falin touden (
yourlenore) wrote in
crescentview2023-02-01 01:02 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Fall Catchall
Who: Mishka & friends
What: Bingo, Arco Lunar, misc.
When: Fall
Where: Out & About
Warnings: ???
stand up with my palms full of soil & rosary
bruised rosary
blooming rosary
maybe I just need to smoke more & stretch & eat frivolous things &
anyway
I’m working on it
no subject
Some monsters were humans once too, no?
( That sounds philosophical, and maybe it can be, but he means it truly literally. Some monsters really were once human, even if Syrlya's weren't. Etharis can't be the only land whose people and creatures are at times interchangeable. )
But some, too, are only manifestations of the natural way of things. I heard something interesting from a friend of mine who's been around for some centuries by now.
( He takes a sip of his drink, considering the pretty words of an untrustworthy bard, whose every truth lined up with all sources he could find— any of them could find. )
Some thousands of years ago, in my home, there was a beast that would appear, and in its wake, things would end. Where it stepped, the soil was barren; where it was seen, no warmth could grow. People decayed; animals changed. Some things simply ceased to be.
It was very small, once, and now it is larger than one can imagine— or so the stories go. It is said, also, that beyond our one continent, there is no other land in the ocean, though there once used to be. There is now only us, on an endless sea, and a hungry, growing beast.
Perhaps your dragons are not ravenous out of error, but because it is the natural way of things. It is the right of things that live to resist decay, but, still, don't all things end?
no subject
What they became... was not how they were intended. But it is what they became all the same, and for long enough Tyria does not know them any other way. Our only option was us, or them. And we chose us.
[And... that was not always an easy decision.] In the end, the real problem was that we were nothing to them. Just ants, insignificant, not worthy of consideration against their ravenous hunger.
no subject
Even something like "predator" or "prey" is a matter of perspective. At a certain point... I think it's not a question of fault, or even right or wrong. If there's no recourse other than fighting, then of course both sides will fight.
[ "Ravenous creatures consuming the world around them" is a pretty clear division, on the one hand. But they hadn't started out that way, apparently. ]
Do you know why they changed?
no subject
( He leans back in his seat, resting an elbow over the back of his chair. )
Not that I suggest one must lay down and die. Myself, I had been at work carving away our beast's path to Ostoya, so that it might not heckle our country alone for some few hundred more years. But that is the best that anyone could do, and even that was a comically ambitious aspiration.
no subject
As best as we understand, there was something... imperfect in their ability to regulate Tyria's magic. They were powerful as gods, but were not truly the Void itself. Over time, it corrupted them in spirit and mind--and probably physically. Truthfully, the idea that they could be overcome was only a recently believable idea.
[The Order of Whispers had originally intended only to delay the cycle, after all. He regards Mishka, curiously.] How have you diverted its path so far?
no subject
[ And if Mishka's methods sound more in line with those of another ex-knight Flynn might think of, he can respect that as well. He gives Syrlya a little nod and leans back a bit for Mishka to answer. ]
no subject
In any case, he does express interest when Syrlya speaks of the strange system of magic regulation in his home. An idle thought flits by, wondering if Etharis has some such broken system; Briar seemed to know much, but she was cagey with her knowledge. Understandable, considering to whom she was speaking to, and who their company was.
The mention of void, though, so briefly causes his lips to purse, but he returns to his usual expression quick enough, and he raises an eyebrow slightly at Flynn with some curiosity. )
So you believe that real change can only be brought about by those willing to risk themselves on the impossible? That's certainly how a revolutionary might think.
( Or, you know, a hero, but it's hard for him to think of foolishness as heroic. "Revolutionary" feels apt to him: thousands of them die before there is one single chance of change, and even then, that chance may bear no fruit. It is a miserable path, and not at all pragmatic— the path which Mishka favors most. )
As for our beast... We were on the path to making progress. My land has no sun, ( he mostly says this for Flynn, since he knows Syrlya knows, ) but rather than it not at all existing, or having once been destroyed, we found that it had shattered into thousands of cosmically powerful shards. Magic is near nonexistent where I'm from, but I had in my company a talented few. Our objective was to extract these sparks of sunlight and use them to power a ward around our country that might last some few hundred years; we had made good progress on our collection, before I came here.
( Which sounds both grand, and not grand at all, and Mishka seems to know it. In the grand scheme of things, a few hundred years is nothing— but it is better than nothing at all. With only a few spellcasters at the country's disposal, and fewer that could be trusted (if any at all), and really no advancements in technology, Ostoya could do very little for itself. They faced impossible odds only trying to ward it off.
Yet, Mishka knows also each of them had a selfish reason to pursue this impossible goal, and that Valerie's purpose behind proposing it was not at all noble. They all knew this about each other. They all knew they all planned to skim off the top of this raw solar-magic energy, and that they each intended to use the act of warding for their own ends.
What a pity, that the only group poised to do something about the matter was a group that could least be trusted with it. Mishka is well aware of the irony. )
Still, this "Void"... What is this, in Tyria?
no subject
He's never heard the explanation why Ostoya has no sun. It didn't seem to be something Adelis knew about, at least when they last spoke of it. So the idea it could be shattered across the world is... fascinating. Well, you probably can't put it back in the sky by that point so might as well create a magic barrier.]
--Oh, it's just the end of all things. Beyond death, when reality itself breaks down, it all becomes nothing. No existence. It isn't something we currently have to worry about on a grand scale--things are stable in the Mists and Tyria itself. But in any space, however small, that you destabilize reality itself void will fill the space and break down everything around it.
no subject
A few hundred years... It's possible that in that time, the people of your country could come up with some approach to deal with that beast. [ A little pause, because he doesn't want to sound overly negative about it. ] Barrier magic is some of the most important remaining technology the Empire had from earlier civilizations. With the amount of monsters our world has, until recently it was almost impossible for a town to exist without one. But it was certainly harder for the different groups to work together when we were divided like that, and only knights or the hunting guilds could easily travel between cities. I wonder what kind of answer we could have come up with sooner if things were different.
[ Well, that's only monsters, though. He blinks a little at Syrlya's rather casual summation of 'end of all things' there. ]
I'm glad to hear that the Void isn't more of a commonplace problem for you, then.
[ smh that I'm getting Void lore one of the rare times I'm not playing a Rays character ]