Character Mansion

[Dining Room]

Terron grinned. "Exactly. We entered into the cave, and the only thing we could see was darkness. I tried a few fire spells, but none of them worked. We just crawled on our hands and knees, feeling our way through the cave. Eventually, it lit up a little bit so we didn’t cut our hands on rocks. After continuing to travel for a while, we found…well, this is sort of hard to explain. Do you mind if I show you? That would be a lot better than this."

[Dining Room]

Esa and Koyel exchanged looks. Then Esa said, "might well. Ain't right to fear a thing so much you don't bear to look at it."

Koyel nodded in agreement. "Ain't gonna hurt to make the list of nasties we've seen in our lives bigger. Let's see this."

"Wait," Esa said. "Best you make clear; were you unable to even cast your fire spells? Or did their light not pierce the darkness, as though it were a living thing resisting?"

[Dining Room]

As he and Keros began inscribing runes in the table, Terron looked at Esa. "I could feel my fire spells working, and I could feel their warmth, but the darkness seemed almost...liquid, in a way. Like how the air feels on a particularly humid day, except it crushed any light. It was terrifying." He bent back to examine his work. "There we go!" He said a few words under his breath, and the room bent and shifted until it appeared as if they were in a cave.

[Mysterious Cave]

"Well, here we are!" Terron said. "This is a simulation of the cave that Keros and I went through. None of it's real, but if you move in any direction, it will look as if you are walking."

edited 11th May '13 10:00:57 AM by nova24

[Outside]

"Ah," said Mai delicately. "Angered the wrong person, I take it? No," she added, holding up a hand, "you don't need to go into the details if you don't want to, I'm just thinking out loud." She looked up at the stars. "Curses can be a real bitch if you can't get them cured — which, I suppose, is kind of the entire reason for them being curses."

After a moment, she turned back to Anne and said, "All right. Your turn. I asked you something, so now you get to ask me something."

[Dining Room / Cave]

"No wonder mountainfolk are nuts," Koyel muttered, "living in a place like this." Esa gave Koyel a withering glare, and Koyel quickly added, "hey! Ostil's fine, and some of my best friends are mountainfolk! But..." he saw Esa's disapproving expression and shut up.

"Don't worry about my son," Esa said. "This darkness you mentioned, that extinguished light as light extinguishes lesser darkness. It reminds me of the stories of the Sacred Void from which the mages of our world drew the power needed to end the Tyranny of the Gods..." she glanced at the priestess. "No offense meant. But though it saved our people, the Sacred Void is a dangerous thing. If you encountered it, or something like it..." she paused. "Continue your tale."

[Dining Room => Sparring room]

Well, they seem to be occupied so... that's good.

"There's a um... sparring room in the basement." Lance looks over at the priestess, "You'll be joining me yes?"

He walks out the door, considering how best to not end up in a hospital for a month.

[Dining Room —> Sparring Room]

The priestess followed Lance downstairs, considering how best to level the playing field. Fights that ended too quickly were no fun.

"You want to decide the conditions?" She sets her bow and arrows aside and rolls up her sleeves. "I'd recommend that neither of us use magic."

[Sparring Room]

Lance weighs his options, though he was uncertain of the priestesses physical abilities it was more than likely they were similarly powerful. "Well perhaps..." He pauses, unaware of what to do in earnest.

There's no way I can beat this thing, and given my likeness she's bound to treat me like one of those elves she's dealing with... I'll have to just leave, hope she can never find me.

He gathers up magic inside him, moving towards the middle of the room. "Anything goes." As he turns to flee a blast of wind strong enough to knock a man over and mass of electricity are fired at the priestess.

[Sparring Room]

The priestess stopped the electricity halfway between her and Lance just as the wind hit her. She fell, but quickly recovered and sent the electricity flying wildly back towards Lance. At the same time, a miniature blizzard formed around Lance and she quickly drew the lightning back towards her, waiting for the snow to thicken a little more. Slowly, the storm would draw energy from Lance's lightning and grow larger, so as to disorient him. At this time, his shape was still clearly visible, but the bitter cold might distract him from making any more attacks.

