Dark Jack

The Prophecy

Yeah, happy New Year's Eve everyone.

The Prophecy

Merry Christmas, everyone! And I must say, I've already gotten three great presents, even though it's still early in the morning here: two new posts in the RP to prove that it has not been as wholly abandoned as I was starting to fear that it was, and managing to finish my paper on our semester project before Christmas, granting me a little break between now and New Year's Eve to actually get some posting done myself.

The Prophecy

GroooooooooOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Posted... will post more. Must rest now. Yes.

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest

Oh my, Olan thought, smiling amusedly to himself as he came to stand before these new acquaintances Etakar had found for them, barely even paying attention to Jaelnec's words and paying no mind to himself being introduced as 'just Olan'. He looked around with blatant curiosity, excited about what he was seeing, and was particularly interested to examine the great black-furred one snoozing off to the side. Now this is interesting!
He paid enough attention to what was going on to note their newly encountered man and woman's names - Domhnall the hunter and Iridiel, the marked by Sullis - and grinned at the mention of the goddess, a deity mostly marginalized in eastern countries as her sphere of influence overlapped with both that of Reina and Gaia, both of which were much more powerful entities. It was all just so delightfully unusual, it made him all tingly with the sense of experiencing something new, and indeed perhaps even something never seen before in the history of Rodoria... and one might argue that such sights were particularly common these days, with the ravaging of the Withering and the consequences of its reign, but to him, this was better.

It was only when Thaler requested his assistance in getting to Aemoten's side that he stirred from his state of dazed wonderment. "Of course," he immediately assured her, and unfailingly lead her to where the Sekalyn slept. "He's napping, you know? I guess these last couple of days have been tough on him. Must be hard, making everyone's safety his own responsibility like that, you know?"
Once they were by their leader's side, however, Olan could no longer contain his curiosity and, as soon as Thaler was safely at her destination, swiveled around to look excitedly from the furry creature to Domhnall and Iridiel. "Okay, okay, I'm dying to know," he exclaimed with a grin, "what two éireannach and a del-korm are doing here? And together, too. That's probably about the most unusual thing I remember seeing, you know!"

---

Zerul City, the Drunken Dove

While I'on's spell technically affected both of the deo'iel and successfully exerted its influence on both of them without meeting any real resistance, its effect was - on both of them - exceedingly weak and short-lived. It was not that the blue-haired one realized what was happening and refused to let her mind be manipulated by magic, nor was it a matter of the masked demonspawn's primal rage being so intense that it burned straight through the fabric of the spell. No, the reason that the magical energy that momentarily permeated the air before wrapping around them, trying to force their minds into new molds, seemed to quickly exhaust itself and scatter, was quite another: it had a competitor that was far beyond the meager scope of its influence. Indeed, how could the spell of a mortal mage ever hope to cancel out and reverse the perpetually renewed influence of demon blood?
For a second after the spell was cast, the sisters felt oddly light, and found themselves visiting an inner place of serenity that they had not known since they together had occupied their mother's womb. Their eyelids would flutter and their breaths catch in their throats... and then the writhing serpent inside of them that was Himyth's infernal heritage reared its head and, with shocking ease, completely shattered the spell that audaciously tried to dethrone it as the supreme force shaping these two puny creatures.
...or at least, it would be. Eventually. Once it finally gathered the strength to shatter the shackles put on it by the sisters' mother.

