4179/Fun With Elementals

Fun With Elementals
Date of Scene:	02 June 2016
Location:	Hotel Somewhere
Synopsis:	Luc and Sarah discuss the relative merits of elemental summons versus living creatures, and the benefits (and drawbacks) of zombies.
Cast of Characters:	237, 316

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Luc (237) has posed:
    TORAN CASTLE

It's late day at Toran Castle. The sun has begun to sink in the sky, but a few hours of daylight yet remain, and it's still quite hot and humid. Hazards of living literally directly upon a large, significant body of water. The air clings to your skin, and this part of the world gets plenty hot this time of year. Recently, Sarah had problems with nearby hunters bothering some of the summoned creatures of the Castle. At the time, the Wind Mage had been rather dismissive of the whole matter.

Then he'd forgotten about it.

Then he'd come across one of the chimerae, remembered it, and decided to make some people miserable for his own entertainment.

At present, Luc stands at the bottom-most external level of Toran Castle. It is a U-shaped series of docks, with doors carved into the face of the great rock from which the castle was built. The whole thing has a crude untamed appearance to it, excepting perhaps the wooden docks themselves which are reasonably well-maintained.

In the last few hours, little magic flares have blipped up from those docks where Luc is standing as he's conjured up... something. He's definitely conjuring /some/thing, but by appearances alone there doesn't actually seem to be anything there. After every summoning he gestures out into the lake this way and that, and the wind blows.

Shortly after he began /doing/ this...

Boats on Toran Lake started acting -funny-. Those that remain well away from Toran Castle move rapidly towards their destination, gaining sudden wind in their sails in dire contradiction of which direction the wind is actually blowing. Those that /don't/ start to get pushed around in circles, until they try to go someplace not quite so close.

There's another flare of light as Luc performs another summoning...

Close up, it's actually possible to identify what the Wind Mage is doing, but at a distance his summonings are practically invisible. The wind elementals are mid-sized vortices that whip things around within their bodies, but there isn't that much debris to see in them out here, so they don't show up well at a distance.

"... Now you go up above and do the same thing to anybody trying to approach by air. Except dragons, leave those alone." He instructs the whirlwind he just conjured up, flicking his rod towards the skies. The wind elemental ascends just above the height of Toran Castle, and begins to circle.

Sarah (316) has posed:
It had taken the water mage a few minutes to realise what he was doing.

Caught in the midst of a book, Sarah had been perfectly happy to sit quietly in the library, reading through old tomes for the better part of the afternoon. It's too hot to do much else; the library itself is one of the innermost chambers, shielded from the heat and humidity better than other areas of Toran Castle.

Those summonings had been no more than a pinprick against her senses, a tickle against the wet humidity of the air, until one of them had started chasing a fishing boat around the lake. Water doesn't move that way naturally unless something is manipulating it to do so, and the anomaly had registered itself to her senses almost immediately.

Exhaling through her nose, the Runebearer had snapped her book shut with the dull thud of heavy pages meeting, set it aside, and teleported herself to the place she had sensed Luc's presence last. That would be the docks.

"Having fun?" Her question comes from behind him, looking up to eye the newest whirlwind somewhat skeptically.

The summoned elementals are an efficient solution to their little problem, when it comes down to it, and keeping people away from the lake by force isn't a bad idea. The last thing they need is an angry mob with pitchforks; in her estimation, the folk of small villages like this need little provocation to form such mobs... even if the two mages give them no reason to.

She has the two chimera, in any case. She can hardly release them into the wild, and she's loathe to banish them back to the nightmare realm of the World of Emptiness. They'll remain castle guardians for the time being, stationed on the roof or the bowels of the castle; out of sight, and out of mind. Elementals will range the further areas until she can finish crafting a suitable illusory caparison; bound, perhaps, to a rune or some other small thing she can affix to the creatures.

Besides, there's no mistaking those elementals for what they are.

Turning her greatstaff in her hands, she leans on the weapon, cocking a colourless eye to the water of the lake. She's not wilting in the heat, but that's because she's cheating, and keeping a bubble of comfortably dry air around her; and now Luc, as well.

"Mmm. I see. They can chase the ships, and the ships will never know the difference so long as they stay over the lake." It isn't that she can see them that well, as it's far too bright a day for that, but Sarah can sense the elementals in the ambient humidity. That, too, is her element. She regards the lake again, thoughtful. "Perhaps something in the lake itself, too, just to be certain?"

Luc (237) has posed:
"Yes."

Luc isn't even in the slightest bit concerned with setting the villagers off. Or passing ships, for that matter. There is only really one drawback to this method of doing things and it's that it is limited by the number of vehicles in the water at a given time. Even that can be addressed with a sufficient number of active elementals, and the lake is not large enough -- particularly around Toran Castle itself -- to accommodate a huge number of boats passing by.

In other words...

Their entire corridor has become either very very convenient to navigate, or nigh impossible to navigate, and there's no immediate source. The average person wouldn't really know an immediate difference because the only way they'd find out about the 'negative' effect is by deliberately tresspassing.

Even then, the only thing it would do is push them away.

Really, he could probably set it up so people only /think/ they're getting closer but never actually do, but that would be a lot more work and involve illusion work that Sarah is a hell of a lot more suited towards dealing with than he is. A glance is cast skywards.

Dragon Knights pass through this area periodically, though. Best to give them /help/, not trouble. Not because they'd turn hostile, but because they're not liable to be acting without a seriously good reason to do so. Whether Futch is a brat or not.

"Right you are!" He holds up a billowy sleeve, pinching it at the bottom between his thumb and forefinger so that it hands there in the air. "Elemental enters sail or pushes at the back of the boat, or starts working against it as the case may be. Not much to see unless it's accumulated a lot of garbage along the way. Ships can move along quickly if they mind their own bloody business, or stall out if they decide to come bother us."

