[Closed]

[chronosynthesis]

Who: Syrlya and Strange
When: Day 90
Where: Their trailer
What: Syrlya finishes working out a new portal spell shortly after they leave Eden

Syrlya's injuries are, thankfully, not debilitating. Shamshel left long, nasty iron-claw scars across his chest, but the wound it shallow enough that he's not restricted to rest in the medical tent. The rest of his injuries are even more superficial, so once he has the wounds cleaned and bandaged he's back to the trailer--and back to work. He's down to just his pants for the comfort, which reveals under the bandages the bone-like pattern that's discolored the leaves along his spine and ribs--and a growth of what looks like feathers, dark purple, from his tailbone. He's trying to ignore that.

The mirror's been pulled down from the bathroom again, although this time propped against a bookshelf in the trailer rather than laying on the floor among the papers. He has a short knife he's used to edge runes into the back of it, running along the side, and the glass is now clouded by the swirling, incomplete entrance of a portal. He waits for a minute, and once he assures the stability he grins.

"I've got it!" He says with more enthusiasm than he meets anything else likely, tapping the knife against the side of the mirror.

Comments

[kingsroads]

"Before, I was only limited to one realm. But now...I don't know. My magic and my way of thinking has changed." Strange starts gesturing with his hands as he talks, touching his fingertips together like a web.

"Inside the Silver Mirror, all of Eden's reflections were connected. I want to do that myself, but on a smaller scale. Initially, I was thinking I could use that just for surveillance and communication, but if we somehow connect the web of reflections to your portal, perhaps those are the entrances and exits that we're looking for."

Strange can't help it. There's a little bit of nerdy excitement in his voice as he describes the Silver Mirror and all the ways that he can take what he learned from inside the Mirror, but make it his own.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya snorts, apparently finding some part of that funny. He doesn't elaborate, though.

"Now you're making it sound like unnecessary effort." He rests his chin on his hand. "If you can connect the reflections near you back to the carnival you can easily send people back directly. Trying to go through the reflection to the portal is redundant."

Syrlya, as always, is more concerned with the practical uses than developing magic for the sake of developing magic. This is to save people, not have fun.

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help but narrow his eyes a bit as Syrlya laughs at him. No matter. He knows his suggestion is good, so he'll continue explaining it.

"That all depends on the circumstances," Strange responds, with a frown. "Say for example, you're injured and can't leave the carnival. Then we place you in the carnival, the mirror in whatever realm we're attached to, and I connect the mirrors to the portal that way. Or, God forbid, if someone invades the carnival, then it would be mirrors to portal to outside realm. The biggest flaw of your portal is that it only has one entrance and exit. Trying to prevent that is hardly redundant."

And considering that the last day in Eden involved three different groups in three different places, spreading out the portal's reach seems like the best option in Strange's mind.

[chronosynthesis]

"What I mean is that if you are able to connect the reflections openly and across realms, the extra portal isn't even necessary. Because that--"

He points to the mirror. "Serves as the same stable exit point that you already have by using the mirrors themselves for travel. So if you can expand the travel and portability, then the mirrors cover exactly what we need for a quick escape."

They wouldn't even need his portal. He's not sure his magic is really more accessible for the non-magically inclined, so there's not much of an advantage to that over the mirrors. It could even be Strange's focus since he's no longer needing to fight with the militia, but he has a feeling suggesting that would result in another fit.

He's thinking about it, though.

[kingsroads]

"As I said, I don't know if I'm able to connect the reflections across realms yet," Strange admits. "I don't want to build this around something that might not happen." Before he couldn't. Now, he doesn't know. And until he finds out, it's best to plan and branch off of the thing that can work across realms.

It's obvious he doesn't actually want to admit that he can't do something, but he's powering through with it anyway. When he speaks again, it's Strange trying to force some lightness and levity in his voice, as if that'll help distract Syrlya from the fact that he admitted he can't do something.

"And besides, I don't want to do this by myself anyway. Even if both parties can be an ass, it's always best to do magic in pairs."

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya rubs his face wearily as Strange forces himself to admit to his limit. He stares dully ahead, and it's a second before the next admission registers and he tilts his head back to look at Strange.

He doesn't say anything, but he looks a little more surprised than annoyed. He only looks back for a moment, though, before he puts his attention back on his notes.

"I have been working off my own portal because, aside from being familiar and easier to work with, I can place the second point anywhere. It isn't bound to an object. I don't know what my limits will be when I do not have to maintain the entrance and exit simultaneously."

So there's still a testing period that needs to be done to find the weak points before too much iteration can be done. He glances back, like he's making sure Strange is listening. "You said you could see every reflection while inside the mirror, correct? Could you create a doorway between reflections while still inside of one?"

[kingsroads]

"I couldn't do that while I was in the Silver Mirror. However, the Silver Mirror was a powerful artifact that, to the best of my knowledge, wasn't built to store actual people." Once he pieces it out, Strange will be a little proud of himself that he somehow managed to strongarm an entire fae artifact into doing what he needed.

