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Post by Tiger on Sept 3, 2014 21:52:36 GMT -5
“You’re not going to die, Sieg,” Leif insisted. “Nobody’s getting left behind.” But what if - Leif stifled the voice before it could form into a more coherent thought. He should get back to the spell, soon… Leif’s concerns about the spell, though, were quickly replaced when the half-elf started shivering. Was he really feeling that emotional about the topic of conversation? He sounded calm enough...but… "Leif, are you d-doing something to the magic? I'm f-f-freezing all of a sudden."Leif bolted upright, nearly knocking the chair over. “No - I’m not touching it at all.” He quickly dove into the spellwork, snarling at the other archmage’s magic as it crackled at his return. Nothing was firing off, no traps had been triggered, the shield was holding - “It’s not the spell - so - “ He looked back at Sieg, covered in blood-stained bandages and paler than the sheets around him. Leif swore. Years of training in Our Woo of Charity and he hadn’t recognized signs of shock and dehydration from blood loss - the priests would have killed him. He’d thought the healer would have - well, clearly, she hadn’t. Though, Sieg was also sweating...did he have a fever, too? Oh, ‘Woo - you cool down for a fever but treating the shock means keeping him warm… The shock was the more important danger, Leif decided. The fever wasn’t great news, but when and if the healer returned, she could help regulate the half-elf temperature and keep it...even. Okay. All right. Leif went to the cabinet in the corner of the room, and found they still kept blankets there. He brought one back to Sieg, hesitating a moment - but Sieg’s wounds were all bandaged, the blanket wasn’t likely to draw out more blood...he sincerely hoped. Leif draped the blanket over the knight as gently as he could while still moving quickly. “You have a fever and I think you’re going into shock,” Leif explained, his voice surprisingly even despite the situation. He reached back into the closet, found a pillowcase, and started tearing it into strips. “I’m going to try and balance them both out.” Where was the healer? Leif really needed a pair of hands to do the medical things here so he could get back to the spell - once the curse was broken, this could all be spellcast away… Leif found a bowl on the little table where the healer’s potions sat; he cast a quick spell to clean the bowl, then filled it with cold water from his wand, and for good measure added a few chunks of ice with bursts of glacius before draping the strips of pillowcase over the side. They would hopefully absorb the water well enough to be good for cooling Sieg down. He’d just started going through the potions when the door opened again. The healer entered the room with a broom and a scowl; the later quickly vanished when she did a double-take at the blanketed knight and the archmage rifling through her potions. “What - “ Leif held up a potion. “The blood-replenishing potions - “ “Don’t work. The spell - “ “Fruit juice, then - I know it won’t do much but he needs something - can you get someone to fetch it for you instead of leaving? He’s got a fever out of nowhere and he’s going into shock, and I can’t manage that and - “ “You’re supposed to be working on the curse,” the healer finished, managing to still make it sound like an order. She all but tossed the broom into the corner and stepped out into the hallway for a moment, calling someone over. Leif let her take over the table again when she stepped back into the room, and turned back to the spell. In which Tiger hopes she got the medical details right BD Leif does first aid for shock and fever and tells healer lady to get some fruit juice. For Sieg, not Leif. Obviously.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 3, 2014 23:19:34 GMT -5
Sieg was startled when Leif jumped up, and tried to sit up a bit, but found that he couldn't. He was physically too weak to push himself up anymore, even with the burst of adrenaline from Leif's reaction. He finally gave up and fell back into the pillow again, hugging himself in a vain effort to stop his frantic shivering. In spite of the cold that was wracking him, his skin felt uncomfortable hot, like a branding iron. Leif went to a cabinet on the other end of the room, and emerged with a blanket. " You have a fever and I think you’re going into shock," the mage explained as he draped the blanket over Sieg's body. The knight's eyes widened. "Oh," he rasped. "That's... that's bad." Like all knights, Sieg had some very basic training in first aid. He needed it in the event he took a combat wound and no one was available to treat it for him. So he knew that if he was going into shock, he was hovering perilously close to the edge. And if he had a fever on top of that... The blanket helped, a bit. He was still shivering badly, and his head pounded like a drum, but his own rocketing body temperature quickly filled the space inside the blanket so that he wasn't freezing anymore. For a time he lost track of what Leif was doing, preoccupied by his own exhaustion and misery. Then, he felt something cold and wet being pressed against his head, and opened his eyes to see that the healer had returned. "How are you feeling?" she asked, taking his wrist between her fingers to feel his pulse as she spoke. Sieg moaned softly. "My h-head aches. I'm cold, but hot at the same time." He leaned into whatever she was holding against his head; it felt nice. "You're right, he's definitely shocky," she said with a frown. "His pulse is way too fast. Woo above, how did I miss... Never mind. Sir Braham, we're going to bring you something to drink, and then I need you to stay awake. No matter how tired you get, you have to try to stay awake, understand?" Sieg winced a little. More then anything he wanted to not be awake. He was exhausted, cold, and his head felt like someone was slamming it with a hammer. But he muttered, "I'll try." A few minutes later he felt a cup being held up to his mouth, and he let the healer sit him up so that he could drink whatever it was. His tongue was so parched he barely tasted it, and when he was permitted to lay flat again he looked up at Leif- from his position it seemed he was already attacking the curse again. Though the half-elf found his eyes starting to go out of focus, and he couldn't make out exactly what the archmage was doing. Dimly he realized something was wrong; he was starting to feel that pulsing again, and dribblets of the curse's sticky energy. He tried to say something, but his mouth was too dry to get the words out and the healer had turned away to do something at the table. Desperately he reached out hot, feverish hand, and grabbed Leif's sleeve to get his attention. Desperation lit his amber eyes as he tried to mouth a warning. Long story short, Sieg is getting into end-stage dehydration from critical blood loss. He's no longer totally coherent, though he is trying to stay awake so that the healer (and Leif) can tell he hasn't lost so much blood yet that he physically can't stay conscious. Then he realizes he can feel something wrong; the pounding is starting up again, and that stickiness he associates with someone trying to tamper with the curse. He can't verbalize anymore, so he tries to grab Leif (hopefully not shaking him out of concentrating anything too important! Yeah, you're an idiot Sieg) and mouth at him what's wrong.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 4, 2014 15:09:55 GMT -5
