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It's All Make-Believe; [CLOSED]
Topic Started: Nov 28 2010, 05:24 PM (649 Views)
Dominique
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PROLOGUE
"Oh you're joking... What kind of place closes this early in the evening?!" An irritated voice yelled, seemingly into the glass double doors of the building notably marked as 'The Eldritch Influence'. Japanese culture had already begun to wear on her nerves and even if they did have the only actual magic store she'd ever seen, what good was it if they weren't open in the evenings? In Vegas nothing was ever really closed, but Lynn should have guessed that wasn't the case for the rest of the world (as efficient a world that would be). With a flourish she produced a pen from her sleeve and began writing the business hours of the store on a piece of paper produced with an identical curlicue of her magical fingers.

"Man, Tsukasa or not, this is really annoying..." She said in English, more than a bit worn out from trying to navigate the city with her novice grasp of Japanese. Why did a language have to be so weird anyway? She'd met quite a few foreigners in Vegas, but they were all at least somewhat versed in her native language. It felt weird suddenly being in the minority and even moreso considering she was from Vegas but was suddenly feeling like she'd grown up awfully sheltered from the world. Lynn could saw a human being in half wearing a leotard-tuxedo in front of a crowd full of strangers, but getting to a bookstore on time and getting from place to place in some small Japanese town was completely baffling her.

Such weirdness. Still, nothing could ever keep her down for long. Now that she at least had the business hours (and hopefully the days of the week correct) Lynn just needed to find some way to pass the time. The night was young and she wasn't used to sleeping until late into the morning. Lynn's eyes gazed upward into the night sky. It was so dark here compared to the strip. The stars sure were beautiful.
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Nickle
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Alastor was humming to himself as he made his way down the street. The day hadn't been so bad. Nothing too eventful had happened thankfully, not like a few days ago when he'd nearly been torn to shreds at the graveyard. Still, it had given him some hope as to his sentence. Since having heard that the other Judge spirits were offering him a chance to get his powers back sooner than he had originally expected, he was, suffice to say, over the moon on the inside.

He did however, maintain some sense of composure after all. He'd been raised better than to skip down the main street. As he made his way he spotted Eldritch Influence. It was perhaps one of his favorite places to kill some time. Tsukasa-sensei ran it in his spare time when he wasn't teaching class. He was kind of like a lecturer that way.As he drew closer however, a sound caught his ear. Well a sound was a bad way to put it, the sound of English caught his ear. It didn't take long for him to spot the girl who was complaining about the shop being closed.

Caucasian, blonde hair and an American accent. Needless to say Alastor had not spotted one such as her around Hyakuji. The only person he spoke in English with on a semi-regular basis was Selene. He smiled and on a whim approached her, gently tapping her on the shoulder, speaking to her in English, "I guess this is your first time visiting the store right? The times can be a bit erratic if Mr. Tsukasa is preoccupied with other matters."With a grin Alastor smiled and offered his hand to be shaken, "I'm Alastor Fainscastle, I transferred here to study." Alastor didn't mention that if she knew Hiro's name, then it wouldn't be too much to guess that she knew what kind of books were sold in the store. Not to mention the look on her face clearly shows that her buzz must have died off slightly due to the shop being closed.
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Dominique
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Sighing, she bucked herself up a bit and took a look at the numbers on the paper again. Even the way they measured time was weird. If Lynn hadn't known any better, she'd swear America was purposely teaching kids to make it hard for them to operate in foreign countries. Oh man and she'd totally forgotten metrics! If there was one thing she was good at though, it was research and this was nothing a bit of studying couldn't fix. After all, everyone else knew it but her. The sound of footsteps suddenly caught her ear. She didn't turn around right away, but they stopped right behind just as a light tap caught her on the shoulder. Lynn turned her head around casually to face...well frankly kind of a scary looking guy.

Lynn had always been pretty good at reading faces, though back home it was usually pretty easy to tell the freaks from everyone else. This guy had 'ASSHOLE' written all over his face. "Yeah, first time round the city. I guess you know the guy who owns this place too. My dad knows him I guess, but only by reputation I think. I guess we're classmates if you're talking about the school near here." Now that Lynn considered it, this was sort of a school city. From what she'd read it was a pretty big school and much of the city's culture was built around the kinds of people that attended it. It wasn't unreasonable to think that there would be others like her just walking about here and there.

