Magic without a magic

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel wakes up. This is not where she went to sleep. She has a peek at the stream -

- And lets out a surprised yelp at the nonsensical cacophony.

"What in the blue hells is this place?" No answer is immediately apparent, so she climbs to the top of the ravine, carefully avoiding the various inexplicable things in the area. The snake-goat hybrid was particularly grotesque.

The top of the ravine has a road. She tries to fly, but can't. Again, very strange. This is a pretty nice road, physically, but magically it's completely undeveloped. She walks towards the city, peeking at the stream once in a while only to see fog, and seeking an explanation.

Comments

[namesthesky]

"That would be nice."

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel summarizes how her magic works. Shaping the stream, viewing it, and using it, and their corresponding prices in strength, physical senses, and emotion.

Then, "So the outer layer of skin is mostly dead. That's why you can take little scrapes and rub on things without being hurt. Tattoos go a little deeper, they bind to the fat under that outer layer. If they were just on the outer layer, they'd disappear in a month or two. The way we remove tattoos is using magic to convince the ink and only the ink, not your blood or anything else, to move back into the upper layer, and then it will fade by itself, or you can scrape yourself to remove it."

[namesthesky]

"And this is significantly easier than moving the ink out of my skin entirely?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yes it is. I can convince the ink to move around your body because your body moves things around it by itself, like blood and food. Pulling it out of your body after it's had time to settle in would be like trying to separate the salt from a cooked loaf of bread. I can get it to the very edge of skin, though, so that a good bath will get rid of it."

[namesthesky]

"That will do."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm worried that as soon as I start scrubbing tattoos, someone who owns a lot of slaves will decide to change the law about Aelare's blessing. I don't know if there's a way around that."

[namesthesky]

"If you can make it so they wear off only with a good scrubbing, they won't do so obviously right away. You could set up a lot of them and then I could start a rumor that they'll rub off on a certain day."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Nice idea, not a long term solution but it'll help get the most benefit out of a limited opportunity. Do you think a disguise could help the rumor? What is Aelare supposed to look like?"

[namesthesky]

"She shapeshifts. Popular forms include a copper-coated fox or a magpie or a woman with moonbeams in her hair."

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel thinks for a moment. Then pale light shines from gaps in her hair, like a candle shining through a net. "Like so? Or maybe..."

The pattern changes, and instead a single inch-wide streak of hair is glowing softly along its entire length. It fizzes out after a moment. "Huh, that's tricky."

[namesthesky]

"She's also supposed to have opal eyes and I don't think I've ever seen her depicted as pale as you are. But I'm not sure exactly how you plan to deploy this disguise even if you perfect it."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I was imagining personally telling a few of them that their tattoo will wash off two full moons from now. Having Aelare herself appear before them would help the rumors. Oh, I'll have to be physically present near everyone I do this to. It would be best if lots of them would step in the same physical space, such as a lunch-line or something."

[namesthesky]

"We're usually kept in close quarters whenever someone has a lot. Markets, farms, brothels, labor rentals, you'd probably get more than half the slaves in the country if you managed to hit them all."

[sturdycoldsteel]

She makes a face. "Ugh, brothels. I should have expected that. But the problem is you'll need to put your ankle in about a six-inch wide 'tattoo-removing tool' I can make in the fabric of the world. Making a new one for every slave, even one that only needs to last a few moments, would be extremely tiring and limit the number of them I can do to something like a eighty a day."

[namesthesky]

"That's still a lot, and could probably complete any single concentration of slaves, but will definitely slow you down. There might not be a way around it."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yeah, eighty's more than zero, I suppose. Are you ready to see if this works at all? Put your foot here, if so." She indicates a corner of the room.

[namesthesky]

Aya puts her foot there.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel moves her foot a bit and stares intently at the tattoo.

After about twenty seconds. "This isn't supposed to hurt, but I'm starting now."

It doesn't feel like anything at all. After about three minutes, "Try picking at some of the skin. If even a little ink comes off onto your finger, it worked."

[namesthesky]

Aya rubs her foot.

[sturdycoldsteel]

A few tiny little flecks of ink are evident on her hand, but the tattoo remains as visible as ever.

"Excellent," Steel says, "Now all you need is a healthy dose of soap."

[namesthesky]

"There's a bath in the back courtyard."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Go ahead, I won't stop you but I don't particularly want to watch. Wait, do we have soap? And do I need to burn those title papers or anything?"

[namesthesky]

"Soap is included in our board, and no, once my heel's clean I'm free."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Good for you. Thanks for being a willing test subject. Are you gonna stay here? I like your attitude, you know the area and you're in on my plan. I'll pay you - let's say 7 seo per five days, if my guess is right that's about average, and you'll get room and board and food from my funds."

[namesthesky]

"Helping you and your useful embroidery seems more constructive than my next best option and I can live on that amount all right, although once you're set up doing magic healings I might ask for a raise."