"And they're too damned difficult to shoot at."

Luc nudges Sarah in the ribs with the tip of the rod that he's carrying, "You could achieve a similar effect with water elementals, if you wanted. Nobody's going to notice them moving around underneath a boat. And the best thing is that they don't require anything in the way of actual maintenance."

"We've still got some torches and candles that are just fire elementals pretending, you know. It's why nothing ever catches fire that ought not do so." He adds, withdrawing the rod and setting it down heavily against the rocky ground beneath him. "Funny thing is, I'm more used to earth elementals. Easier to punch things with them. Not sure why they cooperate with me, they really /shouldn't/."

Sarah (316) has posed:
The water mage looks out to the lake, watching as one of the fishing boats cruises in a helpless circle. No doubt its pilot and crewmen are doing everything in their power to try and steer the other way, but nothing they do will be enough to change course. Not until they decide to stop being nosy, anyway.

Sarah smiles a thin little smile. That, at least, is an efficient way to keep the busybodies off their doorstep. The expression fades; just as well, because that kind of knife-like smile is kind of eerie on her, otherwise.

"And if I summoned something in the water, that would settle that. No one would gain entry into this castle from the lake unless we specifically allowed it." She takes a half-step back as he prods her in the ribs, laughing softly. "I could. It would be trivial, and as you've pointed out, no one would ever notice the difference. Something like that would be even more difficult to spot than a wind elemental. If yours stray too close to shore, they'll be rather hard to miss."

She folds her arms, drumming fingers against the opposite forearm. "Mm. In the library? I'd almost forgotten about those. The poor man's fire elemental." She half-smiles. "Yes, that is a bit strange." She stoops, setting her greatstaff down, and settling down on the smooth stone of the dock, letting her legs dangle off the edge. "I'd think they might have no intention of cooperating with you. It would be like me trying to use fire or lightning." Her expression suggests this is inherently distasteful.

Luc (237) has posed:
"In much the same fashion as a dust devil, but yes. Would you like to give it a try, and just keep the chimerae as house pets?"

Again, Luc nudges Sarah in the ribs with his rod. Lightly, several times in a row. Coming from anybody else the idea of keeping such beasts as mere pets would be abusrd. Coming from him, it's probably not all that implausible. As regards the library, he adds, "Yes, indeed. There aren't a lot of things that I'm actually proud of, but I think that hiding elementals in the form of simple lighting fixtures is remarkably clever."

"I wonder if there's such a thing as a /paper/ elemental... there are certainly -mimics-..." He thinks aloud.

As regards Earth Elementals, the Wind Mage shrugs and walks along behind Sarah, seating himself behind her with his legs folded beneath. He sets his rod aside with a light clatter, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning forward to rest his chin against her shoulder.

"Well," He lowers his voice, "summoning and commanding the typical elements are not precisely the same thing. It's ... let's say 'neutral', similar to divination. If I tried to command an earth elemental by element rather than as a creature I had conjured, then it would I am sure disobey without restraint. But merely commanding it as a thing that I brought /into/ this world, that is a different matter."

"Also, I usually just summoned them and walked away. Didn't actually have to exert a lot of control, they'd just attack whatever was in front. And I was always in /back/, you see." He squeezes Sarah, lightly. "Rather like this, actually. Not quite as close though, don't want to be within arm's reach of a hostile golem."

"S'pose I could probably hide some in the stonework of the castle..." Luc tilts his head back, looking at the high door entrance. "Pile it up there, make it look like it's caved in. Then somebody comes along and it socks them in the teeth. You ever been punched by a pile of rocks? It hurts!"

Sarah (316) has posed:
"I suppose I could try that," Sarah muses, glancing over her shoulder at the great spreading shadow of Toran Castle. "The chimera are still valuable as guards, and if something manages to slip past the elementals, they would be useful to have inside the castle. I'm hesitant to send them away. They've been very useful."

She settles on the dock, only to be nudged several times in a row, glancing over her shoulder at him. Her flat look seems to say, 'What?'

"Actually, those were fairly clever," she adds, smiling as she turns to face the lake proper again. There's a moderately-sized fishing boat out there, almost out of sight. The sails mark it clearly, and they mark it as it yaws in big, serene circles. Something about that is inordinately amusing to her. They must really want to check out the old castle. "I hadn't thought of it. You have a way with finding clever uses for summoned elementals."

Sarah sighs, pleased, as he takes a seat behind her and pulls her close. Leaning on him a little, she shrugs one shoulder, a motion so slight it could be missed. "This is true. Treat it as a being from the World of Emptiness, and it will still obey you, regardless of its elemental alignment. Dominate its will; give it no opportunity to resist your control or fight your authority."

"I hadn't thought of it that way. That would be a useful way to take someone by surprise, too; someone who knows your elemental alignment, and who wouldn't expect you to conjure earth and stone as a defense. It would be like me willingly dealing with lightning." Her disdainful tone suggests that won't happen any time soon. "Or fire, I suppose. I had carried a fire rune with me in the Grasslands, but it isn't as efficient for me as using water. Or wind. I find wind easier to manipulate than fire. I suppose that's from spending so much time with you," she adds.

She chuckles quietly. "Like winding up something highly destructive and turning it loose. Yes, I can see that." Didn't he mention that he loosed something like that on the first group of people he met that had travelled to Magician's Isle? A test of character, or some sort of rot like that.

"I suspect that if /I/ were punched by a pile of rocks," Sarah observes, "I would either be unconscious or dead. Perhaps some sword-swinging adventurer may be used to something like that, but not me." She sounds amused. "That might work, though. Or, perhaps build columns from them. Make them look like part of the aesthetics, what little there are here. The threshold would work, though; no one would bother to look there, I think."

