abraxaslogs | [open] Maydays

Surprising absolutely no supervising adult, the University finds itself with a bit of a moth hare infestation. Students, bottomless pits that they are, stashs snacks around the dorms, common areas, dormitories, and even labs. The latter cause an especially delicate situation, since the janitorial staff can hardly chase nimble little moth hards between instrument-laden workbenches, and the live traps create tripping hazards.

Luckily for Sypha and the tired custodians, someone who knew someone who’d been to the Cat mentioned her deft handling of the little whirligig prop birds to the facilities staff. Next thing she knew her presence and help were specifically requested. What was she going to do, say no to an opportunity to poke around in the labs and slip into the restricted research libraries? Sure, she’s officially been assigned a staff liaison, and technically isn’t supposed to leave their line of sight, but did Administration honestly expect that noodley little intern to keep up with her?

Case in point: Sypha propels herself down a hallway on a self-contained ice slick, wind at her back. She kicks a sharp left into an unoccupied lab, following a flicker of movement. Her quarry darts behind a cabinet full of beakers and tubes and so, so very much glass, but she’s hunted imps before and knows this trick. Hands raised, she shifts the air behind the case to catch the moth hare under its wings, lifting its squirming body into the room in a swirling globe of contained wind.

“Got you!” she quickly affixes one of the tags she’s been supplied with to a floppy ear, floats the creature over to a window, and gently propels it a few hundred yards away from the campus building. “Off you go!”

“There, that should do it,” Sypha sets her brush aside with a satisfied nod. She blows across the wet ink marking the inside of Esme’s forearm, grasping the girl’s wrist when she gives a ticklish squirm. “Hold still while it sets, or this won’t work!”

It’s taken some time to determine the exact parameters of her new Singularity-granted ability. Luckily, the theater troupe has a number of stage crew and understudies eager to help out with effects, prop storage, and cleanup. Her glyphs may only imbue fire and ice magic for a short while, but even those two go a long way.

They’re also dangerous in untrained hands, so Sypha insists that the helpers (mostly young, overeager, minion types) study the basics of control with her before she turns them loose on a production or trash immolation duties. Esme’s proven a dab hand with fire already. Today, Sypha’s brought her out to the official-unofficial training grounds used by some of the other Summoned to test ice.

“All right. Up you get! Same grounded stance as last time, yes? Anticipate the kickback, but don’t lock your arms, you’ll find ice is a lot more, mmmmm, geometrically rigid than fire.”

Following the eclipse, Sypha immediately threw herself into the museum’s astrological wing in search of any historic links to eye-related-visions. She’d been relatively insulated from the other Summoned until days later, when she’d slumped unsuccessfully back to her boarding house.

The less said about everything encountered on that return trip, the better. Like many others, she’d attempted to isolate herself in the Horizon, only to be battered by disembodied visions of other lives, wave after wave, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. She can’t help but wonder, as she scrapes herself together enough to exit that meditative plane, if she was an epicenter herself. What rippled out from her?

It’s incidents like this where she almost hates her eidetic memory - all these pieces of other people’s lives, entirely without context, and Sypha unable to simply forget them.

She does her best to set them aside and focus on other matters, but occasionally something will trigger a sense-memory that doesn’t belong to her. One such hits as she re-enters the city after a full day of foraging for a type of grass needed for her inks (and safely letting off some steam among the dunes). A flash of entering a very different kind of curtain wall - taller, more imposing, dark blocks of granite instead of sandstone and brick. The gate worked well enough, but it was battered and much-mended, unlike Cadens’ gleaming bronze and wood structure. There’d been snow in the memory, too, fat flakes spinning through the air instead of glittering sand and dust.

She remembers the feeling of a child at her side, then dashing away into the keep. Sypha looks through the crowd, reflexively scanning for a head of pale hair—

—and, oddly enough, she finds one, though the person it belongs to is very much not a child. She stops, blinks, hears a gravely voice call “Ciri!” in the back of her skull, hears distant gleeful laughter, and blurts:

“Oh! You must be Ciri’s dad!”