Back into the curse Leif went, praying that he could trust the healer to keep Sieg’s condition stable. There wasn’t much time left, and he still had a lot of spellcraft to work through. Leif found the main branch again, still highlighted in gold, and started working his way up the chain. The latching chain had to devolve into something else, and sure enough, the runes eventually transmuted to a repeating pattern, a set of stable runes designed to be tough to break or nullify. Most curses didn’t have a stabilizing chain this long - it was longer than the latching chain itself. That meant the runes would be even harder to break, strengthened by the repetition of the patterns the way a sword was made stronger for its repeated heating and cooling. This was where crippling the attachments to the curse was vital; the stabilizing chain would have to incorporate other runes into its pattern in order to join those spells to it. Prying those spells away was like pulling out a tooth and exposing the roots, and breaking the roots was Leif’s chance to get runes into the stabilizing chain, weakening it and perhaps even destroying pieces of it outright. This curse, however, was going to be more complicated. The higher up the chain Leif went, the more tendrils of the other archmage’s magic he found. Using his own magic, Leif might be able to pry the coils away, but he wasn’t sure that was a good idea - the enemy magic seemed to grow agitated when Leif fussed at it. There were a few traps along the stabilizing chain, too, but most were hooks without much definition, keyed for what seemed to be random runes. Leif sliced these away as he went, his lip curling as he drew close to the asynchronous pulse of the other archmage’s magic. But none of that offered a solution to the real problem. How is it stopping the healing - stopping any healing? Healing spells don’t work even if you get around the trap - blood-replenishing potions don’t work - it’s not even letting the knights’ bodies heal themselves...how does it do that? How does it always know? There had to be an answer somewhere… Leif followed one of the spells attached to the stabilizing chain, lured by the coil of archmage magic running through it. The magic strands wove thickly through these runes, but Leif eventually parsed them and realized it was a duplication spell. What was a duplication spell doing in a curse? The spell only worked on nonliving items, and even then, small ones, and even then, the duplicated item disappeared eventually. And to put it in a curse didn’t make sense - like episky, the duplicating spell was active, not passive. It struck once, then no more. Unless there was a trigger somewhere - Leif saw no hooks, but the magic laced through the runes was leading somewhere… Leif followed the pulse, the sense of an out-of-sync tempo pounding in his ears. For a moment he was aware of a strange warmth on his upper arm, but refused to draw himself out of the spell to consider it. The magic led to another nest of messy, gnarled spellwork; two run chains had been staked together and Leif felt the pressure of a headache as he looked at it; the stakes of archmage magic killed some of the runes, leaving the remaining ones to run in a hopping sort of chain - a rune on the bottom would fire off a rune on the top and so on. Some of the runes weren’t meant to be beside each other - there was a physical wrongness to them. Ignoring the growing headache that came just from looking at the combination, Leif tried to figure out what it was supposed to do. Many...make many? Many find? Syntactically it made no sense… Focus - you have to piece it together. Make many...find many? There’s the chain for the duplication spell...hooked to find, why is it hooked to find? Find duplicates? That isn’t going to work, duplicates of what ? Iis this junk spell? But there was so much archmage magic hooked into this...Leif forced himself to keep reading. The next rune...no, the next rune s, the spell was casting two at the same time, in the same spell...the hairs on the back of Leif’s neck prickled. Switch and...more? More what? Switch to what?The top line of runes went on - they described a hook, but it was set for an entire chain of specific runes, not just any one or two runes in particular. A nasty snarl of archmage magic was driven like a bolt through the place where the result of the hook snaring something should have been. So what happened when the hook found something? Several ties of archmage magic dangled from the bolt of magic. Leif followed them...and found himself back at the duplication spell. The hook was the trigger? But what was it giving to the duplication spell? Did the archmage magic have some sort of description hidden inside it? Leif let it alone for now, returning momentarily to the bottom set of runes. His frown deepened and a cold churning began in his stomach as he read. There was a familiar structure to it - almost - almost like the similarity in name between ‘Corvus’ and ‘Courdon’ - it had something to do with a root word that both territories had used when naming themselves. It had that feeling of recognition - but also the feeling of comparing Corvid and Courdonian culture and finding the later vile and hateful and just wrong at some base level. It looked like a healing spell. It was a complete perversion of a healing spell. The pieces were all in place, but they’d been distorted, and other spells and even individual runes had been chained to them. There was the piece of the spell that searched for injury. Each of the known Sanwootur prefixes had been stitched to the segment of spellwork - Leif spotted calidus, vulnera, and contusa almost at once - so it could find any kind of surface injury. And attached to all of that was a huge, ugly wad of the other archmage’s magic. The sticky magic. Leif searched for and found the part of the spell that was supposed to actually heal - two of the spells chained to it would clash when fired - and in clashing, they would neutralize the work of the healing runes. All of this was stitched to another summoning charm. Find the wounds, smother them with sticky magic...and pull. The clash of the spells stopping the healing would even produce a little heat. That didn’t explain everything - like the duplication spell, or why blood-replenishing potions weren’t working, but Leif guessed that was in the other spells and runes patchworked into this...this anti-healing spell. Leif raised his wand to draw those spells closer - and was suddenly interrupted by a hot grasp on his sleeve. Leif twitched in surprise and turned - his pupils had contracted at some point, probably from being too close to the glowing runes, and he felt them dilate again. His arm was bleeding - at least one of the scars there had torn open. When did that… Leif suddenly remembered the warmth he’d noticed earlier. The blood was probably soaking through his sleeve by now. Speaking of sleeves - Sieg had been the one to grab Leif’s. The knight mouthed something, Leif couldn’t quite read what - but he realized, suddenly, that the pounding in his head hadn’t retreated when he’d left the spell. The other archmage’s magic was stronger than it should be...Leif looked back to the curse, the whole curse this time, and realized with horror that it had been at work just as much as Leif had. Leif plunged back into the spellwork - his shield on the latch chain was failing, the enemy magic sticking to it and slowly pulling it away and apart, free to trickle back through the bottom to get to Sieg. Leif told the magic to do something very inappropriate, and shattered a piece of his own shield to pour fresh magic into the gap. He had to fight harder against the magic this time, and every rebound hurt, like someone was striking metal right next to his ear at an of-course somehow inherently off-beatt rhythm. Distantly, Leif felt fresh blood trailing down his cheek and falling from his chin. He tried to form another wing-like shape, but the other archmage’s magic was quick to seize at it - the inside was too smooth. Think - stop it from getting a grip - Leif suddenly had an idea, and destroyed a little more of the old shield to make room for the runes. Since the coronation, Leif had learned a spell that made snatching vines - it wasn’t only the other archmage’s magic that could form coils and tendrils. The clashing magics still hurt - maybe more so now that Leif’s vines were actively seeking out and seizing the other archmage’s magic. I shouldn’t have given it that extra power… He ignored it as best he could, returning his attention to finishing the new wing shield, and repairing the first where he could. Finally, Leif drew back from the spell, leaning heavily on the cot for a moment. The pull ached in nonexistant muscles almost up to his elbow - there hadn’t even been the usual ache in his fingers first, had the fight really taken that much out of him? No chance to rest yet - “Did that stop it?” he asked Sieg. Back to magic textwalls! Leif finds the anti-healing spell, or at least the heart of it, but isn’t able to finish reading it before Sieg grabs his arm, alerting Leif to the fact that the socioparchmage’s magic is doing something, that something being ‘breaking through the shield’. Leif tries to fix it, and possibly does, though at the cost of going from zero to ‘almost to the elbows’ in pull. This can only end in good!
