BURNING BRIDGES, PART ONE

[asgardmods]

Who: EVERYONE
What: The The BURNING BRIDGES Mingle Log (Part One of Two)
When: Days 421-422 (March 21-24)
Where: All over the city.
Rating: PG-13. Anything higher than that should be taken to a private log, please!

Day 421 ( Mar. 21/22 )

All throughout the day, the inhabitants of the Holy City will occasionally hear low rumbling sounds not unlike the beginnings of an earthquake, but nothing shakes or stirs beyond the quiet trickle of rain for most of the day. However, as the rain picks up and blots out the sunset, the rumbling grows louder just before a rift opens in the ground. Though it's not terribly deep, the split is two feet across at its widest and travels several hundred yards, starting from beneath the city wall at the corner of the Thor district and moving quickly into Loki's district. The ground nearby shifts somewhat with it and any buildings unfortunate to be affected will start to sink into the gap.

Any shouts of surprise or cries for help from this tear in the earth will be short lived, however, as large shards of ice begin to rip through the wall in various places throughout Sigyn and Hel's districts, piercing holes into anything - and anyone - in their path before shattering or melting. These are not directed or precise by any means; they fly in random places at random times. It may very well seem like the least coordinated attack ever and the Giants have really lost their game, but as the rumbling reaches its loudest peak, a burst of flame far outside the city wall may hint that it is not an attack at all. At least, not one intended for the Travellers.

To the east of the city, not nearly far enough from the thick wall that separates Asgard from the rest of Yggdrasil, a massive battle between the Frost Giants and the Fire Giants is being waged. What splinters off and reaches the city is purely by accident; collateral damage, as it were.

The shattering of rock and the splintering ice as well as bursts of flame and cracking of trees can be heard all throughout the night as more debris and stray projectiles find their way over the city wall. This can be anything from more needles of ice and much smaller cracks in the ground to flaming stones and sheets of hail. For now, these will remain small things that come over the wall rather than through it, but feel free to play around with what exactly comes your way.

Day 422 ( Mar. 23/24 )

The battle continues on into the next day, and by early morning, the city guard will ride through the city to alert everyone as to what's happening beyond the gates. From what they can see, Thiazi's army is pushing Surt's back and away as the Fire Giants attempt to encroach forward. They know of little else, but the battle is coming closer and closer to the city, which means the collateral damage will continue to worsen.

This is where the decision whether or not to fight will come in! The decision will be left to the Travellers in whether they ride out to force the Giants out of Asgard's land or simply bunker down and wait out the war. All action and inaction comes with a list of pros and cons, so consider it carefully before settling on your decision today.

[ OOC NOTES: This is the mingle log for the first half of the Burning Bridges event, leading up to the decision on how the Travelers will react to the battle. The poll, though closed, is located HERE for reference! The mingle log for the second half of this event will be going up soon, and a link will be provided here when it is.

A Special Note: As of the beginning of this event, god-given powers will now work outside of the Asgard. More information on this OOCly is forthcoming, and characters involved in the plot please be on the lookout for contact from us! Please feel free to assume that all Travelers have been made ICly aware of the fact that they can now use their powers outside of the city now.

Please put [OPEN/CLOSED] in the title of your comment, along with the time and location. Let us know if you have any questions! ]

Comments

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth sees Quentin studying his notes, and internally, he cringes. What will be his judgement? Invariably, Booth expects derision and disappointment, if not disgust outright. He shakes his head, and hands the fellow a towel. This is what he gets for a moment of fleeting kindness and empathy, isn't it. A possible cousin getting blood on his carpet.]

[At least he's not a werewolf. Probably.] Shears? I, er. I have a penknife. [Semper imparatus.]

[magician_king]

This is actually some of the best work I've ever seen.

[He says, totally failing to respond to the bit about the pen knife, because... because magic.]

I mean, from what I can see. It's pretty obvious that Circumstances work very differently where you're from, but- or actually, is this all for Asgard? I've been trying every spell I know in every possible permutation for weeks, and I haven't gotten any purchase with anything that wasn't purely runic. Which is fine, I mean, they're a classic for a reason, but they're also pretty limiting.

[This is how his terrible social awkwardness finds its' way to the surface; a tendency to prattle about things that set his mind going.]

[mortuimagistri]

[Yes, a possible cousin, bleeding on his carpet and complimenting a work with possible necromantic concepts. Booth represses an internal shudder, but... well, magic. It's, at least, a subject he feels comfortable discussing. Even if effusive praise is alien-- Booth isn't sure how to respond.]