After retrieving what Viktor made for him—and being instructed on how to use it so as not to lose a hand—Geralt has set the item at home, and then returned to weave through the streets towards the market. He has until sundown before he needs to be elsewhere. In the meantime, they're out of bread and meat. His extended trip means he's had little opportunity to hunt for the house so. The market it is.

It's rare, though not wholly unexpected for him to be recognized: he's been here from the start, has taken contracts for many of the locals, is difficult to miss among the Summoned. But Ciri's name, her relation to him, makes him pause. He stops in his tracks without turning around. There is an instinctive, protective surge any time a stranger knows Ciri. More than that, knows who he is to her out of the blue. Explicitly refers to him as such.

When he does finally turn, his narrowed eyes land on a woman. Does he know her? Yes and no. Her face is familiar. Alucard's, mm. Friend. From the performance at the hall. He remembers seeing her (the two of them, really) in the crowd. Remembers prodding Alucard lightly over it. Which makes it further curious, what she's said: he'd expect to be known as Alucard's friend or the hunter, if it's through the dhampir in which she recognizes him.

A long stretch of silence passes as he studies her before he says, "We haven't met."

Edited 2022-05-16 14:37 (UTC)

What a burly and genuinely intimidating man! Sypha's accustomed to muscular monosyllabic types, enough that she can usually tell the difference between the ones who put on a front for the mysterious appeal, and those who would really rather be left alone. The much too long silence of scrutiny tells her he's the latter. You just can't fake that kind of social disinterest.

Sypha waits it out, smiling with genuine happiness for Ciri. How nice, that she isn't alone in this strange new world! She has family around her, family who - based off the passing memories - cherished and cared for her when she was young, at least.

(A newly cynical part of her can't help but catalogue all the ways in which they could be used against one another by Abraxas' political forces, but Sypha firmly sets that aside for the moment.)

"No, we haven't," she agrees. "But I have met Ciri, and I recognized her and you from the...latest bullshit." A pointed roll of her eyes towards the sun, shining merrily away without the moon eclipsing it. "My name is Sypha Belnades."

Oh. That. He sighs, does not quite relax, but at least the feeling is familiar. At this point, several people have encountered him and Ciri through their memories. Only one he knows of who...mm. Saw more. Than him simply training her. But from the woman's reaction, he suspects she isn't another.

"You're Alucard's friend." That he doesn't know her name—or much of anything at all about her, despite being acquainted with Alucard for months—may or may not strike her as worth noting. Possibly not. Between Geralt's lack of prying and Alucard's disinterest in sharing personal details, there are a number of topics they don't speak of together.

He moves forward again, less with the sense that he intends to leave her and more that he has no interest in standing about in the middle of the street. If she wants to talk, she can follow him to the market. "You were at the performance last month."

What strikes her is the fact that Alucard spoke of her as a friend at all, to someone he presumably met these past few months. Sypha blinks in surprise, a shyly delighted smile flicking across her face before her usual social cheeriness swallows it up. "That would be me," she nods. Now that he's offered up a connection to Alucard, a few passing comments by the dhampir fall into place. "Oh, you must be Geralt, then, not just 'Ciri's dad'."

Sypha falls naturally into step as he moves along, shifting her knapsack onto her other shoulder. She's marketbound herself, looking for binding agents for the ink brew, and he's at least headed in that direction. No reason not to walk together.

"I was, yes! That was a treat, it's been so long since anyone had time or space for music, where we're from," she enthuses. It was wonderful, to be in the middle of a proper celebration again. "I didn't see you in the crowd, sorry, though..." her gaze flicks over him, assessing, "You don't seem like the type to enjoy crowds?"

It's something about the way he holds himself, sharply defining personal space, much like Alucard.