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Post by Shinko on Sept 4, 2014 18:39:18 GMT -5
Sieg realized that the sleeve he was gripping was damp and tacky. His jaw tightened, and tried to force his bleary eyes to focus on the archmage's arm. The tan cloth was streaked with crimson, and Sieg knew that it wasn't his blood because Leif hadn't touched him directly once since arriving. Why was Leif bleeding? Sieg remember that the archmage's face had been bleeding a while ago as well. Had Sieg's curse somehow latched onto Leif too? Leif seemed to realize what Sieg was trying to tell him, because he cursed softly and suddenly that feather-soft buffer was back. It was clear, however, that things were not going nearly as well this time. Threads of the stickiness were getting past the buffer, and Sieg gasped involuntarily as his nerves prickled with pain; faint foreshadowing of the attack that would inevitably come if Leif couldn't stop the magic getting through. Finally the feather-shield shoved the stickiness back, and Leif fell forwards so that he was leaning on the side of Sieg's cot. "Did that stop it?" he asked. The half elf nodded carefully, trying not to set his aching head head pounding again. "Here," the healer said shortly, shoving a sweet roll slathered in honey at Leif. "You're wearing yourself out, it's painfully obvious. The sugar will help." A rough sympathy crept into her voice as she added, "None of the rest of us could have done half what you've managed in scarcely an hour, even if you've been rushing it like a student who doesn't care for studying.” She peeled the cloth off of Sieg's head, replacing it with a freshly cooled one. A shudder ran down his back as the compress touched his skin. It was one of the few sensations he was enduring at the moment that was actually pleasant. “Can you drink some more?” she asked him, and he nodded. She propped the knight up, and helped him drink another cup of juice. Once he was lying flat again, Sieg pointed urgently at Leif's arm, trying to say something but unable to even produce a dry whisper because he was panting so hard. The healer gave Leif's bloody sleeve a scrutinizing look. “You need to stem that, sir Archmage. The last thing you need is to get dizzy from blood loss before you can crack the magic.” She moved towards the cabinet where Leif had produced the blanket to get some bandages for the archmage's arm. Meanwhile, Sieg looked in Leif's direction with concern. Would he even be able to break the curse without exhausting himself? If he did exhaust himself, what would happen to the other knights who were still cursed? Would it be this difficult to remove every time? If he was bleeding, did that mean Leif was cursed now too? These questions fluttered aimlessly in the half-elf's fever wracked brain, making it ache all the more. Just thinking was an enormous effort. Sieg closed his eyes momentarily, trying to collect himself, but that was the wrong thing to do. His ragged breathing slowed somewhat, and his overheated limbs were weighed down as if by lead. He felt himself losing consciousness, and jerked his eyes back open, only for them to flutter again. Leif's attempt to repair the shield on the latch works, and the healer gives him some sugary food to help replenish a little of the energy he's expending. She also takes care of Sieg, changing his cold compress and giving him more juice to drink. It doesn't seem to do a lot of good though, because Sieg's mind is getting more and more clouded and he's starting to lose the fight to stay awake.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 5, 2014 11:37:02 GMT -5
Leif didn’t feel hungry, but he took a bite of the offered sweet roll anyway. The sugar would do him some good, and he needed every bit of energy he could scrape together. Especially if it was that obvious he was already feeling the strain. “It’s been an hour?” he asked, only processing that bit of information after he’d swallowed. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised it had been that long, or only that long. “I might’ve found it,” Leif told them. “There’re more spells attached to it and I still have to figure out how to break it, but there’s a sort of...it’s structured like a healing spell, and it’s using parts of it to find injuries. I still need to look at it more, but - we’re almost there, I think. Almost there.” He finished the rest of the sweet roll while the healer helped Sieg; the half-elf didn’t seem to be getting much from the juice. Leif started to raise his wand to get back to the spell, but Sieg suddenly pointed intently to Leif’s arm. The mage looked down, confused for a moment until he saw that some of the blood from his upper arm had trailed down his sleeve. “You need to stem that, sir Archmage. The last thing you need is to get dizzy from blood loss before you can crack the magic.”“It’s…” Leif looked back down at the blood. He wanted to say it was fine, and that he wasn’t even sure binding it would do anything, but there was a lot of blood. As quickly as possible, Leif took off his halfcloak and rolled up his shirt sleeve. When he peeled the bloody fabric back from the scars, he found that only two of the three had split apart. They must have gushed extra blood the way the scar under his eye had, to soak his sleeve so thoroughly. At least the third scar was still closed, so Leif could be reasonably sure the curse hadn’t settled upon him as well. Yet. Leif bandaged the scars as quickly as he could, glad for the practice he’d had in doing this at the church, even if his hands were a little out of practice. “It’s just being around this other archmage’s magic,” Leif muttered by way of explanation. “I don’t think it’s the curse itself. They’ll stop bleeding and heal like they never opened at some point.” At least, that was what had always happened in the past. Leif wiped at his face with an extra scrap of bandage and glanced at Sieg before returning to the spell. The half-elf was already having trouble keeping his eyes open. “He’s fading,” Leif warned the healer. “Keep him steady, I’m going back into the curse.” He had to break this thing - now. He went back to where he’d been before the shield failed - staring at the abomination of a spell and examining the mystery rune chains attached to it. Leif knew how it found the wounds - glancing at that part of the spell, he saw a seeker for scars attached to it, too, usually used in spells for temporarily [i[covering[/i] scars. He knew how it re-opened the wounds. But how did the curse know when the wounds were being healed? In theory, the spell Leif had tried earlier should have held, even if it didn’t seal the wounds completely. The blood-replenishing potions should have been working. What told the curse the wounds were repairing? The hook - the one that comes after that “switch many” stake? What were the runes it was looking for? Leif went back to the hook and drew the runes closer. Every one of the shapes was wreathed in the other archmage’s magic; it was like trying to read through fire, and like fire it made Leif’s eyes burn a little as he read.. ...Find...edge...hook edge...return? Blinking rapidly, he examined the hook more closely. It looked like the hooks on the latching chain. But...why?Leif drew back from the spell. Anti-healing - a hook for a second, flesh-grabbing hook - duplication - make many find many - switch and more - ...Not more, maybe - maybe add ? Add - what came after it, the hook? The hook to the latching hooks? And the tail was supposed to go to the duplicate spell… It shouldn’t have been possible, that wasn’t how the duplication spell worked - but the hook’s tail was attached to the duplication spell by coils of archmage magic, and as far as Leif could tell, that magic didn’t have to follow any sort of logic or pattern. So duplicate a bunch of hooks...each one with a latching hook inside it, each one sent to find the edge, hook to the edge...the edge of a wound? But how did they find it? They weren’t attached to the magic for - Yes, yes they are - the stake at the switching rune - switch between making the hooks and casting the anti-healing spell - the anti-healing spell finds the wounds; the hooks go to the wounds and sit at the edges....Then what? Leif went back to the runes for the first hook. Return - when the latch gets removed, it returns...what then, there’s no hooks for - oh! Find many! It’s actively searching for them to be returned - that shouldn’t work either, but - The archmage’s magic was surrounding the runes for the latching hooks - again, just about anything was possible. So when one of those duplicate hooks gets nudged out of place, it comes back, and the spell rips it back apart - when the skin starts pulling together or a wound gets a rush of blood from a blood-replenishing potion, that must be enough to dislodge them - and then the spell finds the wounds, covers them with archmage magic, rips the wounds open again, and then makes a bunch of new hooks, sends them to the edges of the wounds…“I’ve got it, I see how it works,” he told the others. He had no idea how long it had been - five minutes, fifteen? Longer, shorter? “I just need to break it - hold on, Sieg, just a little longer.” To make a long story short: the curse works by using a bunch of little rune chains that hook onto the edge of a wound; when those hooks are jostled out of position by the flesh starting to heal (even a little bit), they return to the curse and trigger it to re-fire the spell that finds wounds and scars, drapes them in the sticky archmage magic, and pulls them back open, before it creates more hooks to settle right back into those wound-edges. Now that Leif knows how the spell works, he can start figuring out how to break it...assuming nothing drastic happens to distract him, of course.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 5, 2014 15:37:33 GMT -5
