Spell 2: Runtime! [Day 249]

[twinked_witch]

Who: Megaera D'Ashland, anyone who would be out and about in the evening.
Open?: Open
When: Day 249, morning
Where: The communication network, or out on the Skyway.
What: Redhead's first shard run! ... It will probably not be the best first try.
Format: Anything, can match
Warnings: Mild violence.


[Network, Morning]
[Megaera's voice is fairly light and calm for... Well, someone in her entire situation.]

Okay, so. I have a place to sleep, I have space for keeping what little stuff I've got, and I've got a goal: Get right back to mastering magic. That's going to take... A lot of things. Many of which I'm only going to know about as I get close to needing them.

And the best way to get things around here, correct me if I'm wrong, is with these 'shards' you get from heading out and beating up monsters. Not much other loot, it seems, unless I find interesting things out in that weird space, but that's all right.

Anyone have any particular advice for a newbie to heading out there? In particular, does anyone who knows teleportation magic know if it's possible to use it to get back here safely? I'm cautious about messing with anything involving dimensional manipulation out here without being sure it won't end horrifically. I'm sure you understand.

... Might be good to try and get a weapon, too. I know my way around quite a few, at least. Any advice there? Especially for getting magic weapons? Psionic weapons would also be okay.


[Action, Skyway]
Megaera's first trip out, ultimately, was unarmed. Though she does seem to know her way around fistfighting... At least a little. Pointedly, whenever she finds any monsters, she seems to stick to open hand strikes, using her nails as a basis for doing damage. They're decently effective... Somehow.

She'll probably either need or want some help if she finds anyone while on her travels, though. She's being awfully quick to flee, for one, which is keeping her from getting many shards.

Comments

[heptagram]

Patchouli turned aside for a moment, to a small group of monsters. To deal with them, she approached them and prepared a metal- and wood-element spell. A series of three circular saw blades appeared around her and whirled in a circle, tearing through the nearby creatures.

It was rather rare that she got to use something that wasn't a fairly simple fire spell; usually those were good enough for a multitude of purposes.

[scary_music]

"Uwah~! Patchy-chan's magic is awesome, as usual!" Ibuki cheered.

Not much point in drawing her gun if Patchouli was just going to lay waste to all of them.

[twinked_witch]

Megaera paused as Patchouli cast the spell.

Wait, were those...

"... How powerful a caster are you, if I may ask?", Megaera responded. "That's... Way higher-level than my spells."

[heptagram]

"I suppose a century or so of practice will cause that to happen," she noted. She was certainly not the most powerful being from her homeland, that much was for sure, but she knew she was very, very skilled.

The blades faded away after clearing out the last few targets and Patchouli rejoined the other two.

[scary_music]

"..."

This is the first she'd actually ever heard anything regarding Patchouli's age, so... she's a bit surprised!

"Wow! Patchy-chan ages well! Wait, does Patchy-chan even age at all? Ibuki's so jealous!"

[twinked_witch]

... To Megaera, the explanation was far more obvious. Patchouli was also an immortal... But somehow didn't seem very Succubus-like. Probably a different source of immortality, then. Somehow.

"That's... Immortality?"

[heptagram]

"Yes. Or at least, immunity to time. I'd imagine I could still be killed, but I'm really not about to test that out."

Don't let any thoughts about how terrible that could be stick in your head.

"Though... I guess I don't bring it up very much, do I?"

[scary_music]

"Ibuki never asked, she just assumed you were around her age, ahaha..."

The idea of Patchouli being killed made Ibuki falter for a bit. It really still hadn't been that long since she'd been taken away from that Island Vacation of Mutual Killing, after all... the thought of the wizard ending up a murder victim there crossed her mind briefly.

"L-let's not talk about dying, okay? Okay! More importantly, how do you become immune to time!? That'd be really cool if Ibuki was immune to it, too... then, Ibuki's music would live on forever!"

