voidtreckernet | Video, Action for Sleeper Car 3: Fiddlesticks Day 2, Night

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Video, Action for Sleeper Car 3: Fiddlesticks Day 2, Night

[ Late into the night, far past the point everybody should be asleep, Sleeper Three is rudely awakened by the fire alarms - previously unused and untested - now blaring loudly. They might also hear a girl's scream.

Those stumbling out of their own cabins will shortly find the door to Cabin D popping open, and a flaming pile of fabric being thrown out into the hallway. It's shortly followed by Ifrit, a teenage girl with demonic black stone horns and tail, who proceeds to try and stomp out the fire, to mixed success.

The fire alarm doesn't go out right away, even after Ifrit (or somebody else) extinguishes the fire, as the smoke rises to the top of the car and keeps the alarm going until it can be properly dispersed after a couple minutes. ]

[ It's about a half hour later, well into the dead of night, when a video post gets put up to the network. Ifrit, wearing a purple nightshirt that's sporting a couple small holes with blackened edges now, looks irate and tired as she gazes into the screen. ]

Okay. I guess it's time I asked for...... [ cringe ] ...help.

Does anybody have some fireproof cloth, or clothes? Or blankets. Or like, something they can spray over all the furniture? I'll take anything.

My name's Ifrit, I'm in Sleeper... 3? Cabin D.

And I... [ Her face contorts a bit, as if she just ate something unpleasant. ] ...I'm sorry about. All the fire. There, I said it, okay!? [ She turns the video feed off very quickly following the 'apology.' ]

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"Here,"

[Nita's not precisely breathless, but she looks a bit sleep-addled despite how she sounded on the Network earlier. As such, the debris doesn't bother her too much.]

"Ran into someone else interested in helping, by the way. Have either of you met Xander, yet?"

"I don't think so." He's a bit sleep-tousled, but Nita had caught him while he'd been on his way to the kitchen to feed his familiar. Cottonball is riding on his head, because he only wears pajama pants--easier on his wings, this way.

"Either way, hi, I'm Xander Woods." He nods to Nita, briefly, and takes in the charred wall and the scent of burn on the air, and vaguely wishes that elementals took to train life. A heartfelt plea to one of his Salamanders, and he doubted this would be a problem.

Oh well, wish in one hand, as the saying goes...

"Nice horns, by the way!" He flashes Ifrit a reassuring smile, then looks to Nita and Sven. "So what do you need--or want--me to do?" Besides the fairly obvious.

'Thanks, I grew them myself,' Ifrit does not reply with. She thinks it, though. Instead, she just nods to this new guy. "Liberi, right? You're like the first race I could actually recognize." Her hand touches the choker at her neck for a moment, fingers brushing against the feather there, before falling back down to her side. "I'm Ifrit. Sorry 'bout the smoke and stuff, I caused a fire earlier."

She looks back between Nita and Sven, then to Xander. "So yeah, trying to avoid that happening again!" Her voice sounds a little agitated. "Hopefully we can get stuff fire-proofed enough? I can't really... control my fire all the time."

"Don't worry, Ifrit." Sven gives her a reassuring nod. "Far as I can figure out, we're all probably using different forms of magic...I already know Nita's power to be pretty different from mine." He points a finger in turn at each of their team of magic-casters: "So that's not one, not two, but three layers of magical fireproofing. I'm sure we won't be missing anything."

He gives poor, sleep deprived Nita a sympathetic look before sticking out a hand for Xander to shake. "Hey, we haven't met. I'm Sven. I hear you cast spells, Xander? Whatever your magical art, we should hopefully be able to work together to make something long-lasting."

Meanwhile, poor Ifrit is still standing out here in her sleepwear... Sven takes off his hoodie, slipping the Petals of Nil from the pocket (to anybody else, it looks like an odd tree branch with a glass flower sprouting from it) and using it to fix his hair messily atop his head. He offers the hoodie out to Ifrit.

"Here. This might take us a while, so feel free to borrow this so you don't get cold. I doubt you'll be able to set it alight, though if you do it'll deeply embarrass me in front of my colleagues here." He jokes.

Nita's face brightens in a smile at Sven's comment. "Three heads are better than two, if we wanna put it that way."

Getting out of the way so the two boys - well, men, more accurately - can shake hands, she moves quickly down to the shower-room to borrow a towel.

"Always wondered why these weren't color-coordinated too," she comments, once she returns. It is just a plain blue shade.

"That or someone forgot to sort them again..." Which was going to be Orange team's job this month. Oh dear.

Edited 2020-05-05 00:14 (UTC)

"Probably, Nita's magic is different from mine, too. I'm an Earth mage, and my little bat friend is Cottonball, my familiar." He gestures to the bright-eyed little creature on his head.