In fact these sorts of meetings were precisely why she'd come here in the first place.

Lynn smiled and shook the man's hand, grateful that her first introduction wouldn't have to be in Japanese at least. Maybe if she tried really hard she could only hang around the English-speaking crowd at the school. There were bound to be more than him after all. Of course that was the lazy way out and sounded actually a little racist. Japanese was going to be a tough class when she finally started, but at least it would be the most practical. "Lynn Monrone, I came to...make friends, I guess? It's kind of a weird deal." At least everyone here had been friendly since her arrival. Asking for direction had been rough, but at least they'd given her the time of day whenever she asked them how to get here and subsequently to talk slower and in simpler words.

"Oh and I only use credit cards, I don't carry cash or valuables." Maybe not every place was like Vegas when it came to meeting strangers at night, but it couldn't hurt just to cover your bases.
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Nickle
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Alastor's face continued to be smile as he shook Lynn's hand, but for some reason he was already well...judging her. He didn't mean to, it was purely second nature to him due to predicament. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd come up to her out of no where, perhaps it was the fact that it was built in due to being an American, perhaps it was the swiftness of her reply, the slight stiffness of her handshake or the addition that she had no valuables on her, but Alastor felt his ability to make a good first impression was still lacking.
It had happened in the park as well when he'd met that girl Cho. Regardless, it wasn't about to discourage him, he was still in a good mood. He released her hand and let his hands move towads his pockets. "Even if you don't have cash or valuables, I wasn't intending on finding out if you did." Money was one thing Alastor didn't think about. When something is there, one often doesn't find need to pay attention to it. Turning his head to look away from Lynn for a moment, Alastor turned back, his thoughts gathered, "Sorry about that, it was uncalled for on my part."

He then indicated with this thumb to a street adjacent to them, "Seeing as you're a student at the school, I can show you something just as good as Eldritch Influence." Alastor hooked his thumb back into his pocket, "You came here looking for magic books right? The school library has a section about magic just as a good as this place, perhaps even more extensive."

Alastor turned, preparing to go down the street, "What do you say, Lynn?"
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Dominique
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Lynn smiled broadly at the sudden proposition. When in doubt, lady luck always stepped in to fix the odds. Her lips curled into a cat-like grin as he suddenly began walking away, turning to ask if she would follow. Pompous little bugger, but he did have the advantage this time. A magical library would do quite nicely. With an exaggerated flourish she bowed formally in his direction and in the most hubristic British accent she could muster she said, "I would be humbled, sir. Show me this library of which speak~ pip pip~." Lynn wasn't actually sure if British people said that anymore, but it sounded clever on the end there.

NO LONGER THE PROLOGUE
Lynn stayed behind Alastor as they approached the opening of the library, keeping a lively step behind him and making sure to neither be too close nor too far behind. The excitement was sort of beginning to get to her and her eyes darted back and forth amongst the rows and rows of bookshelves. It was...pretty significant for a school library. The ones back home were pretty homely by comparison. A girl could get a loooot of research time out of these kinds of resources. No wonder Magi like that Tsukasa guy worked here. If Lynn weren't dead set on becoming a magician she could definitely see herself being a librarian. She did look cute in glasses.

"So... you weren't kidding huh?" It was enough to impress her and she'd seen some pretty amazing stuff before. Not like Library at Alexandria stuff, more like Ringling Bros. stuff.
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Nickle
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Alastor kept his smile hidden as he heard how Lynn's footsteps were falling. She seemed more than just a little excited about the library, which really wasn't a bad thing. He himself had always had a thirst for knowledge, even more so when it came to magic. He remembered all too clearly how he would pour over the arcane tomes that his former Guild Library had. He was by no means an expert, even less now that his powers were sealed, but that didn't mean he couldn't read up on things and memorize them.

