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

[lightnovelexperiences]

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…]

Comments

2

[fuckthatdragon]

[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?

Re: 2

[lightnovelexperiences]

[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.

[fuckthatdragon]

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?

[lightnovelexperiences]

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.

[fuckthatdragon]

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?

[lightnovelexperiences]

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?

[fuckthatdragon]

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.

[lightnovelexperiences]

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?

[fuckthatdragon]

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.

[lightnovelexperiences]

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.

[fuckthatdragon]

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?

[lightnovelexperiences]

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

[deedee no]

[fuckthatdragon]

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!]

[lightnovelexperiences]

[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.

[fuckthatdragon]

[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.