He lets her chatter, with only a vague affirming noise when she mentions his name. It's not the first time he's had someone brightly trail after him, and he supposes it won't be the last. He doesn't mind, really. Geralt seeks company rarely, but when company finds him, he mostly allows it to happen. Unless it's someone deeply irritating, which she is not, at the moment.

"I was there." Lurking, though, so not a surprise she'd not noticed him. He spent most of his time in a corner with a drink. Briefly carried about a miniature gryphon, belonging to the bard. Ate the food. Stayed until well after the performance, whereupon he may have been spotted carrying a dozing pink-haired woman back home. "Came for the wine."

And his friend, but that's neither here nor there. Jaskier asked him to help, he'd needed something of a distraction, so he did. It's no more complicated than that. He does not yet bring up that he more than noticed Alucard and Sypha accompanying each other. They had been quite obviously very dear friends. Which he'd been nice and only briefly gave Alucard shit about.

How had she not noticed a towering man with stark silver hair at the party? Ah, yes, because the audience had her packed up against the other towering man with gold hair. Sypha snorts to herself; surely she can be forgiven the oversight.

"It seems like it was quite the success," she says, "Funding-wise, that is. Although Alucard was a little peeved about some of the donors." Sypha pinches her thumb and forefinger together in front of one squinting eye, as if she could squish a certain six-armed-shit-stirrer like an ant. "I'm happy he'll be able to keep working on the project."

Mm. That. Yes.

"He informed me he wrote a strongly worded letter," Geralt replies, with faint amusement, "and returned the donation."

Which is very like Alucard. Petty, passive aggressive. (This is not a slight against the dhampir, nor a judgment of character. Fuck knows no one is pettier than Jaskier.) In any case, that money more than deserved to be returned. They made plenty from the tickets and donations, it seems.

He steps into the bustling market square, moving with the expectation that most people will get out of his path.

"You've been stopping by to lend a hand?"

Sypha bites her lip, but a laugh still squeaks through her nose. A strongly worded letter. Like someone's outraged maiden aunt! If she stopped to think about it for a moment, she might find more than a few similarities along that vein...

She puts that observation aside for the next time she needs to tease Alucard about something, and moves subconsciously into Geralt's wake. It's a habit she'd fallen into with Trevor, who bulls his way through most crowds, and to a lesser degree Alucard, who's exempt from physics sometimes.

"When I can. I'm not much of a stoneworker or an architect, but I'm handy at moving things around." Sheets of ice make shifting beams and uncut stone blocks a little easier, even for vampiric strength. "You?"

Outraged maiden aunt is an apt description. (If she said it out loud, he'd pass it onto Alucard for her.)

He picks through a few apples. (For himself, but for Roach, too.)

"Also handy at moving things around," he answers.

Different method of moving things around, though. He presumes. He's only stopped by once to help; most his time isn't even in the city, and he knows Alucard is more interested in the company than the help. Even if neither of them will acknowledge it openly.

Yes, she can see how he'd be handy with heavy objects (that shirt is doing its utmost but even linen can only contain so much).

"I must have just missed you," she concludes cheerfully. "How did you come to meet him? And yes, I'm fully braced for a grim tale, based on bits and pieces I've heard from some other recent transplants."

Edited 2022-05-27 18:32 (UTC)

"Likely." He didn't stay long. "We shared a cell in Thorne. Mined rocks together. Good times."

There's more to it—always is—but wringing those details out of Geralt is not the simplest of tasks. In Cadens, Alucard is the only person he knows who was in the dungeons from the very start alongside him.

And while they have not always been on the best of terms, they've come to more of an understanding in recent months. Alucard is a paranoid fuck and Geralt does not particularly care to hide what it is that he does, nor explain the nuances of his personal philosophy within his profession. Which is, at its core, killing things for money.

