tdm

[medietas_mods]

Welcome to Medietas! Do you have an interest in joining the game? Is there an old muse that you want to dust off? Or, perhaps you're looking for a place to voice test a brand new character and would like to do so in our little island setting among friends? Well, whatever the reason, this is where you can do that!

You all know what to do! If you don’t, just follow the instructions and HAVE FUN!

How To Play:

→ Comment with the character you’d like to test drive. Don’t forget to add their name and canon in the subject line.
→ Choose a scenario, or start your own!
→ Tag around!

Possible Scenarios:

1. Getting Settled: So, now that you've arrived and wandered around the starter home you've been given, it's time to check out the rest of the islands. There's a market on Aerilon that is full of treasures. Or, you can check out Chapter Six bookstore. Perhaps you wander over to the Mean Princess facility on Mulciber. There is so much to see and do!

2. Islands: There is definitely some weirdness going on around the islands from the sidewalks that glow to the mysterious energy that doesn't seem to have any direct source. There are statues that hum softly and seem to grow every so often. And what is with these bridges? Go forth and investigate! Puzzles are FUN!

3. PARTY: Every month or so there's always a celebration somewhere, be it on Mulciber, Imber, Mundus, Eurus, and now Nidus! Eat, drink, dance, talk among the other islanders. It's about making new friends and enjoying yourself, right? Even if you have been stolen away from your home world to a bunch of floating islands.

4. Trouble!: All is quiet and calm when suddenly the warning signals across each of the islands sound. Not long after, or, at least only long enough to get prepared, a large hydra creature crawling out of the lake on Imber. Do what you can to help remove this threat before it gets to any of the other islands!

5. Wild Card: Got something else in mind and want to create your own scenario? Go for it!

Comments

[deadbellringer]

Ah. Yes, he knows that one. "Does the walker choose the path or does the path choose the walker?" he quoted. That was a question that often haunted him in Death as he went through the various districts.

Oh, he knew the rhyme about the seven great Charters. Everyone did. But that didn't quite explain it as much as the Book of the Dead's last page.

[supharstitious]

"Yes." If that's how he wanted to word it. It was all the same thing. "But you haven't answered me." It was the answer he was interested in, although, he supposed, a non-answer was enough of one. It said all kinds of interesting things on its own.

[deadbellringer]

"That is, I suppose, the answer. My family is... the one charged? Or bred? I'm honestly not sure, to keep down the dead and free magic creatures. We're one of four bloodlines created by five of the Bright Shiners after the Charter was made. "I'm the thirty-sixth Abhorsen. My Uncle was Abhorsen before me."

[supharstitious]

More things he didn't know. More magic he was unfamiliar with. It was and...odd feeling. Usually it was the other way around. But also most har didn't want to understand and most humans couldn't.

"Made, then. What of the bells?"

[deadbellringer]

"They're how I do it my job." Lightly he touched each bell smallest to largest, "Ranna the Sleeper; it puts those who hear it asleep, Mosrael the Waker; brings the dead to life while sending the ringer into Death, Kibeth is the Walker; it sends the listener to where the ringer wishes but it will often try to ring on its own, Dyrim the Speaker; gives those with no voice the ability to speak and takes the voice away from those who can, Belgaer is the Thinker; it can take away memories or give independent thought to the dead, Saraneth is the Binder; it binds the person who hears it to the ringer's will. Astarael is the Weeper... all who hear it go into Death."

Again he sounded like he was repeating what he's been taught.

[supharstitious]

Lovely and dangerous. Didn't that sound familiar? He himself had been called both things enough times that the words almost held no meaning any longer, and yet...they were the best he could come up with to describe what he'd just been told about the bells.

When he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost prayer-like, and his words more like incantation than observation.

"A song for the departed, sung by the wind and the trees."

[deadbellringer]

Lovely and dangerous, yes that definitely includes the Bells. Astral the Weeper... Alexiel didn't know. No one he knows ever heard it ring. Ringing it was a last resort.

"Yes, I suppose so." He whistled softly, a few Charter Marks appearing with the notes. They glowed in the air just briefly before fading out.

At least he could still reach the Charter here.

