I hope I've given you enough to work with when you revisit Vancouver Irrealis; it seemed like the most likely direction for that story to have taken. Maybe next year, if we've come up with some good continuations, we could actually revisit one of these places for the whole year?
The reptile The King departed with a smile on his face that Elizabeth found enigmatic and Memnith found, by his expression, infuriating. The two mages shifted Memnith's papers around for a few seconds, trying to find seats, then Memnith opened the door to the study and brought the chairs from there out. They sat down, facing each other, and Elizabeth shivered as the tension flowed out of her and tiredness reasserted itself. "Gates don't misfire," she said. She leaned back in the chair, listening to the wood creak and the legs shift slightly. "Mages do, but Lord Derby is no mage. Plus we know that the gate was opened by device, probably the coin you gave him to return with, so... something interfered with the spell. That takes sophistication." Memnith nodded and rubbed an arm absently with a hand, kneading his biceps. "Demons are magical, but don't use magic," he said. "The King in Yellow is something, and if I know Ernest we're going to have a better idea of what that something is when he comes back, but I find it hard to believe he -- it -- bothers itself with gates to and from Carcosa. So, it looks like someone else is involved who's probably in Carcosa as well." He stood up and paced across the room slowly, each step carefully measured, his eyes fixed on the floor. When he reached the wall he lifted his gaze and stared at it as though offended that it was in his way. "Reptiles," he said. "Lizards?" Elizabeth frowned. "Carcosa's not supposed to have indigenous life," she said. "Except for whatever the King is." "Hah, for an empty wasteland Carcosa is certainly a lot of trouble," said Memnith. "I wonder what it was like when people lived there. But no, I mean Rep-tiles. I have one in here somewhere." "People lived in Carcosa?" Memnith started open drawers in his desk and sorting through boxes, jars, phials of dust and tubes of liquid and all the paraphernalia of a working mage. The items clattered and pinged as he pushed them around, hunting for something small and flat. "People lived in all the Enclaves," he said. "Talk to Meredith sometime, she does all the paperwork for the Archaemageologists. There's a whole theory about cataclysms and how they destroy worlds and create Enclaves." He tried another drawer. "Hah, it was where Labdaris started off, you know? He actually located two new Enclaves." "Did he try to create any?" Elizabeth's tone was acidic. "Not that I know of. Aha!" Memnith produced an envelope and shook a flat, fat-L-shaped piece of iridescent material from it. He set it on the floor between the two chairs and sat down. "Ceramic?" Elizabeth was gently probing it with the Power. "Woah, that's like a sink! I can feel it sucking at the Power." "More like a capacitor," said Memnith. "Watch." He did something with the Power that Elizabeth couldn't follow, and the rep-tile expanded slightly, creating four more copies of itself that tessellated into the original shape. Each then repeated that, and then all sixteen new pieces repeated it as well. "Oh," said Elizabeth, entranced by what the Power showed her: a kaleidoscopic web of strands, some tensed and others relaxed. "And what do we do with this?" "Find out what happened to that gate."
2 comments:
I hope I've given you enough to work with when you revisit Vancouver Irrealis; it seemed like the most likely direction for that story to have taken. Maybe next year, if we've come up with some good continuations, we could actually revisit one of these places for the whole year?
The reptile
The King departed with a smile on his face that Elizabeth found enigmatic and Memnith found, by his expression, infuriating. The two mages shifted Memnith's papers around for a few seconds, trying to find seats, then Memnith opened the door to the study and brought the chairs from there out. They sat down, facing each other, and Elizabeth shivered as the tension flowed out of her and tiredness reasserted itself.
"Gates don't misfire," she said. She leaned back in the chair, listening to the wood creak and the legs shift slightly. "Mages do, but Lord Derby is no mage. Plus we know that the gate was opened by device, probably the coin you gave him to return with, so... something interfered with the spell. That takes sophistication."
Memnith nodded and rubbed an arm absently with a hand, kneading his biceps. "Demons are magical, but don't use magic," he said. "The King in Yellow is something, and if I know Ernest we're going to have a better idea of what that something is when he comes back, but I find it hard to believe he -- it -- bothers itself with gates to and from Carcosa. So, it looks like someone else is involved who's probably in Carcosa as well." He stood up and paced across the room slowly, each step carefully measured, his eyes fixed on the floor. When he reached the wall he lifted his gaze and stared at it as though offended that it was in his way. "Reptiles," he said.
"Lizards?" Elizabeth frowned. "Carcosa's not supposed to have indigenous life," she said. "Except for whatever the King is."
"Hah, for an empty wasteland Carcosa is certainly a lot of trouble," said Memnith. "I wonder what it was like when people lived there. But no, I mean Rep-tiles. I have one in here somewhere."
"People lived in Carcosa?"
Memnith started open drawers in his desk and sorting through boxes, jars, phials of dust and tubes of liquid and all the paraphernalia of a working mage. The items clattered and pinged as he pushed them around, hunting for something small and flat.
"People lived in all the Enclaves," he said. "Talk to Meredith sometime, she does all the paperwork for the Archaemageologists. There's a whole theory about cataclysms and how they destroy worlds and create Enclaves." He tried another drawer. "Hah, it was where Labdaris started off, you know? He actually located two new Enclaves."
"Did he try to create any?" Elizabeth's tone was acidic.
"Not that I know of. Aha!" Memnith produced an envelope and shook a flat, fat-L-shaped piece of iridescent material from it. He set it on the floor between the two chairs and sat down.
"Ceramic?" Elizabeth was gently probing it with the Power. "Woah, that's like a sink! I can feel it sucking at the Power."
"More like a capacitor," said Memnith. "Watch." He did something with the Power that Elizabeth couldn't follow, and the rep-tile expanded slightly, creating four more copies of itself that tessellated into the original shape. Each then repeated that, and then all sixteen new pieces repeated it as well.
"Oh," said Elizabeth, entranced by what the Power showed her: a kaleidoscopic web of strands, some tensed and others relaxed. "And what do we do with this?"
"Find out what happened to that gate."
Greg - I've got various thoughts about next year already, and that is one of them :)
Man, still enjoying this. So much. Looking forward to what comes next, as always.
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