Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 16, 2017 0:29:40 GMT -6
The trek had been dreadful. Absolutely, positively, dreadful. Circe barely had the strength to walk through the sands, let alone converse. Circe assumed it was similar for Althea, for she had been more or less silent during the walk as well. The two both also had quite a bit to absorb, mentally and emotionally...or at least Circe did. Yet it was strange; with every step Circe took away from the ruin, she felt those conflicting emotions die just a little bit more.
By the time they had finally approached the village Circe simply regarded it as an experience. An incredibly valuable experience at that. One that she'd best not forget. Not just the experience with combat, but the consequences that had come with it. Every single choice Circe had made, even the ones that were correct, she had been punished for all the same. In one way or another. Circe could only thank the stars that, aside from extreme fatigue and a bit of soreness, most of her pain had been emotional and mental.
But she would only come out of this stronger. She had survived, against the odds, in her first taste of REAL combat. That was not some sort of sign, even if she chose to believe to be such, but a testament to her talent and skill. All the luck in the world wouldn't have saved her if she wasn't all that she believed herself to be. For that she could take pride in, and hold her head high as she always did. Even if her feet were KILLING her.
“Thank Elimine...” Circe mumbled under breath. Little miss Alexandra wasn't exactly 'religious'. Elimine was more a name to be thanked or cursed, rather than an actual goddess or a symbol. She'd studied the religion well enough, but found the information given to be wanting. Perhaps religion was meant to be left to vague symbolism, but it had just never stuck well with the magus. Didn't help that Etruria had begun to use the name of the Church, and of Elimine, in...unsavory ways.
Her eyes scouted out the village. Seemed to be a simple trade outpost that had expanded due to exponential growth. No doubt her family played some small part to that, given how much trade they had back and forth throughout Nabata. But it had grown beyond a simple settlement, all the same. There was a tavern, housing, and several shops as well.
No doubt there was an inn...
“Ah hah! Althea, come on.” Circe's arms were crossed tight against her chest. The cold had begun to set in, as the sun continued to sink beneath the dunes. Circe was dressed well for the heat, though she needed to pick up a shawl or cloak for the wind and sand. Plus she was...admittedly more on the pale side. Lest her skin be seriously damaged it was pretty much mandatory she pick up a cloak, possibly from this little village.
The magus hurried along to the inn's entrance and pushed the doors open, pausing to keep them held open for her...colleague? Acquaintance? It felt a bit strange to refer to Althea as something so small, given they had literally fought to the death alongside each other.
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Post by Althea on Jan 16, 2017 17:23:54 GMT -6
Althea had never exactly been a good conversationalist at the best of times, too often trapped within the confines of her own mind to reach out to others, but even by her standards she had been as silent as the grave during the trek back. Not solely out of lack of energy, though she was certainly feeling the burn. Nor out of depression, because she wasn't. It was more that she had found herself within a mental madhouse, trying to work through and understand every aspect of the day's events. What they meant to her. What she meant to them. She hadn't... actively ignored Circe, per se, but admittedly she had forgotten the other mage was there almost entirely several times along the way.
Admittedly it had also taken a moment of quiet contemplation to not say something sarcastic when the mage thanked Elimine. Nothing about their day had been the work of gods. Only man... or in this case women. She was happy that she had managed to defend herself. She was grateful to Circe for risking her life to save her. She had nothing for the false god that had taken her loved ones.
But there was a certain relief to finding themselves wrapped in the tender arms of civilization again nonetheless, a welcome departure from the relentless heat and cruel cold of the sands. The prickly cold on her barely covered arms was thoroughly unpleasant in particular, and she was QUITE pleased to be in, out of the cold, to the inn that she planned quite happily on crashing at for the night. Ignoring the last shiver of chill that ran through her shoulders, Althea approached the young woman who had been nodding off at the inn's desk with a wan smile, far too exhausted to summon up anything more energetic. "Do you have any rooms left?"
