tushanshu_logs | catchall, early November

Entry tags:

catchall, early November

Characters: Raine Sage and OPEN
Date: first week of November mostly, some flex if necessary
Location: various around Keeliai, including her suite (Tu-Gai)
Situation: also various, mostly involving catching people up to the situation as it stands and seeking possibilities for dealing with things under the shell.
Warnings/Rating: violence/gore in Anton's thread; probably all-over discussions of mind control etc.

While the suspicion of someone willingly working with Malicant is something that never quite leaves her mind, for the most part Raine's of the opinion that dispersing information can only help right now. Not via the network, of course, but she spends much of the first week of November seeking out people she knows to catch them up to how bad things are, to make sure the vision Wan and Valdis had gets shared out, and to see if anyone has any helpful input at all. She's done about as much as she can within her own head; now it's time to get outside points of view.

When she's not busy doing that, she can mostly be found in the Earth sector, either at her suite, which she hasn't made a significant effort to hide, or in one of the assorted nearby parks, running through artes over and over in an effort to improve her casting time and focus or simply swinging her staff in the most basic of forms.

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"There is little to be done to be prepared against such an attack," said Anton. He'd been as prepared as he could be without contravening the rules of his own Hotel, without being antagonistic to people who had not yet proven themselves inside the Hotel. Even ejecting the ones who had, technically, done nothing left a bitter taste in his mouth and the tightness of the gist in his chest.

This wasn't what he'd built the Hotel for, to be used in war. It was meant to be a sanctuary.

He finished with the weapons and moved over to help Raine with the bits and pieces. Ryder was still in the kitchen, taking his time. Good. The less he had to see, the better, and Anton suspected the turtle knew both his foster parents felt that way. "You said you came to see me for a reason, Raine? Is something unexpectedly amiss?"

As opposed to all the expected untoward occurrences.

She let the issue of preparations or lack thereof slide with a brief inclination of her head, and kept at the pieces. Even after Anton asked outright, Raine was quiet a little longer, because as necessary as the topic was it still wasn't one she much liked. "Solomon Wreath," she said finally, and exhaled. "He thinks, and I can't disagree, that there's a high probability of the enemy compromising his will. In the interest of preventing pointless death, the possibility of crafting manacles with sigils to bind magic was raised."

It was a little more difficult than she'd expected, maintaining something like emotional detachment in laying out the relevant parts of the problem. "He does know I'm asking your help," Raine added. "Suggested it, in fact."

That was surprising. It was so surprising, in fact, that Anton stopped and turned to look at Raine with it written all over his face. "He asked to have his magic bound? Himself, willingly?"

No sorcerer asked for that. Some, true, stopped using magic and allowed its influence to fade so they might live mortal lives with loved ones, but no one asked for it to be bound--not even people like Ghastly, forced into a magical existence through curse or natural-born magic, used chains to bind it away. Anton would never have imagined it of a necromancer--they simply weren't humble enough to consider their magic might be harmful.

Raine blinked back at him, paused with remains still in one hand. That level of response was atypical from Anton, and she was sure now that there was more to the idea of binding magic than just what Solomon had said. Something cultural? Regardless of what exactly, what he'd asked of her clearly carried more significance than she'd realized. "Yes," she said, and, "I've missed something that would be obvious to someone from your world, haven't I." In a moment she kept moving, rather than linger over the pieces.

"Perhaps," said Anton with a frown, "or perhaps I have misjudged Wreath, though I wouldn't have thought it likely. Our first meeting left very little to misjudge." Then again, surprises abounded and even someone as experienced as Anton met them every now and then. After a moment he returned to the same task.

"There is a great divide between sorcerers and those without magic--mortals. Some would claim there isn't, but even most of those who view mortals fondly see them as people to be protected rather than equals." Corrival Deuce was one of them. Among the greatest men Anton knew, and among the least condescending men Anton had ever known, yet he saw the power of magic as a tool to be used from the shadows in mortals' defence. He didn't believe they could handle the truth.

"The effects of magical longevity fade when a sorcerer stops using magic. Some make that choice willingly, but they are few. For most sorcerers, the application of actively binding chains deny them a vital sense of identity while reducing them to an inferior class of person." Anton glanced over at Raine. "Necromancers seek immortality, and they define themselves by their magic even more than most sorcerers. It is ... surprising ... that Wreath would willingly give up the only thing which currently lengthens his lifespan."

