[log] Noisy Black, Part One [closed]

[snowblindmods]

Characters: anyone who signed up for the Noisy Black event
Location: an office building
Date: Morning and Day 260
Summary: You wake up in a room.
Warnings: nothing of note for this part, please note any specific things that happen in the comment sections of your posts

Sinners Top Level
Converted Top Level

Comments

[thewarningafter]

It's probably best that Rhys doesn't give Stephen the glimmer of false hope that would come with knowing that about him.

Stephen scoffs at the mention of House, but lets that one lie. He'd be fine with not talking about showing his ass or about the conversations that followed. "I wondered," he admits. "Thought it might be you, since I didn't recognize you -- and you look too healthy to not be new. You do that yourself?"

[sleight_of_fate]

There still might be something to be done for Stephen, but it will be small, unfortunately. Rhys does still have all his knowledge of acupressure and massage, which might be a help in keeping away further pain from the cold. And something to be discussed later, when they aren't in cages.

"I've been told I kinda stand out," he agrees, mildly amused.

There's not really more to say on the topic of House, except that he noticed that he was being a dick and sympathizes. Moving on is definitely the best tactic.

He glances at his tattooed legs. "I drew a lot of the designs myself, and did the spells and mixed the ink, but someone else did the needlework. Hard to do that much ink on yourself, no matter how good you are." A small, almost sad smile follows. "I guess it's sort of a map of where I've been. Lotta mileage."

[thewarningafter]

"I've never seen someone imbue magic into tattoos, but I always figured there wasn't much reason you couldn't," shrugs Stephen. "I mean, other than the obvious risk of error, but that kind of goes for any application of marks of power. Or...spells in general."

Guess who almost broke time when he first tried manipulating it, Rhys. Spoiler: it's this guy.

[sleight_of_fate]

No, Stephen. Don't break time. It's what keeps everything from happening at once.

He considers, tipping his head.

"It's blood magic, which is powerful all on its own. Mostly, it's just a matter of knowing how to direct it, and understanding how to channel power through foci. With tattoo magic, it just happens that your focus is alive and has its own aura." He shrugs, as though it's simple...which it sort of is, though it doesn't make it easy.

"The rest is a bunch of alchemy and other shit like that. And not poisoning yourself or accidentally winding up possessed." He grins broadly. Occupational hazards.

[thewarningafter]

That seems to happen anyway, though?

"Blood magic?" That's not one of the schools he's learned -- at least not yet. It sounds...well, a bit goth. He chuckles, though, at the rest. "What's a little possession between friends?"

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys wobbles his hand. "It's pretty old-school stuff, and dangerous. It takes in all the really old traditions, like sacrifice and offering, and using life force to power spells. It isn't all grimdark and death stuff, but you don't play with it unless you know what you're doing. I can actually sense life force, so it's a lot easier for me." He shrugs. Yep, he was literally born to play with dangerous stuff.

He grins briefly. "And the downside of possession is, once you give up the keys? Whatever's got your body is probably gonna red-line it, then leave it in a smoking heap by the side of the road once it's burnt out everything in it. Scary ride to go on." He shrugs again, looking very matter-of-fact. "Might just be my world, I don't know, but pretty much everything to do with magic wants to eat you, honestly. There's good stuff, but even that's kinda dangerous. That's why even people who have magic try not to use it too much."

[thewarningafter]

"Can you?"

Stephen asks the question lightly, like he's not expecting an answer, but it does make him curious. It's...possible, but not typical, as far as he knows, to sense the life force of others. He huffs out a wry laugh.

"You should talk to Dorian. His world's magic is all demons that want to possess you from the Fade. Mine...not as much. Not for the everyday applications, at least."

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys gives a soft laugh. "We're gonna have some serious notes to compare, I think. Sounds like we've got pretty different things going on in our world, but...yeah. My magic is pretty hands-on, I guess you'd say."

He's good at magic because he can see and sense exactly what he's doing, especially with auras. And if he didn't learn to manage what he naturally senses, he'd be batshit raving insane by now. It actually reduces down to a pretty simple truth.

He tilts his head. "Actually, we talked for a while, that first night. He messaged me a little later, after some of the rush died down. Interesting guy, we actually have a few things in common from our worlds so we had a lot to talk about. Including demons from the Other World that want to possess you."

[thewarningafter]

"Yeah, he was pretty insistent about the demons," says Stephen. "I'm not going to say that's not a thing at all where I'm from, but unless you do something really stupid you're not gonna get possessed just for drawing some power or opening a gate."

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys nods. "Usually, you won't open any doors just reading tarot cards or reading creepy old books, but once you get started, you really gotta know your limits because that stuff can creep up on you."

He gives a half-smile and shrug. "I worked a case where a woman was possessed by an antique music box she'd bought... Like, the spirit inside nearly took her body over and kept it. She just bought one day because it was pretty, but the thing inside it was bad and knew to get what it wanted. There's serious shit out there."

[thewarningafter]

"Eugh," says Stephen feelingly. "The worst I've done was set my bed on fire. I only set it a little bit on fire, though."

