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Shara is getting very tired of this horse and this forest and the map which has clearly marked hills and rivers and nothing labeled adventures via which to satisfy picky artifacts sold wholesale here. Kayam doesn't seem to mind, but Kayam's more patient than her to begin with, and Kayam's horse is more placid - Shara would trade but she's supposed to be gentling this one as long as she has a long consecutive while to do it in.
Her horse veers off left. Shara steadies it - but looks left, why not, to see what's distracted the horse.
Well, that's one hell of a garden. It's got residual magic over it - the raveler's equivalent of lint, nothing Shara can mess with while the plant raveler's not actively working on it, but there is definitely a plant mage here.
The house has the same property.
And so does - something else.
Three different kinds of raveler-residue over the same property. All recent, though the house, requiring no active maintenance, less so than the garden and the - other thing.
Shara raises a hand; Kayam comes to a halt while Shara squints.
And then the unfamiliar something inside the house flares and Shara gets a very clear look at what's making the third kind of lint.
She promptly loses her breakfast onto the excuse for a trail they're riding on before she can even think about interfering with its work.
"Whoa, milady, what's - what's wrong, were the rations bad -?" asks Kayam
Shara shakes her head. "Some kind of raveler I don't recognize in that house. They're - I don't even know how to describe it. Raveling people."
"...The way you say that I somehow don't think you mean like healers do."
"Not like healers do," shudders Shara, swigging water. "Raveling their - feelings, I guess. There's people in that house and I don't know if there's a thing keeping them all together except the magic."
"Could... you... stop them, if they tried to do it to us?" asks Kayam slowly.
"I think so. I was caught off guard - there, they're doing it again, I can't reach from here but I can see the stitching. I think I could counter it."
"You think."
"If it was coming at me, absolutely - I'm less sure I'd grab it in time if it was aimed at you. It doesn't feel long-range, though."
"Okay. So - what do you want to do, milady?"
Shara thinks.
"Tie up the horses. You hang back here and watch through the window. I'll - knock on the door and see if I can fix the problem by talking. When I've figured out who it is, if I've decided they can't be reasoned with or I'm worried they're going to keep raveling at me until I'm too tired to stop them - I'll let off a flashball and you fold straight in - don't walk through the garden, it'll turn on you if the plant mage wants - and then I guess you kill this particular raveler. Maybe their work will dissolve when they die and the others will be okay."
"What if their work, um, does not dissolve when they die, as a for-instance?"
"Then," says Shara, "we'll be in a house with a bunch of people who just watched us kill their best friend, and you will fold us back to our horses smart-quick and we will run away very fast, but at least no one else will get - mindraveled."
"This sounds a bit more dangerous than your usual sort of idea," says Kayam.
"It's pulling double duty," says Shara, and she dismounts, and approaches the house, and knocks.
in_tatters
"Well now I sound really arrogant," snort Adarin. "Uh - generally? I like helping people."
in_tatters
"Find a job in Casasha as a bodyguard for someone who wasn't a terrible human being, figure out what was wrong with things nearby and then see if they were fixable. It was kind of a - vague plan, I was in mourning."
"No, that's fair, why would you have a really detailed plan about what to do in a country you've never visited - I think you're going to like Casasha."
"For one thing, it's nice to be a raveler there. I think in Antaurb it's customary to pay for most forms of work by the hour, is that right? Which is kind of - the opposite of the point of raveling. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but at any rate that's not a firm and general standard in Casasha, you can find work getting paid for results or a salary by the month with bonuses for particular flurries of activity if that works better for you. For another, the crown means that the pennon families tend to try to raise children who would be able to come up with some reason besides 'the crown wants me to' to rescue helpless people - the crown is not impressed if you're acting by rote, is a noticeable pattern - and so I like to think we have a better class of nobility than some of our neighbors."
in_tatters
"Ooo. Yeah, that does sound nicer. I suddenly like this crown system a lot more, I was vaguely approving of it and now I am completely approving."
in_tatters
He snickers. "Probably, but let's hope that you don't see the faces for this particular reason, hmm?"
in_tatters
Adarin nods. "Thanks, I hope that's enough. I am very happy to be saved, hopefully I won't ever be in the position to be needing it again. Ever."
in_tatters
"Though if it's this specific kind of thing to need saving from, I think I can catch on that it's happening and -" He winces. "React accordingly."
"Uh, I'm not sure you can shield against more ravelers like that if they come up. And you probably shouldn't attack people for twitchy fingers. She didn't look like she had good range, though, maybe a couple feet, so - run away, get me?"
"I... don't think that would work very well. I'm pretty sure she could have, if she needed, pulled hard and fast enough on those threads she was knitting to have someone previously about to run her through catch her before she passed out from the effort."
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