all powders more flammable than solids by the same factor? Does this mean that if we found a way to dry oil, it would be even more flammable? Is that what 'black powder' is? Cause I know ink is sometimes made from oil soot so it's definitely black but I don't think ink is very flammable! Why does the tube have to be metal but the ball can be iron or stone? Is it actually good to make weapons that dangerous? It seems like you could just make weapons that are only barely strong enough to kill someone instantly and then they'd be less wasteful!"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Um… that’s a lot to unpack…” Elspeth thinks for a moment. “Ok, in order… I think… Heresy is… not something I agree with personally. Um. Some people- the people in power- believed that there were gods watching over everything. Gods being- I don’t know how to describe it. Beings of arbitrary power. Some, allegedly, were good, some were evil. Do note, that I never personally witnessed any evidence of these beings which could not be explained by magic- either the religious leaders consciously deceiving their followers, or unconsciously performing what they believed to be divine miracles. It was illegal- punishable by death- to not worship the so-called good gods. Other things which looked like not worshipping them- or which looked like saying mean things about them or otherwise disrespecting them- also illegal. That was heresy. It… wasn’t particularly internally consistent. My species’ existence was considered heresy. You’ll notice I’m not all that eager to go back. Only part of that is because the place was very on fire when I left. 

Second: yes, I would be delighted to do magical experiments and that is one of my great life passions. Standard procedure where I came from was to do so in a stone room with reinforced walls and special wards to prevent collateral damage if someone made a mistake.  

Fire is actually one of the things that can significantly harm me, but this was a very small quantity. My kind heals very fast provided we are decently fed. It’s why a drop of my kind’s blood is an ingredient in a large number of restorative potions. 

I do not actually know what makes things more flammable than others. Certain researchers in Nuln believed that certain substances contained an invisible thing called Phlogiston which they released into the air when burned, and that air had a certain capacity to accept Phlogiston. I… don’t think this is fully accurate, but it has been an acceptable working model for them. 

Things burn faster when powdered because- and bear in mind this is citing a probably false theory- more surface area is exposed to the air and so more of it can give Phlogiston to the air at any given time. One could “powder” oil by atomizing it- that is, rendering it into a fine misting. That is not what black powder is, but it occurs to me that perhaps it would be wiser to wait to tell you the exact compound until a price was agreed upon? Your healer indicated that was a thing. Regardless, I do not want many things and my “price” would be very low. 

The tube does not HAVE to be metal, but it must contain a very great quantity of force and also be able to flex without cracking or rupturing. I have ever heard of impoverished towns in great desperation creating cannons out of very large wooden tree trunks, but they are unreliable, inaccurate, and prone to catastrophic failure. 

In my opinion it is worth making such weapons, but I suppose that is a decision your people must make for themselves. Where I come from, armor is often made of things more durable than bronze, and our empire was assailed on all sides by many large and terrible creatures which could shrug off entire volleys of musket fire. I would certainly prefer to have a battery of great cannon backing me up next time I see one of those titans. Even without though, the ability to eradicate ranks of- say- goblins quickly and without risk to your soldiers would be beneficial I would think. I am generally opposed to starting fights, but once one is forced upon you, I am in favor of ending it swiftly and decisively with as little risk to your own side as possible.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, I agree that weapons are a good idea. I just mean that we might not need very many that could kill a titan, or pierce more armor than a soldier could wear? Do you want to talk contract pricing now, or would you rather take a day or two to rest while I think more about how much we'd value all of this, and the best implementation methods?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I can be flexible. Though if I’m using up hospitality, or if the cost of lodgings will later be taken out of the contract pricing, it seems good to know that now.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Still building hospitality, not using it up! I'd guess months, not days, until that changes. You're welcome to pay for your housing out of the contract or out of your fees for helping with the battle. At standard rates the surgeon would cost about a tenth of that. But I could also put you up for a few months! You should be close to the city core, but it's kind of expensive. Or you could stay at the charity house. It isn't that far, but it's kind of crowded."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I see. I didn’t realize there would be payment for helping with the battle. Well, you know this place best. I defer to your judgement on the matter.” 

Her judgement is easier to trust when Elspeth watches it happen. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fighting is valuable, we pay all the soldiers! And you helped a lot! We wouldn't penalize you for spending the time before the battle on context and tactics instead of negotiating a contract! Anyway, you could definitely afford your own place, but you don't know the market so it'll be easier if you stay with me for at least a couple of weeks."