“He’s fading,” Leif warned the healer. “Keep him steady, I’m going back into the curse.” The healer, who had been wetting more strips of the torn pillowcase, glanced around at these words. A curse escaped her lips, and she put a hand to the knight's wrist. His pulse was fast, but very weak, and his eyes were completely unfocused. She put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him. “Sir Braham? Sir Braham you need to stay awake, stay with me. Focus on my voice, can you hear me?” Sieg turned his eyes towards the healer's voice, but he couldn't make out much more then vague colors and shapes. The glance seemed to confirm that he could hear, however, because she started speaking again. “I need you to stay awake, alright? Try to concentrate on something. Can you list the members of your family? Try to list them for me, if you can't speak just mouth it.” The half elf was glad she'd asked for that, he probably wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything more elaborate. His mouth moved slightly, not really forming anything perceptible, though in his mind the names lined up clearly enough. Ophelia, Belial, Morgaine, Morgaine's father Grandpa Bryce, Belial's parents Grandma Sabine and Grandpa Harald... Belial and Bryce were both dead, but the rest of Sieg's relatives were still alive. What would they think, to hear him gone? Mama and Phee in particular, they would be crushed. But he was so tired. His eyelids were unbearably heavy, and everything hurt so much. It was like there was a fog in his brain, a fog of darkness that was slowly but inexorably drawing him under. He must have stopped mouthing names, because the healer shook his shoulder again. “Stop that! Stop fading, you are a knight, you have a job to do! Are you going to abandon your duty, Sir Braham?” The words reached Sieg's ears, but he barely registered them. His duty? What did she mean by that? He wanted to ask her, but that took more effort then he could muster. Everything was swimming around him, and it hurt to keep his eyes open. He wasn't supposed to close them, but he couldn't remember why nor did he have the energy to care. The pain and chill was very distant now, and when he felt the healer shaking his shoulder again he realized her voice was distant too. She shook him harder, and his head rolled limply on his neck. When she shook him a fourth time, he was no longer conscious. “Curse it all...” she said softly. She glanced up at Leif, who was parsing the spell runes. If it weren't for the curse she could reverse the damage easily, but as it stood there was very little she could do. Taking more strips of the pillowcase, she wrapped them around the undamaged parts of his skin, trying to bring his rocketing temperature back down to spare what little moisture he had left. His breathing was painfully shallow, and the time between each breath was longer and longer. “ I’ve got it, I see how it works,” Leif said suddenly. “ I just need to break it - hold on, Sieg, just a little longer. ” “He can't hear you,” the healer said. “He's barely breathing, and I've done everything I can at this-” Her voice died as she realized that it had been painfully long since she saw his chest move. The healer took his wrist in her hands, and felt for that thin, rapid pulse. All she felt was moist, clammy skin. “His heart stopped,” she muttered. “It's... it's stopped. He's gone. You almost had it, he'd have been fine... Days I've been keeping him alive, why couldn't he make it just a few more minutes? Great Woo above, just a few more minutes-” No summary for you. You have to read it.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 5, 2014 18:50:13 GMT -5
“He can't hear you,” the healer said. Leif spun toward her and sure enough, Sieg was unconscious. Leif felt his heart knocking hard against his chest. But - but he still had a little time, he had to - if Leif could just break this and heal Sieg’s wounds, the half-elf would be fine - He barely heard the healer’s next words, but he realized when she cut herself off that something was wrong. The woman took Sieg’s wrist in her hand... “His heart stopped. It's... it's stopped. He's gone.”Leif’s ears filled with a high-pitched whine and he stepped back from the table, his wand arm going slack. Sieg was still, unnaturally still...Leif had seen death before, but never someone he knew - never a friend - “... No… No, Sieg, I had it - I - ” He’d almost had it - he had the spell pieces, he’d found it - he could have broken it apart, he’d only needed to see where it was weak - What was he going to tell Morgaine? Sieg had survived gryphons and a dragon and Courdonian slave-raiders and - he couldn’t be - gone, he couldn’t be gone, it was a curse, just a jumble of spells and Leif was an archmage and he’d been so close - if - if he’d been a few minutes faster, if he hadn’t tried fighting through the trap, if he’d come back to Solis instead of staying in Medieville - what was he going to tell Morgaine? “There - we have to - there must be something…” He raised his wand, his arm shaking, his entire body shaking. But what was there to do? Leif knew a spell to kill a person instantly - but he couldn’t bring somebody back… The healer looked up at him; Leif was only peripherally aware of the motion. “The curse is still there? The other knights will need it broken...can you still figure out how to break it?” The curse. Leif turned toward it, fresh grief becoming raw, anguished rage. He felt something crack inside him and the tears welled in his eyes evaporated. Leif could have sworn the archmagery threaded through the curse flinched. He could feel the magical vines in the shield thrash and squeeze pieces of the other magic until it shattered. His final scar split open. This ugly, repulsive abomination of a curse, this anathema to the sacred magic of healing, these snarled, cruel runes in their repugnant and sadistic combinations, and the loathful, abhorrent blasphemy of archmage’s magic coursing through it had murdered one of his best friends. Could he break it? Oh yes. Leif could tear it apart, wreath his hands with magic and turn them into talons, cut every coil of archmage magic and rip away every spell branch and wrench the hooks out, until the curse fell apart into so many broken runes and broken spell chains and the entire curse ate itself and somewhere wherever the archmage’s spirit was burning he would feel it and know the same pain - But it’s too late - it won’t help Sieg.Leif turned away - but that was a mistake because his eyes landed instead on Sieg. Still exactly as he’d been left - so unnaturally still...Leif had seen bodies in the church but he’d never really known the owners of their spirits…The healer gently started to put Sieg’s hands over his chest. “Wait!” Leif gasped, the sound raw and wet as if it had been pried from the walls of his lungs. “Wait - I - I need to try - “ He pointed his wand at the half-elf. “There’s nothing you can do,” the healer said placatingly. “I - I was trained at Our Woo of Charity, and they - they knew how to - how to make hearts start again!” “But the curse - “ Leif moved Sieg’s hand aside, his stomach squeezing so tightly it hurt at the complete lack of resistance. “What else can it do?” “Snare you, for one,” the healer protested. “Let it try,” Leif snarled, and something in his tone either convinced the healer he wasn’t going to be swayed or that trying to do so was not a good idea right now. Even if she had protested, Leif wasn’t listening. He pointed his wand at Sieg’s chest and forced a breath into his lungs, forced his wand hand to steady. The runes fell together in his mind; Leif didn’t think he’d be able to speak the trigger words, but he was an archmage - he didn’t need words to cast spells, just his will. The pull tugged up past his elbows as Leif cast the spell. A small bolt of green lightning so pale it was almost white leaped from Leif’s wand and disappeared into Sieg’s chest. ”There is only one thing we say to death: ’Not today’!”
