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the spire of bounteous strychnos
Permalink Mark Unread

This little ocean-facing dock has definitely seen better days. The jetty still looks well maintained, but the shell of a once-proud trading ship is just rotting quietly into the sheltered bay, and nobody seems to be home. Above the docks, a steep climb into the mountains looms, with a robust wooden boardwalk disappearing into a dense, fetid jungle.

Further up the mountainside, a single stone tower pierces the canopy, with a lighthouse-like arrangement of gleaming mirrors barely visible just beneath its summit.

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If anyone were around to watch the shore right at this moment, they would see a solitary, reddish-brown and vaguely canine, head, protruding through the surface of the water, zipping out of the distance to approach the shore at an absurd clip. Fortunately, the head - travelling fast but smooth, leaving an admirably discreet wake - swivels and scans the shore with terribly sharp eyes that (the head is confident) could pick up any biggish creature not trying deliberately to conceal themselves, and those eyes see no one at all.

The speeding head - whose name is Tollee - vanishes just a few feet shy of the strange pile of brightly colored slats and things heaping up out of the water. It rises, spluttering and accompanied by half the body of a patchy-reddish ferryshaft, which, with its legs fully submerged, resembles a large but underfed wolf with enough giraffe heritage to be noticeable if you look twice.

Of course, Tollee thinks, re-scanning the trees, there could be intelligent creatures here much too small for me to notice even if they're being flagrant. It's not as though every squirrel- or bird-sized creature could possibly set off my DANGER! sensors. I'm too used to those sounds. Not that I've ever heard of an intelligent creature being that small, but there's no reason a species like that shouldn't be able to exist. But Tollee was repeatedly and (she hopes), expertly instructed by Tuvien that humans are almost as tall as ferryshaft, if much slighter. She would have noticed that. She's safe. Or, rather - she glances back over the water, feeling a pang of guilt and gratitude - Tuvien is.

Tollee surveys the hulking pile of - what materials are those, exactly? She has no idea - beached on the shore. Unnaturally flat, eerily regular, vaguely reflective. The sheen and variety of insane colors reminds her of the human paintings from Kuwee, only solid colors (well, they look to have once been solid - now the thing is heavily chipped and flaking) rather than being used to make images. Tollee ponders what the purpose of covering . . . whatever this is . . . in paint could possibly have been, and quickly gives up. She gets the feeling that she's about to encounter a lot of inexplicable alien accoutrements over the next period of her life, and suppresses the rising sense that she may be out of her depth here. Speaking of. She maneuvers around the heap to rise out of the water fully, shaking herself, deer-long legs dramatically extending her apparent height, single-toed hooves sinking not unpleasantly into the rocky sand.

Well. Time to go and find some humans.

A very careful visual sweep of everything she can see from her current position reveals only two sure signs of human presence. One is the path leading uphill into the surrounding forest, which is raised above the ground and seems to be built in the same way as the ship, only unpainted. The other is a very unnatural display of glittering . . . crystals? . . . high up on the mountain ahead. To be visible from this far down, the crystal structure must be not just distinctive but, for an artificial construction, enormous. She supposes that by that standard the pile of rubble in front of her is enormous, too, it's just not so weird. Tollee does not shiver. No point getting spooked now - for several reasons. She'll find her humans, and if this is the only lead she has, she'll find her humans by this lead.

Tail and head held high, she trots up the thunderclap-loud and echoey human path - okay, no, on the soft quiet soil alongside the human path, for as long as possible! - into the shadowy, humid forest.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's... a little bit damp, off the path. A little bit damp and the water is not really quite a natural colour. There's an unpleasant oily sheen to it which seems to be some considerably wrong colours. There might be a reason people went to the effort of building and maintaining a boardwalk here.

There's something about the mud which is starting to make her paws feel quite unpleasant.

A cacophony of birdsong follows her as she moves further into the jungle, including some rather strange, loud and deep birdsong from a little way off; a lot of cries of warning, assertions of territory, general belligerance.

As well as occasionally incorporating somewhat disturbingly unnatural colours, the mud bears some rather large paw prints...

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh. No. No no no.

The prints don't look quite like creasia prints, and the wood doesn't smell at all like Groth, but she knows Wrong when she smells it. Seriously? A whole Journey-Through-The-Sea-Between-Worlds and here she is, managing to strand herself in a dark poisonous (?) wood, following a mysterious trail, stalked by huge predators. Tollee doesn't even feel stupid; the universe is just shamelessly fucking with her at this point. 

She stubbornly plows on through the soil beside the path. Weird dark magic and poison she can handle, but whatever left those paw prints? Alone? Ha, ha. No. She'll take her chances with this forest until forced otherwise.

Permalink Mark Unread

The path is now definitely heading uphill and so it really shouldn't be this damp still.

Somehow it is.

Oh, and that tree? That ominously swaying, creaking tree? It's following her.

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She studiously ignores it.

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It is clearly not the only mobile tree in the woods. There's one over there, too. And over there.

In fact, they appear to be encircling her - although none are crossing the path. 

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Tollee looks at the trees, which seem to be forming some sort of guard around her. She looks at the raised path.

Well. Big predators or no, since it appears her life (or whatever these trees want) is now forfeit anyway, she now has nothing to lose by taking the path. She leaps up.

The clop-clop of her ascent up the path is resolutely steady. Adrenaline makes the trees stand out ever sharper.

Permalink Mark Unread

The trees seem reluctant to get too near the path.

A little way up the winding boardwalk, another set of vibrations - less careful than hers, possibly deliberately heavy footsteps - suggests someone else, possibly several someones, are coming down the path towards her at a steady human walking pace. They're not in sight yet, but by the time they are, they'll probably have noticed her.

Permalink Mark Unread

Those footsteps definitely sound two-legged and not at all birdlike.

These aren't the circumstances Tollee had pictured, but seeing as how she is currently blockaded by animate trees, she supposes she might as well consider the approaching humans her opportunity. With a start she wonders if she and the humans will reach an agreement by tonight. How will she spend the time until Tuvien gets back? She didn't bother planning for that contingency.

She shakes her head and keeps walking.

Permalink Mark Unread

A few steps later, there is the sound of human voices: "Halt, there's something on the path!"

The sound of humans changing their formation, looking out cautiously.

"The trees seem riled up, too," someone adds. Their advance starts again, much slower than before.

The tops of long-poled scythes come into view before their wielders do; the point person takes a moment to spot Tollee, and another moment to look again, more closely.

"Animal on the path!" she calls out. "Not a known species!"

Permalink Mark Unread

Tuvien's translator chain does work on the humans, too, then  - at least in the incoming direction.

The flat-faced upright mammals are . . . less fearsome than Tollee had imagined, in form, but those curved-pointy sticks and the orderly-cut fabrics spook her in the same way as the hunk of slats from the shore. Alien purpose.

Anyway, they're clearly organized in a militant defense formation. Balls.

"Hi," she calls out, rapidly evaluating her options. No need to risk the full truth immediately in case these peoples' culture is wildly hostile to old Lidian but has forgotten what ferryshaft actually look like. They're not literally attacking right now. She can feel this out.

