"I've heard of sigil magic doing similar, most prominently Blood Chanters throwing contagious rage. Though usually local in space... well, let's try it out."

Where is Barik, anyway?

"Oh, and - hmm - something I want to test while I'm thinking of Stasis trickery - "

She'll just -

Take a moment to refresh her memory on a - well, highly situational - spell and its sigil...

Jump, and cast Blur with Stasis on herself at the same time...

"Huh. I guess that follows," he says, looking at the figure frozen in the air, "Hopefully it doesn't last too long."

Well, if they're very quick it might last long enough to scribble something crude on her face, or whatever one does, but it's not very long before -

She lands, gracefully, and notes, "It does hold you still.  Properly so.  I wonder what you could get up to with an object or two that're selectively like that, come to think of it, since anything under that effect doesn't seem to care how much force it's hit with while it's frozen, it's just - stopped.  But that's a far different sort of project."

"Anyway.  I'm not sure the Blood Chanters' contagious rage is necessarily the trick, and all I know about it is that I've seen it done - with, oddly, only ever rage, and not any other emotions, despite the sigil - but I do agree that it could be an angle.  Shame there aren't many, if any, to ask, and less by the time we'll find them.  ...I don't suppose your sisters knew any of that lore, Verse?"

"But really, the thought I have is that - the bond has already made the two things into one.  It oughtn't need spreading - just recognition."

"No, Whispers knew a little but mostly healing."

"If I remember correctly, applied force makes the stasis effect dissipate faster, though with no effect on the thing being placed in stasis. Which is probably why the Sages didn't try it for preservation of archives. As far as rage... the Sigil is based on Sirin, isn't it? And fairly new? It may be that anger is simply easier to make contagious, and contagious, oh, adoration hasn't been tried enough to find a form which works. Though in that case I'd expect someone would have succeeded with fear..."

"I just bet Nerat's trying.  Yes, I believe the Sigil of Emotions is presently held by Sirin.  Regardless - I feel like what we want here isn't so much a contagion, as much as -

"Something to do with accent sigils, really.  Or enhancements; I can never keep which of the non-primary sigil types is which straight.  Probably the bouncing augment, or some refigured Proximate Action that's inclined to metaphysical proximity...Maybe both, even."

"My intuition is that it's not the kind of thing a normal accent could do. Certainly not categorically beyond rituals, though I can't say I've heard of anything I'd consider closely analogous... I know which stacks I'd pore through for examples, but there are two Edicts in the way."

"...I might try piercing, as another route.  But if it's not readily within our grasp...Well, if we do end up having a live Nerat and no Edict constraining our own movements, I intend to lift the Edict of Fire as a high priority.  I - rather sympathize with the Sages, on the matter of preserving knowledge."

"It would be a simpler matter if we could simply ask which knowledge is forbidden and leave the rest preserved. Not that the elder Sages bothered to, but I did check past records and Kyros has never been known to make his will explicit on the subject. Or possibly he has, but then the content of what he said is itself considered forbidden knowledge. It's again intuition, not knowledge, but I would guess that making any type of accent meta- rather than just -physical is unlikely and ritual is the most likely answer."

"Well.  There's precedent that Fatebinders are allowed to know certain things others are not, and generally granted more leniency in handling said knowledge; my general plan is to smooth things out thusly.

"Anyway.  Ritual; what are we looking at to make that work, do you think, Lantry?"

"Hell if I know. Well, I can eliminate some things. Very unlikely we'd need more than two sigillers, three at most, though we might need Verse to do a bit of it. The physical props probably aren't ever strictly necessary, but they make it easier in some way, probably helping multiple people to coordinate on the same mental imagery. Some rituals you prepare the ground to be affected, but only some, and that isn't an option here, so we'd be aiming for one that didn't."

"...Crafting rituals is tricky; of methods the Sages used, most sucked. We do have the materials for one of the better ones, which is to just mix the red and blue ink on your skin and see what you dream up; then try it and see what happens, if anything. I'll need to gather some ingredients for a couple new brews of ink, but I'd be confident in my dosages if you want to try it."

"Seems like it'd be worth trying; every edge we can seize in this fight is worth having, in my opinion.  Nerat might be a lot more easily stabbed than Cairn, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy to get rid of him.  ...I suppose I'll see if I can literally dream something up, too.  Not often worth bothering to steer my dreams, unless I'm desperately in need of extra time to think, but if any time is, it's now."

He nods. "It might help. The dosage I'd give, seven parts red to four parts cerulean, is a lot like a strong lucid dream with inhibited impulse control. If we're in a rush I can go up to half the maximum safe dose, but at that point I need to mix in sepia at roughly one part to twelve to keep the body sedate enough. Also most people get migraines in and out for the week after they come down. Being one of the lucky bastards who never do was a requirement to become one of the senior ritual researchers."

"Hmm-hmm.  Well.  I'll have to hope I'm one of the lucky ones; if Nerat isn't going to try and assassinate me, I'll be very surprised.  Being out of it with migraines would be bad, but I think the risk is worth taking, regardless, if it means we can pin down Nerat.

"That or we'll have to see if we can solve that migraine problem with more magic.  I don't have it down to combat viability yet, it's a simplification of some of the farm rituals, but there's a sigil-spell that just...cures random sicknesses and disorientations, if you let it."

"Vigor or Life? I've tried treating it with beastblood pollen, and that made it much easier to function through it, but it still hurt like a bitch."

"Life; I don't think anyone's gotten Vigor to work on Influential Domain."

"Mmmh. Well, I can try a dose on the low end of the migraine range, only about ten times the minimum dose instead of twenty-five, and you can try that and see how I recover."

"Sounds like a good idea; I'll do it ritual, give it a bit more oomph."

"If you've got a working ritual for that, sure. Even if we get lucky we'll almost certainly need several rounds of trial and error to find something feasible, so best to start soon."

"Getting Life into a short timeframe is if anything the harder part, from what I've heard.  Haven't delved that deeply into spell construction myself, I'm busy enough learning what we already know works.  But yes, let's."

"I'll ask the camp suppliers if they have any of the reagents I need, but probably I'll have to wait for the morning to scavenge. Even if we travel, they're not rare plants. Brewing's not tricky, at least."