She could also recommend a place for Elspeth to rent, but if Elspeth doesn't trust her as a host she probably wouldn't trust her recommendation, either. Besides that, she isn't dwelling on the housing decisions, and is instead mostly packaging magical notes on the conversation, and trying to extrapolate further from the many new ideas. If most places are ruled by soldiers and the rich people are smiths, is Elspeth's world mostly ruled by the people who make and fire the cannons? Still smiths, probably. Who fires a cannon? Still soldiers? If they can kill someone instantly you probably need fewer of them, so maybe there are fewer soldiers, but they're more powerful? That sounds like it would make it even more likely that soldiers would rule, yeah. But apparently the people in charge aren't very good at long-term reasoning or evidence analysis? That's pretty weird, then, cause soldiers have to be good at those things. Otherwise they'd do the obvious thing and not go into dangerous battles!

Her thoughts aren't easy to read. She seems to be more-heavily warded than the other mage, though Elspeth has more than enough raw power to handle it.

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth isn’t intending to push it. People who are dishonest tend to have that dishonesty top in their minds. She will trust this adorable (bad Elspeth) half elf girl. 

“I don’t mind staying with you for a few weeks. If I could get hold of some raw materials, I could begin work on some proof of concept pieces? I don’t know if my satchel survived, but I could always go find some herbs and whatnot in the surrounding countryside? Or with some bronze and a few minor other things, I could make a cannon to demonstrate so you can see I’m not overhyping it. Unless you think your people would be more impressed with a blast furnace? Or… do you have access to a magical laboratory? I would be interested in investigating the interactions of our magics?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Of course! I think anything you dropped was collected by the captain. He's at home recovering, we could go visit or I could send someone to pick it up. I can get you some bronze. Do you also need a smith, or a forge? A single really hot furnace would be more useful than a single powerful weapon, I think, but you'd know better if one looks more exciting and impressive. And I have a warded workroom, but for serious testing we'd want to go further from the city. I'd need to draw a lot of mana to put up serious wards, and that would inconvenience people if we were too close."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Again, I defer to your judgement. I’ll make whatever you think would most impress those who’s opinions matter.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Eh, lets just start with something smaller in scale."

She conjures an invisible cube of magic, and it lights up gently with some "mana".

"Can you draw from it? Or break it, and get the mana out of the air? This one's small enough it should just make a pop."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Fair enough.” Elspeth looks with not her eyes. The winds of magic have a few tiny eddies around the cube, but the contents themselves seem utterly inert. Odd. Even the so-called religious miracles have magical plumes…

”Nothing,” Elspeth confirms. “Are you able to feel the winds?” She lights her finger on fire again.

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can sense something, but it's very... dispersed? I've seen natural magic before, and it's at least a bit similar. With magecraft, the structure of the spell is mostly instructions. With natural magic, the spell and the effect are kind of the same thing, and this is more like that. Where do the winds come from, to your knowledge?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Shyish- the amethyst wind- is the wind of death. That is the wind I am mostly attuned to. Unfortunate aesthetics, but powerful effects. Most flows naturally from the great vortex, but some also is released when someone dies. The other winds likewise flow from the vortex and have specific natural sources. Aqshy- the red wind- comes from fires for example. 

Do any of the magical items I carry seem different to you? Would it help you if I were to remove those items?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can kind of see a difference in the magic from the fire and from you. How well can you see them? Can you tell if I'm right that there wasn't any red in the air before you lit the first candle, but there's a tiny bit now? And your magic items definitely don't look like ours. There's no nodescript in them, they look magic in the same way monsters and mages are, not in the way we enchant things."

She pauses to think for a moment.

"Does the red wind come out of fires that weren't lit or observed by a mage? If a house burns down from a lightning strike, and no one comes by until later, is there a lot of red wind around it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I can see the winds more clearly than I can see you, though some of that at least is my race. There definitely was no Aqshy here prior to the fire- or close enough to none as makes no difference. 

The red wind- and others- are formed regardless of the presence or observation of a wizard. There is power in things, released by certain events. Power in life released when it ends, power in something formed when fire unmakes it. An unobserved house burning down would still release a quantity of Aqshy, but not as much as a magical fire. There are devices which can passively accumulate magical energy- the Black Periapt being similar to those- which do fill slowly if left near such events. One assumes that a non-sentient magical device would not count as observation, and if not I’m not sure what the distinction could be.”

Permalink Mark Unread

"Interesting! I'll tell someone that we want to know next time a person dies. You should go look to see if there's wind around it."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I will do so! Though I strongly expect there will be. There is quite a lot of power bound up in the difference between life and otherwise…

On that topic… how would your people react to an animated corpse? Not well I’m assuming? Most people’s reaction is not well.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"What does that...mean? Is an animated corpse alive?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Not… really? Though solving that is one of my pet projects.” Mental monitoring for the half-elf’s reaction. “People broadly consist of three parts. Body, anima, and spirit. Anima is the animating force, what makes things move and react. Spirit is what thinks and makes decisions and has memories and thoughts and goals. Body is… well… the thing the other two pilot around. It is possible to take body or spirit and shove anima into it. Zombies and weights and things are bodies with anima but no spirit. Able to follow simple commands, but not able to think for themselves. Wraiths and banshees and such are spirits with anima but no body. They have personality, memories, minds, but no real means of affecting the physical world. One would think it would be possible then to put both anima and spirit back into a body, but so far no one had found a way. I… think it is sad when people die, and I had been working on a way to bring people back- as themselves. People… have not reacted well to that in the past. Angry crowds with torches and pitchforks. Talk of heresy. 

An animated corpse though, even without its spirit, might be useful to you? If… you don’t have particular objection. The person isn’t using the body anymore, it could be reused for manual labor, or as soldiers which there is no particular moral imperative to protect.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"That broadly matches our understanding. We don't know any way to affect much of either with magecraft, but there is generally understood to be a difference between lifeforce and soul. Lifeforce is normally what powers natural magic, but some mental magic seems to work through the soul. I would think that using corpses for manual labor isn't very sanitary? And the corpse belongs to the estate of the deceased, so we'd need to check the records on all of that. But otherwise I don't think people would be too worried about using bodies for things, if they knew what was going on. Most people are okay with medical research, and that sometimes uses corpses or kills people."

"...do people where you're from react to a lot of things with angry crowds?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“People where I’m from reacted to a terrifyingly many things with angry crowds. It was one of my greatest frustrations. Despite our supposed advancement, no one was willing to just LISTEN to new things.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you know...why? Delos generally thinks we're being wasteful about things like the water filter, but doesn't get angry about them. Travelers don't either, even though they mostly don't end up telling their own cities about what we tell them."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I’m afraid I don’t. I am… not good with people. I function best when there is someone I trust to bounce ideas off of, and then they interact with the muscle bound idiots- erm… soldiers and politicians, and I invent whatever they tell me is important.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm, that sounds like it could be concerning. I'm going to warn people to keep an eye out for everyone panicking when we introduce a new idea. I don't see when it would happen, but it would be bad if it did and we should have a plan about it. Anyway, I don't think that would happen here, and it hasn't really before, and we'll make sure to announce your ideas in the way we normally announce anything."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Yes, there are a number of problems which you seem to have solved in ways that are utterly opaque to me. So long as you have a plan, and that plan has worked fine before… Do your people have gods? Perhaps it was the religion that did it? Fear of divine punishment if they deviated from whatever their priests told them their gods like? I can’t see how defeating death might offend a god of life though so maybe not…” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, there aren't any gods around here. I think the Empire has a god, people sometimes talk about the Divine Emperor. The elves say they were created by a god, and some of the first elves are still alive, so they'd probably know? The elves don't say their god told them anything in particular, though, except that they were supposed to be good at understanding magic. I've heard of a few other gods, but I don't hear about people who spend a lot of time telling others what the gods want?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well, regardless of if that was the cause or not, that’s probably for the best. Anyway. We’re there other magical experiments you had planned? If not, I had a few I wanted to try before the next tian showed up?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I've been trying to grab hold of the winds, but it isn't working! I think the rest should wait until I've had time to think and maybe until you've had time to share more details. If you have first-pass tests we should try them!"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I mostly was concerned about whether your magic system could dispel mine or not. Magical duels where I came from tend to be an elaborate game of holding back power so the enemy thinks you are planning something really nasty, so they hold back their own power in order to dispel whatever you’re planning- in which case a bunch of smaller spells get through. Or else they dispel the smaller magics and leave themselves open to the bigger. A complicated game of faking out your opponent. If I knew for certain that your sort of magic cannot dispel mine though, I could open with whatever spells I please, which could be very beneficial to you.”

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, we can test it! To try and dispel natural magic, I'd test denying permissions, blocking the flow of energy, adding nonsense to interfere with the magic, and siphoning mana out of the effect. Do you think any of those sound safe to try?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Probably all of them, as long as I use a low level spell. For peace of mind though, I would suggest a safe testing area. I haven’t lived this long by disregarding safety procedures just because it SHOULD be fine.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Lets at least use a work room, then."

The work room is made of the same stone, but clearly does have magic in the walls. Dainan ramps up the power of the wards after entering. The floor is down a step from the doorway, and there is another depressed region in the center of the room. A barrel of water and a pile of wood sit in the corner.

Permalink Mark Unread

Not what she’s used to, but this does at least seem like they take safety in magical experiments somewhat seriously. Elspeth will follow Dainan’s lead. 

Yay experimenting! 

Permalink Mark Unread

"So, first test, I should set up a permissions field and you should try to cast inside of it."

A large rectangular prism appears in the room, it appears to have a dampening effect on the winds within it. It doesn't look too difficult for Elspeth to counteract, it's similar to the wards that make the local mages' thoughts a little harder to read.