"My name is Tollee, I'm a tourist from a distant island you've probably never heard of and I mean no harm - just looking for somewhere to stay. You can search my person, I've got nothing dangerous on me," - she nods at the silver chain glinting around her neck - "this is just for translation."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, exciting new kind of person on the path," the point person passes back. "Hi there! You've landed on Shatterspire's private jetty - have you been off the path at all? You might need a bit of decontamination - nothing to worry about, unless you're allergic to light - and I'm assuming it's you who's got the trees excited? I'm Aelea Shatterspire, one of the Gardeners here."

The half-dozen humans are mostly dressed in layered robes in various light shades of green, but the robes are sensibly cut quite high for traipsing through muddy areas. Most of them have light leather armour as one of their layers, but a couple have just a few pieces - a wide leather belt, vambraces and a leather circlet with an inset green gem - and those ones are wielding elaborately carved quarterstaves rather than the various long poles with blades on the end.

There are a few subtle differences from standard human as well - one of them has pointed ears, and another has vivid green eyes and a few prominent veins that look rather greener than human veins ought to.

They are still carefully watching out to the sides of the path, but no longer seem to be particularly threatening in Tollee's direction.

One of them at the back says to another, "Maybe this is what a daeva looks like!"

Permalink Mark Unread

Tollee regrets that she will have to come clean about not being a daeva, due to daevas being presumably around somewhere to object to Tollee's status as one.

"Ah," says Tollee, straining for 'not terribly flat-footed', "The trees. Are you . . . friends with them? They do seem, um, vexed by me, but I have no idea why. No, no problem with light. Hello, Aelea Shatterspire." Nailed it.

Tollee's brain catches up with her. Gardener, of course she's friends with the trees, genius - oh, ancestors, what's decontamination? Well, Aelea doesn't seem to think it's a terrible thing to put someone through. The momentary shock of fear subsides.

A strange wanderer in their territory, and they're so obviously welcoming? Even . . . ready to help? Tollee feels almost guilty, but mostly, again, bewildered.

 

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, but they know not to mess with us. Basically everything in the area is poisonous, wants to eat you, or both. Is your vessel secure down at the jetty - if it's not weirwood, I'm worried it might become something's lunch? And we might need to move it to make sure it's not in the way of the trade ship." Aelea seems to be thinking on her feet, rather than there being a clear policy about unexpected visitors.

"Probably a herald," replies the other rearguard to the one who suggested Tolley might be a daeva. "The stargazers back at the Spire will still love it, though, if we can get it back in one piece."

Permalink Mark Unread

Yeah, that sounds about right.

"I'm not dangerous," she articulates very clearly, "but if you go down to the shore you will find no one, because the people who dropped me off, left already. This translator chain was a gift from someone very powerful, who knows where I am and does not want me hurt. Feel free to verify that, too, to whatever extent you can."

She did not just fuck Tuvien and all of Lidian forever, just to Hail Mary her own stupid plan. She did not.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh, don't mind Menicus, we're not exactly diplomats out here," says Aelea nervously, picking up on the increased aggression. "He's always pessimistic about us making it back from a patrol, but actually this is the most excitement we've had in weeks."

"Can I cast Detect Magic real quick anyway?" asks one of the staff wielders. "I've never heard of a translation chain, I'd love to see if we can, uh, trade for more with whoever did yours?" She was clearly about to say something more like 'make one' but then remembered that people often find you trying to steal their magical secrets to be rude.

"I'm pretty sure - sorry, where are my manners, what pronouns do you use? - anyway, given permission at least twice now," replies Aelea.

The staff wielder steps forwards a little, as if approaching a dangerous wild animal. "I need to be close enough to touch you but won't actually touch you, okay?"

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Tollee blinks. "I'm 'she'. And yeah, go right ahead."

She almost blurts out about how she doesn't understand herself how this thing works, but stops herself.

She scans the party uncertainly. "Mind specifying how I should I refer to you all, then?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Everyone dutifully pipes up with their pronouns; Aelea is 'she', Menicus at the back is 'he', the staff wielder at the front is 'she', there's another 'she' and a 'he' and one 'they'.

The staff wielder at the front transfers her staff into the other hand, and starts performing some kind of vaguely magical gesture with the other; she's tracing out a constellation in the air. "I call on the Phoenix," she incants, "to learn of this item, its power and effect." She ends the series of gestures near the chain.

Permalink Mark Unread

The fine silver-colored chain, just large enough to comfortably encircle Tollee's neck, is very, very good at the precise task of making educated guesses about what whatever people are saying, will mean to its wearer in the wearer's most-frequently-spoken tongue, and vice versa - and that's about it.

It detects new-to-it languages upon first hearing them, and continues storing new structured-memories of each new language up to a certain point, but after that point its concept of each language is totally fixed, and it just blithely translates between them.

It must have a lot of very finely tuned "memories" pertaining to common structures of syntax, semantics - even phonology and to some extent culture - to pull this off, but it doesn't know anything else, and doesn't have any agency or other latent capabilities.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Woah," says the staff wielder, blinking slightly. "I've never seen anything remotely like this; I have no idea how anyone would even start putting together something like that. You'd need, I don't know, Phaleron sponsoring you - it's like a whole library in there, one that writes itself."

"If you're looking for somewhere to stay," says Aelea cautiously, "I'm sure the Spire - that's the Spire of Shattered Art Reforged, or Shatterspire as everyone calls us, up on that hill there - would be very happy to accommodate you, as long as you don't mind curious seers asking all kinds of questions about where you're from and how you came by something like this..."

Permalink Mark Unread

Hm. Tollee nods. ". . . I'm sure I'd have plenty of questions for any seers, too."

Tuvien had explained about money. Tollee had thought it was the most fantastic idea she'd ever heard of, and she sorely regrets - "I don't have anything valuable to trade, but I'd be eager to help out around the - Spire - while I'm there."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, I'm sure that just chatting with the seers will be fine, unless you're planning to stay on long term," replies Aelea. "Most of our duties are quite - precise; it'd take a lot of training for you to be useful.

Okay, Gardeners, I'm calling it here, let's bring Tollee in to the Spire and we'll have to come out and do the rest of the route later."

There are a few good-natured - and very deliberate - groans at that statement, but the formation gets turned around.

"Do you want a pair of us behind you to look out to your rear, or would you rather just follow along?" she asks Tollee; she doesn't want the stranger to feel surrounded, but neither does she want to leave her exposed if she'd rather have a complete escort.

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"I'll stay behind," Tollee says automatically. "Thanks."

She looks ready to follow, and there's a strange new glint in her eye.

Permalink Mark Unread

Aelea registers the glint and doesn't like it; she gestures for the formation to start moving again, and takes up rearguard so she can keep an eye on Tollee (and be the first in harm's way if she has misjudged the situation).

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Tollee takes up the rear, remains by all appearances the honest and docile tourist.

She notices that she sees no disadvantage in -

"These seers you mentioned - " (to Aelea) " - if it's not out of turn for me to ask - what do they, er, see?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, ask away," replies Aelea, "everyone here is used to curiosity. 'Seer' is kind of a technical term - they do have some divination magic, but mostly what they do is - find things out? Most of our research here is Spring, of course, but there's also some Day - less than there used to be, though."

Permalink Mark Unread

". . . What do Spring and Day mean, to you? Maybe this chain is being obfuscatory; Spring and Day are just a season and an angle of the sun, to me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah, you probably have different words for the Realms of Magic? I know the Grendel call them something different. Spring is the magic of life - growth, decay, healing, poison, all that good stuff. Day is more, hmm, logic, cleanliness, purification, facts? We'll be using a little Day magic for the decontamination, we have a special room we've constructed that lets us do it cheaply rather than having to run everything through a ritual on the regular. Much more pleasant, too - Day can be a bit... harsh."

