Closed and finished RP: Dib, Stephen, Sarah (Monday, July 31)

[estebanmd]

After receiving Professor Maturin's owl, Dib hops out of the suite in Hufflepuff (making sure his robes look presentable!) and sprints down to the dungeons, where the Potions Office is. He wasn't sure if he needed to bring anything or not, and he raps on the door to the office, and doublechecks his robes again. Yup, all presentable.

Stephen rises from the chair behind his desk, and goes to unward and unlock the door, admitting Dib to the office.

Getting out of her chair, Sarah moves over to be introduced to Dib, her smile guarded but friendly.

Dib smiles warmly to both, nodding his head respectfully to Professor Maturin, and then offering his hand to Sarah in greeting, peeking out shyly from his massive round eyeglasses. He seems to have a perpetual shadow around his eyes now - perhaps insomnia? And a shade pale, but otherwise pleasantly demeanored. "Dib, Gryffindor - nice to meet you!"

"Mr Dib, this is Miss Williams, the person who has need of the sort of protective talisman you have been researching. Thank you for finding the time to meet with us today."

Sarah takes the hand offered and smiles a bit more. "Sarah is fine, and I happen to be in Gryffindor as well. I can't really begin to thank you for your help."

Stephen, not knowing that Dib has become an honorary Hufflepuff fallen in with bad company moved, wonders how it is that Sarah and Dib have not become acquainted already as fellow Gryffindors, but says nothing about it and merely returns to his seat.

"It's really not a problem, Sarah," Dib grins. "I like this kinda stuff, and it's good practice for me." He joins the others at the ring of chairs and settles into one, looking toward Stephen. "Have you already made the pentacle or are you still preparing for it?"

"To be honest, I have been uncertain how best to begin. The severe draining you suffered as a result of the process alarms me. Have you seen a physician, at all?"

"Uhm." Guilty smile. "I went ahead and ate a lot of meat once I got back, like you suggested, and that made me feel better; I skipped over doing any hard magic for that week too, and I've felt OK since then... Though it was kinda bad timing when I ended up meeting Professor Malfoy while I was totally drained!" Dib laughs.

Stephen hopes that if Dib keels over dead from a belated effect of his research, Agnes Nutter will not prevent an autopsy.

"I'm afraid you are both going to have to catch me up a bit, what is this severe draining and why did it occur?" Sarah asks, concerned.

Dib turns to Sarah, "It wasn't THAT bad... it just turned my hair white, and I had pretty much exhausted myself... see, the process of making a talisman from the Key of Solomon is just.. really strenuous. There's three days of prep-work, a tremendous amount of ritual, and a bunch of different conjurations and elements that have to be balanced. You're supposed to have a large group doing it, too, but I didn't have that luxury, so I did it alone."

Sarah is now intrigued and more concerned. "How large a group? Was the drain physical and magical so that you were unable to fully use your magic after?" Sheepish look. "And stop my questions at any time."

Dib waves his hands, grinning. "No, honest! I don't mind. The exact specifications of the ritual call for at least five - four for the corners, and the 'master', or the one who actually does the work inside the circle. The others are sort of... well, they're functionally window-dressing, but magically they help shift around the burden of the conjuration. It was... well, I mean, I stayed in the village while I did it, and I was able to walk back to school after... but yeah, I was down for about a week magically, and I needed to sleep a lot more. I told Professor Maturin that I thought it was mainly because of my inexperience."

Stephen looks uncertain. "Inexperience, possibly; yet there are so many variables involved that it is quite difficult to gauge. May I inquire why it was you chose to conduct the ritual alone? "

"Uhm." Dib's smile turns sheepish. "...I just didn't know that many people. And the ones I did... weren't necessarily -stable- enough to follow through, AND I found out that the window of opportunity for the hour of the planet involved was too close at hand to be able to spare the time to effectively show everyone else what to do and let them rehearse it. And it needed to be done -sooner- rather than later."

Stephen nods, looking thoughtful. "Timing appears vital to the success of this ritual. I confess myself almost wholly ignorant of astronomy or astrology ..." He looks again uncertain.