[supharstitious]

He stared at the glowing marks and then at the space in the air where they were, transfixed for a moment. He'd never seen a human able to call magic so easily, so brazenly. He may have been buried in mysticism--he may even have found some humans who were the same--but nothing ever so...obvious and magical.

Eventually he blinked a few times, pulling himself back to the present and staring at the man beside him instead.

"What was that?"

[deadbellringer]

"Charter Marks. None in particular for any particular spell," he said. "Different marks put together make different spells."

Making Marks so randomly like that wasn't something a person usually did, but he was confident enough in his ability to not worry about causing any problems.

[supharstitious]

How very different than what he knew. It was both strange and refreshing to see. Still, there was that undercurrent of a threat too--he was too much a har not to feel it. Humanity wasn't supposed to have this sort of power anymore.

"Show me."

[deadbellringer]

He raised his eyebrows just briefly at the demand; it sounded rather like a child. Not having any problems with it though he pulled out a few more Charter Marks. They glowed and then melded together to create a ball of light.

The marks are still visible within the light and yet at the same time is a single object. Rather like an orb woven from the marks.

[supharstitious]

He stared, transfixed by the lights, looking for secrets and messages that he wasn't going to find. He knew he wouldn't, but he tried anyway. Because maybe there really was something there for him to see.

"What is it? Beyond what you said?"

[deadbellringer]

"What do you mean?" he asked, because it was the Charter. It just was. Without ending or beginning. It made up everything... well no... but it defined things... or something. He was a good charter mage, but not a good theorist. That was Arion. He could go on for hours at a time about What Made the Charter.

[supharstitious]

Of course those were exactly the questions he wanted the answers to. It was dangerous to wield a power one didn't understand. Maybe he's just biased that way, but so far as he was concerned, anyone should know the mechanics of the magics they're working with.

"What makes it? How do you hold it?"

[deadbellringer]

Right. So he knows the marks and the mechanics...

Reaching up to his head, he brushes the Charter Mark on his forehead. "This is a Charter mark, it makes it so I can be a Charter Mage. The Charter ... defines, I guess, everything. It's this seemingly endless sea of marks of different sorts. You can do things with them. Each one describes a bit of something or a whole of something."

At first he was going to go for a bell but then decided against it and instead pulled out his knife. Marks danced on the blade but the blade wasn't made up of the Marks like the light was. Here they were almost written and trapped within it. "This has marks on it for sharpness and to prevent you from accidentally cutting yourself. You have to learn the marks before you can use them, much like you have to learn the letters and words before you can read."

[supharstitious]

Interesting. There were magical alphabets long ago, back when humanity thought it had found power, but they hadn't been used in so long it was doubtful anyone--or even anyhar--remembered. It was so different from the magic he knew and he wanted to understand it, whether or not it was actually possible for him to.

"How did you learn it?"

[deadbellringer]

"Long hours studying books full of Marks. It's like memorizing a dictionary," Alexiel said. "Lots and lots of dictionaries."

He gave a slight shiver; it had been long, long, long nights of studying. The Book of the Dead was even worse. That one could give a person nightmares.

[supharstitious]

Discipline, then. And a desire strong enough to survive the tedium. Magic was never easy, but it had always been worth it--so far.

"Can it be taught?"

[deadbellringer]

He blinks. "It can be. You'd need to be baptized in the Charter first but, you can learn," he said. "The Mark connects you to the Charter."

[supharstitious]

More and more interesting... Devotion also? Baptism sounded too much like old things he'd heard in his life before.

"How?"

[deadbellringer]

Not really devotion. Just getting the mark is called baptism.

"I don't know? It just does," he said.

[supharstitious]

How disappointing. But really, he should have expected it. Not everyone--not even everyhar--put as much effort into magic as he did.

"I see. The thought is...intriguing."

[deadbellringer]

Really, most of his training involved using the marks to fight the Dead and not the theory really behind it.

"Learning charter magic? Yes, it's quite fascinating."

[supharstitious]

"What can it do?" That's really the important part, yes?

[deadbellringer]

And there's an interesting question.

"My first impulse is to say anything if you know the right marks. My uncle's lover is a Wallmaker; he can make the most amazing things out of Chartermarks. A fake limb... devices... You can control the weather... lots of things."