"I've already figured out how to store living things in regular reflections. Once I piece out a way to transfer the web of reflections onto a normal mirror, I should be able to create a doorway."

He says, despite the fact that this magic hasn't even moved past the hypothetical stage. Still, if there's one thing that Strange does have it's confidence in his abilities and a lot more confidence in his ability to bullshit together a solution should the situation call for it.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya absently taps the pen a few times, mulling the possibilities over in his head. Of course, it's hypothetical until Strange works that aspect of magic out, but he's going to piece out a scenario that involves Strange actually figuring it out.

"That would mean you could not only survey the other carnival members, but directly lead them to the escape portal. We might not even need to anchor the entrance to the reflection, if it would work inside the mirror directly..."

He rubs his chin before starting to write down a couple more lines of things to test. "Any way to bring people to the portal cuts down significantly on the risk of them being picked off while looking for them again."

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help it: he gives Syrlya a wide grin as they continue to talk about the portal. This is what he likes about the man. There's very few people who Strange can talk magic with as intensely nerdy as he does with Syrlya. And yet every conversation they have that doesn't seem to be about magic ends up with the two fighting.

"I'd need to scout out the area beforehand. Ideally, the reflections would have to be a certain size and stability. Puddles or ice are good for quick travel, but I wouldn't trust them to last over a day." Still, this is another 'fight that battle when they check out the terrain' sort of situation. Eden might not have been useful with regards to mirrors, but something like Wismuth or Greysol might be.

"But no matter what, I could still link the reflections together for ease of talking or distributing information."

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya jots down another note about testing minimum sizes of travel, missing Strange's grin entirely as he falls into concentration. He hums absently. "Right. 'Act with wisdom, but act'... hm, perhaps we should also see what it would take to oust you from the mirror. If it is difficult, that may make it safer for you to scout and disseminate information than usual means. It's important that we know enough that we do not act into our own self-destruction."

Although the carnival isn't what comes to mind when he thinks about the importance of knowing enough to act sensibly. Tyria's experiencing far worse consequences for it.

[kingsroads]

As Syrlya mentions what it would take to oust him from the mirror, Strange goes a little quiet. He does need to find out, especially since he knows he'll be going back into mirrors sometime soon. But at the same time, he still doesn't exactly know what happened to him when the Silver Mirror shattered, and if something like that would happen to him again if he was in a regular mirror.

Time for further tests, it seems. Maybe the next place they stop will have some small fuzzy animals that Strange can accidentally murder in the name of exploring magic.

"You quoted something," Strange pointed out, hearing the metaphorical quote marks in Syrlya's voice and slightly shifting the conversation away from potential questions that Strange knows he can't answer. "'Act with wisdom'...is that a common saying in Tyria?"

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya is starting to brood, so it takes him a moment to snap out of his thoughts and realize Strange asked him a question. He blinks rapidly, craning his neck back to look at him. "Oh, that is one of the tenets my people follow from the centaur that nurtured the Pale Tree. Act with wisdom, but act."

So not exactly common to hear unless you're talking to Sylvari.

[kingsroads]

Strange stops looming and actually goes to sit down. He's giving Syrlya a bit of a wide berth, mostly because he keeps setting himself on fire, as he sits down near the other end of the table.

"What are some of the other tenets?"

Most of what Strange knows about Tyria is from various scattered conversations, an in-depth discussion of the world's magic, and their brief foray into Syrlya's past via a storybook. That only gives Strange a surface glance of whatever Pale Tree centaur religion he must follow—and he's curious to learn more.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya raises a brow while Strange sits. He drops the pen and leans back a little in his seat, gaze drifting up as he recalls the verbatim by counting off his fingers. "Live life well and fully, and waste nothing. Do not fear difficulty, for hard ground makes stronger roots. All things have a right to grow. Never leave a wrong to ripen into evil or sorrow. The only lasting peace is the peace within your soul. Act with wisdom, but act. And where life goes, so too should you."

There aren't many, so Syrlya just lists off all of them. He pauses, before deciding Strange might need a little more context. "Those are the words Ventari wrote down for himself and those who came to his sanctuary. He believed in peace. At the time, nobody knew that the Pale Tree was sentient or that she would produce the Sylvari... but since he helped nurture her growth, she took his words to heart and passed them down to my people."

[kingsroads]

Strange bites back a slightly sarcastic observation that hmm, sure are a lot of nature-based tenets and maxims for the plant people, what a surprise. He's well aware of the fact that the conversation has swapped from literally yelling at each other to something more peaceful: he's not going to ruin it.

"So are you taught that by the Pale Tree? Or is it an instinctive sort of thing?"

After all, he did literally grow from a tree.

