random pointless swirls

[sturdycoldsteel]

The shaper known as Steel is flying down the right side of a road, shoring up the edges of the bluestream that lets her lift herself off the ground as she goes. Sure, she'll be a bit clumsy and weak when she gets to Opri, but she's not planning on doing much more stream-shaping today, so might as well.

She glances at the bluestream (the magical vision blinds her physical vision for a short moment, but not long enough to crash into anything) and determines that this next crossroads is where she needs to turn. She tilts to the right...

...And lands on a patch of orange grass in a forest clearing. This is not the town of Opri. She opens her eyes and ears to the bluestream, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The bluestream here isn't a nice, orderly, useful pattern like on the roads, or the formless fog that it usually decays to after a while. Instead it's a riot of random patterns swirling around, wispy and confused and obviously not designed to do anything useful.

Steel, deaf and blind for a few seconds thanks to her peek at the bluestream, stands very still and is very confused.

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

"How is my 'real name' defined, exactly? I already have my trade name - the name I use whenever I'm doing magic."

[imeanforever]

"The first full name you were ever named."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Ah. Then my trade name will do just fine. It's 'Steel'. Nice to meet you, Promise."

[imeanforever]

"Likewise. Although I do hope I can get you home soon. It's dangerous here for mortals."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It definitely sounds that way. It would be a really nice place to live if not for the slave thing. The bluestream is so much easier to work with here. I bent it a little to help me fly - it was almost effortless compared to pushing back the endless fog it wants to be back home."

[imeanforever]

"I wonder why. What is the bluestream?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's... The framework that lets shapers do magic. It's everywhere, you just can't see it unless you're a shaper and you sacrifice your ability to see the physical world for a little bit. We can't do anything with the stream when it's just fog, but by sacrificing some or all of our ability to use muscles for a while we can shape it in ways that allow almost anyone to use magic. Roads have flying-shaped bluestream, hospitals have healing-shaped bluestream, and so on. That's why I was complaining about the stream here - it's in patterns, not fog, but the patterns are close to useless. I was wondering why someone bothered making them. Now I think they're naturally occurring."

[imeanforever]

"Sounds almost like harmonics."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Maybe they're the same thing. What are harmonics?"

[imeanforever]

"Harmonics are a sorcery-affecting feature of locations which vary depending on what's nearby and other factors. But nobody can see them. There's a way to map them but I don't know it - I mean, I don't know the conventions to write it down usefully; I know the lay of the harmonics around my tree and foraging grounds."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Will you be much inconvenienced if the harmonics change? Because if not, there's an obvious test here."

[imeanforever]

"Before you go changing the harmonics I'm used to around my tree I'd rather see if we can confirm this some other way, like seeing if you can detect the structures I'm familiar with or see resonances around the tree or eddies from sorcery I do."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I don't think I perceive them in a way that will make much sense to you, but yes, that's a better plan."

[imeanforever]

"I mean, you can tell when they're - changing more or less quickly over a given distance? Tell where they're complicated and where they're simple?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yes. If I sit and watch them for a while I'll be blind for much longer than that, though. Acceptable drawback, but I wouldn't want to do it all day."

[imeanforever]

"Inconvenient, but not prohibitively. Maybe best to do this inside the tree, which is not as roomy for a mortal-sized person as the outside but is safer to be blind in."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's safer to be blind in your house than out only so long as one trusts you, though. I don't necessarily think you're up to no good, but I'm a stranger in a strange land and I still only have your word for the food thing and the name thing."

[imeanforever]

"If you'd rather do it outside we can."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I would." She hits a particularly unfriendly patch of bluestream and has to land and start walking.

[imeanforever]

Promise flies on.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Are there no animals at all in this forest? Most non-plant living things give off some noise when I listen to the bluestream, but there's nothing except you and me and... Sliding sounds from that pattern to the right, for the nearest 200 meters or so."

[imeanforever]

"You can hear the 'bluestream' too? But anyway, no, there aren't animals in Fairyland unless they wander through the way you did, which isn't common. Or if they used to be fairies."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yes, sight and hearing both. They give different sets of information - sight is better at seeing the way things are structured, hearing is better for detecting change. I can also smell and taste it by losing those senses for a little bit, but that's almost useless."

[imeanforever]

"What does it look and sound like? Or for that matter smell or taste like."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's... Really hard to explain. It doesn't quite translate to physical sight, but we say it 'looks' like circles or 'looks' like red anyway. And it looks like vibrant, shifting colors in many different kinds of patterns, dominated by curves in terms of shape and tones of blue for color. Your body's pattern is mostly white, most peoples' patterns are. Straight-ish lines in green are best for flying."

"We usually translate the beats given off of living things as pulses, though they don't match heartbeats. Any active magic makes a lot of 'noise.' Flying sounds like wind, healing is a low, deep thrumming, transmutation is like a clear bell. Patterns that are changing or crumbling sound like creaking timbers or leaves crunching underfoot."

"Smell and taste are just as not-quite-the-same, and there's less use for them so I don't even have many fixed associations. Um, roads taste salty, hospitals smell clean?"