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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.
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in_tatters
"It'll drive you mad thinking what ifs in hindsight with information you have but didn't at the time. As my sister puts it... Stop it," he says gently. "Milady."
in_tatters
Adarin pillows his head on Shara's shoulder for a few seconds - that's all he allows himself, then he straightens back up and says, "Are there any other ravelers that - do what Chelasi did?"
"I'd be surprised if no one else got it as an option; I've never heard of another kind of genuinely unique raveler. Maybe most of them don't pick it, though. I've never heard of or seen signs of one of her kind before."
"If I knew of another one I would be way ahead of you. If you hear about such a thing let me know, I'm not sure if I'd bet on your shields against - that."
in_tatters
"Probably not, no," winces Adarin. "Damn. Well. I suppose I could go with people that are more offensively based than I am."
"You're welcome."
After a brief silence: "So what were your options when you got them? I could have had your specialty, as it happens. That or healing - the acute kind."
After a brief silence: "So what were your options when you got them? I could have had your specialty, as it happens. That or healing - the acute kind."
in_tatters
"I had weather, animal communication, and - yeah, the acute healing. I almost went with weather, but then I spent too much time weighing the pros and cons of it versus shields and I lost it as an option entirely. So I went with shields."
"Oof. I had a list of every kind I'd ever heard of, in order, by the time I was twelve, just in case, so I picked in about thirty seconds once I had the chance to check them out more closely. I would've taken artificing if I'd got it, but no such luck."
in_tatters
"Me too, I would have flung myself at artificing in ten seconds flat," snorts Adarin. "But I'd never heard of weather before so I was trying to figure out if it was large scale and if I could do stuff like - water crops or stop floods or such."
"Floods, once they're floods, seem a bit beyond weather magic, although I guess you could stop them from getting worse."
in_tatters
"I meant prevent them from happening entirely. Tell the rain to stop what it's doing when it's nearing dangerous levels, and go shoo over somewhere else where it's more wanted. But - nope, lost weather. Had to be the one I was leaning towards, too, it couldn't have been the animal talking one."
in_tatters
Adarin laughs. "I'm not complaining about the shields, I like them, they're neat and tidy and helpful. I just sometimes want to help people large-scale, rather than keeping certain people safe."