The endless waste

[aestrix]

Once, this planet teemed with life. It doesn't do that, anymore. The ground is dry and cracked and occasionally broken up by charred remains of trees. There are no birds, no bugs, no living plants - nothing but an empty, endless waste.

With one exception.

But the world is so very big, and the exception so very small. If someone showed up away from it, they could be quite forgiven for thinking this world is completely dead.




with Sable (Kappa)

with Aisilian (Link)

with Grendyne (Rockeye)

with Temple (Curiousdiscoverer)

Comments

[characterquarry]

The hearing-spell wears off before she has a chance to observe the difference.

She makes a high pass over the place, then a slightly lower pass. She flares two bright flashes of red mana and waits for the countersign.

[light_another_life]

There is no countersign.

But a young woman - twenty-something, it looks like, but certainly still young enough to be a witch with magic in her - exits the building and looks up at the source of the flashes of light with a lot of confusion.

[characterquarry]

The thing flying above her in steadily descending circles is a frighteningly pale and small-looking teenage girl, riding some sort of... Flying metal thing. And absolutely pouring off essence.

She's still too high to shout to, so she tries more flashes, completely unaware that their meaning is lost. Blue, white, green. 'Lost/separated from squad.' Red, blue, red. 'Where am I?'

[light_another_life]

The young woman does not look like she understands any of the flashes. She attempts to motion towards a reasonably tree-less place for the small-looking teenage girl to land.

She probably could actually manage to respond in kind with light, but she suspects the colors have meaning, and she'd hate to communicate the wrong thing.

[characterquarry]

She lands, still scanning the sky and horizon nervously. When the metal thing stops exhibiting any flight-like behavior, the wall of essence coming off her diminishes noticeably. But not even to 'roomful of people' let alone 'normal person' levels.

She shouts something confused-sounding, gesturing at the waste.

[light_another_life]

How incredibly bizarre.

The young woman replies something in another language - it sounds nothing like Greek. She motions in a questioning way towards the teenager.

[characterquarry]

Okay, this person is maybe not really a Witch. This might not even be Terra.

Mana-light illusions occur - using them tips up her essence output again. They're pretty crude, just patterns of lines in a few colors of light. Arrow at herself, and arrow at one of a group of ten figures on sticks.

The group sees a big, monsterish looking thing and exchanges blasts of energy. The figures can use magic shields, apparently, and the big thing regenerates, until it gets hit too hard and dissolves into white dust instead.

The next illusion is another monster, blasting the ground. She gestures again. Is that what happened?

[light_another_life]

The young woman watches the illusions, and then shakes her head. This is not what happened.

She motions to the two of them, then at her mouth, says a few words, and then inside the building. Then she steps towards an entrance and motions for her lost companion to follow.

[characterquarry]

She hefts her metal vehicle over one shoulder despite being rather tiny and frail, and follows.

[light_another_life]

Inside they go. There is a mysterious circle in the center of the room - specks of something float up from the edges of it, before evaporating into nothing. There's a golden rune at the center of the circle. It looks very magic, but it's not doing anything obvious right now.

The young woman doesn't even glance at it, and just walks right past it into the room beyond.

[characterquarry]

She sets down her broom and most of its contents at the first convenient surface, but brings along something hand-sized that she holds like a weapon but doesn't point at anything in particular. She gives the magic thing a suspicious glance and a wide berth.

On closer inspection, she looks... Really tired. Run-down. Not that this affects the absolute torrent of essence still pouring out of her.

[light_another_life]

The magic thing does nothing at all to her.

Past it is what looks to be a storage room. The young woman looks over her guest, frowns a bit, and then goes and retrieves a bit of food and drink. If the guest would like it.