The somewhat abashed looking young lady, still bleary, looked apologetic. "I'm not sure, miss. We're pretty full tonight... let me check the list." She looked at some papers that quite frankly Althea didn't even see, she recognized that they were there and some small part of her mind noted that that they were likely the register of guests or something similar, but all she really registered was the fact that it was something paper flavored. "We do have, um, one room left, in the back. Are you two a party, or...?"
She actually hadn't thought about that. The borderline albino shaman looked back at Circe blankly, as though looking to the heavens she WAS a goddess, right? for guidance. It wasn't a... hard question, or at least it shouldn't have been, but she hadn't even considered the possibility much less have any idea how the other magic user would react.
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 16, 2017 18:18:08 GMT -6
Ahh, warmth! Circe never truly thought she'd find herself desperate for WARMTH of all things in Nabata. Yes, it was common knowledge that the sands may as well have been snow after the sun sets, but heat was still infinitely more associated with Nabata than the cold. Of that there was no doubt. Yet the interior of the cozy inn was complete with a healthy hearthfire. Circe wanted to throw herself in front of it and just let the heat soak into her skin.
Althea had gone straight to the desk of the inn's clerk. Apparently the day had either been long, slow, or both because she had fallen asleep. Heh, Circe had caught her father asleep at the counter of their shop from time to time. Let alone the employees they had working for them. She couldn't fault anyone for dozing off doing such...mindless work. Nor did she look down on such work. Someone had to do it, and people needed to earn coin for themselves and their families. Her family's business had enlightened her to that view.
Either way Circe strode across the floor of the inn to follow Althea. Rather than clear her throat or rapp her knuckles on the counter, she instead simple spoke her question. Blunt and too the point, to a woman who had been sleeping. Circe actually had to stifle a small giggle. Perhaps it was her fatigue but...somehow that had amused her. Althea hadn't acted rudely or anything of the sort, but the total lack of...f**ks she had left to give, frankly, was relatable.
The clerk mentioned that she had one room left. Althea turned to Circe with a blank expression, and Circe did not waste a single second to give her response. “We'll take it.” In Circe's mind there was no other answer. She knew she certainly was not up for stepping back out into the cold, and thus their next step was fairly obvious.
“Oh! Well, the room is a twin bed. Comes with two beds and all, so...” The clerk trailed off as she turned away from the counter. The wall behind her held a key rack on it. A rack that was...noticeably void of many keys, save a select few. As the clerk went to grasp for one Circe flipped open her satchel, which carried a coin purse, a change of clothes (but no cloak to her dismay), and other necessities. When the clerk turned around she blinked at the few gold coins that were on the table.
“O-oh, it would only be two...”
“The third is for you, then.” Circe said with a kind, but tired smile. She'd regret the decision in the morning, she knew she would, but she was too tired to be stingy. Instead she held a hand out and gladly accepted the key from the clerk. “Just in the back, you said?”
“Yes. Room 108. Thank you so much, and have a good night!” The clerk's sleepy night seemed to have been made by Circe's gracious tip. As good as it felt to bring about that sort of happiness in another, Circe was still fully aware that she would regret that act later. So she didn't spend any extra time relishing in the moment. Instead she gazed around the corner, to the hall just past the counter, and began to walk towards it.
As she walked towards the hall the uh, thought that Althea MAY not have wanted to split a room with Circe crossed her mind. So she glanced over her shoulder and spoke to the shamaness. “Oh, I um...sorry, I forgot to ask if you were fine with this. You are, right?”
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Post by Althea on Jan 16, 2017 20:31:39 GMT -6
Oh, that was nice. It was too much work to say anything, so Althea just nodded at her forward friend's response, letting her handle the rest of the interaction. The shaman was capable of that sort of thing, of course, but she'd never been much of a people person at the best of times - and she was DEFINITELY not a people person tonight. She was barely a person at all, it felt like; more just a conglomeration of aches and soreness and tired. She did at least manage to register the gold exchange, making a mental note to pay Circe back later, but the white-clad mage (as compared to the white-clad shaman, obviously) seemed quite happy with events for now and Althea couldn't really be bothered to try to argue it just this instant. "Yes, of course."