"I could certainly summon something into the lake. Ships' crews wouldn't be able to see it, and this castle would have no better defense, although if I were present I could turn the very lake itself against any attackers." She makes a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat, leaning back against him. "Still, when we travel again, a water elemental would be useful. And the chimerae would be available to guard the inside."

They would, presumably, be housebroken by that point.

Probably.

Maybe.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Big poison stingers are a lot more useful in confined quarters where there is less room to get out of their way." The Wind Mage points out, with regards to defensive strategies that do not involve doing away with the great beasts. With one hand he reaches around in front of Sarah and makes a zigzagging motion in the air, "More specifically I think you should have them monitoring the stairwells. Put one at the topmost level, the other at the bottom, and maybe conjure a fresh one for dead in the middle. Lay down some bedding on a corner of the landings so they have someplace inconvenient to sleep."

As regards cleverness in elementals, he remarks, "I have a way with finding a lot of clever uses for magic that Lady Leknaat would have considered a gross abuse of such a force."

"I am not so subtle as she."

"But as for your affinity for wind, no, it would simply have to do with a quirk of fate. Everyone has a sliding scale of usefulness with particular runes. I am sure that Sasarai and I were optimized for use with our own," He lets his sleeve roll back to reveal his wind rune, "but it's the same for regular people as well. Water suits you naturally, so you will use things similar to it with similar efficacy. Wind and Water go together well in that regard."

"No /idea/ why fire fits you at all though. Lightning has more connection to your type of magic than fire, however you may protest having to deal with it."

"Thunderstorms." He adds, as clarification.

Luc shakes his head at Sarah's assessment of being struck by a rock golem, resting his face partway against her shoulder so that he's muffled when he speaks, "No, not really. Great bloody pile of rocks still uses magic to... /be/. Your magical resistance is a natural defense against a pure construct of magic, you know. Much different from dealing with, oh, say, a landslide for instance."

"Now that, that'd kill you. Maybe."

"But not a rock golem."

"So," He says, "where /are/ we going when we travel again? I hope it's someplace with motorized carriages, at least. I'm getting tired of worlds that are just ours with a different coat of paint. Or, literally ours, only people who are already dead and not our problem are not dead and have once again become our problem."

Sarah (316) has posed:
"That is also true." Sarah quirks her brows to focus on the hand zig-zagging in front of her, shrugging again in that barely-a-shrug. "I can have them monitor the stairwells, yes. I can place an elemental in the middle." She raises both hands, gesturing vaguely. "A water elemental can soak into the mortar, or find a convenient gap between mortar and stone; ir even a crevasse, and hide there."

In other words, placed right, it could be made just as invisible as a bunch of piled-up stone golems. Between both magicians, and their cleverness in making use of their chosen elements, practically every square inch of the castle could be made into one great big trap. An intruder wouldn't know what hit them.

Sarah seems to think on what he has to say for a moment, before shrugging. "I suppose so. I don't know what else it would be, if not water; I think the Flowing Rune would be proof enough of that." It's not terribly common for people to be born with certain runes, and her elemental preference doesn't get any more unambiguous than that.

"I can use fire, but it is a poor use of it, and inefficient. I imagine the same would be true of lightning. I could make use of it, but it would not be a good use of it." She snorts in evident distaste, very softly. "Even putting aside thunderstorms, I simply don't like lightning. I find it as distasteful as a cat finds a dog. How much of that is personal preference and how much of it is guided by the runes, though, I couldn't say." There comes a point where the lines blur, if they don't vanish outright.

She leans back against him, though not enough to upset his balance. "Perhaps. It would still hurt, though, and I expect if I knew it were coming, I could use the True Water Rune to shield myself from a landslide. Barriers are somewhat cost-inefficient to maintain for some time, but countering earth with a sufficient quantity of water might blunt the force of it. And as we've both observed, moving and travelling through water is hardly an issue for me."

It's just as well it isn't common knowledge that she has the True Water Rune. The navies of every nation ever would want to get their hands on her. No ship could ever contest whatever ship she stood on.

"Soon. As soon as I establish those defenses, in fact. If a more modern setting is what you prefer, than I can find us a number of suitable locations to travel to." Sarah makes a thoughtful sound, eyes half-closing. "Preferably, one far away from the history of our own world. And far away from any mention of Luca Blight." She can't help a very brief shudder at that.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Hmm... yes, but..."

"... Do you really want to deal with the water damage?" Luc looks irritable at the thought. It's hard to tell if he's being serious or not. "Maybe just the /one/, but I don't want to have to do actual maintenance work. Not that we use the stairs /that/ much, but technically we're just custodians, not owners. Not that anybody else can be bothered to haul their arses out here. Except the gardener, I suppose." This place /has/ had steady plant growth in the surrounding towers that certainly weren't /their/ doing...

To the matter of Sarah's elemental affinities, he says, "Think of it as a ranking system composed of several steps. At the top, water. A step down, wind. Another step down, fire. Even if you hadn't been born with a rune, you'd have something like it. Besides, your star -- like mine -- implicitly means strong magical talent. Frankly, you'd probably do reasonably well with anything."

"And /that/ is something Sasarai was less fortunate about."

The Wind Mage snorts a little, to Sarah's discomfort with lightning. He raises a hand to ruffle her hair and says, "I don't doubt you, but it's fairly odd in somebody with either of our stars. But you know, cats and dogs often get along just fine. Sometimes people put them together and make something /new/." A glance is cast back towards the castle proper, and the hiding place of the chimerae.

Luc mutters something about goats.

Who would combine a goat with a big cat? They're both cranky assholes to start with.

The Wind Mage frowns a little at Sarah's reaction. He rests his head against hers and remarks, "I didn't get a rise out of you with that suggestion. Either you've a new appreciation of technologically advanced worlds after being subjected repeatedly to the horrors of our own, /or/..."

