vivala | First Quest - Recuperate from your time in an Imperial press gang

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First Quest - Recuperate from your time in an Imperial press gang

1 - Elysium - the first two weeks

[A fox beastkin woman - red-haired, broad-shouldered, wide-hipped and three-tailed, in her flowing dress of blue and her tunic in magenta and gold - has been limping into the Elysium shops and cheaper restaurants. She’s been getting medicines, ice packs, takeout and tea.

She doesn’t limp, exactly, but she moves with the painful care of the injured. Corsair scuttlebutt has it that there was a recent outlander labor camp rescue: could she be one of the freed slaves? She seems friendly enough in her manner, smiles and bows and apologies, even if her talk is terse in the way of folks who don’t quite know the language...]

2 - The Vault - the second week

[A fox beastkin woman - bright of eye, deep of concentration, driven as if by an airship’s etheric core - is in language classes, magic classes, history classes, watching combat and exercise classes carefully with a thermos of tea as she grinds her injured side against an ice pack. She cheerfully practices reading, writing - conversation:]

I’m still learning the language. Talk with me?

[…who’ll take her up on the offer, or tutor her in history and etheric magic?]

3 - Elysium and The Vault - Late week 2/early week 3

[A fox beastkin woman - fleet of foot, mighty of arm, with an almost palpable aura of inner strength - walks without pain or fear through Elysian streets, practicing martial arts in the park slowed by a factor of 10 to resemble ballroom dance and offering for modest coin to pop stuck joints and massage sore muscles. Would anyone care to watch her practice? Challenge her skills? Take her up on her offer of healing?]

4 - private to Maomao and to Egret

[A fox beastkin woman - familiar to the Elysian champions she’s contacting, if in passing - has relayed a message. She wants to meet with them, briefly, at their convenience. Maomao for a medical follow-up - but both with an idea of how to serve the Corsair quest for freedom…]

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[When Marcille had agreed to help teach the newcomers things, she had expected to be teaching magic, being a mage. But...learning magic before learning the language would be pretty tricky, wouldn't it. She put the magic lesson plans in her head aside, for now, and changed her expectations for this session a little bit.]

A-alright. What would you like to talk about?

[Good news; at least some of the language she wants to learn is the vocabulary of magic.]

Ah - this place, the people in it, what the... Red Raiders? I'm not sure that's right do, the differences between the Junk Fleet, the Vault and... Heaven groups, take your pick?

Uh, start simple. I'm Deedee. Your people rescued me from a slave camp. I've been healing and trying to figure out my place here since. Good to meet you.

Crimson Corsairs...Flotsam...Elysium.

[She provides the correct words for Deedee as she goes. She looks encouraging! You got Vault right! And you're ALMOST comprehensible!]

I'm Marcille. Nice to meet you, too. Are you a healer?

Edited 2024-06-24 01:42 (UTC)

So close, but the small differences get you. Hello Marcille.

Oh. Hmn. I am a healer, but I mean that I’m injured and not doing hard work - [She frowns; that’s wrong and she knows it but not why it’s wrong] - while resting. Healing myself would be… not practical, very hard.

Edited 2024-06-24 01:49 (UTC)

Oh! I'm not the BEST at healing magic, but I know a bit.

[Did you just hear that scare chord, DD?]

What kind of injury do you have?

I had to hold heavy things up too long and the -back and side of my belly - got hurt.

I need to touch hurt parts to fix them, and I can stretch pretty far but not that far.

What would you say - oh this is hard to think of words for. Let’s try - what does your magic burn for power?

Ah, so you strained your back.

[Notes this for later.]

Magic is powered by ether, which is everywhere and in everything, but you find way more of it in ether crystals. With those, there's a lot more you can do.

Strained, yes.

Ether. That’s… another word for air too, isn’t it? Do mages breathe it in?

The crystals I saw some of us had to mine… those were ether crystals?

