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Post by Circe on Jul 12, 2020 17:29:08 GMT -6
Xiaolian offered another shrug, "Given the sheer amount of stupidity these days, I doubt it. Those chupa things are urban legends and will likely be relegated to the same category as ghost hunters and whatever that giant man thing is."
Olive branch or not, Xiaolian was cautious. Molly wasn't ever supposed to know that she was working with a Guardian, but someone had opened their mouth and let it slip. Things hadn't been easy, but they had certainly been better than they currently were. Now it was just a daily slog, along with being called at all hours by Tyrus to fix whatever newest disaster he had created. It was getting old and she was about ready to write him a very special sigil to hand to him next time.
"The mundanes think most of the unseen is just weird new age stuff, given a lot of magic practiced these days is weak charms and inconvenient curses."
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Post by demikara on Jul 12, 2020 17:36:28 GMT -6
"That hasn't stopped the protests or the attacks. I know that the reveal wasn't exactly something we could have hidden but..." She shrugged. "It's almost enough to go back home. If I could. Which I can't because yay probation." She could not wait for it to be over with. Not that she had been given a time limit, which was was pretty sure was illegal by mundane laws. Unseen laws were different beasts though. As it was, the never ending probation, until the council determined she had learned her lesson, was perfectly legal.
Even if it made her feel entirely too much like she was 300 again, unable to do anything on her own. "Hey...why didn't you guys call us for help. When you were attacked. Zander brought it up the other day. I remember there used to be a lot more of you guys around. But I was still an apprentice when you all just sort of...disappeared and became boogymen."
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Post by Circe on Jul 12, 2020 20:22:30 GMT -6
"At least you can go home..." Xiaolian grumbled. Molly had hit a sore spot. Training would have begun the next spring, had they not been attacked. But instead she had spent that time fleeing to safety with her family. In the aftermath was only when they had discovered how truly astounding their losses were.
"We called for help, but no one wanted to save houses of bamboo." She finally said slowly. No one was interested in helping those so close to heaven.
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 9:10:41 GMT -6
"Zander and Alex didn't get the call." Molly was firm on that one. "There's no way they wouldn't have gone to help. Alex and Pwyll are trained as fighters. Pwyll was too young, but there's no way Alex wouldn't go if he had been called. You saw how Zander reacted to you." Molly was trained primarily as an explorer, but knew how to fight as well. Alex and Pwyll were primarily fighters though, against the corruption that sometimes spread in the In Between.
It was an important job and was meant to be done in conjunction with the guardians. Lately it had been done entirely on their own though. It made it more dangerous. "Maybe the call didn't go all the way out?" There were people in charge, nominally, of the Ratatoskr. If one of them decided not to send out the call...
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 9:43:10 GMT -6
Xiaolian just shook her head, "We called for help, but... I'd really rather not talk about it." The things her family had gone through weren't worth reliving. The gut wrenching terror of the sights and sounds of war for a child were things that still haunted her dreams at night.
"I hadn't intended for your Zander to find out about me." They weren't supposed to exist or reveal themselves to really anyone. They were still quietly waging a war against corruption and deceit within their own ranks. It didn't help that many of them had been recruited for the Black Lotus program, only to be used up and thrown away.
"Our rules are different than your rules."
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 10:03:56 GMT -6
"Zander's smart. He would have figured it out eventually. Or at least, if we kept working together. You're not exactly shy about using spacetime magic." And spacetime magic was exceedingly rare. People who had the ability to use it generally got snapped up as children. Molly had been after all, and assigned a fae mentor. Places with accessible magic were monitored heavily for the ability. You still had to have a breakthrough level of magical ability to be taken, but that didn't mean you wouldn't be regularly checked on.
There hadn't been a human ratatoskr since the veil went up. They no longer had the magic needed. It meant this plane wasn't as closely monitored anymore. "And he won't tell. I think he's relieved I'm working with you." She still wasn't.
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 10:12:12 GMT -6
Xiaolian winced, she had been slipping. While it had been an amusing game to scare her co-worker, she needed to stop. It would only call attention to herself more and more. That wasn't anything she needed, especially given she had yet to find a way to disentangle herself from the court.
"I do very little outside of my job." She deflected. Which was true, there hadn't been many requests for assistance from a guardian for some time. The ratatoskr and become increasingly clannish, and increasingly hostile about the tree. Heaven still saw fit to allow the guardians their magic, but for how long was the question.
"I'm a null Bronson, I can't cast." Which was partially true. It was mostly she hasn't figured out how to use the current plane's magic to her advantage. It was a difficult thing, and required energy and time she didn't often have at her disposal.
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 10:28:28 GMT -6
"You don't need magic to be good in a fight." Molly pointed out. "And you can't be a complete null. Not if you can access the tree." Maybe she was mostly a null, but she could still use magic. Just a different sort of magic, a sort most people couldn't so much as touch. Even Rahal with all his studies couldn't touch spacetime magic. It was too innate.
