semi-open | spirit surveys.

[exequy]

WHO: Kostos & Mostly Mages
WHAT: Surveying spirits at Circles and battlefields
WHEN: Throughout the winter
WHERE: Various
NOTES: This is for rebel mage tasks. Involved mages are so so invited to toss up top-levels for their Circle/battlefield of choice, which can be exploration or spirit stuff or something else entirely. You're also free to bring an uninvolved/non-mage buddy along, with excuses made for the visit and the spirit aspect kept secret as needed, if you want to do your own CR stuff about visiting old haunts. And if you want to be involved but don't see a clear way in or need more preliminary planning first, hit me up and I will see what I can do.

The network of eluvians makes this prospect—visiting abandoned Circles, surveying battlefields from the Mage/Templar War—less daunting than it might have been before, but many of them still need to wait for some other work to carry the right people within a day's ride. Others need to wait for snowstorms to pass and roads to be cleared. The timing winds up erratic.

But the work itself follows a routine. Address mundane problems first, going around them rather than through them whenever possible. The Circles in the cities might have posted guards who need to be bribed or convinced or snuck around. Those in the wilds might be under occupation by vagrants or highwaymen who require the same. And any of them might have roving shades or veil tears to avoid while Kostos follows a more familiar former occupant through the halls, terse questions about where the fighting was worse, where the Harrowings occurred, or where the troublemakers were tossed emerging from the hood of his heavy coat.

Battlefields are easier. Most of them open spaces, many of them still sporting scars.

Sometimes nothing needs to be summoned; it's already there, running down a corridor in terror, and only needs to be persuaded to stop. Other times Kostos lays out summoning stones.

Comments

For Ness

[overharrowed]

Julius knows that even relatively new rifters without Ness's personal motivations must pick up some cues about the Circle system in short order. They live in the Gallows; it's hard to avoid. But every Circle was particular, and Kinloch Hold has gained a particular reputation, given its near annulment and its involvement with Ferelden weathering the Fifth Blight. He resists the impulse to play tour guide, mostly, focusing on why they're present and not commenting on every stone they pass.

Perhaps the impulse to teach is stronger for a reason as they pass the apprentices' quarters, the doorless entryways revealing the rows of neat bunk beds. A few personal items are still left scattered on the bureaus and desks, evidence of hasty leaving. Anything valuable has been long since picked over, he has no doubt. "It's strange," he says quietly, to Ness, as she's closest to him while they pass. "To think the youngest apprentices who lived here are now old enough to fight, themselves, now. I wonder how many made their way to the Inquisition." Rhetorical, yes, but directed enough to her as to invite comment.

[aberratic]

Her first thought, which she has enough tact not to speak aloud, is as many as didn't die at the hands of some templar, I expect. That thought Ness keeps to herself while she mulls over her real response.

"I hope fewer of them than the Inquisition would like," is where she ends up. "This war is a necessity, but I'd prefer to imagine these mages didn't go straight from a cage to a fight."

It's nice to imagine that some apprentices made it to a quiet life of freedom, even if depressingly unlikely. She doesn't linger on it though, tracing a finger over the cracked wood of an old bed post, ruminative.

"There is much here that reminds me of my previous life," she says. "I did not stay in them, my father had a private room which we shared, but some other Avowed had communal barracks. I cleaned them, from time to time, when it needed doing and everyone else was busy."

She looks around, and tries to imagine it: these rooms, so like the ones in Candlekeep, full of people, halls echoing with chatter and chanting, the shuffling of robes and the smell of old books. She imagines eager faces, the prickling feeling of magic all through the air, the giggles of young apprentices learning what they can do for the first time.

Now she imagines that none of them can ever, ever leave.

"Do you miss it?" Ness asks, turning to Julius with no trace of judgment.

[overharrowed]

Julius has the brief thought that some of them might have had families who'd been glad to see them. He hopes some of them found their way home. But many mages had no family but one another, especially as they grew. War or not, Fiona might have offered something that felt more secure. But that's likely a thornier political question than she meant to pry into. It's clear her observation is one born of sympathy, and he can respect it for that.

