[ he is. sorry!!!! welcome back to the fucking library!!!!! gale looks fucking exhausted, his hair is all kinds of out of place and he looks like he has not slept last night again. oopsie. but it's fine, normal stuff. ]
Ah-- You're here! Good. Well. Not good. I suppose I sent that prematurely, because I was pulled in the direction of other projects instead of focusing on this one.
[ but he's taking a break from plotting insane murders to relax with his anal book, one of the new journals open beside it where he's clearly been translating something.]
I took a nap Saturday evening. Nevermind that now- This-- This is the journal of Karsus himself. In his own hand. His research, his notes.
[ he will let him look at the book and notes as much as he wants, though he starts flipping through the book. there's magical diagrams and it's all in a wizard's cipher, so he's been working on the translation of it. but as he's going through, there's a familiar symbol - the match of the mark on his chest. ]
whatever, fine. it's not like they haven't also pulled sleepless days because it's hard to shut off the wizard brain. but also, they only need four hours of sleep for a long rest. be an elf next time, gale.
they will look at this stupid book he - wait. ] You just found this laying around...? [ they allow gale to flip through the pages, but they do reach out without any kind of hesitation to put their hand in the center on the page with the symbol so gale can't flip forward. ]
[ help him. ] Erm, yes. It was amongst my belongings this morning, alongside Scratch. [ he looks over at the page essek has stopped on and nods shortly. ]
Right. Yes. I haven't broken that part of the cipher yet - it seems his changes every few years to throw prying eyes off - but I'm very close. Very close. A few more hours. There was all the business with Camille and I had to leave it before for a while.
I did however [ he pulls a few loose sheets he's tucked aside. ] begin to compile notes on a spell he had jotted down. Dethrone. Necromancy, I believe. One can pull at strands of the Weave and bind them to the target, and begin to ... unravel, as it were. Like pulling a string of a sweater until it is nothing but a heap of wool. There's surely a more elegant way to describe that. I'm very tired.
[ they are not sure how gale hopes to solve anything running on, like, two hours of sleep.
they also can't see shit hardly, so they reach up to pull the mask from their face and place it down. the way this would never be possible because 384928 people are in the library. anyhow, he just takes the book away from gale completely and moves it in front of himself so he can look the pages over.
he also just helps himself to the loose sheets gale retrieves. thank you. ]
You are interested in, ah, pulling apart someone's very existence?
[ maybe if he's quiet enough while studying this information, gale will fall asleep.
despite knowing several languages, this book is still cryptic linguistically to him; however, the illustrations provide a introductory understanding. he bookmarks this page with a ring finger and continues perusing, looking over the pages from below the white lashes. hmmm. ]
Well, your "Dethrone" sounds not unlike a dunamancy spell called Ravenous Void.
[ tara will come up and sit directly next to the book with her wings folded back, also, apparently, trying to read it. gale is just face down on the desk, but somehow still sounds interested once Essek starts talking spells.]
Does it? I wouldn't be entirely shocked, there does seem to be some overlap between Netherese magic and your dunamancy, if not precisely the same.
[ the diagrams show the components for a spell - and are collectively called the The Regalia. A crown, a sceptre, and an orb. Presuming Essek has spent countless hours studying the profiles of course (no), but the shape of the crown might be familiar too, considering it appears on gale's profile image.]
[ oh......... hello, miss tara. this is apparently something he is accustomed to experiencing, so he does not mind. sort of looking at her....... then kind of turns the book and papers so she can also read. ]
Perhaps they are the same sort of magic, but called different things.
[ hmmmm. he isn't too sure he likes this book all that much actually??? sorta. when a book is interesting as hell, but kinda questionable. ]
What exactly... are you trying to accomplish with this book's enigmatic information? What are your plans when you uncover what you can of its riddles?
well, okay. fucking cat behavior. for a moment, essek makes the most pathetic attempt to try lifting the edge of a page to sort of..... look at it "around" tara's obstruction, but then gives up because she is across the whole thing.
he glances at gale, then reaches over and forcefully pushes gale's head back down onto the table. go to sleep. ]
[ TABLED? anyway tara clearly agrees on the absolutely not statement and will continue laying here to be a reading impediment. gale, face in the table: ]
[ he screws up his face, because he is, actually factually, kind of mad and sulky about being told no. probably a little glimpse into the uglier sides of his ambition, and it's barely even being touched upon yet. ]
I would entertain such an idea because I can see it so much more clearly than him. I see exactly where he made his mistakes. His errors, his sloppiness, his lack of a thousand years of magical advancement since his time and I could - I could fix it. Do it better. Actually help people, instead of simply hurt them. A near endless well of magic, my magic, that Mystra herself could not touch or threaten to pull from my grasp.
[ stop pouting. why does HE have to be the one to talk gale down from this, hello. he was literally ass deep in a similar circumstance. ]
And what do you think you would have to give up to obtain such a thing? Your morals? Your friends? Your empathy? Were you not the one who told me Mystra lacked the understanding of humans? There is always a price to pay.
[ is he still being face-dunked into the table. he is trying to sit up now, contested strength check.
he has arguments prepared for all of this, a while fucking spiel about how the trade would be worth it, that a god with the morals of a mortal would be objectively better wouldn't it? but that statement pretty much cuts to the quick of this particular insecurity and leaves him stunned into silence. enjoy the quiet for like 2 seconds. ]
[ both white brows rise slowly as he looks a shockingly quiet gale directly in the face. ]
That's what I thought, young man.
[ he taps the edge of the book. ]
Outside of the possibility of a way to remove the orb, there isn't any thing in here useful to you. The wisdom of warnings. Study them to your heart's content, fix the mistakes, but anything else will turn you into something no better than the woman who told you to kill yourself. I can promise you that.