Permalink Mark Unread

And there will be a little dancing flame within, even though Elspeth really doesn’t like working with fire. It’s at least visible, and doesn’t involve aging someone hundreds of years in a few minutes…

It is noticeably more difficult though, and Elspeth says as much. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, so that kind of works! Should I try adding more power until it fails, or should I try interfering with the magic in a different way?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Hmm. That perhaps ought to depend on how it is likely to fail. If explosively, then perhaps we ought to wait for an area where the most comprehensive wards won’t be a problem.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"It might explode! But at these power levels I don't think it should be enough to hurt us. You'd need to burn a candle for a long time to have enough energy to hurt someone across a room."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Oh I meant on your end. I’m not entirely clear on what happens when your spells fail.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"It could also explode! But about the same amount. The energy it takes to resist something is generally the same as the energy that something could release."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well then, shall we?” Elspeth is smiling in spite of the loss of both her dragon and her lover- don’t think about that right now. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Dainan is oblivious to this, but his happy to continue experimenting. She boosts the permissions field higher, smothering any motion in the winds. Elspeth can see the ward starting to lose some energy, at this point, rolling off like waste heat. The radiation looks generic, unemotional, colorless, but as some brushes up against the Shyish rolling gently off of Elspeth, it takes on the purple hue, amplifying that wind. The fire, however, strains against the stillness. Elspeth would have to push significantly harder to keep it lit.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, Elspeth is one of the three most powerful amathyst wizards to have ever lived. She can PUSH. She will keep the flame lit until the power consumption reaches the point where it could flatten the room if it got out of hand, and then terminates the experiment on grounds of safety. 

“Noticeably more difficult,” she reports. “Almost certainly possible on principle though it would take significantly more power. More than that even if we were using Syish instead of Aqshy. How much power was that for you, perhaps as a function of top observed power from a Titan?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, you were the one who saw the titan. Its flamestrike variant probably took a bonfire to charge, this is probably a similar magnitude? The wards in here could take it, though the others would be annoyed if I didn't put the mana back afterwards. That's a lot of power you're drawing, though! Where is it coming from? You don't need to draw a source for mana, right?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“It’s… actually maybe some of it is coming from a bonfire. I mostly use the ambient winds of magic. There is less here than I am used to, but I am fairly practiced at drawing it- carefully- from great distances. Mostly I’m using the Amethyst wind as if it were the Ruby one, because your magic stirred it up and that’s what I’m used to. It’s inefficient though. Would be better to use it for Amethyst magic. If we went much longer I would probably have to dip into my reserve in the Black Periapt and I would prefer to avoid that if possible. As is I will have to take a second to gather more if we are to do further experimentation.” 

Playing with magic makes the loss feel more distant. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh, interesting. I'm going to take the permissions field down now and try some other methods."

Nothing explodes when the field comes down, but Elspeth can feel a forceful pulse of Aqshy spread out from the space, suffusing the room.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, that could be useful later. She’ll stash it in the Black Periapt because the winds seem more inert here and that’s probably a good habit to get into. 

Whatever else Dainan has planned, it’s better than sitting around moping. Let’s do this! 

Permalink Mark Unread

Dainan has Elspeth conjure another fire, this time without the permissions field. She then creates a sheet of magic, and swings it around wildly through the space around the spell, trying to disrupt the effect.

The next test is to fill the air with tiny fragments of magic, or to release bursts of energy where they might interfere with the shape of the magic.

Last test is to try drawing energy from the spell, but without a name for the sort of magic, the best she can do is sapping heat.

Permalink Mark Unread

The first experiment does- briefly- disrupt the spell, but not in ways that cannot be compensated for. The second has no effect. The third does draw heat from the fire, and it gutters briefly, but this is not so much dispelling the magic as it is opposing the effect, and that is significantly more complicated to do with necromancy than with a candle flame. 

Elspeth reports the results and then, “if it helps, the way one dispels hostile magic where I came from is to apply an inversion of the weave. Um. I don’t know how well you can see the patterns?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"What level of detail do you need? I have pretty good magesight. I can make out a nail in a wall, but not ink on a page. I can see...densities? And kind of textures? With what I think you mean by the winds. How well do you need to see them?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I’m used to people dispelling magic by simply applying an inverse of the weave of similar strength such that they cancel out. Do you think you would be able to do that?”  

