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"Wisdom is a shape, its an arrangement, for which the universe is an apt vessel.
It is a form that flees the eyes.
...
At least that's how I like to think about it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for things. Crows, rivers, moons..." Hermia pauses. "I don't think I make a good vessel for wisdom," she finishes with smile.
"Fish?" Hermia starts scouting the stream in wing powered bounds, looking for a fish to cancel. Cancel its senses that is. At which the man will be able to simply grab the fish.
You scout the stream, bounding across its surface. The sheen tells you the boundary, but as you dip into the water, you encounter no resistance. It is a strange moment: the sky is clear, the waters of the stream are as still as can be, and the boundary between worlds is at your fingertips.
The thought crosses your mind: what if you are trapped on this side?
The starving fellow watches you, hands in his coat pockets. It is very dark. Only starlight illuminates the forest.
You discover ripples beneath the surface. The water loses its reflective properties, but as a child of the night you see the situation clearly: a swarm of gnats buzzing over the water. Something underneath is making its move.
A fish! He soars above the water. You see his gills and pointed fins shining against the dark backdrop with a hint of bioluminescence; the flies are illuminated, and the fish lets out a long, skinny tongue to secure dinner.
You blind him with a touch, and he turns out sticky, so you end up riding him into the water like a steed. Being blinded, he can't see where he goes, and after bumping around a bit he ends up floating on the surface thrashing frantically.
The human comes by. A knife flashes for a split second.
"Let's get going, shall we?"The two of you are alone once again.
Name: Hermia.
Trinket: A silver spoon.
Wing Color/Style: The wings of a crow.
Hair Color/Style: Black as night, long with flow, strong bangs. Complements silver eyes.
Outfit: Tight leather pants, some masculine leather boots, a deep red wool sweater with good volume and a silver necklace. She wears black gloves.
Fairy Alignment: Confusion
Natural Element: Lykathium
Night's Gaze - Can reduce the temperature of substances
Blindness - Can negate a creature's senses
Illusion - Can replace a single thought or object at a time in someone's mind
Shadow Hands - Can project limbs out of darkness within a short range
Astral Knowledge - Can lift the veil of the future (divination)
Name: Hildegard
Trinket: A small lump of sandstone.
Wing Color/Style: Brown, speckled owl's wings.
Hair Color/Style: Long beige hair tied in a flowing ponytail.
Outfit: Practical work outfit in shades of tan, with trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, and a jacket over it.
Fairy Alignment: Wonder
Natural Element: Cthonium
Soulsteel - Can coat objects in a thin layer of iron
Earthblight - Can inflict a slow, petrifying disease on living objects
Crystalize - Can cause minerals and rocks to reorganize themselves
Tremors - Can create a minor earthquake, cause an avalanche, or trigger a rockslide
Earthsoul - Can animate puppets out of sand or pebbles
((Weirdly difficult to keep track of this.))
Right. Enough was enough.
Burst onto the scene.
"Oi! Listen!"
Having said that, Yuktuk pauses to think. There's no doubt a thing to be said here.
"... I understand there's probably a need to work some things out here," she says after a second. "Luckily for you there's a skilled mediator on hand! That's me, yeah. Right."
Quick, is time travel possible under the physical laws of this universe? This is important.
"Clearly there's been a weird miscommunication here," she continues. "You all need to relax a second and puzzle this out. Let's all take deep breaths and stop to think."
Time travel? Well aren't we all travelling forward in time? If you can slow time, maybe you can send it going backwards by just trying harder!
Seren raises a hand.
"I agree with Ms. Fairy."Exasperated, Bryn furls her brow. But after looking around, she consents to put her weapon back in its place, having confirmed something for herself.
"Very well,""Mmmmm..." Seren hums blissfully.
"What?""Thinking about some... what are those called? Those... squishy things with meat inside of them..." Bryn stares at Seren's face.
"I'm hungry."Name: Yuktuk
Trinket: a ball of blue lint grown fat over weeks upon weeks of neglect.
Wing Color/Style: white, stringy and plantlike, like somebody's stuck two flexible dandelion parachutes into her back.
