rehandle

Ha. [ Amazing how dry a toneless message can be. ] No problem. I'll pull some thoughts together. Message when you're at it and I'll feed you what I have.

How many people did you have to ask before you found one whose answer to 'Do you know anything about pianos?' was yes?

Oh no, are you kidding me, you were my first stop. You just seem like a guy who had piano lessons as a kid and who fixates enough on his hobbies to learn how it works.

Wow. Good to know I'm that transparent.

I've known a lot of doctors. I would have asked House but it's a surprise gift kind of thing.

[ Because he... also knows piano / turns his hobbies into work. Doctors! ]

You're planning to surprise assemble an entire piano without him noticing? How long do you think you can keep him out of the house?

I'm going to put it together in town. He likes an audience, and if I need to I can dial up a skeletal removalist service.

No promises, but I might be able to save you the need for a retune post-delivery if you do want it shifted back after he's put on a show.

Yeah? Fifty bucks says my skeletons can move it with more smoothness and finesse than your glowy circles.

Can't take that bet, on the basis that my way the piano won't technically move at all.

Fuck off, how does that work?

Cast a portal above the object that opens to its exact height in the chosen destination, lower it down. Hey presto, space moves so the thing doesn't have to.

Okay, that's smart.

But do you actually say "presto"?

No I do not actually say presto.

Might have dropped an abracadabra once when I turned some guy's latest model into an iPhone 4 on his 8th request for a magic trick.

Edited (that was not the icon i was looking for) 2023-12-03 21:49 (UTC)

Ha!

[ Just laughing in real life, charmed. ]

Petty, love it.

It was that or dump him into the endless nothingness hidden beneath the skin of our dimension. Figured I could do without the bad press.

[ No, it was pure pettiness. Sometimes a wizard's gotta do what a wizard's gotta do. ]

[ John greatly approves. ]

Sorry if this is a personal question, but can you still filet our dimension here? I've felt metaphysically isolated since we got here, which is ominously powerful.

No, I'm cut off too. It's a concern.

That's an understatement. Well, I'm relieved it's not just me, at least.

[ Without being on the easiest of terms with Wanda, or having a true sense of what anyone else is really capable of, he's been sitting on this very specific anxiety for about as long as he's been here.

Can of worms: opened. ]

How extensive is your usual reach?

[ Distinct lack of concern for how personal the question may or may not be. John started it, he can stop it if he likes. ]

[ John committed to telling him some details of necromagic when he'd let him witness the wards, so he doesn't shy away from it now. ]

I'm not particularly dimensional - but I used to have access to the River where souls go when they die, and I used to be able to sense my — partner across spans of light years.

[ Uncertain how to navigate the pause in that latter loss of contact, or the loss itself, he just... doesn't. Targets the easier thing, single-minded now. ]

Do you have any sense that your River exists here? Or you're cut off from all trace of it?

The latter. I can't enter it physically, I can't speak with the dead, I can't sense what happens to the soul when it departs, and my encompassing sense of both it and the universe I lived in is gone. I'm cut off in every possible sense of the world. All I've got is what was already a part of me.

This isn't my first time outside of my universe. It is the first time since discovering the infinity of elsewheres that existed beyond my own dimension back home that I've not been able to reach out to or draw from any of them. Not even anywhere new, unique to this place.

I've nothing inherent. All my ability is learned, and the fact that I'm still capable of utilising local energy for spellwork implies there's no real interference with my practice as a whole. There's just nothing to find.

There's never nothing to find.

Yeah. I dunno about you, but that scares the piss out of me.

Yeah.

[ Yeah. ]

I don't mind being afraid. I do mind the not knowing.
If you notice any shifts that feel significant to you in the future, I'd be grateful if you'd share.

(no subject)

unconscionable - 2023-12-07 00:43 (UTC) - Expand