The blue-haired sister kept staring fearfully as Morgan and Ixion briefly clashed, looking not at the pair fighting one another, but at the wall of soil and stone that stood between her and them, trembling ever so slightly as though it was a living thing, a lumbering creature of dirt, so eager to hunt and crush its prey that it could barely even contain itself.
And indeed, the masked sister mimicked the wall created by her power, shaking all over her body as she stared at Morgan with undisguised hatred. But her trembling was not, as her sister thought, a symptom of eagerness and anticipation; it was the result of her trying desperately to stop herself from succumbing to the demonic bloodthirst within her. She wanted to do it - she could almost hear the music of dying screams and bones being ground to splinters and dust, could almost smell the aroma of flesh and blood being blended into a shapeless paste by a writhing mass of rock and dirt, all while keeping her victims alive for as long as possible - but she made the conscious decision not to. Her logical sense of ethics was locked in struggle with her core nature, which bade her to attack, torment and kill everyone in her vicinity.
Only once Morgan spoke, declaring his willingness to cooperate, did she manage to reign in her beast, and with a surge of effort she managed to quell her rage. Slowly the wall she had created retracted back into the ground from which it had come, until nothing was left of it but the broken floor and cracked ceiling.

The blue-haired demonspawn breathed a sigh of relief. "That could have ended very badly," she murmured, almost to herself, gently resting the fingers of her left hand on her chest as she smiled. "But I suppose that you have a point when it comes to you having no reason to trust us... though believe me, my sister is just as dangerous in wide open spaces as in confined ones."
The masked one returned to the common room as her sister spoke, the mirrors of her eyes dark and smooth once more as her power slumbered. The two of them shared a look, and then nodded in unison.
"How about this: so that we all have no choice but to trust one another, everyone here wearing a mask takes it off, and we share our real names - which I'm sure you must realize is very dangerous for us to do. Normally we would simply be the Sisters of Torment, but if it calms your nerves..." She sighed. "My name is Violet, and this is my twin sister, Rose."

The Prophecy

Huh, so you did consider it my turn... I thought Merc would want to react to Morgan throwing him around and stuff first. But all right, I'll look into it when I have the time, then.

Also, a thing I forgot in my previous post:

Speaking of mind-control effects in general, I perhaps should send a PM later to discuss why the ailment/blessing from the Illusionist-confrontation occasion...

Shienvien

I would actually like to be reminded about the nature of the Illusionist in general. I think I remember most of it, but the PM I used to consult whenever I wanted to check something about the Illusionist was lost with the old Guild, so... yeah, all I have to go by is my memory, which I don't have any faith in whatsoever.

The Prophecy

Eh, do we have one of those situations right now where everyone is waiting for someone else, or...? (I know I'm next in the Kaedan-scene, I'll get to it, but I'm just concerned that nothing is happening in the other branches of the story.)

Danish and English are similar in a lot of ways, yeah, mainly because they share the same roots... something I became particularly aware of when I tried to educate myself some in the ways of archaic English, in which I realized that the roots of many modern English words actually lie in the old Norse languages. We borrow words from English, of course, but it's interesting to realize that it's not just English that is shaping our language, but our language that shaped English originally.
We do have a word for the broader term "monster", though... actually we have several different words, one of which is actually "monster" (spelled the same but with Danish pronunciation, which isn't even that different from the English one; we just tend to accent it a bit differently). Troll is more like... a category of creature. A species, with many different and wildly varying races.
Ugh, and don't even get me started on trying to translate names... They did it with LoTR and Harry Potter, and it was equally horrendous to see some of the names that resulted from the attempt. I've personally been very annoyed with LoTR sword, Sting, in that respect, because some translator decided that its name in Danish should be "Stik" (which is the imperative form of the verb "sting", or the word used to describe the area that has been stung (a mosquito bite is, while we're at it, a "myggestik" - a "mosquito sting" (despite the fact that mosquitoes are not even in possession of a sting in the first place))) instead of what I thought was a much more logical name, "Brod" (the anatomical feature called sting, used to perform the aforementioned action). Doesn't make sense. Eh...