"I am losing my touch. Perhaps a bit of both." Luc tilts his head lightly, to kiss Sarah's neck. Then, without missing a beat, he continues, "/I/ think we should find someplace with a train, board it, and then just wait 'til it runs out. How does that sound to you?"

Sarah (316) has posed:
Sarah makes a disappointed sound. "It would be acceptable in the short term, but I suppose such a thing would cause damage over a longer period of time. Another stone elemental it is, then. Or perhaps wind; something that could remain hidden."

"I suppose." This, to the matter of ranked elements. "It makes a certain degree of sense, and it is also in character with the Silent Star. Those under that sign have often been skilled with magic, from what little I have found in the One Temple's library." She shrugs, no more than a twitch of one shoulder, grumbling impotently when he musses her hair. Quit that. One hand rises to idly set it back into sorts as she replies.

"Perhaps a bit of both," she agrees. "But no force in heaven on earth will get me into another taxi. I'd sooner walk." The kiss earns a pleased sound, but she's still turning over the matter of transportation in her mind. Maybe a train won't be so bad. "That wouldn't be so bad. Would it? It would certainly get us good and lost, and I suppose that's the aim."

She makes a faint sound, thoughtful.


"It would also have to be someplace we've never explored. Then we really would be good and lost." Considering, she leans her head back against him, closing her eyes. "But that's the idea. Sometimes it's good to be lost once in a while; to be someplace new."

Luc (237) has posed:
"Alternatively," Luc suggests, "You could have the water elemental turn itself into a patch of condensation in the surroundings, spread very thinly so that it is almost a part of the air. That way the most it will do is accumulate on the surface rather than eroding the materials holding the steps together." He isn't actually entirely certain that this would work without dispersing the water elemental into the surrounding air hopelessly. How different would it be than having them enter the lake, or an ocean?

It's not his element, he can't be expected to know how it works perfectly. Especially in the case of arguably bizarre beings constructed entirely of said element.

"Hmm... kept your head when I kissed you. /That's/ no good." He complains, a little. Luc rests a hand on Sarah's shoulder while he extracts himself from this sitting position, mostly intending to keep her from getting nudged forward too far into the war.

There is a thump of metal on wood as Luc seizes his rod and resumes using it as a cane. He offers Sarah a hand up. "Ordinarily," he says, "I would take this opportunity to push you in or summon debris to bring the water up over the dock and turn you into a wet cat. Rather /un/fortunately, you are both getting better at thinking while distracted and far more dominant in that element than I am."

"I'll need to find some non-water means to achieve the same effect."

Luc seems to consider this for a moment.

"Static electricity?" He ponders aloud, smiling wickedly at Sarah.

To the matter of the taxi, the Wind Mage snorts. "There are worse ways to travel." He says, plainly. "We could always be riding on the backs of giant insect monsters, ferried by people who justifiably hate us for ruining their civilization and taking most of their food."

"If I didn't dislike Futch I'd take you to go meet the dragon riders and fly /that/ way." He says, matter-of-factly. "But I think a train will have to do. Would you like /me/ to find it this time, or will you continue to determine the precise details of our journeys?"

Here, Sarah can likely see a danger.

It isn't impossible that Luc would dredge up a train that also happens to be a huge caterpillar or centipede.

Sarah (316) has posed:
"I could do that," Sarah muses quietly, "but diffusing an elemental so much may well disperse it. I'm also not certain how long it would take to pull itself together again in the event of an emergency; if any of that water evapourates, I would need to intervene every time it needed to be reconstituted."

True, the lake is humid, and that does help in this specific instance. Sarah leans back against Luc a little and considers the matter. If she stretched it too thin, it would certainly disperse, destroying itself and prompting another to be summoned in its place. Such is the convenience of elementals; it isn't sentient, not really, and she doesn't need to worry about killing a thinking and feeling creature the same way she does about the chimerae. Elementals are also incredibly versatile.

"Yes, I kept my head when you kissed me," Sarah confirms, and she can't help but sound just a tiny bit smug about it. He's a terrible influence, tilting her head to watch as he untangles himself and heaves himself back to his feet. "I suppose it comes of growing up in a library. You learn to put your focus into something absolutely. And the predicament you've presented me with /is/ an interesting conundrum that I intend to solve sooner or later." She smiles, and while not quite a smirk, it's undeniably smug.

All that good cheer slowly evapourates when he mentions static electricity, and she pulls a face not unlike the cat that just got tossed into water. "Ugh. No. Absolutely not. I /will/ teleport you into that lake," she threatens. "Straight to the very bottom."

"What?" He mentions trains and transportations, and this time it's her turn to snort. "No. I wouldn't repeat that experience for anything. Those--those /things/ were disgusting. I could hear them at night. All that chittering and clicking." Sarah allows herself a nice violent shudder. "Disgusting."

She, at least, was spared the indignity of having to ever ride one of them. The idea is abhorrent to her. Why would anybody willingly subject themselves to that nonsense?

"You dislike almost everyone," she points out calmly, when he mentions Futch. "Perhaps you could find a Dragon Knight that isn't him. I'm certain there are plenty. Every so often, I can sense one flying through the clouds some distance off, passing by on whatever errands they're sent on. Perhaps we could offer them safe harbour here at the castle, in exchange for flight." Wait, why is she going along with this? She doesn't like large creatures. Even getting atop a horse is a challenge for her, and she pulls a face once she realises what she's doing. "On the other hand, I quite like having my feet on the ground, thank you very much."

Pulling herself to her feet, she stoops to pick up her staff, leaning on it contentedly. A train will have to do, he says, and he offers to find it. Luc never offers to do work any more than is strictly necessary; a certain laziness is just part of his character, just as efficiency is part of hers.