Surprising now began to sound like an understatement. It explained, perhaps, some of his reaction to her intent to look for another solution. Raine took her time answering, mentally slotting the pieces into the larger picture as she did so. A sort of separation between those who could and could not use magic was not unexpected, she supposed, and while Solomon's opinion on the Temple itself might have changed, the idea of death as something to be fought rather than accepted probably had not. That request really did mean much more than she'd grasped initially, didn't it.

"I... think I understand. But the alternative, more likely than not, involves killing everyone here," Raine said at length. "And letting the enemy win is not acceptable. In this context, it may be the only reasonable option currently available." It made sense, given how fragile their situation was, and exactly how much damage Solomon could cause if unchecked. Not something chosen lightly, but all that could be chosen.

"I wasn't aware Wreath was quite so powerful as to pose such a risk." Not nearly the risk that Skulduggery posed, surely--even though Wreath was the one who replaced the skeleton's ribs, Anton had thought that was more a matter of experience than pure power. Certainly necromancy had the potential to be a hazard in this particular circumstance, Malicant being from the death-plane, as Anton recalled. Perhaps Wreath was worried that connection might make him more susceptible to Malicant's influence even without being tainted.

But Anton certainly wouldn't have thought Wreath would care overly much about saving the lives of others, either. The necromancers who joined the war had done so out of survival; when they protected Serpine, it had been to further their agenda. Still, perhaps this qualified as prudence--there certainly wouldn't be much left if Wreath did manage to murder half the turtle.

Anton picked up the last of the remains in his area and straightened up, testing his hand in the air to see how badly it still trembled. Not badly, but still visibly. "He is requesting a set of magic-binding manacles, then? For indefinite use, or temporary?"

The full scope of his abilities was definitely not something to go into now. "Enough of one," Raine said simply, and collected what little of the cultists now remained. When everything that couldn't be handled by mop and bucket was bagged she turned to Anton again. Her mouth thinned a little to note the still-evident tremble, but she moved past it for now. Especially if it was simple exhaustion, there wasn't much she could do. "Most likely indefinite. What's the specific difference in construction?"

As much as she wanted this to be a temporary matter, if the manacles saw use at all, with the complication of the addiction problem that was almost sure to resurface in one way or another it was safer, more practical, to assume no known end date.

"If they're only temporary then I could put the sigils on woven bracelets," Anton explained. "They could be bought from the kedan and amended. For long-term use something sturdier in construction would be more appropriate. Given the dearth of metals I may have to forge them myself, if I can find the means to do so." It wasn't likely at all the kedan would create metal armbands of any sort, but Anton did have a few odds and ends left over from the war he could smelt. They wouldn't be pretty--he was no blacksmith--but they would be serviceable. "Ryder?"

"I'm here!" Ryder exited the kitchen at a waddle, the mop balanced on his neck in front of his shell and bucket in his mouth.

"Please wet the floor for me while Raine and I finish with these," said Anton, handing Raine the bag and moving to pick up the weapons. He nodded at her. "I have an incinerator in the kitchen." It didn't look like an incinerator, because he kept the door locked and hidden, but there was no other way to eliminate the Hotel's waste without leaving traces of its presence in the mortal world.

Raine hefted the bag carefully and trailed Anton toward the kitchen, managing a quick smile and a thought of thanks at Ryder in passing. He was trying hard, and doing admirably in hard times.

"Unfortunately, we can't count on a short time frame. There are... complications." That was the most on that matter she'd say; Anton didn't need the details of exactly what was going wrong and why. "That said, woven bracelets or the like may be a good stopgap measure, if forging them is a particularly difficult proposition, but metal will be the safer option." Raine disliked nearly everything she was saying, especially with the added context, and she wasn't managing to step back quite as much as she usually could, but they'd discussed this. It was, for now, necessary.

It would have been a lie to say that Anton wasn't curious, but he recognised the way Raine danced around the details and didn't press. "I have some old materials from the war," he said instead. "Including a gauntlet we once used in the field of battle and some old manacles. The manacles may be too old to be of much use but the gauntlet is enchanted and should still be in good condition."

He wouldn't ordinarily sacrifice it to such a cause, but Dante had been generous in his giving and Anton suspected the Gilgamesh set would be of far greater use. It was either Larrikin's gauntlet or Anton's, and Anton was less attached to his own. Besides which, he suspected that there was more to the request than Raine passing on a commission Wreath didn't have the stones to make himself.

