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He begins to meditate to stay calm.

(OOC: Oh, be quiet, Kaelan. Larric's been consistently the smartest of us so far.)

(OOC: Oh, be quiet, Kaelan. Larric's been consistently the smartest of us so far.)

Which is why when he does something as dumb as this it stands out so much.

As the man standing in the exact center (epicenter?) of the unfolding Working, Verone is in a twofold position. On one hand, he's absolutely, positively guaranteed to be heavily affected by the trap. On the other hand, and that hand he's desperately trying to find a way to work with, he's also in a position to see every last element of the fantastically--complex magic as it unspools past him and takes up position relative to its center -- and Verone. The letter is moot; the magic's been triggered, it's out in the world, and scribbling on it won't help. On the other hand--principle of similarity. The letter, on some level, is the spell, or was recently enough to count thaumaturgically. Now to find a way to anchor them together so that moving one moves the other. Oh, and do it very quickly.

"Excuse me, but if I can make this whole lot move, where's the least inconvenient direction?"

William is waiting to see what Alfred does. The Elvin stone's did a good enough job last time against D. Runic magic.

Verone has a good idea- but getting it to work without accidentally strengthening the trap spell, having it release all over you as it is moved away from Larric and out of balance with the resistance to it, is going to be the hard part.

'The only direction that isn't full of easier prey is up.' Andrea points out.

OOC:

If I hadn't had a discussion section full of engineering students to see to, I would have written something featuring Larric shouting out "up!" too.

Just because I felt like a post:

IC:

Larric perceives magic much as he does electromagnetic fields- as arcs and ribbons of force, with fairly good spatial visualization. Three dimensions are easy, four he might stretch to if time-dependency counts. To him, as I see it, the remaining challenge, aside from simply keeping up the wall of immutability, is navigating a complex environment. The need to find and anticipate the points of greatest stress and danger, so as to avoid or defend against them- something that man does have genetic aptitude for even if you go back quite far; on the crudest level, it's all about avoiding the brightly colored spiders in the trees in favor of the bananas.

He keeps reasserting his own shape- and that around him, as possible and necessary- trying to buy Verone time to do something educated.

"At least it's noncorporeal, having to remove the ceiling would be somewhat irritating..." Verone mutters as he works, delicate traceries of magic stringing back and forth between the spell and the trapped letter as he tries to anchor the whole thing together, rather than just parts of it.

"Bother. The letter isn't. Larric?" he calls the other mage's name without even looking, trying to avoid taking his attention off the delicate work, "We don't need as much of the ceiling removed as otherwise might be the case, but would you mind making a hole for the letter? Try to keep the flying debris to a minimum if you could."

Larric is rather busy trying not to answer "ook," but assuming he hasn't yet been turned into a paramecium, and that it's actually possible for him to make the effort without severely compromising his defenses, he'll give it a go.

The best I can imagine him doing without actually knowing the composition of the roof is a high-tension arc of electricity carving into the ceiling, not directly above Verone, but instead a few yards to the left, seeing as how Verone has a big floppy befeathered thing on his head, and not a hardhat.

Trying to arc-cut a section out may take more finesse and attention that he can spare at the moment, even if he'd be up to it at the best of times, so this is likely just a brute-force attempt to blow a hole in the roof, an inverted thunderbolt.

Woah. Simon, you may wish to reconsider- you got that post in while I was still typing this up.


That can actually count as Verone's turn at wielding the Sceptre of Mess-up; getting the person who is holding all of this in check to stop concentrating on that and doing something else would be an effective guarantee of marsupial- hood. Follow that plan and you're dead.

Two further problems; you're in the keep. Thick walls, small windows, stone floors. Not going to be easy, and another floor above you- there's another layer of flagstones and a roof to get through.

The edges of this probably stick out; soon somebody is going to come rushing in here wondering what the fuss is, and they may or may not make the situation better. Probably won't.

Andrea- and William- are both edging toward the parchment.

LARGELY OOC:

Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Woah. Simon, you may wish to reconsider- you got that post in while I was still typing this up.

That can actually count as Verone's turn at wielding the Sceptre of Mess-up; getting the person who is holding all of this in check to stop concentrating on that and doing something else would be an effective guarantee of marsupial- hood. Follow that plan and you're dead.

Larric is rather busy trying not to answer "ook," but assuming he hasn't yet been turned into a paramecium, and that it's actually possible for him to make the effort without severely compromising his defenses, he'll give it a go.

In that case, the odds are pretty good Larric will be too busy to try anything distracting. I.e., "it's not actually possible for him to make the effort without severely compromising his defenses."

