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Annie is on her trike on her way to school.
This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.
The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.
Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.
There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -
- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.
She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.
six artifact pileup annie in thedas
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keep_busy
keep_busy
"Hi! There's a human mage at Caridin's house and she said I could bring you along to discuss magic theory."
iwillgetyou
"It's nice to meet you," says Metella.
"It's nice to meet you too!" says Dagna.
"Did you have any specific questions about magical theory...?"
"Um - everything?"
"It's nice to meet you too!" says Dagna.
"Did you have any specific questions about magical theory...?"
"Um - everything?"
iwillgetyou
"He said that there is a human named Annie living with Caridin who seems interested in magical theory and could be a big help to our efforts against the Blight, and that it was too early in the morning for him to explain the rest."
keep_busy
Annie giggles. "I'm from another world and have weird magical properties from there." And she repeats her standard explanation of her weird magical properties and her world. "...but my question's actually about the Fade."
keep_busy
"Well, in my world we don't have mages. People do all dream, though. Is it likelier that we have a Fade and just haven't noticed it or that we don't have one and dream for different reasons? In the latter case is there a way to tell if I'm attached to the Fade now?"
iwillgetyou
"Interesting... could you describe what exactly you mean by 'dreaming' when you say that people in your world do it? Have you noticed any differences in how you dream since you arrived in this world?"
keep_busy
"It seems exactly the same. I fall asleep and strange sequences of events play out in my head and my ability to detect how strange they are is suspended and they can be very emotionally affecting, positively or negatively, for what may be sensible or insensible reasons. Sometimes one mostly-coherent sequence of events bleeds into another and I don't notice the transition until I'm recalling it later. And dreams in general are very hard to remember, especially shortly after waking up, but sometimes one or part of one will be clear."
iwillgetyou
"That seems... substantially like what happens when people dream in this world. In this world, the explanation is that our spirits enter the Fade when we sleep, and dreams are your spirit telling itself stories using the Fade as a kind of theater."
"Dwarves don't dream," Dagna puts in.
"Yes, and I find that very curious. I don't have an alternate explanation for how dreaming might work, but if you have no other signs of magic in your world except for these artifacts which work in a completely alien way, then I have no idea whether it makes more sense to say that you must have arrived at the same result by an alternate route, or that you have a secret hidden Fade and no mages with which to access it more openly. I can easily check whether your spirit enters the Fade when you sleep, though; I would just need a little bit of lyrium and your permission to enter the Fade while you sleep and search for your spirit there."
"Dwarves don't dream," Dagna puts in.
"Yes, and I find that very curious. I don't have an alternate explanation for how dreaming might work, but if you have no other signs of magic in your world except for these artifacts which work in a completely alien way, then I have no idea whether it makes more sense to say that you must have arrived at the same result by an alternate route, or that you have a secret hidden Fade and no mages with which to access it more openly. I can easily check whether your spirit enters the Fade when you sleep, though; I would just need a little bit of lyrium and your permission to enter the Fade while you sleep and search for your spirit there."
iwillgetyou
"Well, then, that's simple enough."
"Is it true that there's lyrium in the Fade too?" asks Dagna.
"Yes," says Metella. "I've seen it there myself. The Fade is... very different from the material world, but lyrium is one of the most material things in it."
"What do you mean, 'most material'? How does materialness come in amounts? And if the Fade is full of lyrium how come mages don't grab it and take it home with them?"
"Well... normally I'd ask if you've ever tried bringing an object out of a dream into your waking life, but I guess that doesn't apply here... entering the Fade isn't like stepping from one room to another, though. It's more like imagining yourself in a different room, so completely that you experience it with all the depth and immersion of actually being there. But your body stays right where it is, and you can't bring anything back."
Dagna nods along to this explanation in utter fascination. Metella smiles.
"As for materialness, well, most of the Fade behaves a lot like an imaginary place: it can change in response to your thoughts and feelings, details might shift around, objects can appear and disappear while you're not looking. But lyrium in the Fade is more stable, as though it's 'really there' in a way that most things aren't."
"Is it true that there's lyrium in the Fade too?" asks Dagna.
"Yes," says Metella. "I've seen it there myself. The Fade is... very different from the material world, but lyrium is one of the most material things in it."
"What do you mean, 'most material'? How does materialness come in amounts? And if the Fade is full of lyrium how come mages don't grab it and take it home with them?"
"Well... normally I'd ask if you've ever tried bringing an object out of a dream into your waking life, but I guess that doesn't apply here... entering the Fade isn't like stepping from one room to another, though. It's more like imagining yourself in a different room, so completely that you experience it with all the depth and immersion of actually being there. But your body stays right where it is, and you can't bring anything back."
Dagna nods along to this explanation in utter fascination. Metella smiles.
"As for materialness, well, most of the Fade behaves a lot like an imaginary place: it can change in response to your thoughts and feelings, details might shift around, objects can appear and disappear while you're not looking. But lyrium in the Fade is more stable, as though it's 'really there' in a way that most things aren't."
keep_busy
"In my world sometimes someone will learn to retain their normal stream of consciousness and normal quality of judgment in their dreams and usually find that while they're doing that they can control the dream."
iwillgetyou
"That's a common talent among mages; I have no idea whether anyone else can do it," says Metella. "Dreaming that way as a mage is very similar to entering the Fade for magical purposes, except that you don't have to expend any effort to get there."