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"Ah.   . . . I'm really not versed in magic under any convention. My people were recently conquered. Our conquerers physically destroyed all our historical records that they could find, and stamped out our practice of teaching children to read - very successfully. I didn't start learning to read until this year. Actually, until a few months ago I didn't know - " she stutters to a halt " - a lot of things."

Tollee forces down a twitching leg, the phantom of an urge to buck and run. Please let Tuvien's bloviating about the relationship between human magic and symbol be basically correct.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh no!" Aelea seems genuinely, heartbrokenly distressed about that. "We will find a way to help your people. Can your friend bring some of us back with you? Our people taught the Imperial Orcs how to read and do magic - we'd be very happy to do the same for you! At least if your people can, like, promise not to be actively hostile to the Empire, I guess. And I think we'd come teach you to read anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

. . .

"My friend could very easily do that. We still have adults who remember how to read and write in our tongue from before the war - it's those younger than fifteen or so who have been forbidden to hear a word about it - but we would be grateful to learn yours, too."  

". . . I actually came here to offer the renewed allyship of the ferryshaft with any humans who would return and help us throw off our conquerors. There were humans on our island, not so many generations ago. We were their prized - steeds - and the beneficiaries of many of their crafts, and - well. My friend and I have made what we could of the histories we found, and ferryshaft seem to have performed other magical functions to the humans, too. We just haven't been able to figure out what they were. I doubt my people would remember how to do any of that, now, but with your help and more time to study the histories - and there are likely other histories we haven't uncovered yet, too, buried all over the island, and we've hardly cracked most of the runes in the ones we have - we might be able to learn how to do those things, again."

"There is a military fortress on our island - extremely secure - that used to be the humans' stronghold. My people used it in the last war, but since, it has been locked, and the key - assuming you know what that is? - has been lost. It would be your exclusive province if we could find the key, or if you could find another way to get in."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh... Virtues, you grow study enough to ride? You would make an awful lot of people extremely happy... I can just see the entire expeditionary strength of Highguard lining up to do whatever you want them to do, so long as you'd send some of your kind as mounts when it was done.

We used to have horses, you see - I don't know if you know what that is, they're a bit like zebra but much sturdier, or oxen but much more fleet of foot. But they died out centuries ago, and the Highborn haven't quite recovered from it since.

Archaeology and the unlocking of strange magical powers, as well as a people eager to learn to read, and a mysterious fortress that needs to be studied to unlock? We might just leave Zenith to the Varushkans and emigrate.

I must get you to the magi, and they will probably want to get you to Anvil, if you can stay that long; then the generals will curse our names as we take half the force they needed for the season's campaigns, but I can't see how anyone could deny you, with such temptations on offer!"

Permalink Mark Unread

Tollee -

- is a little crestfallen (how scrawny do I look?), and supposes she will just have to bulk up, then -

- doesn't sense any insincerity. She feels like she's just run the whole way from Groth to the summer feeding grounds. Thoughts tumble over each other in her head like Volontaro storm clouds, racing to verbalization.

"I . . . express wholehearted enthusiasm for this plan. Are these magi at the - Shatterspire - too? I've never heard of a horse, or a zebra, or an ox. What were they like? Were they intelligent?"

(She decides that this is not the exact particular moment to clarify that she is full-grown, and pretty bulky for a female, and males aren't much bigger. She knows her kind are stronger than they look, and anyway, she's seen the human drawings of ferryshaft carrying humans easily.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, sorry, I suppose this must be a bit much for you, too!

Yes, we have a couple of magi left - they're the politicians, rather than the discoverers. I'm afraid this sounds like you are going to end up dealing with politics...

It's, uh, people argue about how intelligent the horses were; zebra and oxen are animals. Both are hoofed quadrupeds; zebra are black-and-white striped and rather fast and skittish, oxen are large, strong, relatively slow and mostly brown-ish. Neither of them do very well around here, I'm afraid."

The glimmering tower on the higher slopes is intermittently visible through the trees.

Permalink Mark Unread

Tollee eyes the approaching tower with furtive interest.

Politics. So she has a fight. Not a victory, not necessarily a possible victory, but a fight, here. A searing glow of terrible contingency injects her.

She supposes it's no wonder Lidian's former human population preferred ferryshaft, if they were used to being carried around by slow or stupid creatures. Only -

"And the horses, physically?"

She reminds herself that she doesn't actually know what other mounts Lidian's humans had access to, formerly, or whether they came from this place at all. Say -

"And say, what is the name of this place? Whatever nested set of domains it seems appropriate to name to someone from another world. My world is called Lidian - my friend, who is more traveled than me" - understatement, and Tuvien's hardly even been anywhere - "tells me that it is an island, that it is small relative to all the other places he's been. There are political domains within it, but my people are seasonal migrants who don't have any particular name for the territories where we live. Or, at least," - it occurs to her, and she chooses to mention - partly for the benefit of her new possible-allies, impeccably projecting the impression of simply happening to realize a fact - and wincing internally at the who-knows-how-long of this stony-faced not-wheedling ahead - "they haven't called the places we live anything except the Summer and Winter Feeding Grounds as long as I've been alive to listen."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Everyone has their own theory about the horses," replies Aelea cheerfully. "Some say they were just stronger, faster, sleeker oxen; some that they were fully people, and spoke just as we do, and were perhaps more Virtuous; there are some ludicrously over-muscled caricatures that can't be right, and quite a lot of pictures that are clearly bad reconstructions from skeletons, of which we have a few.

You are in the lands of Shatterspire - the Spire of Shattered Art Reforged, to give it its full name - in the region of Tomari, the territory of Redoubt, the nation of Urizen, the Empire known elsewhere as the Casinean or Catazzari Empire.

We don't actually have a name for the whole continent, although we know of several others, nor for the entire world."

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After a few rounds of verbal rehearsal and confirmation, Tollee is confident that her memory has retained all the names. Her eyes flick to the tower ahead with increasing frequency.

"Why name the region of Tomari? Some geographical separation?

The reasons for the rest seem clear to me - the Shatterspire seems more or less the domain of one organization, and 'territory', 'nation', and 'Empire' the chain is translating to me well enough -  those are political."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, don't you have magical boundaries? Region boundaries don't mean all that much, but controlling a region is part of controlling dominion over the territory as a whole. And there used to be a bunch of rituals that targeted regions, but the Halls of Knowledge found out how to make them all target full territories instead."

The tower is made primarily of stone, and mostly white-ish stone at that. The great crystal array near its top seems to move from time to time, although it's still hard to tell exactly what is happening with that at this distance. There's the beginnings of a lower curtain wall just starting to be evident through the trees.

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-

Shit. Tollee has entirely forgotten almost all of the region names and their associated class-valences. 

She somewhat more-than-sheepishly asks for another round of repetition. She resolves to be less stupid with the priceless treasures this time and begins a process of consistent background rehearsal.

(

Shatterspire - Group of people living and working together.

Tomari - Region. Magically drawn somehow.

Redoubt - low-hierarchy political domain.

Urizen - high-hierarchy political domain.

Casinean - (Can it be called Casinea? Whatever.) apex political domain.