Sarah is liking the sound of this less and less, concerned for this concept of being magically weakened despite the talisman. She does not think Stephen would subject her to danger, and she also can't think of four other people she would even ask to participate in this and risk anything occuring to them. "Well, I haven't even been here that long, I can't imagine what the effects would be for me. Is the talisman capable of protecting during the extended period of weakness where magic would otherwise be used?"

"Oh, yeah. Assuming it's made correctly it works the moment that it's physically completed, and it's infused with its own power. So it doesn't draw on yours. But..." Dib glances at Stephen again, a slight tilt of his head. "You're going to do it, aren't you? Not Sarah?"

Sarah also looks at Stephen, wide-eyed.

Stephen shakes his head. "Sarah will not be making the talisman herself, no." He does not elaborate further.

Sarah is not happy, but says nothing of it. "So, Dib, those involved, do they have to have any connection to the person and how much time does it take to prepare them as well?"

Dib closes his eyes, calling up the image of the ancient text to his mind. "It's always better, especially with the older protection rituals, if you have people closely connected to the subject of the casting - friends, lovers, relatives, people concerned about the welfare and safety of the recipient. You don't want hostile intentions messing things up, y'know? And the whole group is supposed to purify itself for that three days before hand."

Sarah is thinking of people and coming up at a complete loss. She is wary of involving Ryuuji in something like this, as that would mean admitting to him she thinks she is in danger (and she does not want him that worried) and she does not want him affected negatively by participating. "And what if Stephen and I are the only ones involved? I know, you've already answered that, it's only theories as to the effects. What does this purification consist of?"

Stephen notes that Sarah is now using his first name with Dib. He does not, however, correct her. What's done is done.

Dib smiles. "You ever see those movies with monks sitting around in white in lotus positions under waterfalls? It's stuff like that. Fasting, prayer, washing, kneeling. You avoid certain foods, you focus your thoughts on your intent... no ..uhm.." Blush. "... y'know."

Sarah is now sharing that blush. "Is there something I could read about the preparation, if you have another copy of any of it?"

"I gave all of the most relevant information to Professor Maturin, but I'd also be happy to let you borrow my copy of the Key, or... heck, I could even print out a copy for you from my digital version."

"You have a printing press?" Stephen is intrigued. He ignores all the blushing going on.

"I would love a copy if you could make me one," Sarah says gratefully, then pauses. "Digital?"

Dib: Blink blink. "Uhm, I have a cheap little printer... and, yeah, I've got a few of the old texts backed up as pdf on my laptop... I got them off the internet a few years back, before here..." He's a little startled and confused at the blank looks both of them are giving him.

Stephen looks at Sarah. "Something like the video recorder, I suppose."

Dib: How can they not have... oh, wait, that's an idea. "Hey, if you want... you could ask one of the elves to grab my laptop from my room in Hufflepuff? And I could show you..." He can't RESIST the opportunity to show off his geek toys.

Sarah is puzzled, then understanding of a sort dawns. "Wait, are you talking about a computer? You have one?" She smiled. "Sorry, I'm from 1989 in my time, we didn't even have the internet, it was only in discussion of being introduced."

Stephen rings for Aloysius II. "Mr Dib requires your assistance," he tells the elf, who looks at Dib expectantly.

Dib makes a square shape with his hands. "In my room in the Hufflepuff suite I'm sharing with Primavera and Gogo, there's a small, flat dark blue object about ... this big and this wide. It'll have a black cord running out of the back. Unplug that cord and bring me the device, please."

Aloysius II seems to understand, and leaves silently.

Sarah looks around. "Umm, how are you going to use it, is there an outlet in here?" She had never noticed, though there is a reason for that.

"Batteries," Dib looks proud. "Show you when it gets here. It's a HUGE improvement over the old lithium cores."

"I have heard of lithium." Stephen finally understands something. "I believe Dr Cox could profit from ingesting it."

Dib cracks up. "Oh, HIM? Yeah, maybe. He was the guy running around the Sorting Hall freaking out over his wife showing up, right?"

Stephen's expression darkens. "He told Miss Williams that his wife was a demon."

Oh, great. Just great. "He was kidding, Dib. I have a tendency to miss a joke," Sarah explains with a practiced smile.

