exploratory kidnapping

[alicornucopia]

In this room are two women, one gray and sixty years old, one just thirty and red-haired, both wearing elaborate outfits. The younger casts a spell.

In this room is now also a third person. (On whom the elder woman promptly also casts a spell, which she had at the ready.)

Comments

[alicornucopia]

Ehail nods.

"We'll learn the spell," Jensal tells Matilda. "We'll see you tomorrow?"

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. Bye."

Home she goes.

[alicornucopia]

The next day, Jensal and Ludei are both going around with their dragon magic analyses on continuously so they don't have to reverse and recast the spells.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda collects Jensal and goes to Ludei's house and asks for Ludei and Ehail.

And she says, "I think it would make sense for you two to watch me fix Ehail so you see how it works. But it'll be better if you can watch it through ialdae and not through wizardry. Can you take the analysis off and see if it stuck?"

[alicornucopia]

Ehail teaches them to do the gesture for the spell backwards; Ludei takes his off first to check.

[missnicegirl]

He can still see dragon magic. But after a few ticks he can see it much more clearly, and with a kind of aura of understanding that explains which parts are important for what; and a few ticks after that, he can see ialdae, on himself and Jensal like bonfires and on Matilda like a tiny sun.

"Did it work?" asks Matilda.

[alicornucopia]

"I... believe so, though I presume what I'm seeing on you is not dragon magic," says Ludei.

Ehail helps Jensal undo her spell too.

[missnicegirl]

"No, it's ialdae. I'm not surprised about that," says Matilda. "I think it makes sense that if your ialdae can see any other magic, it can see itself too. Jensal? Are you seeing it?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," Jensal confirms.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay."

She brings them all to the bottom of the world.

"Natural form, please, Ehail. And watch what I'm doing, you two."

[alicornucopia]

Ehail shifts. Jensal and Ludei watch.

[missnicegirl]

"See the hole in her magic? And see what it's pulling on? What I do is I put my ialdae there instead," she does this, "and then the hole in her magic is pulling on my ialdae, but I've got lots and lots and I'm not going to run out so it's okay, and then I tell it to stop going through," she does this, "and it stays in the hole and fills it up with ialdae and the ialdae knows its job is to stay there and keep her alive, so it does that. And now she's fixed."

She looks up at Ludei and Jensal.

"Did that make sense? Do you think you could do it too?"

[alicornucopia]

"I think so," says Jensal; Ludei nods slowly. "I might want to see it again, first," Jensal adds.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. Well, we can go back to Ludei's house and get the next batch and you can watch me fix all those. I usually do it faster than that but it's the same set of steps every time."

[alicornucopia]

They get another batch. Jensal and Ludei watch.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda fixes them all, so fast that each individual shren has less than a split to spray her ialdae everywhere before the holes in their magic fill up and Matilda moves on to the next one.

Some of them catch ialdae. All of them have a little in them now, but a few are generating more.

[alicornucopia]

Jensal and Ludei notice that. Ludei starts a list of who has caught ialdae.

And they find some shrens who are willing to be experimented upon by less experienced curers.

Jensal manages, with less grace but no death; Ludei does the same with the next one.

[missnicegirl]

"Good!" says Matilda. "Okay. Do you think you can fix all the rest?"

[alicornucopia]

"Magically speaking, yes," says Jensal, "but we don't yet have the hang of batch ialdic teleporting."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. It's probably good for you to practice the fixing, though. So I'll bring down the batches and and you can fix them."

Back to Ludei's house they go.

[alicornucopia]

And the rest of Ludei's house is portioned out into batches, and Ludei and Jensal fix them.

[missnicegirl]

"I have time to do the next house, too. I'll bring both of you so you can help," says Matilda.

To the last shren house they go.

[alicornucopia]

And soon there are no more shrens in it.

"There are," says Jensal, "lots of shrens who don't live in houses, because their parents took them home or they moved out as adults, but they'll be harder to assemble in batches. If you've got other demands on your time we can just learn to teleport and handle them in ones and twos ourselves as they trickle in."

[missnicegirl]

"I am doing lots of things," says Matilda. "If you can fix the rest by yourself and don't have to wait for me, then that's good. But I should come back sometimes to see if you need anything and tell you if ialdae learns more things you might want to know about."

[alicornucopia]

"We'd appreciate occasional check-ins," nods Jensal.