Sarah squints.

"I think not," she finally says, scowling a little. (The expression loses something, a little, when the person wearing it is perhaps ninety pounds soaking wet.) "If I leave that to you, Heaven only knows what we'll wind up with."

Luc (237) has posed:
"The hazards of dispersing them outside of their immediate element, I suppose." Luc ponders aloud. The fire elementals are a lot more simple in that regard. You can't stick them in the water, of course, and they require the wind to persist. They don't have much to do with lightning, though occasionally the lightning does produce fire as a side-effect of use. He shrugs loosely. "I think it would defeat the point to make things moist enough to make things practical. We /could/ just put more candle elementals along the stairwell, instead of water."

"A drippy ceiling would get somebody's attention, but torches and candles are overlooked most often."

With regards to Sarah's newfound concentration, he remarks, "I think it more likely that I've simply spent too much time making you thoroughly miserable and need a new way to vex you. And let's be completely honest, whether it's static electricity or no you'll most likely respond in kind. Maybe the bottom of the lake, maybe elsewhere."

"Best to teleport people /over/ the lake, by the way." He raises his rod to draw a crude water surface in the air, then a stick figure falling into it. Then, he draws one /already/ in the water with its mouth open. "You see, if you teleport somebody /over/ the lake then they have the opportunity to fall into the water and take a breath. They'll be startled and frightened but not /hurt/. If, on the other hand, you just put them directly in the water mid-conversation or action..."

Luc circles the drowning stick figure, "They suck in water unexpectedly and you have a mess on your hands. In general, it's best not to murder the person you're trying to tease. And yes, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to teleport people into bodies of water without killing them."

"And, you know, your chimerae are a third bug." He points out.

As regards Luc's relationship with Futch, he sighs exaggeratedly and waves his staff dismissively. "You don't understand," he says, "the pair of us are altogether too much alike, and his 'prentice is worse by far than either of us. Do you truly want three of /me/ running around, two of which ride upon dragonback? And they are already permitted to land here, they'd lend us a hand if they had a spare hand to offer and we asked."

"/I/ just don't /want/ to ask."

To Sarah's suspicion, Luc shrugs and nods his agreement. "Less work for me. And you're wise to take charge, I would've found a centipede train."

Sarah (316) has posed:
"We could," Sarah ventures, looking out over the lake. "No one will pay any mind to torches in wall-sconces, particularly in the darker corridors or the stairwell. And with our respective runes, no one would really suspect that we would use fire as a line of defense, either. That could work."

When he comments on needing to find a new way to vex her, Sarah only glances over her shoulder, smiling sweetly at the wind mage. "Of course I will. It's hardly in my nature to let things by. Doesn't water ripple when a stone is cast into it?"

"Of course. But if I know the target in question is constitutionally incapable of drowning, or very nearly so, it isn't as much of a concern." Sarah reaches back, gently prodding at Luc with the end of the greatstaff; careful with the silver spike at its end. "I was only being facetious. Over the surface is better. Your victim has a few seconds to contemplate their watery landing, then."

Regarding her chimerae, she shrugs. "Scorpion, technically. I can overlook it in limited quantities; it isn't the same as dealing with those horrible creatures in Le Buque." It's easier to deal with a cuddly lion face than horrible bug mandibles, after all. She shivers, just a little. "All that clicking and clacking. Horrible."

This brave little woman, who's faced death not once but at least twice, is direly afraid of thunderstorms and bugs. Who knew?

Three of Luc?

"N-no, not really." One is enough of a handful.

"You would." Sarah pulls a face. "I could count on you to find the most vile thing that still qualifies as a train, and it would also be an insect into the bargain, too."

Luc (237) has posed:
"I'd summon a zombie dragon into the basement, too, but honestly even though they're pretty good guard dogs, they smell the place up far too much for my liking." Luc replies to Sarah, unconcerned with whether or not anybody knows what their Runes are to know what to expect. They wouldn't, as a general rule, unless they were members of the standing Toran Republic's government.

With regards to Sarah's question, the Wind Mage shrugs. "Perhaps so," he says, "but when a waterbug goes skimming across its surface you would hardly know the difference without a sharp eye indeed." Back to the /bugs/ thing, again, apparently.

"Yes, precisely." He agrees wholeheartedly, "It both makes certain that the victim will survive the experience and gives them an opportunity to reflect upon their... whatever they did to offend you. It's also best to use /shallow/ water to account for those who do not have the ability to swim. The end of the docks is too far out."

Luc gestures with his rod towards the water closer to the castle, hugging the edges of the rocks to demonstrate the best place to teleport somebody into the water around here. He adds, "Can't position them too high in the air or they'll get hurt from the shallow water as well. Appropriately measuring safe height and water depth is /very/ important to appropriate disproportionate retribution."

"I'd tell you a lot of math went into it, but I mostly just winged it." He adds, a little wickedly.

Luc nudges at Sarah with the rod, "Scorpion, then. But it's two thirds unpleasant thing, one of which I know that you don't care for. And goats are the worst."

"I just want to point out, on that subject, that you can never let those things into the library." Luc withdraws his rod and taps it rhythmically against the stone beneath. "It'll eat all the books, and we wouldn't want /that/, would we. Prob'ly eat your clothes too if you gave it a chance."

The Wind Mage nods vigorously at Sarah's estimations of what he'd make of the train.

"Yep," He says, "I'd go right ahead and find a big ol' caterpillar train... or something along those lines. I suppose as revenge, you could try to dredge up a goat train of some kind."

Sarah (316) has posed:
"I imagine they would continue decomposing, in any case, and then we would be left with a skeletal dragon, a lot of mess, and a stench that would never be lifted." Sarah wrinkles her nose in disdain. "No, the chimerae are powerful enough to serve as guard dogs. Besides, the elementals would soften up anyone foolish enough to trespass."