"I'm pretty sure he was exaggerating..." Dib scratches the back of his neck thoughtfully. "I HOPE he was!"

Stephen shrugs. "There are those among us who are less than honourable." Thankfully, Aloysius II returns with the laptop before he can elaborate further.

Sarah is so relieved to see the house-elf and sits at the edge of her chair, looking with interest at the computer. She also looks at Stephen briefly, plotting a way to keep him from breaking this massively expensive item.

Dib nods gratefully to the elf and is even more relieved that it brought him the correct device the first time - he's learned to be very specific and to use precise descriptive language with the elves. It's not their fault, but they can't be expected to know every slang word and technical term... Setting the laptop in his lap, Dib flips it over and yanks out the battery, first, to show it off - it's about half the size of his hand.

Stephen watches Dib manipulate the odd device with interest. To him, this is no less magical or arcane than the talisman they had discussed.

"That powers the whole computer? For how long?" Sarah asks, completely fascinated as she tries to get closer.

Dib: "This is a quartz-lithium-ion battery. It normally lives inside the laptop, like this..." Plugs it back in and shows off the back port, "And recharges itself constantly while it's plugged in. I can take this anywhere I want, and I have about a 20-hour usage time." He flips the screen up, turns it on, and it makes a pleasant chime.

"This is amazing, my high school had Apple II computers, which were nothing like this at all, and at college the computers were only for specific tasks and had a limited range of what other computers they were connected to," Sarah explains and then looks even more fascinated, waiting for more to occur. "Is it connected to the internet now somehow?"

"I wish," Dib sighs. "I have a wireless card, but I can't pick up anything inside the campus. Ordinarily, yeah; I'd have it hooked up to NASA's martian camera feeds..." He scoots his chair over so that both of them can see better, and toys with the keys for a moment. "This model's got... a built in pin-hole camera..." Demonstrates, waving the laptop about; a window shows the room shifting around as he moves it... "A bunch of my personal junk, music and files... It can run movies and CDs..." Pops open the DVD drive... pause. Did they HAVE CDs in 1989? He can't remember...

Stephen has no idea what to make of this. He begins to daydream about avifauna.

They did indeed have CDs in 1989, which Sarah has at home, but she had never seen them be used in a computer. "This is incredible," she says in awe, beginning to understand slightly what the past week for Stephen had been like, even those this technological gap is not 200 years. "You mean you don't have to store everything on disks to use with the computer?" She is thinking of the Apple IIs, which had no internal hard drive.

"Man, I think we'd DIE if we still had to do that!" Dib grins, and then fiddles with the keyboard for a moment more. A pleasant female voice speaks, "Now active."

Stephen's eyes widen ever so slightly as the machine speaks.

Dib grins bigger. "But here's my favorite thing... Try this. Ask the computer what time it is."

Sarah, with a look to Stephen of awe, clears her throat. "Hello, erm, computer. What time is it?"

Dib's laptop replies in a totally natural, human, pleasant voice, "The time is now 3:55 PM and 45 seconds."

Stephen is unpleasantly reminded of the television. He says nothing.

"You can ask it pretty much ANYTHING. If it doesn't know, it'll just tell you so. It's got a pretty bright artificial intelligence that coordinates all the data. Voice-controlled all the way with perfect speech recognition. And it can go in tandem, so it can talk to you while you type things in, too."

“Is it sentient?" Sarah asks, suddenly looking a bit nervous about talking about it like a machine if it isn't.

"Not really. The first few AI models were a lot more interactive, and it sort of creeped people out to the point that they started shooting their computers, so the manufacturers dialed it back. It does seem to know when it's being talked to and when it's not though... hmmm." Dib touches his chin for a moment, then looks to Stephen curiously. "Professor? You're quiet... is something wrong? Sorry, I guess we kinda got sidetracked. I just love this thing; it's like my second brain."

"We did not have such things in my time," Stephen says neutrally.

Right. Change topic... "Computer, read-only access." "Confirmed." Dib offers the laptop to Sarah to play with for a little if she likes. "Want to drive it around a bit? I locked the data, so you won't be able to hurt anything. You can open up programs and just kinda mess with it if you want...?"

