Home 26: Rooms to let, fifty cents

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

"Of course there are real humans in the city, Khannie. But they're probably just scared by all the strange things like the werewolf disaster and the Buttercups. Honestly if you're at risk of anything it's because you're you and you're also my daughter. But you knew that."
He smiles. That's his nice way of saying "I have terrible luck of running into strange occurrences, and you are horribly reckless."

Dreaming of Birds

"Indeed, maybe some echo of your master was drawn there as well." Krayger suggests. Honestly he wishes he could just ask this creature if it's possible to remove a Gentry's influence on someone but he feels like asking that so directly would be unwise.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Reckless AND tough AND really smart!

Khannie will be totally fine according to Khannie.

She understands, though. Her dad loves her. He doesn't want something terrible to happen to her. And maybe becoming a Witch would definitely count as something terrible. There are so many dangers that a normal human has to worry about in the Nexus that someone who's already weird doesn't. But... but right now she has her own resilience to rely on! And once the Magical Girl stuff is cured then she'll have her dad's gift to her! Sure she won't be as strong anymore but who cares? She'll be a real human girl and that's the thing that matters the most.

This all leaves her thinking about the gift for her dad.

She had planned on giving it to him once her birthday rolled about BUT with him giving a gift to her?

Maybe it'll be a good idea to go grab it now.

"I've got something for you I'll be right back, okay?" she says before running back up the stairs to her room. She pulls open her sock drawer and shoves all the socks aside so she can with draw a moderately fancy looking plastic scroll case before running BACK down the stairs. She stumbles a bit near the end but a few well timed hops prevent her from face planting. "I made these for you, daddy!"

The scroll case is offered to Jace.

Inside?

Are some scrolls! Not very shocking, honestly.

But the part that might be surprising is that the scrolls are for casting a completely novel spell that creates a construct of illusionary light which illuminates the surroundings as if by Dark Vision. The reach isn't as high as good old fashioned Light, but it allows one to reveal dark surroundings without tipping off nearby monsters that something is up.

"I made up that spell! I thought it might be useful for you if you ever go on an adventure again," Khannie says proudly, absolutely beaming. She's been keeping this a secret the past few weeks and it has been REALLY HARD.

[Morty]

[Cass' Tower - Wenomir]

"I'm not sure how to explain it, there's a lot of kinks that still need to be worked out," says Cass, looking away slightly. Sounds a bit like code for "I don't have a clue", not that Wenomir would have any suggestions of his own on that front.

Wenomir is very well aware both of the fact that Cass doesn't have as good a plan as she claims and the fact that he's got no useful insights on the subject to speak of.

"Alright. Well, if there is something I can do, just ask. This sounds as far from my area of expertise as it gets, but just in case. Are you going to be okay in the meantime?"

[Dreaming of Birds]

"I... do not remember the mortal world." The serpent seems faintly regretful saying that. "I do not know what would happen if others were to leave. That the Fairest of Lands is forever separate is... a truth that became unbending to us." It looks down at Krayger again. "But that seems to be the case. I do not know how or why. And now it lingers in you, along with the King in Rags'. An unheard of situation."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace reads the scrolls. It takes him a second. Is that the sound of dice rolling? Probably just the wind.
Jace puts the scroll down and scoops up Khannie, which he can still barely do because she is a real human girl and not a large heavy pokemon with an incredibly thick frame.
"Oh Khannie, you can't keep doing that, you're going to make your old man feel jealous of all the things you're doing so young." He plants another kiss on her forehead.
"Here, let me show you something. I think you're ready." Jace carries her over to The Closet.
The closet where Jace keeps most of his adventuring gear except his cloak because he wears that everywhere. He takes a set of beat-up goggles and sets them on the table along with placing Khannie into a suitable chair.
"These are the first magical items I ever crafted myself. They've got a similar effect to the spell you made. They let the user see in the dark. But only the user. Your little spell allows it the effect to extend to everyone in the group instead of one person, which is something I never quite figured out. My abilities were always focused mostly on elemental and the occasional transmutation magics. Enchantment was something that allowed me to get effects I couldn't normally cast. You should try it. If you bound your spell to a vessel you could make a dark lantern. I would think you'd win show and tell with that one." It would also be metal as hell.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Jace definitely isn't making any UMD/Spellcraft checks to figure out what Khannie's scrolls do no sir.

"Oh no! You aren't going to eat me like Zeus did when he found out some of his kids were going to surpass him, are you?" Khannie asks, her tone joking.

She always thought that the Greek Gods mostly seemed like weirdos.

That thing with 'you child will surpass you!' resulting in kids getting eaten happened THREE TIMES! And it never worked out right for the guy doing the eating, either!