Er. [...It's a start.] The, er, precepts of this place are clearly alien entirely to my experience, that is, o-only runic magic seems to have any, er, effect. A blessing, I suppose, for- for safety's sake. [You can't bring people back from the dead with runes ...Booth is pretty sure you can't bring people back with runes.]

[He feels dirty, now.] Er, the- the towel. Here. [He hands it to Quentin.]

[magician_king]

Right. Thanks.

[Taking it from him, and then moving to sit down on the nearest part of the floor that is tiled. His tshirt is all glued down one side of his body by the blood.]

That penknife?

[Working at cautiously unsticking it, obviously intending to cut the thing off.]

I guess this place could definitely be a powder keg, if we could all use magic. Don't you miss it, though?

[mortuimagistri]

Oh- yes. [Booth reaches forward, groping blindly for the coffee table, so he can retrieve... an unabridged edition of Clarissa by Richardson. Opening it reveals that more than half of the interior pages have been scooped out like a pumpkin. The interior cavern is a secret compartment, mostly filled with folded pocket handkerchiefs and a feather. Booth retrieves the lone penknife from the pile, and closes the book, putting it back down on the coffee table. He hands it to Quentin.]

I- I surely don't. Magic, that is. It's- it's magic. [As though that explains the entire problem.]

[magician_king]

Exactly. Going without it is like- is like having a limb amputated.

[Which isn't consciously related to what Booth is about to learn when Quentin cuts his shirt off, but certainly makes a fairly good conversation starter. One of his shoulders is basically gone. Above a ragged semi-circle that looks suspiciously like the gaping maw of a beast, his shoulder is no longer flesh.

Part of his body is replaced with wood. The wood is smooth and organic and rippling, bunching like muscle would when he reaches and twists. His arm begins again about halfway down the bicep, though how it gets bloodflow is a bit of a mystery. As luck would have it, the ice caught him on the other side. He's more than a little glad about this; skin heals, but the shoulder already has a nasty deep chip on it, and he doesn't think it would be receptive to modern techniques of furniture repair.]

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth sees that he's been misunderstood, but he's too milquetoast to correct his companion. Magic is danger and death, darkness and terror. A shambling monster in the night, it is the watcher in the corners. It cannot make life, only imitate it, and its imitations are invariably satire, a mockery: a modern Prometheus.]

[Booth gapes at Quentin's shoulder in transparent horror.] I- m-my condolences. [To think what the burden of that wooden flesh must weigh. For a moment, Booth forgets to be disgusted, and is left quietly mournful, almost sympathetic. This is the emotion that caused Booth to reach out in the first place, to try to help. He summons the true opposite of magic: human sympathy.] I'll- I'll get m-more water. And soap? Er. I may have some steel wool.

[Things Booth has never had to worry about: blood stains on wood.]

[magician_king]

It's fine. It doesn't hurt at all. Centaur magic; they're powerfully good at healing.

[Promising him, flexing and rolling the wood to show him. He has no real shame about his shoulder, though remembering the battle where his chest was crushed is far from pleasant.]

I could use clean cloth, if you have any- I'd tear my tshirt into strips otherwise, but if there's any sort of first aid kit around that might be better. I might have bandages at my place, but...

[mortuimagistri]

That- that isn't healing. It's replacement. [All things must have their proper classification, after all, and healing magic simply isn't possible. He'd laugh at the mention of centaurs, but then, hasn't he met goblins? Doesn't he miss them?]

[He shakes his head.] Er. That is, yes. I have towels, I'll- I hardly mind if you have to tear them. S-surely they're more absorbent than... [Whatever strange clothes people wear around here that are clearly not suitable for company. Booth is, after all, wearing a suit reminiscent of the cut fashionable in the late 20s. Like a gentleman.]

[So he scurries off to retrieve more towels and dishcloths, like a gentleman ought.]

[magician_king]

This one needs to be bandaged, though.

[Gingerly looking down at the deepest one on his forearm.]

I say like I'm any good at this. I'm really not, but as long as it doesn't get infected, right?

[Asgard has antibiotics.]

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth grimaces.] I, er, have some Merbromin. [Asgard also has antiseptics, of all kinds. Of course, the stuff's only for minor cuts, and Booth wonders if it will even be effective, now. Only one way to find out, though. Conveniently, he has some on the coffee table. Paper cuts, you see. He hands it to Quentin.]

Er, you can sit down, if you... [Booth moves some books off the sofa, so there's more room to sit.]

[magician_king]

Thanks. Seriously, I owe you.

[Collapsing onto his couch, starting to gently clean out the cut. Luckily the ice is melted so there's no need to pick anything out.]