)

(Shatterspire - working-people-group. Tomari - magical-region (?). Redoubt - relatively-subservient-political-domain. Urizen - relatively-dominant-political-domain. Casinea...n...apex-political-domain.)

Before she and Tuvien began hardcore studying the ancient telshee and ferryshaft history fragments together, Tollee had no experience memorizing things like this. Everyone in her herd, she'd either known well enough that her mind recalled their name without noticing an effort, or not known well enough that she needed bother learning their name at all. Memorization is, Tollee thinks, a bitch.

(Shatterspire - working-people-group. Tomari - magical-region (?). Redoubt - relatively-subservient-political-domain. Urizen - relatively-dominant-political-domain. Casinea...n(??? no way does she have the conversational normalcy points to ask at this point, she's just gonna have to stay confused about this one for a while)...apex-political-domain.)

It is a couple of minutes before Tollee works up the balls to pry the obvious burning line of inquiry, and she stutters a little bit when she does it. She is no longer paying any attention to the tower.

Permalink Mark Unread

"When y- you say magical region - would you, er, would you amuse yourself to answer a naïve foreigner - what the hell does that mean?"

She can't think of any other way to phrase it. Where do you start? But she realizes the orientation of her state of confusion, relative to a native here, may not have thusly been made obvious.

"Like, what does the magic do? What can you do across the - little magical region boundaries that you can't do across the big ones? What can't you do across them that you can do within them - in, in general? Physically -  not just by convention. Did you say there was some relationship, actually, between convention and physical barriers, here? What?" 

If these questions are social-dissonance-producing in any way, Tollee is, in this moment, utterly insensible to that. Ah, shit -

(Shatterspire - working-people-group - )

Permalink Mark Unread

"So, uh, basically, it's all about ritual - targeting? Uh. I am not equipped to give a lecture on ritual theory. Domicia?" Aelea looks hopefully at one of the staff-wielders.

"Okay, basic ritual targeting. You can target a ritual in - lots of different ways, but two of the most common are - presence, and dominion. If I'm right there in a region, I can cast a region-affecting ritual on that region. If there were any, any more. If I'm in a territory, I can cast a territory-affecting ritual on that territory. If we had nation-affecting rituals that'd work the same way - although actually I think you target those through the egregore - except that might be on the people, not the place - it's complicated, sorry. Oh, and we can cast Empire-affecting rituals on the Empire in the same way, I think - although maybe you have to be in the Imperial Regio for that? I'll get to that later.

You can also cast by dominion. If you want to cast a ritual on a territory, but you're not in that territory, you can cast it on the Senator for the territory, if you've got one - that's targeting by Dominion, rather than Presence.

But you can only have an effective Senator for the territory if the Empire controls enough of the regions in that territory - control enough regions, and we have magical Dominion over the territory as an Empire, and then can delegate that to a Senator, and then people can cast through them.

And then there's the Imperial Regio, which is a specific special place in Casinea, in Anvil - from there you can cast on any territory that the Empire has Dominion over, whether you have the Senator there or not. Or region, I guess, if you had something that targeted a region. But nobody does that any more because it's no more expensive to target the whole territory.

That... probably wasn't a great explanation, sorry. Not only am I not a teacher, I'm barely even a ritualist, I'm mostly a battlemage," Domicia apologises.

Permalink Mark Unread

(Tollee does not miss that apparently it is valid to call it Casinea!)

"Do you know how the regions got there? Expensive? What do you pay with? And why do your - shared symbolic routines - do - what exactly do these targeted ritualsdo to the regions, mostly?" The strangers seem quite happy to answer frank questions frankly so far, so Tollee drops the verbal appeasements. Only, wait, the mage, Domicia, seems to have implied -

"Feel free to leave any of this for your own exposition, if you're planning on one, you said you'd get to something later."

"And - no, I've barged in on your sleeping quarters, essentially, and asked you to make me a bed here, and it's very comfortable! The explanations, I mean. They're - I admittedly don't understand them, but they're much better than nothing and anyway I'm a beggar until I do find out some way to help Shatterspire. I know I'll need to know, to help, but it's still true."

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"I'm sure the stargazers have endless theories about why the boundaries are how they are, but as far as I know they've always been like that; even when we sunk half of Apulus into the sea, it didn't change the region boundary. They do tend to follow rivers and so on, but whether that's the region boundaries causing the geographical features to be like that or the geographical features causing the boundaries - a lot of arguments, not much information," Domicia shrugs.

"Do you - not have rituals? Rituals are a kind of magic that we do with crystal mana, which is generally in short supply. Some of the most popular geographical target rituals are the Rivers - they bring healing or poisonous rain, or clear it up if the opposite's already been cast - mostly for their effects on military campaigns, but I think Life also gets used for disease outbreaks, since Reikos?

I'm sure the magi will attempt to brief you, but frankly we don't have any good teachers of the basics here - we now have some children who are starting to be of age to learn more than just anyone can impart, but that's a fairly recent development."

Aelea smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring fashion. "We don't exactly have anything else to do on the walk back, the trees seem to have settled and nothing else was out of place on our patrol down. It's good to stretch our minds as well as our legs, occasionally." Domicia looks a little exhausted and like she perhaps doesn't quite agree with this statement, but isn't starting an argument.

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The part of Tollee that stores potentially relevant things about peoples' personalities finally finds something to dig into, w.r.t. Domicia-the-weary-mage and Aelea-the-unperturbable-and-peacemaking-or-possibly-just-unusually-high-stamina-leader.

"Ah, well, thank you! I'm not sure I understand yet", (another gargantuan understatement) "but it doesn't seem like a thing that's at all trivial to teach - especially not if you need specialists to teach native children of it." If they're giving her any later chances to talk with people who know this stuff, that might lead to a chain of further and deeper chances to investigate and she'll forego the reputation hit of pressing Domicia for a however-likelier shot at that.

She shuts up and tries to enjoy the rest of the walk. And, on the low, to find any useful clues buried in the appearance of the forest or her new companions' gear. She almost certainly won't actually understand the true meaning of anything she sees, having no context, but it would feel sillier *not* to use the empty time that way.

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The party speeds up a bit once they're no longer trying to talk as well as walk, as it's clear Tollee can keep up.

The forest is rather tangled and swampy, even quite a way up the hill; they do eventually get off the boardwalk and onto a dry, packed dirt road, edged in lumps of white stone which is carved sporadically with a symbol - two horizontal lines, slightly curved, one above the other, with the lower slightly pointed down at one end. There doesn't seem to be much sign of animal life in it, although there are plenty of insects and some of the plants distinctly appear to be more mobile than one might normally expect - especially, the ever-present vines curl and uncurl around things perceptibly.

Most of the gear that the Gardeners are wearing is fairly self-explanatory, it's just light armour and big pole weapons that look like they double as, well, gardening tools; as well as the poles they all have a sturdy machete at their belts. The fancier, lower-coverage armour is a bit weird, but presumably that's magic, as are the long sticks - which have green gems inset in the end, matching the gems on the armour.  Under all that, they're wearing matching green over-robes and beige under-robes, and each also has a beige sash or belt tag with a green design - three stylised horizontal strokes leading into two downstrokes.

As they head towards the Spire, it's clearer that there is a high wall around an extensive compound surrounding the central tower; there is one heavily-reinforced gate in the wall, which has both big double doors and a smaller inset door.

