trans_9 | Her Flight [semi-open]

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Her Flight [semi-open]

Somewhere inside the vast dome of the City, Signum floated, transformed into her battle gear, eyes closed and mind reaching out to the ship for magical reactions. The presence of Stacy's mind - not magic per se, but still psychically loud - was a constant buzz, but her senses floated to smaller, brighter sparks, aided by what she held in her hands - the "Book of Darkness" that she had taken up last week. She'd been confused, then, but now that the Administration Program was back in her proper place, it was time to start filling the pages again. She'd dawdled too long on this ship, trusting 'Stacy' to keep Hayate safe (ha!), even socializing with the time-displaced Bureau mages who had been trying to stop her before all this...

She reaches out for magical reactions. People she knew - Nanoha and Testarossa (avoid at all costs), Aibghalien (noted), Hayate (...) - and others she didn't, or whom she was merely acquainted with through the Magic Department.

Ha. A Wolkenritter joining such an organization. That was possibly her least thought-out bit of subterfuge here. They had nothing to offer her, unless some bleeding hearts were willing to sacrifice mana...but that clearly wouldn't happen. No, no, it's definitely time to go back to doing this the old-fashioned way. The very old-fashioned way, since her comrades were all still in the pods.

Yes, she'd have to be careful, but the danger was worth it. To live quietly with her Master, even in this besieged cave of a starship...that was what mattered.

She focuses in on a magical signature and swoops quietly towards it, preparing a Barrier to isolate herself with the victim. Hopefully, they'd fall quickly and painlessly...

((Okay friends, reply to this post if you a) have magical powers and want to have a fight with Signum over them or b) spot Signum and want to stop her. Threads will probably take place in skewed pocket dimensions called Barriers for privacy, but these can be broken into if you like. Expect fighting! Signum isn't in the mood to talk. Further details can be found here. If you signed up to get mugged and want to do it in another post, just let me know.))

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"Of course I'm not happy," Aibghalien snapped. "You're going to waste more power fighting me than you'd get from me even if you won, and more still fighting everyone else trying to stop you! This is pointless, Signum! I suggest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/suggestion.htm)," he continued, expending energy from the crystal he held to fuel the spell, "you stop and let me help you rather than persisting in this pointless fight!"

He had no illusions about Signum's strength of will, but he could hope that whatever had caused her to act so unusual had perhaps weakened her resistance to mental influence. At the very least, maybe she would listen to reason even without the magic.

The much more realistic part of him prepared for another assault.

While the spell doesn't do much to Signum's disciplined, purposeful mind - one made more so, not less, by the Melting Clock's psychic depradations - she does stop to consider.

"...you'd help me get the magical energy I need?" she asks, seriously considering it. "There's no way to get it but to take it from living creatures. Even willing donors would be in a great deal of discomfort, even if the magical damage wasn't permanent. Would you really accept that?"

"I didn't spent most of my life in study of magical theory to just accept the most bald-faced answers," he returned. He grabbed the crystal out of midair, holding it up for her perusal. "At the very least, consider this: The magical energy stored in these crystals is called mebghail. It is not standard arcane energy; it is condensed natural energy, drawn from nature and the land itself. I don't know if it's compatible in its condensed state, but can it hurt to try? And if not, attempt to make it so?"

Signum wonders. It couldn't not be worth a try, right? It shouldn't be any different than drawing energy out of magical fauna, just vastly more efficient...

"...very well. Shall we give it a try?" she asks, holding the Book of Darkness forth, but still protectively, not entirely trustingly. It needed to be defended at all costs, after all. That was her primary, and when you got down to it, only purpose. Protect the Book, protect its Master.

Possibly. It had taken Aibghalien months of specific study to master the art of manipulating the energy within these crystals. On the other hand, clearly Signum had a certain aptitude for drawing energy out of people that he didn't.