Instead, he answers her question. "Sometimes," frankly. "Parts. There are people I miss, certainly. And there was a simplicity to my life here that had its benefits. Things that would bother me now didn't then, because I'd not lived any differently or seen other options." And he'd thrived, within a set of clear rules. A path with no crossroads, for quite a long distance.

He lingers in the doorway of the apprentices' rooms, clearly seeing occupants who were no longer present in his mind's eye. "I miss teaching. I liked working with the apprentices. I wasn't a teacher exclusively, but the enchanters all took our turns, especially when our numbers were small after we were nearly annulled. I hope Southern mages can find a way to revive magical education in a less patchwork way, and soon. Younger mages are ill-served by being left wholly to their own devices, I think." He thinks, briefly, of an Orlesian father desperate to help his scared daughter.

[aberratic]

The sentiments are familiar, as if pulled from Ness's own thoughts—doesn't she miss Candlekeep, after all, miss Vazeiros, for all that she wouldn't go back? Simplicity, not for lack of options, but for the clarity of expectation. Behave like this, accept these limitations, don't ask for more. Do the some for the rest of your life and you'll be safe, you'll be fed, you'll have purpose.

You'll never have love, or belonging. Your world will be small. But you'll have more than many get, even so.

It's a bitter feeling, to long for something fully cognizant of its poison. To see the cage clearly for what it is, and to, despite it all, wish earnestly for the bars.

"I understand," she says, and leaves it at that.

As to magical education—she sighs, thoughts dark on war and what's neglected in its interest. Her eyes light up after a moment though, just a little, and she turns to Julius, cautiously hopeful.

"Have you—has anyone considered starting a school, maybe? Not a Circle, but a proper school. Teach children control and respect for their power, love for their community..."

Surely someone has thought of it by now, and there are reasons it hasn't happened, but... What if they haven't? What if everyone's assumed the outcome, so no one's even tried?

[overharrowed]

From her tone, he thinks she does understand, at that. He tucks that away to ask about another time. It's not that he isn't interested, but her story deserves better than to have to fight a tower full of ghosts for his full attention. Instead, he turns to her question.

"I'm sure I'm not the only one to think about an alternative to the Circle system, if we succeed in our aims of mage liberty after the war. After all, Tevinter trains their mages without imprisoning them; it's not a wholly new thought." They're even called Circles there, though he thinks keeping the name in Southern Thedas would be more likely to rip open old wounds.

"But to answer your question, yes, I have thought about it. For me personally, I don't think I would have the attention to give it that it would require, as long as I'm committed to Riftwatch. And I know I don't have the resources; we'd have to enlist one or more interested patrons. Not an impossible hurdle, but tricky while the Chantry hasn't yet acknowledged that the Circle system as we knew it before the war is over." He has high hopes they can still get there, but convincing a noble to stand against the Chantry is still more complicated than convincing them that all children, even mages, deserve education.

[aberratic]

The thing about Ness is, she hears about a task—the suggestion of a task, even, the potential for a task—and she starts acting as if it's already hers. She can't structure, fund, and staff a magic school all by herself... But she can talk to the people who can. She can fundraise. She can be the persuasive, pleasant face attached to the idea, coordinating between all the different people who can do a better job than she can—

And all these cogs started turning as soon as the words enlist interested patrons left Julius' lips.

"We could start with our most open-minded university contacts," she says, distantly, logistics and planning taking her somewhere far away from Kinloch Hold, "or be sneaky about our purpose, I suppose, just to get an idea of where we should begin. I don't know how to structure a school but I know patrons will want proof we're not just running blindly away from the Chantry without a plan. That means... scouting buildings that would suit, or property where such a thing could be built, determining projected budget, we should make inquiries as to what protections the Circles had in place for when magic went awry that weren't just 'kill everyone'..."

Who's we in all this? Who knows. She's entirely in her own head now, making mental lists of people to contact, things to look up, as she begins to pace, wholly overtaken by this idea—much in the same way she's been overtaken by working with Research on medical advancements, or with Julius himself on her Quartermaster's duties.

[overharrowed]

He smiles, initially, at her running through the list of to-dos, jumping directly to "when" and ignoring "if." It's a winning quality, and her approach makes sense as she lays it out. Start looking at practicalities. It's much as he would do it.

