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Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant and YOU (but specific starters for Captain Amelia, fellow turtle-parents Hawke and Akito, and Monet)
Date: Catch-all for April before the bombings and console crash events
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Various! These will include futzing with unused consoles, discovering the turtle baby, and also intercepting kedan informants. But Skulduggery’s going to be all over the Shell throughout the month, so feel free to chime in with your own.
Warnings/Rating: None for the moment. Well, there’s some lock-picking.

I usually start with prose, but I’ll adapt to any style. If you want a specific starter, PM me at

Amaraq!

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... Definitely a Foreigner. Not a single kedan had been this curious about Skulduggery's state of existence.

"Light magic?" He considered it. There were thousands of different Adept disciplines where he came from, each with two or three different names, but Skulduggery didn't remember anything about a form of magic being light - unless one counted anything that wasn't necromancy. And that would just be silly, since necromancy should have been the discipline asked about, not... everything else. Especially since he was dead.

In the end, he shrugged. "I suppose that depends on what you define as 'light.' I don't think so, but our definitions could be very different, especially since I don't think I have one."

"But you do have magic." That much seemed a given by that point, not to mention the fact he'd only asked about one half of the term. The need to define 'light' was a bit of a new one, but perhaps the stranger's magic simply didn't involve direct manipulation of such elements? "Hm. By light magic, I mean certain healing spells, and the manipulation and direction of elemental mana." She almost reached for her staff, decided against the amplification, and instead simply held her hands before her, concentrating. A circle of white light, full of angular shapes a little like lettering, appeared centered on her position, and her fingertips glowed slightly in response, with a harsher radiance than the circle.

She held it for a moment, then flexed her fingers and shook them out. The circle vanished harmlessly, and the light dissipated shortly after. "For the most part, it's only suited for offense," she added by way of explanation. "Have you never encountered anything of the sort?"

"Of course I have magic." Skulduggery sounded almost offended. That was something else he'd assumed would be a given here, as a talking skeleton on the back of a giant turtle. Apparently, even that could be called into question.

Mana wasn't a term Skulduggery usually connected with magic, but he could appreciate the comparison - particularly when he saw the demonstration. For the first time since sliding out of the meditation, his attention was truly captured, and Skulduggery put a hand on the stone next to him to lean closer and get a better look. "As a matter of fact, I have. I knew a sorcerer once whose magic manifested almost exactly like that." He nodded. "We don't call it light magic. Just healing magic, or... sometimes passive magic, I suppose. Much more defensive than offensive."

There were places, apparently, where people just had no concept of magic. That was alien enough on its own. Assuming talking skeletons absolutely needed magic to exist hadn't seemed like a safe assumption at first.

"Fascinating," she said again, with feeling. "While there are some few healing artes that use light, most are classed in their own division -- there's a fundamental difference in the way the mana is shaped, if it's to heal. Apart from those, it would be reasonable to say that light has the highest destructive capacity of any purely elemental magic, as far as my world is concerned." Explanation thus expanded, Raine peered a little more closely at the other person in the conversation.

Less to do with his state of existence, and more to do with the promise of new ways to think about magic, in this case. "Would you mind elaborating on its uses?" she asked, attention fixed on him.

"On the uses of what?" Skulduggery asked. His tone of voice put one in mind of an eyebrow being raised. "Light magic, healing magic, or magic in general?"

He was teasing a little. He tended to do that. In reality, Skulduggery appreciated a healthy dose of curiosity, particularly in someone who was probably a lot younger than he was - white hair aside. So, after a moment or two had gone by, Skulduggery shifted into a more comfortable position and put his hands on his knees. "For us, elemental magic is quite a bit more literal than that. Elementals, such as myself, can manipulate the four elements - earth, air, fire, and water. It's the quieter path of magic. The other path is called Adept magic, and it encompasses... well, everything else, including the healing magic I mentioned."

A four-element system, then. At least it made more sense than the odd city planning decisions in Keeliai. The division of wood, metal, and earth was still something she wanted to understand the reasonings behind. Another time, though.