"Ork" in Danish would be the imperative form of... eh... (checks dictionary) Huh, there is no English equivalent. It basically means "to have the strength or energy" for some task or another. We usually use it to denote that we won't do something because it would be too much of a bother. Toothpick would (for the sake of mentioning it) be "tandstikker", literally tooth-poker... or tooth stabber? Actually the latter is more literal than the former. Huh. Carnivorous squirrel would be "kødædende egern" (flesh/meat-eating squirrel), though that particular word is actually a common cause for confusion to Danes figuring out English, since squirrel is "egern", but chipmunk is "jordegern" - literally "earth squirrel" - so to us the two are relatively easily to confuse with one another.
And calling translating the term "carnivorous squirrel" an important thing is probably a rather immense overstatement... but I suppose it is still nice to know.

The Prophecy

Eh... well, technically, if going by what was written in the post and yoshua's description of the spell as well as the general nature of mind-affecting magic, Morgan would not have been able to identify the effect of the magic on him, and as such the statement "with the magic now gone" would be false, which would consequently induce the discomfort yoshua described when acting despite of it.
Basically, submitting to part survival instinct and part vengeful anger is not the way to cancel the spell, only to defy it... if that makes sense. It wouldn't allow him to break the magic affecting him, but it would give him the determination to push through.

The Prophecy

I imagine that neither of them would be able to shake off the spell immediately, at least, since it does have such a relatively difficult-to-define effect. Realizing how one was manipulated through sheer self-analysis and the powers of observation would probably be a challenge, so I imagine that the most Ixion - who seems to rely a great deal on such - would be likely to accomplish was to act in spite of the magic rather than simply resist it, which would in effect mean that he would experience the consequential discomfort you described earlier when doing so. Morgan, though... he wouldn't be able to figure out how he was being affected simply by being affected, but ironically he would be able to tell through sensing the changes wrought by the spell in others near him, in this case Ixion. Once he had seen how Ixion's flow of energy had changed, he would probably be able to figure out that the spell was liable to have had the same effect on himself, and subsequently make an effort to resist it.

You might do that, though mostly I'll try to be as accommodating as possible, obviously. There just are some quirks to certain kinds of more complex magic, such as that which affects minds directly, that make them a bit less intuitive. You want to blow something up? No problem, there's loads of spells that do that. But if you have a spell with a very specific effect, or one that manipulates things in a very delicate manner, go ahead and ask if you're in doubt.

The Prophecy

@Dark Jack I know I'm probably assuming a lot here, but I figured if Morgan could learn how to filter soul ambiances, then, in theory, he should be able to also filter certain magic affects. Granted, he would be very poor at it, seeing that he would have to self teach himself, but if the shoe fits.

Rhaevnn Xeno

"Filter"... by which you would mean that he would be able to block out certain energy patterns? Eh, I'm sorry, but sniffers actually don't work that way. That's the reason so many sniffers end up losing themselves and turn numb: they are literally incapable of shutting out anything within range of their senses, and are uncontrollably bombarded with awareness of every bit of magical energy in their vicinity.
"Filtering" magical effects would be similarly improbable (borderline impossible). The only way to actually block out mind-affecting magic is with magic of one's own, which sniffers are inherently incapable of. The only way one could get away from mind-affecting magic without using magic oneself would be to simply shake it off and break it with one's will and intellect.

