abraxaslogs | The expanding Horizon

Entry tags:

sypha belnades; the tower

The expanding Horizon

WHO: Whomstsoever
WHAT: Horizon Shenanigans (and testing out new Singularity abilities)
WHERE: Sypha's Domain
WHEN: February-ish

[Imposing her will on formless energy is nothing particularly new to Sypha, but communicating over long distances via script is...very much Not Done among Speakers. It's whispers passed down caravan networks or nothing with them. She hadn't lied to Alucard when she'd protested her own inherent lack of magical messaging ability.

But change is the only constant! The Singularity now tethers her to the rest of the foreigners via the Horizon (or something, she's still exploring the specifics) so

Anyone interested in exploring a new Domain may, upon popping into the Horizon, find a map projected before their vision in cheerful blues and golds. Follow or don't, wander the woods or cut straight through to the caravan, there's no danger to be found in this forest - pay no attention to the claw marks scoring some of the trees.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sure, Alucard could just go find Sypha at the Cat or the museum and tell her about the commission. But in doing that, where's the fun? There is none, and Alucard has to admit that he's been curious about the state of Sypha's Horizon space.

So he picks a quiet afternoon to see. His assumption - that there'd be a caravan - doesn't feel wrong. It just won't be the one Jaskier had when they were all introduced to this space.

He makes his way to the caravan slowly. His woods are dark and twisting and set in late autumn. Hers are alive and vibrant and you know what he doesn't want to think about those contrasts right now. He just walks, eventually finding the open space that the caravan sits in.

That is familiar. And so he knocks on the door of the vardo.]

Are you at home?

[Fine grains of sand hiss onto the parchment, soaking up excess ink. Sypha peels the sheet off the workbench and shakes it clean, casting a critical eye over the crisp dark lines. It's...not quite right, yet. She pins it from the line strung down the center of the hollow tree, alongside all her other past drafts.

The symbols evolve from page to page, slowly morphing towards something capable of containing the fire in her veins. She just knows it.

A knock draws her attention, too slow to be one of the woodpeckers that periodically go nuts on the trunk. It's more of a human tempo, accompanied by a distant and muffled voice. She hurries to the mouth of the tree and leans around its lip, waving an ink-stained hand.]

Alucard! Hello! Back here!

[Alucard considered the possibility that Sypha might not be present, or might be walking her own woods. He had not considered that she would be in the woods quite so literally, which is why there's a little noise of of course when he turns from the vardo and sees Sypha emerge from a whole ass tree.

He also has absolutely nothing to say to that fact - not until he walks over to her little hidey hole and observes it properly, peering into it.]

That's a unique set up.

Thank you! [She pops the rest of the way out, squinting a little as her eyes adjust to the direct sunlight. She wears her usual Speakers garb, minus the large outer robe. It's much warmer here in her Domain than the late winter Cadens chill, warm enough for the light halter smock and loose trews.] I don't recommend storing reagents in arms' reach of your own bunk, you know? Especially not if you're a restless sleeper.

That sounds like something from experience.

[Alucard sighs, because of course. Of course she did. And he somehow manages to restrain the urge to peer around Sypha and look into her sylvan workshop, where he can only imagine such wonders are taking place.]

I hope I am not interrupting?

I love caravan life, but the living space is such that everything is in arm's reach. [Sypha says with a wry sniff. There are so many blankets and pillows in that vardo not just for comfort's sake, but to cushion all the shit she inevitably knocks over with her own elbows.]

No, I'm glad you found the place! I've just been tweaking with those transferrence sigils. At least, in here, nothing real catches fire.

[He hasn't peaked into the vardo yet, but Alucard knows Sypha well enough. He can all too easily imagine what she means.] I've grown up with the opposite issue. Too many stairs.

[His mother hated it.]

They've really captured your attention. [It is a dry observation, but:] May I see where you're at with them?

Were there entire floors of the Castle you didn't see until you were old enough for breeches? [Because, yes, wow, she cannot imagine babyproofing that place.]

Of course! Watch your head, it may be a little low for you. [That, and the interior is strung up with various iterations of the sigil]

More like my mother had to constantly remind my father that things should be centralized for the family, as she couldn't use natural speediness or floating to quickly deal with the stairs. [Babyproofing is easy. Your floating child gets a leash and becomes a tiny hot air balloon.]
Thank you.

-[Alucard ducks as he walks in and--

oh, this is very much not Alucard sized.

Golden eyes glance around, taking in what feels like an earthier, homier version of his father's laboratories.]

I've taken a new commission.

[He better not ever disclose that anecdote, because Sypha will lose her entire mind and never let it die.]

A new commission on...my workshop, or..?

[It's an abrupt non-sequitur, with him standing so awkwardly hunched inside the repurposed tree!]

No er. [He turns, meeting Sypha's gaze again.]

There's an old public speaking hall in need of repair. I've been asked to give it my attention. It is a couple hundred years old, so far as I can tell, and this place retains precious little of such architecture.

Oh? Oh! Congratulations! All your good work at the graveyard's been recognized! By...someone?

[Is it alarming that someone from the Cadens government sought him out in his prickly sanctuary to make this offer? Yes probably! But anything that pries him from the cactus can't be all bad.]

The people who coordinate the building, it seems.

[So not the government? Probably?]

I may need help with testing the sound quality in it, from time to time.

[Sypha pulls down the latest sigil iterations, almost unrecognizable from the source material in Alucard's domain. She hands the parchment over by its edges, careful of the still-wet ink.]</small] Is that an invitation to come over and get in some cathartic screaming?

It's an invitation to test sound quality, and I assumed your natural abilities and teaching of your people might be helpful. [But also yes. That.

Alucard's eyes go to the sigil though, and....the hell?]

What's this?

Oration! [Sypha's eyes gleam at the thought. Her mental library of history and culture might not play to a Cadens audience, but everyone loves a good story! A nice faerie tale with an eerie core of true warning at the center, maybe!

She's pulled back from that mental tangent by the rattle of paper.] Different, right? It's--I don't think it was an accident that I grabbed that book and found what I found. I think something in me was seeking a very specific outlet. Since my memory came back, I've been adjusting the energy transferral rune into...[Her hands come up to shape the air, as if she can compress it around a concept that eludes her, give it concrete shape and form] I think it's. Hm. It's meant to draw and store specific energy. Not just provide something raw. And I think it's tied to me in a way. The shaping of it's been very specific so far.

Precisely. [He's only just starting to understand the spellwork int he building. It is complicated but in an impressive way - something he's sure technology could eventually achieve, but not yet.

But Sypha's project. Alucard is quiet, absorbing the whole explanation.]

So it...hm. Transfers an exact sort of use? Like how electricity powers lights and you can turn the switch on and off?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The expanding Horizon

Mid-Feb

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject