odd little alucine

[affodell]

It's never previously occurred to Cayra to put a door across an alucine boundary, but now that she's encountered it in practice it makes sense. It makes it visually obvious and it lets you lock it if you want. This door wasn't locked, and it looked like it led to a public bathroom, not a bar, from the signage, so she's still confused. Still, it's a good idea. She twists open the glass vial pendant around her neck and bends her head to the little blue lily inside to make a note of it; as an afterthought she tries to send it off to her antheomancer-chatcircle, anything to have a decent conversation, but it doesn't go. Her flower doesn't look wilting, but she can put it back in the garden and get a fresher one for the vial later. At least her personal files look okay. She closes up the vial again, giving the flower a touch of antheomancy for its health, and finds a bathroom inside the bar that dominates this little alucine.

And then she emerges into the bar. It doesn't seem to be staffed. Or stocked. Why wasn't it locked?

Hello, anybody here?

with Flynn (ErinFlight)

with Harry (andaisq)

Due to some icon rearrangement errors, some of Flynn's tags appear with an incorrect icon. The correct face for this thread is Rosario Dawson's.

Comments

[affodell]

Cayra takes her hand and goes back up to the portal. "Be shy," she tells it, and then she leads Flynn in.

[erinflight]

Flynn swipes a hand across her eyes, "I guess... I guess that went okay."

[affodell]

"I don't know what you're comparing it to."

[erinflight]

"Ray didn't completely panic, so hopefully they'll use the seeds. I'm glad I was able to tell him. We've been friends since I was three years old."

[affodell]

Nod.

[erinflight]

"Do you want to go back home or back to Milliways?"

[affodell]

"I want to make sure going back to Milliways works. And talk to Bar some more, but I can do that later if it does work to just use the portal."

And, yep, there's the woods, there's the back of Milliways, when she leans out the portal. Works fine.

"Okay, home, and I can get you a knowflower and you can work on the local language so you'll be able to understand people when I'm not around and on the speakflower network."

[erinflight]

"Sounds good."

[affodell]

So they go back to the alucine that led Cayra to the bar in the first place. "Follow me and be shy," Cayra tells the remaining portals, and she leads Flynn to the nearest flowerpatch. There's a section of it designated for take-a-flower-leave-a-flower; Cayra puts her current speakflower there, digs up and envials a new one, and digs up a (green) knowflower. "I'll get you a vial," she tells Flynn. There is a store with such vials down the street; Cayra buys one and puts the knowflower in it and hands it over.

[erinflight]

"Thank you," Flynn says, staring at the flower through the glass, "How do I use it?"

[affodell]

"Take it out of the vial, you've seen me unscrew mine -" Cayra demonstrates again. "And then think about what you want to know. The local language is Radial, the 'mancy with the best-bet vice is lithomancy."

[erinflight]

Flynn takes out the flower and twirls it between her fingers, "What's lithomancy do?"

[affodell]

"Protections. It means stone magic, but if you want to do literal stone magic you want geomancy; lithomancy's about wards."

[erinflight]

"What's lithomancy's vice?"

[affodell]

"Calmness. Exactly how this pans out depends heavily on the person - and what other vices they're balancing - but it's probably the best avenue for counteracting your vice with a 'mancy one, the others are all longer shots - and you can't be particularly destructive with it even if you blindsided me somehow."

[erinflight]

"I'll start working on it. I hope weaving hasn't messed with my ability to learn."

[affodell]

"Me too."

[erinflight]

Flynn settles down to begin learning lithomancy.
Cayra sees how to give Flynn permission to learn lithomancy, use lithomancy, or learn and use all 'mancies.

[affodell]

Learn it, yes - for the time being. There will be enough evidence of the trend the vice is taking soon to reevaluate.

[erinflight]

Flynn begins. She is slower than average, but not outside the normal range. As she studies, faint threads become visible around the flower. They do not interfere, but are simply present.
Cayra sees Flynn begin to, very gradually, lose her empathy.

[affodell]

Cayra stops her. "That's - not helping."

[erinflight]

"What do you mean?"

[affodell]

"There are threads - they don't seem to be doing anything, or presumably I would have had the chance to stop you, but they're there, and your - empathy is fading away, which lithomancy does not do by itself."

[erinflight]

"Fuck!" Flynn hits the ground with a closed fist several times then springs up, shoving the flower vial in Cayra's general direction.

[affodell]

Cayra takes it and puts it around her necklace. "So it's not just doing weaving that gets the vice like you thought."