The fountain rim might not have been the most comfortable of locations, but that hardly mattered when there were new and fascinating things to be learned. "Everything else," she repeated, brows raised. "That's certainly a broad range. What limits it? And--" The voice of someone who had been around at least five too many mage-caused explosions. "--what makes Adept magic 'louder' than the alternative?"

She'd meant that she was curious about what other passive uses light magic had in his world, apart from the obvious of providing illumination and that which he'd already mentioned about healing, but this was a far more interesting conversational path. She could come back to it later, if he sat still long enough to provide those answers.

"Perhaps 'louder' is the wrong word," Skulduggery mused, tilting his skull towards the fountain water in thought. "I doubt it's limited by anything other than imagination. Adept techniques are more immediately powerful. Depending on the discipline, they can also be much easier to learn. They take less time to master, and they allow one a little more creativity in how they decide to use it."

To a point, at least. Necromancers couldn't shift beyond necromancy if they weren't ambidextrous sorcerers, no matter how hard they closed their eyes and wished.

"In contrast," he went on, "Elementals take centuries to master their magic. It's far more about understanding each of the four elements than it is about... well, being immediately powerful."

"Our systems must be very different indeed, then, despite some superficial similarities," Raine concluded, idly tapping her fingers. "The majority of our magic is encompassed in eight elements, and while true mastery of any craft may take a lifetime, it certainly doesn't take centuries for high levels of proficiency." Her brother was evidence enough of that.

She was quiet for a moment, turning the idea of something over in her head. "If Adept techniques are based in imagination, what prevents an Adept from simply using imagination to produce elemental effects? Is there a fundamental difference between the approaches that would render use of an element without proper understanding pointless or hazardous?"

For all she knew, it might be an incredibly obvious answer, but she'd rarely gotten anywhere by not asking questions.

"It helps that sorcerers have a longer lifespan," Skulduggery said with a nod. "We can easily live to be eight hundred. Mastery isn't quite so terrible in the grand scheme of things."

Eight elements. Skulduggery couldn't quite fathom what they might be. He knew there were schools of thought counting more than four, but it was usually only with one or two extras - wood, or metal, as Keeliai was good enough to demonstrate. In Skulduggery's world, they were both forms of Earth-based magic, an element that by its very nature would always elude control.

Well, unless you were Skulduggery.

"Quite possibly," he answered her. "I'm sure there are people who've tried. But mastering the elements requires an understanding that most Adepts can't achieve, for some reason or other. Some are born already proficient in an Adept discipline and never have the need for anything else. Others don't see a reason to put in the work. It comes down to what you're suited for, more than anything."

It was significantly easier to be certain of your conception of the elements when you'd met the very cranky manifestations thereof.

"Yes, I'd imagine an extended lifespan would help," she said, a little dryly, otherwise taking the number well in stride. His answer to her other query made sense, as well, which was more than she could say for some magical systems. A person's natural inclination would show through, she supposed, something that so far she'd found seemed to hold across multiple worlds.

"Although I have to wonder: do many sorcerers age quite so dramatically, or are you an exception?"

Skulduggery chuckled. Conversations like this inevitably came around to the question of how his existence was possible; the question being put so lightly was certainly a breath of fresh air.

"I'm an exception, fortunately," he admitted. "Most of us stop aging around twenty. Regular use of magic rejuvenates the body, you see. It slows physical aging down. It would have done the same for me, if I hadn't gotten myself killed almost three hundred years ago."

Three hundred years. The realisation of time passing was still enough to put Skulduggery in awe. He barely remembered what it was like, having a beating heart in his chest.

"Ah," she said, for lack of anything else sensible in the moment. It was stranger than she'd like, contemplating that. Mortality or reasonable lack thereof wasn't by any means an uncommon topic to ponder, with the company she'd kept and indeed her own projected lifespan, but sometimes the reminder of exactly how long the years might stretch out hit her with unexpected force.

Raine shook her head at that, annoyed with her lapse in rational judgment. "And now?" she asked. Probably a rude question, though she did wonder if he would simply continue to persist as he was. Hard for a skeleton to age, after all. "No, never mind. Thank you-- your elaboration has been fascinating."

