tushanshu_logs | EVENT | LANDFALL

"Perhaps. Regrettably, it's difficult to ask them." Nevertheless Raine's gaze flickered from place to place briefly, tracking the faint rustling of animals not quite visible, as if she planned to corner one and interrogate them.

Solomon's movement caught her eye, though, and she watched him instead, recalling what he'd told her about his magic. "Mana isn't quite magic," she said after a moment, driven to correct the inaccuracy. "The potential for it, perhaps. It's necessary for magic to exist, but requires something more, a catalyst, to make the transition. Such as a person, or a mushroom. This place-- it's brimming with possibilities." She fell silent there; trying to explain mana to humans always turned either too technical or too abstract. Sometimes she thought more things might have been avoided if humans could understand it. The war, the death of the Tree...

The old familiar line of thought intersected with her previous ruminations on the nature of the Dreaming in a new way, and she blinked in surprise. Well, why not, after all? On impulse, driven by the excitement of the idea rather than logic, she said aloud, "Solomon. May I try to show you something?" And she extended one hand toward him, as the gesture seemed right.

There wasn't any distinction between magic and mana in Solomon's world, so he turned to listen to the explanation. "We don't have a word for such potential," he said, "though mana exists in my world as a word, so I suppose it ought to suffice. There are many people with the potential for magic who never use it, or are aware of that potential."

The request was startling, but as Raine had not in the past shown Solomon a desire for harm--quite the contrary--Solomon took her hand after only a pause.

Raine did not quite grin, as that was not an expression she was overly given to, but her face lit up as she clasped Solomon's hand. It was instinct she followed rather than any conscious knowledge, to extend not only her mana but also one of the most basic senses she possessed across the point of contact between them. "Here. If this works-- this is what I feel."

Solomon might find his hand warmed slightly, by more than simply the heat of another person. Far more noticeable, however, would be the sense that the world around them had more vibrancy than it had a moment before. As if everything, from the mushrooms to the earth to the animals in the underbrush, was full of a tiny sunrise waiting only for something to nudge it into cresting the horizon.

"This place is rather more exuberant than any at home," Raine added after a few moments, watching Solomon carefully for signs of his reaction, and whether or not her impulsive idea had borne fruit.

It was enough of a warning for Solomon to brace himself, somewhat, although frankly he wasn't entirely sure if that was possible after what he did feel. It was warmth and could have been soothing, except that he was a Necromancer.

It wasn't opposed to the sense he already had--quite--but it was a wellspring of potential in the presence of the same things from whose deaths he would have drawn power. It was enough that it made him feel flushed and cold in equal turns. His magic was cold and calm; what Raine was showing him was warm, blooming. It felt like ... like his body was trying to reject a virus.

Solomon yanked his hand away from Raine's, feeling a touch dizzy. "Exuberant, yes," he managed, blinking. He probably could turn that magical potential to his own ends--but he wasn't certain he wanted to try.

Raine stayed right where she was, conscious as logic caught up with her that pushing mana at the necromancer could have been a bad idea. "My apologies if it startled you," she said, quietly. "Words are often insufficient-- I have never been completely successful in explaining mana to a human." Her tendency to get carried away with magical theory he could likely extrapolate for himself.

'Human'? That was the first time Solomon had had any indication that Raine wasn't. After a moment he answered, "Never mind. It isn't ... dissimilar to the sensation of finding power in death. But it has opposing characteristics and I am afraid it clashed somewhat with my usual magical senses."

He tilted his head, still watching her, this time with curiosity in something else. "If you're not human, what are you?"

She wasn't wholly surprised he described it as opposing -- mana was, after all, essential to life as far as she was concerned. But it hadn't harmed him, either.

His question made her still briefly, in wariness that was more reflexive than conscious. She'd been somewhat careless lately. Overall foreigners on the turtle didn't tend to question a woman in her twenties already white-haired, and she supposed the precedent set by Bakura worked in her favor. Keeliai was worlds away from the fear she'd been raised in, and it was with that in mind that she said aloud, "I'm a half-elf. Some measure of elven blood is usually necessary to perceive mana."

"I see," said Solomon, and fleetingly wondered if that was why she wore her hair down around her ears. "The elves with which I'm familiar haven't been seen in a very long time, and they usually referred to the fey folk--the sídhe."