So instead, like a lost duckling dutifully following mama bird, she just followed her counterpart blearily through unending corridors and the darkened depths of Hell itself... or at least one poorly lit hallway. Basically the same thing. It was probably for the best that the mage - Circe, her name was Circe - seemed to have all the energy needed for both of them because she had barely even noticed when they got to the room and the mage let them in. Hm. Not exactly an Etrurian hotel with all the finest furnishings, but the room was perfectly tolerable and she had lived with much worse. If nothing else it was a decent size at least, and neither bed looked especially lice infested. Althea patted the pillow just in case and checked under it for lice, centipedes, or fully grown Baels, none of which seemed to be in evidence.
So she just flopped down on it face-first.
Lying across it for a few moments, Althea seriously thought about just falling asleep there, but settled for rolling over like a bug in(on?) a rug, taking in a very deep breath as she again considered just falling asleep like that. Her pack was forgotten on the floor by her feet, and she didn't want to think about ANYTHING right now. That said, she DID have to remember she wasn't actually alone here tonight, and that while she did plan on repaying Circe, it was technically not her own doing that she had a room right now.
"...Thank you, Circe."
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 16, 2017 20:55:05 GMT -6
Circe immediately followed Althea's lead. She walked to the bed that was devoid of a tired, sore, full grown woman, dropped her bag by the foot of the bed, and then allowed herself to fall face first onto it. The mattress may as well have been a cloud that threatened to carry her off to the blissful hereafter, where Elimine rewarded those who had been good little girls in life...okay, not only was that an overstatement, but she had butchered her own recollection of that old bedtime story.
Just went to show how exhausted she was.
Althea uttered out some words of gratitude to Circe, from over on her bed, and it was enough to coerce the young magus into rolling onto her back. A part of her wanted to be polite and sit up straight so she could face Althea but...her heaven cloud of Elimine mattress was just too damned comfortable. The ceiling ought to prove sufficient instead.
“Oh, for the room? It's no big deal.” That spare gold coin was, but uh, Circe decided once again NOT to think about that. Thus far she'd been unsuccessful, but perhaps the third time was the charm? “We've been through enough that we both just needed to lie down, I think.” Really, Circe hadn't seen it as an act of charity. Er, in her haste to accept the room, she may have even momentarily forgot that she had company. Or a traveling companion. Or an acquaintance. Whatever Althea was to her.
The young mage had few qualms leaving that minute detail out, but in return she couldn't exactly act like she had done Althea any big favor. Apart from save her life. But Althea had returned the favor in that very battle all the same. As far Circe was concerned they were even.
“It just feels good to be off my feet. Seriously. Overcharging a spell like that is worse than a hangover...” Big talk for the magus, given she'd only had a few sips of wine at best. She felt the phrase was accurate all the same. "I want to sleep. I really do. I probably need it as well, we both do, but I have a few questions on my mind that I simply MUST ask you.
Circe kicked her sandals off and let out a small sigh. Now that her every waking thought was consumed with the need to lay down and rest, thoughts that she had pushed aside earlier had begun to swarm in their place. Notably about Althea. She knew very little about the white haired shaman, other than that she practiced elder magic and was almost painfully pretty.
Provided the two could keep their eyes open, perhaps this was a chance to get to know the woman she had fought alongside. On top of that, it was a chance to possibly get a better understanding of elder magic.
“Flux.” Way to break the ice, Circe. Still, she couldn't exactly turn back now, could she? The young lady wriggled her way up the bed until the back of her head rested on a pillow, and then turned onto her side to face Althea. “For the most part I recognized the spells you had used throughout that battle as 'Flux'. Was it overcharged when you and I finished off that light mage? It looked and felt so different and...well, the question has been plaguing me since I saw it.”