Air? You get a little bit from breathing it, I guess. Or from drinking or eating, even.

But yes, those were most likely ether crystals. They're powerful, but they also hold the flying continents up, so it's bad to overuse them.

Which won’t stop the Empire from - peeing in their own stream as usual.

[She’s quiet, for a moment. Paying attention to her breathing, the movement of her fingers.]

…magic training on Mundus was about breathing; magic fuel was called Breath. Qi, but same word different language. Not just because I do body magic: a fire and ice caller and friend talked about Breath too.

It’s different here. If I want to heal I need to learn how.

Peeing in...

[Snrk. That's a new idiom for her but she can guess the meaning pretty easily.]

Yes, quite.

[She listened to her description of a foreign magic system with interest. It didn't really do her much good HERE, but it was still fascinating. "Key" magic, was it?]

I am a mage myself, so we can definitely talk about that.

First though, there's not much sense in leaving you in pain is there? Would you like me to try to heal your injury?

Yes. Both because it hurts and to see magic worked.

[deedee no]

Then show me where it hurts. This will only take a moment.

[When it was pointed out, Marcille reached out and put her hand on the indicated spot. Her healing magic wasn't particularly flashy compared to some. No swirl of glowing particles or anything like that. Deedee's flesh just forced itself back into it's proper condition.

It hurt as much GETTING the injury. Months of prison labor abusing her body condensed into a few seconds.

But when it cleared, her side DID feel healed!]

[Marcelle has just learned an expletive in Deedee’s native English.

The pain was a single instant, but it was an instant of total and absolute searing, stabbing pain.

And then, gone.]

Sylphan laughs, I wasn’t - didn’t think it’d be THAT bad!

I’m okay but - nn. Don’t have Spirit Sight. Can’t see how you did it.

[Marcille is unphased by all the cursing. She’s not sure what “muver-foker” means, but she suspects that it is rude.]

It does sting a little. Some healers suppress that pain but I think denying your body’s natural reactions is unhealthy in the long run.

[ Message received.

Naturally, Maomao's job as an apothecary means also doing checkups on her previous patients. Usually, though, this was during her free time away from her lady, Musse Egret. It's not often there's a specific call for both of them.

She wonders if it's a good idea - Maomao is consistently paranoid, which is prudent given the number of times she's already prevented poison from slipping through to her lady. Not that she's worried about poison here - merely the thought that the more overtly Musse interacts with the Corsairs, the more likely it is somebody will catch her slipping into their dormitories and put two and two together, so to speak.

But it's beyond her to question it once a mind is made up, and so, Maomao is back in the dormitories, knocking at the door of the fox beastkin she looked at and advised earlier. ]

[Now that she knows to gather ambient aspected Ether, Deedee is sitting on her bed on her folded legs, with the window open, doing breathing and meditation as the Winds that she works with touch her.

She hears the knock and opens her eyes without shifting position.]

Enter, it’s not locked.

[Musse, for her part, has dressed fairly unobtrusively in sailor attire, her long green hair carefully woven into a much shorter-looking style. She appears to have no particular expectations of this conversation one way or another and is mostly along for the joyride, so to speak]

[ A glance back to Musse, and then eyes on the door. ] Well, no use in waiting around.

[ With that, Maomao opens the door to Deedee's room, glancing about before stepping aside to allow Musse to enter, and will follow her in and shut the door as soon as she does so. ]

Ah, hello, Maomao -

[Wait. This isn’t just Maomao. Maomao is moving to, deferentially, let a superior in and then falling in place behind her.

And the superior is lady Musse Egret.

What had Deedee gotten herself into?]

…hello Lady Egret. I was expecting you both, but not both at once.

Edited 2024-06-26 23:10 (UTC)

Hmmmm? Oh, yes, of course! I've got time to chat right now.

[ Despite saying that, she keeps writing in her notes as she reads from a book. Either she's ignoring Deedee or she's a multitasking freak. ]

Uh… what’s the book on? I’m behind on reading.