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Post by Shinko on Sept 5, 2014 19:48:03 GMT -5
The healer wanted to protest, but she could see that Leif wasn't going to listen. It had been fairly obvious by the way that the knight and the archmage interacted that they knew each other, and with both of them addressing each other by their first names it was obviously a friendly relationship. They needed Leif's help to save the rest of the knights, but they weren't going to get it if he was distraught over his friend's death and guilt ridden over the fact that he hadn't tried everything he could. To her astonishment, the lightening actually hit Sieg's chest- all of the healing spells that they'd cast except for the archmage's had stopped short of the knight's skin. The half-elf's limp body jerked a little and the muscles in his face spasmed. His chest rose... and fell... and rose... and fell. “He's... he's breathing,” the healer said, aghast. She took the knight's wrist between her fingers, and sure enough she felt a faint pulse under his skin. It was weak, it was painfully weak, but- “The murderer must not have known about that spell,” she breathed. “He must not have worked it into the snares... Archmage, I don't know how you managed to find such a miraculous loophole, but he's still blood starved and dehydrated. You need to break the curse now or we'll just lose him again.” Tick tock, Leif.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 5, 2014 21:32:11 GMT -5
Leif waited, breathless, not daring to let himself believe the electric jolt had worked until the half-elf took a fourth breath. ”“He's... he's breathing .” Leif let out his breath and a strangled noise halfway between a hysterical laugh and a sob. Several strong emotions battered at him for a brief second - relief and terror and pride and hope and a delayed shot of grief that he hadn’t had time time to fully absorb or fend off. The healer’s voice brought his attention back to the matter at hand. Like the touch of ice, her reminder brought all of Leif’s senses to a sharp focus. With a brief nod, the archmage turned back to the curse. For the last time, he went into the spellwork, wand and free hand both pulling at the runes. In his ears and under his skin the asynchronous pounding was stronger than ever. He felt some of the vines within the shield protecting Sieg shatter apart, and with less conscious effort than sheer furious will, he threw more of his magic into it, forcing the vine runes aside to make way for the construct of talons and a sharp head with a curved and ferocious beak. He didn’t dare let a single drop of that foul energy get to Sieg now. Back to the spell - the hooks and the anti-healing spell and the chains to the duplication spell€. Much as Leif wanted to simply cut away the spell causing the tearing, it was linked too strongly. The duplication spell was linked to the rest by multiple coils of archmage magic - but the spell itself was distant and isolated by both distance and a plethora of other runes. Junk runes, Leif saw - the archmage or his magic or both had tried to hide this functional spell. There was a weakness to every strength. Leif darted through the clutter, attaching his own runes to the junk ones. Caeyr to Mahl, Dov to Kra, Tav to Ayir, Ayir to Sar, Sar to Dov to Yai to Rek to Aoes… Behind Leif, the runes started to glow sickly, and the runes they surrounded - those of the duplicating spell included - started to shudder. Some blackened, others grew brittle and cracked, or steamed, or frayed like rope… Leif tied Lohn to Bry, and suddenly as rain from a Corvus sky, the runes shattered or crumbled or snapped, vanishing before their splintered pieces could hit the ground. Leif could hear a sound like claws on glass, but for all he knew the room was silent as before, except for Sieg’s breathing. Not all of the duplication spell was gone, but the runes the coils had locked into had vanished. Before the coils could worm to a new part of the spell, Leif threw up his hand and a shield whirled around them, locking the ends of the coils into a pod of Leif’s magic. He clenched his hand into a fist and imagined spikes forming inside the pod. Judging by the jerks of pain in his chest, he had succeeded. Getting rid of the duplication spell left the hook on the staked spell - the one that caught the returning latch-hooks - frazzled but not broken. There weren’t enough junk runes around this for Leif to simply wear them apart with conflicting magics, but he didn’t entirely want this piece destroyed just yet. Unstaked, however - that he badly needed. He could make another shield to wrench the stake free...or a cutting blade to slice it...or maybe.. Leif summoned the pod holding the coils of the other archmage’s magic, and slammed it into the stake. The clash of magics was enough to make Leif flinch, but he recovered quickly. The enemy magic had seized onto Leif’s pod, which he’d expected, but the stake had cracked from the impact. Leif flexed his fingers, and willed some of the pod’s outer skin to flood into the crack. Just as the roots of a growing plant pushed stone apart, so did the rushing magic stretch and lengthen the crack - Just before the spike shattered, Leif pointed his wand at Sieg and cast Vulnera Sanwootur without even breathing the words - he wouldn’t have had time, he had to cut the spell off instantly to avoid the snare, almost before any light flared from his wand - The stake ripped apart with a nails-on-glass shriek.It tried to rejoin itself but of course, Leif’s magic stuck to the broken ends of the stake and they could not reconnect. Leif sealed those ends into the pod as well, turning it into a three-pronged monstrosity. Filled with spikes. The lower spell was trying to destabilize - the upper spell was retrieving the latching hooks, summoned from Sieg’s wounds by the nudge of Leif’s briefest of healing spells. But without the stake, the switch rune couldn’t move to the anti-healing spell that found the wounds. It was trying to make more latching hooks but the duplication spell was gone - the temperature of the room rose a few degrees. Leif had to stop the lower spell from devolving - there was space for runes now, and he hastily flooded it with runes to start a destruction chain. Tav to Sar to Dov to Tav to Sar to Dov - he went back and filled in the rest of the runes, the ones that clashed with their neighbors- Tav to Ayir to Sar, Sar to Kra to Dov, to Tav to Ayir to Sar - The anti-healing spell burned, he could smell something like rot but if rot were a spice - the other archmage’s magic, scorching along with the runes? Leif left it to sear and crackle with an uncomfortable popping noise. The upper spell was burning, too, but from too many rune chains gathered and with nowhere to go rather than any direct intervention from Leif.. Leif had less room here than