Day 60: Sun Room (Third Shift)

[lovecrafty]

> Rose: Be the magic girl

You are the magic girl. It's you. Except that she could not be the magic girl she was looking for, since she was already herself, also magic, albeit reluctantly. Sometimes. When she wasn't so busy doing ridiculously cool things with magic that she didn't stop to think about the part where the world ended and the

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[bodhiandspirit]

Rita nodded at the suggestion to move and followed Rose's lead until they reached a section of chairs. There, they could speak comfortably without eavesdroppers.

It looked like Rose was interested in sharing backgrounds, and once Rita was settled into an armchair, she shrugged and offered her own story. "I've been interested in magic since I was little. I dedicated myself to researching it from an early age, and for the past five years I've been continuing my research under the Empire's employment. I specialize in combat spells and magic technology."

That about summed up the important parts. Rita hadn't bothered with vagueness as Rose had. There wasn't anything in her past worth going to the trouble to hide.

From her lunch bag, Rita pulled out a sandwich with one hand, while the other hand balanced her notebook on her lap, opening it to her research notes. "Here at the institute, I've been learning about the magic systems of other worlds. I've tested a few with positive results." Her eyes narrowed at Rose with a hint of skepticism. "And I have to say... I've never seen magic that wasn't logical. Mind telling me more about the magic you know?"

[lovecrafty]

"Not at all. Mind, I mean." So much imprecision, this language they spoke. "I haven't seen anything completely illogical, if you put it that way. Merely its sudden existence in fact, rather than fancy."

The bulk of what she knew of her powers were dreammuddled and draped in the gloom of a doomed timeline, where she avoided death by de-existification. It made for a complicated relationship with herself, a state in which she was, at least, well versed.

"I guess a lot of it makes sense. Each of us has a specialty, and our powers fit into a sociologically-situated slot." She thought about it. "I'm a Seer of Light. So -- lightning, and knowledge." The amount to which she had balanced the two pursuits -- or hadn't, was unclear even to herself. Which would say more than she wanted to admit, given her title.

"Our equipment is important, and that follows a systematic, if esoteric, ladder of classifications."

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita idly chewed on her grilled cheese sandwich as Rose spoke, her scrutinizing, skeptical look remaining affixed to her face, almost as if permanently painted on there.

"Okay, you're going to have to be a lot less vague," she told Rose once the girl had paused long enough for her to jump in. Some of the things she said could be interpreted in multiple ways, and others just didn't make sense without context. As someone who treated magic theory with as much scrutiny as one would any field of science, Rita couldn't let that slide.

"First of all, who's this 'us'? What do you use magic for? How do you use it?" There were many other questions Rita wanted to ask, but this was quickly becoming an interrogation, and she realized she needed to stop long enough to give the other person a chance to address the questions.

[lovecrafty]

"I can do that." A corner of her mouth quirked up. "The primary issue being that we had barely the surveyal of our abilities."

"There were four of us. Me and my friends." That could be construed as implying she had been the leader, when it had clearly been John, but that didn't matter. "Light, Wind, Time, and Space. Each of us were issued a role, and each of us played our part."

Some of them had even managed to do so without dying. Yet. Where some was Rose. Unless being in this place meant something else had gone wrong with their session.

"Each of us also had an alchemiter, which we could use to make great and powerful artifacts. And then if we could lift them, we could use them to augment our unnatural abilities."

That almost sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Almost.

[bodhiandspirit]

Well, she answered one question adequately. Sort of.

Though Rita jotted down a few notes as Rose spoke, she still didn't seem to have much cohesive or useful-sounding information yet. What was an alchemiter and where did it come from? What was considered a 'great and powerful artifact'? How did the elements listed relate to their powers? There were countless things that the mage wanted clarified, but at the moment, she had to choose just one.

