chalk

[alicornucopia]

In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.

In unison, they complete their shared spell.

~~~

with Adarin (Aestrix)

with Ekador (kappa)

with Brilliance (kappa)

with the admin (kappa)

with Teah (kappa)

with Katran (lambda)

with Hall (kappa)

with Joy (kappa)

with Kalinda (Christy Hotwater)

Comments

[ending_of]

"Mage potential is the type of magic conditional on a near-death experience? No," she says. "This form of restoration - colloquially called 'torching' - acts strictly as a last resort. A dead unactivated mage who subsequently encounters the conditions of their activation will activate. And," she adds, "since it seems much more convenient that way, the restoration will not deactivate them."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, people would be annoyed if they had to reactivate their maging all the time, they get really attached to it. I assume lights and sorcerers annnnd merfolk have those colorists and shamans, they're also covered?"

[ending_of]

"Yes. Mages are a special case because the active or inactive state of their powers is determined by a specific trigger event rather than developing naturally regardless of environmental stimulus, or being a species-wide learnable magic like the two kinds unique to merfolk. 'Lights' is obvious, but are 'sorcerers' the innate magical ability to remotely manipulate objects, or the species-specific information-gathering power?"

[alicornucopia]

"Sorcerers are the remote manipulator thing. I'm not sure what you're talking about for the other one. Which species? What information-gathering?"

[ending_of]

"The species with limited shapechange between a humanoid form and one resembling a bat. Some members have a magical ability to receive information from nearby nonliving objects, presented in the form of audible speech."

[alicornucopia]

"Thaaaaat was widely considered a mental illness. This is. Interesting."

[ending_of]

"I wonder if I have any more disconcerting revelations available. It is not obvious to me which facts about your world are widely known and which are not."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, I dunno where to start summarizing. Am I missing any other forms of magic people have? Channeling capacities, mages lights sorcerers, colorists shamans... the vampire kind... dragon magic for dragons and enough to shift with for near descendants, shifting for vampires, aaaand wolfrider mindlinks?"

[ending_of]

"Wolfrider mindlinks are an interesting case. I have stored pairs together, and the unpaired infants each with the potential match who died soonest after them, starting from the beginning. There is one female unpaired rider left over at the moment."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, the pairs are going to need to wake up at the exact same time, and I think the ones who aren't paired yet need to have some... thing... done to pair them off so they'll need to wait till somebody's going to do that for them, I guess."

[ending_of]

"I will arrange for the unpaired infants to be woken only with another woken or living pair present; that seems easiest. Your world has a remarkable diversity of aware life."

[alicornucopia]

"Yyyyyes. I know. You probably have more than enough information to figure out the weird little secret of why."

[ending_of]

"...Interesting," she says. "Yes. I had not paid such close attention until now. - In which case, you may be interested to know that there is a new such species in the world, only somewhat less than two years old. They appear to inhabit a group of variously sized islands close to this continent and near the edge of the world."

[alicornucopia]

"...That was not known either. Somebody is going to be in big trouble. Council decided a few tens of thousands of years ago that leonines were it, that we had enough species running around, and hasn't reversed that. What're they crossed with?"

[ending_of]

"They are small and furred, with four short limbs. A type of rodent, I believe."

[alicornucopia]

"Great. Somebody really really liked some rodent and their kids got established and now the Taavlas Isles are full of... something. Somebody is in trouble."

[ending_of]

"Is it really so troublesome?"

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't - although rodents, I'm sort of worried they'll overrun the planet - but it's very embarrassing."

[ending_of]

"Your planet is much more in danger of being overrun by its own dead. You will need to branch out to new ones eventually, if they return in sufficient numbers rather than taking up residence in my domain."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, we have the bottom of the planet and the moon for starters and after that I guess we can get the unique white-group a teleportation license and send him hunting for new planets."

[ending_of]

"It's possible that space in my domain could be made available if you run out of suitable areas here. There is no reason why I need limit myself to one infinite plane of inhabited land. But you might find the lack of access to wizardry inconvenient."

[alicornucopia]

"Extremely," agrees Kaylo. "Over any prolonged period of time, anyway. Maybe you'd get hypocrite Erubian colonists willing to interact with magic on a one-time basis to get away from it forever?"

[ending_of]

"Perhaps."

[alicornucopia]

"Ryganaavlanik may or may not come in that much hypocrite, they'd probably just try to slaughter anyone who asked them anyway." Kaylo snorts. "Maybe if you wake up they'll think they went to a lovely magicless Heaven. This only applies to the ones who died there since the cultural revolution, s'pose..."

[ending_of]

"I usually don't concern myself with the inevitable culture shock of new arrivals. Would you like me to give you the restoration property? It might be convenient not to have to be woken and retrieved after death. Although I suppose I might have to wait until you visit my domain to make the change, because the circle could interfere if I tried it here."