You would think they would have learned their lesson.

But then?

She gets scooped up! And kissed! This gets a giggle out of Khannie. And a look of excitement when The Closet is opened! She tries to get a peek at what other cool things are in there before it gets closed again. Now seated in her chair, she eyes the goggles curiously. "Mine's not a transmutation I don't think. It's an illusion spell. See, I had this dream that I turned on a light but there wasn't any light, instead I could sort of see but everything looked muted?" Khannie recounts. "So I wondered if I could do something like that with a spell."

It turned out that she could.

"Do you really think I would be able to figure enchantment out? I've never tried it before."

Khannie hadn't ever tried making scrolls before and THAT worked out okay.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Felix's Basement

Krayger is not bothered by his failure. Instead he simply turns to Felix with an eyebrow raised (or the best his face can muster).
"You know, didn't you tell me when we met that you mostly focused on enchanting things? I don't recall missiles coming up in that explanation." he asks. He carefully steps around the puddles as they go.

[The Cauldron Golem's Lair]

"Well of course, my boy!" Felix answers with a laugh, "But I wouldn't have lasted very long back in my adventuring days if I didn't have means of protecting myself now, would I?" He waves his staff, focusing the glow down a path off to the right ahead, briefly illuminating some rounded black cauldron golem bulk before it makes another gurgling noise and backs further up.

"But you're quite right, we're not trying to turn you in a fireball-wielding fiend, nor am I enough of an expert in the field to safely instruct you beyond a certain level of destructive potency. However, it's all in good cause." He states, confidently. "A broad understanding of the methods and application of magic will aid you in turn in enchantments. Knowing how to do the thing you want the item you're enchanting to do will make it much easier. Ah, now then!" He grins, and reaches up to give Krayger a reassuring pat on however far up his back he can reach. "Our troublesome friend is backing itself into a corner. It'll have nowhere to run before long!"

[Recaiden]

[Dreaming of Birds]

"Indeed, maybe some echo of your master was drawn there as well." Krayger suggests. Honestly he wishes he could just ask this creature if it's possible to remove a Gentry's influence on someone but he feels like asking that so directly would be unwise.

"I... do not remember the mortal world." The serpent seems faintly regretful saying that. "I do not know what would happen if others were to leave. That the Fairest of Lands is forever separate is... a truth that became unbending to us." It looks down at Krayger again. "But that seems to be the case. I do not know how or why. And now it lingers in you, along with the King in Rags'. An unheard of situation."

The serpent is definitely seeming harmless, but it could well be just a seeming.
"Would you bend that fact if you could? If you don't remember, is there any reason left to care?"
"You could do something about it."

[Deathkeeper]

Dreaming of Birds

"Would the mortals remember you? I don't know if you have told us who you are, really." Krayger points out. The serpent has given its master's identity, but not its own. Maybe that would be useful to them later.

Cauldron Golem's Lair

Krayger's back goes rather far up but Felix is not a short man.
"So, what's the plan here? You want me to just keep blasting its minions while you try to bind it? If you didn't give it a proper name how exactly are you planning on doing that?"
Krayger could probably just lift the darn thing up and let Felix examine it if absolutely necessary. He's not afraid to make use of his muscles in a pinch.

Jace's Place

To be fair in most versions Zeus tried to escalate the situation by eating/absorbing the mother as well. Still didn't work.
"You might. That's why I want you to study those goggles for a while and see if you can crack how I did it. Then we'll see about getting you a suitable vessel. I was thinking a lantern. Sticking to thematics can make an enchantment stick. But I haven't mentioned it until now since making wonderous items is well. Expensive." Khannie has probably seen the prices her dad charges.

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

"My name is the Weeping Serpent's Face," the fey says, bowing its head. "I have no wish to return to the mortal world. Nor would the mortals remember me. But the door between the Fairest of Lands and the mortal world were shut by will of the Wyrd. Or, perhaps, something greater still. Forcing them open as the King in Rags is likely to do... it can only cause havoc."

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Maybe more mythological parents should be proud of their children surpassing them rather than trying to eat them.

So.

Her dad wants her to study the googles.

Okay, she can do that.

First? She leans in really close to look at them. Is there any writing on them? Do you have to write the spell on like you do with scrolls? If that's how it works then this isn't THAT much different from making a spell scroll, right? It just needs to be reinforced so it can keep casting its spell over and over again instead of burning itself out after one use. Or... what if it isn't writing? What if you just have to kind of... cast the spell into a thing? And then give it a power source?

Maybe?

Khannie picks up the goggles in her hands, turning them this way and that and trying to get a feel for the magic that flows through them.

Hmm...

Yeah.