Hair Color/Style: blue and uncannily reminiscent of a troll doll's plumage
Outfit: an oversized, loosely woven silvery dress, no shoes, a black sooty bead on a string around her neck
Fairy Alignment: Excitement
Natural Element: Aurium
Electricity - Can emit a small electric shock that causes pain
Featherweight - Can rob an object of most of its weight through contact
Codex of Knowledge - Can answer questions about the sciences
Transmutation - Can transform substances into inert metals
Atom Clock - Can halt time for short periods
"I see, so that's what it's about!" Lilith nodded to herself as she understood the situation.
"This fairy you mentioned, you said to managed to cross through the mirror without dying, did you happen to know how?" she asked the question towards Chance before continuing on "The village outside you said you have no idea what going on now, if so I guess I should go there and gather information." she declared her intentions while heading for the door.
After finishing conversation with Chance, head out the door and to the village to gather information about it.
"How to get across... oh yes, I think he told me he'd follow this one kid around. I think--"He gathers his thoughts.
"It was a child friend of that old man's daughter... Cycles ago, on the other side, I think. Lots of winters went by.He said their fates were tied together somehow. He was born out of a paintbrush that kid brought in. He used to make all these paintings with the old man's daughter, and he'd leave them on this desk with the mirror. One day I moved a brush onto this side, and sure enough, a fairy popped out of an ink jar.Come to think of it..."" he nods toward the ink on your dress.
"Did I really mess up again..." he sits in a corner, looking as depressed as the old man used to be.
...
After the conversation, you go and investigate the fairy village.
The doorknob is too hard to twist for a fairy.
"Use the window," advises Chance.
The window is assisted by a spring, so you slide it right open, and a dazzling light comes through. You slip through and shut it quickly.
The sky is a pale yellow, though not due to smog. It just
is. You look around from a high point and find that, besides the buildings in the village, the surrounding areas are littered with grey monoliths, struts, beams, and girders, stacked up in piles or stood alone, scattered as far as your little eyes can see.
The clouds above are stringy and tenebrous, casting moving shadows on the ground. You realize that there is no sun, but the shadows seem to be coming from the clouds overhead.
The village itself is made up of white plaster buildings with brightly colored roofs, with white plaster walls dividing up some of the yards and properties. The ground is covered in some kind of turf, except the roads, which are paved with some kind of plaster as well.
There is a long building in the center. It's one story, the same as all the others, but there is a wall surrounding it in its entirety and there is a garden within the walls, made up of shrubs and bushes with flowers shaped like yellow cones and purple orbs.
That central building is the only one to have a barred iron gate. The rest of the walls don't seem to actually have gates, in the cases where the wall surrounds the building entirely. But they are mostly used to divide, so the buildings are mostly accessible.
Just past the central building's gate you notice a man sprawled across the ground, eyes closed, next to a green-roofed building.
Name: Lilth
Trinket: Violet and silvery matching pair of ribbons for wearing.
Wing Color/Style: Two pairs of violet silvery, flower like.
Hair Color/Style: Violet and silver flowing hair, in a celtic braid.
Outfit: A elegant black dress with matching heels, red twin flowing ribbon traveling length of her dress to her arms.
Fairy Alignment: Suprise
Natural Element: Enkorium
Trance - Can suppress a creature's higher thoughts, while amplifying others
Deep Magic - Can speak to animals and inanimate objects
Mindreader (basic) - Can sense emotions from a distance
Animation - Can control inanimate objects that are wrapped in wire
Shapeshift - Can take the form of a similarly-sized animal, and grant the same power to a human.
Name: Bors
Trinket: A grey leather journal, the last three pages blank, save for a large winestain.
Wing Color/Style: Bor's wings seem more mechanical, made up of a combination of paper and wire.
Hair Color/Style: Black, with streaks of grey and white.
Outfit: A dark grey leather cloak.
Fairy Alignment: Curiosity
Natural Element: Enkorium
Trance - Can suppress a creature's higher thoughts, while amplifying others
Deep Magic - Can speak to animals and inanimate objects
Codex of Knowledge - Can answer questions about the sciences
Transmutation - Can transform substances into inert metals
Animation - Can control inanimate objects that are wrapped in wire
Author
Topic: False Illusion - Step Past the Mirror - IC (Read 15199 times)