Yoshua... hmm... I've been pondering the properties of this spell for a while, and I think there are certain things I'd have to address, at least. The first one would be that the spell - or practically any mind-affecting spell of even basic potency - would ever linger in an area to continue to affect individuals within it over time. Rather, a mind-affecting spell would typically disperse its energy in an instant as it activated its effect, and then latch that energy onto anyone within the area of effect to specifically affect them, not the area around them. There are a lot of different reasons that this is the only way something like this would be practically doable, some very pseudo-scientific in relation to the universe and would take a while to explain, but the most fundamental reason is that the energy it would take to permeate an area with an effect of that magnitude would kill you. Not just the caster, though no ordinary mortal would be able to survive losing that much magical energy, but everyone within the area of effect. The energy would have to be so immense that people would actually suffocate and die. (Spells that affect minds directly with any kind of reliability take huge amounts of magical energy, much larger than spells of other types.)
If it did latch onto individuals and functioned by having the energy focus on those people, then the above issue would be dealt with. There is another thing about mind-affecting spells, though: the energy fed into casting the spell is depleted a lot faster if the target(s) try to resist the effect, and the stronger the will to resist the spell is in the target, the more energy will be required to even affect it at all. It would take an awareness of what one was trying to resist to be able to do so, though. Simply knowing that one's mind was being affected by magic would not be enough to allow one to resist such a spell; one would have to be able to identify how one's mind was affected, in this case mainly by curbing aggression. If one knew this and did not want to be affected thusly, then additional energy would be drained in order to subdue the target's will, which would shorten its duration... or, if the spell proved insufficient to do so, simply render it ineffective.
So really, there'd be no guarantee that any kind of effect would linger at all, even a discomfort when performing aggressive actions. That said, an effect like this would probably be pretty hard to identify... one would probably notice that one was being manipulated, certainly, but recognizing how one's mind was being affected would be difficult, which would make resisting it similarly difficult.
For the same reason I imagine that anyone affected so strongly that they would not even stop someone trying to kill them would either have to simply not want to defend themselves, or be exceptionally susceptible to mind-affecting magic (an example of the latter would typically be very weak-minded individuals, such as often witnessed in late-stage piaan-addicts).

The Prophecy

We do have different words for them, yes (devil will be "djævel", and demon translates into "dæmon", so they are actually rather close to their English equivalents (and just to mention it because it seems interesting, the English word "imp" would be translated into "smådjævel" - literally "little devil"), and it is, indeed, the same word we use about the Christian devil (though we usually make a distinction simply by adding a definite grammatical article to the latter - "djævelen"). That said, we do have certain rather glaring difficulties when it comes to connecting Danish terms to particular mythical creatures, since each mythical creature usually have a number of different names, and different creature-names can typically be used about any number of different creatures. Leprechaun, for instance, is really hard to find a Danish word for... we'll call them "trolde" (trolls) or "nisser" (I guess... elves? Gnomes? It's a word that refers to a lot of small mythical creatures). Reading Tolkien's novels is also a rather different experience in Danish, by the way, since a very wide array of different creatures in it - ogres (I'm not even sure ogres are in there, but I mention them all the same because they are on the list), trolls, orcs, goblins and hobgoblins (Uruk-Hai or something similar in Lord of the Rings) are, in Danish, all simply "trolde"... trolls. The distinction is made by linking to their usual habitat instead (goblins are cave trolls, orcs are mountain trolls (though often referred to as "orker"), trolls are forest trolls, and so on and so forth... collectively they are trolls, though).
Trolls are very common in Danish folklore, and are actually often surprisingly human in their behavior compared to the otherwise more commonly recognized as human-term, witches. Witches can just as easily be monsters as they can humans in our folklore, too, but the common trait for all witches is that they are uncompromisingly evil... which doesn't really make sense, since when we look at our real witches, and those featured in Norse mythology, they've almost exclusively been good entities. We have a lot of much more obscure creatures, too, a lot of which are actually somewhat interesting to compare to more widely known entities. (Danish elves, for example, have always been evil and enjoyed luring people (usually men) to their death in various gruesome ways, often by seducing them in one way or another. The seduction is very rarely with any sexual nature, surprisingly, but usually belies on tempting them into somehow betraying the way of life that was commonly acceptable at the time.)
Or lindworms (or lindwurms or however you want to spell it; in Danish it's "lindorm"). As the name suggests they have always been viewed as snakes here, albeit sometimes with legs. There's never been a lindworm with wings, though, and they always breathe lethal toxin. Some refer to Jörmungandr as the greatest of the lindworms, too. (I could never get used to call it Jörmungandr, somehow... in Danish we usually refer to it as an approximate translation of its other name, the Midgard Serpent (Midgårdsormen).)