As they approach, there is a low note from the wall, like some kind of brass instrument; Aelea responds with a shout, "Aelea and Gardeners returning early from patrol, friendly stranger accompanying, request decontamination and meeting with the Arbiter."

There is no obvious reply, but after a couple of moments Aelea starts to lead everyone forwards again towards the small door.

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Did they. Build all this.

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Tollee thinks she picks up on - in those plants that seem to curl of their own will - a distinct sense of Doom, or Disease, that would not have been out of place in Groth - not just that they made her remember the same emotions she had been feeling when she saw the Groth plants, but that they actually created the same sense-impression. It could have been just that they smelled the same, or looked the same, except that they definitely weren't Lidian species. 

Tollee wonders if she has a magic-sense. Or, more creepily, if magic somehow invades the senses of its perceivers no matter what that set of senses happens to be, to create a distinct impression of itself regardless.

Yeah, Tollee has no idea about any of the human artifacts - except those green gems, those resemble what she and Tuvien has pretty well figured were magical artifacts in the Lidian drawings. And the symbols! Human magic, symbols are always important. Tollee wonders if perhaps they focus something that shoots from the crystals. That was one hypothesis she and Tuvien had come up with, to explain one weird and fragmented depiction of a human sitting on its strange backward bent knees before a rune and what looked like a radiant crystal.

Tollee looks up as Aelea leads the way through the folding-wall. How. How could the humans build something like this! Those little sharp metal parts are way too small and too regular and too identical to each other, what cut those? Do the humans have some kind of special sense of, and muscle-memory for, perfectly straight lines, or is that magic? And where the hell does metal even come from? And - no, that big different-in-color part of the monumental wall-circle surrounding the folding wall doesn't also swing in, it might look similar but c'mon, it's huge, get a footing, Tollee.

She follows Aelea into the artificial forest that pulses with alien human purpose and cannot exist.

Part of her is wondering if she should have just tried chatting up the walking trees.

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The door leads directly into a deeply unnatural environment. The walls are a pale translucent white stone; everything is spotless and smooth. There are more doors at the end of a short section of this.

"You might want to close your eyes for this bit," Aelea warns her. "The light won't actually blind you - well, it wouldn't if you were human - but it's not very pleasant."

The Gardeners array themselves in the empty white space, not being particularly careful to avoid traipsing mud and leaves into it. Aelea hangs back, ready to close the outside door behind Tollee.

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?????, but Tollee obliges. If she sings a song to herself in her head while she does it, a song that mother ferryshaft sing to comfort their foals, about how if you close your eyes it can almost seem like nothing's different, well, no one will ever know.

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There is a tremendous flash of light, which washes over her almost like a physical force; the places her paws felt wrong in the mud flare very briefly with a burning pain, like something is searing the poison from them; when it has passed, the remnants of mud and leaves fall off as greyish dust.

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Huh. That was. Very bright! And - not so bad. The feeling reminds her of Groth and the plants in a way that has to be magic. Or she could be imagining it. She waits to be told to open her eyes.

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"Okay, we're done now, I hope that wasn't too unpleasant? We have to make sure we don't trail anything indoors, this whole area is quite... intense," Aelea lets her know. "Hopefully someone's here to meet us, otherwise I'll drop you off in the cafeteria with a couple of these reprobates and go and find someone responsible to take over."

She moves forwards and opens the door at the end of the small corridor, which leads out into another baffling white-stone space; there is a distinct lack of windows or anything that would be helpful in orientation. Also, in here, the corridor and doors and ceilings are very wide and high - much larger than the humans actually appear to need... and totally deserted.

"Yeah, let's get you to the canteen and I'll see what is happening," says Aelea, not sounding too surprised about this.

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Tollee has, sometimes, when food was abundant, spent entire days off to herself painstakingly excavating social insect dwellings for fun and catharsis.

Once, she managed to split open a particularly silty nest-rock of groundwasps exactly down the middle. Despite herself, she'd been horrified - not pleasantly horrified at the grotesquerie of ten thousand tiny little groundwasps crawling all over each other in mindless dreadful chaos like she'd expected, but horrified by the sight of the alien: the nest, it turned out, wasn't an empty cavern simply filled with groundwasps like she'd expected. It was like the drained flesh of an animal, arteries and counter-arteries, only more orderly, more clean, and the thousands of groundwasps marching themselves in evenly-spaced little lines through the veins unbotheredly. She'd mulled it over later, not quite of her own accord, what that would be like, to live your entire life knowing nothing but the narrow blind halls your ancestors had built (groundwasps didn't live long enough to do all that in one lifetime, right?) and the guidance of the wasps in front of you. She thought, she could never be quite sure, but she thought she'd seen chambers filled with little white grubs - nurseries - before she'd snapped out of it and jumped into the river to evade the stings. 

Well, it's different when the groundwasps have something you want, and they want something from you.

Tollee shows no hesitation in following Aelea to the "canteen", which evidently means something like watering-place-but-in-a-cavern.

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It does indeed! It's another white stone room, dominated by long tables with cushioned bench seating, which are probably quite comfortable if you happen to be human shaped. Along one side is another table full of covered containers of food, bowls and eating/serving utensils, glasses and jugs of water and juices.

"Uh, I'm not sure if you're going to find it comfortable to sit here," Aelea apologises. "Domicia, will you wait here with our guest while we go and find out what's going on?"

Domicia shrugs in acquiescence and takes a seat. Aelea smiles one more apologetic smile in Tollee's direction and then herds the rest of the unit out down one of the huge corridors.

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Ah. Domicia. The honest one. No nagging questions from Tollee right this second. 

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She drinks everything in. Are there any other people in the canteen?

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There weren't when they came in, but a minute or two later, a tall human with strange green veins - in a rather crumpled set of off-white robes, and with one arm considerably bandaged - stumbles in and immediately goes to the food table, apparently entirely oblivious to Tollee's presence.

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Hm. Green veins is, apparently, within the range of human variation.

Tollee waits unobtrusively. It is, for all her scrappiness, a well-developed skill.

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Then the distracted mage will put together a plateful of noodles and sauce, stumble to an unoccupied table, and start inhaling them as if he hasn't eaten for a week.

Domicia looks kind of nervous. "Normally I'd introduce you, but, uh, we don't bother him, especially when he's like this," she explains, in a quiet voice presumably calculated not to be likely to attract attention.

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"Like this?"

Tollee is such a harmless prospective co-gossiper!

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"Stargazer-y. Squats in his lab for a week and throws things at anyone who tries to bring him food and then if we're lucky he snaps out of it enough to come out and eat something, and if we aren't lucky the ushabti carries him out and the physicks are busy again."

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They need him to eat, but they can't just tell him to and make him obey. How to put it . . .

"He does important work, then?"

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"He thinks he does, anyway. And the Arbiter indulges him. He was very close to the old Arbiter, even went to Anvil with him; I don't think anyone has the heart to do anything but tolerate whatever he wants to do."

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Bingo!

Tollee didn't just think that! For all she knows they have mindreading. She didn't just think that!

"What's his name?" So, so casually!

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"Auralius," she replies.

"I can hear you," the man says between mouthfuls, without looking up or notably slowing down. "I'm not deaf. Or stupid. Despite appearances."

Domicia winces.

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FUCK.

