[CLOSED] the science of it all

[ketterdamn]

WHO: Kaz & Wysteria
WHAT: Extremely dorky conversations about anchors and the magic therein
WHEN: September at some point, after smooch party
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: N/A

This group, he's found, is more than a little eccentric. Through no fault but the physics of the riffs and the aftermath of them as well. Those who were from around Thedas were here to assist in what ways they could. And those who were from far flung corners—like his very own Ketterdam—brought with them their own oddities even while assisting. It's been an enormous adjustment, even for someone so used to going off the beaten path.

Still, they're trying to accomplish something, instead of waiting for the rifts to swallow them whole or political machinations to run right over them. And thus far, he's made a few connections he wouldn't have otherwise. He tries not to compare them to his crew, to the people that feel like phantom limbs, stuck back home as they are. It's difficult; he is, after all, a judgmental person. Instead, he focuses on the strengths, the silver linings.

Which is what has him seeking out Wysteria. A strange place to start laying more groundwork, since their brief acquaintance had been made in a cramped linen closet. She seemed firmly ensconced in the world here, something he had more freedom to ask about now that they weren't at risk of being shooed out to a stupid masquerade. Also she seemed the best equipped, so far, to answer the most burning question on his mind.

"I need an answer." He starts abruptly, without any of the niceties when he finally tracks her down.

Comments

[heirring]

It is, in the grand scheme of rude interruptions, hardly the rudest or the most significant distraction. Still, she is halfway through tracing a rather delicate line with a ruler and compass when it shatters her concentration and the jag of her hand as she starts burns an ink smear across a series of delicate detail that had just been allowed to dry.

From her bench before the worktable, Wysteria curses over the schematic. As far as swearing goes, it's rather a good one.

[ketterdamn]

She jumps enough that her hand goes astray and whatever careful lining she's been bent over has been utterly spoiled. The ink blots and streaks where she's run the back of her hand and part of her forearm over the drawing, not all quite dry.

For his part, he remains silent during her tirade, head tilted with interest towards the inventive swears, tucking them away like one does a particularly useful tool.

"The second drawing will be better. Are you done?"

[heirring]

"Am I--" This isn't the second drawing. It's not even the third. It was in fact meant to be the fourth variation on this particular mechanism and now look at it. It's a smudge.

She fixes him with a flashing look, mouth pinched very thin indeed.

"Well? Go on."

[ketterdamn]

Her response is a start, a little flash of irritation. Surprisingly, she swallows it down. Maybe she got most of it out in her initial aggravation and with that aired, she'd settled for annoyance.

Maybe. Either that or she planned to take it out on him later, which wouldn't be the first time he pissed someone off enough to do so.

"This mark," he starts, peeling his left glove off, mouth pressed in an unhappy line. "What is it?"

[heirring]

It's a stupid question. Were circumstances different, she might be relieved by it.

"It's not a mark, it's a thing," she says impatiently, tucking her pen behind her ear with a sniff. "Some kind of piece of the rift or like a shard of a magical object. Honestly, you could have asked anyone about this. Even people outside Riftwatch know what they are."

Unfortunately.

[ketterdamn]

"A mark is a thing." He says it obstinately, annoyed that there's some weird form of semantics going on here. After all, a piece of a rift may be called a mark of a rift or something of the like. Whatever.

"I wasn't going to ask anyone outside Riftwatch, that seems like an easy way to get myself killed." After all, he knows about the Venatori now and didn't, when he first arrived. As for her other point about asking anyone in Riftwatch, well, he skips straight past it.

"What does it do?"

[heirring]

For a split second, she fixes him with an absolutely confounded look. It is followed by a conscious effort to be decent and patient and kind in the light of certain less fortunate people's ignorance and rudeness which is so great that the struggle of it shows clearly in her face. At last, Wysteria manages: "They close rifts."

And then, as if incapable of speaking one sentence at a time, she continues, "There are other things they can do as well - abilities they sometimes manifest like expelling a magical blast or creating shields. I haven't seen much of it, and nor have I experienced any of those myself, but mutations are possible."

[ketterdamn]

He waits through her expressive struggle, his own face impassive at best. Finally, she confirms the strange power, the fact this flickering mark can seal up a rift like one closed doors. And with knowing what poured out of the rifts, it was a boon.

She went on to explain there were other abilities, things that made it more convenient or powerful to use. Good information, but he had a more pressing concern.

"Will it kill a person that bears it?" It seems stable for the most part. Even if it is an otherworldly piece of a dreamlike part which had been cut off long ago. Which people feared for in dreams and now, waking.

[heirring]

"Ah."

It's not much of a pause - the young lady seems largely incapable of any real hesitation -, but it technically is one. Still, her tempo remains more or less the same as she continues, a kind of self-certain academia that ignores the fact that she has a glowing gash in her own left hand and that what she says applies to her as much as it does to him.

"Eventually, yes. I believe there have been a few studies done on it - the enchantment, which is poisonous, will spread far enough to be dangerous. I believe there was a woman who died from it once, but that was before I came here. And there is another woman - the Provost's wife, Madame Baudin - who has had hers for quite some time and seems to bear very few ill effects."

[ketterdamn]

At the very least, she doesn't hesitate much before giving her answer. It's the kind of thing, he thinks as she goes on to explain further, that plenty would beat around the bush for.

"Some poison, to be so unstable." Like walking a knife's edge and never knowing if it would cut you that day. There are easier ways to kill people. "No way to get rid of it?"

Without taking a limb, anyway. The most forward way would be take the hand off, but he'd like to keep it for now.