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

[light_another_life]

"Oh, uh. Okay, when I sleep, I go to the dream world, and I'm conscious and myself and in a world that's a bit weird, but - it's possible to happily live in the dream world. No meaningless dreams or darkness. Everyone else that is connected to the dream world is in the same world, too. And if someone who is connected to the dream world dies, they don't - cease existing, or go somewhere living people can't follow. They're in the dream world. They can be brought back if you know how."

[witchwatcher]

Grendyne sits down.


"We can't do that. If you die, you're gone for good as far as we know. Some people say there's an afterlife called Heaven, a bit like you're describing the dreamworld, but we can't prove it either way. You're damn lucky you have a dream world."

[light_another_life]

Saevetei swallows.

That's a lot of dead people that are gone, isn't that.

"Do you want me to try to connect you to the dream world?" she asks softly.

[witchwatcher]

"Maybe we have something on my world, and we just can't tell. Maybe we don't. The black void... It would mean I really, truly have no chance of seeing my brother again. I'll have to think about that."

[light_another_life]

"Okay," says Saevetei. "... Let's go make you a bed, anyway."

[witchwatcher]

"Alright."

[light_another_life]

Saevetei goes and retrieves another essence potion, and then leads Grendyne upstairs to a library. There are many books! ... All of them are in a language Grendyne can't read.

Her host hums, figures out where the bed will go (and where Grendyne would like it to be) and then drinks the entire essence potion. She holds the netted copper thing in her left hand, and holds her right hand forward and -

Light traces its way up out of the floor, making what looks to be a bed frame, or an outline of it. It looks almost like a sketch in the world, shining and three dimensional and slowly gaining detail. The holes between lines fill in with white, and the whole thing fades a bit - shadows can form on its surface, showing the little nooks and crannies inherent in the bed. When the bed is whole, color starts bleeding into it, spreading like drops of ink in water on paper from the bottom up. The end result looks more like watercolor than an object - but the colors solidify and saturate and slowly arrange themselves to something more orderly and accurate.

And then it does look perfect, like a completely ordinary bed, with soft green sheets and a comfortable looking pillow. Saevetei lowers her hand.

"Done."

[witchwatcher]

"That was very strange to my copying-sense. I think I might be able to learn to use essence patterns with mana. Maybe. Bedtime right now, though."

[light_another_life]

"That's be useful, definitely. But, yes, bedtime now. Good night."

[witchwatcher]

Without even bothering to change out of the uniform, she sleeps.


She wakes up some ten hours later, or when Saevetei next enters the room.

[light_another_life]

Saevetei gives her space and doesn't interrupt her sleep.

There are no immediate emergencies or Neuroi to fight.

What would Grendyne like to do?

[witchwatcher]

...She just sits there, for now. She opens a book, puts it back.

Soon she goes downstairs and finds her host. "Do you think I could get your language? Failing that, I want to try to use an essence pattern."

[light_another_life]

Saevetei is gardening! There is a lot of garden to garden. She looks up from watering some plants that appreciate the attention.

"I can, yeah. It'll take me a bit, I'd need to make a new poppet, I don't have any more spares. Interested in reading? Essence weave's easy actually, you can try to make breakfast with one."

[witchwatcher]

"Let's try making breakfast, then. It's probably just a matter of pushing mana into it in slightly different ways until it accepts the stuff."

[light_another_life]

"Sure. Do you want anything in particular for breakfast?" she wonders, watering the last of this row of plants and noting where she stopped so she can get to it later.

She lists the available breakfast options. Mostly it's a lot of non-animal product options, but she apparently went through the trouble of getting a scrambled egg weave set up. She's also got some options for dairy if Grendyne wants it, both non-animal dairy alternative and straight from a non-existent goat dairy. The goat option is more difficult, she notes.

[witchwatcher]

She picks some of the stranger sounding vegetables and grains, looking considering.

[light_another_life]

Saevetei goes and finds the appropriate copper net things.

"Should I demonstrate again, or verbally instruct? Or both? I can do both."

[witchwatcher]

"Mm, I think I'll get it in a minute or two. It's just a matter of imitating essence, and I've imitated more complicated things before."

She stares at the net thing intently. Her first few tries are not essency enough.

[light_another_life]

And then one of her tries is essency enough.

Now that it's in this essency form, it seems pretty obvious how to change the essence into other things, though not immediately obvious what to change the essence into. But that is what the essence weave is for. It is - very much like following a blueprint. Make this essence into this essence type that lacks a name but feels sort of like Opera's power. Twist this essence into this thing with this other thing. Do this. Do that. Add this. All of the effort comes from her, and while it's easier to just follow the given pattern, it's possible to deviate from it - though, without knowledge of what does what, this is probably not recommended. It is not so obvious as 'this part here is responsible for the cinnamon present' - everything is in weird flavors of essence.

This process also makes it obvious how to make things without an essence weave - it is definitely possible, but also very very hard - she'd have to do all of this without the blueprint. But given practice and effort and memorization...

One can create breakfast. Like so. Breakfast!

"Nicely done," says Saevetei.

[witchwatcher]

"That was - weird. Let's go with weird. I want to do that again. After breakfast, of course."

[light_another_life]

"Sure. I can get you to make some poppet materials if you want to be economic, though those are a bit harder than breakfast."

The breakfast was kind enough to come on a plate, but Saevetei fetches more plates and utensils and shows Grendyne to a hastily refurbished work desk that is now moonlighting as a place to eat, complete with sheepishly mismatching chairs. Food!

(It is good food.)

[witchwatcher]

She nods happily at the food, but doesn't comment out loud on it.

"Are there names for all those different sorts of essence that the weave turned it into?"

[light_another_life]

"Those? Yes. All of the discovered ones get named once we realize their existence, but there's lots of types of essence. Like - various species of beetle. There's a lot. We haven't learned all of them - I've actually discovered two, myself."

[witchwatcher]

"This is great. I want to learn how it all works, import weaves and plants back home if I can. If you can get me home."

[light_another_life]

"I will try to get you home. And - yeah, actually some of my sleeping instructors are making a list of weaves and plants most necessary for exporting to a world that doesn't have our magic. They're mostly of the opinion that not doing so is kind of irresponsible, and that not helping with the Neuroi is a great way to have another end of the world scenario that we don't need." She doesn't mention her part in convincing them of this. "But they'll likely stay away from teaching how to make some of the bigger weapons. Shields and transportation circles and essence plants that make various substances and such are fair game, though. Helpful things."