This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
She doesn't recognise that tree.
She's been here before, she's not that far from the estate, this isn't some unknown place. She must've taken a wrong turn, of course, but where? She should probably just try to retrace her steps, Jaol will be incredibly mad at her...
So to the kitchens it is.
The kitchen is just off the courtyard, and actually decently busy, but not very. There's prep-work going on, things being cleaned, someone hauling water, and two servers loitering and talking quietly near the entryway, keeping an eye on the near-empty courtyard through the window. They'll politely intercept Tetsuma and Dayo before they can disrupt anything.
One of the servers takes a look at the pitcher then shrugs and says, "I don't know much myself. We get them from a craftsman in town. Feid might know more, if she doesn't mind talking while she works. She's out by the pump getting water." He gestures to another door.
It leads to a courtyard/ alleyway between several buildings. There's two pumps, and a tall girl filling buckets at one of them.
"Oh no, we were just informed we might be able to ask you about the runes in the pitcher."
She eyes them. "Mind if I keep working, then? And I'd like some help carrying these back. But I can chat, sure."
There's only the two buckets at the moment, but she'll keep that they're both enhanced in mind if they're talking long enough for multiple trips. "What kinds of questions did you have?"
She goes back to pumping while she talks. "Runes, though it's as much a language as a standard runic system. Most runic magics are a couple dozen symbols, you know - this one's a thousand for fluency, thousands more for mastery."
"There's more than just the large runes; they're surrounded by smaller runes, barely visible - most write the auxiliary runes so they'll vanish, to preserve trade secrets. These define everything the pitcher's supposed to do, down to the temperature of each rune and that they should turn off when dry, to preserve energy. It's easiest to get the major runes themselves to do stuff, though you can impact what they're inscribed on, too. The system's so far unique to this island; most of us are descended from the same world, and it was native there."
"Can anyone do it, or do you have to, like, in be blood-related to someone from your world or live here or something?"
"It's fairly rare to pick up, but I think anyone? Nearly everyone I know who uses it is descended from my world, but that's probably just because we're prideful enough not to go with an easier system. Though this one's more flexible and - exact - than most, I think. Makes a fine niche for artifact creation."
"...You can find an apprenticeship? Or I can sell you a copy of my notes from mine. And a dictionary, I can pick up a new one later. There's not really... Well, grammar books or formal classes, it's all apprenticeships and such. I can give you a discount on the notes, too, if you give feedback on them next time you're in town - I'm planning on publishing usable how-to books once I'm established."
She hands Tetsuma the full buckets (easier to balance with both) and starts leading the way inside. "They're not optimized for learning from scratch - I mostly sell them to apprentices - but I've also got some old drafts where I tried articulating basic grammar for a general audience, sort of starting on the book, that I'll throw in. How does ten Suns sound for a price for the notes?" (It's about half the normal cost of a book, in the local currency.) "And I'm not off work until after dinner, but I can give you a grammar lecture while working."
"Ten Suns sounds like a very fair price, and I'd love to learn whatever you have to teach me."
So they can chat, then, until Feid gets called away to help with dinner preparations. (She gets some light teasing from her coworkers over conscripting Dayo and Tetsuma into helping with the buckets. They need a lot of water, for drinks, cooking, washing, and such. She also turns down Tetsuma's offer to help with jutsu - too unknown.)
The runic system is basically a magical programming language. Each 'word' gets its own symbol, which is why there's so many. Effects need sentences formed of rune clusters defining parameters, which has such and such basic grammar rules. It's mostly useful for altering the nature of materials - Tetsuma's first thought is 'better weapons,' which Feid confirms that yes you can do, though almost no one bothers what with the ley making war a logistical headache. More common's stuff like temperature changes, or durable cloth and tools. Advanced practitioners can do complicated stuff, like a barrel that will keep its contents perfectly dry.
...Float, not easily. Gravity's very insistent, and you'd have to be careful with your parameters to not break whatever, or make it unsteady. Light, sure. Getting a rune to glow is about the most basic exercise, getting the object itself to glow is harder.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