[twinked_witch]

Megaera paused. "I must admit, I am rather interested in such a concept, myself."

Of course, she didn't need such a thing... That was, after all, why she had abandoned her original self in its essential entirety. Immortality was quite the temptation, really...

[heptagram]

"I guess maybe I can speak on it a little more later, when we're done here. But for now..."

Curse your one-track mind, Patchouli Knowledge! Hopefully the other two didn't mind.

"For now, we've shards to gather."

[scary_music]

"Ooh, right! It's not safe to stay out here, after all, and Ibuki prefers the comfort of the Bastion! Right! The shards! Leave it to Ibuki!"

She had to do something useful besides just provide morale support. The spazzy rocker set about gathering the shards. Once that was done, she'd divvy up the loot between them properly.

[twinked_witch]

Megaera nodded at Patchouli's observation. "Yeah. More to discuss later. When we're someplace safer."

Megaera paused. "... If I might ask, is that a custom spell? It's a very distinct effect, so..."

[heptagram]

"It is," she replied. All of her spells were custom creations. At least, for the time being. Eventually she may just use someone else's abilities if that proves to be a better idea, and if she can get hold of them. Even when she tried to get hold of Tris's lightning powers, she was basically just going to reverse engineer them into something fairly new.

But that didn't matter so much right now.

[scary_music]

"Uwah, Patchy-chan..." Ibuki faltered a bit at the pajama mage's... very succinct reply, "So terse! You should be more talkative! But anyway, here! Shards!

She's going to start handing out shards... yes, even to Megaera.

[twinked_witch]

Megaera calmly takes the share. "Thanks," she observed. "I'm... Definitely going to have to gear up a bit more. A lot more. Er, before I try again, I mean."

[heptagram]

Patchouli accepts her shards gratefully. "That's not a problem," she noted. "Equipment shouldn't be too difficult, and if we don't already have it, it shouldn't take many shards to get it."

[scary_music]

"Oh, Meg-chan, you forgot to grab something from the forge, huh? But now that we're here, Patchy-chan can just blow everything away!!"

[twinked_witch]

"... Yeah, I kind of did. Fortunately I know some unarmed techniques, but... Well, yeah. I should grab a couple weapons next time."

[heptagram]

"This first time is just a test anyway," Patchouli reassured Megaera. "I don't carry weapons because I'm not really skilled with any of them. My magic serves me just fine, though.

"...aside from being limited in how much I can use it, anyway."

[scary_music]

"You should have seen Ibuki on her first time out! She couldn't do anything even remotely useful!" Ibuki chimed in.

After a thoughtful pause, she added, "She still can't do much except maybe shoot a few things if she's lucky... she never needed to fight at all before coming here! Except for kicking the random stalker fan sometimes..."

[twinked_witch]

Megaera nodded. "I rather know that feeling. I had to learn to fight fast after a long time, well, not needing to."

She looked towards Patchouli. "Clearly, you've got the more efficient gathering method than I, though. Man I wish I had spells that big..."

[heptagram]

"Everyone starts somewhere," Patchouli noted, before turning her attention back to Megaera.

"Maybe next time I have a little bit of time I can share some of my notes on how I arrived at what I did? Perhaps they will serve you well."

Of course, the exact spells would remain her secret.

[scary_music]

"Ooh, Ibuki has the feeling that this is going to turn into a bunch of magic talk that will all go over her head! Ibuki wishes she knew magic... but she can't sit still long enough for that kind of thing!"

[twinked_witch]

"Could be useful to exchange notes, yeah. I suspect our spellcasting environs are quite different, though."

And then Megaera turned towards Ibuki. "... It did take me a while to learn even the basics, not going to lie. And that was with a pretty good teacher."

[heptagram]

"Even if so, they must be of some help, right?

"It took me a very long time to learn to put my abilities to any real use," Patchouli stated. "I had to learn about it all on my own, though. Almost nobody where I lived believed that magic existed."