He shakes Sven's hand firmly. For all that it was fairly late, Xander's fairly alert. "Less spells and more ritual, I guess, but if we want to get down to basics, I speak to the earth, and it listens. Since I'm pretty sure the blankets and sheets are from organics, I can probably encourage them to be resistant to fire, and a lot of stuff in the train cab, too."

It made sense to him, at least... "I could do more if there were Elementals here too, but they don't seem to like the Void." Which...also made sense to him...

Xander didn't object to being called a Liberi, so in Ifrit's mind that cements it. Finally, a race that makes sense.

But now it's time to get down to business, and when the business is fire, Ifrit's always ready. "And I cast Arts from Originium, which my body has plenty of." She shifts Sven's hoodie to her right arm so that she can tap one of the black stones growing out of the skin in her left. "I make fire with it."

She, notably, has not actually put on the offered hoodie. Because she's pretty warm as it is, and if she's about to make some fire to test out these enchantments or wards or sternly-lectured-cloth, it's going to get a lot warmer.

"And me, I'm servant to the fire god, El'Nil'm. I like fire and tend to make a lot of it...suppressing fire and being able to put it out is--as you can probably guess--something of a non-optional. You could call my magic elemental, but I don't know that I'm an Elemental in the same way that you are, Xander."

Different worlds, different magic systems and all... Sven is optimistic: if Warlocks and Clerics and even Druids could work together back in his realm despite their completely different philosophies on magic and relationships with the Earth's magical energies, they can cobble something together here. Sven clasps his hands together, feeling his inner former-scholar rise in him as he addresses Nita.

"We might be able to create a more powerful effect if we can get our magic to weave together into one spell. Xander thinks he can encourage materials to be flame resistant. You've told me your magic is conversational. Is there something we can use there?"

Edited 2020-05-05 01:04 (UTC)

"It'd be an added power-boost to Xander's method," Nita says, holding up the towel so it's more in the middle of their little group.

"That is, I'd also be working to persuade the materials to be more resistant. To use an anthropomorphism, it'd be like making them more self-confident. More solid, more real, to have an easier time withstanding what could otherwise destroy it."

This combination could actually work something approaching naturally, in other words.

Looking to Ifrit, she asks, "How does that sound?"

For the moment, Xander looks a bit uncertain, but he can't help but lean in a little to examine the Originium that Ifrit's exposed on her arm, brows furrowed in thought.

"Are these man-made?" he asks, though he doesn't reach out to touch either Ifrit or the protrusions. He's clearly curious, though. Not to mention also thinking hard. If they weren't completely man-made, there's a small chance he could work on them, too, he thinks, but he doesn't want to risk that without discussing it with her, first. He'll wait for her to respond to Nita before pressing on, though he nods his agreement to the wizard.

Though he does give Sven an amused look. "With a direct link to a god of fire as a patron? I'd wager you're closer to an Elemental than I am!" But he chuckles a bit.

"They're not man-made, unless you mean they're growing out of my body." She resists the urge to yoink her arm away. The Medics have done worse without getting Infected back home, and besides, Nita said it wasn't... transmissible.

She spares a glance to Nita.

"Anyway! I don't really know how all your magic stuff is going to work with my fire. It sounds nothing like the Arts I know from home. So our only option is to try it all out, right?"

Sven half listens to the other conversations going on around him as he kneels down and begins burning a vaguely triangular shape into the floor with his finger. It'll rub off once they're done with it...probably. He fills the space in the middle of the triangle with a series of odd runes, blockish with lines that wiggle like they're caught in the haze above an open fire. Still drawing with his right, he raises his left hand, gripping and ungripping his fingers in the air.

"Nita--can I get that towel?"

He plops himself onto the floor at one point of the triangle and taps the flats of his fingers at one of the other points, gesturing for the other two to follow his lead. He closes his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to connect with the landscape of the train as he would normally tap into the presence of the Earth beneath him back home.

"Here's what I'm thinking, here: we lay the towel on the sigil and all grab onto it...or focus on it, or however you normally lay your spells...but try and connect your spell to that of the person either side of you. Xander, Nita--your powers are based in willing matter to change its behaviour, so those are easy compliments. Mine is more...I speak to and for the fire."

"I'm not changing the nature of what we're enchanting, I'm creating a space where fire is forbidden to enter. I...think I can make that work just by bolstering the change in Laws that the both of you apply with your own spells. Everyone hot on that idea?"

Edited (typos) 2020-05-05 19:23 (UTC)

Nita hands over the towel no problem, curious as to what the triangle symbolizes, exactly, but not very surprised. Most spell diagrams were circles, in her experience, but they didn't have to be.