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well... Your weave doesn't really seem to be made of nodes. Or channels. And those are the things that mages create and move. I'm pretty good at high point counts, but representing a complex density map like that would take thousands, I can't go nearly that far. It's pretty obvious that you aren't using nodes, just...manipulating the densities directly? If I new how to select them I could probably figure out how to copy and invert... What does it feel like when you 'apply a weave'?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“It feels like…” Elspeth shrugs. “Understand, this is the hardest part of training a new wizard. I am advantaged in that my kind can see magic… It feels like… you take hold of pieces of magic with your mind, and you weave them together, and create a complex pattern in precisely the correct way, and if it’s not correct… Well. Usually, it does mostly what you want, and just there’s a side effect. Sometimes if you’re trying to create fire and you make a mistake, instead of creating the heat, the spell draws it from your surroundings. Sometimes though, if you really mess it up though, you are torn into a thousand bloody gobbets of flesh and your remains are blasted through everything within a hundred feet. It should be noted- and I say this not to boast but to reassure you- that one does not remain a wizard for hundreds of years without being very very careful.”

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh dear! Well, that sounds like the kind of thing that soul magic makes easy to teach, but, uh, I'm not sure that's something I want to try!

Uh, not that mages can't kill themselves too. Our magic can explode, or you can cut yourself in half or something. But if the same training doesn't apply..."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Oh sanctioned wizards are VERY well trained. The few times I took an apprentice, I didn’t pass them for well over a decade each. That, incidentally, was one of the INTENDED roles of a witch hunter; to find untrained or poorly trained hedge mages and keep them from blowing themselves up. Of course, that’s easier said then done. Literally anyone can learn magic, and it may appeal to an impoverished farmer who sees only the glamor of success and not the diligence necessary to avoid catastrophic failure. I digress… again… I apologize.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm glad they get good training! How do you train wizards? Mages have to be rited, so we make sure they all go through training before they have any magic. In Oikon we use apprenticeships, but the elves have a school. Is it always apprenticeships for you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Not always. Altdorf- um. A different city state in the empire, like Nuln, but worse in every way except being the Empire’s capitol. Altdorf has a college of magic. It’s not very good though. I may be biased. The hardest part of training is always instilling a sufficient amount of caution. The second hardest part is teaching those who cannot see magic to feel the threads of the winds. This is done differently for every aspirant, but a good start is usually to do different minor magics in their proximity until they start hallucinating the weaves. Some threads usually match their imagination and they can sometimes feel the difference between the real and the imagined. Teaching is a vexing process and I endeavored to do as little of it as I could get away with. Fortunately arch mages were not often required to teach the most basic of beginners.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"How many wizards did you have per capita? That does sound like the kind of training that gets easier with soul magic! But soul magic is kind of uncomfortable, so you can't use it for anything you need a lot of. People wouldn't agree to it."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I’m not entirely clear on what soul magic is, I confess. As for how many wizards we have- had- I would have to guesstimate probably one in ten thousand, though the vast majority of those would have been grade one. Capable of no real power. Bear in mind that anyone can theoretically learn magic, but not everyone has the time, inclination, and mental ability to be particularly good at it. At a guess, each tier up would represent another one in ten thousand. I have only ever heard of one other loremaster- the level above grade four- in the empire and that is Balthazar Gelt.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"There are quintillions of people!? Or do you mean that four in ten thousand are some level of wizard, but 'loremasters' are more rare? Anyway, we have a kind of magic where you can link souls together directly? It makes teaching things really easy, because you can feel another person's focus, and hear their thoughts. It works really well for noticing things that are hard for a non-expert to notice. But linking thoughts can be really uncomfortable, and a lot of people don't like it, so we can't use it very often."

Dainan is happy to talk for many more hours, but another archival assistant eventually shows up to suggest she sleep. Does Elspeth care to join her?

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth is very sure that she is misunderstanding the suggestion, but fortunately is spared any social embarrassment by not actually needing to sleep! Perhaps instead she will start prototyping some of Nuln’s more impressive knowledges for eventual demonstration. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Dainan does not seem aware of her implications, but does have a guest bedroom that she leaves to Elspeth. She goes to take some additional records before sleep. No one bothers Elspeth during the night.

Permalink Mark Unread

Elspeth will spend her unsleeping night drawing up plans and material lists for a demonstration blast furnace, mixing up a few sample potions from her leftover ingredients, and preparing a few unmixed potions to verify that these people can indeed mix potions like literally everyone else she has ever met. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The next morning...Dainan seems to be sleeping late, and doesn't appear to greet Elspeth. Several hours after dawn, there's a knock on the back door, facing the canal. Three minds are identifiable through it, and the smell of a roasted bird, layered with several other chemical scents.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, Elspeth is eager and waiting. She’ll open the door. Does she recognize any of the minds? 

Permalink Mark Unread

Outside is a canal boat carrying several large boxes, two teenage boys, and an older man. Elspeth doesn't recognize any of them. The man greets her.

"I've a delivery of alchemical supplies and breakfast. Can the archivist confirm receipt?"

He gestures at the boys and they heft the boxes to carry inside. One does distinctly smell of breakfast.