on the lower spell, with the rune chains spilling into every available space, but there were still some places for Leif to flood with junk runes that cooled the room by a degree or two and sat in the spaces, taking up room. The latching hooks kept gathering, and were ferried to increasingly distant gaps in the spell. Back to the lower spell - it still burned slowly, the anti-healing spell stubbornly clinging to life. There was no easy way to undo a healing spell - hence this curse’s existence and complexity, but looking over the structure, Leif had an idea. Maybe it was born slightly more of spite then of logic - but the runes backed him up. He erased some of his junk runes, and replaced them with those for a true healing spell. The two junk spells that gave off heat sparked in the presence of the familiar runes, but they couldn’t eliminate the healing runes without being directly attached to them - so they flared over and over, burning the spell and the magic they were connected to. One of the spells suddenly flared and burned away. Leif plunged into the open space like a shark after blood and laid another series of destabilizing runes. The anti-healing spell shook and pain lanced through Leif’s head as he looked at it, but by every feather on the Lord Woo’s holy wings he was not giving in! Leif slashed through the bond to the second junk spell - it barely lasted a blink before being swallowed into the destabilizing runes, now twisted to work against the rest of the anti-healing spell as well. Savagely, Leif struck sharp blows at the dying magic, filling the barest spaces he could find with incompatible runes. Piece by piece, the spell withered, until finally, Leif sliced away a final segment and saw it swallowed by the runes around it. The upper spell had gathered all the latching runes. They were scattered to all corners of the curse, and the whole structure was starting to shake. Leif placed a layer of destabilizing runes between the upper spell and the remaining runes that had destroyed the anti-healing spell, and left them to their work as he headed for the main latching chain. It shook, just like the rest of the curse. The enemy archmage’s magic was seeping onto the stabilizing chain and up and away from the latches, trying to hold everything together. Leif uncoiled the shield of wings and talons from the latches, keeping it close to the rune chain. He pointed his wand at the trembling, jerking runes, and when he saw a moment they jerked apart, Leif plunged runes into the gap and a surge of power into his bird of archmage magic - the runes started to wrench the chain apart, and the raptor swept up the chain, snatching the sticky magic in its talons and on its wings and carrying it far away from the break and from Sieg - Inhuman screams - if they were screams? - rang in Leif’s ears and every beat of the asynchronous pulse was somehow distant but struck like a blow and his vision went hazy and white around the edges and his eye scar dripped with blood - and he latch chain shattered apart. Leif fell back, trying to aim for the chair but hitting the floor instead - the room was silent but he could feel all the sounds that should be there as the runes tore themselves apart - howling winds and the grating of torqued metal and a searing like hot liquid burning through something soft. He could smell the other archmage’s magic burning and could feel its presence in the room and hanging from his conjured raptor - tumultuous at first but then, mercifully, vanishing into nothing. Some of Leif’s own archmage magic returned to him with a feeling like a punch - it was enough of a jolt to get Leif scrabbling to his feet, pointing his wand at Sieg. “The curse’s gone - help me,” he begged the healer. “ Vulnera Sanwootur!” Working around the healer, Leif continued casting healing spells, going after the largest and deepest wounds despite the pull crawling steadily up to his shoulders. It didn’t hurt yet - he was fine. Sieg was still breathing - he would be fine. Everyone would be okay. Everyone had to be okay. You wouldn’t like Leif when he’s angry.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 5, 2014 22:16:29 GMT -5
The healer could feel it when the curse broke, like something foul in the air had suddenly been purified. She watched as the runes unraveled and shattered, and Leif collapsed. Then he lurched to his feet again, saying, “ The curse's gone- help me!” As Leif started casting his healing spells, the healer immediately yanked her own wand out of it's holster and started doing the same. And it worked, the spells threaded into Sieg's injuries and pulled them together without being snatched away. There was no overpulling, no horrific reopening of the healed wounds, they simply knitted back into whole, healthy flesh. Well... not entirely healthy. Some of the older wounds were turning back into scar tissue rather then unblemished skin. But the scars were smaller, and the residual damage less horrid then it had been prior. The healer realized that sealing all of his injuries wasn't going to do a lick of good if they didn't get his blood volume back up. Leaving the archmage to continue casting spells, she darted to her potions and snatched up the blood-replenishing mixture. It was a thick, crimson potion, not unlike blood itself, and it constantly frothed a little when exposed to open air. She yanked the stopper out, watching as bubbles started to form at the top, and then gently tilted Sieg's head back to pour the potion down his throat. He was still limp and unresponsive, but the muscles of his throat worked automatically to swallow the potion. The healer gave him as much as she dared- replenishing him completely too fast could easily trigger him to go back into shock again as his parched body was flooded. She then let him lay back down and returned to casting healing spells on his wounds, watching his face out of the corner of her eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, the sickly pallor receded, replaced by a slightly pink flush as blood returned to his body. She took his wrist, feeling for his pulse. It still fluttered, but it was evening out, and his breathing was already returning to a more steady pace. “I think... I think you did it,” she said. “He's not out of the woods yet, but-” Before she got the chance to finish her sentence, the half elf's fingers twitched. The healer snapped her jaw shut, hand flying to her mouth. A soft, almost inaudible moan emerged from Sieg's throat, and he opened two bleary, confused amber eyes. “ Le-eif?” he said, his voice weak but audible. He reached a hand towards the mage, though the motion was slow and unsteady, as if he didn't quite remember how his own muscles worked. “Wha' happened?” 8D He's awake! Dunno for how long, he's still pretty weak, but he's awake! Time for a feels party, Leiflet, you did it!