"Besides, he's convinced you have common sense and thinks someone does near me." She did tend to get into situations. Her curiosity tended to lead the way more often than not. It made her a good investigator, but it also tended to lead to situations.
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 10:46:07 GMT -6
"Who said anything about a fight? And believe me, I'm about as much of a null as they come." Accessing the tree was one thing, powering charms, wards, and spells was another. It always tended to fizzle out for her, even if she tried doing it different ways.
Xiaolian had always suspected that the program had broken more than just her community ties, and ability to jump more than just within a set plane. But here Molly was rubbing it in and whining about a binding which she should have known was coming based on behavior.
"I can't access anything outside this." She added motioning with her hands. It had been that way for some time, and was likely going to continue to be that way until she figured out why.
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 10:55:12 GMT -6
"What?" She could only access the one plane? "That's...I can find a doctor. Someone discrete. We have them. You shouldn't be tied to just...it's not right." Molly was in trouble. She understood why she was bound to one plane, even if she hated it entirely. But Xiaolian was a guardian. She should be able to access everywhere connected to the In Between, not just the In Between and the one plane.
Maybe it was because she was a null? But that would have stopped her entirely, not just leave her the one type of magic. There had to be an answer at least, some reason that she couldn't go to other planes as well.
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 11:05:49 GMT -6
"That's normal for me." Xiaolian replied bluntly. It made for a very poor guardian, but it worked well enough for MCU to keep her around. "I don't understand what a doctor would do."
Even if Molly thought it wasn't right, it was the reality that Xiaolian was stuck with.
She had made her career as a null, and the teleportation trick as most saw it was handy.
If she needed a sigil powered or charged, then she could always ask Zhen. If that wasn't available, then she could write the use of an individual's own power into the sigil for use. It tended to drain a being relatively fast, as it was a constant strong and steady pull. Many users didn't have the reserves to tolerate it.
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 11:37:50 GMT -6
"Find out why. Fix it, maybe?" Being stuck on one plane sucked and Molly couldn't understand why anyone who had the option would do so. But she had grown up wandering the world tree at her mentor's side. It must have been different for Xiaolian. Maybe all she had was the teleporting trick. But if she was a guardian she definitely had the heritage to have a lot more than that.
"I don't know. Examine your spacetime magic for any blocks, maybe." They could do that. She was pretty sure they could at least. Molly had never needed to go to the specialists the ratatoskr had.
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 12:05:24 GMT -6
Xiaolian stared at Molly in disbelief, she seemed to think it was so simple as to remove a block and see a doctor if ones such as those mentioned even existed. “You have nothing to gain from helping me. The ratatoskr did everything they could to see us as second class citizens and... make us disappear.” The Lin family had had things especially hard, as they were one of the oldest with an unbroken line leading back to the guardians that had freely chosen to serve the first gods and heaven. In return for their loyalty they had been granted power and the ability to travel among the realms of the world tree.
“You don’t understand, Molly, it’s not a simple problem to solve! My kind isn’t well regarded in the world these days. I’m better off playing the human these days, it keeps my family safe.”
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Post by demikara on Jul 13, 2020 14:09:47 GMT -6
"I don't need to have anything to gain from helping you." Molly pointed out. "And there's no way the Ratatoskr I know would do that. You guys can be super scary, but Alex said we're supposed to be able to work with you." Besides, there were no citizens of the world tree. Even the laws were more like organizational rules than anything else. "Why would we want you to disappear. You take care of magic itself.That's kind of super important." If they disappeared, who knew what would happen?
Corruption was already getting worse, with them mostly gone. With them entirely gone, there was no way the ratatoskr could keep it under control. The guardians had the ability to cut off planes where corruption had grown unchecked. Ratatoskr definitely couldn't do that. It required a guardians seal, which had always been jealously guarded magic, as far as Molly knew.
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Post by Circe on Jul 13, 2020 14:28:30 GMT -6
"There is corruption within your ranks, there are those who would wish to see that corruption take over and use it for their own gains." Xiaolian explained slowly. Not all ratatoskr were bad, but in her eyes as a child whose family had fled from their home, they were suspect. Especially when they had called for help for days, as they tried to resist and endure the attacks on their villages.
"Because a guardian is trained to do what they do, many see us as obstacles in their way. Much like an officer of the MCU is seen by many here. Our service to Heaven is by an ancient mandate, and it is a partnership that many are jealous of."
The simple fact was that there were individuals who wanted the power and prestige for themselves, not caring a bit for the heavy weight of responsibility that came with it.
Guardians were often called before the court of Heaven to account for decisions made. This meant often a dealing directly with extra planar entities and possible gods. A Guardian had to be quiet, knowledgeable, and above all respectful irregardless of who or what they were dealing with.
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