Permalink Mark Unread

It has been far too long since Elspeth has had anything meaningfully red to drink… breakfast indeed… she gives herself a shake. 

“You will want Dainan. I am a guest here, and do not know how to call for her. My apologies.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

The man steps forward and taps a chit of bronze against a bronze plate on the outside of the doorframe, then leans around the door and knocks on another plate on the inside. A few seconds later a bleary voice sounds through the room, echoing as though heard through a long pipe, and Elspeth notices some of the sharply-defined local magic.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Augggh. ...Hello? Person, yes?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Lady Archivist! Delivery's here. You scheduled it last night, food and alchemy. They said to tell you there was no filtering sand, the boat will be back with it in a day or two."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay! Thank. Recorded now, bye."

Permalink Mark Unread

The man seems to consider that acceptable, and directs the boys to set down the supplies. He gestures at the boxes as they're set down, identifying each to Elspeth. As well as breakfast, they also include samples of several metals and ores, local plants, some lumber, several soil types, some pieces of cloth, dyes, a small ruby, some tree sap, a stack of papyrus, ink, a jar of beer, a jar of wine, a jar of vinegar, and a jar of goat's blood, two live pigeons, a sickle, and a flute. After dropping everything off, he and the boys leave on the boat. Dainan can be heard rustling around a little more, upstairs.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, if immortality gives her nothing else, at least she’s learned patience. She will sit, wait, and get her potions project ready. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Dainan stumbles downstairs a few minutes later, sleepy but upright. She wanders past the pile of alchemy supplies and towards a barrel of water, which she starts ladling into a tall, rectangular ceramic pitcher.

"Oh, guest. Hello, good morning! Do you need anything urgently? I'm sorry, I...need a lot of sleep."

The pitcher, like many of the objects around Dainan's home, has some specks of magic stuck to it, embedded somewhere inside. She triggers one on the pitcher, and the water inside spikes in temperature, roaring to a near-instant boil. She gets out a mortar and pestle, and a bag of leaves, and starts preparing some sort of tea. It doesn't smell quite like the tea Elspeth might be familiar with, more floral than herbal.

Permalink Mark Unread

“I require no sleep unless recovering from trauma, but also I’m ageless so patience is easier for me than it used to be. I am happy to wait until you are more awake, though… come to think of it, if you want I could make you a potion? I don’t know how replaceable the components are though? Do you have cocoa plants here? Ginseng? Olive trees?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Olives grow near here, they aren't too expensive. Some traders have cocoa, but I doubt there's any in the city right now. I haven't heard of ginseng. How's the potion work? This tea is pretty strong, but I don't like to take it many days in a row."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Magic, mostly, but there are natural properties of the ingredients which anchor and amplify the magical effects. If you haven’t heard of ginseng then you probably don’t have it… everything else seems to have been translating- or common tongue, more probably. Hmm. Turmeric would probably work instead? Though I don’t expect a potion of alertness would be the most useful of the potions I know so working out substitutes is probably not incredibly worthwhile… I think it was mostly used by the wealthy as a cure for hangovers, and by scouts and guards for wealthy armies?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"How well does the potion work with repeated use? Someone who drinks enough of this tea can go without sleep for a few days, but they begin making more mistakes by the second day, and they'll collapse after four or five. Something more consistent would improve productivity by a lot... But you're right, probably something else is more important. I think you've mentioned that you use iron often? How cheap is iron, in your city? A lot of efforts are bottlenecked on materials strength, and the mining is cheap enough that we could use it even for construction, but it's very hard to work."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Iron was expensive, but only because we had used much of it- and other empires more ancient than ours. Mining was the bottleneck because we had to dig deep and there were many terrible things in the deep places. Iron can be worked easily with sufficient application of heat, and with proper control of the carbon content…” she casts about for her drawings from the night before… here! “This is a blast furnace. We used them in Nuln. It… very simplified, it is a vertical shaft furnace with a powerful forced air current at the bottom which allows the fire to burn more quickly. You deliberately allow the carbon content to become higher and produce pig iron, brittle but hard. Later we refine that iron to create steel and temper it so that it is both flexible and strong. I took the liberty of drawing up a materials list here, if you would like me to create a small proof of concept?” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Of course! A proof of concept would be useful, I always like a model. This looks like it needs some specific sorts of clay. I think we have the ingredients, but do you know what kind of heat you need for firing the furnace vessel? Can it be fired in the kilns we already have, or do we need to have a mage prepare it?"

She pauses a moment.

"How long has your world been mining iron for? How much are you using? There's a lot of iron, even if you used it for houses I think it would take a long time to use up..."