In other words, Rhys, Stephen's magic is less about spirits and more about energy. Not that one can't make bad decisions regarding both.

[sleight_of_fate]

"I'm not much with physics, but I know the basics. Laws of nature do still apply and blowing things up definitely happens if you know what you're doing. Or don't know what you're doing." He grins, a bit sheepishly.

Though he'd known very well what he was doing when he'd blown up the car and garage, but he'd been on a mission.

"It sounds a lot simpler in your world."

[thewarningafter]

"Maybe. If you can call anything written in Sanskrit simple."

His magic is complicated and difficult and he's very smart to have learned it, thank you very much.

[sleight_of_fate]

"Okay, yes. I definitely can give you that." He grins, shaking his head. "That one I only followed a little bit of. I did manage to get really good with Russian, though. That was enough of a headache, but European folk magic was closer to my natural..."

He pauses. No, saying that it had more clues to what he was is a bad turn to take here. He can phrase it better.

"Closer to my natural skills. And my uncle spent a lot of time in Germany, so I picked that up, too."

So yes. Major kudos on the Sanskrit.

[thewarningafter]

Natural skills. Stephen picks right up on that pause, same as he picked up on Rhsys's reference to losing sense when he first arrived. Now's really not the time to be grilling him about it, but all the same Stephen casually asks, "The empath stuff?"

[sleight_of_fate]

Dealing with other people who actually know magic stuff is going to become a headache very quickly, when it comes to keeping his secrets. He's going to have to tread carefully.

Rhys foresees a lot of stress in his future, even if he's not really a risk right at the moment.

"Yeah. The empath stuff. Pretty much everything we know about magic is passed down through stories and folklore. There really isn't a true collection anywhere, except for what families and a few very small organizations keep." He smiles wanly.

"And some of those aren't very trustworthy. Some of them are, to put it in advanced technical terms, 'batshit insane'."

[thewarningafter]

Fortunately for Rhys, there are already enough apparent differences that Stephen's going to have a hard time sussing out the truth without more clues. It's not like he knows what makes someone in another world an empath.

"Magic does seem to attract that type," he agrees. "Can't imagine why that would be."

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys wobbles his hand.

"We've got a couple of theories on that. I mean, besides the fact that seeing things no one else can see will drive you nuts in pretty short order." He grins, just a little bit garish around the edges with his experience.

"But face it, the only thing better than power, is a power that you can use to fuck with people without those people ever knowing they're being fucked with. Politics, church, money, control...there's so many ways to use magic to pull strings from behind the curtain, and never show your hand. And when you've got that kind of sweet deal going, the last thing you want is someone who knows what you're doing showing up to mess with it, right?"

[thewarningafter]

Stephen makes a disgusted noise. "Right," he agrees, obviously displeased with the notion. "Remind me that when I get back to New York I've got a couple things to add to my to-do list as far as checking for other sorcerers around town."

[sleight_of_fate]

"Probably not a bad idea, especially if you move in those kind of circles," Rhys agrees. "I mostly kept my head down, but some of the things people tried to hire me to do? Bad shit."

There's probably some funny stories in there somewhere, but Rhys isn't quite feeling it. He sighs, and glances back over at Stephen. "So, New York, huh? I just moved to Boston."

[thewarningafter]

"I just moved to Greenwich Village," Stephen echoes, but he won't elaborate much further than that. He basically told Dorian everything about his position in the order a day or two ago, but that was while he had no control over what was coming out of his mouth. No need to share the details of his life with the entire cell block. "I've lived in Manhattan a long time, though."

[sleight_of_fate]

The Village. That's a world away from Rhys's existence, a tiny, mostly concrete loft in the industrial side of the city.

He sighs, shaking his head with a mournful look. "Sounds nice. I was thinking about moving north if work didn't get better. Then, well, this." He shrugs, then looks down at the carpet, suddenly fascinated with the stray threads.

He hadn't really been planning anything, but it sucked to realize that.

"In my world, Central Park's supposed to have one of the highest concentrations of supernatural creatures in the Northeast, y'know."

There. That's a more comfortable topic.

[thewarningafter]

Stephen makes a noncommittal noise, recognizing the change in topic for what it is. "Dunno if we actually...have those," he admits. "New York's a hotbed for problems with the Chitauri stuff that was left behind after the invasion, though. That's, uh, aliens. Possibly aliens from another dimension, I wasn't clear on that part."

[sleight_of_fate]

"...ah. Uh. Okay." That's different, and Rhys has to add that to his forming image of Stephen's world.

It's kind of a lot to fit together, and it makes Stephen's world very...crowded is the only way Rhys can think of to frame it.

"It does make sense that if aliens were gonna attack, it was going to be New York, at least. But. Man. You actually make my world sound pretty simple by comparison. And that's impressive."

[thewarningafter]

"Yeah, well, we were all pretty surprised by it at the time," says Stephen dryly. "Trust me, I'm aware it's weird. I could have very happily gone my whole life not knowing there was anything like that out there."