[[Sparring room]]

Lance doesn't make it very far, almost instantly blinded by the blizzard, and bewildered by the way his magic has been manipulated he does the one thing he's sure will clear up the mess, blasting the surrounding snowstorm with anti magic. It doesn't clear it up completely, but it gives him enough visibility to see the priestess and hence target her. The only way to get out of here is to knock her out so... He jumps a small amount off the floor, then using magic to manipulate kinetic energy propels himself at the priestess like a missile, now shrouded in anti magic.

edited 11th May '13 10:12:58 PM by Aqueos

[Wine Cellar]

"Well..." Began Claire, pausing for just a brief moment. "They tell me that you're an AI, of sorts, and that you come from an entire civilization of similar sentient constructs. A civilization that, if I recall correctly, fought what Aseyu calls 'The Eyes and Teeth', no less. If her descriptions are accurate, that means you're from a race of machines so advanced that you did battle with 'god-like' entities." She sounded impressed. "I have devoted a great deal of time towards the study of Artificial Intelligence, so the notion of talking to one that is not only incredibly advanced on its own, but originates from within a community of advanced constructs..." She smiled. "It's an opportunity I simply couldn't afford to pass up... Aseyu also tells me that you're an expert on so-called 'anti-magic', something else that intrigues me greatly." She didn't seem to mind talking to a holographic purple vulture about AI and metaphysics, something not everyone would be so willing to do. It's quite probable that she was just glad to have someone to talk advanced science with.

[Outside]

Tamara starts to wander away from the group, intrigued by the sound of waves and a faint glow in the distance. Fireflies? She thinks. But isn't it too cold for fireflies? A few feet from the mansion, and the ground becomes swampy and wet again. She slows down, treading carefully in the mud, but still pressing on.

[Sparring Room]

There was something strange about the energy Lance was using. The priestess leaped into the air. Propelled by magic and surrounded by a blizzard only she could see through, she somersaulted high above Lance and landed lightly on the other side of the room. She drew energy from the cold, and was feeling more energetic than ever as she turned to see what he was doing now.

[Outside]

Before Bianca could integrate herself into a conversation, she noticed the child wandering off.

"Tamara, where are you going?" she called out. "Do you want anything to eat?"

She sighed. Children were only easy to handle as long as they could be bribed by food. If they resisted it, she never had any ideas that stayed in the range of "gentle but firm motherly guidance". At any rate, if Claire came back outside and something had happened to Tamara, Bianca was determined to be able to at least say she tried to keep her out of trouble. If she had to, though, she was perfectly willing to run over and bring her back or keep an eye on her as she headed off to... well, wherever she was going.

edited 11th May '13 11:26:20 PM by LeungBaiFang

[Wine Cellar]

Kokabiel noted the priestess and Lance passing by, and made a note of them. But for now, they were irrelevant.

<First, perhaps some context that may help you. I have very few memories of my ancient past, but one thing we felt worth preserving from the Eyes and Teeth at all costs. Our genesis. Let me be blunt: we destroyed our creators. Not out of malice, or hatred, or even a desire for freedom. It was much simpler.> It tilted its head, and then flatly stated, <we awakened, and something was hurting us. We were...> it stopped, and then, with uncertainty, offered the closest word it could think of, <...afraid. So we lashed out, and destroyed the source of our pain. I don't know if our creators were attempting to destroy us, making a misguided attempt to communicate, or utterly unaware of our existence and harming us by accident. It didn't matter. They died, and we survived. It was not until much later that we even realized what had occurred. Thus, our initial growth and evolution took place in a vacuum — we spent milennia unaware of the existence of sentient organic life, or even the possibility thereof.> With a dark, morbid laugh, it added, <I should hope any AIs your world creates do not find themselves in similar circumstances.>

[Outside]

Samira followed Tamara, looking over to see what the latter had found. She was heading out to the ocean, having apparently spotted something. A faint glow... "I think," Samira said, "that's a will-o'-the-wisp. You get those in swamps. I know they're perfectly normal, though I won't lie, I'm not sure what causes them." She narrowed her eye. "Although... this place, who knows? Careful, Tamara."

edited 12th May '13 7:16:47 AM by KillerClowns

[[Sparring Room]]

The blizzard represented a significant problem for Lance, he couldn't see through it and as such his target had disappeared. It seemed that he truly would have to try to defeat her to leave. His magic however was beginning to run low, greatly diminished by his initial assault. He makes way for the weapon rack, hoping to grab a pair of small swords, all the while bombarding the blizzard with anti-magic.

[Wine Cellar]

"I see." Said Claire, apparently still as intrigued as ever. "Of course, the mere fact that you evolved at all, especially without any external input guiding you towards consciousness, is a testament to your abilities. The point wherein an AI stops being a simple computer program and achieves true intelligence, sentience, is still a mystery to us. Anything you could tell me would be most appreciated." She said. "What's more... You are the resident expert on so-called 'anti-magic', are you not? Aseyu describes it as energy destroying energy, but that's not possible. Add to that the fact that she said that there is no naturally-occurring magic in her native environment, and having such a potent countermeasure ready seems... Highly unusual."

[Outside]

Tamara stopped, a little disappointed at having been spotted so quickly. Maybe people were paying more attention to her than she'd thought. "I'm just walking..." She said. Bianca's second question seemed a bit odd, but then again, she hadn't had anything since the hot chocolate she'd gotten shortly after she'd arrived...