Somehow that succinct description is still more detail than she's wrung out of Alucard. Enforced labor in a mine. A scowl gathers on her brow at the thought, though there's one thing that doesn't quite make sense:

"How did they keep you there? He's said very little about it, so I don't understand how they were able to hold someone with his abilities captive." Sypha has no idea what Geralt's own abilities are, yet, but if he was Summoned here then he's exceptional in some way - it's the one trait they all seem to share.

"Some sort of enchantment."

That's about all he knows. He also isn't certain. Unlike magic, where there are known ways to cut off access to one's chaos, his mutations are inherently a part of him. But they did manage, somehow. Given that it's Thorne, and that its hold was breakable, it must be a spell.

He supposes, if he had been truly determined, he could've run during their time in those tunnels. Surviving in the woods, alone, is not exactly a deterrent for him. He can take his chances. But Jaskier had been there, welcomed in the court above, and he'd wanted to do nothing to jeopardize his friend's safety. He'd have never gone anywhere without Jaskier.

"It's over now." He picks up a loaf of bread. "Thorne's habit of doing what all kingdoms do is the least of anyone's concern."

Sypha mmmmmms pensively. All enchantments have a counter, it's just that some are fiddly or excessively specific. Geralt doesn't seem like the sort to spill details, but perhaps someone else who spent time in Thorne might be able to describe the effect?

"Do you know what caused it to drop?" she leans around him and plucks a sweet roll off a tray. "It may be over, but it could be cast again. Or the Free Cities might have picked up some tricks from Thorne during the Summit."

"Another mage." One he's not seen since. He glances over at her briefly. "Thorne seems to have it active in the dungeons at all times. Both times I was locked up, the spell was present. But some of its mages are able to move freely without being affected."

He does not explain what he means by both times. For the conversation, it isn't relevant. The point is that it doesn't appear to be a strenuous enhancement to cast or maintain for the level of magic which Thorne operates at.

As for the Free Cities—he imagines they must have or are attempting something of the same. Possibly infused in a device rather than a traditional spell. If one plans to go to war with a kingdom full of mages, it stands to reason they would consider how to nullify magical abilities.

Jayce Talis is one of those people who never seems to be content with doing one thing well; he has to have a dozen different projects and interests up in the air at one time. He's starting to make a name for himself as a blacksmith, freelancing for a local one, creating multi-tools and blades aplenty, he makes more complex ones with his partner Viktor, Alucard even put an 'ad' of sorts on the restoration building for him, but then he's also getting connected at the academy. It's through sheer perseverance and aggressive enthusiasm.

He is often seen sitting in on classes in New Magic and medicine, running around with a bag full of borrowed books, chatting amiably with professors and students even on subjects he's not taking, and arguing over how many books he should be allowed to take out at a time in the library. Sleep is not for the weak, but it is for someone less distracted by thoughts. Jayce has helped where he could with the moth hare infestation, although he has no magical abilities yet that really do anything, but he's successfully trapped and released a few while visiting the University.

Nothing like Sypha, who he has witnessed from afar, with her incredible flashy magic and perfect control. Even if he didn't know who she was from Alucard's memory, Jayce would probably be watching with admiration. Magic is the most beautiful thing in any world, he knows that much, and it's easy to envy someone who seems connected to it in such a natural way. He had no idea how to approach her after asking Alucard about her, so in true Jayce form, he overthinks and then in the end, decides to ignore all his preparation. He just falls into step next to her as she's leaving the university one day. He's tall at 6'4 and broad-shouldered, and the look in his gold-brown eyes when he glances at her is all warm excitement.

"Hi. I've been trying to think of a way to introduce myself and every option seemed intrusive, so. I'm Jayce, Alucard's ... well, not friend, whatever he calls someone he gets along with okay." Don't worry, Alucard, Jayce won't assume closer relationship just because you only hissed at him the one time. "I just want to say your magical ability is ... incredible. I've never seen anything like it."