Sarah takes it carefully, her tension evident as she is wondering if it listens to everything they are saying. "Does it have a name?" she asks, feeling silly but still serious. "I don't want to just call it 'computer' when people name inanimate, silent objects."

"Nah. You don't even have to talk to it if you don't want to, and I promise it's not recording anything, either. That little square in the center, if you touch that, it'll move the cursor around to the pictures on the screen - the 'icons', and you can 'click' them by tapping your finger twice when the arrow's pointed at the picture." Dib can't even IMAGINE life without computers, and shakes his head as he thinks of what it must have been like before them - everything must have been so HARD!

Computers would have been an incredible boon to some of Stephen's work, if only he had known it. The notion of PGP keys alone would have thrilled him for days. However, his antipathy toward the speaking device was such that he would likely never learn any such thing. He watched mutely.

"This is so neat," Sarah says once she is over the idea of the computer not recording anything and it not talking to her unless she speaks to it. She gives Stephen a reassuring look, thinking the voice had to be more unsettling to him after the TV, and then starts clicking on 'icons' experimentally, opening the MP3 player. "Oh, what's this?"

"Oh! That's a music player. Go ahead and press the forward-triangle button with the cursor."

Sarah maneuvers the cursor to what he indicates and clicks, then grins when the music starts to play. "This is..." she pauses, and then looks at the screen, seeing the name she was thinking. "Oh, it is Tchaikovsky, Manfred Symphony. What CD is this one?" she asked, cocking her head to look at the disc drive even though she cannot see anything.

"It's actually a file on the computer, a bit of data," Dib grins, "It only exists inside the machine. I had the CD at home, and copied the music onto my computer." Poor Professor Maturin, Dib thinks. "Sorry, Professor. This is probably REALLY boring, isn't it? I know you probably still have lots of questions about the rituals, so I'm happy to answer any more."

Stephen finds it both intriguing and unsettling that the sound of an entire symphony can come from the little box, but this is not entirely unfamiliar; they had used a music-playing machine while on holiday. For some reason, only hearing instrumental music seemed less jarring than hearing voices or seeing figures represented.

"Dib, could you show me this document you said you had on here, so I can see what we are talking about?" Sarah asks.

"OH! Duh.. that's a great idea!" He reaches over and takes back the laptop, turning off the player, and the voice-recognition engine; after a moment of typing, he nods. "Professor, can I put this up on your desk so we can all look at it together?"

Stephen nods assent and moves a pile of books to make space.

Sarah, in a moment of discretion in an attempt to make up for her earlier name slippage, remains seated and pulls her chair as close as she can rather than perch on the desk.

Dib hefts up the little computer and sets it on the professor's desk at such an angle where they can all see the screen. Sarah might want to scoot her chair over a little, though. "This is my digital copy of the book," Dib says, the image on the screen currently showing the drawing of 2nd Pentacle Saturn. "It's a retyped, scanned version of a translation, I think, from the Latin, that I found on the internet some time back. This is what we've been discussing, Sarah ... making this talisman." He adjusts his glasses.

Stephen peers at the display. "Do you recall whether the library has got the proper Latin?"

Sarah examines the drawing curiously and then looks between Dib and Stephen. "What does it say? And will I just wear it, like a piece of jewelry, or is there a more secure way to wear it to keep it from being taken or falling off or something like that?"

One corner of Dib's mouth turns up, sheepishly. "I can't read 'proper' Latin, so..."

Sarah snorts. "I can't read wizarding-world-massacred Latin either, so that's fine."

"I shall have to ask Mr Sandburg," Stephen says, absently.

Dib thinks for a moment, and touches the pad to scroll the screen over slightly. Ah, right. "The translation of the latin is as follows: 'His dominion shall be also from the one sea to the other, and from the flood unto the world's end.' This one's also numerological, because the square is an unbreakable double acrostic."

Stephen already knows the Latin of the inscription on the drawing itself, and had been asking about the surrounding text itself, having little faith in the precision of translations. He recognises the quotation as well. "From the Psalms. Odd, how these things combine traditions one with the other. From the way people born into the wizarding world speak, you would think magic began and ended with Merlin."