The spellwork itself isn't something that she's super familiar with. She can make out a few similarities with Mage Hand but they're superficial at best. They both involve turning things into other things, just the sorts of things are different. That's not the important part, though the important part is how the spell is sticking to the goggles when normally goggles aren't a valid target for a spell like this.

Maybe...

Holding the goggles up to peer through the lenses the wrong way, Khannie asks. "How come enchanting items is so expensive?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

The goggles are very worn but the enchantment is definitely still sticking to them. Between the eye-pieces is a cluster of three little emeralds.
"You know how it was kind of expensive to get the inks that made your spell stick to the scroll parchment? Getting spells to adapt to a physical host is much the same way. Only instead of just needing to store them in paper for one use, they have to stick basically forever. That's why a lot of enchanted items tend to have little gems and silver and platinum decorations. They're decorative but sometimes those fancy metals and gems hold magic better than iron and wood. I think if we went with the lantern idea we'd want to have some silver in there. Silver has some associations with night and the moon so it might stick. Sometimes it isn't so much that magic cares about thematics, but that your magic thinks like you do. Does that make sense?" No but magic isn't supposed to really make sense in the usual way.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

"One of my teachers at school complains about how expensive ink is for printing machines, too," Khannie says as she raises the goggles above her head and tries to get a good angle on the light to see into the gems. Was there something in there? "Maybe ink just costs way too much."

She might be onto something there.

Maybe the people who make scroll ink and printer ink are the same people?

Now Khannie is wondering if you would be able to put scroll ink in a printing machine to print out scrolls really fast.

"I guess that makes a little sense. And I can feel something kind of... wrapped around the gems and the metal? Like a spider's web that you can't see until your face finds it."

Khannie has met plenty of those while exploring the forests of GLoG.

They're an extra unpleasant surprise when there's a big spider in the middle of them.

So what Khannie saying is that she couldn't feel the magic until she stuck her arcane face into it.

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

What's inside of the gems is MAGIC! And mineral material, like any other gem.
"Yeah, that's basically it. But it doesn't work to just wrap up the thing. It also has to be infused. If the magic doesn't really get in there it can just be dispelled easily and that's no good." No one wants to get their fifty thousand gold item turned off for good by a level five wizard.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Sometimes crystals contain neat inclusions. Like how salt crystals can sometimes contain ancient water!

These crystals probably aren't cool like that, though.

"Okay. I guess I can try? But that means we have to go get stuff for enchanting, right?" Khannie asks.

That means...

And outing!

Probably to Market Street or something.

That seems like the most likely place to get a cool hand-crafted lantern instead of a cruddy mass produced one.

Which causes something to occur to Khannie.

"Does enchanting work better if you make the thing you're enchanting yourself? Or does that not make any difference?"

[Recaiden]

Dreaming of Birds

"Would the mortals remember you? I don't know if you have told us who you are, really." Krayger points out. The serpent has given its master's identity, but not its own. Maybe that would be useful to them later.

"My name is the Weeping Serpent's Face," the fey says, bowing its head. "I have no wish to return to the mortal world. Nor would the mortals remember me. But the door between the Fairest of Lands and the mortal world were shut by will of the Wyrd. Or, perhaps, something greater still. Forcing them open as the King in Rags is likely to do... it can only cause havoc."

"Then, there will be havoc, unless you can discern a way to keep that door shut." Leah says, nodding to the Face in response.
"Perhaps we can offer you something relevant to the situation?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

"Well, we don't have to go do it now. But it depends. Sometimes I get things pre-made from artisans. But sometimes I do it myself. And regardless of what I start with the item in question just sort of...forms. Like making an ioun stone really just starts with buying a whole lot of crystals and letting the magic turn them into a new magic one that hovers. Sometimes you get something pre-made and it doesn't end up resembling the final product anyway."
As usual one thing is very consistent.
Being a sorcerer never involves exact sciences.

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger scowls. Just what is Leah planning on offering to the serpent?
"The door staying shut does seem like the ideal situation, yes." he grumbles.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Khannie carefully considers what she's been told.

Sometimes you buy stuff from a person who's really good at making things and then magic it up.

Sometimes you build the thing yourself.

Sometimes the end product resembles what you started with.

Sometimes you get something with zero relation to the starting point.

And sometimes rocks float.

Just...

Because.

Khannie decides to summarize all this as, "That's weird."

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

The Weeping Serpent's Face... doesn't look surprised, because its face can only have one expression. But Leah and Krayger can likely feel its curiosity.

"Something relevant? What do you mean? I do not know what I can do about this. Or what can be done at all."

[Recaiden]

Krayger scowls. Just what is Leah planning on offering to the serpent?
"The door staying shut does seem like the ideal situation, yes." he grumbles.