Of course she never really had a good time to bring it up before, but it HAD been on her mind. Among other things.
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Post by Althea on Jan 16, 2017 21:26:24 GMT -6
Althea privately disagreed about how big of a deal it was - Circe should have asked for the gold coin up front rather than letting her in. If she had been the type to do so, Althea could have just taken advantage of her kindness and then left. What was Circe going to do, complain until she paid? Of course that was nothing Althea would ever do, she paid back her debts, but if Circe was this kind she was bound to run into a painful realization sooner or later.
...Though the shaman supposed it wasn't her place to tell anyone else how to live, so she didn't push it further. Besides, they had more interesting things to talk about, as Circe had helpfully provided... most definitely for the best, because Althea's idea of bedside conversation was 'good night.' The mage's interesting use of a very powerful fire magic spell had intrigued her though, and through Herculean effort that would have impressed even the gods themselves, Althea managed to sit up, pulling her knees in front of her as she scootched back to rest her back against the wall. She preferred to be upright when speaking. It allowed her to formulate words more clearly.
"I'm not... entirely certain," she submitted extremely unhelpfully in response to Circe's question, something even she recognized despite her occasional blindness to her less useful manners of speech. "I just... saw a way to push Flux further, I thought, and went with it." That wasn't actually a whole lot better, admittedly, and she continued to try to think of a more accurate answer. The problem was that none really surfaced. She DIDN'T know exactly what she had done. "It was as thought I could... see all the flaws in my usual casting, correct them, channel more power through the seal, and somehow it turned into something else along the way."
She trailed off, thoroughly unsatisfied with that answer but unable to improve it. Althea's mind kept moving, trying to solve it, but it did bring up another question. "When you... 'overcharged' your last spell, was it at all like that? Or have you done that before?"
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 16, 2017 21:47:50 GMT -6
She...she didn't know? Circe was fully aware of how she had overcharged her fire spell. Trinity tome only taught the basics when it came to communing with fire spirits, but basic magic theory led Circe to believe she could simply attract more spirits at the expense of her own magical energy. The more magic she fed the spirits, the more fire and raw power they were able to produce. It was very much like tending to a flame, except rather than simply stoking the fire with wood, she had dumped oil onto it.
Of course perhaps she had expended too MUCH magical energy, but Trinity did not teach the optimum manner to commune and co-operate with nature spirits. Simply the basic way. Surely, when Circe was ready to study and practice from an advanced tome, she would unlock the mysteries behind those fickle nature spirits. Perhaps the mysteries behind magical essence itself.
“...When I overcharged my spell, all I had done was feed more of my magic to the spirits, in the hope of attracting greater numbers, and producing stronger, hotter flames.” Circe admitted freely. Perhaps most mages with her level of experience would not have come up with such a plan, given the perilous situation Circe had been in when she had, but she couldn't act as though it was anything too special. It was simply a risky way to compensate for her overall lack of power. Not optimal, but situationally invaluable, clearly.
“Differences between Anima magic and Elder magic aside...” Circe moved similarly to Althea. She propped herself up from her side until she was seated upright, back to the wall as well. “Your situation sounds incredibly different. As if you had moved from Flux to a new spell entirely.”
How could that be possible? Circe had briefly thought this to be the case before, but...was Althea a genuine prodigy? No no no, that couldn't be right. One did not simply accidentally cast a completely different spell than intended. Elder magic could not be THAT different from anima magic. Even if the spells all drew from the nether, the way the nether manifested had to be too different to simply transition by accident.
“Have you practiced, studied, or at least read from any other Elder tome before? If not then I...I'm at a loss for words. To start off casting one spell and accidentally end up casting another would...it would be like me attempting to cast a basic level fire spell, and wind up casting a Gaea based spell instead.”