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Post by Tiger on Sept 6, 2014 8:03:17 GMT -5
The healing spells were working. Leif hadn’t seen as much of their failure and rebound as the healer had, but his one attempt earlier left him with enough perspective to fervently appreciate the way the green light of the spells soaked into his skin and the flesh melded back together. The gashes were knitting, the scars were becoming scars again, the blood-replenishing potion wasn’t instantly burned off...as the healer said, things were still dicey, but - Sieg’s voice made Leif twitch in surprise - he hadn’t expected the knight to be awake and talking so soon after...after dying, even if it had been a brief experience. Leif reached the rest of the way to Sieg’s outstretched arm with his free hand. The half-elf’s muscles were weak, but feeling any strength there, not to mention the pulse of blood flowing under the skin, was an incredible relief after handling that limp, clammy wrist. “The curse is gone, Sieg,” Leif explained. “We’re healing your injuries and trying to get some blood-replenishing potion into you. ...Sieg, you were…” Leif’s throat closed around the word. “It - it was too close,” he managed after a moment. His expression had probably told enough truth even without the actual word being uttered. Part of him didn’t want to believe what had nearly happened, and already it seemed alien to think that the half-elf lying here talking and healing had been dead - but those memories were crystal-clear in Leif’s mind. He doubted he’d ever be rid of them - but at least they weren’t going to be his last memories of Sieg. With a feeble smile, he managed to joke, “You - you should stick to gryphons in the future, all right? We’re great at killing gryphons.” Casting another healing spell, Leif asked, “The healing’s feeling all right? No stickiness or tugging?” He didn’t see how that would be possible with the curse as dissipated as if it had never existed, but there was archmage magic, and Sieg had already come so close...Leif had to be sure he’d finally done it right. Here, Leif! Have an armload of feels! *pushes*
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Post by Shinko on Sept 6, 2014 11:42:56 GMT -5
Sief felt Leif take his hand, and even with his bloodflow improved the mage's hand still felt very warm compared to the half-elf's. The knight's muscles felt as weak as water, and for some reason he couldn't quite coordinate his movements as well as he'd have liked. But the agonizing pain he'd been enduring from his injuries for the last few days had receded tremendously, as the healer shot another jet of green light at him, he realized why. “ The curse is gone Sieg,” Leif said, his voice thick with emotion. Sieg realized that he could feel the faintest of tremors in his friend's hand. “ We're healing your injuries and trying to get some blood replenishing potion into you. Sieg, you were...” His voice faltered. There was an odd look in his eyes, and after a moment Sieg recognized it as, of all things, grief. Sieg knew what that emotion looked like, he'd grappled with it for over a decade. But why was Leif looking at him that way? “ It was too close.” Oh. Oh.Comprehension dawned in Sieg's mind, and he felt a shudder pass through his body. He had no memory of anything after the healer started fussing with Leif's arm. Had he really been...? The sheer, unmasked relief in Leif's face definitely seemed to imply he had. Sieg didn't think the mage would have had such an odd mix of relief and giddiness in his eyes if the knight had just been unconscious. “ You - you should stick to gryphons in the future, all right? We’re great at killing gryphons.” In spite of himself, Sieg chuckled at that. It wasn't very loud, more like a rythmic exhaling, but at least it didn't sound like that horrible wracking cough he'd been giving earlier. “I don't know, I seem to recall almost dying when we fought the gryphon too. In fairness that was the more Courdonian's fault then the beast's, but all the same. You're getting a lot of practice not letting me die.” The knight tried to squeeze the hand Leif was using to hold his. He couldn't quite manage it though, and the gesture translated into more of a faint inward twitching of his fingers. “When you get back to Medieville, how about don't mention that part to my mother. Knowing her she'll guess there's more you aren't saying, but as long as you can tell her I'm alive she's smart enough not to pry.” Casting another healing spell, Leif asked, “The healing’s feeling all right? No stickiness or tugging?” Sieg closed his eyes momentarily, letting the magic settle under his skin. “No,” he said finally, the relief in his voice palpable. “All I feel is the pain of the injury going away.” He opened his eyes again, finding it harder then it should have been. With the pain gone, his cot and pillow felt heavenly. More then anything he wanted to sink into the sheets and sleep for a month. He forced himself to hold open his heavy eyelids, and met Leif's eyes with his own. “But should you be doing the healing? Don't you still need to break the curse on the others?” “Yes, Master Archmage, you do,” the healer said firmly, coming up to Leif. “You'll need to rest first, I'm sure, and the others aren't in as critical condition as Sir Braham was, but we still can't afford to dally. I can finish up here, I've used almost no magic for days, I'm mostly at full charge.” She turned to Sieg, adding, “You need to rest too, Sir Braham. You were dead for a few minutes, one does not just bounce back from that.” Sieg felt a small, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, though he winced at the blunt use of the word “dead.” “Even if I was inclined to argue with you, I don't think I can just now. I feel as if I could close my eyes and be asleep at once.” “I am astonished you're not asleep now,” she retorted. Sieg only grinned back apologetically, then glanced at Leif. “Thanks for saving my life. Again.” Sieg is pathetically weak physically, and his ability to coordinate his own body is slightly impaired after being dead for a bit, but he is lucid enough to reassure Leif and the healer that he's probably going to be okay. He's exhausted though, and probably going to pass out again very shortly. The healer tells Leif he needs to stop wasting magic healing Sieg since that's her job, and they need him to save his strength for breaking the curse on the other knights.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 6, 2014 17:00:32 GMT -5
“I don't know, I seem to recall almost dying when we fought the gryphon too,” Sieg pointed out. ”In fairness that was the more Courdonian's fault then the beast's, but all the same. You're getting a lot of practice not letting me die.”“This is only practice?” he returned with a thin smile. He couldn’t quite get the joking tone he was going for, but it was at least a little more genuine than when he’d first brought up the gryphons. “I’m terrified to see what you decide to give me as a real test.” The knight’s fingers twitched against Leif’s hand; if Sieg was trying to squeeze Leif’s hand, he was even weaker than Leif had thought. Again, no surprise. At Sieg’s request not to tell Morgaine about his momentary death, Leif grimaced and nodded. “I - I wouldn’t even know how to tell her if I wanted to. Especially, Leif thought, knowing what happened to her husband... He hoped Sieg was right that his mother wouldn’t pry; if Morgaine decided she wanted to know, the woman would find a way to get it from Leif, he was sure. Though judging from Sieg’s lucidity and calmness, the spells were indeed working as they were meant to, it was still reassuring to hear from the half-elf himself that there was nothing of the curse remaining. Sieg was obviously relieved, too. Leif thought the half-elf was about to pass out again - hopefully into a restful, healthier sleep this time around - but Sieg mustered up enough energy to point out that Leif might not be the person who should be casting the healing spells. The healer was quick to agree...and though Leif wanted to continue helping Sieg, he couldn’t really argue their point. “You’re right...I’ll get something sugary from the kitchens...maybe I can at least write out some of the runes while I’m eating. I’ll need to be the one to put the shields up, and they’ll probably need my magic to break parts of it, but at least I could get another mage to destabilize the normal bits...” Leif nodded in agreement when the healer told Sieg he needed rest as well...though he also wished the woman had avoided saying outright what had happened to the half-elf. She wouldn’t tell him the curse came from an archmage, but she wouldn’t shy away from reminding a wounded knight he had died? To be fair, she was probably as stressed as Leif was. “Thanks for saving my life. Again.”“As always, I’m returning the favor. But I’m glad I could help - and that you’re going to be okay.” Giving Sieg’s hand a reassuring squeeze, he said, “Get some rest. I’ll be back in a few minutes with something sugary enough to dissolve a swordblade.” ...Leif replies to things Sieg and the healer say and then goes to get something sugary. Probably pie. I dunno what you want for a summary on this one.
