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Antics
May 16, 2020 19:00:17 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 16, 2020 19:00:17 GMT -6
Xiaolian frowned as she skimmed over the sigils overlayed atop the survey of the ranch's property. "Theoretically you can design a ward that will allow specific persons to pass through without violation of its integrity." She pointed out. "That means you could put up stronger wards, and still allow for your ranch hands to pass through." Though there was still the question of how the assailants had even gotten through the wards to begin with. "My guess is your assailants were previous courtiers who you had authorized to come make an offering at one of the shrines or use the property. Your.. attacker just used them for their own gain." They had been pawns, and in the grand scheme of things it was hardly surprising.
"If you were to use a protection sigil paired with a confusion sigil, and then add willpower to represent your will against any intruders etcetera, and you might have some more flexible wards. Most modern magic isn't based on flexiblity, it's based on sheer brute force and power." She explained pointing a finger at several strategic points on the map. "But, I think I can manage to clear the three circles without harming your wards. But the odds of twice in a row success can dwindle, depending on how entrenched the magic has become.. and given that it's veil borne.. it can be pretty hard to get rid of."
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Antics
May 16, 2020 19:09:51 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 16, 2020 19:09:51 GMT -6
"That's my concern. And I admit, they are largely brute force wards. I'd love help in designing more flexible ones, but the court doesn't employ in ward-smiths and finding a decent one who can actually use the power I provide is next to impossible. Or at least, a trustworthy one willing to work with me." He shrugged. The trustworthy nature automatically precluded Molly. She was a fae and he knew better. The fae had a reputation for a reason. "Being attached to the court comes with some drawbacks. Not everyone likes us." They had power yes, but when it came down to it, getting a werewolf to cooperate with them was difficult, and that was jsut one of the many complicated inter-species relationships that existed in the Unseen.
"The ranch hands are largely mundane. I'm not certain if I could keep them on if they knew that the ranch was used as a magical center. They are especially devout men." Very catholic. Their reaction to magic was not guaranteed to be a kind one. He'd lean on it being negative. "I supposed I could try and convince them to wear ID cards while on the property and tie ward entry to those cards."
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Antics
May 16, 2020 20:07:46 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 16, 2020 20:07:46 GMT -6
Xiaolian sighed and thought for a moment, "Would you happen to have paper and a pencil? I think we can refine these wards significantly." They were inelegant and clunky, the very definition of brute force. Sure they had the power to pack a punch, but that was about all they had. "Hong Kong initially hired me and a few others to sweep and help with resetting wards after it was handed over in '97 from the UK." That had been an adventure, some of the British wards had been booby trapped with multiple failsafes. They were not the elegant and equally dangerous things that the East had become known for.
"And believe me... there are worse things than being attached to the court." She added as she continued to examine the property map. "I wouldn't recommend an ID card, they can easily be lost or stolen. I would suggest teaching the magic to recognize each man, which might mean you have to do more than just sign a check each month."
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Antics
May 16, 2020 20:14:24 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 16, 2020 20:14:24 GMT -6
"I do at least know their names." He pointed out. "But I admit I am not hands on with the ranch and its workings. I am not actually fond of animals." At all. "Especially cattle. They're...I suppose necessary to keep everything from getting wildly out of control but frankly disgusting." He didn't like to be near them. The fact that he ran a ranch was a bit much. "I suppose I could find a reason to ride out to them though." And actually train the magic to recognize them.
He pulled a pad of paper out of one of the desk drawers and a pencil out of another and handed them over to her, curious to see what she was planning. "Don't worry too much about mustering the magical power to raise the wards. I'm not a slouch and I'm sure I could get some help putting them up as well. Do something under the right moon or right day of the year and it would be fine." Hell, give him a solstice or equinox and he could probably cast the wards himself. Especially given his current change in status. "This is a good year for ritual magic anyway. It wouldn't be long until an excellent day arrived." Though he'd only cast with Catherine, assuming she could be talked into helping, on a lower power day.
There was such a thing as too much power.
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Antics
May 16, 2020 20:32:15 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 16, 2020 20:32:15 GMT -6
"I would actually pay to see you on a horse, given your new found fear of animals." Catherine quipped, reminding Tyrus of his most recent trip to the fae realm. He had been hesitant to even go near a horse, and instead he had opted to make excuses about the whys and why nots.