He managed a brief smile. "Of course, there are those who have claimed that sorcerers, such as myself, are elves ourselves--the older folk, Tuatha Dé Danann, who lived on my nation's land before mortals did. Legend says they agreed to leave our shores to allow mortals room to prosper, and went into their mounds, the sídhe. Since then the word has become, for some, synonymous with both dwelling and people."

A practical woman, often among wounded people, whose hair was unbound and long enough to swing into her face while working-- it'd be a safe assumption for Solomon to make that she had reason to keep it so.

He had her undivided focus the moment he mentioned his own world's version of elves, and Raine couldn't help but make comparisons all the while. "Did they... diminish, so to speak, when they changed their home?" she asked, a moment or two after he stopped. "I think there may be some parallel, which is frankly fascinating. It seems there's many worlds that, despite how disparate they are, share some key concept or paradigm. And is it possible that modern sorcerers are descended from your sídhe?"

"That depends on to whom you speak," Solomon said, "and from which era they come." He smiled slightly and it was a touch bitter. "Ireland is one of the most magical places on Earth, but it has been the target of many hard conversions. Most of our ancient history has been lost. Much of it needs to be picked from embellishments and religious indoctrination, and much of it, again, is magical in nature and thus secret from mortals."

He touched the mushroom again, more for something to do while he organised his thoughts. "Long ago," he began, "the world was ruled by what sorcerers call the Faceless Ones, but which the past Irish called the fomoire. They were gods of chaos and cruelty, giants and titans, who used humanity's ancestors as their slaves and playthings. But there were those among the people who possessed great talents of magic, and they refused to be oppressed."

Solomon glanced sideways at Raine. "These were the Tuatha Dé Danann, what sorcerers call the Ancients. The Faceless Ones had great defences, but the Ancients were cunning. They took the Faceless Ones' greatest weapon and imbued it with their desire for freedom, the most powerful force they had at their disposal, and they used it to drive the Faceless Ones from our plane of existence entirely. But the Ancients fell to squabbling, and used the weapon against one another, until only one was left. When he realised how such power had brought them low he cast the weapon into the earth, where it was swallowed forever."

Or so the tale went, but Solomon and a handful of others knew better. The line of the Ancients lived, and so did the Sceptre. ... Relatively speaking.

"The line of the Ancients was lost after that," Solomon continued, "but as I said, mortal lore says the Tuatha Dé Danann left our shores. Some say they left willingly, which is a possibly interpretation of the legend of the Ancients. Others say they were tricked by the next wave of Ireland's inhabitants into living 'underground', which could well be a euphemism for another plane of existence. Whichever is true, they are gone and have become legend only."

Ah yes. Embellishments, and religious indoctrination. Raine was not unfamiliar with such things, and she did not miss that bitterness.

She listened, and thought, and even when Solomon had clearly done speaking she was silent for some time, mulling it over. There were fewer parallels than she had initially thought there might be, but nevertheless the story he told had some familiarity to it. Not in the details of events, but rather in style, in the way it blurred the line between lore and myth and history, the way there was clearly more to it than Solomon was saying, perhaps simply because there were gaps in his own knowledge.

Raine took a deep breath. Held it for a moment. "Once upon a time," she said, finally, "there was a great tree that was the source of all mana. A war, however, caused this tree to wither away, and a hero's life was sacrificed in order to take its place." Her words had a particular hollow cadence to them, as if they were something learned by rote that she herself did not much care for.

She turned her free hand over, palm up, and gave a small grimace. The measuredness of her speech fell away as she moved on. "That is to say, lost history is something with which I can sympathize. From which era do you come, if I may? And which option do you prefer?"

"I was born in 1591," said Solomon, "at the height of religious indoctrination in my country. Many of our nationals were executed, blackmailed or coerced into beliefs not theirs by an invading party." His father had been one of them. "Of course, it was only a secondary wave. Ireland has been a bed of religious turmoil for many, many years before then. But you mistake me: the story of the Faceless Ones is real. I've seen them. I've fought them. Therefore, I assume there is some element of truth in the variations the mortals tell."