Well, Tollee didn't say anything anti-Auralius, that she remembers.

"Hi, Auralius," she says without missing a beat. "I'm Tollee, I'm from not-Chesinea, I may be staying here for a while, and I'm looking for someone to tell me random arbitrary facts about magic in exchange for me doing whatever work a ferryshaft, of which I am one, can best do. Any chance you like this deal?"

She can smell smoke rising from her brain, she's pretty sure.

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"You," he says, "should be careful what you wish for.

When I am finished with this bowl of noodles I am going to ask you so many questions; I expect I will intersperse them with random arbitrary facts about magic if that's what will secure your cooperation."

Domicia does not look at all happy about this situation. Not least because it's not clear that Auralius has slept for a week either, and he has a disturbingly manic look around the eyes.

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"Deal."

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Domicia is pretty sure that Auralius should not, in fact, be making deals with strange creatures in this state, especially not when they make facial expressions like that about it, but also she's not exactly about to stop him; there's a reason she's not one of the magi and today has been Firmly Above Her Pay Grade.

Hopefully Aelea, or whoever she dredges up, will sort it out. Especially if who she dredges up is Auralius' wife, the one person who can kind of talk sense into him occasionally.

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Auralius finishes his meal extremely quickly; generally this would have been inadvisable after starving for a week, but he seems to cope with it just fine.

"I'm sure you've given this to someone already or you wouldn't be here, but quick summary of who you are, where you came from, your intentions? The colour green is often associated with the Spring realm because of its predominance in plants and appearance in Briars."

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"I'm from Lidian, that's an island you can reach from here through the Sea Between Worlds, we have various intelligent species, some history with humans but they're gone now, and I'm - I'm looking for opportunities for my species to exchange advantages with humans such that both peoples benefit." That - really doesn't sound like enough - 

"Er, my sincere apologies to both of you, but, Domicia, he's not on a lower clearance level or something, right, I can tell him what I told the patrolling party?"

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Domicia just about holds back a disbelieving laugh, although it's somewhat evident on her face. "He outranks basically everyone who isn't the Arbiter and I'm not even sure about that, tell him whatever you feel like."

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"What are your species' advantages, and how do you reach the Sea Between Worlds? The Summer realm is not all warm, nor is the Winter realm all cold; for instance, the icy mountains of Cathan Canae's domain are of Summer."

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Tollee should have seen this coming ah well even though she didn't evaluate this far ahead before making her decision it's still worth it

but what to do, what to say

well, Auralius didn't swear her to tell everything she knew, just to answer his questions

"The humans used to ride us, we're smart and fast and able to handle difficult terrain although not as well as a cliff sheep, and I think we helped with hunting, too.

My friend brought me here, we have an allied species that can travel the Sea" - please don't let her be revealing this too early and to the exact wrong person - "but we ourselves don't accompany them, ever, really, my being here is wildly out of the ordinary and for all I know this is the first time any member of my species has ever left Lidian.

To answer your question about my purpose here, my people have been in a state of subjugation under another species for the last few generations - puppet leader, yearly population culls, enforced illiteracy and ignorance - and I'm offering our help on behalf of us to whoever wants to help us re-attain independence."

What did he say? Summer Realm not all cold, Winter not all warm, she'll remember that, that's strange. And before that, Spring green. Got it.

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"Your allied species are amenable to transport a military expedition back to aid you? What size and other limitations on the force? Also amenable to return them back here, along with those of your people who wish to come? Bright Lantern of Ophis is a Day ritual of magnitude six which reveals magical properties of an item in greater detail than Detect Magic. It does not detail curses, for that you need the Winter ritual Wisdom of the Balanced Blade."

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"They're big but not optimized for transport, the one who brought me here thinks he could take me and three humans at once. He may be able to secure help after our first trip back to Lidian but there are no guarantees. The trip here took" - nearly half a moon cycle but don't give them anything that might help them find you, not yet - "a decent amount of time, but I was in an induced coma for most of it, which saved on the cost of bringing and finding food and fresh water. Tuvien would happily return anyone who wants to return here, and so would anyone he could find to help him."

Magnitude. Magical properties of an item. Detect Magic, that's what they used on her before. Winter <-> curses. Winter <-> curses. Items have magical properties. Magnitude six. Magnitudes give you rituals which let you detect an item's magical properties. Winter <-> curses.

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"So you are recruiting for an elite squad of three heroes over the season to assess the situation, aid in diplomacy for additional capacity, and possibly make initial rescue attempts for specific time sensitive issues - possibly followed by small group quests to resolve the situation, in return for the opportunity to recruit ferryshaft? Or over multiple seasons? What is your estimate on possible numbers of ferryshaft available if this resolves positively? What is the timescale on needing an initial response?

Boggarts are a kind of minor realm creature. Examples include Night aligned lizards which eat mana, Day parrots which eat information - most readily books, Spring ambulatory poison vines, Summer fanatical soldier goblins, Winter lean wolves which eat anything but preferentially living flesh, Autumn mechanical spiders which report specific information back to their originators."

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Tollee suddenly feels very small and stupid. Hide it. She can't just say 'we didn't think that far ahead because we were kids, one of which had nothing to live for, desperately concocting a Hail Mary scheme we didn't actually expect to work.' This is generations of Tollee's people. Suddenly she feels the horrible weight of what she's gambling with and it's choking, it's too much, but - it's still an obvious right choice, right, even if it takes years, if the humans think it might be worth it to them, it's worth it.

"We're leaving that up to you. It shouldn't take a season for the three heroes, or whoever wants to come, to make a round trip - just a moon cycle, or at least it took me half a moon cycle to get here. My honest estimate of the number of ferryshaft who will want to come is" - her heart beats in her throat, she wasn't expecting humans to want ferryshaft to come here, she'd been thinking of Lidian as home and it hadn't occurred to her - stupid - well, take the size of the herd, a thousand plus or minus a hundred, she guesses a fifth or thereabouts will be disadvantaged youngsters, and say a third of those willing - "enough to saturate the transportation chokepoint even if my friend gets lots of willing help, and we reproduce quickly without the culls or predation - a six-year generation time." At least that's really not a problem. Surprisingly.

"There are no particular pressing events that demand action, just the ongoing subjugation and culls. They happen at the start of winter, and it was late summer when I left. But - time can be strange in the Sea, and my friend has never made a round trip from Lidian to here before. Which could advantage us or dis-. I will check the moon tonight to see if it's in line with what it would have been had I stayed on Lidian for the last should-have-been half-moon-cycle . . . I don't expect it to correspond exactly, or to be off by more than a few days. You can't see it in the Sea, there's always mist. No day or night either. My friend was going by a timekeeping device."

Auralius probably just said something about magic.

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"You can summon your friend when you want? Any location constraints? Blood of the Hydra is a magnitude two Spring ritual that can regrow lost body parts, although it is often ineffective on old wounds or appendages other than limbs."

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"My friend and I have an agreed-upon rendezvous location and time; in the meantime I have no way to contact him." Blood of the Hydra, magnitude Two, Spring <-> body part regeneration (!!!). Winter <-> curses. Blood of the Hydra, Spring ritual, magnitude Two, body part regeneration (!!!) . . .

