unfavorableinstigation (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unfavorableinstigation) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kingdoms_of_auradon2023-04-09 09:03 pm
unfavorableinstigation) wrote in kingdoms_of_auradon2023-04-09 09:03 pm
Entry tags:
There are many things I've never done... (Forward-Dating to 4/10)
Open/locked?: Open...?
Who: Nita and you!
What: Someone is doubting reality, and is being flighty (literally) as a result. This is going as well as you'd expect.
Warnings: an unwell mind, a sense of urgency... possibly some destruction of property, depending on how things go. Not anticipating violence towards other persons at this time, but if that does change all actions will only go as far as the rules/thread partners allow.
Oh, look, a wizard! A rather plain-clothed wizard, holding a book and with an odd watch sort of thing on her wrist.
... What is she doing?
Well, on some of the more elevated parts of the campus, she is climbing, using a spell that solidifies air. But no matter where she tries, she cannot get higher off the ground than anyone else has. (Side note: she does also try having a word with gravity to lessen its pull on her, but this only achieves the same result, with fewer steps and greater energy drain.)
Or she may be using the Mason's Word, trying to walk through walls (successfully) or sink into the earth (... less so), anything to try and get out.
She hasn't bothered talking to the barrier, but anyone listening will hear her whispering something, in a language they can barely make out.
She speaks with increasing desperation, with tears in her eyes - even anger, some of the time.
She does not look in a mood for conversation, in other words. But perhaps the others here think she needs one?
Who: Nita and you!
What: Someone is doubting reality, and is being flighty (literally) as a result. This is going as well as you'd expect.
Warnings: an unwell mind, a sense of urgency... possibly some destruction of property, depending on how things go. Not anticipating violence towards other persons at this time, but if that does change all actions will only go as far as the rules/thread partners allow.
Oh, look, a wizard! A rather plain-clothed wizard, holding a book and with an odd watch sort of thing on her wrist.
... What is she doing?
Well, on some of the more elevated parts of the campus, she is climbing, using a spell that solidifies air. But no matter where she tries, she cannot get higher off the ground than anyone else has. (Side note: she does also try having a word with gravity to lessen its pull on her, but this only achieves the same result, with fewer steps and greater energy drain.)
Or she may be using the Mason's Word, trying to walk through walls (successfully) or sink into the earth (... less so), anything to try and get out.
She hasn't bothered talking to the barrier, but anyone listening will hear her whispering something, in a language they can barely make out.
She speaks with increasing desperation, with tears in her eyes - even anger, some of the time.
She does not look in a mood for conversation, in other words. But perhaps the others here think she needs one?
Assuming they're walking to the kitchen as they talk...
Because that was either a recipe for orderliness or never being able to find the right paperwork in time, if it was based out of as many worlds as Nita could (faintly) recall being involved.
"I mostly just remember it as the biodome. There were four districts, and some sort of corruption was making things more organic than they were designed to be... or at least making an illusion that it was."
Hopefully that counted as enough for a summary.
Yep they are. :3
"Oh yeah, that space station type place, where each section was a different 'season'? Yeah that turned out to be the work of that Chaos entity I mentioned. One of our first run ins with it, though we didn't know it at the time. It had a thing for illusions, though I dunno how illusory you can call something when it hits like the real thing..."
no subject
It wasn't right to call wizardry an industry - people shifted in and out of positions too frequently for most things to be considered entrenched in that way - but for Nita's part, she wanted a better picture of how far the Ministry maintained its standards, let alone enforced them.
Nita nodded, glad at least they shared some of the same pages when it came to the train's timeline.
"Seemings made solid? There's all kinds of ways to achieve that sort of thing - what else did it get up to after I left, then? Where did its powers come from, originally?"
Now that she was more coherent, she could probably retain the answer better.
Also after getting food, that too.
no subject
He nodded at Nita's phrasing. "Seemings made solid is a good way of putting it. Zexion- and maybe Ienzo too- back home specialized in that kind of magic, though good as he is, he couldn't hold a candle to what this Chaos entity could do."
"The entity itself... as I understand it, it was an amalgamation of bits of the minds of a world full of beings that got wiped out by the World Eaters that somehow got caught up in the Void and melded together into this, half-crazed, amorphous.... thing. And what it was trying to do, in the end, was recreate the world it had lost. The problem was, it tended to wreck what was already there in one form or another, so it would cause disasters wherever it went, and didn't seem to much care about the damage it was causing trying to accomplish its goals. It was ready to kill off whole populations to free up worlds for it to rework the way it wanted."
