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glowfic2015-12-19 09:52 am
what_greater_weapon) wrote in glowfic2015-12-19 09:52 am
Entry tags:
Local lore is surprisingly accurate
Noelle finds that having a village is quite a pain. So she doesn't have one. Instead she travels. This isn't as easy as the sentence makes it sound. She has several sets of clothes that fit her just badly enough to make her look androgynous instead of feminine, while still being practical and not in her way. It's perhaps not what her fashion choices would be if choosing for aesthetics, but her fashion choices are not based around aesthetics. Instead it's to keep the idiots that think a lone reasonably pretty young woman is a tempting and vulnerable target to a minimum.
Not that it's a foolproof strategy. People are stupid, and she's apparently rather pretty. Not that anyone should try anything; while she might be tempting, she is not vulnerable. She has a sword at her hip that she knows how to use beyond 'pointy end goes in the person,' a small crossbow that looks deceptively useless when it is anything but, and a few knives that benefit from baggy clothes and the ability to hide knives therein. Anyone that thinks she is a tempting and vulnerable target and that they should act accordingly will be corrected. Possibly with the knives, if they especially deserve it.
She's actually in the middle of that right now. Well, sort of. She is working on being in the middle of that right now. In order to get there she has to find the guy. He had some wandering hands that went to unsanctioned locations, and after she broke his finger he, well, ran. Normally she might let him go, call it even, but she realized the next morning that he fit the description of a bandit with a sizable bounty on him. And he did have a mysteriously large purse for a man with that little class. It fits. And he's an asshole, so she can go retrieve him, dump him at the feet of the local lawmen that are looking for him, collect the lovely bounty, and be on her way.
One problem: the asshole ran into a thing the locals call the Witchwood. She realizes rather too late that it is appropriately named. The trees must be moving, or moving her, because she passed by that creek with the rocks in that particular formation and the slightly broken tree two hours ago, and she was following the sun. This should not happen.
Well. She has travelling rations with her, and she can find water reliably well (especially if the creek keeps showing up) but if she's trapped in here forever there's not much she can do about it. If it takes longer than a week she might set the forest on fire, but she's not that desperate. She'll let the magic woods lead her around if they want to, she guesses. Not that she has a choice.
She scrapes marks in trees with her least favorite knife, because it's not like she has anything better to do, and she wants to know how many times trees will repeat themselves. Scrape scrape. Wander wander.
Not that it's a foolproof strategy. People are stupid, and she's apparently rather pretty. Not that anyone should try anything; while she might be tempting, she is not vulnerable. She has a sword at her hip that she knows how to use beyond 'pointy end goes in the person,' a small crossbow that looks deceptively useless when it is anything but, and a few knives that benefit from baggy clothes and the ability to hide knives therein. Anyone that thinks she is a tempting and vulnerable target and that they should act accordingly will be corrected. Possibly with the knives, if they especially deserve it.
She's actually in the middle of that right now. Well, sort of. She is working on being in the middle of that right now. In order to get there she has to find the guy. He had some wandering hands that went to unsanctioned locations, and after she broke his finger he, well, ran. Normally she might let him go, call it even, but she realized the next morning that he fit the description of a bandit with a sizable bounty on him. And he did have a mysteriously large purse for a man with that little class. It fits. And he's an asshole, so she can go retrieve him, dump him at the feet of the local lawmen that are looking for him, collect the lovely bounty, and be on her way.
One problem: the asshole ran into a thing the locals call the Witchwood. She realizes rather too late that it is appropriately named. The trees must be moving, or moving her, because she passed by that creek with the rocks in that particular formation and the slightly broken tree two hours ago, and she was following the sun. This should not happen.
Well. She has travelling rations with her, and she can find water reliably well (especially if the creek keeps showing up) but if she's trapped in here forever there's not much she can do about it. If it takes longer than a week she might set the forest on fire, but she's not that desperate. She'll let the magic woods lead her around if they want to, she guesses. Not that she has a choice.
She scrapes marks in trees with her least favorite knife, because it's not like she has anything better to do, and she wants to know how many times trees will repeat themselves. Scrape scrape. Wander wander.
no subject
The later parts of the book, though, are case studies of damage to the Mind-realm. Some of the people are described as having concrete problems - head injuries, illnesses of varying mysteriousness - but by far the majority of the damaged Mind-realms in question are noted as 'unwilling channel' and an estimate of how much spellpower they were made to carry.
Amid more speculation on the different manifestations of damage in similarly manifested Mind-realms, like why this lake boiled dry while that one froze solid, the author notes that it's hard to study unwilling channels because so few of them survive their use for long. Eight cases in a row came from a single enchanter who happened to fatally lose control of a spell while the author was nearby; the author, while not inclined to personally burn out anyone's mind in pursuit of knowledge, was not above collecting that enchanter's entire stable of unwilling channels and studying them all.
no subject
Also, losing control of spells: can kill her. She will not do that.
Ughhhhh how does she get into this mind realm thing, do any books here mention it? She wants to know what hers looks like now.