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]

"I like your attitude," says Saevetei, grinning.

First! Making things for a poppet. It is more difficult than breakfast, but Saevetei selects the easiest first and leaves the harder ones for the end, when Grendyne has had quite a lot of practice. It is a gentle learning curve and a reasonable way to practice making things.

"So I feel I should tell you," she says, as Grendyne is making a very specific type of moss that's pretty easy to make but takes an annoyingly long time to form, "poppets can be used for ludicrously terrible things, but using them for ludicrously terrible things is difficult if you don't know the exact steps, which uh - aren't obvious. I will not be teaching you those, they are exactly useless against the Neuroi. But I can teach you the ones that protect you against fire or drowning or help prevent broken bones and the like. Because those are useful against the Neuroi, and also just generally helpful."

[witchwatcher]

"I can see someone using poppets as a threat to help contain criminals, if any of the ludicrously terrible things are exaggerated in how terrible they are. But we have geases and prisons and they manage well enough. I don't expect poppets would improve our system. Useful and not-terrible magic is quite welcome to interfere with inefficient and outdated established systems, of course."

[light_another_life]

"Of course, that's just obvious. I was already planning to attempt to distribute the plants that grow ludicrously fast and spit out very nutritious and tasty meals excessively quickly. Also transportation circles and waystones, I can see those being crucial."

[witchwatcher]

"Food, transport, and communication are the three biggest obstacles we have besides the Neuroi themselves, I think. We can't test this whether this is even necessary yet, but a way to make weaves usable by Witches who don't have copying for a special would be excellent."

The moss is done, now. Back to making various things.

[light_another_life]

Various things are made!

Some of them are very very tricky. The trickiest is some kind of gemstone. It needs a very careful eye for detail, and parts of it need to be done very quickly, or none of it works. It might take a few attempts; Saevetei offers to make it if Grendyne doesn't want to.

[witchwatcher]

Don't tell anyone, but Gren may be a little stubborn when it comes to magical challenges. After the first try fails, she takes detailed notes during her second. The third try also fails. And she's getting a bit tired, so it's a good time for a break.

"What's this tricky little thing for, anyway?"

[light_another_life]

"Two-fold, actually. It's - kind of like the power base for the poppet, and it's also what helps steer the poppet into working over time instead of all at once. The one you're making it actually an empty power container, making a filled one is so difficult it might as well be impossible. For scale - filling it is harder than making it, and making it already filled takes that and multiplies it."

[witchwatcher]

"I think it'd be easier to repeat if I watched you make and fill one correctly first. Your magic doesn't tolerate little mistakes nearly as much as Witch magic tends to. I guess that's to be expected, since I'm trying to make a permanent magical artifact. Artifacts are the stuff of legend on Terra. Would you mind?"

[light_another_life]

"Poppets do wear out eventually and need to be replaced, but - reasonably permanent, yes. I don't mind making it at all." She retrieves the weave and reviews the steps. It's certainly not the most difficult thing she's done, but she's not quite good enough to jump straight into making it without a review. Best to be safe. Arrogance gets her a lot of wasted essence.

Watching her technique is interesting. She's methodical, but instead of only doing one timed section at a time, she juggles two (and at one point, three) at once. The reason for this becomes apparent as she finishes - it gives her a bit more time to complete a very tricky section at the end.

And then she has a deceptively ordinary looking purple gemstone. It's pretty, but doesn't look very magical.

"Filling it is actually a completely different sort of thing than making it," she says, offering Grendyne the gem for inspection. "And I'll show you that thing with something simpler before we touch charging this. It took me years to get charging an attunement stone right, though, I warn you. It's okay if you hand it off to me to do."

[witchwatcher]

She's going over some more detailed notes right now.

"Starting with something simple sounds better, yes. The ability to sense what's going on and practice at shaping magic, albeit a different sort, only goes so far. Will charging it incorrectly ruin the stone?"

[light_another_life]

"A bit, yes. Charging it badly enough will, ah, cause it to explode." Pause. "... I'll just be honest, okay? It's killed me before. I really don't recommend it when you're just beginning."

[witchwatcher]

"You're the expert. I think I'll try making one again, since that, at least, is nonlethal."

She gets it wrong again. It's not like she doesn't have essence to spare on all this trial-and-error, though. And after a half-dozen more tries, she produces an acceptable result. Hurray!

[light_another_life]

Saevetei offers suggestions throughout, but soon enough there's not much she can offer. It's really just practice. So, she retrieves a book and has them both move outside while Grendyne's attempting to get the attunement stone right. The place she moves them to has a large stone dais and a little shed-like thing that's filled with various items. Nearby is a neat little firepit, with a stand that looks like it's meant for a cauldron or pot of some kind. The cauldron or pot in question must be inside the shed.