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Post by Shinko on Sept 6, 2014 18:35:45 GMT -5
It took another three days of work before all of the knights who'd been hit by the curse were cured of it and fully healed. To no one's surprise, Sieg spent most of those three days either sleeping so deeply that an earthquake couldn't have budged him, or eating like a starving man. His body had used up every scrap of energy it had just keeping him alive, and the process of dying and being revived hadn't done him any favors either. It had taken the better part of the first few days before he could control his hands and arms well enough to even feed himself, something that the half-elf had met with no small amount of chagrin. The evening of the third day after Leif arrived in Solis, Sieg was wide awake and lucid for the first time in a while. The healer had left him alone, presumably getting some much needed rest herself. He still wasn't allowed to get up and walk around unattended- the times he'd tried to stand for one reason or another, his coordination problems had necessitated someone supporting him at all times. Bored, and with nothing to do save stare at the waxing crescent outside his window, Sieg leaned back against his pillow and started to sing. When I was still a child A boy of bare sixteen I saw a sight before me I never should have seen
Amidst the chaos ringing The clash of steel and scale I heard a voice dear to me Give an agonized wail
The burns remained in my skin The voice stayed in my dreams Guilt for slaying my own kin Tore my heart at the seams
The burns, the screams, the nightmares They haunt me to this day Yet dwelling on these old cares I do less every day
My life seemed doomed to sorrow None would care if I died But now I face tomorrow With hope and strength and pride
I found purpose in others Who know my spirit's pain Friends like sisters and brothers Bathed me in soothing rain
That someone would cry for me Who's not my kith or kin So long I've taken to see What a fool I have been
I'll stand again beside you Given time I will heal There is nothing we can't do 'Tween your spells and my steel
So thank you, thank you, Leif Jade You're far stronger then I May our friendship never fade By the great Woo on high.Sieg had inherited his singing voice from his mother, but while she was just a decent singer, generally it was agreed that Sieg's singing voice was genuinely beautiful. His voice carried a low, clear tenor, and his slight elvish accent was much more pronounced when he sang. Sieg was just glad he could sing again. With the wound in his throat, the dehydration, and his own profound weakness, he hadn't been able to produce any noise louder then a croak since being cursed. Timeskip a few days. Sing sings a reprise of a song that some of you may remember, and that Leif miiiiight be slightly embarrassed to hear from him if he happens by the room. 8D And yes, Sieg's singing it in Kythian, unlike last time when he was singing in Elvish.
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Post by Tiger on Sept 7, 2014 1:34:31 GMT -5
It had been a long three days, and despite pacing himself and getting as much rest as he could, the pull was tugging at Leif’s chest almost constantly, varying in degree of discomfort depending on how much sugar he’d eaten and how recently he’d slept. Using his archmage magic to fight the energy in the curse was draining, as if he had to pull that raw strength out from somewhere very deep inside him. The bleeding this strain usually triggered from his scars was probably not helping any. Leif had at least managed to walk a few of the other mages through the parts of breaking the curse that didn’t require archmage magic, and there were plenty of healers who had been waiting for days to be able to use magic on their patients. But despite how exhausted he should have been, Leif found himself awake some time after the moon had risen. It was probably in large part because of the uncomfortable ache across his chest from the pull, and quite possibly also from the half-plate of sweet rolls he’d eaten after dinner. I’m going to put Kirin to shame with all the sugar I’m eating, he thought with a pang of homesickness. Leif got up and looked out the window for a moment. It was an unusually clear night, and though the thin moon had little light to give, its glow reflected brightly off the pale stone buildings of Solis. They didn’t call the Jade capital “gleaming” for nothing. There was only so much to stare out at, though, and Leif quickly found his thoughts wandering - and not in the sort of directions that were going to lead him back to sleep anytime soon. The pull wasn’t going to help, either; it wasn’t the worst he’d ever felt - that record still went to the coronation post-dragon-summoning - but that didn’t mean it was easy to ignore while trying to force himself to sleep. Leif’s books were still somewhere in the hall with the resting knights. His most important tomes, of course, were in his satchel, squeezed between the nightstand and bed, a talisman wrapped around the latch, and a few spells of detection and sealing placed upon the bag for good measure. Leif had learned the hard way to take precautions against thieves no matter how protected your estate claimed to be. Unfortunately, those books did not make for calm reading. The archmage pulled on a shirt, slung the satchel over his shoulder, and slipped out into the hallway. The tiles hadn’t quite lost all the heat from the day, and some of that warmth seeped into Leif’s bare feet. The coming of night hadn’t stopped activity in the Jade Manor, especially with so many...guests. Leif could smell food from the kitchens and heard a meeting going on as he passed one of the chambers near Lord Everett’s quarters. According to some of the servants, Lord Joffery and Princess Hope were visiting the city of Araydian; so Leif was surprised when he heard song floating down the hall - the hall where the knights were stationed, in fact. For a brief second, he assumed the worst - that Joffery and Hope had returned early and Joffery was trying to serenade the knights back to health or something equally well-meant but obnoxious. The voice wasn’t Joffery’s, however, not with that accent. Elvish-accented Kythian - it must be Sieg. So he was well-enough to sing, then? That was good news. The closer Leif got, the more of the words he could make out. All well and good, and it sounded hopeful enough despite a somewhat solemn tune...and then Leif heard his own name in the song and stopped short, blinking owlishly. He wondered for a second if perhaps he’d misheard, but the rest of the words had sounded clear enough. Certainly ‘Jade’ rhymed with ‘fade’ and unless Sieg had made other House Jade friends here at the manor, that lyric didn’t fit anyone but Leif. That was...a lot of things. Flattering, he had to admit. Sort of embarrassing, that was impossible to deny with the heat spreading over his face - archmages didn’t belong in ballads, that was territory for knights and royalty and warmages - and even if someone wanted to say breaking a curse made someone song-worthy, it wasn’t as if Leif had done any grand job of it - ‘Pit, he’d messed up twice before actually figuring out where the spell he needed to destroy even was. Though by the sound of it, Sieg wasn’t holding him in contempt for that, which he did appreciate. Having friends was still something of a novelty for Leif at times; being called a friend aloud was still very...odd. Not bad, but...odd. He was never sure how to respond - not an unusual scenario, to be sure, but it felt much worse to stammer in response to something so...nice. Part of him was tempted to sneak to the trunk - he could see it just down the hallway - and leave Sieg be...but Leif hadn’t gotten as much chance to check in on the half-elf as he’d have liked, and most of the time he’d tried, Sieg had been asleep or the healer had shooed Leif off. “Sir Braham needs to eat and then rest, not trade quips with you,” she’d say. “And you should be eating, too, Archmage. Or would you like to be our next patient when you collapse from the pull?” So Leif steeled himself, and knocked lightly on the door. “Sieg? Sorry to bother you...I, uh, I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Wow Tiger talks about what’s been going on for the past three days for forever, but finally, it is present day! Leif wakes up during the night due to the pull and possibly all the sugar he’s been eating. While going to retrieve his books so he can read something, Leif hears Sieg singing, including a mention of our nerdmage by name! This is all very flustering, of course, but Leif decides to go check on Sieg anyway. He tries to play it cool, but this is Leiflet we’re talking about - the only ‘cool’ he knows is the rune chain that makes glacius so cold BD
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