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teenage mage-gifted jisa ends up in cosel
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Jisa, thirteen years old and newly mage-gifted which is the best thing in the entire world, is experimenting with Gates! 

She's doing it secretly, of course, because no one is supposed to know she's a mage. Also because Vanyel would probably yell at her for what she wants to try.

If she asks her Companion about it then Enara is going to yell at her, so she doesn't. 

She's trying to route a Gate through several of the other planes she's been studying lately, mostly because the idea occurred to her and then she had to see if it would work, and also because theoretically it should let her Gate a lot further from reserves, because she can cut the 'distance' she's searching over. Maybe.

She doesn't really know what's going to happen, but that's the best part, really. She does it the way she's been practicing, a 'blind' Gate, just aiming in a direction and then building a threshold on nothing at all, which she was pretty sure ought to be possible because why on earth would magic care about doorframes, that has to be a limitation in the mage's mind and not the magic itself, and it took a lot of practice to get it down but she turned out to be right. 

It takes her half a dozen tries, losing her sense of 'direction' as she pokes the spell through the Elemental Planes of Water and of Earth and Air (the plane of Fire is very overwhelming and she's avoiding it for now.) 

Eventually, though, she gets through, and a Gate comes up. Weirdly, she can't see across it, it's milky-opaque instead of clear. 

...Crossing a Gate to an unknown place is a pretty risky plan. But she can't not do it now. She's way too curious. 

:Enara I'm trying this experiment–: she sends, pushing across all the information very fast so that her Companion won't have time to stop her, and then she steps across. 

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She has landed in a perfectly innocuous looking bit of wilderness on the shore of a lake. There are lilypads.

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The Gate comes down with a snap before she can think about whether she wants to immediately go back. Ouch. 

She extends her Othersenses, wincing a bit at the headache. Any nodes or ley-lines around? Any minds? 

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There is a mind over there! In the lake, under the water.

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Huh. She doesn't know of any aquatic species that are people. 

Also it's unethical to read people's minds without asking. 

Jisa almost does it anyway, but catches herself. She's had the ethics conversation enough times by now. 

:Hello?: she tries instead. 

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Water suddenly sprays out of the lake, slapping a lilypad smack dab over her nose and mouth and holding it there.

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What?

Jisa tries shoving it away with a burst of force and forming a mage-barrier over her face. 

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It shoves away, and then the water sprays HARDER.

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Well, she has a mage-barrier over her face now and it's a sturdy one - it'd really help in maintaining this state of affairs if there were nodes around here, can she find any - 

:Please stop!: she sends. :I'm sorry if I offended you!: 

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:DIE DIE DIE: is the opinion of the underwater mind. The water loops around behind her and tries to break her neck.

There are ley-lines, but not nodes.

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Aaaaaaaaah this is not what she wanted to happen at all! She was trying to be friendly! It seems very unfair that she's getting attacked for that! 

Jisa drops to the ground in a ball, chin tucked in, so she can more easily shield her entire body, it's not like she needs her eyes to see what's going on. Ley-line energy is better than nothing, it's less efficient for tapping but she can get enough for a fireball. What happens if she throws said fireball at the water trying to break her neck. 

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Steam hisses. The mind moves farther away, still underwater, and stops attacking her once it's got up a good head of steam swimming to the nearest river.

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Maybe it's noticed she's capable of defending herself and is going to leave her alone now?

Jisa is ready to try Mindhealing it to stop if it attempts anything else, but for now she leaves it alone and instead cautiously backs further away from the lake. 

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It flees and flees and flees. It swims real fast and is presently out of range.

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Jisa gets some distance from the lake and eventually sits down and casts some wards and another sturdy shield, and then lets herself shake for a bit. That was really scary. 

Eventually she's calmed down enough to be actually curious about her surroundings, as opposed to just tracking them out of fear that another weird lake creature will show up. Water elemental? She's never seen them manifest physically like that without being summoned, and the water elementals she knows aren't hostile like that either. 

Anyway, she should figure out where she is. 

Jisa isn't very good at scrying yet, and wishes she had Farsight too like Van, but she manages the spell after a couple of tries, drawing power from another ley-line. She sticks the scrying-point very high in the air above her head, to get a better view, and scans the land for any other sign of people. 

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There is this lake, and a river leading away from it, and a few miles downstream perched alongside the river there's a farm village.

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She could theoretically do a blind Gate thataways, except she's way too tired. Instead she weaves the most thorough physical shields she can over herself, in case another piece of river tries to strangle her, and then gets up and starts trudging toward the village. She keeps all of her Othersenses extended, still. 

Once she has time to think, she's both aware that probably she should try to go home, and also very reluctant to do so, because by now Enara will probably have told Treven what she did and Treven will probably have told Uncle Van and all of them will be furious to her and she's not looking forward to the lecture at all. Also she's too tired for a complicated long-range Gate anyway. 

She keeps walking. 

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The water doesn't try to attack her again.

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Walking a few miles seems to take an endlessly long time when one is tired, but eventually Jisa reaches the village and looks around. Is there anyone about? 

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Yup. Some women sitting on their front porch carding and spinning wool. Some kids chasing a cat down the street. A man supervising a person with transparent feathered wings while the latter magically puts windowpanes in windows, turning a bucket of sand into perfect clear glass already in place.

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Oooh, neat! She watches that for a moment with mage-sight before heading up to one of the front-porch women. 

"Hello, do you speak Valdemaran?" she tries. 

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They evidently do not. They blink at her, and shake their heads, and call to the person supervising the glass-winged person. The man and the glass-winged person walk over. He says something.

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Jisa doesn't understand it at all! She could probably read his thoughts but she holds off for now, and instead tries the same greeting in Rethwellani and Hardornen and Tayledras and all the languages she speaks even a few words of. 

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The man looks at the glass-winged woman. She looks very scared of him and shakes her head when he asks her a question, and keeps shaking it when he asks her an angrier question.

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Oh no! 

Jisa holds up a hand, trying to get the man's attention, and makes a 'stop' gesture, waving her hands in front of her. And then tries to smile reassuringly at the winged woman. 

:Can you understand me?: she asks the winged woman, mostly on the idea that she looks kind of magic and that might mean she's Gifted or at least easier to Mindspeak with. She could apparently Mindspeak a bit with the lake-creature but it was kind of hard to understand. 

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The winged woman's eyes go slightly wider. :What are you?:

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