"I didn't realise you and he knew each other so well," Anton observed quietly as he put down the weapons on the counter and unlocked the incinerator door. It was a furnace, really, but it would run more than hot enough to melt the steel of the cultists' weapons.

"We've been collaborating on some projects." Which said very little about the actual depth of their relationship. Raine hesitated over the more specific details, not wholly certain how to phrase it. Finally she added, "And I've come to care for him, more than I anticipated. We're... seeing each other." She was reasonably sure Anton wouldn't pry, if she'd chosen not to elaborate, but in this case she found she wanted the emotional attachment made clear.

Raine studied the tainted weapons rather than anything else, wondering about the wisdom of saving one to experiment on or with. Risky to keep around, but if she could learn something about the taint from it... no. Not with the situation as fragile as it was. She could track one down later if the taint persisted. "Will you need any assistance, and will the task be much trouble?"

I wasn't aware necromancers were capable of forming long-lasting relationships, either, was on the tip of Anton's tongue, but in light of that revelation he chose not to say it. Or at least not phrase it in such a way, though for a moment he wasn't sure how to phrase it in any manner that wasn't prying.

"Not so much," he said instead to answer her question, taking the bag of remains and throwing them into the furnace. "I may need the resources of Stark Industries for the forge, and I will need Wreath's measures about the arms, but that should be all, I think." Anton turned to the weapons, and glanced at Raine, and hesitated for just a moment.

"I realise this is not entirely my business," he said finally, but with as much gentleness as he could find, "and I will drop the subject if you feel I am overstepping my bounds; but I am not certain it is wise for you to court a necromancer. They are not generally trustworthy people, Raine."

It was not quite amusing, how each man had now tried to warn her about the perils of trusting the other. "It isn't," Raine said, but proceeded anyway, because while it was no one else's business really, Anton's opinion did matter to her and she was sure this came from a position of care, rather than judgment. "I don't know necromancers, Anton. Only Solomon."

If she had a gald coin for every time she'd told Genis some variation on 'we're not like them, we're different,' she'd have been able to finance Luin's reconstruction herself. Replace 'necromancer' with 'half-elf' and she might have heard Anton's words in any city, in either world, and it didn't quite sit well. But he didn't have that context for her, just as she didn't have his for necromancers, and Raine shoved down the instinctive defensiveness in favor of elaborating. "He is, perhaps, the first person here I trusted completely. Necromancy or not, he's a good man. I'm certain of that much."

She trusted him. Claimed he was a good man. That was what Anton feared. Necromancers were known to be manipulative, though it was usually only something that worked on the young and ignorant, those who didn't know what necromancers did. Anyone here qualified.

But Anton also wouldn't have expected any necromancer to give up their magic to save the lives of others. They wouldn't have even considered it. And if Raine's presence was what caused Wreath's changes of heart, then Anton couldn't well deny that their courtship might be of benefit in more ways than one.

"Then I will hope you're given no reason to doubt that trust," Anton said, picked up the weapons and tossing them into the furnace, and closing and locking the door. "Step back. I don't know what effects the taint will have on the fire." He did so himself, moving to the sigils which control temperature and activating them to the highest degree.

Heat built and flames roared. The Hotel shuddered in its foundation and Anton thought he saw darkness in the window, blackness sliding along the lines of wards. They never penetrated the furnace door. Still, Anton thought it would be safer to leave the furnace closed for a little while, to give things time to settle.

The time to doubt Solomon, Raine thought wryly, was rather long past, probably somewhere around the time he'd briefly killed her. This, however, did not bear mentioning right now. "Thank you," she said instead, recognizing the sentiment for what it was, and stepped back, away from the furnace.

It was rather more a dramatic reaction than she'd expected, and that in itself said something about the taint. She watched the furnace door with a little concern, but when the door held and nothing more untoward happened, Raine relaxed again, turning toward the kitchen door. "There was one other thing," she said, and stopped, debating whether she actually wanted to trouble Anton with this as well. She'd taken careful notes, after all, and a damaged key crest wouldn't do anything to her instantly, and she'd gotten along fine so far. If something did happen, she could cope with it then. "Ah... no, never mind. Shall we see how Ryder's handling things?"

"We shall," said Anton, since his hands had stopped shaking now and he ought to be able to handle a mop. More to the point, he would have to; before the bloodstains sank in. He moved toward the lobby again, and glanced over his shoulder. "If it is too personal a subject, there is no need to tell me," he said, "but don't feel the need to withhold in an attempt not to burden me."