Ever been carrying something heavy when someone asked you to do something else? Sure, maybe, you could open that door for them by kicking it while both hands are full- that doesn't mean you're actually going to do it. Heck, I sometimes even have to postpone a conversation while handling a large weight, even if there's nothing wrong with my vocal chords, because my concentration is limited and I don't want to drop three cases of soda on my feet.

My problem is that on my end I don't have a clear picture of the mechanics, so I have to guess and make conditional statements based on "if possibles." How full are his hands?

Writing that, I found myself going:

"I would think Larric's hands are full (so to speak), but I literally can not be sure, either in terms of the mechanics or in terms of what the man is really experiencing. So I will describe his actions if he can do what Verone wants, with the qualifier that he might not be able to do it without getting himself killed."

So consider the act reconsidered, deconsidered, unconsidered, considered and thrown into the monkey-pen, whatever. Bad idea all around; Larric is not a powerful enough wizard to stand off this effect and blow holes in the walls at the same time.


...

Two further problems; you're in the keep. Thick walls, small windows, stone floors. Not going to be easy, and another floor above you- there's another layer of flagstones and a roof to get through.

Small windows- but are there windows? We're looking at a piece of paper here, not a book- can he not simply fling that through the window and up to a great height?

Rohal will begin to focus on his humanity and all the good he has done. Then switching between the thrils of being a wolf, the hunt, the pack, the moons, and back to humanity. Deliberately skipping his hybrid stage.

On the first floor of a fortified building- a fort, actually- they're more firing ports than windows, but they do exist- small ones, but they are there.

Laric's hands are more than full, he's acting as the spearpoint of the group- under stresses that any sane person would want to make stop as soon as possible, being squeezed by the pressure, which alone may be enough to do damage if the spell doesn't.

Who's actually got the pouch of elvish rocks, still William, isn't it?

----added;

Oh, good. Effective resistance. Some of the loops start to shred and unravel as Rohal thinks of something active and useful, and brings it forth and defies the spell with it. The balance is shifting towards you, but slowly- it's going to be a long time fading at this rate, but it is fading.

William gave them to Alfred for the duel, figuring that they might effectively disenchant things.

(OOC: Depending on GM fiat, they may no longer be on him. I never said I removed them when I said I took off my armor. Assuming I do still have them on me, I still won't be able to do jack, what with Alfred being the one with as much knowledge of magic as a prune. Plus, he's in a meditative trance or whatever right now. I suppose if you take a moment to prod him about it, he may follow your instructions as to what to do.)

ECR-
That will make william's actions easier if required.

I'd rather Kaelan did this himself, but I have actions by PM, and somebody needs to do it, so- the coils of life- light compress, contract; spasm outwards.

Starting to slip out of Larric's grasp. [actual numbers; the initial resistance roll- with augments, and bonuses for bad punnage- hell yes, that mattered, a point a pun- it was more or less even. Forty against forty, actual rolls attack fourteen, defence sixteen. Enough to hold it back. Rohal brought it up to twenty-six under vs. twenty- seven under. This set? Not so good.]

Verone's solutions are probably too subtle; bashing it with sheer determination and willopwer was enough to check it, a little more might be enough to push it over.

William decides to do something heroically stupid.
In fact, I'm having difficulty working out why, unless he has suddenly acquired spectacularly exaggerated faith in elvish rocks, or has decided to embarrass you all. It's so unlike his usual mercenary self. There's got to be an angle.

Andrea has the same idea, but slightly slower.

Grab rock, grab manifesto, wrap manifesto around rock and- he looks as if he's about to swallow it. Anyone got a better idea?

OOC:

(and where is Kaelan, anyway?)

The obvious thing to do would just be to throw the rock out the window and motion-magic it into the sky- more or less what Verone was planning to do anyway, subject to the limitations of us not having a bazooka handy. Unfortunately, Larric can't do that.

(and where is White Haven, anyway?)

IC:

Larric's pretty well locked down trying to not let D. make a protozoan out of him until William does it.

If William actually does it, Larric is going to try to push as much of that barricade of resistance and immutability into William as possible- concentrate the counterspell, hem the curse in, englobe it and limit it both in physical breadth and in depth of effect. Hopefully we'll at least get a pet monkey out of the deal, rather than a pet salamander.

If it starts slipping out past that, of course, he'll have to go back to square one- I don't actually know how effective swallowing the sheet with the curse would be at preventing it from affecting other people; if it can kill through rocks, I see no obvious reason why it can't kill through William's ribcage.

Verone lets out an indignant yelp as the letter is snatched from his hands, turning to stare at the...umm...