"Like we're going over a contract?" Over what the fire can and can't do...

She nods. "Sounds pretty plausible, but we'll see how it feels once it's running."

No way to tell for sure but to do it.

Xander's eyes widen as Sven draws the magic triangle. It's not what he's precisely used to, but here, he doesn't have Elementals to command...he gets to cajole the element itself, but from everything he's learned? It should work.

"That's very helpful!" Then, he realizes what Sven ended on, and snickers.

"Sure, it sounds good to me! Doesn't hurt that I kind of end up being a bridge in this sort of thing anyway, mostly by virtue of being a nephilim." He'd done it before, after all--usually between other Earth magicians, but the theory was the same, he felt.

So he squats, laying his fingers just outside the charred corner nearest him, and closes his eyes, nodding his head just a little.

"You with me here, Cottonball?" he asks, quietly. He can feel the tiny claws tighten in his hair, and his familiar spread her wings. "That's right. Let me build the foundation..."

The golden energy that flows into the sigil and gives it dim light, by all rights, should feel just like earth to Sven. His world. It calls to mind Artepus, for Xander--his home. It even vaguely smells like nutmeg and cocoa, warm and comforting. He's still murmuring under his breath, but the language has changed, likely unfamiliar now. That's just a way to facilitate, it's his thoughts that are directing his part of the spell now.

Ifrit watches, feeling a little bit useless here, unable to contribute. She tosses the hoodie she's holding over her shoulders, like a makeshift cape, as she watches.

"All right, well, uh, let me know when you're ready for me to test this out." PAUSE. Then, in a quieter tone, "Wait, am I supposed to be quiet during this part?"

She does have a couple questions; like what the heck is WITH this kind of magic? Also, what's a nephilim? But whatever, she'd have time enough for that later.

Time to not get in the way very much, hopefully.

Sven spares Ifrit a quiet glance, flashing her a grin before he raises a soot-stained finger to his lips and nods. Don't worry, kid: this is the slightly tricky part, but if it works then they'll have a nigh inflammable towel for you to try--and, fingers crossed, fail--to incinerate.

A rush of familiarity slams into him and almost shocks him out of focus as he feels the Earth (his Earth) surround him, but the temptation to open his eyes and blink off this bizarre dream that has been his trip into the void evaporates quickly as he recognises it as Xander's magic. It's quite convincing, even if the absence of El'Nil'm's power on this familiar atmosphere sticks out to Sven like a face burned out of a photograph.

Eyes shut, Sven presses his palms down into the hot lines of the sigil. He doesn't need his eyes to "see" the shape: he can trace Xander's golden power moving towards him, the scorch marks on the floor channelling Xander's magic into him. Briefly he knows it, can catch a glimpses of its shape and nature. Wispy flames burst to life around Sven's hands, glowing embers flitting about him before disappearing into the air. He grinds his palms into the lines--smudging the marks on the floor outside of his personal vision--as he melds burning red magic into Xander's thread of gold, bolstering its power with his own and alloying it with El'Nil'm's authority over the elements.

Where Xander summons the impression of earth, and Sven literally brings the fire, Nita focuses directly on the towel fabric itself.

/This is a fortification wizardry; we're going to lend you power, so you'll never have to fear burning to cinders ever again!/ Nita declares, before diving into the more formal language and framework that will allow for such an imbuing of power.

Wizardry is more of a blue light, in contrast to the actual flame around her, but it glows just as brightly with her intent. Now, the fabric can be brought around to understanding their points of view - and it's more than willing to be made impervious to flame!

Or even just resistant.

Cotton towel--or if not precisely the plant fiber he knows, it's definitely woven from something so similar as to be indistinguishable.

That's a good thing. Xander continues to spill that warm golden energy into the spell. His muttered chant is still in that strange language, but he backs it up, now, with his empathy simply because he can.

Confidence and strength. With words, he describes the softness of the finest sand, and yet the resistance it bears against fire. Sand's ability to smother flames, when necessary--he doesn't want to completely negate Ifrit's power, after all, though he can't think that Sven and his patron would allow that, if at all possible. Besides, Earth supports Fire, even as it can also smother it.

"Fiat," he finishes--probably the most commanding tone Nita has ever heard out of the normally easygoing nephilim, as he reaches out to touch the towel, which radiates then with his golden glow. Not that he'll cut his power until the others are finished--they're all in this together, and to stop now might invalidate everything.

Ifrit stands back, as much as possible in these cramped confines of a tiny train room. She watches as everybody else works. Drawing, talking, glows and flashes of light... so different from the Arts she knows. It dawns on her now, perhaps for the first time, that everybody here really DOES come from a place different than home. Or perhaps not 'dawns on her,' but... this is where it really sinks in.