Perhaps that example was a touch extreme, but was it entirely inaccurate? No. If anything it was a leap to the wrong conclusion, but Circe could not help but think it was still a rational conclusion to come to. Unless Althea had a different answer, and had never so much as touched another tome before...
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Post by Althea on Jan 16, 2017 22:28:36 GMT -6
"Certainly, there are conceptual similarities," the shaman allowed in the wake of Circe's own explanation. Dark magic did not... exactly... revolve around spirits, at least not as Anima did, but conceptually speaking they broke down similarly in this instance - pour more juice into spell, get better results. Limited results, of course. The simple fact of how magic worked was that a given spell could generally only be overcharged so much, beyond that it simply became easier and faster to cast as one mastered it.
But at the same time, Circe raised a fair point - a counterargument of sorts - that what Althea had done was more than 'just' cast a better Flux. And she was right, too. While it was true that Althea had definitely done something involving Flux, whatever she had ended up with was most definitely something more. She hadn't really gone around studying new tomes, though, at least not that she remembered. Though there was that accident in Lycia... hmm. Was that related? She hadn't thought of it as such, but maybe? "I wish I could take credit for inventing a new spell, but it bears some similarity to a textbook approach to Mire, or Fenrir as some prefer to call it. I haven't studied them though, nor am I especially talented," she stated simply and honestly with the resignation of one who had faced that fact long ago. Yes, she had been a bright enough child, enough to learn basic dark magic at a fairly young age, but nowhere near prodigy, and her lack of development since then was not solely due to her lack of study.
"Since the accident in Lycia recently, I've found dark magic slightly easier to cast, but that was the first time anything substantial came of it."
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 16, 2017 22:47:15 GMT -6
Hmm, Circe began to relax a little bit. Perhaps she WAS getting ahead of herself. Anima and Elder were different, but magic was still magic. Althea was right, they shared conceptual similarities. No doubt pouring more magic into a spell resulted in greater results. Equal exchange and so forth. And while Circe had not meant to imply she thought Althea had created a new spell, she could see how her brief excitement and bewilderment there could be misleading.
So the young magus lightly touched her fingertips to her chest and took a small breath. If she got worked up like that again she'd wind up so drained that she'd likely sleep through the entire day.
“So it resembled another spell...Mire or Fenrir. I must have overlooked that. Even so, it's a strange but impressive feat.” Circe decided. She wasn't exactly well versed in each of the spells that were commonly used to cast Elder magic, but she knew bits and pieces of each. Mire...ah, Fenrir sounded far better, FENRIR was, in essence, an overall improvement on the Flux spell, if she could recall correctly. To make the jump from Flux to Fenrir almost accidentally, though, was...yes, the impressive bit. It was not as though Circe's magic had approached Volcanon level when she had overcharged it.
Then again, perhaps that display of power was not Fenrir level either. Circe had never seen the spell be cast, after all, just read up on them once, and heard about them from her mentor.
Rather than wrack her mind on that matter, though, Althea had thrown in an interesting detail at the end. “The...accident in Lycia?” The way Althea had brought it up, Circe felt that she ought to know what she spoke of. Surely she did not mean the destruction of Ostia. To hear one reduce that calamity to an accident would be a first, for sure. “Sorry, but you haven't mentioned anything of the sort before.”
Perhaps the answers laid there.
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Post by Althea on Jan 16, 2017 23:42:33 GMT -6
"Aesthetically at best," Althea returned almost immediately with a light grimace. "An actual Mire spell would been far more impressive on every level; the scale is nothing similar, unfortunately." It wasn't self-effacing to be honest, but she wanted to make sure Circe understood the... difference in the two spells, and why she hadn't actually considered any possibility of her having cast Mire. "Mire is the raw power of the Nether, as close to unchained as is safe for even a stronger mage. Not on the level of more unique tomes, of course, but the most us mortals will ever be able to control."
