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Topic Started: Feb 17 2014, 10:25 PM (989 Views)
Smitejr

Kursten walked down the street, work concluded. The library wasn't particularly busy, it rarely was, but there were a few students that came by that needed his particular specialization. They usually went away wondering what someone with his knowledge was doing in a mere library, but he just did the usual, shrug and say "Who knows?" Sometimes they took it as some great mystery, but in reality it was just something that paid the bills as he worked.

His work on the Book was proceeding smoothly. He was understanding more and more of the archaic text each day, which was pretty good for a language that just seemed to be completely nonexistent anywhere else. In all his research, he hasn't found a single tome with similar script, let alone a translated piece. Still, he was tired, and he'd worked enough for one day.

When he went to cross the street, a car zoomed past the crosswalk, hitting him square in the body at high speed. Drystan bounced, flying into the air, and landing down a good ten feet away, blood trailing at his feet. Needless to say, the car zoomed away, hoping to outrun any police that might be called for him. At that speed, no one could survive...at least no one normal.

"Well...that ruined my day..." Kursten murmurs to himself.
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Smitejr

Kursten blinks at Destiny's statement, and opens his mouth to begin to say something. However, Destiny's qualification just has him nodding. It's hard to argue with that. "Well, strictly speaking not all sausages are pork. The one you're..err...referring to...especially so. But I would uhh...imagine it would be."

Clicking his pen, he begins to write. "So the actual amount of flames you make doesn't matter? Or does it, but only to a smaller extend? Would you describe it like starting an engine, or opening a floodgate?" Kursten purses his lips. "Painkillers? Is it pain that makes you stop, or just tiredness. I hope it doesn't hurt too bad...my own abilities feel really weird, but I wouldn't describe them as painful."

He nods as Destiny describes her resistance to flames. "That's a common trait among magus families that specialize in one branch of elemental or other magic. I don't know if that's really relevant, but it certainly doesn't come as much of a surprise." When the topic switches back to pain, he frowns again. "That, however, is unusual. The families that get to the point where they become resistant have the opposite effect...they can still be damaged by mass quantities of the element, but are generally immune to pain that it would provide up to that amount. This is very curious..."

However, he's distracted by Destiny's outburst of a "more interesting part." Looking closely, he at first frowns when he sees her pulling up the metal rod, before it feels like his stomach does a somersault as she jams it into her arm.

"Ahh!" He calls out, jumping backwards. "Oh my gods, are you okay? Oh man, oh man..." It's only when he looks closer and calms down a bit before he realizes that there isn't a spray of blood on the ground, and the bottom half of the pole simply disappeared. "...Wow. That's really...impressive. Can you pull it back out? Where did it go? This is unprecedented!"
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SarahSyna

“The amount matters only as far as the amount of time it takes to actually manifest it. It only takes a few seconds to create a sizable swoosh, but I can force more out in the same space of time if I have to. It hurts a lot more when I do that though. I think.... engine is probably the better description. It’s only a floodgate when something goes wrong, usually I have to urge it on rather than push it back.” Destiny said. She laughed. “But now I’ll be making silly engine noises in my head whenever I do it!”

As an answer to his follow up questions, she pulled the curtain rod up and showed him. The two feet that had been inside her were burning hot, that much was obvious because the metal was glowing yellow. By all rights it should have been melting into slag, but instead it was keeping its shape.

She tucked it back into the fissure and this time, she let it go. The rod began to sag as it melted this time, and when she pulled it out again a second or two later, the entire last foot of it had melted off, with the other half following suit.

“I really don’t know where it goes, but I sure know it doesn’t like anything that isn’t made out of fire. The one time I managed to get a camera in there, it was totally wrecked! It took me a week to get the memory card out in one piece, and most of the images were completely corrupt. There is some things I can put in safely though, and I’m working on ways of proofing other things with it!”

She jammed the rod into her arm again, apparently fine with just letting it melt away in its entirety, before picking up the flask again and unscrewing it. There was a warm red glow inside of the container, flickering like a fireplace. She stuck two fingers inside and pulled out a gyroscope made of what looked like blueish glass. Even from where Kursten was, he’d be able to feel the heat coming off of it but Destiny seemed totally unfazed.

