It twists through a timeless time and floats down a spaceless space. Universes are where things make sense, and it travels outside them. But the space outside isn't not a place where momentum has meaning, because that would be simpler, and the chaos between realities is never simple.
So the gift has a certain amount of 'momentum' when it falls on another recipient, wrapping gently around their soul. And so they fall, entwined, and fetch up in a different place entirely.
"...Dammit. He is paying attention. Thought I might've been able to just argue with the universe. We're probably going to have to go in there."
Also, that's her color, rude! Pick a nice green or something!
Really, what does the human perspective matter, against the great gears of the cosmic machine? We're all so very small, in the end. But regardless: your argument that Chaos can be exemplified in the action of catalysis actually supports my working's working. I am, after all, introducing a new variable that causes the function of this working to rapidly change from its initial design intent.
Re: color: 😝
I'm not against the spell changing, I'm against it changing back. There's so much potential here! Maybe Bialya could come detached and become one of those mythical realms that floats about the place. Ooh! Or they could develop a land border with Jarhanpur. Anything else would be more chaotic than the status quo ante.
...I could take 'novel land border with Jarhanpur', that sounds logistically interesting. Just not more of this, where Bialya is left isolated from everyone else.
...She'll probably have to collapse that eventually, if he agrees. The climatological effects of large-scale spatial bullshit are likely to be Bad. But hopefully Klarion will be off doing something else.
Hmm. Yeah, alright. For someone who channels Order (eugh) you're not half-bad, Wildcard. And this lets me haunt the narrative.
Alex, I'll take 'world's only triply-landlocked country' for 300. What is ...
BIALYA!
Two wizards shoving the spell in concert is more than enough to send it toppling down. The raw energy of Chaos discharges through the air, leaving behind only the smell of burnt apples and a set of very confused geese. Where Bialya once stood, there is now only more scrubby desert, and no sign that anything supernatural has happened at all.
"...Some sort of compromise. Couldn't get him to put Bialya back where he found it. Could get him to agree to put it back on the planet instead of staring into the Blind Eternities, or whatever the bleep they were off to the left of reality in. Apparently it is now in Jarhanpur. And now that they're not staring down whatever that was, and the Witch Boy is, perhaps, moving on to something else, putting it back properly ought to be... At least differently difficult than trying to pull down a working that has the Witch Boy's immediate personal attention." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I really shouldn't have - let him do that - on my own recognizance, but... They were all so scared. And I don't know if he'd have decided to get stroppy about me listening to someone else's orders if I tried to ask for backup, but that's, honestly, a post-hoc rationalization of my decision that I could even try to negotiate."
"Still. This is a more... Fixable sort of problem."
"A mythical land rumored to be located somewhere in the Indian subcontinent," Red Tornado offers after a query to his internal database. "Supposedly disappearing around 4,000 BC, some historians believe it to be the original inspiration for the more modern myth of Shangri-La, although the details don't quite match."
"Oh goddammit. I knew I didn't recognize it but I didn't know why. Okay. Still fixable."
"Other information we have: Quote, 'What is the world's only triply-landlocked country', unquote, in reference to Bialya's location. This may or may not actually help us but it shouldn't be just me who knows what the Witch Boy - eh... Said. 'Said' is close enough to whatever that was. Now all we need to do is find a mythical location and figure out how to extract an entire country therefrom."
Can she get conjure-metal-and-crystals, please? Swapping things out, and then putting them back after she's done with this. She needs a compass but for hidden realms, and she thinks she knows just how to make one.
Specifically, it's a variation upon the Indigo-Yellow-Orange pointer, but this time, constructed from clear diamond (no structural flaws) and gold, and imbued with Order.
...If she's doing this, if they're doing this, she's going to do it properly. A full pState, seven properties. Seven is a magical, and lucky, number.
The Compass of Lost and Hidden Things...
... shows the way to what needs to be found.
... can show more than simple directionality, when it needs to.
... cannot be used to harm.
... is, itself, found where and when it is needed.
... can find trouble.
... can find safety.
... can find the way home.
If it can get rid of some sparks to make space, that's absolutely doable. The gift shuffles things around.
... and the compass comes together in her hand, shimmering with the light of the desert, and the light of her staff. This looks like an excellent MacGuffin, and the universe is generally pro-MacGuffin.
"...Metaphorical Tuesday. A thing that is beneath the metaphorical noise threshold over which something would stand out as unusual."
...Anyway, which way is it pointing?
East northeast, but in a way that leaves an impression of reverence for balanced cycles of nature and cultivation.
"...Right. I'm going to pass this around, and if the vibe it's putting out is more suited to you than it is to me - which is to say, I have some ideas of how to feel the right way to get where we're going, but certainly not all that much personal history of enacting the concept this is putting out -" designing the world of Azerosa aside - "you're leading this leg. ...I don't have reason to believe that any of us are in possession of a particular passion for ecology, but maybe you'll learn something about yourself."
The heroes pass the compass around. None have a particularly strong reaction, but it makes Miss Martian tilt her head.
"This feels like the work Uncle Me'elo does at his nature preserve," she notes. "And ... a little like when Martian Manhunter is trying to show me how to phase."
When this proves to be the strongest affinity in the group, the heroes pack back into the bioship and set a course for Jarhanpur. The compass leads them more or less directly East, before suddenly swinging to point West just as they cross the border into India.
"What does that mean? Am I holding it wrong?"
"I think we missed the phase, for 'not thinking nature-ly enough' reasons. So I guess we should go back and try again? Maybe if we do it together this time our relevant thoughts and insights will combine and get us through. That, or we should land, first. I'm not sure. Wouldn't hurt to inculcate more reverence by actually experiencing, if there's something we can... Find our way, through. Though I don't want to leave someone behind."
Oddly enough, the thought of cycles has already influenced her understanding of Life (as contrasted with Life) - which will henceforth be called Nature, despite That Not Being The Proper Name, to avoid confusion. Something about the idea just clicked, and now she thinks she knows how (WoW-)druidic shapeshifting ought to work.
"...That, or we just literally need to turn around because we needed to start from this side of the border."
Well, it's easy enough to check. Miss Martian has the bioship fly back and forth a few times, to no effect, and then directs it in to land.
"I think it's probably the 'thinking nature' thing," she relays. "If this compass were Martian technology, I'd just take the sensation and bounce it to all of you in a telepathic network so that we can ... ugh English has no word for it. So that we can 'think together'. Would that work here?"
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