She flips through her book to the correct page, reads the instructions, and then goes and retrieves other items she'll apparently need. A few of them were made by Grendyne, but others, like a little case filled with various colors of magical chalk, were not. She's just about gathered everything up when Grendyne successfully makes the gem.

"Congratulations!" she says sincerely.

[witchwatcher]

"You're right about how complicated this stuff is. I think I'm only doing as well as I am because I already have years' worth of experience copying stuff. I feel like I should be learning the theory behind it, too. Is this feeling correct?"

[light_another_life]

"I think you should," she agrees. "But the theory behind it would, ah. Take a while. And I'd want to get you some books that would explain it better than I could, which needs the poppet. But I can explain some basic principles, if you like."

[witchwatcher]

"I'd appreciate it. It's not like there's a school of magic where I come from - Witch powers are all intuitive."

[light_another_life]

Saevetei nods.

"Right, so - this - version of magic, I suppose, is based around leading essence from reasonably ordinary objects down certain chalk paths to refine them into what I need them to be. I can't just pick anything, the object has to have some relevant kind of essence. I gathered things for an easy demonstration, and the thing I'm making we'll need for connecting you to the dream world anyway. So. I thought it'd be smart to do it all at once."

She kneels down and starts drawing with a white chalk, only occasionally checking the book. It looks like a pretty simple design.

"So this is really, really easy, for a ritual circle. There isn't a lot of refining necessary, just pulling out what I need from various things I'll be using." She motions to a modest stack of apparent ingredients. It mostly seems to be plants, but there is a clear glass lens and a pouch filled with something. "The different colors of chalk do different things - some of them are naturally the colors they turn out to be, others are color coded to keep it from being confusing. White chalk doesn't do much of anything, except move things." Draw draw draw. The lines don't look random, but there's not an obvious pattern to them. "But even when it just moves things, some essence is lost. The longer the chalk line, the more that is lost. This is what's supposed to happen, because you're trying to get it to a certain power level and type."

More drawing! The chalk is sort of all flowing towards a central place. Saevetei has started having some chalk lines combine - others purposefully meander. She doesn't connect all of them, though. Some are purposefully separate.

"Golden chalk," she explains, once she's apparently done drawing in white, "is - not quite like the other types of chalk. For one, it doesn't lose essence that travels along it, and it doesn't change it at all. For another, it steals from nearby chalk lines. It doesn't need to touch the chalk line, actually, it just needs to be within a certain distance. And that distance changes depending on which type of chalk you're using. Because of this, it's almost completely useless in the actual refinement part of the ritual - in some complicated ones it crops up in tandem with how different chalks have different stealing distances, but that's very very advanced. It's used in the attunement ritual."

She draws in golden chalk, at the center of the... thing.

"But, it is incredibly useful for the final parts of most rituals. It'll just grab everything you funnel into it without losing anything, and from there you finish off the rest of the ritual. Make sense?"

[witchwatcher]

"I'm probably missing scads of nuance here, but I get the general idea. I make little charts of how Witch specials run, sometimes. This ritual stuff is more definite and literal than that, though. Seems like a lot of math. And this is an easy one?"

[light_another_life]

"This is an easy one," she affirms. "And there's - just me drawing it for you wouldn't actually solve the problem, because the chalk isn't what's pulling the essence down it, it's the person doing the ritual. You can compensate for mistakes you make in the drawing by pulling faster or slower, but the other side of that coin is you can screw it up, too."

[witchwatcher]

"This is the sort of thing I am less used to copying. I probably have to learn it the long way, alas. At least it's interesting."

[light_another_life]

"It is that, certainly," agrees Saevetei, somewhat wryly. "I tend to avoid it if I can, though. I don't exactly suck at it, but it's. Not my favorite thing."

[witchwatcher]

Gren makes a confused face at the word 'suck'. "I think the translation poppet is having difficulties. Or possibly it's just a culture difference."

[light_another_life]

"Oh." She blinks. "No, that's not the poppet's fault, that's mine, sorry. Cultural difference. For reference, sickly nodes suck the life out of things because they're empty of life themselves. So..."

[witchwatcher]

"Ah, I see. Let's keep the fact that we've lived in two very different worlds in mind the next time one of us confuses the other. So, why do both these plants get the same sort of chalk?"

[light_another_life]

"Since I'm the one pulling the essence, I can sort of - choose what to pull, and what to allow to get lost. And this is a very, very old ritual that has been tailored down many, many times to make it as easy as possible on the one doing it; everything that would have needed the fancier chalk has been carefully replaced with something that doesn't and works just as well."