"When faced with something you don't understand, eat it. Naturally. Give me that, you fool, I can't fit you out a window without breaking you."

OK, first things first.
@ Simon, I have been about, just keeping quiet and observing for a bit.

IC:

Gulp!
Hmm, tastes like chicken, though a bit gritty....

Looking at Larric and the group he will say one word.

“run”

Then he’ll focus more on his stomach. Concentrating more on keeping what’s inside actually inside. Rolling with the knots and rumbling from within. Try to recall all those boring lectures on resisting battle magic and once again put them into practice, and avoid recalling is dad’s lectures on chicken farming. With luck the elf stone will help buy more time.

OOC:

Kind of hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this, but better one PC than the entire party.

I felt that you’d lost it when you tried to finesse the spell, and not bludgeon it back into the paper. The spell that D. had crafted was far too complex for that with such short notice and the parties’ current skill levels. In effect it was as though you were trying to re-write Mozart using a board marker pen with a fruit pop whistle and still get a recognisable song out of it. I guess its a case of too much work and not enought 'Larrics' to go around.

Burning the paper was raised as an option, but as pointed out – it would just spread the magic. This way it’s contained in one location and will (hopefully) feed upon itself until it burns out, or at least delay it enough so everybody can get away from the area of effect.

As ECR stated, this was a group resistance to the spell, and that group contained an awful lot of other nobles and servants. If it was just the party and a couple of other bystanders you might have pulled it off with party confidence but you’re going to have to work on your showmanship in the future. Provide the bystanders with something to cling onto. Larric was trying to carry an awful lot of load on his own, and I don't think he's quite at that grade of power (yet). There is a reason why choral magic is present on the battlefields and chivalry is a form of armour against spells.

IC

William’s final thought – I hope that wasn’t Alfred’s favourite pouch....

Right- ah.

Hm. I'm willing to process that action.

William swallows the rock, and the parchment- doesn't pass the gullet easily but that's the least of his problems. Verone shouts at him and tries to stop him- Andrea rugby tackles him and bundles him into a corner, the green coils go with and focus down on them.

The spell has it's effect. What isn't held by the rock, used on damaging William, Andrea's resistance manages to hold back-

well, when the light fades, she's there, looking dazed and wild eyed, not entirely in touch with reality, the air is thick with dust and smoke most of which is William's mass, and there's no coherent sign of him, none at all. Not even a small rodent.

Somewhere amongst the flagstones, a small colony of archaeobacteria has just begun.

He is dead, heroically gave his life for the rest of the party, and his soul is on the way to the halls of whichever of the gods agrees to take him. The danger is past. If you don't count the fact that the Countess may be close enough by to have spotted that.


Hm. Well. What now?

Rohal thinks to himself <I will howl for him at the next moon> but otherwise stands astonished, looking confused, angry to cover sadness.

OOC:

I am much, much too busy today to give these events the response they deserve for at least the next six hours. I may do it anyway, but I shouldn't, I really shouldn't.

IC:

"Uhhhhhg."

Larric staggers, falls to his knees, then prone on the flagstones, shivering.

He finally opens an eye and, seeing a puff of smoke where William used to be, mutters, "Damn it, William."

Andrea pulls herself together, stands up, says with confusion 'I nearly did that, he didn't seem- he had too sharp a tongue for that, duty wasn't him, why would he sacrifice himself?'

Detrick asks her 'Are you all right, is he the only one who's...gone? Is he all right?' the second person there being Larric, and the answer would strictly be 'no', suffering from the non- physically induced equivalent of a concussion.

There is some screaming and wailing from outside that indicates they might not have been the only casualties- but not much; one person (unfortunately not the treasurer) had a heart attack at the sight of it, someone jumped off the inner ring wall and broke both legs trying to get away, another blundered into the coils that flickered out from the keep wall- but as opposed to everybody, you got off lightly.

There is little to clear up, which is a shame- not that splat would have been good but everyone needs decompression and rest time after that. It'll be dark soon anyway.


The senior wizard of the guild present- a relatively squareset type, greyhaired but healthier than most wizards, more into intricacy than raw power these days, Lurentius Torr is his name, arrives shortly afterwards, looks to Verone and says 'Well done- when he's fit, we need to talk to both of you. Of this, and other things- the predictions of doom are still coming thick and fast.'

'Anyone with an interest in odd magic would have noticed that for miles.' Detrick realises. 'We may not have to go and find the Countess at all.'

"While I'd like to imagine my last words to him were effective, I don't know. It's not him to do something like that."

Upon hearing Detrick's words, he says, "Oh, crap."