hello milliways

[callmeleo]

Another day, another mysterious bar appearing out of nowhere. Leo is acquainted with Milliways and its lurking habits. He doesn't even bother calling Zanna; it'd take her too long to come over, and they get doors fairly regularly, so he just goes in and gets some absinthe with crushed cochineal. (Demonic tastes make for very odd mixed drinks.)

Comments

[spinnaker]

"Are we doing blessings?"

[calescent]

"We should do blessings. And see if Leo's spells can see any usable magic wafting off of them."

[callmeleo]

Leo sets up a crystal array with space for a blessing bowl. "I'm ready when you are."

[calescent]

"We have a chapel out back, come on."

Out they go.

[callmeleo]

He sighs and levitates the array and follows. Ech. Movement.

[calescent]

Out back there is a chapel. It has a bowl of blessings in it.

"Apparently these don't work for Leo. Jayce, see if you can't draw normally for Leo, grab him three. Elay people are often particularly good at drawing blessings," she explains to Leo.

[spinnaker]

Jayce waits for the crystals to be set up, then draws.

"Synthesis, time... triumph? Is that what you meant by not working?"

[calescent]

"Yes. Very strange. Let's us three draw for each other, then, see what he picks up."

[callmeleo]

Leo sits on the floor and nods.

[calescent]

Kiri pulls one and gives it to Aleko, and then pulls one and gives it to Jayce. "Loyalty, talent," she says for Leo's benefit. "Respectively."

[liakoura]

Aleko draws for Kiri first - "Persistence," - and then Jayce. "Luck."

[spinnaker]

And Jayce draws "vision" for Kiri and "clarity" for Aleko.

[callmeleo]

Leo stares at them!

"Yeah, there's... something there. I was wrong, the magic is in the sets and there's just something- attaching it to you. It's weird. Definitely not powerful enough to be useful as a sacrifice, but a nice divination thing."

[calescent]

"Any synergy available with our nice divination thing and any - prerequisite steps or whatever on spellcasting?" wonders Kiri. "As the first example to come to mind, the traditional Welchin method of avoiding unwanted side effects from sex involves a constrained blessing set - health, luck, fertility, surprise, draw two."

[callmeleo]

"...Hm. You might be able to do something like that for, like, spell development- 'will this blow up in my face or no' kind of thing. If constrained sets work for other things."

[calescent]

"I think they can, although that set of four is the standard. We are somewhat constrained by the fact that all the blessings are arguably positive. It's only contextually that you don't want fertility and surprises."

[callmeleo]

"I mean, off the top of my head, I could see 'joy, luck, surprise, time' for 'good, good, bad, keep trying' on spell testing. Would that kind of thing work?"

[calescent]

"I'd be more likely to go with 'talent, luck, surprise, persistence' for 'aren't you clever, this works but mostly by coincidence, bad, keep trying'."

[callmeleo]

"Interesting. You'd know better than I would, I'm sure. Anyway, I don't mess around with spell creation so much, that shit is dangerous."

[calescent]

"How so?"

[callmeleo]

"Do you have explosives in your world?"

[calescent]

"Yes..."

[callmeleo]

"Imagine someone whose only knowledge of the material is that explosives explode, attempting to use them to make a propelled vehicle. They may be successful, but you probably want to keep your distance anyway. That's humans, or any species that lives less than two hundred years, inventing spells."

[calescent]

"Well, I'd want to be close enough to contain the disaster, but point taken. Heavy divinatory use before I try anything novel, then."

[callmeleo]

"Good, good. That's the kind of thinking that keeps your face from melting off."