The moth hare infestation turns out to be the foot in the door Sypha needs to step from the museum archives into the University sphere. Administration issued her an ID for the catch-and-release program, and then kind of sort of never asked for it back. Possibly Sypha failed to remind them she had it, but it's fine, surely. What's one more wild eyed scholar thumbing through the stacks?

This afternoon's search turns up some promising volumes on planar theory, the movement of heavenly bodies correlated to Singularity flare-ups, and something called 'dimensional accordioning', which doesn't sound like a real word, but does sound like the kind of arcane absurdity that could land her here. She secures them in her bookstrap and strikes off for the plaza.

She's been out of an active warzone for so long, she doesn't pick up on the man moving intentionally in her direction until he's practically at her elbow. Trevor would be so annoyed with her. He can never know. Sypha's fingers twitch in tense anticipation as she glances over, then up, and up some more, into an earnest and unthreatening face.

(And now she's annoyed with Trevor in return, for teaching her to be so damn suspicious all the time)

"Oh, hello?" she replies automatically. Her puzzled smile slowly blooms into a more genuine one, just a little wicked. "Nono, please do refer to Alucard as a friend. Serves him right for pretending to be some sort of misanthropic hermit, when lately it seems I can't turn around without bumping into someone he 'gets along okay with'." Air quotes won't be invented in her world for several centuries yet, but Sypha's got the tone down pat already.

Based on recent events, she expects Jayce to say he recognized her from some of Alucard's memories (good ones, please, just this once), so she's absolutely floored when that's not at all what follows. "I...my...thank you?" Sypha fumbles, then laughs at herself - a Speaker caught without words. "I'm sorry, it's just that Cadens is so unimpressed with magic as a whole, that's the last thing I expected to hear today!"

Jayce being known as an inventor and technology expert meant that he already volunteered to help put out the electronic snares for the hares and create traps that would make it easy to move them out in. But it's not really as fluid as being able to literally move them out with magic. He likes being useful and the labs he's been to have been fascinating, albeit he is shuffled out of them very quickly. It makes him miss home, just a little bit.

Jayce laughs at that, knowing Alucard well enough by now to understand exactly what she means. "My partner Viktor is the same way, I showed up here two months after him and he's become popular. Which is great, but he can't claim to be a solitary isolated person now." Alucard and Viktor are actually friends, and Jayce thinks sooner or later he'll get there. He loves that Viktor has people around them who appreciate him, finally, considering classism has always been a terrible reason not to get attention.

"Alucard has been helpful to both of us, he actually put an ad outside the restoration project's wall for my blacksmith skills. I owe him a lot." And isn't that the act of friendship? Jayce likes to think so! If not for him, probably for Viktor, because they need to get the money to start their own workshop and pay off Goro. The blacksmith note probably explains why this walking puppy is built like a brick house.

Jayce smiles brightly at her, shaking his head. "I know, I can't believe I finally come to a place where magic is everywhere, and no one wants to talk about it." Thorne might have been the better option for him just in terms of magical knowledge, but everything else about Cadens suits him anyway, and Viktor would hate it there. He's one of those people who talks a lot with his hands.

"When I was a child, my mother and I were dying and a mage saved us by teleporting us to safety, and ever since I was obsessed with learning about magic, but it's very rare and taboo in our world." So that's why he was frustrated to come here, where magic exists, and no one seems as impressed as he is. "I spent my life trying to put magic and technology together, but that was the closest I could ever come to it." Until now. Until here.

"Viktor's your partner?" Sypha exclaims, gaze sharpening. Yes, now that she knows to look for it, the way they've done up their Cadensian clothing is similar. The Free Cities offer a cultural mashup of costumes and textiles, but it seems these two have a preference for vests! "I've disturbed his solitude a few times, he's fascinating." Clearly brilliant, possibly half mad from spinning around in his own head, very much like Alucard. No wonder her eccentric dhampir decided to adopt these two in his arm's-length sort of way.

