[closed]

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria & Holden
WHAT: Research kids doing research
WHEN: Early Justinian
WHERE: Vinmark Mountains
NOTES: OOC Info

For the record, she'd carefully harvested a healthy sample of the deep mushrooms found en route to the mouth of the cave. Wysteria is in fact still wearing the elbow deep work gloves which had helped her to do so, using the heavy leather as a fine deterrent for avoiding nettles and the various prickly parts of the underbrush through which they are presently crashing as they trace trace their way through the Vinmark foothills. And though it's cooler here in the various hollers and shadows of the mountain than it had been during their approach along the coast, it is still the sort of stiflingly warm work which pinks cheeks and elicits sweat (particularly when, it must be said, a person insists on wearing various skirts and underskirts and short stays and so on).

She is not huffing and puffing. She has, however, perhaps gotten a little clumsy and increasingly laissez-faire about the management of branches shrubbery as they've proceeded, which likely counts for the accidental early release of a particularly prickly wild berry vine that swings back to swat Holden full in the face.

Fwhap! says the leafy limb.

"Oh! My apologies, Mister Holden! I thought you were much farther along than you were. Are you quite all right? We are rather high up here. If you should like to stop for a rest, I believe I see a gap in the growth ahead which ought to serve us well for it."

Comments

[acreage]

Surely by now he knows he's always assisting a science experiment, when he's with Wysteria.

Which isn't to say he's interested in dropping the question. He first double-checks the fire before following her into the opening of that yawning, musty darkness. But it's not long before he's asking,

"How long have you been able to do that?"

[heirring]

How long have they been plucking their way along this dingy old passage? Certainly not long enough for the daylight to have faded or to demand the use of Holden's little lighter to illuminate their way (maybe they ought to have fashioned a torch from their little fledgling fire instead?). So, with perfect candor:

"Oh, I suppose it is as of a minute or two ago." Ha ha ha. She's quite funny, but not so hilarious as to leave the thing entirely unexplained. "I dreamed something similar, and so have been thinking of it since then. We ought to be cautious here. Where there is one enchantment, I believe there is likely to be another."

[acreage]

Not long enough for him to realize their mistake, though when he does he'll be annoyed at himself for it. The surprise of Wysteria destroying a wall of ice without laying a finger on it could be to blame, as much as some reflexive expectation of flashlights. Regardless, it'll be a pain in the ass — later.

Unless Wysteria also pulls out some hitherto unknown light magic. That'd be nice.

"What else can you do?" Because her answer isn't unreasonable; but he'd dreamed himself able to fight all kinds of monsters with a sword, and that had definitely not been the case when he'd woken. And, "You're right about that. Do you think you'll be able to," help him, "sense them before we step into the next one?"

[heirring]

"It's possible. The density of enchantment or residual arcane energy can sometimes make deciphering the origin and nature of the spellwork difficult. But if we go slowly—"

Well. This brings them back to his other question, doesn't it? What else can she do?

"A little of this and that," is a poor explanation. "I've a fair arcane sense, but am evidently a rather poor channeler. I see much more clearly than I can do, I suppose. If that makes any sense at all. —Have they the arcane in space, Mistrr Holden? I can't recall whether I've asked or not. May I borrow your light please?"

[acreage]

He has a hard enough time following any of that, that there's a brief delay before the question registers. He looks back towards the lit cave entrance behind them — here's later already, where he's started to kick himself for forgetting — before handing over the lighter.

"No," he says after that, "there's no magic where I came from. Which," he may as well get out into the open, "means I didn't understand a word you just said."

[heirring]

With a snap of the lighter, the little flame ignites in the dark tunnel. It isn't exactly luminous, but it's better than nothing and so she extends her hand before her so they might continue on into the deepening dark. Wysteria addresses the ground as she goes, careful of her footing though as far as caverns go the floor of this is one remarkably even. One might suspect it was made or at least maintained by some cognizant intervention rather than on the natural whim of the mountain.

(But that only makes sense; someone would have had to ward the place.)

Patiently—

"In Kalvad, the arcane is a naturally occurring phenomena. Scholars theorize it comes from a great sort of...well, as it were, and that it's naturally drawn into this—or rather that, meaning the place I'm from—world where it may then be ordered or tamed for use by an appropriately Talented individual. Arcane sense is the ability to perceive magic. Not everyone who can do magic has it, but most do to some degree. Just as everyone who can see magic very well isn't necessarily skilled in manipulating it. Each Talented person, you see, has a finite measure of the arcane which they can control. Think of it as a cup, I suppose. You can only pour so much into it before it overflows and certain spell weaving requires a great deal of—" She struggles for some word he will parse. "Stuff to accomplish. Does that make more sense?"

She half turns back toward him, still walking, and trips forward over a loose stone.

[acreage]

He can make some sense of it, if he draws comparisons of his own. Maybe magic is like language; being able to understand, or follow context clues, isn't the same thing as being able to speak it. And it sort of makes sense too, that people would have limits to how much magic they can do. He knows multiple mages and rifters with magic now, and none of them are omnipotent.

So he says, "Yes," before lurching forward to catch her in hopes they don't both go down. Distracted as he is with concern for her peril — and visibility obscured by the darkness — he doesn't yet notice how the pathway is widening, an open (but not empty) cavern up ahead.