Dib's only answer to THAT is a soft, derisive snort. "As if the Babylonians didn't count..."

Now that Dib has pointed it out, Sarah sees the pattern she missed before. She leans in to see the passage Dib found his translation in, seeing 'mediæval Magic' and then listens to then Stephen's observation. "Is this actually older than the Babylonians, do you know?" she asks, worried - though she will not admit it - that the magic will not be old enough.

Dib thinks again, concentrates. "The... oldest Sator square was Persian, though it wasn't using latinate characters at that time... 1st to 5th century. Man..."

Sarah really has no idea if this is old enough, as she has no idea if the concept of time is even relevant to Jareth's magic. Her only comfort is this is magic suited to this world while his might not be so much. "So can you show me what needs to be done, or at least an overview?"

"Can I ask you something?" Dib says, turning toward Sarah thoughtfully. "What exactly are you trying to ward against if talismans incorporating some of the earliest human magical signs might not be 'old enough'?"

"Something not human," Stephen says simply.

Sarah freezes, then relaxes as Stephen solves the dilemma of answering. "Hogwarts is a tricky place, people from all times and places that don't always mesh well," she says, trying to be more helpful since Dib is being so generous by helping her.

Dib hmms, nodding and sitting back in his chair, linking his fingertips together in front of his face. Deeply thoughtful. "Is this an entity that can move about in time? Because if that's the case, it doesn't MATTER how far back you call on magic, you could go back to the Word of creation and it still wouldn't be 'old enough'. And if it's something from another place, encroaching on our reality.. that's a DIFFERENT problem."

At that, Sarah is nearly out of her chair to pace behind it, but it is important to keep it together, after all, so she merely moves a bit agitatedly. "Different how?" she asks, looking at Dib.

Stephen is able to read Sarah well enough to know that she is deeply unsettled by what she has just heard. Since he cares less about whether the talisman works than whether Sarah believes it works, he finds this an unwelcome development indeed.

Dib tries to figure out how to explain this - and even if he CAN explain it coherently enough to have it make sense. "As... I understand it, time is only one layer of reality. One dimension. There are so many others. Something that moves through time is going to need to be handled differently that something that moves ...sort of up and down dimensional layers. Right now, I'm pretty convinced there's something from another layer trying to get IN, here, and that's one of the things I'M researching."

Sarah is trying to remain calm, which is an incredible effort. She really needs a moment with Stephen to ask him how much they could tell Dib, but she does not want to be rude be asking outright. She needs to know if it is necessary Dib know this 'thing' being protected against can move through time... and reorder it as well. She looks at Stephen, helplessly at a loss for something to say.

Stephen says, "I believe the force with which we are dealing is already, as you put it, 'in'."

"Oh, okay." Dib looks relieved and nods. "In that case, that should work fine. It's sort of a broad-spectrum defensive magic"

Stephen looks at Sarah to gauge her reaction.

Sarah is still trying to remain calm and, as such, decides to trust Dib. After all, Stephen has trusted him thus far and accepted all he has said and she is certain Stephen has thoroughly read everything he was given. Taking a breath, she meets Stephen's gaze and then nods before she turns to Dib. "So when can this all be accomplished?"

"Professor, do you have the chart I sent with my last owl?"

"I do." Stephen goes to a battered file cabinet and, after much unlocking of an abundance of locks and dispelling of an abundance of wards, produces the chart and instructions. "They are most detailed." He hands them to Sarah for her perusal. "Mr Dib has become the expert, de facto, in this subject."

Sarah takes the chart and instructions, stopping to smile at Dib before she reads. "A fact I'm most grateful for," she says softly, in reference to Dib's expertise, and then begins to read over everything.

"The Moon should be waxing, and in Aries or Leo... on a clear night, I think between 9 to 11 PM, is the time the book recommends. Gah. Lemme..." Dib picks up his laptop and begins to type again, pulling up a digital ephemera.

Stephen peers again at the laptop display, Accios a parchment and quill, and takes some notes. "Excellent. This is most helpful, and you have my sincerest gratitude."