A blacksmith would have the sort of applicable skills Cadens actually wants from its Summoned. If Jayce is partnered (or is it "partnered"? Unclear as yet!) up with an inventor like Viktor, and approaches new people with this kind of engaging enthusiasm all the time, Sypha's sure their business will take off. "Alucard isn't the sort of person to ignore someone in need," she explains, "But no doubt you would have found your feet anyway! It took me months to get an in here at the University, but here you are!"

She may have led too strong with her magic, when she'd just been starting out. Rubbed more than a few department heads the wrong way in her search for research on the Singularity. Although she's found plenty of philosophical and scientific treatises on the topic, most writings shy away from exactly the sort of thing Jayce speaks of: approaching it as a combination of magic and technology.

"It's somewhat taboo where we're from, too," she assures him. "But then, so is science! Practicing either challenges the authority of the Church, and is likely to get you executed for witchcraft." Sypha turns her hand over, a flame cupped in her palm as casually as a pocketwatch. "My people are nomadic, though, and we value knowledge in all its forms, so my perspective is a little different from most!"

Her fingers close on the flame, and when she uncurls them, a delicate bubble of ice forms in its place. Sypha beams at Jayce, warmed by his enthusiasm after so much indifference. "Were you successful at combining the two? Because that's what I've been trying to dig out of these libraries, but it's like...since the Singularity is some form of magic, and Cadens looks to science for solutions, the leadership here has decided the two must be diametrically opposed!"

"Yes, we've been together seven years now. He has the most incredible mind." Jayce and Viktor are opposites in every way physically and personality-wise, Jayce is full of energy and warmth, enthusiastic and friendly. One of the only things they do have in common is their fashion, because you can't take them out of the academy at the end of the day, it's too ingrained in them. Jayce also has a tendency to talk about them in a way it could be a romantic or work partnership he's talking about. Viktor is far more precise about using research or work in front of the partner title.

"I'm an academic too so it's easier to blend in. I'm a scientist first and foremost, you get used to talking to them." Jayce doesn't always have the highest opinion of himself, but he is considered very charismatic where he's from. People have a way of being drawn in by his passion, and there are few things he loves more than academia and theoretical science. It meant that getting comfortable with students and professors took almost no time at all, and he didn't mention magic at all. That he knew pretty well from his own experience. Eventually they embraced magic, but not before kicking him out of the academy!

He's surprised to hear about science being rejected, although he shouldn't be. There are other lands in his world where the church has more sway, but religion is not a prominent figure in Piltover. "I would definitely have been executed by now then. It's my life." Physically Jayce doesn't look the part of a scientist, as people here have been quick to tell him, but that's the blacksmithing. Underneath he's a nerdy nerd with the best of them.

Jayce watches her create the flame with open admiration and interest, his breath even catching a little bit as she does, that taken by it. He has yet to stop being amazed by magic. He grins ear-to-ear, as bright as if he was a child again, when she makes it turn into ice. "That's incredible. And you've always had magic?"

He is beaming back at her and nods. "Yes, thanks to Viktor's help, we completed my Hextech theory that magic and technology could be used together for greater inventions. It brought our city to a state of progress never imagined before." So there, to everyone who doubted him, ha. "And I've noticed that about their reaction to the Singularity. So magic and science really are similar, and I thought if some of the Summoned scientists can figure out a way to read data mixing the two, we might be able to have the type of proof that Cadens would listen to."

"Oh yes!" Sypha grins, clearly much happier speaking of her people's connection to magic than the utter shitshow of 1400s Wallachia. "I've always had the ability, though not necessarily the control. Magic is the sort of thing that crops up naturally among people in my world, it's just that...well, if you go around burning people at the stake for it, they don't have much chance to pass the ability along." That grin twists into something a little more wry. "My people don't have that same prejudice, so we have a higher concentration of magicians than most."