[Wouldn’t be the first time she’s met someone Like That. But it better be an interesting book.]

Oh, it's a forbidden text, censored by the inquisition, and it's in a different language. I'm helping with our translation efforts, so people can understand it. Maybe when you practice more, it will be done.

[ If we're speaking something like old english, this book is in old welsh or something like that. ]

Forbidden because it’s terrible cheat magic or terrible because it says Imp history is wrong?

I guess it could be both.

Cheat magic? I'm not aware of any kind of magic that is based on cheating...

No, it's banned because there's one chapter where two of the warriors, on the eve of battle share their love and affection for each other in the form of a poem that is the entire chapter. And after that the story calls them 'The Beloved Husbands' a lot.

[The tall, blind man listens to Deedee selling medical services with a certain amount of gentle skepticism.]

You "pop" joints?

[This sounds like a medical practice of some kind, though a very peculiar one. But odd or not, Rezo's certainly interested in hearing about it.]

I release tensed muscles with magic guided by touch. There’s sometimes a pop that goes with a joint releasing, the same kind as when you roll a stiff neck or crack knuckles.

It’s alarming, if harmless, so I lead with it.

I see. It's a bit different from what I use, but essentially it's a magic-infused massage?

[He can relieve pain with his magic, but he doesn't necessarily have to touch the patient to do it, and it's more focused on soothing the nerves than relaxing the muscles. (Although one tends to go with the other.)

The mention of knuckle cracking makes him a little wary- it's commonly believed in his world that it can lead to arthritis. On the other hand, there isn't any solid evidence to support that belief.

Well, nothing ventured...]

How much are you charging?

Exactly. I can heal without touch, but it’s far easier and more efficient for me to lay on hands then bless from a distance.

How much I ask for depends on how long you need from me, but focusing on, say, the neck and shoulders or one hand and arm for half a bell is [some reasonable amount of coin for that service.]

[Rezo isn't exactly making loads of money, but that price doesn't sound too outrageous, so he decides to go for it.]

Well then, how about this hand?

[Rezo transfers his cane to his left hand and holds out his right for Deedee to examine. He has large, light-skinned hands, with his palms and wrists wrapped in cotton bandages the way a boxer or martial artist might have them.]

[Deedee notes the bandages, frowning. She reaches out, her thumb pressing lightly into his palm as her hand cradles his, trying to find the tension or pain of blocked ether flow.

Is Rezo injured? Fatigued? Where is he sore, where do too-tense muscles feel like knots? Deedee can tell with a bit of light touch, and wants to save her heavier hand for actual problems.]

Let me know where you need more pressure, or less.

...

[Rezo goes very still when Deedee takes his hand, both curious and wary about what she's doing.

Rezo has scarring both physical and in the flow of magic. A matured burn scar is on the back of his hand beneath the bandages, and the extensor muscles and the joints at his wrist and between his metacarpals and phalanges are stiff and easily ache.

The flow of magic- ether- isn't precisely blocked but it feels well worn, like a spiritual case of osteoarthritis. Depending on her skill and sensitivity to such things, Deedee might be able to work out that dangerously high amounts of power have been forced through time and time again.]

[There's been a tall, emerald-haired woman both watching and participating in the combat classes through her time here, and while she's thought of approaching the beastkin, shyness keeps winning out. So when said beastkin takes the initiative while Nephenee is watching proceedings, she looks to the redhead with some surprise.]

Oh! Uh...sure...Ah ain't good at it neither, though...not sure how much help Ah'll be...

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First Quest - Recuperate from your time in an Imperial press gang

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3, probably in the vault somewhere

Deedee’s isekai cheat power is that her chiro works

rezo's just suspicious bc chiro hasn't been invented in his world yet

to be fair it is normally very smart to be suspicious of chiro

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gonna toss up a general warning for physical trauma/slavery that may or may not go in depth

2 - combat classes