“I don’t have a good name for the material, because I first made it when I was eight and I gave it a stupid name.” She said, making the rings spin with her finger. “It takes a long time and a lot of fire to make even a small bit of it, but I can shape it pretty easily once I have. Essentially, it’s solid fire with metallic properties, highly malleable but also rigid. And I can store things made out of it in my arms, like a handy little pocket space! And I can’t leave it down on my desk ever again because it kind of sets things on fire, like proper fire should.”
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Smitejr

Kursten scribbles more. "Hm...that's very interesting. I guess I wasn't right on either...Ack, no easy metaphor comes to mind." He lets out a small snort as he tries to not laugh at Destiny's addition. "Pff...well, yes, I suppose I'd be to blame for that. I hope it isn't too distracting."

Kursten watches her pull the metal out, surprised to see that not only was the metal not completely melted despite being obviously exposed to extraordinary heat, but that it was all there...despite her arm being much, much smaller than the length of the pole. "Well...that really bears some more investigation." He murmurs. When she does the same without holding onto it, and pulls it into the room, he jumps back. "Ack! Don't bring molten metal in here! That could melt and burn things!" He says, stating the obvious. "I mean...I guess you've probably done this before and know what you're doing...I'm sorry for the outburst..."

As she puts it away, he tries to find explanations for all that's happened. But then the new material is shown to him, and his eyes go wide. "Solid...fire? I can't imagine how that's possible..." he says, lamely. Anything should be possible with magic...but he's never seen anything like solid plasma before. "I'd imagine it'd have to be packed incredibly densely in order to not just sublimate back into plasma.This is incredible! Does the Academy know about this?" He stares at the hot metal as if it was a pure gold treasure. "This stuff really deserves intense scientific scrutiny...Hah, I can't stop thinking about it."
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SarahSyna

"It'll be so terribly distracting that I'll never be able to create fire again. I'll have to give up everything and run away to be a mechanic for racing people, so no one will ever know my shame." Destiny said with a big grin. She winced when he pointed out about the metal though.

"Actually.... you're kind of totally right about the molten metal thing." she said, looking to the side with a blush of shame. "We've had to replace the carpet so many times because of... exactly this kind of thing. It just comes out of my wages now."

She beamed brightly when she saw his reaction to the material.

"You think it's interesting? Really? I-I can give you you samples, if you want! Or maybe shape some for you or something! Or both! Other mages weren't really interested in talking to me about it, so I'm glad you are!"
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Smitejr

Kursten's eyes widen. "Oh no, don't do that! I mean if you'd like to be a mechanic there's nothing wrong with that, but...you're making fun of me, aren't you?" Kursten winces when he actually pays enough attention to Destiny to notice her grin, and lets out a sigh. "I need to pay more attention to that kind of stuff. It's sometimes hard to tell a joke from sarcasm..."

Her reaction to his interest puzzled him. "Really? No mage was interested in this?" He mutters incredulously, slowly raising in volume. "You've made something that shouldn't even be possible, without conventional magical aptitude, and do all kinds of things I've never even heard of, and no one was interested? That's insane! Your arm is connected to some freaking fire dimension, and no one cared enough to get it looked at?!"

Realizing that he was shouting, he looks away, blushing a bit. "Well...uhh...yeah. It's really interesting, and I'd like to know as much as you can tell."
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SarahSyna

"Don't worry, Kursten. Enough time around me and you'll get used to it." Destiny assured him. "And I promise that if I do become a mechanic, it won't be because you make me think of car noises."

She blushed slightly as he became quite animated in his disbelief.

"Well, I guess I should have picked a better opener for them...." she mumbled sheepishly. "I got as far as explaining that I'm not a mage and they just stopped listening to me after that." She scowled at the memories. "You know, mages sure can be a whole shower of snobby jer-!"