Hextech. She mouths the word, feeling the shape of it. It's an odd combination of terms she never would have thought to stitch together. "Is the magic in your hextech an energy source? Like steam? Or is it part of the machinery? I don't quite follow." But it's clear that she wants to. It's not her fault that her world lags so far behind Cadens, and apparently Jayce's, on that front. Not everyone has access to the technological wonders of a time traveling castle, Alucard.

"I haven't met very many scientists out of our crowd," she admits, "But I'd like to be involved in that project. I've been researching some angles of connection between the Singularity and other natural phenomenon, which might be helpful? Or at the very least I can lend magic to any smaller-scale experiments."

Sypha's not quite sure what the limits of her power look like, but she can channel energy at a steady rate almost indefinitely, so long as she's awake. Elemental manipulation comes easiest of all, but the act of wrenching Dracula's castle halfway across a country barely dipped into her reserves; she should be able to serve as a sort of battery for whatever Jayce has in mind!

Jayce's heart hurts at the mention of burning people at the stake. What a terrible and backwards reaction, although not ultimately that surprising. Magic is taboo for a reason, but he's always hated those reasons. "I'm glad that you and your people have managed to keep it going, gifts like yours, they should be nurtured, not feared." He knows he's preaching to the choir here, but still. He's longed for magic for so long, he can only be dazzled by seeing more of it in person.

"It can be used as an energy source, yes. I found crystals that were embued with arcane magic, they definitely give off electricity or lightning energy, when you see them. They're explosive and were unstable, but we managed to stabilize it into a safer form." Jayce spent his entire life studying and finding crystals, doing illegal work under the guise of science. He regrets nothing. "The mage who saved me when I was a child, he used a magical crystal as a source to pull energy from and created a teleport for us across the world. He used runes as well, but I was too young at the time to memorize them."

Jayce gets mad at himself for that sometimes! If he knew all the runes he might have had an easier time going from there, but he did remember a whole lot of them, enough for them to eventually create the Hexgates and everything else using runes. "From what I know of magic in my world, it's separated into three types, celestial, elemental, and spirit. It's elemental magic that I am tapping into for Hextech, it powers our technology, but we've only scratched the surface." Jayce knows there is so much more he can use it for, but he's limited by his inability to use magic himself. Instead it's all guess work.

"I don't have the ability to ask a mage anything about it, and much of the research or knowledge about magic is forbidden or unpopular." He really has had to do all of it from scratch. "Copying what I remembered from my experience, we were able to replicate the teleportation into something called Hexgates. They are giant teleportation devices that can instantly travel ships and people from one end of the world to the other." Jayce is really proud of it, for the obvious reasons. It's his life work. He could talk about it all day.

Jayce nods, eyes bright. "There's a few of us now. Maybe if Cadens can be provided with empirical evidence about the Singularity, it will be less likely to go to drastic measures like destroying it. Understanding it makes it less of a threat." He is very troubled about the fact Free Cities wants to destroy the Singularity, alright? That's madness in his opinion. But he knows from his own experience that sometimes people need answers spelled out right in front of them before they're willing to listen.

Magic crystals containing and perpetually generating lightning? Runes that pull from a source like that to move people and goods across vast distances? Sypha's thoughts flash sideways to the spinning dodecahedron powering Dracula's castle, to the shards of mirror scattered across the floor of his study like frozen waves. "I think perhaps magic manifests similarly in our two worlds," she says. "Elemental magic comes to me most easily, but I can channel something similar to 'spirit' magic via runes. And some incantations in Enochian, or other ancient pre-human languages, can invoke echoes of celestial magic. Do you recognize its inverse as demonic, or do you classify it as celestial in origin as well?"

Unless they don't have demons where he's from, and her world is just uniquely fucked like that. She wouldn't be surprised, at this point.