Sorcerers lived for significantly longer than mortals; long enough that their story was purer, more accurate, while still being old enough that most sorcerers believed it was just a story.

Solomon inclined his head thoughtfully. "You don't believe the story you've been told is accurate?"

Raine winced fractionally at his mention of religious indoctrination; it hit a little close to home. "There usually is," she said. "How did they return? ...And what year was it when you were last at home?" As she had nothing resembling a point of reference, and was curious.

And after a moment, she shook her head in response to his last question. "It's not a question of belief any more. The hero of the legend is, was, a fallen hero. There was a tree, and it did wither. The hero who ended the war made no sacrifice, however, but rather ripped the world apart." That was meant entirely literally. "Our history was purposefully obfuscated, our world kept stagnant. One person, that same hero, was ultimately responsible both for the creation of the church and for the Desians-- the organization that mass-produced these." She tapped her chest, where the exsphere sat. "He maintained a cycle of sacrifice and suffering for four thousand years in pursuit of one selfish goal. All, ultimately, because of the death of his sister."

There she stopped, a little startled despite herself at how angry it still made her. The story was a long one, at any rate, and doubtless more than Solomon had reason to be interested in. That much at least should explain why she could sympathize.

"It was 2009," Solomon answered with a slight bow. "I'm nearly four-hundred-and-twenty years old. The Faceless Ones were, are, still worshipped by a fanatical group of sorcerers. A few centuries ago they attempted to take the world by force and failed, but the remnants of their church remained. A small group of them--the most insane and fanatical--were recently able to open a portal and bring three of them through into our dimension."

He rubbed his leg absently. The injury had long since been healed, the pain long since subsided; but even still he sometimes woke up at night remembering that battle and knowing that, when he left Keeliai, he would find himself back in that very moment of combined success and failure. "That was when I was brought here. The injury you healed for me--it was the injury I suffered while attempting to force the last of them back into their dimension."

Solomon absorbed Raine's story quietly, watching the movement of the foliage behind her. "A conqueror, then," he said finally, and smiled bitterly. "That sounds familiar. The King of England was hardly four-thousand years old--but he demanded the worship of his subjects and executed as traitors those who refused."

Before, his tone had been matter-of-fact. Now it was just a touch too bitter to mistake for anything other than personal experience.

He certainly didn't look his age, but that wasn't particularly unusual. He'd also answered the question she hadn't asked, which she appreciated, and she nodded in acknowledgment. "I hope you were, or will be, successful in that endeavor." It had the potential to come off as a platitude, perhaps, but Raine was entirely sincere in that wish, especially in light of lacking anything more practical to offer.

A familiar story, certainly. And so was that bitter hint: she'd heard that sort of personal pain in apparently impersonal narratives before. More than she'd like. "The parallel exists, yes," she said, quietly.

Anything more sympathetic would have to be read from her face, not her words. She rather suspected Solomon might prefer she said nothing anyway, and after a moment she peered around the nearest mushroom deeper into the forest instead.

In turn Solomon appreciated that Raine didn't probe any further than necessary. He followed her gaze and went further with a step, moving through the underbrush. Everything seemed slightly damp, but in true dream-like fashion none of it came off on Solomon.

There was a faint glow in the distance, the glow of luminescence. "Could you draw mana from this place?" And would such mana stay with her as she left, or remain here in the Dreaming?

"To an extent, yes." Raine moved in the same direction, touching the mushrooms absently in passing. "I could gather it, certainly, and manipulate it into an arte. That would be easier here, in part thanks to the abundance, and a significant portion of it feels like light and earth." She could do that nearly anywhere, though. Perhaps he meant 'draw' in a different way?

"But would you have to do so here? Could you store it and take it away with you, or would that require the use of your exsphere?" The sphere was the only thing in the Dreaming that currently felt at all tangible to Solomon's Necromantic senses.

That gave her some pause, but after a little consideration she shook her head. "I'd be loath to experiment with the exsphere without an expert as backup, and in any case they do not easily let go of the mana they have absorbed. For my own part, while I can hold an arte temporarily in stasis before finally casting it..."

Raine trailed off for a moment, caught by a thought. "That might be worth trying, if only to see what happens. Since bending the laws of nature seems to be the order of the day."