So how did you get into magic?

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth grimaces, though, considering how often that's true, it hardly rates as an exciting development. He thinks about Blaine, and Helena's shambling smile. He thinks about cleaning up after them. He... he shakes his head.] A friend. He, er... needed some help with something. [Booth just about collapses into a chair facing Quentin. This is all very stressful.] Y-you?

[magician_king]

After high school I was whisked off to a magical boarding school after I flagged in their system for accidentally triggering something during a mundane bit of sleight of hand.

[Beginning the delicate process of daubing the blood away.]

It was all very storybook. Or New York Times Bestseller, maybe. So are you a hedgewitch- er- mostly self-taught?

[mortuimagistri]

[This, at least, is a relief. Nothing remotely like that exists in Booth's recollection, and he's confident he'd know of such a twisted institution. The mortality rate must be obscene. Regardless of Quentin's survival, they are not, and never were, related. It's a weight lifted from Booth's shoulders, relaxing him enough to speak clearly.]

Self-taught. Where I am from, are no such... schools as you describe. Wh-what on Earth is a hedge-witch?

[magician_king]

It's someone who learns outside of a conventional institution. They've got this weird thing going on where they tend to be either total mediocrities- and that's most of them- or incredibly powerful.

[Explaining as he works.]

I think it's because they learn without safety protocols. Anyone who is smart enough to get good without a professor walking them through the basics also has no one there to teach them any of the safety protocols. So you end up with this sort of raw, totally unfettered talent. Classically trained magicians work like scalpels, hedgewitches of power work like battle axes, but burn themselves into husks or fuck up something big with depressing frequency.

[mortuimagistri]

[And Booth is happy to listen and pick up the details of Quentin's strange, horribly dangerous world. It means he's not expected to talk. Total mediocrities, now, there's an odd judgement. As though a strength and power in the doctrines of magic would qualify as a boon to anyone other than a power-hungry madman.]

I- I suppose I would be that, then. Though there are no... schools of magic, where I am from. Apprenticeships, sometimes, but those tend to, er, end badly.

[magician_king]

Oh yeah? Why?

[Asks Quentin, a touch naively. But then, he liked most of his teachers at school, and had always found learning in general to be a sort of nice experience. As experiences went, of course.]

[mortuimagistri]

[What an unpleasant subject he's wondered into.] Er. Most tend to... that is, from the a-accounts that I've read, which were invariably written by Witchfinders and other sorts of... that is to say, biased, er, accounts, and invariably thaumaturgical arts tend to be associated closely with the sin of pride, so as you can see...

[Booth stops himself. He's... gotten away from the point. He clears his throat, and tries again.] Masters tend to resent the possibility of being surpassed by their pupils. The, er, magic they are both surrounded in, then, it... presents itself easily as an opportunity to- to 'fix' the problem, as it were.

[magician_king]

Witchfinder? You guys are hunted?

[Images of Salem springing immediately to mind.]

The ego thing- that sounds like home.

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth supplies Quentin with a singularly submissive gesture.] N-not since Cromwell's time, I assure you. But that is when m-most of the accounts were written.

[Anyway.] Your, er, 'school'. It sounds quite dangerous.

[magician_king]

Not really. We're pretty closely supervised. I mean- accidents happen sometimes, but only one of the- well. There was only one fatality.

[Which he looks a little uncomfortable to talk about.]

And I got punched in the face once, but that was a student issue. Oh, and I probably could have died during my honours project, or one of the exams, but-

[mortuimagistri]

[Booth can, in fact, recognize discomfort, if only from his own familiarity with its place on his expression in photographs. He shrugs at Quentin's admission that he was struck-- who isn't struck in school? Certainly not well-read white-haired beanpoles.]

M-most deem it, er. Not worth the risk, I suppose. Most practitioners die within a decade of learning, according to the survey of recorded accounts we have in the Parrington. Of course, some of those accounts are diaries, and there are, er, many reasons to stop writing a diary. It's not strictly accurate, but that's... the general consensus. Foolish and dangerous.

[magician_king]

We learn about how there are different disciplines that are likely to fuck you up. Anyone who does anything with plants tends to have a pretty long lifespan, but theoreticians die very young.

[This is said much more seriously, without any of his usual glibness. These would be his peers, his friends.]

When you get right up to the edge of what's possible it's easy to go too far.

[mortuimagistri]

[Theoricians sound fairly de rigueur as far as Booth's knowledge is concerned. They're called thaumaturgical philosophers, where he's from, and they drop like flies. A magic that preserves life, however...] M-magical botany? However would that work?