"Oh I'm not worried about musting the power to raise the wards, that's your job and the Warden's. My power is extremely limited except under specific circumstances." Xiaolian failed to disclose that those circumstances were not being on that particular plane. There was something about it that made everything that much harder, and granted it hadn't been terribly easy to begin with.
"Here," She added taking the piece of paper from Tyrus and sketching a rough outline of the property's perimeter. "Follow this pattern to raise new wards, you will have to be ready to raise them as soon as they're blown away though... and like you said you might want to pay attention to the planetary phases of this plane before attempting it." Xiaolian then quickly sketched out a series of strange and arcane symbols on paper of a like that most in living memory hadn't ever seen. "I can promise that not even Bronson can break these." Or at least so she thought, she'd never really put any of the more serious wards to the test before.
They were patterned similarly to the ones on Catherine's own personal spaces, and the one she had finally had to put up in her office to keep Molly out. There was section written into the wards designed to keep just about anything except what Tyrus explicitly wanted out, and even to keep some things in. "Basically you're creating a feedback loop that will power the ward indefintely once set. Does that make sense?"
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Antics
May 16, 2020 20:39:24 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 16, 2020 20:39:24 GMT -6
"It makes perfect sense. And I don't ride a horse. I take one of the four wheelers." He was not going to get on a horse. They were disagreeable at the best of times and not to be trusted. What if one decided to buck while he was riding? He wasn't going to put up with that at all. "This is a different pattern then I've seen before though. You must have studied an interesting school of warding."
Then again, wards weren't his specialty. "And I am all for wards that keep Bronson out. The ones on my house are specific for fae, but to extend that to the entire ranch would be ideal." He shot Catherine a smile, trying to defuse the situation before it grew. "Not that there's anything wrong with fae. They tend to be a bit too mischievous for me to want anywhere near anything of mine." They were also honor bound to the rules of hospitality, so he hadn't been too worried when they had been accepted as guests in the fae realm.
But he was still suspicious, on some levels, of the ones that he wasn't a guest of. "Is ther a particular planetary pattern I should avoid with these?"
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Antics
May 16, 2020 20:56:16 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 16, 2020 20:56:16 GMT -6
Catherine raised an eyebrow at Tyrus's sheepish smile, he knew he was in trouble and was trying to prevent the situation from becoming worse. "Keep. Digging. Mage." She said as she listened to Tyrus dig yet a deeper hole. The fae had been Catherine's family and refuge for her many times over; and while she could understand his reluctance, she couldn't understand why he would be so distrustful. "And maybe you'll find more than a shitty opinion." This was one of the times when she wished a thousand times over that she had not been saddled with Tyrus as a fledgling.
Xiaolian looked at the two, shook her head and forged on. "Since Mercury is the planet of change.. depending on your school of thought, I would suggest any time it's in Taurus.. which is until the end of this month give or take. You'll want an earth sign for casting these wards. A water sign would potentially give more flex.. but it's easy for the caster to become toppled and overburned by the magic." She warned making annotations on the paper.
"Ah.. yeah.. this is the, uh... Eastern method of warding. It's not really used in the states." Xiaolian added after a fact. In reality it was the method of the Gaurdians to use magic's ebb and flow, to work with the rythm of the cosmos instead of brute forcing whatever they wanted. Add on top of it the Ba-Shu's propensity to older, more forgotten eastern magics, and the result were wards that were exceedingly difficult to break.
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Antics
May 17, 2020 7:35:38 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 17, 2020 7:35:38 GMT -6
"One day, you are going to kill me." He muttered under his breath. "And I will have deserved it." It was quiet, hopefully so only Catherine would hear. He turned his attention back to the ward scheme. "I'll stick to an earth sign then." He considered the rest fo the month. "The full moon is in a couple of nights. I'll aim for then. If I'm going to be doing this on my own, that'll be a better night."
He admired the ward scheme for a moment. "You're a talented person Xiaolian." Coming up with a ward scheme from scratch wasn't easy and he knew matching one to the contours of the property was difficult as well. "Will I need to walk the borders for this one?" If so, he'd need to get an earlier start than he really wanted to. The ranch wasn't a small space after all. He was faster now of course, but walking the borders tended to be a very deliberate process.