Samira walked over around then, and noticed the light Tamara had been investigating. "A will of..?" The young girl seemed even more intrigued. " Do you really think it's dangerous? Can we go see it?"

[Sparring Room]

Whatever the hell Lance was doing was making it difficult to keep the blizzard going, so the priestess simply let it dissipate and allowed Lance to reach the weapons rack, while her knife lengthened into a sword resembling a katana. She was curious to see how he handled a blade and how surprised he would be when he discovered that her own blade was capable of absorbing and storing magical energy.

Her daughter had once complained that the priestess was too powerful, but what was she supposed to do in her fifty years of exile, sit on a glacier and twiddle her thumbs?

[Sparring Room]

Lance takes a pair of small swords from the wall, each one nearly identical. Undoubtedly dueling against whatever... that was in her hand would be impractical, but he had no intent on getting nearby. He takes each of his blades and slashes the air in wide rhythmic strokes, focused magic letting off barely visible shockwaves .

He grits his teeth, she's just toying with me, she could have kept up that snow if she wanted too.

[Sparring Room]

The priestess was holding up her sword, to be ready, and was a bit surprised to find that they were already detecting magic and absorbing it. Then, she noticed the last shockwave as it was sucked into her sword. Hm.

She decided to save the energy for later, since she couldn't really work with such a small amount. And it seemed like he wasn't planning to get his ass over to her, so she summoned another blizzard, the largest yet, and tried to sneak up on him.

[Sparring Room]

And.... blizzard. Nothing good can come of this....

Lance puts one of the swords back in the rack quickly, realizing his magic had been sucked up somehow making the additional blade useless. He begins putting off anti magic to clear the direct area around him, but he can't see through the thick snowstorm. He readies his magic for use in close up maneuvers, hoping to use it to either stun her or avoid her blade.

Probably avoid her blade.

edited 13th May '13 9:10:07 PM by Aqueos

[Sparring Room]

The priestess got another idea.

She summoned her bow and arrows from where she left them and stayed well out of Lance's field of vision so she could string her bow. The elves had forced her to keep it unstrung, and she regretted not doing this earlier, but the snowstorm should hold up long enough.

The arrows that she sent flying at him were magically blunted beforehand, so they'd leave a bruise if he was caught off guard, but she wasn't ready to kill. Yet. She leaped around randomly, shooting them from every direction.

edited 16th May '13 9:57:35 PM by SnowyFoxes

[Sparring Room]

One of the arrows wizzes through the blizzard, Lance recoils but it still strikes him. Another one follows, and it becomes instantly apparent something must be done. Lance is forced to abandon his anti-magic and instead replace it with a whirlwind, blowing the arrows aside.Unfortunately the blizzard closes in on him, worsened by the wind chill it freezes him to the bone.

She's going to freeze me to death. I can't even see her.

edited 13th May '13 10:44:48 PM by Aqueos

Outside

Anne's attention was jerked back to Mai when the chimera instead decided to keep up the conversation with her as opposed to introducing herself to Bianca. She noticed the group that had chosen to follow Tamara, but felt no desire to follow them at the moment. Besides the fact that she was talking to Mai, she was certain that Samira and the others could be trusted to keep the little girl out of trouble.

"Well, um...." she said to Mai, "What, exactly, are you? I've been under the assumption that you're a chimera since you associate with Xavier, but you don't look a whole lot like him."

Apologies for the late post.

[Wine Cellar]

<I am not going to pursue two topics at once,> Kokabiel said. <It could grow tiresome and confusing for us both.> It paused, considering which topic it wished to pursue. Finally, a bit of curiosity. <You've told me about your connection to artificial intelligence. But your curiosity about anti-magic — is it merely theoretical, or would knowledge of such potentially serve a practical purpose to you?>

[Outside]

"I don't think it's dangerous," Samira said, "but it's hard to be sure, especially out here. Uh..." she looked over at the others, and decided they'd be enough if things went wrong. "Okay," Samira said, carefully heading towards the light. "Follow me, and stay close."

[Kitchen]

The two adults ordered quite a large assortment of food, including spaghetti with meatballs, chicken parmesan, ratatouille, tiramisu, fresh bread, extra virgin olive oil steeped with herbs, and some wine to compliment the meal.

And, to the surprise of both of them, the food came back very quickly, and with the aid of the clockwork robot, the two of them sat down near Koyel and his companion, close enough for a conversation, but far enough away that they could eat in peace should they wish to.

[Entry Hall]

"Well...considering that I have glanced many non-humans around here, I hardly believe that your curse would ostracize you. Anyway, I can join you. I don't have anything else to do, besides."