[@Lovejoy] hmmm.  Well, if you have to have a vial of ether to use magic, then we have a lot of stray magic going off in children that makes little sense.  And if a small amout of ether can supply a household for a year, and an inquisitor can use that up in /one/ attack...supporting armies just isn't feasible large scale without a vast number of slaves.  Even Varya starts to strain credibility, and the other nations, including Lanostre, are suddenly unable to support any kind of strong fighting force.

Given that an actual fight consists of lots and lots of attacks, and that most of our inquisitors are using magic in one form or another with each attack or defense, a scant few vials of ether doesn't go very far.  Enhance one spear thrust?  quarter vial of ether.  catch a strong blow, that's another quarter.  Knock the guy down, that's your first vial drained.  It's extremely inefficient.

I agree that Ziotea couldn't /keep/ any ether she drains.  She has to release it, and she has to do so immediately.  That means she can't just sap someone's totem and leave them dry unless she can release the resultant force somewhere, and she's not going to be able to control that force well (if at all).  However, if she just wants to blow something up?  There's no reason why pulling ether from that sort of place wouldn't work.

Given that everyone in Varya uses ether harvested from slaves (who all must have a type, and they aren't all Omestri because we know traitors and really bad criminals end up in there too), and that there aren't many Varyans of Omestri descent, this means that the ability to uses ether from another source isn't tied to the type.  However a transfusion would be, as your body must accept it, and be able to keep it.

Think of Ziotea as AB+.  She can use any type of blood that humans make.  It gets a bit wonky because Omestri are probably 0-, but...we already said wonky science is a thing, and this is an analogy anyhow.

Also, if you can't drain ether from others, then how the heck is ether supplied in the first place?  The machines came after the magic, and the magic must have been used by someone.  That means there is some way for a person to take another person and pull out their ether.  I imagine how severe the damage done depends on how much is taken -- given that the slaves are there for ether draining as much as they can to reach the peak ratio of ether per amount of time spent recovering, they obviously are drained a lot farther than anything Ziotea would be doing.  Then again, this was back when I thought a little ether went a long way, that the vials were not 100% necessary (there should be a level of etheric exertion that is comfortable for a highly trained individual before exhaustion becomes an issue, just like with any other form of exertion), and that using one's own ether was tapped at a rate similar to that of what I thought a vial was (considerably more than it apparently is).  I figured it was a decent tie-in to unpredictable strength, control issues, and a nullification ability, with the added fun of having something Rodian and Ziotea could experiment with, but if that's not the case then I'll discard it.  Naturally she would have started out able to use it only in very minute amounts, which would mean she tired easily the first year or two until she figured out what was going on and learned to do it better.

If you want to handle the fact that the drained ether types and the casters' types don't match, perhaps each priest must tune their vials/totems/whatevers, and they do so in advance.  It takes time, but it means they can use that ether as easily as they can their own.  Untuned ether isn't as effective, and costs additional energy, so there's really no reason not to.  Tuning might even be done like a signature -- everyone's is different.  Powerful casters probably could use someone else's totems, but they'd need to be desperate, as the exertion to counter that tuning is considerable -- just shy of draining a human, most likely, as extracted ether undergoes a purification process so that it can be used.  Because Ziotea can nullify the effects of ether, she can bypass someone else's tuning, and use it in a raw state....ehhh, the idea is breaking down a little.  "surrounding sources" means "other people's totems, and any untuned vials (like in machinery)", and draining other people in a fight is never going to be an effective technique....*waffles*

I'm just spitballing here, really.  Hm, what looks good out of this mess?

Lessee,,,

Extracted ether is purified, "raw" ether isn't as effective as that tuned to one's self, using one's own ether is risky as the closer you are to empty the weaker you get.  Untuning/retuning a vial is most likely feasible, but it'd take a bit longer than the initial tuning.  A few minutes, nothing major, but enough that you can't go around doing it in the middle of a fight.  And it allows vials to be passed from one person to another based on who needs them.  Common sense dictates that if anyone can use an untuned vial, one does not wish to leave them lying around.  I imagine physical proximity is necessary.  Ziotea can use her skill for nullification to get around the issue of ether signatures and tuning, letting her make use of other people's stored reserves at a level slightly less than she'd be able to use raw reserves.  She must use her own personal ether for this spell, meaning she does not do so without good reason.

This sound good?

Anyhow, the idea was less to make Ziotea able to KO others by draining them, and more for depriving them of stored external reserves, although she'd need to spend some quantity of her own to do so (the amount needed for a cast of nullification).  I'm up to it being her own personal ether as opposed to what she has in a totem, that sounds reasonable.  It means she's had to learn not to do it unless she wants to.  It'd also flip her negation ability to something a bit easier (as long as the magic is right near her, mostly offensive spells targeting her or enhanced attacks; other stuff is still difficult and draining) and place ether draining as her weakest, given that it requires nullification, a good way to release the power (or perhaps an empty storage unit for transfer?  ...eh, best not) and then the handling of release cast itself.

On the topic of power scaling, it doesn't matter how powerful someone is, if you can fling a metaphysical grenade right at them -- and Ziotea's learned to be quite accurate in where she sets off her blasts -- they are not going to be a threat for very long unless they can somehow negate it.  I also saw concussive force as less-than-focused -- she can do pinpoint precision and shatter something, but it requires concentration that she just doesn't get in the middle of stabbing and bashing and being stabbed and bashed.

And I'm now wondering just how many vials we need to take with to be able to rely on fighting with magic outside of Varya.