"It is a dream," Solomon pointed out, glancing around. He reached out toward a mushroom's shadow and it came to him fairly easily, but when he put his hand on one and focussed upon it, it withered away. "What do you sense from this mushroom as I do this?"

It was a touch fascinating, actually. It felt almost as though he was ... absorbing it, slowly, by proximity. As though it was becoming clearer to his senses just by his being there.

Like a bolt he realised what that was and snatched his hand away, paling a touch. Ah. That's what he'd been doing.

"Exactly," she agreed, and turned her focus also to the mushroom. She'd attend to the matter of a delayed casting when they were finding their way out, but in the mean time, experimentation was afoot.

Mana flowed out of the mushroom toward Solomon, and somewhere in the traversing it seemed simply to vanish, as though consumed. The effect was not unfamiliar, per se, as some older pieces of magitechnology had that effect, but it was no less disquieting for it. "I'd prefer it if you didn't do that again," Raine said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. He'd already flinched back by the time she spoke, and that was a fascinating reaction, too. Did some of his abilities frighten him, or was that simply distaste? She wasn't sure she disagreed with him.

He had asked, though, and she relayed what she sensed, exercising the best detachment she knew how. "Mana transferred toward you, and either was consumed or underwent such a transformation that I could no longer sense it. Some is--" She paused, attention on the mushroom for a moment. "--at least some of the effect seems to be reversing."

"I apologise," Solomon said instantly. He didn't usually believe in apologies, but he was himself unsettled by what he'd done by accident. It hadn't even been an accident, exactly--he'd intended to do what he did, or else it wouldn't have worked; such was Asti's boon. He just hadn't realised it was using the death-aura technique, from a different side.

"Is it?" That was a surprise. Tentatively he touched the mushroom again, but this time he didn't focus on taking, but putting back. There wasn't much of a difference--a faint wave of dizziness, and nothing more; but there was a difference. "And now?"

That really had shaken him, hadn't it. Raine paid careful attention to the state of the mushroom for a little bit longer, finally nodded. "There's no longer a substantial difference from its initial state," she reported. "If there was some kind of loss, it's beyond the precision of my senses. A much better result than can usually be expected from magitechnology." She still didn't look precisely calm, but was at least more settled. "What was that?"

That was ... extremely interesting. Solomon hadn't known that the energy taken by the death-aura could be returned--he doubted anyone knew. Could it do the same for souls? If he took a soul, could he put it back? And if he could ...

A wash of something very close to relief went through him. If he could put souls back, then the death-aura wasn't nearly the damning thing he thought it was. Not something to be dallied with, still--but at least reversible.

Raine's voice made him look at her, and he regarded her for a very long moment. The death-aura was privileged knowledge. As an acolyte, it had been a whimsy of power. As a cleric, he had understood it to be so much more--on a level no other cleric did. That was why he'd kept his knowledge of it secret. Especially with what had happened just after becoming cleric.

But Raine was of steady mind, and this place ... was far more stable than the life-plane. If he could discover things here--maybe it would help him in the other planes too. He didn't want to lose control again.

"It's called the death-aura," he said finally. "It's a technique by which a Necromancer can ... envelop those around them in a bubble and absorb their souls to add to his power." He looked at the mushroom. "I didn't realise it would have the same effect on mana." He gave a short laugh, and it came out partway between incredulous and relieved. "Or that what was taken could be returned."

She hadn't even really thought before asking -- it was, after all, the most natural thing to her, to reach out for explanations in any way possible. It had happened before, of course, that she asked more than someone wanted to answer. That she could recognize, but all the same it felt like there was something more in his silence than she could quite read, and all she could do was wonder.

The moment passed.

By all rights, Raine should probably have been horrified by the technique he described. And she more than likely would be, later, when there was the luxury to consider the implications at length. For now, though, her mind was occupied slotting together the earlier instinctive recoil with the long, considering silence, and the incredulity in his realization. This did frighten him, didn't it.

She sighed, and some of the tension in her shoulders went with the exhalation. "Understandably," she said aloud. "It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would be wise to experiment with often." After a moment more's thought, she inclined her head toward the recovered mushroom. "As unsettling as that movement of mana is, you appear to have done no harm. I don't think you'll get a better opportunity."

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