[open] december will be magic again

[kingsroads]

Who: everyone!
When: the evening of D15
Where: A small meeting hall on the moon, close to the portal to the carnival
What: a whole bunch of show-offs meet up to show off their magic, people interested in magic come to learn about said magic, and other people show up to see if something inevitably gets set on fire. (aka mage club)
Warnings: none so far, will edit if needed.

The meeting hall is a large open space, with hardwood floors and a rustic decor. A few chairs and tables are scattered around, though there aren't enough for the amount of people who'll hopefully show up. Some food has been set out: mostly finger foods (tiny sandwiches, fruit, veggies & dip) though there are some savory options and plenty of home-baked cookies, courtesy of Rin. Drink wise, there's water, hot chocolate, hot tea, and a few bottles of wine because tipsy magic sounds like an awesome idea and this is what happens when the alcoholic makes the dinner menu. Aside from the food table and the few tables, there's not much of anything in the room: plenty of open space for showing off or getting out of the way of someone who wants to show off.

One of the doors of the meeting hall leads to the outside. There's a wider, 'backyard' sort of area with plenty of room for people to cast magic as large and impressive as they want. A fire pit stands outside also for warming your hands and other fire-based magic. Please don't set the building on fire.

This is all very informal. If pressed for details, Strange would have told anyone to just come whenever, stay as long as you like, and so on and so forth. The emphasis is on learning about each other's magic, displaying one's skills and talents, and helping anyone who wished to learn magic decide on a path for them to take.

Showing off is just a given.

( ooc: This is an open mingle log! Feel free to make your own top-levels & tag around! )

Comments

[criticallyfucked]

The fact that Syr doesn't fight him about his disinterest in healing arts would have made Foster suspicious were it not for the follow-up; something concrete, something tangible. Something... that sounds like exactly what he's thinking of.

"Blood magic?"

Just the name causes Foster to perk up immediately. Rather visibly, in fact--his ears lift, eyes bright with surprise and interest.

"I know blood," he says--not dismissively, but with fervour, with intensity, with passion. Blood is the core of his magical structures, the dark, deep pool in which his frame of reference must always anchor. Blood is what he knows.

Curses--

He hadn't thought of casting anything as a curse, had all but forgotten curses existed, so marginal were they to his awareness. But they exist where he's from. They exist, and suddenly he feels pieces fitting together, one or two of numerous, a picture though still incomplete.

But they fit. He himself was born with a curse--a curse no will could have undone. A curse of flesh, of rot, of disease. A curse not of magic, but of fate. A cursed fate. What better cast to his magic, after death, than a curse?

[chronosynthesis]

So there are further similarities. That's good--that should make it all the more viable to practice, shouldn't it?

Syrlya smiles, clearly pleased they've made progress in that regard--although he suspects not as pleased as Foster is.

"What is the nature of blood magic for you?" He hopes, fairly comparable to Tyria. How many variations of 'drip blood and chant' can there be?

[criticallyfucked]

The nature of blood magic. The nature of blood magic.

The nature of--

"The nature of blood magic is the nature of blood." Foster doesn't understand how this is even a question. "Inside everything is blood. Not just the body, the ocean, the world, reality is filled with blood. It is the beginning and the end. There is no truth without blood. It is made to be shed, to spill as you are--you are born in blood, live in blood, die in blood...!" As he grows increasingly impassioned, he advances progressively--his breath coming shorter, his attention paid to things like 'swallowing' coming less and less.

He is more than simply aware of blood--he is absorbed by it, bathed in it. He knows Syr bleeds; he's seen it, knows the plant man spills not in red but in gold, like Ginko--an unforgivable change to that which is too essential to be forgotten, to be ignored... though Syr's blood (unlike Ginko's) may be his native form, Foster can't stomach the idea of blood that runs so sluggishly, so reluctantly from the body.

[chronosynthesis]

Well, Syrlya does live in a lot of blood. But he's pretty sure he's an outlier, and that is not how average civilians live. He lets Foster rave without interruption, but his expression becomes slowly blanker and less connected as it goes on. Briefly, he regrets asking.

"Right," there's no point pedantically arguing 'everything is blood' (he's pretty sure rocks don't have blood) so he's just going to brush right past that. Foster's just very passionate about his weird hobbies, sure, he can roll with that. "But what does your blood magic do?"

The spells, Foster. He's asking about the spells.

[criticallyfucked]

There is no point in arguing with him about any of it. There are a hundred arguments that Foster has to refute any point Syr could raise, and more. Some of them make more sense than others, and none of them give insight into what he's talking about.

It's really very generous of Syr to call it a 'hobby.'

"Oh!" His face clears immediately--why didn't you just say that, honestly. "It's... mmmm. Blood is the essence, the vital element basic to the act of being--both the essence of the body and the being which inhabits that body. It is by that power that blood can be used to control it."

It's a weird hybrid of textual readings and quasi-coherent ideology, but the idea's there. If Syr can find it.

"Do you understand? Blood is not the soul, but the will outside of it."

Foster doesn't care even a little bit about souls, save for as a tool to produce a certain result. But as the flesh is bonded to the soul, the soul can be bonded back to it.

[chronosynthesis]

"I..." he furrows his brow thoughtfully. He's making an honest effort to understand, at least, but Syrlya's magic is functionally far removed. He doesn't work with the physically reality.

This is necromancy, though, and control is a different form there. "So blood magic is what you use to create and control your minions?" He gestures, unsure if that is the term he even uses. "Your constructs, the--the corpses."

[criticallyfucked]

"You can just call them bodies."

Blunt a brick to the face, but it took an act of actual willpower for Foster not to laugh at the word 'minions' and ask how old Syrlya is. While nowhere near as offensive as 'zombie,' it's such an old-fashioned term that most of the people who use words like that are basically someone's grandparent. Given how gratingly polite Syr is, it's...

Well. Anyway.

"Blood... blood is used to create them and to me bond them." He isn't sure how to articulate the next part--technically, controlling them what he has raised or animated is simply an act of will. It is the bond of blood that makes that possible, but no further blood is required for it.

Whether that's blood magic or not, Foster doesn't know. He... actually hates theory and academics, so he never bothered to look further into it. He makes eye contact; the light in them is bright, but his expression is peculiarly flat, like he's expecting something.

"Is that sufficient?"

[chronosynthesis]

Minions is the common term that Syrlya knows, but different worlds mean everything gets a little lost in translation, he's finding. Like the level difference between Foster's undead and those he knows, but that's not a contrast he's considering.

"I believe so?" His tone is no more assuring--he's really not the necromancy expert here, he's just trying to find where the best point of start probably is for Foster. "I don't believe minion making and blood magic is precisely the same in Tyria, but that doesn't mean the methods are not similar."

He pauses, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Although I believe these is less blood involved in the former. It's life energy, perhaps? Still, it sounds like you have the right method, you simply need to learn a new set of spells related to it."

[criticallyfucked]

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Every time this nymph says 'minion,' Foster increasingly feels like he's talking to someone's grandfather. He gives up on trying to get Syr to stop, though.

"Life energy," he rasps back, echoing the phrase with some mockery--it's a concise term and easily applied, but one that rings false to his sensibilities. It pretends to be a solution, sounds like a complete answer, but leaves out half the formula. Equal to life in any equation must be death--otherwise you're just wasting time.

"Mmmmm." He doesn't disguise his frustration behind that tone. Syrlya isn't wrong. He knows there's more--that there must be more to where he's been going, but he's been stalled and distracted.

Stupid. Lazy. Right when he needs to carve his loyalties in blood.