"I don't kid when it comes to books. I personally love this place, it's like a book fortress." said Alastor, turning his head and smiling at Lynn. He then began to take her down the rows of shelves, their shadows falling over the two of them as they walked, "The said thing is that there used to be an older library, but it got burnt down a long time ago. I read about it in the school's history. Pity, I bet there were a whole bunch of tomes in there too." Alastor then took a corner and the shelves seemed to change.

The word was shinier and darker now, possibly bought during a different time as opposed to the rest of the shelves. Coming to a stop, Alastor then pulled a book out from the shelves, "Well this is it, the magic section. Truly, it is my favorite section, even though I can't use magic right now." Alastor then turned to Lynn, halting before opening the book he'd pulled out, "What about you? Are you just interested in the books or do your powers specialize in magic?" Being Hyakuji, such questions were common-place. It was weird, but Alastor felt that in the way he and Lynn were so forward with each other, they had somehow bypassed a step or two that most people took when getting to know one another.
Edited by Nickle, Nov 28 2010, 07:05 PM.
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Dominique
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This post brought to you by: my awesome phone!

Lynn focused on her escort for a moment, quietly enjoying their mutually shared love of literature and knowledge. She hadn't really met a lot of study bugs back home, but that was the condition you'd expect from any kid growing up in an emvironment like that. Slowly they walked through and across shelf after row of the to-be-expected section. Shakespeare, Voltaire, blah blah and so forth. From a layperson's point of view it might have been an ordinary giant library.

The mention of the old library did dampen her hopes a bit but it was fairly likely that he wouldn't be so confident about the place if it wasn't still pretty substantial. The loss of knowledge was always regrettable though. Steadily the ambience of the shelves began to change and the soft old bindings of European classics were steadily replaced with eccentric leather bindings and glowing runic script. It was beautiful. Lynn's mouth fell open slightly as her fingers fell over a few choice volumes. She quickly snagged them from the shelves while he spoke.

"Me?" She said with an unbalanced armful of books. "Oh yeah, I've been doing magic since I was really little. My dad says my magic circuits aren't great cause of my mom not having any and all but I'm a helluva magician. Nothing a bit of hard work and luck can't get you in Vegas." Lynn said, giggling a bit. Her laughter nearly knocked a rather heavy looking tome from her hands. Her giggling went a bit more nervous as she attempted to balance the stack.

"Can we find a place to sit now?" She chuckled eagerly.
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Alastor grinned and nodded, delighted to see her enthusiasm towards the book. It was rather refreshing to find someone else as interested as he was in the art. Selene was knowledgable about it, however Alastor seemed to think she lacked the somewhat thirst for it that he did, probably because she was raised around magic from birth and he had only been exposed to it for the past few years. "Sure, there's a communal study desk just around those shelves."

It wasn't far really. Alastor lead Lynn to a large table, one that could be used for multiple purposes such as studying, wood-work, eating etc. Alastor pulled out a chair for her, the act having been bred into him so that it was second nature since he was younger. He then did the same for himself, pulling out a chair next to Lynn and placing the one book he'd taken from the shelves down on the table.

"So what exactly did you take out?"
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Dominique
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Of course it was around the corner. Lynn wobbled tensely a short ways behind him, taking a bit longer to get there so as to avoid spilling a landslide of literature across the library floor. Perhaps she'd been a bit overexcited her first time here, but after checking these out and dumping them in her book stockpile of a dorm room it would probably fit just nicely. "Ah, thank you." She said nonchalantly, setting the pile upon the table and taking the seat he'd offered her. Frankly it would have been a bit more polite for him to have kept her from walking around like a toddler balancing plates on a stick at the Greatest Show on Earth.

But who was she to challenge foreign customs? In a foreign land no less. Exhaling deeply and with a grin on her face, Lynn began taking the books down one by one and setting them neatly by category on the table. She took a particularly interesting looking black text from it's place and ran her fingers over the cover before looking back up at her guide. "Well, I decided to take a little bit of everything since most of these are books I've never seen before. But primarily they're things like 'Advanced Discourse into Diviniation' and 'Spell Circles of Ancient Western Forms'." Lynn set the thick black book in her hands down on the table and sat back in her chair.

