trans_9 | A knight's boredom [Open]

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A knight's boredom [Open]

~~Mrs. Yagami~~ Signum feels restless. After the mission to get the map (which she hadn't really helped that much on, now that she's thought about it) and filling out the paperwork to join the Magic Department, she hadn't done anything she'd felt was productive. Exercising in the Sensoriums and taking care of Hayate's and the Reinforces' "shopping" (such as existed on this ship) was all well and good, but there was work to be done here and she felt she wasn't doing it when she could be.

However, barring an actual opportunity for action, there's only two ways Signum can work out this feeling of restlessness. Exercising more in the Sensoriums (which she'd done already today, up to her tolerance for the illusionary setting), or meditating.

Sitting atop the Jedi Temple, which was both conveniently high and conveniently in tune with the ambient magic on the ship, Signum folds her legs under her, sits, and contemplates on nothingness, clearing her mind of the distraction and frustration of daily life on the city ship...

((That's your cue to bother her))

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"Oh, no! I had no intention of challenging you!" Aibghalien said, startled. "Just the opposite! I have the feeling that would be an extremely unfair contest in any case!" Though in what direction depended entirely on his spell loadout at the time.

Signum's almost disappointed. She hasn't fought a dragon in years. But then again, she had been mostly joking.

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to be satisfied with my limited knowledge of theory, then," she says, satisfied herself. "If nothing else, this has been a very intellectually stimulating conversation for me."

"I try to provide," the dragon said with an effort to look modest. It was just as well; in this form, he'd almost certainly prove a disappointing match. It wasn't his, after all, and he didn't have access to its full capabilities.

"I suppose what interests me most is the possibility of combining our magics. Yours, speaking generally, is very focused towards offense from everything I've seen of it."

"I'd also say my style, Belkan style, is even more focused on offense than Nanoha's," Signum says. "It's more or less designed for warfare and direct combat."

"What sorts of things is your style focused on, then?"

"I'm a generalist, so something of everything, but the role I generally assume is primarily long-distance artillery-level destruction, support, and metathaumaturgy," he said, shifting to sit more directly as he folded his forelegs. "It's the second two parts that I haven't heard much of from your particular style, at least in what little I've talked to Vita and Hayate about it."

"Support beyond things like minor repairs is generally left to people who specialize in it, like my teammate Shamal. The Reinforces and my partner Agito also have some ability there," she says. "Everyone here from my world does seem to be a combat mage, though. Perhaps Stacy felt she needed more firepower."

"I'm not even certain what you properly consider support," Aibghalien said. "But I would have considered it remiss to send my comrades into a fight without any number of enchantments to strengthen and speed them and generally increase their ability to inflict damage in some way. That's what makes me curious."

"Our spells all accomplish that in some way, though almost always on a personal level. Support spells to me are things like analysis or repair or healing," Signum explains. "Although the right partner can push my speed or firepower even higher, as well."

"I've only seen a couple of spells," Aibghalien said, "and those in passing. So I'm curious if the effects stack."

Not that he could ever get anyone to demonstrate. If pressed he'd classify it as arrogance, though he'd never admit that except under duress. He had a certain amount of concern over his lack of knowledge in these fields, believing, in his own freely-admitted arrogance, that magic was the second-greatest weapon they had in this fight for existence.

"What concerns me is the potential affect of metathaum against either your combat effectiveness or your Devices," he continued. "I think it would be naive to say we'll never encounter an enemy that can deploy such techniques."

"Metathaum?" Signum asks, unfamiliar with the term. "If you mean anti-magic fields, the Bureau was in the process of developing some countermeasures for that..."

"Metathamuaturgy. Magic explicitly designed to affect other magic. Antimagic fields are one part, but that also includes things such as dispels and countermagic. Theory holds that even an intelligent magical item will only be suppressed, not damaged, when subjected to a dispel or antimagic field, but..." But he wouldn't want the first experience to be in combat, and proving the theory wrong.

If Signum's memories extended a few years further then they did, this conversation might take a turn for the uncomfortable. Especially for Laevatein. As it is, however...

"The Anti-Magic Fields the bureau's run up against are only particularly good at restricting spells, and even then, not completely. A mage with a staff might end up useless while in the field, but she and her Device will be fine afterward," Signum explains. "And there are plenty of ways to circumvent them, the easiest being having a weapon-type Device like I do. A sword is still a sword, after all. Clever tactics can usually circumvent it, too even for shooting- and bombardment-type mages."

"...I haven't run up against other kinds of metathaum, though, unless hitting one spell with an equally strong spell going the other way counts as countermagic."

"I don't think it's quite what I'm thinking of," Aibghalien said with a grin. "A spell can be canceled out by an inverse evocation of an identical spell, but that means no effect at all will come, rather than the clash of two effects." Missiles, however, cannot be properly canceled by fireballs. He'd learned that the hard way.

More seriously, he continued, "The antimagic I'm familiar with suppresses all magic within their areas. They don't affect constructs, but I don't believe even Devices would qualify under that category."

"Let me put it this way," Signum says, touching the pendant on her neck and, suddenly, holding a longsword. She doesn't bother transforming into her armor, though. With another thought of focus and the feeling of mana flowing through her, the sword's blade blazes with obviously-magical flames. "Shiden Issen!"

"This is Laevatein outside an AMF," she says. "There are a few other spells and tricks we can manage, but this is our 'root' technique, so to speak."

With a relaxation of willpower, the flames disappear. "This is Laevatein inside an AMF. Still a sword, but we can't cast spells."

Standard flaming effect plus no doubt enchantments. Reasonable and effective! Aibghalien nodded approvingly. "The superiority of weapons inside an antimagic field is unquestioned," he said with a grin, "on my world or yours. Laevatein, good day," he added with a dip of his head; he made a policy of being polite to the intelligent magical items.

The sword responds with a robotic "GUTEN ABEND". Signum then sheathes it and returns Laevatein to pendant form.

"Anyway, I believe Nanoha, Testarossa, and Subaru are all more familiar with ways to get around AMFs, and perhaps other metathaum," Signum says. "I rather rely on Laevatein's strength, but those three are far more practiced in adaptability."

She says all this as a statement of fact, rather than self-deprecatingly. In her mind, knowing how to hit things really, really well has worked for her for centuries, so she'll leave improvised magical tactics to people who have that as part of their style.

At some point he has got to investigate why the Devices all seem to speak Brechtur. That was just too odd not to notice, though too trivial to prioritize.

"Very much the knight of the group, I take it," he said, still grinning. Though what that would make Vita, precisely, he couldn't imagine... possibly the berserker?

Signum has always thought of her as the siege engine.

"Vita, Shamal, Zafira, and I together are called the Wolkenritter, knights of the clouds," Signum explains. "I suppose I'm the closest to Earth's definition of the term out of the four of us."

She should share that; Aibghalien would agree wholeheartedly, and find a great deal of amusement out of that.

"Not that I know Earth, though I gather from what I've seen and read that it briefly went through a period not unlike my own world's culture in some places. I suppose the term translates the same."

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A knight's boredom [Open]

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