She smooths down the front of her dress, glancing back at him with some skepticism. "Maybe so, but I would have no difficulty separating a stone from a water skimmer." Water skimmers are slightly less vile than other insects, if only because they're a lot smaller. Nothing holds a candle to the mantor of Le Buque.

When Luc says he mostly just winged the precise science of dumping somebody into a lake, she just smiles sweetly. "So did I."

On a few occasions, she /has/ gotten him pretty good, mostly through the element of surprise. Nobody expects such a thing of her; she is, in most cases, the epitome of civility and manners, polite to the point of being perceived sometimes as meek. Sometimes it's useful to be underestimated.

"I can ignore it if it's only the tail," Sarah protests, a little lamely. "It isn't like staring into those horrible beady little eyes, or hearing those awful mandibles clacking, like the mantor in their nests at Le Buque." She pulls a face. "I still hear that sound in my nightmares, you know. And goats aren't that bad. They're kept in many areas of northern Harmonia. They can be shockingly hardy in the face of such poor fodder and cold climate in Harmonia's extreme north. But you're right. They'll eat anything. And everything. I saw one eat part of a piece of tin, once. I couldn't believe it wasn't dead the next day."

She doesn't really like them much, either, but she has to admire their fortitude.

"Of course not, though I have enough control over them that they wouldn't. eat any of the scrolls or books." Sarah seems to consider this for a long, long moment. "Actually, you're probably right. No library."

She considers his comment on the train for a long moment, too.

"You're not allowed to make travel arrangements," she finally says, so deadpan that it's obviously a joke.

Probably.

Maybe.

Luc (237) has posed:
"Zombie dragons do not, in general, need to continue decomposing." Luc raises his rod up above his head and uses it to trace a crude image of a dragon in the air, in pale white light. Then, he draws a second next to it in green, which glows a little more brightly than the one in white. He gestures between the two, "Reanimation of corpses is typically performed by lending the corpse an aspect of life that it no longer possesses. Magical energy is adequate to emulate this. In the case of a skeleton it's altogether decomposed already, so it can't emulate life particularly well..."

"/But/, if you have something which has enough flesh left on it to still be... meaty... then you can /keep/ it meaty. So for instance, let's say..." He smudges bits of the white dragon's head out, and then along its wings, and back leg. "Let's say that the smudged out portions represent pieces that have been broken or rotted off. Can't do much about that, they stay rotted."

"But, whatever's left starts working again." The broken-up dragon outline glows green. Little motes of light spill out along the wounds. The Wind Mage points towards the motes, "... Unfortunately, the result of /that/ is that they have big fat gaping wounds, and most of these creatures don't actually have the capacity to regrow completely lost tissue."

"/Vampires/ can, so even though they're unnaturally animated, their lost tissues come back."

"Dragons though, they don't recover that thoroughly under their own power. So you wind up with something that bleeds and stays broken forever even though it's basically too damaged to live." He lowers his rod to the ground, allowing it to click against the floor. "So what you are actually /often/ smelling with zombies is not in fact ordinary corpse rot, but gangrene and other infections."

"Frankly," he says, "the corpse rot is more pleasant."

~* Zombies 101 *~

As regards being banned from making travel arrangements, Luc smiles, and says, "Ok."

That was probably his goal all along.

Sarah (316) has posed:
The water mage waits patiently through her companion's lecture on the fundamentals of basic necromancy. Some of this she knows from the books at the great library of the One Temple. There were a great many tomes scattered across a great many subjects, and having nothing else to fill the hours and years she spent there, she did a lot of reading. Unlike most, she also retained much of what she had read.

"Yes, I remember the One Temple's libraries had much to say on the subject. There were several different schools of thought about it." She narrows her eyes in thought. "Some thought that if you started with a cadaver that was decomposing, but not completely stripped to the bone just yet, you'd have a stronger servant."

She shrugs, reaching over and drawing with a finger a few more smudges on the zombie-dragon diagram, blue light trailing her fingertip and crudely filling in the lines of its body. "It could feel no pain, so the meat on the bone only added a certain solidity to it. Others felt that a bone-stripped cadaver was better; the smell would not give itself away, and it would hardly make such a mess wherever it went. Without as much of a telltale stench, it could be concealed if necessary as a sort of large-scale trap."

She points downward, toward the basement. "Much like the thing that had been in the basement, here; abandoned and forgotten. There was apparently quite a bit of debate about it in the archives." Sarah smiles a little half-smile. "I suspect much of the One Temple's collection lies forgotten. I had little trouble gaining access to the forbidden sectors, even as a child, and there were none to stand guard."

"I'm of the mind that the things are disgusting and intractable, so I have no use for them save to eradicate them from wherever I should find them." Sarah wrinkles her nose in disgust; rare as such a whole-hearted expression is to her face, and dainty as her features are, there's something almost cute about it (although she would, naturally, argue that vehemently).

Her hand raises to swipe the zombified dragon diagram out. "Perhaps it can be done through magic, but I feel such a thing is unnatural. It is a mockery of living beings, and never mind the stench and the rotting. And when you throw a vampire into the mix, then you run the risk of your loyal servant needing to feed every so often, and it won't necessarily be picky about the source. If there's no one else around, well." She shrugs. The pet might well turn on the master if it's desperate enough.

In other words, 'ew.'

Leaning back a little, she looks out to the lake, eyes hooding. "Very well. I'll handle the arrangements. I like this castle, but I enjoy travelling every so often." She half-smiles, though the expression is distant. "If I am truly descended of the Sindar, and I have reason to believe that is the case, in a fashion, then I suppose that makes sense; a little bit of wanderlust never hurt anyone. Perhaps we'll find someplace nice out there, or something intriguing with which to occupy our minds, hmm?"