She cut herself off my smacking a hand over her mouth before saying breathlessly "I don't mean it that way! I'm sure they're not all like that! I mean, I'm sure your family is really nice, I was just super unlucky! And you're really nice too!"

She flailed, a little bit literally and a bit more metaphorically. "Think of it this way, though! You get to study it yourself and make a new friend and come over for dinner and if it does turn out to be something, you get to be smarter than them because you listened!"
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Smitejr

Kursten rubs the back of his neck. "Well, I hope so. My family was always really serious...I never had much use for it until I r....took the librarian job."

Kursten scowls at the story of her getting rejected. "Yeah...a lot of magi can be real snobby jer..."

He laughs as she ends up saying the same things. "No, no, you're right. It'd be really easy for them to, I'd imagine. All kinds of power that are beyond what most people have, and the ivory tower effect that the established families and academy creates. It's really no surprise. My own family isn't the best about it...but hard times made them make adjustments. It's really no big deal."

When she compliments him, he looks down, trying his damndest to ignore the blush forming on his cheeks. "Ah...I'm nothing special. I just can't ignore something as important as this, is all. And you did try to save my life, least I could do was come over...you were the one that was nice."

Kursten brightens at her explanation. "I know! And that's what makes it so fascinating! I'm just completely shocked that anyone, even some Academy idiot would turn down the chance to see this! I never thought I'd be at the forefront of magical discovery like this, at least not for a very long time!"
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SarahSyna

“Oh, is it one of those ‘deciding to make your own path separate from the influences and benefits of your family’ things?” Destiny asked, tilting her head. “I’m sorry your family had hard times though, even if a good thing came out of it.”

She started to neaten up the various journals, logs and albums that were still on the floor. So he apparently hadn’t gone to the Academy, or at least distanced himself enough from them after to refer to them separately. That was kind of interesting to know.

“Well, I think you’re special, because you took an interest. And also you have crazy tentacle healing powers, that’s also pretty special but in a totally different way that isn’t related to your personality but is awesome in its own way! And I really hope that this joint endeavour is mutually beneficial, because that’d be totally cool!”
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Smitejr

Kursten doesn't want to tell her the real reason he's away. It's rather stupid and more likely to make him have to leave. So he didn't. "Err...something like that." He says, and takes a silent moment to consider just how unconvincing he sounded. Still, he grins a bit as she expresses condolences. "I don't know if I'd feel too sorry for them. They're still wealthy enough to never have to worry about money, the loss was mostly in the form of esteem of the community and power and stuff. Still, I appreciate the sentiment!"

Seeing her neaten up the papers, he goes down to try to help, passing her items that might be awkward for her to reach. "Sorry we ended up making such a mess."

He laughs as she compliments him, the humorous nature overcoming his shyness. "Hah...yeah, it's pretty cool sometimes. I mean usually it's really scary, but it does have it's perks, doesn't it? I'm glad you think it's awesome." He nods solidly at her well-wishing. "I hope it is too! I'm sure it will be, though. This is too groundbreaking not to be! And even if it isn't, I'm still really glad I got to met you."
Edited by Smitejr, Mar 6 2014, 09:50 PM.
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SarahSyna

"Well, better to lose your respect than lose your house, my dad says." Destiny said, accepting the items back with a smile. "Don't worry about the mess, Kursten. I've never really gotten to show off proper, so I don't mind at all. Especially not since I got to talk to an actual mage too! You know, I'm not so great at thinking of good questions off the bat like you are, but I'll try have a whole list next time I see you because I'd really love to know more about how magic works!"

She gathered up what she had and started to pack it up.

"Well, I'm glad you got to meet me too." she said. She grinned again so he'd know she was joking instead of actually being some kind of silly narcissist. Well, eventually. He did seem to have a little trouble picking up on things, but he probably just wasn't used to people like her! People usually weren't, come to think of it...

She patted what was in the box already.

"I'll make copies of everything on my lunchbreak tomorrow, so you can look over what's already there on your own time. Can I have your address or something, so I know where to leave them? I mean, unless you rather look over the originals with me instead, but that'll require a lot of you coming over and I don't know if you're interested in that...."
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