With a gesture, he sent the mostly-empty crystal drifting towards her. No sense in wasting a full one -- situations like this always had the possibility of ending up in explosions. "If you can't access it directly I have an idea," he said, rather grimly, "though I would prefer not to use it if possible."

Protectively - this could still be a trap, and the Book was more important than her own life - Signum holds the Book of Darkness out, ordering it to absorb mana from the crystal.

"SAMMELN."

The Book flares with energy and runic triangles hover in the air as it attempts to drain the crystal - not Aibghalien, at Signum's strict mental command. He could get hurt if he tried to struggle out of it, after all.

"Ungültiges Ziel", the Book says as the attempt fails.

"Hmph. So much for that," Signum says. "Obviously it can't take mana from an unliving thing, no matter where the energy originally came from."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," he said with a sigh. The simplest solution never, ever worked.

"Ordinarily I'd haul you off to my lab for a few weeks of experimentation on the energy transfer process -- huh, that sounded much more like innuendo than I had intended -- but I'm guessing that time is an issue here." Since she had attacked him and all. "So... please tell me you can time the draining process reasonably precisely, because otherwise I think the obvious answer is going to be very unhappy for me."

Signum gives a harsher glare at the innuendo comment than she normally would, but ignores it otherwise. She is in a hurry.

"If you don't struggle, it shouldn't harm you at all beyond not being able to cast spells for a few days. That's why I've been knocking people out," she explains. "Then again, your magic is different, so for all I know it could permanently paralyze your spellcasting."

He legitimately hadn't intended that! He HAS a girlfriend!

Aibghalien fixed her with a firm, intense glare. "My ability to use magic is from training, study, and discipline. It isn't innate. It certainly isn't reflected in a Linker organ, if I've remember the term correctly? The magical ability within me is an elven soul and the blood of a god. Taking those would probably kill me."

He holds up one hand, palm down; another crystal drifts out of his belt pouch to hover beneath it. "But I can draw the energy of these into me. I do so to shape the power in them into spells. If you can time your drain just as I do so, perhaps you can draw the magic from the crystal through me."

It was a reckless gamble, since Signum could simply just drain him entirely while he was vulnerable. He chose to bet on her character and her honor. And his own half-truths. The soul and blood statement was truth, but he hadn't mentioned that even as a wizard, the spells he had memorized but not cast represented a consumable force of arcane energy that would probably serve her purpose quite well.

Signum nods. This plan was moderately insane, but as she'd proven to herself multiple times, there were no lengths she was not willing to go to to save Hayate.

"I am not in complete control of the process, but neither is the Book of Darkness autonomous in its current state," Signum says. "I will certainly be able to stop it from killing you."

"...we should probably land, though, just in case."

'Moderately insane' was pretty sane for Aibghalien's plans. In a bizarre way he felt sort of comforted, in his element.

"Just wanted I wanted to hear," he said, half-seriously. Taking her statement to heart, he glanced down, then descended towards a reasonably flat and nondescript roof.

Signum lands, putting Laevatein back in its sheath and continuing to hold out the Book of Darkness.

"This should be a fairly simple change to the spell, but hold as still as you can anyway. This usually only causes serious damage when people struggle," Signum advises.

She flips the Book open, preparing the sealing spell. "I'm ready when you are."

Rather than the small crystal from before, this time Aibghalien produced a crystal perhaps the length and twice the width of his forearm from his pouch. He set it carefully in midair, allowing its energy to synch with his own mind. The mostly-drained crystal he set to one side. That was his escape clause; if the Book (or Signum) refused to end the process when the crystal was drained, that crystal had enough juice left to help an escape.

"As soon as the crystal begins to dim," he said. "When it's utterly dark, it will have no more power left, at which point I'd appreciate the Book not continuing to drain my essence if at all possible..."

Without further delay he drew a small portion of the crystal's power into himself, dimming it as he prepared to cast a spell.