"And almost did, twice. Once through war, and once be luring the places population out of the relative safety of an enclosed city with its illusions to suffocate in a poisonous atmosphere. The latter was where we first encountered it face to face, so to speak, and found out that it was behind the other two incidents that prompted the previous couple missions."
no subject
Nita waved a hand equivocally, trying to find the words.
"It's... what are the standards for care when it comes to people who've watched their planet die, let alone were part of why it happened?"
The timeloop/paradox is one of the few things about this she thought she grasped.
"Let alone voidcraft..."
Shaking her head, she went back to the second subject, wincing as Lea went on describing it.
"What world? ... Would it have been destroyed if System 1015 hadn't been destroyed, or did it seem more like it was an unconnected event?"
From the sound of it, it hadn't cared in the slightest about coexisting with other kinds of Life... which suggested to her it hadn't learned other kinds of life could exist before its world was destroyed.
Easier to not have empathy, to not seek a less destructive way, when there was no reason it seemed like an option. When it seemed like there weren't other people to talk to, reason with.
no subject
"I dunno if it would have been destroyed or even exactly when it happened, though it was definitely the World Eaters that did it. And the world was called Diagad. I know because the entity made a fake copy of it in some kind of pocket dimension, pulled a bunch of us and a bunch of random other people in there and altered our memories to believe it was real and that we'd always lived there. But I guess even it had its limits, cause the illusion started to break down after a few days. At the end, there wasn't much left, and most of us were all more preoccupied with evacuating ourselves and others while there was still something to evacuate from, and trying to avoid being killed by the random monsters and stuff that it summoned up to try and stop us."
"As I understand it someone managed to... talk it down, kinda. I'm honestly not sure we'd have all made it out alive if they hadn't and the thing was still actively trying to stop us at that point. And honestly when I was able to sit down and think about it, I kinda felt sorry for it. But well... Chaos is what it named itself, and the name fits. Even if you can talk to it and empathize with it, it's not really.... all there, if an entity made up of the bits of millions of dead people's minds could even have been all there to start with. However sad its backstory might be, it's basically a destructive force of nature, and has to stay where it is."
Fun fact: Dairine was part of that first contingent to calm Chaos! Not sure how Lea'd know, though.
"But not much more... sophisticated methods, I suppose, beyond that."
Maybe when it came to balancing a voidcraft against the void, all that mattered was being able to activate the right coping mechanisms for you?
Nita absorbed the explanation of Diagad's story as Lea moved about the kitchen, a frown fixed on her face as she tried to imagine it.
Like the Pullulus, but under its own command? Only able to cause destruction, but not to fix a place-
She put that thought aside; she'd had it before about the void, and she hadn't gotten to ask anyone about her questions then either.
"Even for immortals, omnipotence isn't as common as you'd think. And power comes with one hell of a price."
In Chaos's case, it was their sanity and their entire world.
"You weren't all just dealing with Chaos after I left, though, you said? Were there more, uh, 'regular' missions? Ever find out more context for those missing memories?"
Nah Lea was pretty distracted. X3 Cool to know though.
"And no it wasn't just Chaos," he said. "One place that springs to mind is the world with islands floating in the sky. Something about the place was incompatible with most of our powers. The people there had their own powers but trying to make them interact was uncomfortable and draining, if you could manage it at all. We were there dealing with a sort of two-pronged natural disaster that was unbalancing things for the world's inhabitants. They didn't trust us very much at first, but once we got to know each other a bit they were pretty cool. Even gave us some extra supplies when we left."
no subject
But they could get into that later.
Nita's expression turned thoughtful again as Lea went on.
"So the place was... maybe effected by the state of the void itself?" Like a proverbial canary in a coal-mine.
"Was that world the only one with that sort of problem?" Much as their missions before had been unique, it made sense that trend would continue.
Sorry for super late tag. orz Feel free to ignore if you'd rather not continue.
"As for that world, I guess it's possible. Like with most places, we didn't really stick around long enough for the sciencey types to really study things in detail. I do know that that was the only world where those kind of power problems seemed to be part of the normal state of things. I think everywhere else we stopped where we had issues with our powers- before or after that- it was always connected to whatever problem we were there to handle. We fixed the problem, our powers went back to normal. Not there though; whatever was causing the incompatibility, it was natural."
Aw, it's fine! I was looking forward to this thread, so I'm glad to continue it!
"Trust me, that's never a bad thing, having an instructor that'll push you."
But besides that...
"So such a place wouldn't have needed the Voidtrecker's help, normally?"
That seemed a reasonable conclusion, to her.