[chronosynthesis]

"It is taught, though some might remember pieces of it from their Dream. Though--" he shakes his head. "The Pale Tree does not teach us directly. He wrote the tenets on a stone tablet that she carries in her boughs, but most Sylvari learn about Ventari's teachings from their mentors."

He taps the side of his head. "Instinctive knowledge is more like how to walk, talk, understand other plant life... things that everyone does. Er, every Sylvari does."

[kingsroads]

He gives Syrlya a wry little smile at Syr's correction. After all, people can't understand plants.

"Whenever I talk to plants, it's closer to negotiation and less of a conversation." After all, Strange's 'talking' is mostly trying to magically negotiate with the plants, the rocks, the forces of the natural world in order to coax them into doing what he wants.

"In my world, humanity learns about our religious teachings and moral maxims through our mentors—though the tenets are usually bound in books or documents."

[chronosynthesis]

"Other races can learn to manipulate it, but our connection is more innate." He also has no idea how exactly that manipulation goes, but it's... probably similar to how Strange describes it. Although it's more coaxing the magic to coax the plant.

That's familiar enough, though, and he nods. "Humans in Tyria have similar texts regarding their worship of their gods, as well as shrines and priests."

There's a pause, because now that one god's a dead defector and the other five have fucked off, he wonders what that's actually going to mean for humanity's future. He can't relate to religious devotion, but he's seen how deeply it permeates their society.

"Anyway--" he waves his hand. "We have less history to write down, so we have not adopted the need to put everything into books and scrolls yet. Most Mentors give their lessons orally."

[kingsroads]

He frowns a little as Syrlya mentions the lack of written history. It's not the lack of books that bothers Strange: he's not as much of a bibliophile as he comes off as. It's the fact that giving lessons orally means relying on your own memory.

"That has it's own problems," Strange remarks, with a sigh. "Even something that's happened a few months ago can easily be forgotten. I can think of plenty of events and plenty of things that I wish I'd written down as soon as they happened."

Most notably, the prophecy of the Raven King that he was given. Still, hindsight is 20/20 and Strange doesn't look too terribly beat up about it.

[chronosynthesis]

"I know," Syrlya respond quickly, resting his chin on his hand. "It isn't that we never write, but remember as a people we have only been around for about thirty years. We are still deciding if we are going to develop a written language of our own, or continue to rely on New Krytan."

They're making cultural baby steps by virtue of... well, being a baby culture. What's already there was fairly quick to develop among them based on their biological differences to the other races, and everything else is adopted from those who came before them.

He shrugs. "I am certain the Luminaries and scholars will find the best way to handle our growing history. I do not see the Grove much these days, but things are changing so quickly for us."

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help but smile, giving Syrlya a little nod as he adds in his own two cents about grappling with rapidly changing cultures. After all, he has a little bit of experience with that, even though he knows the revival of magic over a ten or so year period is quite different than an entire new race sprouting almost overnight.

"Better the scholars handle the history than the politicians. Speaking from experience, they rarely get anything done." Which Strange knows isn't fair: he likes Sir Walter Pole, a politician friend of his. But politicians as a whole tend to be quite useless and even more annoying.

"There's something the Sylvari can do! If you find a way to make useful politicians, you'll be the most respected race on Tyria."

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya snorts, covering his mouth to hold in any further laughter.

"Thankfully, we have very little in the way of politics right now, and... plenty of examples for what not to do." He's really no more fond of them, especially from his personal experience dealing with the more corrupt bureaucracy among humans.

"Maybe they would get more done if they were not always fighting with each other or furthering their own goals," he teases. If Strange is dissing on politicians, it's probably okay if Syrlya does too.

[kingsroads]

"Of course, if they weren't always fighting with each other, can we truly call them politicians?" Having dealt with them before, Strange is perfectly happy to diss on politicians. They deserve it.

He leans back in his chair a little, giving Syrlya a comfortable smile. Why can't it be like this? He likes talking with Syrlya and honestly thinks that he's a good man. Talking about magic, ragging on politicians, that's how these interactions should be. And yet, the moment they talk about something vaguely serious, one of them has to go and cock it all up.

"How much do your politicians interfere with magic? Mine were always trying to get Norrell and I to do things: fix an overturned ship, fight in the war, create those blasted sea beacons..."

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya shakes his head. "No, they tended to obstruct our ability to focus our efforts on the dragons more than anything. 'Isn't that the Pact's job' as if resources are unlimited, and the dragons are not everyone's problem!"

He rests his cheek on his hand with a vaguely put off expression that he points somewhere in the distance. He's thoroughly distracted from their earlier fight by this point with reminiscing. "I have mostly dealt with them at behest of the Human Queen, infrequently, and that is as much as I care for."

[kingsroads]

"It was our politicians that asked me to act at behest of our king," Strange muses. And admittedly, that went nowhere. But hey, it's a talking point.

"Thankfully, magic is too new for the politicians to obstruct our work. I do worry what will happen when we get more magicians, though."