"SAMMELN," the tome intones, beginning to draw magical energy from the top of Aibghalien's reserves as the crystal's energy flows in to replace it. Signum concentrates on the spell with a worried look. She's never, in her memory, had someone volunteer for this, and she was also worried about leaving Aibghalien conscious during the process.

As the energy flows out, the Book picks up the pace, not giving Aibghalien any warning to keep up. Pages fill first gradually, then surprisingly quickly - Signum blinks as she sees just how much magical potential Aibghalien has between himself and those crystals.

However, the Book is impatient, and to be quite frank a glitched piece of hardware. The sealing of Aibghalien's magical energy continues well past the point where the crystal is drained, going for the next-most-convenient source - the spells in his mind, of a perfect format for the Book of Darkness, which is first and foremost a Storage Device for spells, even if its own Knight doesn't remember that.

And that wasn't even his largest crystal. He's kind of glad he'd secretly limited just how much help he intended to offer with this one gesture.

Oh well. He let the spells go with only a clenching of his jaw and a growing sense of focused concern; they were just mental patterns of energy, it would take a good night's rest and an hour to refresh them, whereas Signum's need is or at least appears to be that much greater. It's no different than casting them all to help her, which he would gladly do...

But as the last daze spell vanished from his head he readied himself against any further draining. His bloodline he would defend to the death. Had to, since without it he might not even be able to restore Cerilia magically at the end of this journey.

Signum notices the change in what the Book is trying to do as the script representation of spells stops scrolling over the pages and the Book pauses, as if considering or realigning itself. "What are you doing...?" she asks.

"Stop, end spell, that's enough," she says, but the single-minded, damaged artifact is ignoring orders as best it can, still searching for a way into that inner reserve of magic in this subject. So many layers...

"Look out, Signum," he said, rather hoarsely. Without much more warning than that, he slammed the last of the smaller crystal's power through his body. Speaking a few hurried words and making a swift cutting gesture with his hand, he invoked an antimagic field around him as the emptied crystals fell to the ground. He stumbled backwards unsteadily as he did so, far enough to get Signum out of its effects.

"FEHLER."

Signum flinches as the magical connection is abruptly cut - not only from the suddenness and completeness of that AMF (a rare but not-unheard of sight in her personal experience), but also the fact that she hadn't noticed how far the Book was draining him. Though it seemed to have cut off almost in mid-spell, many pages were still filled with neat arcane diagrams corresponding to the elf's world's particular style of magic.

Thankfully, the AMF hadn't disrupted her or the Book (or her clothes) in any way but denying the effect of the magical drain. She thus is able to have the luxury of looking horrified at herself, ameliorated only slightly by the success of Aibghalien's backup plan. She quickly closes the Book and stows it away, not waiting for it to find a way around the wizard's defenses.

In a fight, Aibghalien would be helpless against her for the moment - Anti-Magic Fields are notable for not stopping sharpened steel - but Signum was no longer looking for a fight. Or anything. Leaving only her worried and self-disgusted expression as an apology, she takes two more steps back from Aibghalien and flies off, not wanting to hurt him further (and assuming he wouldn't be able to follow her until that spell's duration ran out.)

Signum was wrong on two counts: opposing her would have been as simple as dismissing the field and invoking his ring of polymorphing to assume dragon form, and he could have followed her since his overland flight spell had only been suppressed, not dispelled -- again a simple matter of dismissing the spell.

But he elected not to do either of those things. Aibghalien let her go. In part it was hope that he had made a difference in her quest for magic -- either by the volume of power he had provided, or by showing her that others on the ship could be trusted to help her and trust her in turn. In part it was legitimate fear. Did he have a hope of defeating her as a polymorphed dragon? And in part it was a simple and curious feeling that, if he fought her as a dragon, he would in some way be tainting that form.

All those reasons circling in his head, he watched her go with only regret that he couldn't have helped the problem, only treated the symptoms.

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Her Flight [semi-open]

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I am obviously making shit up as I go here

So was my DM! It can't get wackier than the game was!

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