Oh. Hm. Yes, in retrospect how referring to it as 'the accident' could be confusing to others. From her perspective it was just obvious, but equally obviously, when viewed objectively, it was NOT so obvious to others. "I apologize. There is not much to tell. The town I was staying at for a time when studying the results from my latest research in Nabata was attacked by a massive horde of monsters, but sometime after I lost consciousness an enormous explosion of dark magic leveled the town... I believe I survived due to having been lying in a crater at the time. I awoke to find the monsters and town alike utterly gone, blasted dirt and pools of Nether the only remnant of its existence... and most of my research gone with it."
Somehow, she actually managed to put more emotion into that last bit than the rest combined, as though that was all that mattered. Nevermind the horrible loss of life or the giant horde of monsters or the mysterious destruction, she had lost some PAPERS! That did seem a little cold, didn't it? "At any rate, I escaped with the clothes on my back and a book I can't read... so obviously I came straight back to Nabata to get in more trouble." She smiled wanly at how ridiculous the situation sounded, and was for that matter. She'd already gotten nearly killed this visit more times than she had in the last decade.
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 17, 2017 0:10:45 GMT -6
Ahh, clarification. Mire or Fenrir or...ugh, the latter sounded better, but Althea had called it Mire. THAT spell looked similar to Flux spells, but the scale was incomparable it seemed. To unleash nether in a raw, unchained form...she could see why such spells could look impressive. On an entirely different scale altogether. Either way, that made it clear that Althea likely hadn't crossed from Flux into Mire when she had cast her magic. The difference would have been more noticeable.
Of course, all of that was completely secondary to the tragedy that Althea had...almost casually described. Circe's eyes widened with shock and guilt. Althea didn't seem to show much of a reaction to the tale, but that was arguably more troubling and...just outright sad than if she had broken down into tears. There was no way Althea was just that emotionally strong, was there?
“I'm...Althea, I'm sorry to hear that.” Circe had never been the best at comforting others. This was also a strange case. She felt terrible for Althea, truly, yet she also felt strange to apologize. She hadn't known what had happened, and even if she had, she certainly hadn't intended to dredge up the memory to torment Althea or anything. Moreover, Althea herself almost sounded more torn up about the lost research than the destruction of the town.
Yet the details of the story hung tight to Circe's mind. Monsters attacked the town. Althea...somehow...fell unconscious. Possibly attacked directly, and a lucky survivor? Well she seemed to be a lucky survivor all the same, obviously, but there already something did not seem to add up. While she was unconscious some enormous explosion of dark magic left the town in ruin, which she believes she survived due to lying in a...crater?
There was a crater in the middle of the town? BEFORE the explosion?
“It's...quite the tale to swallow, but I can't see why you would lie. Nor do I think you to be a liar.” There some definite missing links in the story. Circe brought a hand to her chin and cast her gaze to the ceiling. Round and round her thoughts did spin, until she managed to recall the last bit of what Althea said.
“Oh! Sorry. You mentioned a book you can't read?” Circe's gaze snapped back to the white haired shamaness once more. There was a twinkle of light in them, fascination from happening upon the mystery that was Althea. A bit worrisome that her earlier emotion had been so easily shrugged aside, perhaps, but...
Well, she didn't really have a good excuse for that, did she? It seemed to fit in well enough with the person she apparently was.
“You still have this book with you, yes? Would you mind if I took a look at it? I don't believe I've ever happened upon a text I couldn't read or decipher.” It was hard for the young magus to hide the pride in her voice, but she honestly did not mean that as a slight to Althea whatsoever. Whether the shamaness was aware of that, or cared for that matter, was unknown to her.