Either way, the young woman holds up a finger ('Wait') and searches through the storage room for various items. A doll of some kind, a pouch of something, a dried flower, and a needle and thread. She retrieves a knife from a pocket somewhere, and opens a seam on the doll. Inside goes glowing dust from the pouch and bits of the dried flower - followed by a drop of blood from the young woman as she draws blood with the needle. She does it casually and without hesitation, and only a mild expression of discomfort.

Then she cleans the needle and sews the doll back up, turns to her guest, and mimes plucking a strand of hair from her head, and points to the guest.

[characterquarry]

Her guest has consumed the food and drink almost before it arrives.

She watches the magic things with a tired stare and raises an eyebrow at the hair thing, but obediently hands one over.

[light_another_life]

The young woman inclines her head, wraps the hair strand around the doll and ties it off so it won't come loose.

Then, with a perfect accent, she says in the guest's native language, "There, now we can talk. Um - hello, are you okay? You look exhausted."

[characterquarry]

"Big wave of attacks. I've been on no less than seven emergency Neuroi interceptions in the last sixty hours. Of course I'm exhausted. But I keep going. I'm young so my body can take it and I've still got plenty of mana, and if nobody kills the Neuroi hundreds or thousands will die. In fact, I'm almost too exhausted to be scared of all the weird magic you have. You're not a Witch, are you?"

[light_another_life]

"I am not a Witch," she agrees. "The Neuroi are the - monsters you showed in your illusions?"

[characterquarry]

"Yep. It's damn near impossible to kill the flying ones without magic, so we Witches can't just leave it to the regular army."

Her uniform has a nametag: Grendyne Nylund, Witch 3rd class, 42nd Witch Wing.

[light_another_life]

"Okay, you are - obviously from very very far away." That was such an understatement. "Do you know how you got here?"

[characterquarry]

She leans on a wall rather than continue to support herself standing up. "Lytee was doing a transit spell. It was supposed to teleport the entire wing from our base in Baltland to South Karlsland. I guess it got messed up. Is... Is this not the planet of Terra?"

[light_another_life]

"No. Uh. I can see about trying to get you back, but I - really can't guarantee anything, this is kind of unprecedented." She looks at Grendyne with concern. "Ah - I have chairs if you would like one, also more food and water, and I don't mind letting you sleep in my library."

[characterquarry]

"I'd just ask for more stimulants if I was still in a position to fight something, but it's not like I can get to the Neuroi from here. I appreciate the hospitality."

[light_another_life]

"Well, of course." She fetches more food and water. The food this time is bread with berries and nuts in it. The water is water. It's trying its best.

"How does your magic work?"

[characterquarry]

"I'm a Witch. About one in five hundred girls on my planet are Witches. We acquire our magic over our first few periods, it peaks in power when we're fifteen to eighteen, and then rapidly declines from there as we get older. The oldest active-duty Witch I know is 31, and she's coming up on retirement any day now. It's hard, fighting so hard at such a young age, but who else is gonna do it?"

"Anyway. All Witches can fly with the right tools - absolute minimum is a stick with twigs at one end, but my steelwing is a lot more sophisticated. We all get mana flashes - those lights - and starbursts, a really wasteful undirected magic blast attack that will exhaust you in a hurry if you rely on it too much. We can also do shields and a little elemental stuff. That's the basics. On top of that, every Witch gets a special thing they're intuitively good at. I'm a copier. I copy magic. It's never quite as easy as the person doing it themselves, but it makes me really versatile."

[light_another_life]

"Just Witch magic, or any magic?" wonders Saevetei, as she retrieves a chair for Grendyne. "And can you copy things you're not intuitively good at? Like a transit spell?"

[characterquarry]

"I've never actually seen any non-Witch magic before. I don't know if I can, but it'd be best to try it on something really simple. Mm. It's more like - My intuitive magic is copying. Whatever I copy, I'm never as intuitively good at it as those who have it natively. And I can only keep copied magic for more than an hour or two if it's really simple easy stuff. I could transit-spell a small object across a town right now, but not people, and definitely not to another dimension."