"This one I'm really looking forward to though since conjuration is something I've never been able to do. I can see how it would be pretty useful though." She seemed enthralled by the cover of it with a sappy grin on her face as she quietly fluttered her finger down its leather binding. "What about you?" She asked without looking back up. "Grab anything interesting?" Now that she thought about it, asking about his magic would be interesting as well. He said he couldn't really do it, but if he loved it as much as she did, Lynn guessed he'd at least be quite knowledgeable about a certain type.
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Nickle
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Alastor picked up a few of the books that Lynn had mentioned, having read one or two of them in the past. The 'Spells Circles of Ancient Western Forms' was one that he had been aquainted with in the past and had probably more than once when he'd had the time. When she showed Alastor the one book that had perked her interest the most, he smiled a bit, "Ah, so you're interested in summoning creatures eh? I have a friend, Selene, who specializes in that. The only creatures I know that she can summon are a Valkyrie warrior and a Wyvern. But she could probably easily summon some more without much hassle if she trained to do so."

When Lynn enquired as to what book Alastor had taken out, he gently pushed the leather-bound compendium towards her, "It's called 'The Leylines and other Mana-Wells'. I've been thinking about taking it out recently and having a good and proper look at it." It was a book that basically discussed the various sources of magic, in the earth, the body and external sources where individuals could draw it from. "I may not be too good at shall we say, practical magic, but I'm very knowledgeable about sealings and binding methods. Although...I am kind of out of practice."
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Dominique
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She listened intently as he described the conjurer's abilities, delving into her memories for knowledge of the creatures discussed. It was fairly simple since it didn't get much more western than wyverns and Valkyries, but the images in her her head were unclear. She was certain she'd seen pictures of those somewhere. No doubt in one of the books buffering the walls of her room. Still, it was interesting to think there was a conjurer somewhere at the school. Conjuring was an extremely useful and practical form of magic if very difficult to master as it required an intimate knowledge of the beasts you were working with and could very dangerous if you underestimated them.

"That's extremely super cool, I'd love to see her do that sometime! Is she English like you?" Lynn said excitedly. There really weren't very many America magicians. It was a lost part of their European roots it seemed. Maybe she'd be able to figure how that conjuration stuff is done by seeing it, or maybe Selene would show her in exchange for tips on other kinds of magic. Escapology might not seem like the most dubious of magics but it was useful for getting out of the odd sticky situation now and then and who didn't get into those once in awhile? "Leylines huh? I suppose that makes sense. With a weak magic circuit, tapping into a natural one might be a good way to make up for it."

Lynn had never thought of doing that before, but it seemed too druidic for her. Not that she had anything against that sort of thing, but she'd never been the 'communing with nature type'. Concrete and neon lights really more her bag. "Magic is definitely something you have to practice, it's just like a muscle you have to train to keep strong! I have a routine of sorts I do every morning and before I go to bed. You do it for a few weeks and the fatigue really starts to lessen after awhile." Though come to think of it Lynn actually hadn't much time to do it since she'd arrived and she couldn't really afford to get rusty.

"My favorite that I've been able to do is the various types of divination. I'm not the best at them, but that's what practice is for, right? C'mon, I'll even let you pick the method. Anything you can think of, I know them all!"
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Nickle
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"Well I'm sure she'd love to show it to you. And yes, she's British as well. I've actually found out that our famalies have known each other for longer than I thought." Alastor didn't exactly want to tell Lynn that both he and Selene were the heirs to two of the largest corporations on the world when he'd only jsut met her, that would be a a lot more than just being snobbish.

Alastor smiled and chuckled a bit at Lynn's comment about having a weak magic circuit. It wasn't so much that it was weak, more that he simply couldn't connect to it thanks to the Judge. He really hated having to keep such things to himself, but amongst magicians, it was one of the biggest taboos. He was just thankful that Selene had looked past that. "Yeah, there's even things out there, like objects, that are born from leylines and are portable sources of power. Over the years, many people have even made their own through artificial means, but they achieved the same result."

