witchcraft and sorcery

[witchwatcher]

For a brief moment, in a certain part of fairyland there is a tear that leads to the cold sky above a snow-covered hilly forest somewhere in the mortal world.

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[witchwatcher]

And the invisible inaudible Scatter is flying a hundred feet above Promise's tree.

She carefully looks around for any fairies. She won't find anyone else who's invisible, but she knows they come in 'small' and 'blending-in colors'.

[alicornucopia]

Nobody is visible.

[witchwatcher]

She hovers near the top of the tree, looking for a good small-mediumish branch to extract. When she finds a good candidate that includes some leaves, she snaps it off and immediately teleports back to Promise.

[imeanforever]

Promise lights up to behold her branch and holds out her hands eagerly.

[witchwatcher]

Scatter hands it over. Then she writes in the dirt, "Can you re-audible me? I want to talk to Copycat."

[imeanforever]

Scatter's breath is suddenly loud in her ears.

Promise goes to plant her branch.

[witchwatcher]

Scatter has a hushed, possibly slightly combative conversation with Copycat.

After a couple of minutes, Copycat asks, "Promise, would you mind trying to see if you can name Neuroi in a couple of days? It's unlikely I think, but if it turns out you can later we'll have let the war go on for no reason."

[imeanforever]

"I can try. They'll have to hear me for it to do any good besides making me a useful shield, though."

[witchwatcher]

"Not a problem," Scatter insists, "Chatterbox."

"Yeah, her special is to relay voices between people. Her own is easiest, but she can cast others' voices too."

[imeanforever]

"And she can use this to relay orders to Neuroi sufficiently unambiguously? All right then. Although I'm not sure they'll convey through a relay like that. Might be worth testing with Copycat telling me to do something innocuous through her to check."

[witchwatcher]

"Good idea. Do you want a couple of days to get started on your tree first, though?" Scatter looks annoyed at this.

[imeanforever]

"In the best case scenario where it turns out I can call them all 'Neuroi' and Chatterbox can relay me telling them to stop, how long will it take to find them all and shut them down?"

[witchwatcher]

"If we go after individuals, years. But there is a king Neuroi, of sorts. It's huge, the size of a mountain. It lives inside a giant storm so we can't get near it, but we can watch it and see that it makes the smaller ones. Even if it can't control them after the fact you can tell it to stop making them."

[imeanforever]

"And Chatterbox can relay through this storm just fine."

[witchwatcher]

"It hasn't been tried through the storm specifically, but she can talk to anyone she can see, and I can copy both her, and Telescope's enhanced vision to see it through the clouds and rain. It'll be tricky, the relaying-voices thing is a lot harder than sending my own and listening. I'll need to practice."

[imeanforever]

"Okay. So... you can practice and I can grow my tree and when you're ready we can try it."

[witchwatcher]

"Sounds good. Straight home, then, Scatter?"

"I kinda wanted to explore for a bit again, but home is just as good."

"Bye, Promise." Poof.

[imeanforever]

Promise grows her tree. She grows it until she can just barely squish inside it, and then she does, and she grows it more.

She forces it into fruit. She missed her own haws and her own wood and her own safety.

[witchwatcher]

Safety is pretty good, isn't it?

Fighting monsters is not particularly safe. Scatter pops in, alone, bleeding, and flops to the ground in front of Promise's tree.

[imeanforever]

Promise does not immediately notice this. She is inside. Her tree does not have windows nor, at the moment, a door.

[witchwatcher]

She tries to yell. It doesn't really work. She fires the flintlock pistol in her non-burned hand at the dirt, that's pretty loud.

[imeanforever]

That gets Promise to peek out. And heal her.

[witchwatcher]

"Thank you. Sorry for barging in. A Neuroi caught me by surprise, and those were nasty wounds. If I went to a hospital I would have died, but I remembered that sorcery can do healing. So, thank you."

This uniform is different than the clothes she usually wears. It has some writing on it. One of the things written on it is a name.

[imeanforever]

"You're we-" Pause. "- wearing your name."

[witchwatcher]

"...Fuck." She covers it with her hand and looks around. "Most uniforms have names on them. It's not like I had time to change clothes before coming here. Damn it."