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Post by Althea on Jan 17, 2017 23:44:37 GMT -6
She probably shouldn't have said anything about it. It was easy to repress the memories usually, as she always did, as she always had, but evoking the scenario in her memories had opened Althea again to the events of the day - the loss - and she suddenly remembered with absolute certainty the sensation of feeling that it would have been better had she not survived it. "I..." The shaman hesitated, then swallowed, not quite used to this feeling of vulnerability. She had always coped with loss by crushing it beneath her will or pushing it so far away from her that she didn't feel it, but again being too weak to DO anything about it had affected her more than she had realized. "They were good people. They deserved better."Althea didn't have anything else to say. She COULDN'T say anything else, because if she accepted that weakness, she had to start accepting all the others, back to the root, and then she would be nothing again. Just the little girl who had run away while everything she knew and loved burned, who was too weak to stop it then and too weak to stop it in Lycia and very nearly too weak to stop it today. To say she was grateful that Circe offered her an out was an understatement that would be framed in Kraft's own tower for a millennium. Althea visibly brightened at the prospect, managing a wry smile as she collected her thoughts as quickly as possible, never an easy task at the best of times and... less so now. But doable! "Y-yes, of course, let me just -" It took a moment to figure out where her bag was, looking at both sides of her in confusion and momentary panic - oh god did I forget it back at the dig - before recalling that it was on the floor. Right! This was the most energized she'd felt all night, ironically enough, Althea was never the most active or energetic of women but something about research and learning brought out the most in her. "It's right... here," she said with a grunt as she produced a fairly large tome that... DIDN'T pulse with dark energy or evil whispers, for better or for worse, but looked like the sort of book you might find referenced in the Necronomicon or dredged from an infernal library, a great blackened book, every inch of its cover drowned in a tiny crawling script aside from some stylized black emblem at its forefront Althea opened it to doublecheck that she hadn't accidentally opened, say, the actual Necronomicon or any the Dictionnaire Infernal by accident. "I thought I knew every language there was to know, even Low Draconic, but this is something new to me!" Was she... actually rising to Circe's implied challenge? No, of course not, she would never do such a silly and immature thing. "See, it's written in an... old..." the pale shaman trailed off, looking more confused than she had managed all day, which was a feat in and of itself. What had been utter gibberish before seemed to have rearranged itself in some semblance of order; she still couldn't understand the arcane runes marching across every one of its countless pages, but there was some sense to their ordering she hadn't noticed before. A pattern that... scrabbled at the edge of her consciousness, just barely out of sight, like a word at the tip of her tongue that she couldn't quite think of. Somewhere along the way she had forgotten that Circe was there. --- Grimoire
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 18, 2017 10:46:32 GMT -6
It appeared that Althea...cared more about what had happened to the town than she had first let on. That was good, right? Of course it was. Althea was only human, she ought to care about that tragedy. But even if she had tried to hide it at first, Circe shouldn't have doubted her. What business was it of hers, first off? Second, well, Althea didn't seem like the type to just shrug off excess, unnecessary death. Perhaps minimizing it was just how she coped.
How would Circe cope if she was in a similar position? Not that she truly wanted to know, Elimine no. Just...
“I-I see. Well, I guess it's to be expected then. We're both mages and scholars. But I'd still like to take a shot at it, if you don't mind.” Circe didn't really know what Althea was well-learned then, not to mention it was far easier to comment on this academic angle than it was the earlier emotional angle. Circe had never been all that great at comforting others directly. The best she could do was distract them, and luckily for her Althea just happened to carry the perfect distraction for the two nerds that they were!
Still, that only made Circe more interested to see this grimoire that had her so flabbergasted. It took Althea some time to locate it, apparently, but when she did find it and heft it onto her bed...good lord the entire book was black. Even the pages were a dark grey to black. It was unsettling just to look at, as if the book itself had survived a fire.
Well duh, Circe, the book had survived an EXPLOSION. “G-Good lord, it's massive and...I don't think I've seen one so black before. Even elder magic tomes are not so...dark...”