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Antics
May 17, 2020 11:01:10 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 17, 2020 11:01:10 GMT -6
"I'm not talented." Xiaolian said shaking her head. "Clever perhaps, but not talented." There were others who had shown much more promise than she ever had, and it was all she could do to manage even one form of magic on this plane. There were others who had scored much higher on their final exams in training than she had even ever hoped to; granted she had passed in the end and earned her right to serve, but it hadn't been an easy road. "You should not need to walk the perimeter, as each sigil should seek out and lock with the other if the directional notations are drawn correctly." It was a time saving measure that while it required more energy from the caster, also meant that the barriers could be replaced quickly. Gaurdian's were not so much creatures of habit, but creatures of circumstance, and most of those circumstances were urgent.
"Why bother when I can watch one of your experiments do it for me?" Catherine replied to Tyrus. Clearly she was not amused with his antics this time around, given that they had turned more serious by the moment. It had been amusing to see him covered head to toe in rainbow goo, but the entertainment value had quickly diminished after the first five minutes.
"Forgive me saying this Warden, I know how you feel about casting, but Rahal will need a second caster for this." Xiaolian interjected, putting a quick end to whatever strange fued was going on between the Warden and mage.
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Antics
May 17, 2020 14:47:00 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 17, 2020 14:47:00 GMT -6
"Don't sell yourself short." Still, the idea of casting with Catherine was... "If Catherine helps cast, it can't be on the full moon. Our magic is too volatile together for that." He was not going to get into another incident. He got into enough trouble with magic without inviting more. "Catherine, do you even want to help cast? If not, I can probably find a set fo seven or thirteen to help. It would probably change things a bit, but most ward schemes I've worked with in the past can work with larger teams pooling their resources."
Assuming this one worked the same of course. "That is, if this one works that way?" He directed the question to Xiaolian. It was a different scheme than he was used to after all.
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Antics
May 17, 2020 15:19:02 GMT -6
Post by Circe on May 17, 2020 15:19:02 GMT -6
Xiaolian tugged gently on the white jade pendant at her neck with it's dragon winding about its surface, "Can't say I know.. I'm not a caster by nature... and generally these are wards cast in concert with a set of eight given their eastern origin.. and eight's auspiciousness." And generally they were cast in a hurry, with everyone expected to know their part and everyone else's forwards and backwards. Eastern magic was a funny thing, and when you added it to what the Guardian's were required to do it was even more complicated.
"The wards I suggested are generally used for containment by certain groups.. but have been reworked to be unobtrusive and keep things out instead of in. So it's just a fancy barrier that keeps magic in and lets other things, like humans out." She added uncertain of how much she should say. How much of it could be used against her like the Lotus program had? Xiaolian didn't know and didn't think she wanted to know. "But again, I'm not terribly talented as a ward smith or breaker. That's Bronson, I'm just here to keep the magic from getting out of hand; it's what us nulls do." Redirect, deny, and redirect again; it always kept the truth hidden and others like herself safe.
"If it's Boyuan's instruction and design, certainly. Yours? No, I don't find that wise." Catherine then answered bluntly. She had this time choosen her words much more carefully. There weren't any accusations, only a statement of her opinion, and it was often that she didn't find veilborne magic to be wise. It was a difficult thing to control, muchless gain mastery over it.
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Antics
May 18, 2020 8:53:18 GMT -6
Post by demikara on May 18, 2020 8:53:18 GMT -6
"A team of eight then." He decided. Catherine was reluctant to use her magic on the best of days. That she didn't want to help with this was no surprise to him. He had only really asked because the lieutenant had mentioned Catherine as if she was going to help. She was ridiculously reluctant to use magic. He was pretty well convinced that she hated that part of her. Either way, he had come to dread their lessons and would be petitioning the council to end them. She was able to control her magic well enough. Was she an expert? By no means. But she was a hell of a lot better than she had been and anything else she could look up how to do and ask for help if she wanted it.
"And I insist on at least paying fair market value for the ward scheme." And it was likely to be a good deal more than she expected it to be. This was a specialized ward scheme for a large area after all. "I can guarantee the silence of the other casters." A spell, money, and greed would handle that. Especially if he pulled from the vampire court.
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