The Weeping Serpent's Face... doesn't look surprised, because its face can only have one expression. But Leah and Krayger can likely feel its curiosity.

"Something relevant? What do you mean? I do not know what I can do about this. Or what can be done at all."

Ah, look at that, they're finally at the edge of the woods, with no birds in their way.
"Well, my friend here has something that once belonged to the very gentry at the center of all this havoc. That's what you noticed about him, I'd bet."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Zebes stands up from his pillow on the couch to flutter onto Khannie's head and look down at her upside-down, as he is wont to do.
"Yup! Congratulations, this is your chosen career path!"
Sorry, Khannie. Being a sorcerer means everything is weird all the time. You just try to control how weird.

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger folds his arms, wings shrugging with a gentle flap.
"Would you desire such a thing? You don't seem to have much love lost for Him." To be honest some part of him would like to get something for the piece of the Eye, just to make all of this trouble worth it. But he knows making deals with fey is risky.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Cauldron Golem's Lair]

"Hmm. Something like that, yes. All things considered, I think our mischievous friend has the potential to be quite useful. We just need to reason with it. Magically." Felix grins, tapping the side of his head lightly. "So if we dispose of the remaining slimes, do you think you can restrain it long enough for me to have a magical word or two with it?"

[Deathkeeper]

[Cauldron Golem's Lair]

Krayger turns to Felix curiously. That simple, huh?
"What, you need me to just hold it down? Yeah, sure. As long as there's something to grip I should be fine. That's the use of having an apprentice this size, eh?" He rolls his shoulders in anticipation. Yeah, he's pretty sure he can do some cookware wrestling today.

[Rebonack]

[Jace's Place]

Khannie wrinkles her nose at that.

"I didn't pick enchanting stuff though," she points out as she sets down the goggles again. "I don't even know if I can do that yet."

It's true.

She hasn't even tried!

And she might need to get a feat first before she can do it at all? Khannie isn't sure how getting feats works. Is it like learning new pokemon moves? Does it just happen? She's really got no idea. Really she's been spending most of her time just trying to get shadow illusions to work right. That's already a full time endeavor.

AND!

Normal classes have started again.

Which means she's got all sorts of regular homework, too.

A busy young lady, that's who Khannie is.

"How do you figure out if you're good at enchanting items or not?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace folds his arms to think.
"You'll know, I think. Why don't we wait until after your birthday? That way you have plenty of time to study and we can solve your other problems before we jump into a new puzzle." he suggests.
That might be wise. They kind of need to make sure Khannie doesn't flunk out of school or shatter into an existential nightmare this year.

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

The Weeping Serpent almost recoils in shock.

"The piece... I do not know what I would do with it. Or if it is possible to remove it from you at all. I am sorry. It is... far beyond my station to even consider this."

[Mouchabière Residence]

Sophie Mouchabière, the resident therapist of the Good League of Good, Eclipse-Caste Solar Exalt and all-around relentless busybody has, for once, not brought work home. Instead, she's sewing a button onto one of her favorite but well-worn jackets. She's not very good at it and her Solar excellence doesn't appear to be helping. But she nonetheless insists on doing it. It appears to be something she carried out of her home, long ago and on a world far away.

[Halae]

[Mouchabière Residence]

While she's working, Sophie's wife ends up walking into the room, and will put her arms around Sophie's shoulders from behind to hug the shorter woman and rest her chin on Sophie's head, "So... I wanna discuss something, if you have a moment."

[Morty]

[Mouchabière Residence]

Sophie puts aside the needle, thread and jacket, seemingly glad to have an excuse to take a break. She leans into Trick contentedly.

"Of course. What is it?"

[Halae]

[Mouchabière Residence]

Trick takes a deep breath, in and then out, a sign that she's nervous to someone that knows her well as Sophie does, "So... you remember how we discussed maybe wanting a kid eventually? I've been thinking about that, and I think I want to go for it now," and then she buries her face into Sophie's hair.

[Morty]

[Mouchabière Residence]

It's a good thing Sophie put away her needle, otherwise she'd have stabbed herself in the hand with it. Her sudden excitement is palpable and she almost leaps out of her chair.

"That's... that's amazing! I knew you had doubts but... I'm so happy you came around to it."

She did her best to hide her disappointment when Trick initially turned down the idea of having children, but her wife would have noticed it all the same. It was something she'd wanted for a long time and accepting that it might not be how her life would go in the end wasn't easy.

[Halae]

[Mouchabière Residence]

Trick smiles, a light blush coloring her cheeks, "Yeah, I've just been considering it for a while, and how we might go about doing it. I think I'd be happy with a kid, despite my worries about being a bad parent. Besides, I know how much you want a family."