(no subject)

[sythyry]

Dissection of Spells [8-9 Hivvem 4261]

I chanced to look at the Eye of Mimizan and Melizan in the evening.

Actually I look at it frequently, especially on days that are multiples of three. It's a fretful fearful little habit, fretful and fearful that Vae has slipped some deadly spell on me (intended, of course, for my benefit) without me noticing. She does that kind of thing.

"That's odd," I thought, and looked closer. "That's very odd. Where on wood would I have run into a Destroc Sustenoc Airador Illusidor spell at all, and a hebespectral, thaliated one at that." I looked stuff up in last term's textbooks. "It's almost like someone spellwove a perpetual silence spell a few months ago."

I shrugged and went to bed.

And woke up three hours later, and brushed cinders out of my feathers, and headed down to Anoof+Narngi's room. Enziet was, of course, spending the night with Havune. Gods know what they were doing; I'd rather not know.

Me:"Narngi? Anoof? You'd said that Enziet was mute, hadn't you?"

Narngi + Anoof:"Mrooon? Mroooooooon?" and other sounds of not full wakedness.

Me:wake! wake! wake!

Narngi and Anoof:"Yes, she's been mute since an accident last year."

Me:"Well, the accident involved someone weaving a perpetual silence spell in her throat."

Narngi and Anoof:"What?"

Me:(explained the evidence a few times.)

Narngi and Anoof:"Could you explain that?"

Woven spells take several hours to do. They're sort of like spontaneous magic, in the sense that you don't need to have a pattern spell to do them -- you get to invent just about anything you're capable of, with enough skill at spellweaving. They can be very complex, unlike spontaneous spells which are usually very simple -- that is, they can do something very elaborate, or subtle, or long-lasting.

They are also very weak, also unlike spontaneous spells. It's pretty much impossible for anyone but a great wizard to dispel even an amateur's pattern or spontaneous spell directly -- but woven spells are so weak that, say, your average stevedor or Rassimel could dispel it on the first try, even without knowing a high-class antispell. An incompetant ten-year-old would probably be able to break it in a couple days.

As a natural consequence of that, if someone casts a malevolant woven spell at you, you have to be exceedingly unlucky to fail to resist it. And even if you fail to resist it, you can knock it down in short order if you want. (Pace the occasional spell that you don't know about or that controls you to the extent that you can't counter it. We know Enziet knows about her muteness, and it doesn't have Mentador.)

Which is a very technical way of saying:

1. Enziet is under a silence spell rather than being actually mute, and
2. It's more or less intentional, at least in the sense of she could have taken it off but has not done.

Narngi:"We must change our motto to 'Ego spem pretio non emo'."[trans: "OMG WTF?"]

Anoof:"We must change our motto to 'Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus'"[trans: "This can't be good."]

Me:"We must go back to sleep."

Narngi and Anoof:"After what you have just done to us? Impossible!"

Me:"Fortunately, I can fly, and my bed is on fire, thereby limiting your ability to pursue me."

Narngi and Anoof:"Good night, Sythyry, and thank you for interesting observations will will surely ruin every class we have tomorrow."

Anoof and Narngi:"Tomorrow, just? For the next month, I should think!"

I fled, and, indeed, went back to bed.

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Certainly. No great skill to it -- Indeed, an incompetant ten-year-old could do it in half a dozen tries or so.

Should I, do you think?

[redbird]

I'd suggest asking Anoof and Narngi what they want. It seems about equally likely that they'll want to demand a full explanation, and want her to be able to speak so she can give it; or that they'll want to tell her that the engagement is off, and that she is to leave their home at once and forever, and not give her the chance to try to talk her way out of it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I think you're right... if that. I don't know about how customs are in your world, but in Vheshrame it not entirely polite to cast spells on your friends' fiancee, even with your friends' permission, but without asking the fiancee.

I daresay there will be plenty of drama and sobbing Cani, one way or another.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Why not just find an incompitent 10-year-old and tell them it'd be a fun game? Then you'll have some time to get out of the blast radius.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that I'm allowed to have that much fun.

[redbird]

It would not be polite in my world, but neither would it be polite to cast a spell on oneself, or arrange for it to be cast, in order to deceive people as part of entering into an engagement.

There are perhaps-unresolvable disagreements about whether one such rudeness justifies another.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Being mute isn't ordinarily considered a good thing, so I'm not sure why she's decieving us, or about what.

[kistaro]

Would unrestrained barking disturb a Sleeth intimate partner?

[coppercheetah.livejournal.com]

(Denaist just smirks.) No.
(He then softens more into a whisker-splayed smile.) At least, most ways, no. I'd more enjoy in being part of the reason for said unrestrained barking, but... Cani have their ways, as we Sleeth have ours.

[mufi.livejournal.com]

Well, it's what Vae would do!

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Vae would transmogrify the woven spell into something scary... like a one-way pocket. (Nothing put into the pocket ever comes out. Very inconvenient when you stick your hand in there.)

[mufi.livejournal.com]

Credit her with more sense than that! She'd -actually- transform it into something innocuous but absurdly difficult, like, say, a spell of whiteness on a single hair on Enziet's throat.

I meant more that she'd do something about it without asking the person it's on. See Conversation, The.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Seems like a good reason not to do it.

[spotweld.livejournal.com]

Sometimes small bad things happen so that bigger bad things don't....