"Issued a role by who or what? Did you always have those abilities, or did you have to learn or otherwise get them from somewhere?" What Rita really wanted to ask was for Rose to simply explain everything she just said, but it looked like the most efficient course of action was going to be to focus her questions in one direction. Hopefully it would lead to understanding where the magic itself came from.

[lovecrafty]

"The game." Explaining Sburb in anything other than a lengthy, skimmable FAQ was difficult. Doubly so for Rose, who had never truly understood the meaning behind the words brevity is the soul of wit.

"It started out pretty normal. Like an updated version of The Sims or something." Except that the houses they'd been restructuring had been their own. Well, not hers, mostly, due to the fact that it had been restructured more by being on fire than the game, and they hadn't had time for amateur bathroom destruction. "Then the world ended, and we had all these powers to learn, so that we could create a new universe."

There. A quasi-simple explanation. "Where did your magic come from?"

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita had hoped that getting more specific would make the girl's story clearer, but instead, she delved straight into what could only be seen as crazy talk. The end of the world? Building a new universe? Some kind of game? Glancing down at her notes, she saw what could easily be taken for the incoherent ramblings of someone who'd lost their grip on reality. She sighed.

It was then that Rose took the opportunity to turn the questions back to Rita, which was in some sense a relief.

"The magic I grew up with comes from aer - the essence of magic found in everything in my world, including the atmosphere. Using blastia - stones made of highly condensed aer - we can convert aer into usable energy." A highly simplified explanation, but containing enough details to make sense, Rita supposed. "We can then use that energy for everything from powering machines to conjuring fireballs or tidal waves."

[lovecrafty]

Grew up with? That would make things easier. Rose had been born to her magic; she knew that now, after what she'd seen, but she still was a babe in arms. Or, to be more precise and less diminutive, a babe newly armed.

"Our power comes primarily from our weapons." She was wrong about that, but it was a misperception she had been carefully groomed towards. For a Seer, she had a lot of those. "We can combine items in an alchemiter to produce new combinations. I was just about to get started." After her little semi-involuntary nap -- involuntary on the main timeline, self-induced on the dead one. But that had been stymied by an unwelcome cutaway to one Landel's Institute, location as of yet unknown.

"We also gain power with experience. Right now, the only one of us who can do more than a stiff breeze or a campfire is Strider. He can move through time." She hadn't seen a limit on the duration, except for the fact that he was stacking dead Daves up like cordwood for a pyrrhic victory. "I don't think anyone else has any kind of power. Not that there's enough cases to make a true determination. There's only a handful of people left."

Her mom, John's dad, Dave's brother. Jade's hellhound. And the trolls, who knew volumes and were handing it out in rancid dribbles.

[bodhiandspirit]

Weapons? Those hadn't been mentioned until now. Rita made a note of it. Even if everything Rose was saying sounded absolutely crazy, it didn't sound like she was making it up. It was better to record the information than to lose it.

By 'a handful of people left', Rita had to assume she meant after the world ended. Which still seemed hard to believe by itself, partly for its vagueness, and partly for the extraordinary claim of 'creating a new universe'. But maybe there were some points Rita could try to wring a few more details out of.

"Could this alchemiter be related to the field of alchemy?" she asked, flipping through her notes to find a few short sentences on the subject. "I've only heard a little about it, but the two sound similar, in both name and application." It was a shame Leon wasn't around so that she could ask him about his own alchemy research. If there was a relation, he would have surely been able to identify and define it.

[lovecrafty]

"That would be a logical conclusion. The only one, in fact." It was one of the few things with an obvious purpose from the beginning. Helpful, given that totem lathe and cruxtruder had obvious etymological origins but less clear uses.

"It is used to combine things in vaguely sensical but physically unlikely ways, which is entirely appropriate for that ancient artscience." She shrugged. "But it produces sweet loot."

Not that she was at all bitter that she'd seemingly missed her chance for an alchemization festival of her own. John had had all the fun, and she was stuck with a malfunctioning sylladex and basic household tools.

"Does alchemy work on your world?"