Permalink Mark Unread

“At a minimum, my world has been using iron in industrial quantities for at least twenty thousand years, and probably much longer. The types of clay matter less than the structure does, as long as the materials are able to take the heat. For the ceramic bricks specified here, I think they were usually made at around a thousand degrees- assuming our measurement systems match up and they HAVE seemed to so far.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's a long time! I don't think we've used a twentieth of all the iron in a twentieth of your time, and I don't think we've used a two-hundredth of the iron, either... But maybe we've used a two-thousandth? And I could see how you could use a hundred times more iron than we do, that sounds right. And then..."

She trails off, and flicks at a bit of magic, swinging some of her spellcraft up in front of her face. She scrolls absently through the field of nodes.

"Brick kilns are a thousand degrees under normal conditions. So it's fine, a mage doesn't have to help. That's kind of surprising, I would have guessed you needed higher temperatures to make stronger bricks. This doesn't sound too hard, then..."

She takes a large gulp of her tea, then shivers and takes another.

"I'll be awake soon, so we can get started. How much space do you need? Should we build something new, or go to visit the craftsmen?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“This design only requires a footprint of about twenty feet by twenty. It will be about the same in height, but will produce significant smoke from the chimney here, so ought to be built somewhere that won’t be an issue. Best to leave some room about it for laborers to move around it, but thirty by thirty with adequate ventilation ought to be sufficient.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Can do. I'll update the map..."

She wanders into another room and retrieves a bronze token, then triggers it and sends a bolt of magic flying invisibly into the distance. A few seconds later another bolt returns, and she feeds more power into the bound spell, which conjures an image in the air. It looks like a view of the city from above, as though looking down from a great height. Dainan peers at it, then points at a location.

"This plot is along the standard line for wood deliveries. Not that we couldn't do direct wood deliveries, but I assume a furnace needs a lot of wood? Copper and ink are processed here already, so no one will mind the smoke. Look big enough, or do you think you want a larger plot for more than this test?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Ah… wood? I had assumed coal. No matter, charcoal kilns are easy enough. That can be done with…” Elspeth draws a few more sketches. A rough brick dome structure takes shape. “…another twenty feet of footprint, about the same in height. More bricks of course….” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Coal? Where are you getting enough coal for forges? That's a real question, if you know a way to find a lot of coal. Coal is expensive."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I suppose you could dig for coal in older mountain ranges, but that is honestly a lot of hassle when you can just cook wood into the next best thing. This…” Elspeth holds up her hasty sketch… “is a charcoal kiln. It allows one to… cook… wood into charcoal which is a lot like coal-coal except made of wood instead of naturally occurring. It will function just as well and, I suspect, be almost as much of a revelation for your people as steel…” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"How much charcoal do you get from a unit of wood? In what way is it useful for it to be like coal? Is it the heat? I know that coal produces more heat than wood, but we haven't experimented much with that, since it's pretty rare. We never use it at scale."

Extrapolating from the immediate doubling of the required area, she also points out another, larger, area on the map.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Coal- and by extension charcoal- are much more energy dense, and much more efficient, meaning yes hotter which is very extremely important. But also, you need fewer tons for a given project, and you get fewer impurities in the metal which is even more important… Yes, that new spot looks great.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fair, you'd obviously need less for a given amount of processing... Especially with metal, since you can generally just process it faster with more heat. It wouldn't be good for cooking, most of the time, since you can't just raise the temperature and have the food turn out the same. Time for the brickyard, then? Wait, no. Breakfast? I should have breakfast. Is there breakfast?"

She looks around and identifies the box of food, brought with the delivery Elspeth let in. The box opens to reveal a pile of fluffy toasted breads, some sort of pancakes.

"Aha! Food. Do you need food? You're welcome to whatever you'd like."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I do not eat… human foods, no. I will refine the designs while you eat.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you...need some other sort of food? I assume we don't have whatever you're most used-to, but it sounds like a problem we'll have to solve eventually."

Permalink Mark Unread

“It… probably you are correct about that. But it’s a problem that has resulted in attempts to murder me on multiple occasions so I have a bit of a block around talking about it… Tell me, do you have vampires here?” Elspeth will be ready to run if this Dainan reacts as poorly as the witch-finders back home… 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't...recognize the name? There are a lot of species, but there aren't many with reputations that bad. We've had no success negotiating with goblins, but even an orc wouldn't be so scary that you'd kill one who wasn't threatening you. They're scary because they attack in armies, not because they're bad as people."