Circe longed for a closer look at the thing, to the point where she leaned forward on her bed a bit, but Althea...oh no, was she passing out? She knew the white haired woman was tired, Circe was too, but she had hoped this conversation had energized her just as she had been energized by it. On closer inspection it more seemed that Althea was looking at the pages, rather than dozing off, and her eyes shifted as she attempted to read them.
“Um...Althea?”
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Post by Althea on Jan 18, 2017 17:56:13 GMT -6
"What? Oh, yes, I..." Not that anyone would have accused her of being all there in the moment at the best of times, but Althea's confusion was reaching critical mass as she tried to pull herself out of the book, the glimmering illusions of imagery still trailing through her mind like streamers upon a darkened window she couldn't quite see through. She blinked once, twice, trying to focus on something physical - the flickering light of the room's light, the wooden bed Circe was sitting on, Circe herself. What had she said again? Althea had registered part of what she said, but it was all falling apart, words to be stitched together into coherence.
Oh! Right. She had been going to show it to Circe, hadn't she? And then Circe had said something about its appearance. Yes, she was getting back into it now, it just took a moment. "I'm sorry, I just..." The shaman looked down at the book, tempted to just get back to trying to read it, but the coming headache managed to talk her out of it with a hammering to the skull. "...Remembered it being more confusing," she finished with all the grace and panache of a limbless paraplegic duck, rising from her fluffy throne to offer the book to Circe with only some minor misgivings. The other mage wouldn't steal it, right? It was HERS. Er... for study, not actually hers. Was it?
DAMMIT woman focus! Information! Facts! Give Circe something more useful to work with than useless drivel. "I discovered it a few months back in a temple of some sort that had just been uncovered by an especially fierce sandstorm, and I've been trying to decipher ever it since with little success."
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Circe Alexandra
Mage
"But I just wanna play it right, We're gonna get there tonight"
Posts: 64
Affinity: Anima
Profile: Circe
OoC Alias: Ars Sanctum/Tsunderis
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Post by Circe Alexandra on Jan 18, 2017 20:16:05 GMT -6
“Wait, you're saying you're starting to understand it now?” Circe asked as she leaned forward and accepted the book. Elimine was it heavy! She was used to large texts in other libraries and archives, sure, but this one was a cut above most. Still, it was strange what Althea had implied. Despite stating that she couldn't understand it before, Althea had seemed to be overwhelmed with...sudden understanding?
That didn't add up at all...and it only grew worse when Circe opened up the book. Her eyes fixed themselves on the first of many pages that the book had to offer and...it...was this even a language? Carefully Circe continued to flip through the book, hoping at some point to spot a pattern to the “writings” within, if they could even be called that. To her dismay, and at the cost of some small trace of pride, the more she tried to read out of the book the less sense it made.
“Th-this looks like the writings of a madman. No, worse than that. It's...i-it's all pattern-less gibberish!” Circe admitted with a small groan. Still she continued to flip through each an every page, determined to try and grasp SOMETHING from the book. While she did so she mulled over Althea's explanation. She had discovered the book in an abandoned temple? That had just been uncovered by a sandstorm...but the language used in old Nabata was known, wasn't it? Circe had read ancient Nabatan before...
This was something different altogether. Again, she couldn't see anything to even indicate it was a language. There was no sign of any rules that had to be followed at all! Agh, it was worse than Common!
“I can't make anything out of this, I'm sorry.” Circe finally stated with a small sigh. So much for her boasting, hm? At least she had told the truth... “But what you said doesn't seem to add up. I can't even spot the slightest indication that this is even a language, yet you said it has become less confusing to you?”
Not only did that make little sense, but it was also worrisome. If this book simply was the work of some madman from ages past, she could only imagine that understanding his work was...not a good sign for one's mental condition.
Having examined the book as much as she could, Circe held the heavy book out to Althea. Her arms shook a bit from the weight of the thing, so she uh, hoped Althea would take it swiftly. “How does it make more sense? I just don't follow what you mean.”
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