Until her comment about "protections" and he looks as if he's bitten into an unpleasant filling in a pastry without expecting it. The expression is brief and muted, but certainly there before he smooths it over.

"I can speak to what was in place here. Not every Circle, I've since gathered, was the same. But a fair number of them are things I wouldn't want to reproduce going forward." He doesn't blame her for not knowing, but she should know before they're talking to others about the plan, certainly. Everyone else with any Circle experience will, after all.

[aberratic]

If she hadn't turned to pace toward him at just the right (wrong?) moment, she might not have seen Julius' expression change. For a moment, Ness isn't sure what she's done wrong—the look was too brief, her focus too far elsewhere to effectively connect cause and effect.

It doesn't take long to figure out, of course. Between Julius not wanting to replicate them and what she already knows about Circles...

"Of course not," she says softly, a weird mix of chagrined and angry. Can't one thing in this fucking plane not be horrible? Just one? And why did she have to say that so cavalierly, that was clearly a thought best kept to herself.

Her stomach rolls, and Ness forces herself to take a deep breath. Self-recrimination won't fix anything. She can't un-say the stupid thing she said. Dwelling won't help, and the point is to help.

She starts again, slower this time.

"There will have to be alternatives. No Templars, no Annulment, no Tranquility. There must be other ways of limiting magic's destructive ability—if nothing else, Circle structures must have been protected against errant fireballs? Barrier magic might be a place to start... Lyrium? Could it be worked into the walls, maybe? That could be dangerous if not done correctly... but is there a correct way to do something like that? Dwarves would know, probably."

It's only when she's paced away from him again that Ness realizes: she's gotten carried away again, and she visibly drags her focus back into the room, onto Julius, with a wince.

"I apologize, Seneschal. I'm—very passionate about this idea, obviously, but I know I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't mean to... I know it's complicated."

[overharrowed]

"You have nothing to apologize for," was both kind and sincere. "I agree with you that it's an idea worth pursuing. And I think the perspective of someone seeing the situation with fresh eyes will be valuable in it, for what it's worth. Mages who grew up here, we all carry ... particular experiences that shaped us. It leaves a particular shape."

He glances around the room they're in. The remains of that life. It's striking that Ness sometimes struggles to picture it, and when he was her age, he hadn't been able to picture any meaningful alternative. On which note, he resumes, quieter:

"For what it's worth, it took me a long time to even get to the position of abandoning the Circle system, personally. And part of what held me back was that I'd seen the aftermath of magic gone wrong personally. The rebellion here involved blood magic and abominations," plural, "and it came very close to wiping us out before they could even bother to annul the Circle. I've changed my thinking on the future for Thedosian mages, but not because I've forgotten the ways that magic can go lethally wrong. I think we will need to work through safeguards for accidents, yes, but ... if you are talking to rich natives who aren't mages themselves, they're going to ask what about abominations early." They might even mention Uldred by name, if they're in Ferelden. "It's something we should think about in this project."

He doesn't speak as if it's something she should have known before, but as if it's something she'll need to factor in. If (when) they move forward.

[aberratic]

She's already considering, mind spooling out from her again, taward Nevarra, Rivain, researching which Circles had the least number of abominations, what their practices were like, how they trained their mages—but Ness wrestles her attention back, grounds herself to the conversation here and now.

We, he said.

"I understand, Seneschal, and you're right, of course. It would be irresponsible, self-defeating, not to consider that perspective. Thank you, for your indulgence, and your advice."

There are those that might rail against having to prove they can be trusted to educate themselves; Ness isn't one of them. However she feels about it (bad, for the record), yelling about it won't change anything. They have to work with the world as it is, not as it should be—not as it is in Faerûn, hard as it can be to avoid the comparisons. This would never happen in the Sword Coast... But they're not in the Sword Coast. How things are there is immaterial.

"It can be... difficult," she says, soft, after a short pause, "to imagine a future after this war. So much is uncertain in so many ways, for all of us. I don't even know if I'll be here tomorrow," a prospect which she visibly has to Not Think About, "but I hope... I hope we have the chance to decide if this is really what we want to do with ourselves after. I like the idea of it."