"And now," Skulduggery answered, despite the woman's almost immediate withdrawal of the question, "I'm... not entirely sure. One would think I'm effectively immortal."

He'd certainly tried enough times to be relatively sure of that fact. And he'd tried often enough for questions regarding it not to be conceived as rude.

He unfolded his limbs and stood with the sort of grace only a person with no muscles could achieve, and bowed his head. "Of course. I'm always happy to answer the questions of strangers who interrupt my meditation." If there was a hint of sarcasm in Skulduggery's tone, it was very difficult to find; she hadn't interrupted anything, after all. He extended his hand. "If I might be so bold as to offer you a name, as well, I'm Skulduggery Pleasant."

"My apologies," Raine said, without other preamble, and also stood. Being towered over was rarely enjoyable. "I'm Raine Sage."

A beat, as she tried to decide whether or not that had actually been sarcasm. She didn't think she'd interrupted, at least, except perhaps by staring. "Do you often find curious strangers interrupting you?"

"No," he admitted. "Certainly not here. People seem to prefer keeping their distance and staring." A fact he hardly complained about, although on rare occasions when sentimentality got the better of him, Skulduggery did occasionally miss when people were shocked and tried to punch him.

He tilted his head. "The only other time I've been interrupted, a small pack of goblins nicked my skull. Compared to that, your questions were very welcome."

She stared at him for a few seconds, blankly. "Nicked your skull," she repeated, and shook her head. "I don't even know where to start. Was this more than an inconvenience to you?" It sounded almost casual, when he said it. That raised all sorts of other questions -- she'd have assumed his consciousness was localized to his head like most sentients.

"Well, I couldn't speak for a bit," Skulduggery remembered. "Or see. That was an inconvenience. I needed a little help for a while, and then I won myself a new skull in a game of poker, and there all of my problems ended."

Most of his problems. Most of the important problems. Alright, only some of his problems, but it was the principle of the thing.

"This," he went on with a tap of a finger on the skull he was wearing, "is my original skull. It was a gift from a friend."

"That would be inconvenient," she agreed. An understatement, to say the least. "Your friend is a thoughtful one. I don't know about the goblins, but I can certainly appreciate the effort in tracking down stolen-- objects."

A pause, to consider something. "I take it you had help with the poker game, as well," she added finally, as poker without being able to see the cards sounded like an exercise in futility.

Your friend is a thoughtful one. Thoughtful, Skulduggery agreed, but suicidally brave. Not to mention stubborn as a halfway-intelligent mule.

"I did," he confirmed, amused. "Another good friend of mine. One with a gift for knowing the potential outcomes of certain events. He was a little help, but I did make him promise he'd let me do most of the work."

Raine wasn't sure, exactly, how a headless skeleton would have been able to do most of the work in that situation. "Only a little help?" she repeated, lightly, intending it more as a joke than anything else, though she really was curious about how he'd made that work.

She should also probably do something about her habit of accosting interesting people in the street. "It's been a pleasure," she added. "Unless you've your own questions, though, I should probably go. It's getting late."

It had already been evening when she spotted him, after all, and as much as curiosity drove her, most people would only put up with so much relentless questioning. She was reasonably sure she'd be able to find him again.

"Well, yes," Skulduggery said with an air of confusion, as though he couldn't understand what was so difficult to understand about a headless skeleton playing card games. "He wins at poker by cheating. If we had been caught cheating, I'd never have managed to win a spare head."

Did he have his own questions? Very probably. It was difficult to think of any just then, as Skulduggery was feeling quite a bit calmer after the meditation than he usually did, and the effect tended to stifle his thoughts in their infancy. "By all means," he told her with a nod. "The pleasure was mine. Good evening."

He didn't know precisely where he'd go, but maybe another round of the turtle's circumference was in order.

Raine laughed, a little, at the fact Skulduggery focused on the cheating part, and not any of the parts of the situation more bemusing to average mortals. "Of course," she said, dryly. "Perfectly sensible."

With a brief inclination of her head, she turned to head home. "Good evening to you, as well."

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whoops that took longer than I meant it to, sorry

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