Permalink Mark Unread

“I…” Elspeth frowns. “I’ve never needed to explain what a vampire is before.” She will monitor Dainan’s thoughts, and if any sentence starts to evoke revulsion, Elspeth will backtrack. “We are ageless, stronger, faster, and made from other sentient creatures. The witch finders always liken vampirism to a disease, but it is not contagious except deliberately. Sometimes there are other powers too, but that is largely dependent on bloodline, and that is a complicated topic for perhaps another time. The… uh… reason we are so universally reviled is our diet. You see… I would stress that we need not feed often, nor take a fatal amount when we do… And I would stress that I never take from anyone without consent… but… A vampire requires blood for sustenance. We CAN make do with animal blood for a time, but blood from an elf or human or dwarf is necessary on occasion, at least. On a diet of animal blood only, we gradually weaken and… bad things happen to a starving vampire.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh, I haven't heard of anyone here working exactly like that. Not as a species, at least. Some natural magic works that way, I think berserkers need to taste blood for some of their magic to work. That's technically the natural magic of a plant, they eat the plant and drink some blood and the plant's magic makes them stronger. Uh...I think there's a type of sprite that needs to drink sap from a particular type of tree? That's also about a plant, but it's the sprite's magic, and sprites are a kind of person. Oh, but both of those are magic. Is this magic? Or is there something chemical about elf and human and dwarf blood? Were they the same kind of elves we have here? For that matter, were they the same kind of humans? Can you tell if blood here would have what you need?"

Her thoughts track her distraction, but don't pass over much concern. The "made from other sentient creatures" triggers a note of confusion, and some worries about continuity-of-self. She doesn't quite pick up the implied history of violence, instead clipping through images of judgemental travelers and hypothetical prices for spoonfuls of blood.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Arcanists have debated the nature of the… curse? For literal ages,” Elspeth will reply, warming to the topic of Dainan is not unduly upset. “Being that the origin of vampirism is literally a magical curse, I am of the opinion that the blood dependence is magical in nature.” The veins throb beneath Dainan’s thin skin. The blood rushes. It’s a song that calls to Elspeth. It’s an intoxicating odor. She swallows back the red thirst. “Elves here… uh… would work. I don’t know if that is because you’re sufficiently sentient, or because you are sufficiently similar to elves where I came from? Lizard men and greenskins- orcs and goblins- were sentient- certainly more so than animals- but their blood was not more nourishing. In the case of orcs and goblins it could even often be more harmful, but that was I think more the pollutants in the bloodstream than the blood itself.” 

Elspeth will not respond to unspoken concerns about continuity of self even though she remembers her childhood quite clearly and does in fact feel like the same girl. 

Permalink Mark Unread

Dainan is oblivious to the fact that she is breathing, and circulating blood, and producing scents, and other such activities. Or at least, oblivious to its salience.

"So it might be possible for blood to have the useful property but to be harmful anyway? I want to look for the prevailing principle, but I doubt I have a special advantage beyond your ability to reveal it."

Permalink Mark Unread

“There have been a large number of studies into the nature of vampirism, often with horrific moral implications. The nearest anyone can guess is that it’s transactional in some bizarre baroquely magical way. Just as one draws from fire to create a fireball, the vampire draws vitality in some way to continue their eternal vigor? Nothing seems to be taken from the… donor…” don’t say victim “except the blood though. There have hardly been controlled studies, because most possible studies are grossly unethical, but… My preference is to only take from a small pool of consenting donors.” Don’t think of countess Emmanuel… don’t think of the taste of her sweet blood or the feel of her silken sheets, or the scent of her warm body… “Um. Those donors have not had noticeably shorter lives, and elven donors have remained ageless…” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"If the donor isn't magically affected, then is the blood mostly symbolic, or triggering of a different process? I've heard of types of natural magic that require a local trigger but that doesn't draw on the trigger for the energy. Oh, wait, what are the horrifying implications of studies? Does Nuln do a lot of studies? Do a lot of them have moral implications?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“I have legitimately no idea whether it is symbolic or otherwise. Certainly there is an associated hunger which closely matches what I recall of mortal hunger for food back… er, before… Um. Nuln did many studies but not in as careful or scientific of a manner as would be preferred. Um. Most of their studies were not horrifying. How much pressure can this boiler take before it explodes, while everyone stands a few hundred feet away, for example. Um. Checking what quantity of blood loss has adverse effects on donors is a… complicated sort of study to do in a moral manner, and those attempting such studies rarely had any desire to keep their studies moral.” That’s… certainly one way to describe Tsarina Kattarine’s penchant for bathing in the blood of virgins… “I would stress that I have never participated in that sort of study.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Complicated how? I'd think that with the risks so obvious and specific, they'd be easy to price? It's hard to be uninformed about the affects of blood draining."

Permalink Mark Unread

“That’s an interesting- and probably effective- way to handle… scientific studies. I… don’t get the sense anyone was particularly concerned with paying their test subjects.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"That...doesn't sound very sustainable? In any of the ways I could see that working."

Permalink Mark Unread

“It wasn’t. Which, of course, meant that such studies were rarely attempted, as mentioned.” 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. I guess that makes sense."