You could still burn it, a voice tells her. They're not stronger than your fire. You can burn it. You can burn them.

A grimace crosses Ifrit's face. "Shut up" she whispers to herself. She doesn't have time for this right now.

She focuses on that towel. Waiting for the word to go. She'll burn it, yeah, but she's not going to pour all her power into it. She's not trying to conquer their spells, she's just trying to test if it'll work. And only once they're ready.

It's working. Whether or not their combined spell will hold up against Ifrit's flames remains to be seen, but beneath his fingers, Sven feels the three different enchantments knitting into one. He presses his own power deeper, more insistently, squashing Xander and Nita's prayers together and sealing them with El'Nil'm's magic. It's almost impossible to tell whose power is whose anymore. That's just what they need: a spell that isn't cohesive and whole won't stand on its own. It will break the moment the three of with withdraw from the sigil. But no...the spell seems to take a life of its own, bursting like a dam through the pathways beneath their fingers and rushing into the towel.

That's it. They're done. Sven opens his eyes, sitting back with a sigh and wiping his face with his hand, his blackened and leaving grimy streaks over his cheek and jaw. He feels immensely proud of the his two fellow spell casters.

"Aaand that's a wrap! Real good work, Xander, Nita." Now to see how well their work actually holds up. Sven holds out the towel to Ifit--it's still glowing and feels warm to the touch, like it's freshly tumble-dried. He pauses, towel in hands. Something's off with the mood here...Sven looks to Ifrit with kind eyes. Maybe she's worried about the spell not working?

"Hey...don't look so worried. No need to fret if it doesn't work first time. Now that we know that we can joint-spellcast, we can workshop the method if we need to...think of this as a prototype."

Nita looks more tired now than she did when she came into Sleeper Three; this better work, she can't help but think. Mind, if it needs another turn, she'll be willing to get right back to it.

But there's relief in her face, too, and she offers Ifrit a reassuring wink as Sven hands over the towel.

"Good working with you, too."

Xander just grins at his friends--they're all his friends, now, in his book--before smiling over at Ifrit, reassuring.

"It'll be okay, no matter what. No one's mad at you for what happened, it was an accident, right?" He's not actively using his empathy now, but he does try his best to sound soothing, at least.

"I admit I'm a little curious about your crystals, but now is definitely not the time. I think I want to eat at least four peanut butter sandwiches, have some milk, and then go find my bunk. I actually feel tired for once!" He's cheerful about it all, though. It's the rewarding kind of tiredness you get from a job well done.

"I'm not-- I'm fine." Ifrit was not in the mood to explain what's really going on in her head, she doesn't need that right now. She gets upset at burning stuff on accident sometimes, but only because it means she needs better control. She can't help what or who she is. The voice in her head trying to make her lose control, that's something else entirely.

And without further ado, she lights the towel on fire. Or at least, she tries to. The fire's definitely there, over top of the towel, but it doesn't seem to be catching. Don't burn, don't let the fire in, resist the flames... It seems to be working, the towel being licked by the flames and unaffected.

To those with the senses for it, though, they might notice that Ifrit's fire is also burning away at the magic enchantments themselves... but also that, once Ifrit lets the fire fizzle out, it bounces back to normal.

"Looks like it worked?"

Sven "watches" the towel closely as the flames flicker above the fibres. With his eyes, sure, but mainly with the sense that lets him feel the fluctuations of magical energy around him. Ifrit is far more powerful than he'd first taken her for when introduced...that she could burn through the spell of three spell-casters--one of whom a Warlock whose patron is literally a fire god--is startling. Such raw power for someone so young.

For a moment Sven's heart sinks, worrying himself that their spell was too weak. The line of his mouth twists as he feels the spell burning...but lo, the barrier springs back and he breathes out, relieved. He's a little concerned how quickly Ifrit can corrode the barrier, but it seems like it should hold against anything they use the enchantment on catching fire on accident.

"...Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that worked like a charm!" He gestures each to Xander and Nita, polling their opinion. "What do you guys think? Ideally I'd have liked it to hold out a little longer, but from my personal record of stupidly setting stuff alight...I think it should be long enough, honestly."

Nita can feel that spell-flux, too, and it's weird, but the spell reaffirming itself once the fire stops gives her more confidence.

"I think we could handle that, for sure," she says.

"... Though, we may want to check on the state of her room, first, make sure everything else can hold up."

Nita taps her Manual, ever present at her side. "I've got the spell saved in here, at least. Think we could make an interlaced network of some kind - where one part gets strained, the rest picks up the slack?"

Thinning out the eating-away effect, assuming things work out that way.

Video, Action for Sleeper Car 3: Fiddlesticks Day 2, Night

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