And that, improbably, made Raine laugh, just a little, despite the gravity of their current task. That was exactly what she'd been doing. Not a single one of her friends here could let her simply sweep things away, and she appreciated it anew almost every time it happened. "Very well," she said, following him back toward the lobby. With no Lloyd, Anton was the best choice for this, and a backup plan really was wise.

"It's personal now, but in my world it wouldn't have been. I wear a... an item that has the potential to malfunction fatally if damaged. Not instantly -- it would take weeks if not months were it damaged to that point -- but eventually. Enough has gone wrong recently that leaving details with someone who may be able to repair it or improvise a replacement may be prudent. Just in case."

Ryder was still in the lobby, mop in his beak while he tried to wipe it along the sudded floor and failing because he couldn't get an appropriate angle. Anton smiled a bit and went to take the mop from him, and the turtle grunted his indignation but gave up the mop, glaring down at the water on the floorboards.

"What sort of item?" Anton asked, wringing out the mop in the bucket and starting on Ryder's task with the brisk efficiency of practice. "Depending upon the type of item, I may not be able to repair it, but if it runs along sigil-work or forging, I ought to be able to jury-rig something."

"The most pertinent part is somewhat like sigil-work, I think." In the absence of a second mop Raine skirted the majority of the water on the floor and went to Ryder, offering head rubs and a distraction from the annoyance of water where it shouldn't be. "I can show you, in a minute. It's in two parts, a crystal -- called an exsphere -- and the metal in which it's set, the key crest. For the latter, inhibitor ore is refined by dwarven techniques and engraved in specific patterns, at least some of which come from the angelic language. One of my students was well versed in the technique, but it was something of a family secret, and in any case I believe it requires a certain degree of precision."

A pause, as she noted that she'd provided form but not function. If jury-rigging did become necessary, he'd need both. "The function of the key crest is to prevent the exsphere from consuming my mana while allowing the beneficial effects to remain. If it ceases to function, the resulting imbalance will become unpleasant." Mindful of Ryder's presence now, Raine held off specifically mentioning her possible death.

"Enochian?" Anton asked as he worked. Nothing he'd ever read had given Enochian any credence as a magical language--in fact, if he recalled, it had been invented by a sorcerer as a prank on mortals. There were some magical books which mortals claimed used it, but most of those were sigils which had been appropriated and adapted.

Possibly what Raine called the angelic language was simply sigils in another world, however. "If it relies upon a magical language, I ought to be able to help," said Anton, "though unless you have a dictionary for this angelic language, in the event it isn't analogous to sigils, it would be safer for me to create a magical inhibitor from scratch."

He couldn't join together two different magical languages without knowing how to read one of them.

"Enochian?" Raine repeated, curious, but shook her head. "No, it's simply angelic. It's possible it was called something else, before the creation of the Church-- perhaps it was corrupted from the dwarves, actually, given their ties to Cruxis..." She trailed off then, lost in her own thoughts, contemplating the origins of the language.

In a minute or two she dragged her focus back to the conversation she'd been having, resolving to think on it further later. "I could teach angelic ordinarily -- much of the grammatical construction isn't too far removed from the common tongue -- but I'm not convinced it would help, as the key crest is only partially in that language. Either an exact reproduction of the original or something new, from scratch, would be safest, most likely."

"It's what the angelic language is called in my world," Anton explained. "A false language, but still given credence by those who know no better; and some of its letters were taken from sigils, so there is some element of truth in them."

From that description they sounded similar--the premise of Enochian, and the main reason why it was known to be false, was because it copied the English grammatical rules and alphabet too cleanly. English, itself a meandering bastardisation of words and rules, still wasn't a universal language in that respect.

"If you can translate the original text, I will see about a recreation," said Anton. "It will be more work, but if the crest is at all damaged better a recreation than accidentally mistaking a line or letter."

"A surprisingly apt parallel, then." Consistently fascinating, the places and ways in which those turned up. "When and why was it created, do you know?"

A side question, though, and in a moment Raine nodded. "I'll compile everything I can on the topic for you. As I said, it's more than likely the matter will never come up. However, in the absence of an exsphere expert, or another healer who can use Boltzman's artes, it's still a precaution I honestly should have taken a while ago. Thank you."

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catchall, early November

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