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"What I am attempting to determine is not how to ambush your rendezvous, but whether you have time to wait for the Equinox, travel to Anvil, and recruit the very best people for the job there, taking a month or two, or whether we need to take you to the Court of the White Fountain to find some people who can be spared, taking a week or two, or whether we need to send you whoever we have lying around here, which we could probably dispatch within the day assuming whatever the current emergency is no longer needs all hands.

Please give me a useful answer to when and where your rendezvous is on this basis.

Piercing Light of Revelation is a Day ritual which can open a night pouch at the second magnitude or be cast at double the strength of a shroud to tear it down."

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"It's in a couple of days less than a month, on the coast within a small part of a day's walk from here." It's in exactly a month, but she finds it difficult to imagine shorting them on available time hurting anybody. Them not speaking Lidian, she can even warn Tuvien to pretend he was late if relations with the humans of (Shatterspire <- Redoubt <- Urizen) haven't warmed up enough by then for her to have given up the lie.

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"Right, then we can't get to Anvil but should send it out over the Heliopticon. Do you have a preference between staying here and heading to the Court of the White Fountain which is a larger fortification which is also easier for people to reach? If we've got a couple of weeks at least one trade ship should be back by then and we can travel the sensible way.

Do you consider artisanry to be covered by your understanding of the word 'magic'? Iridescent gloaming is prepared from gloaming butterflies, and required as a material component of Call Winged Messenger, to prepare the message that this Autumn ritual sends to the named recipient in the specified location."

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"Your - trade ships - can travel the Sea Between Worlds? Have you - do you know of people who have been to Lidian?" I must be telling them something they don't already know. "I'll happily accept any knowledge you perceive as decently valuable to a ferryshaft. You guys - humans in general, really, but mages in particular - seem to be drowning in it." And now Tollee is drowning herself, but a storm in this context is a lot better than a drought.

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"The sea between worlds is the actual sea and Liaden is an island somewhere?

That would make it a lot easier, we have a trading fleet - it's mostly coastal these days but it's been out on the open ocean before.

Alas for the Empire we do not have a fleet capable of carrying an entire army, because the Grendel keep sinking them, but we can put together numerous trading fleets who can probably bring you more military units than you would actually like.

I recommend we send word around by the Heliopticon and assemble an initial force in the Court of the White Fountain, then meet your friend with a single vessel containing a small military unit and a suitable set of heroes in case we need to transfer to them, with others standing by to follow if it transpires they can be followed.

There are unlikely to be more than half a dozen military units and suitable vessels available on this notice, as those who are not fighting in Zenith have gone to raid an island of slave traders elsewhere, but if we can prove the concept then a considerable force should be available next season.

Uh, Foam and Spittle of the Furious Sea is a Spring ritual that causes a great storm to rise up and damage ships on a particular stretch of coastal waters."

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"Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you said earlier." holy ancestors this is embarrassing "It's not, to my understanding, a regular sea, which is why I was surprised. Lidian does physically take the shape of an island but my friend and I don't understand it to be reachable from here by the sea travel of those other than his species. I think you were actually talking about reaching the - Court of the White Fountain - by whatever a trade ship is. And to answer your earlier question, I have no preference for staying here, and I have no reason to doubt your presumed belief that the Court of the White Fountain would be advantageous to make preparations - even under the unfortunate circumstance that we can't actually get a non-tiny number of people across the Sea at once."

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"Although. The image of some human machine, meeting Tuvien - er, that's my friend, I don't know if I said - " can hardly hurt in the face of revealing telshee Sea travel, right " - does give me an idea.   . . . There were drawings of Tuvien's species next to human machines, in the water - and the humans could clearly see Tuvien's kind.   . . . And I remember Tuvien saying something - probably repeating something he heard - about 'leading humans' around. I thought it was just a metaphorical brag on his culture's part, but now I realize that's probably how humans ever got to Lidian. Tuvien's proposed method of travel would be prohibitive in most possible historical scenarios, as well as this one.

If you would be willing to take a small ship, to start with, if they come in small, and try to follow Tuvien when he enters the mist - then I would ride that ship and leave space on Tuvien for an extra person, to show that I really expect it to maybe work."

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"How small is small? I was expecting to send an ocean trade ship, crew of around thirty and space for fifty Sentinels in the empty hold if they're trained for close quarters. The White Fountain probably have some smaller patrol boats, if that's too much, but we don't generally rig anything smaller for the open ocean.

Let's draft a heliopticon message. First attempt: 'Unknown species from unknown island discovered, opportunity for anti slavery action, report within two weeks to the Court of the White Fountain, require diplomat-mages, tactician-architects, sentinels, sailors'.

A Circlet of Falling Snow is a magical item that requires no magical materials and two months to construct; it requires personal mana to operate and produces a sense of calm and clarity in any situation."

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"I'd be loath to lead an entire large crew to their deaths or vanishments, is all.

Define 'anti slavery action'? The translator is unfortunately not helping.

. . . If you'll take this question, is personal mana also obtainable without starting magical materials? Is it generally present in intelligent beings, and if so, is there a way to measure it? Three questions, I guess." It wasn't part of the deal, but Tollee has to start asking somebody questions at some point. She was hoping for a quiet apprenticeship, an opportunity to do chores in exchange for sporadic or relevant tutoring, but that's not looking likely.

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"Oh, if that's all, then we can simply explain the danger and anyone who still joins the expedition has decided to take the risk.

You claimed your people were in 'a state of subjugation' that involved culls and enforced illiteracy - if that doesn't round off to 'slavery' to you then we can use more words about it. 'rescue from conquerers who enforce illiteracy'? Everyone feels very strongly about slavery but everyone in the nation also cares about literacy, so that should work as well for the purpose.

Most people can develop personal mana if they try hard enough - it's a matter of study and doing the exercises. This applies to every speaking creature we know of that has the attention span, so I don't see why it shouldn't apply to ferryshaft. Once you have access to it, you can tell how much you have, and it can be improved with practice."

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She's still curious what slavery is but not urgently enough to bother busy mages about it.

The news about personal mana is GREAT! Obviously human crafts confer at least as much advantage to them as their magical arts, but ferryshaft don't have human crafting paws. They can, apparently, have personal mana, though! Which corroborates the history fragments. She wonders how far her ancestors got before whatever happened to the ancient humans, happened.

"That phrasing sounds perfectly fine to me.

What does one study?"

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"There are a number of casting metaphors that let you tap into the fundamental nature of reality. Let's head up to the Heliopticon tower and I can start giving you an overview on the way."

He stands up from the table with considerable energy for someone who probably hasn't slept for a week, and strides quickly towards the doorway - at which point he is interrupted by a cry of "Daddy!" and a very fast moving small child.

The small child is followed by a short woman, accompanying Aelea back to the canteen. She rolls her eyes fondly at Auralius. "Shouldn't you be asleep, rather than bothering our guest?"

"Important Heliopticon message to send, we need to get ready to turn around the first returning trade ship immediately for transport to the Court of the White Fountain." While talking, he sweeps the little girl up in the air and turns her upside down, causing much delighted shrieking.

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Tollee will note Aelea's passing, watch the human baby acrobatics from a safe distance (they probably know what they're doing, right?), and hope she isn't messing up Auralius's life too much.

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"Uh-huh," says the short woman. "Can our guest convey that to me, while you get some rest, before you inevitably rush off to deal with whatever this is?"

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"Who's a good girl, is it you, are you a good girl?" He swings the child up and down once more then deposits her very gently back on the ground. "Tollee, recite the message? Marilla is right as usual, I should rest."