"Some very powerful magicians have something like your hexgates, in the form of mirrors that can be used to communicate across distances, or to step from one place to the next, but I've never seen one in action." Sypha's eyes light up even as she begins to pluck sparks from the air, little motes of matter vibrating until electricity begins to arc between her fingers. "And you replicated that based on a memory? That's amazing! You're probably lucky to still have all your limbs attached, but still very impressive!"

And then something occurs to her. It's obvious the instant the thought strikes, because Sypha's never had to learn to monitor her expressions; her eyes widen, then narrow to thoughtful slits, and one eyebrow tilts upward. "Do you suppose you could build a Hexgate here? Say, terminating at the Singularity? If you had an energy source, of course."

"As far as I know, we don't have anything demonic, but I'm not an expert on our entire world." There are a whole lot of places Jayce has never been, places where there are actual magic users who know everything he's only been able to theorize or question. He would do anything to find them, to get those answers. To find the mage who saved his life again.

"I'm afraid so much of what I know is limited, but creating Hexgates required the use of technology, those crystals, and runes." And Jayce smiles, that warm feeling spreading in his chest every time someone compliments him. In this case though, it's for what he cares about most. "I did, but it was a very strong memory. And we definitely blew up a lot of things over the years testing it out." Oh boy, and then some. Once they had the support of the Council they had to immediately start figuring out how to put it into practice. "Arguably we shouldn't be messing with something we don't fully understand, but then nothing would ever get done. All progress starts with a curiosity not fully explored."

It was reckless, and they still are messing with things they don't understand, that might be why Viktor's Hexcore in their world ended up hurting him instead of helping him. But that is what you have to do sometimes to push the world forward. A certain amount of reckless determination.

The question is an interesting one and it immediately sparks the same kind of thought process for him. "I ... the problem would be getting our hands on the type of magical source that powers New Magic here. I don't think they're going to hand it over to us." They're stranger and it seems only trusted or high level scientists and academics get to do that. "I wonder if they'd let us if we could guarantee them access to the Singularity, but we don't want to give Cadens that." They want to destroy it. Or do something to it unwise. Jayce can't help that.

"I think most things are possible, but powering it and safeguarding it, that would be the hard part."

"Well yes of course, if we waited until we fully understood something to put it to use, nothing would ever get done," Sypha waves that particular safety concern aside. Life is a series of unanswered questions, and she can appreciate people willing to take risks to find answers. Especially if their findings are put towards the general benefit of others, which it sounds like these hexgates were!

It's that shared inherent recklessness that has her saying: "What sort of magical source do you need? Something perpetual, or would something that could fire off intense bursts for short periods work? Because if so..." The electricity writhing between her fingers consolidates to a single point of light at the tip of her forefinger, too bright to look at directly. "I could power it, if we could keep it concealed from the authorities well enough."

"Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. And hope you don't blow up." That is Jayce's motto, pretty much. He always throws his lot in with the impossible. He does try to test and safeguard their creations, Viktor and he put months and years into creating new tech, the next step after the Hexgates were such a success. But the first attempts at Hextech were all guessing games, it'd never been done before.

"That's beautiful." Jayce looks at the electricity with wistful eyes. He can learn how to do this himself, and he will, eventually, but he will never get tired of seeing it. And Sypha makes it look so easy. But! Focusing on the question.

"The gates required a lot of power. What happened was that the crystals held within them that magic. I know that they have a way here of bottling magical energy up, although I don't know if they have crystals or it looks different." He knows this because he's seen technology powered by magic, but the people who made it seem to be specific to the academy. Cadens version of a high mage council, only a New Magic place instead. "We'd need access to whatever they use before we can put the magic in it to power anything. And I'm not sure where that is."

[open] Maydays

Steve Irwin would be chuffed | OTA

Share your training tips and tricks | OTA

[closed] Geralt

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Wildcard! :D

heck yeah

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man I'm sorry for the delay on this, the sickness got me

Never a worry!