Luc (237) has posed:
"Depends on what you're trying to do." Luc replies, a little boredly. Like an overgrown child he'd mostly talked about the mechanics of zombies because they're rather /disgusting/, and it amused him to convey that to other people. Despite his apparent boredom with the subject, he continues, "If, for example, you're interested in spreading pestilence then something not yet fully decomposed is ideal. It can also be useful for acquiring certain materials that fester within a decomposing body. Maggots, for instance. If you want /clean/ undead for whatever reason..."

He smirks amusedly at the idea of clean undead, "... Well, you'd want skeletons more than true zombies, so you'd actually want something that had been in the ground longer. Preferably, a lot longer. Or you could just cremate the body so all the fleshy bits go away, I suppose."

"As for the zombie dragon /here/, it was left there deliberately by Teo McDohl's mistress, I believe. Didn't want her old fortress taken over by a ragtag rebel army that would topple the government, murder all of its officials, and run the loyalists out. Naturally, she joined them when they did that."

As regards the One Temple's collection however, he says, "There is much academia there that is of little further use. Texts that provide useful foundations for future education are copied regularly for use in training. And there are certain things that, while certainly foundational if given an opportunity to be, Hikusaak would certainly not wish to get out."

"I suppose he's afraid somebody would try to collect all the True Runes." He adds.

To the matter of natural or unnatural, Luc shakes his head a little and leans on his staff. "The mechanism by which these entities exist are supported by the True Runes. To that end, it's incorrect to call them unnatural. Indeed, they are a foundational element of our reality's rules. They are /hostile/, to be sure, although a sorcerer has no power to animate vampires. I simply used them as an example, though their magic is self-actualized rather than externally directed."

"It /is/ disgusting and dangerous, though!" He agrees, cheerily. "But so are a lot of things, like being a doctor, or a farmer."

Luc nods affirmatively to Sarah's statements concerning travel. He responds, "That's all fine by me. Just make sure it isn't a creepy place full of spiders or externalized souls."

Sarah (316) has posed:
"This is true." Sarah settles down on the end of the dock, carefully removing her boots and letting her feet dangle into the water. The afternoon may be warm, but the water is pleasantly cool, and she has no fear of the depths. Swirling her foot around a bit, she looks down, examining the surface. Everything feels normal. "A rotting cadaver would be useful, in that case."

Zombies are gross, but she doesn't actively fear them. She can discuss them clinically a lot more easily than she can, say, the giant mantors of Le Buque.

Apparently she's gotten bored with the topic of the unliving, though. They're things she'll never summon or use, herself; not necessarily because she's opposed to them (although she finds them distasteful and they set her hackles up in interesting ways), but because they're literally too stupid to obey her will. Maybe it's because most of their brains are rotted out with the rest of the soft tissue, but they're unreliable servants.

They're a great weapon for attacking everything in an area, as long as the one doing the summoning gets out of there fast. Zombie dragons, for example, are hardly discerning about what they consider prey.

Besides, zombie anything is /messy/, and Sarah abhors messes like a cat abhors water.

Sarah tilts her head, absently swirling her foot in the water some more. The cool water feels good, and it's pretty tempting to shrug off her dress and dive in. She's a strong swimmer, as befitting her True Rune; she seems fragile, but she's surprisingly good at cutting through the water with surety and speed.

"Hmm." While Luc finishes his lecture on zombies and their natural place in the world, Sarah considers whether she wants to take a swim or not. (True, she resolves silently, zombies might be a possibility; but they never seem to occur naturally without an encouraging shove from a sufficiently powerful magician. Also, they /are/ disgusting and unclean.)

She eyes the water, even as she nods to his points. "Mmm." She looks up at mention of Teo McDohl's mistress and her reasonings, glancing back to eye the castle. "I suppose for anyone else, it would have worked. But a single dracolich, while unpleasant, is hardly a match for two Runebearers." She smiles to herself.

Five seconds of silence pass while he clarifies travel arrangements, and then she just /stares/ at him.

"Luc, why on earth would I want to go to a place full of spiders?"

Sarah lets that sink in. Then, she goes back to swirling her foot in the water.

"It's warm, this evening." She eyes the lake; apparently the water is just as calm to her senses as it looks on the surface. Tilting her head back to glance at him, she arches a pale brow. "Want to go for a swim?"

Luc (237) has posed:
"Of course," Luc continues a previous thought, "if you assume that the Runes are not essential functionaries of reality then there's nothing really keeping /anything/ natural. But as there are runes governing the likes of stasis and cycles, even a world devoid of those things would be within the parameters designated by at least a portion of the True Runes. Ugly things are common to this world, and aren't particularly unique to the Moon Rune or the Night Rune."

"Consider the implications of the Rune of Punishment's mere existence." He points out, though his tone takes a significant dip towards forlorn. It certainly doesn't say anything /good/ about the universe.

To the matter of the Dracolich, he shrugs, "You'd be surprised. I wasn't wielding my Rune as a True Rune at the time, and McDohl was still a fledgling. These days it would be a trivial enemy, I suppose, but back then it wasn't something I could have handled alone."

"Might have been able to make /another/ one, but then there would be the problem of the survivor..."

To the matter of vacation plans, he shrugs. "Why'd we go to a place with externalized souls? I don't know how these things come up and why we roll around in them. I suppose rolling around in sufficiently docile spiders wouldn't be that bad."

"And no, I think I'll pass." Luc eyes the water. "I'll have a bath later, but I've been standing out over the water all day now. Frankly, I've had enough of the sun, too. Probably going to go take a nap in the basement shortly."

Sarah (316) has posed:
"Perhaps. They're still disgusting and fundamentally unclean, though." Sarah wrinkles her nose in that strangely endearing way once more. It's no secret that she's fond of cleanliness, and more fastidious than a cat when it comes to matters of personal hygiene. "We're better off with golems and elementals, as far as keeping Toran Castle defensible is concerned."