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"New species, new location, they're being subjugated, we need - yeah, sorry, I didn't know half the words you said, to remember them, let alone the way you said it all, if that was important."

Am I going to be instrumental in delivering it? she does not ask, because that would sound plaintive.

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"Marilla. Urgent broadcast heliopticon message."

Marilla smiles wryly and takes out a notepad and pen.

"'Unknown species from unknown island discovered, rescue from conquerors who enforce illiteracy, report within two weeks to the Court of the White Fountain, require diplomat-mages, tactician-architects, sentinels, sailors'." he recites. "Unless you have a better plan, wake me when the first trade ship returns."

And with that, he carefully deposits the small child back with Marilla and strides purposefully off towards the other exit to the canteen, the way he came in.

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Tollee eyes Marilla silently, alert for a cue. Presumably she's supposed to stay here?

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"Don't mind him," Marilla advises the alert-looking creature - person? Herald? "I suppose we had better send this, and I'm afraid you've got to explain what's going on yet again, which you've probably already done at least twice. Consider it practice for when you're explaining it to whoever assembles at the White Fountain for your expedition?"

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"Okay.

I'm a species called ferryshaft, which is native to a magical island - at least an island you can only reach by magical transport - called Lidian, and which species to my knowledge hasn't ever gone anywhere else. Except literally me, I think.

I'm here because - there used to be humans on Lidian, a lot of them, and we were their primary allies there, as far as my research partner and I were able to figure from old half-eroded cave paintings and stone tablets; they taught us to read and write and lent us some of their craft, and in return we carried them on our backs, presumably faster than they could go themselves.

At some point all human-made records just stop, like they left suddenly without leaving explanation. The chances of their disappearance having been voluntary and, uh, frankly, nonfatal, don't look good, but that was a hundred and a half years ago at least and I don't know of anyone living who remembers the reason. There are other sapient species who could have been the cause. One of them, the creasia - they strike me as very capable of it." (This coldly.) "The creasia - big cats, at least half again my weight and often twice - we lost a war with them, a few generations before I was born, and their idea of a treaty was that we stand by and allow their death clutters to kill several tens of us a year, and that the adults among us keep strictly silent the arts of reading and writing, as well as anything true and meaningful about our herd's history, and in return they allow us to continue existing.

I was hoping that if ferryshaft are in fact useful to humans, then maybe whoever lived here would be interested in setting aside whatever happened to the last ones, and helping us turn into creatures that could be worthy allies to humans once again."

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"...yes, I can see why that had him excited. Let's send off your message, then maybe we can sit down and compose a pamphlet to hand out, so you don't have to repeat that twenty more times? We've got a small printing press and should be able to run off enough copies for interested parties at the citadel."

Marilla starts heading through the corridors, glancing at Tollee as if she expects her to be following. Shortly thereafter, there is a tightly wound set of spiral stairs.

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Tollee Concentrates going up (down?) the set of spiral stairs, but ferryshaft are climbing animals and she gets it done.

"What's a printing press? It can copy messages? Like - in written form?" That sounds - better than magic, actually? If Tollee hasn't vastly underestimated what magic does for the humans. Actually, she doesn't see the disadvantage in just asking. "Do you think you'd be worse off if magic disappeared, or if that disappeared?"

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"Magic, but we are the nation that uses magic for pretty much everything; if you asked a Leaguer it'd be a closer run thing. Although they'd probably claim they could just reinvent it."

The stairs go up the Big Tower and there are quite a few of them; the small child who was attempting valiantly to tag along is scooped up by Aelea as she starts to lag behind.

"We'd just go back to having ushabti write them out, which isn't as efficient but would work fine for us."

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"Ushabti?"

Tollee, too, is starting to get exhausted - on the inside, for all that she is worth not on the out.

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Marilla pauses on a small landing to catch her breath a bit. "Sorry, it's quite a step up! Ushabti are non-sentient magical constructs that can do things for us - if you'd been in the canteen much longer you'd probably have seen one replacing some of the dishes. They only work in high magic areas, though."

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"How common are high magic areas? You can't ride any of the ushabti very far?"

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"Not all that common - although it's possible they might expand with our national boundaries, we haven't had the chance to find out for a while.

Most ushabti are too weak to carry a person - they can carry babies, but even small children is getting a bit demanding. Some people have the knack of making them solid enough for essentially powered wheelchairs, but I don't think I've heard anyone managing to make one that will climb stairs carrying someone, much less carrying people over rough ground. They're quite delicate - people occasionally manage to build a few that hold up better, but generally the secrets are lost shortly thereafter..."

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Hm. Secrets.

Tollee makes a little noise of acknowledgement.

Internally she wonders if they'll be to the top soon, and prepares to keep climbing.

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Eventually the top of the tower is reached!

This is a rather... interesting room. It's still in the monotonous white marble with green highlights, but there are huge windows with white-painted wooden shutters, one of which open, giving a lovely view across an awful lot of dense, poisonous-looking jungle; nearer the Spire there are some cleared fields and vineyards, surrounded by high, solid white-painted fences with soot on the outer face and a burnt area beyond.

It also has a giant glowing crystal in the middle, and a bewildering array of gleaming mithril mirrors and smaller glowing crystals. There is a bored-looking beige-robed human with a few patches of green scales on his face and yellow, slitted eyes like a snake, sitting on a chair next to it, by a writing table; he looks up guiltily when they arrive and tries to hide the very elaborate doodle he's been doing on the stack of notepaper.

"I'm just going to start up a calibration sequence so that someone's definitely ready to receive," says Marilla, essentially ignoring the resident technician and heading to a set of switches that turns out to control the shutters, which all fold open, leaving the space really quite exposed - at least it's not much of a windy day...

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Not ignoring resident technicians, Tollee decides while Marilla's busy, is going to be her new specialty. Unsure how much of an explanation is appropriate given the military nature of this operation, she nods at him and utters a quick "Hi, I'm Tollee." Then, "I've never been to the top of one of these things before; what do you do, generally?"

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The technician glances over at Marilla, but she's not frantically miming instructions to not talk to the obvious herald she's brought up with her, so he answers. "Send and recieve messages - sssomeone has to be up here at all timesss in case someone wants to sssend us something." He also turns out to have fangs and a slight lisp.

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Her shoulders raise and her hair stands on end betore she thinks to check whether he also smells dead.

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He does not smell dead! He barely smells at all, he's very clean and mostly smells of mildly floral soap. 

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Now she notices his eyes aren't lishty-green and luminescent, either, and the fangs aren't the right shape, and he doesn't look dead.

" - sorry - if you're not in fact a lishty - you looked a bit like one for a second, my home has no other things that look like one, and they're nasty. Usually trying to bite you and turn you into one of them, and all that." Having to give even that much info chafes and worries her, but her reaction sort of turned it into a necessity.

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He seems strangely unperturbed by Tollee's threatening behaviour. "What's a lissshty? Soundsss like some kind of Varushkan monster, they do that kind of thing. People around here look like all sorts of thingsss, you really can't judge by appearancesss."

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She looks at Marilla pleadingly - might as well make it explicit. "How much can I say?"

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Marilla looks confused, as she starts paying attention again on hearing her name. "Whatever you want to say? We don't have any inconvenient guests at the moment, everyone you'll meet here is a Spire member."