Rewriting history with the stories we tell

[magicalarchaeologist]

Who: Istredd and you
When: September
Where: Thorne, Horizon
What: Catch-all, reaction to things going on, Singularity, and quest!





[ooc: hit me up if you want anything unique or just throw a wildcard at me.]

Comments

[magicalarchaeologist]

"It would make sense, wouldn't it? That we'd all have versions of it. We're connected to this one otherwise they wouldn't have been able to take us." Istredd feels certain that it would be like flying blind to try and remove people from a sphere that wasn't connected. He will have to learn what this spell is someday, just to understand what the purpose is.

He doesn't care that much about being taken if this is where he's supposed to be. Istredd has never considered himself part of the destiny of his continent, he has stayed outside of it well, but now he thinks he's found his way there, somehow.

"Interesting. Too much magic?" Now that he doesn't know that he can picture. This world has so much magic in it, far more than what he's used to. "There is magic in my sphere, but it isn't everywhere, not like this. Only a small percentage of people can use it."

[londonbound]

"Most people where I'm from have some form of magic. Mostly, elemental magic."

The way magic works here is very different from what Rhy is used to, there are more types than he'd imagined and it can be used in surprising ways. Still, the general idea of everyone having some access to magic is familiar to him, and he can make sense of most of it easily. Thorne is not so different, in some ways, from Arnes. (In other ways-- he wants to say it's not the same at all.)

He doesn't go into how people with little or no magic at all are treated where he's from, leaving it only at that with a faint shrug.

"As for the other place-- we called it Black London. It had to be sealed off because the magic there was too powerful, too dangerous, and it burned the whole place to a husk. Or so the story goes. A cautionary tale."

With plenty of truth to it, which he had recently come far too close to.

He nods to the monolith.

"But I've never heard stories about anything like that."

[magicalarchaeologist]

"I don't know whether the head mages would do anything to have that be true in our world, or fear it too much to allow it. They wouldn't want just anyone to be able to use magic, only under their control."

So they want more mages, but they want mages they can control. It would be great to have the schools full of young mages ready to be trained, but having it out and the wild? More people would burn up. Or maybe they would just make it normal, and eventually, it would all even out. Like this world. Where the Thornean mages have more power than the average person, but it still exists everywhere.

"Stories aren't always the truth. I learned that myself. My life's work, everything that I thought made sense, turned out to be untrue." Perhaps other academics would have been horrified, but not Istredd. What's the point in a very long life if it isn't used to put truth over all else?

"When the nightmares happened, did you feel that entity? Did it feel like it was from the Singularity? I am curious, I wonder if it's someone on the outside trying to get in." He suspects his mentor would absolutely try to do that if it was possible, but it wasn't. He thought this 'entity' was a version of the Singularity, but now he's not so sure.

[londonbound]

"Black London isn't just a story," Rhy tells him, seriously. "It's real, and it did real damage beyond its own world's borders."

He frowns, considering the question. The possibility had already occurred to him, but Rhy has no idea what to do with those fears and suspicions. There is no recourse against anything the Singularity (if that's what it is) decides to do with their minds or their magic; none of them can fully escape their entrenchment in its magic, least of all Rhy.

"I don't know. It felt... Wrong. But the Singularity has felt wrong before. Or rather, it's not like I'm fully aware what it's 'supposed' to feel like at any given time. I've only been here some months."

Longer then Istredd but hardly long enough to understand anything.

[magicalarchaeologist]

"Do you know how they sealed it off? You never know when information like that comes in handy."

If Rhy knows a sealing of that size, that spared other worlds when one of them was burned to death from magical energy, it's worth asking about. Istredd doesn't think this is going to be one of those situations, but wards of any kind can be helpful.

"Do you mean that literally? Does the Singularity feel like something to you?"

Feel is a word a lot of people use in a lot of ways, but Istredd is a telempath. He knows that sometimes feelings actually mean literal. So far he hasn't been able to get much of anything from the Singularity, outside of it feeling like it exists, it hums, sort of. But he doesn't feel anything real from it.

"I guess I'm still trying to figure out if the Singularity is a place or a thing. Monoliths, they're places, they're conduits and channels between spheres, theoretically. But this seems different to me."

[londonbound]

Rhy lets out a breath, not quite a laugh or a scoff, but something close. An incredulous sort of surprise, that Istredd would even think of asking him about magic of that caliber. He shakes his head.

"No. I have no idea how it was done. If you're curious, Kell may have a better idea, though it was so long ago, that knowledge has surely been lost. At least, I'm not aware of anything approaching details. Just that it happened."

Istredd is asking quite a lot of questions. A man eager to research the Singularity, obviously. The scholarly type of mage. Rhy isn't really sure how much he should say -- if it matters at all. He's not suspicious by nature, but the events of the past few months have weighed on him.

Still, it's not like his impression of the Singularity is unique, or a secret.

"I don't think it's that simple. It's magic. As alive as all magic is. Maybe it is also a place and a thing, but it's more than that."

He knows his own situation is unique, but Rhy knows others have felt the Singularity in some way. Not Julie -- she seems different. But a sense of power, a depth of magic that isn't just from an object.

"Where I'm from, we have a river. The Isle. It runs through the city like an artery. A Source of magic. A place and a thing and something more. This feels similar... but even stronger."

[magicalarchaeologist]

"I'll ask Kell then. I'm very used to being the only one interested in long-dead accounts of things that happened centuries ago. It's my niche."

Istredd can have a sense of humor about his obsession with history and topics that even old mages would raise an eyebrow at him over. The questions he has are constant and over time he's gotten better at knowing when not to pepper someone with them, but he has let his enthusiasm get to him over the Singularity. It's a huge question mark to him, literally right there and yet not there, all around them and yet not.

"The Horizon in itself is an incredible thing. A psychic plane where multiple people can modify it using their mind, all domains running at the same time, complex and unique. And that the Singularity just created it here and allows us to use it."

That is assuming the Singularity is an entity of some kind, yes, that it's a place and a thing and something more, but Istredd doesn't know what else would have created something like this.

"Magic is not wondrous where I come from, it's flawed like the people that use it. But it's so boundless here in this world."

And in a way he's feeling enthusiastic about it in a way he's unused to.