She looks back out to the water when he mentions the Rune of Punishment, somber once more. The very existence of that True Rune does speak of something cold in the weave and weft of their universe. Even so, there are still good things, too; surely her devotion to the wind mage is worthy of staving off that coldness, or the selflessness shown by individuals during the many wars.

"I meant these days," Sarah adds. "Then, it would have been more of a challenge, then, I expect. Especially if you were purposefully concealing the True Wind Rune and throttling its power."

Dangling her foot again, she finally pulls it out of the water, a small effort of will dismissing the water. She pulls on her boots, glancing over her shoulder at him again. "Hm. There was something I wanted to study, there, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was. Don't be too concerned," she says, shaking her head. "I have no intention of returning there."

She can't help a reflexive shudder at the mention of spiders at all, though. Small ones are okay. She can deal with those, and occasionally teleports the little guys back into the garden when they get into the castle. Something the size of a beast of burden, though, is a lot more than she's willing to entertain the notion of. That veers into the territory of 'why does this even exist!?' "According to you," she points out, looking just a little bit green around the proverbial gills.

"No? Alright." She pushes herself to her feet, dusting off her knees and taking up her staff. Leaning close to him, she presses a kiss to the side of his neck. "I'm going to go inside, then. Wine, later, after you've napped," she comments, lightly, with a ghost of a half-smile. "And maybe other things, too. I think I'll chase down a few leads in the study until then."

Luc (237) has posed:
"A necromancer who didn't hide their works wouldn't last long out here." Luc observes, gazing out to farther shores. "The Warrior Village would take issue with them quick enough, thanks to Neclord. I suppose it's just as well, there are... as you say... much better ways to go about things."

"... As for these days, you're quite right." He summons a gust of cutting wind to rake across the surface of the lake, easy as he breathes.

It carves a gash across the surface of the lake, quickly filled in by water rushing into the displaced area again.

"You know," He says, "I'd never thought things would be quite so /easy/ as they were with that Lightfellow man, or with Sasarai. Somehow, I thought that they would at least be as strong as I am. But Lightfellow, I turned him inside out with a thought. And Sasarai... that's even more disturbing, truth be told. I'd have thought his rune would flee him much more reluctantly than another."

"... Oh. Probably the magic and phenomenon that generated external souls to begin with. Honestly... what's the point of a soul if it's going to roam around outside of you?" He peers down at Sarah thoughtfully for a moment. "Mn. Well, if you want a dog, you ought to just go get a dog. I think our temperament is better suited to /cats/, though... and that dog ran too much."

"I don't have the energy for it, myself. I suppose you could /swim/ with one..."

"... Well, never mind. I'm just delaying my nap." Luc snatches up his rod, jerking his head towards the castle proper. "Come join me if you want. If not, take a swim, /then/ come join me. And either way I suppose we'll join each other later tonight if you don't. 'Til then--"

Luc shakes the rod back and forth as if to wave, casually, and heads off into the castle interior.

Sarah (316) has posed:
"No, I expect they wouldn't." Sarah looks up toward the shore, as though she could see those distant villages. "Most have a dim view of those kinds of things, and I'm sure Neclord's presence didn't do much to help that kind of image."

Fortunately, that's the problems of necromancers around the world, and not Sarah. She's content to let the matter go, squinting slightly as he slices a channel across the surface of the lake. She lifts a hand, giving an idle flick of it. Waves freeze in mid-roll, stopping where they'd been filling the vacuum. They're not quite ice, but she's managed to trap the water exactly as it had stood.

Why? There's no particular reason, other than the fact that she could, and the pattern of the water makes for a pretty and interesting sight, for a few seconds. After a few seconds of admiring the sweep of water, and the intricate crests of the waves, she lets them disperse. They slide back into place, and the surface of the lake is as glass once more.

Dropping her hands, she turns to Luc.

"I suppose I have no accurate means to measure that. When I engaged with Sasarai, I was still using the Flowing Rune. I did not engage with Wyatt Lightfellow directly, and I did not fight with Geddoe, either. I remember him being uncomfortable to be around," she muses, "but that is probably a product of our respective elements rather than any clash of personality. I recall him being a taciturn but pragmatic man."

She considers for a moment. "If ever we ran into political trouble in or around Harmonia, for whatever reason, I believe he would be a possible ally." In that other timeline they tried to kill each other, at some point or another, but in their own natural timeline they have not yet had any contact with one another. Allying themselves with him and his unit could still be a possibility.

Letting that matter go, she eyes him thoughtfully even as he studies her. "I prefer cats," she affords simply. "From what I recall, it was not that I prefer dogs that my soul was given the wolfhound's shape. Rather, it was because of my loyalty to you, and my courage, or so I was told." The water mage shrugs, suggesting what she thinks of /that/.

Sarah does not think of herself as a particularly brave person.

"Dog daemons are a mark of loyalty; they signify a deep and abiding loyalty to a person or ideal. And wolfhounds are trained to face down much fiercer and stronger prey than they themselves are, yet they do so unflinchingly."

"But if I were to have any sort of pet, I suppose a summoned beast would serve." She gestures toward the castle, where the chimerae have been relegated to pet duty. "The chimerae serve that purpose reasonably well, for the time being."

Smoothing down her skirt with one hand, she eyes him, smiling gently at his stalling. "I don't see why not. It is too warm to do much of anything else; I sincerely doubt I'll get anything productive done, today." Turning, she gathers up her staff and pads along beside him, humming an idle snatch of melody. A nap sounds good on a balmy summer afternoon. Later, perhaps, wine; but right now, hibernation away from the sun and heat sounds like just the ticket.