When Lynn spoke of divination, Alastor was immediately perked in his interest. Now he wasn't unfamiliar with the art of divining, but he was far from a practitioner. Tea leaves, birds, fish even just walking could be used for divining. But like most boys, there was one that had caught Alastor's interest. "So, if I was to ask you to use macharomancy as a divining method, you would be able to?"

It was a good thing the table they were at was wide and long, because Alastor then stood up and moved down the table a bit to where there was some space. He reached out his hand, with several ruins forming around it, before they flowed outwards and formed his sword, the Executioner. "You up for it?"
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Dominique
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"Oh how interesting!" She said, placing a thoughtful hand on her chin. So magical families with historical connections could be found in a place like this? To be honest, Lynn had never really studied much of the family history since most of it was just about political intrigue and the war. Frankly none of that violent and hostile stuff interested her in the slightest. People who resorted to lies and abuse of their positions and power weren't going to teach her anything about magic, just make her feel lethargic about using it for others. It would be pretty amazing if someone had heard of her family around here though. "My family's magical history goes pretty far back too but I don't really know much other than their name and that we're from Scotland..." She mumbled quietly.

Well, it would be an interesting avenue of study at another time. Though now Lynn had to wonder if magical techniques overlapped through families is that sort of way. Maybe she could learn more if she found someone with a connection to her own. Lynn snapped back to the topic at hand as he mentioned artificial magical leylines, to which she smiled. "Actually..I have something like that I think. It's an artificial magical conduit of sorts. It doesn't so much create magic as it does funnel it so I'm not certain it was born from a leyline but maybe similar artificial methods?" Lynn was really getting into this now. All of this talk was getting her both riled up and fascinated at the same time. It was nice that she could meet such an intellectually stimulating and interesting person her first day out.

He seemed to take a bit more personal interest at her divining suggestion, smirking his smug British grin. It didn't seem like he was any kind of stranger to the art and already had something in mind, which was just perfect. Hopefully it wouldn't be anything involving bird bones or animal livers since she could really only buy that stuff at the store. Gory things like that made her sick to her stomach and more importantly she didn't have her trunk anyway. However, he appeared to have something else in mind. Lynn tilted her head a bit at the mention of Macharomancy. That definitely sounded familiar, but didn't that require a sword? He stood up, making her stiffen in her seat. Was he carrying something like that here? Sure enough, holding out his hand a blur of runic magic summoned a rather mythical looking weapon.

Lynn looked at him like he'd just spit in her salad. "What the heck are you doing with a violent thing like that anyway?" She asked upfront in a somewhat irritated tone. Without waiting for his answer she sighed and began looking it over. At the very least it was sort of an interesting weapon. The runes were old, primitive and difficult to read. Runic magic had never been her specialty; it was so...heavy metal. "First of all, lessee whatcha got there." Lynn took the weapon gently by the blade and stared at it for a few moments. "Runic magic, obviously some kind of binding spell by the way you summoned it, very professional and precise. This thing won't be falling off your hand anytime soon." Tip of the iceberg of course, she could see more than that.

"Runes are definitely of western origin. Norse maybe? Definitely Germanic, possibly celtic. Something here…I can’t quite tell, but I think I’ve seen it before. Hrm…Arbitration maybe? Or Judge…something or something.” Lynn scowled a bit, annoyed by the ridiculously stupid language fudging her up. She’d have to go look for another book before they left on ancient runic languages. “It’s real old stuff though, so probably related to some form of polytheistic deity. I’d say it’s probably derived from Viridios or Forseti depending on the religion it comes from. I’m not very good with runes…” Of course none of this had anything to do with divination, but it was pretty badass stuff regardless! "Not a bad...hurty, slashy, killy tool you've got here." She said with just a hint of sarcasm.

"Now then, let's see what sort of omens we can dig up..." Lynn stared into the polished surface of the weapon, squinting her eyes into focus as she channeled all her senses into the weapon.

Divination Accuracy Check
 
[result=1d20]11[/result]

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Dominique
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Accuracy Level: Average

Lynn exhaled her held breath and handed the sword back to him. "It looks like you're going to be up for a series of great struggles soon! I recommend not going outside for three days!" She said authoritatively.
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