I never wanted to be a god, but I have spent four times your age trying to learn all I could of magic, trying to master all I could. [ ... ] I am telling you this because there is something I have not told you about myself, but something you should probably hear.
there is a little hesitation at first on essek's end. he draws in a quiet breath and then sighs, resigned. ]
First, a explanation. For context. My people are drow, but we and the goblins and the duergar don't live in the Underdark. We live in a city above ground, Rosohna, where we have crafted an eternal night, or throughout the rest of the territory, Xhorhas. Ironically, my people worship a deity of light called the Luxon, and we have uncovered several magical artifacts which my people have... attributed to being pieces of this deity. Those are the Luxon beacons.
They are quite powerful relics. Those who go through the ritual of "consecution" with them are then able to, upon death within the radius of a beacon, have their soul reincarnated into a child recently born in the vicinity. This, they believe, is the gift of their Luxon.
well he has about a billion and a half questions about all of that information out of a deep and genuine curiosity, but he recognizes that he is in the middle of a story here so will hold under the end. and anyway there's quite a bit of sympathy for the hesitation, it's not as if he hasn't had to tell his own little sordid tale of hubris before the fall exactly like this.]
I... do not really hold the same beliefs as my people. I don't care much for religion personally, and I have always thought they were wasting great opportunity to learn more about the beacons. What all they can do, why they were likely created. My people refuse to research them, refuse to question them.
And I... wanted nothing more than to prove them wrong. To find out all I could about them. So... I... stole two of them. I stole two of the beacons, and I took them to one of the only places I knew, a collective of powerful mages called the Cerberus Assembly. But this group is a part of the Empire, and the Empire and Xhorhas are adversaries.
[ it's hard not to see the parallels. the sins that ambition hath wrought. all of that frustration and pressing at the boundaries and desire to prove everyone wrong finally boiling over into a mistake that isn't leading anywhere good.
essek had told him he thought gale would judge him for this, but he's having a hard time seeing anything but a mirror. war's moniker is starting to make sense, at least. ]
And I imagine the sudden transference of ownership of artifacts containing the souls of Xhorhas did not go particularly smoothly.
They are tethered, bonded to the beacon. Thankfully not housed. However, losing one beacon, much less two, when your reincarnation depends on its nearby radius... Well, yes. You can imagine how poorly it went.
We aren't the only people or power with them. They were... excavated from ancient ruins during an age of expansive magical growth and engineering. Not unlike the one you told me about from your world. Something similar.
[ ... ]
No one knows. Not my mother, the Umavi of our den, not my younger brother, not the Bright Queen I serve, and definitely not my... friends. The leader of the Cerberus Assembly I never particularly cared for; he is a cunning, ambitious elf. But his collective... was the only place I thought I could go to find what I wanted.
And I was fine. Before here, even at the start of here. I was nervous, of course, but I had no qualms with what I was doing. Not until... I met Laudna. And that is how I know this book will give you nothing except regret, a regret you won't even recognize because gods rarely feel shame.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
week 3, monday
they - is he in the fucking library like everyone ELSE who has sent them a message? very hilarious. they arrive for gale. ]
Yes?
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Ah-- You're here! Good. Well. Not good. I suppose I sent that prematurely, because I was pulled in the direction of other projects instead of focusing on this one.
[ but he's taking a break from plotting insane murders to relax with his anal book, one of the new journals open beside it where he's clearly been translating something.]
Sit? Or float. Whatever you prefer.
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after a moment of pause, they will slowly lower to the ground. and. actually walk over to have a seat.
already being nosy and LOOKING at this anal book and notes. like. casually. ]
This one? You look like you haven't slept for a fortnight.
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I took a nap Saturday evening. Nevermind that now- This-- This is the journal of Karsus himself. In his own hand. His research, his notes.
[ he will let him look at the book and notes as much as he wants, though he starts flipping through the book. there's magical diagrams and it's all in a wizard's cipher, so he's been working on the translation of it. but as he's going through, there's a familiar symbol - the match of the mark on his chest. ]
no subject
[ SATURDAY EVENING???????????? christ
whatever, fine. it's not like they haven't also pulled sleepless days because it's hard to shut off the wizard brain. but also, they only need four hours of sleep for a long rest. be an elf next time, gale.
they will look at this stupid book he - wait. ] You just found this laying around...? [ they allow gale to flip through the pages, but they do reach out without any kind of hesitation to put their hand in the center on the page with the symbol so gale can't flip forward. ]
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[ help him. ] Erm, yes. It was amongst my belongings this morning, alongside Scratch. [ he looks over at the page essek has stopped on and nods shortly. ]
Right. Yes. I haven't broken that part of the cipher yet - it seems his changes every few years to throw prying eyes off - but I'm very close. Very close. A few more hours. There was all the business with Camille and I had to leave it before for a while.
I did however [ he pulls a few loose sheets he's tucked aside. ] begin to compile notes on a spell he had jotted down. Dethrone. Necromancy, I believe. One can pull at strands of the Weave and bind them to the target, and begin to ... unravel, as it were. Like pulling a string of a sweater until it is nothing but a heap of wool. There's surely a more elegant way to describe that. I'm very tired.
no subject
[ they are not sure how gale hopes to solve anything running on, like, two hours of sleep.
they also can't see shit hardly, so they reach up to pull the mask from their face and place it down. the way this would never be possible because 384928 people are in the library. anyhow, he just takes the book away from gale completely and moves it in front of himself so he can look the pages over.
he also just helps himself to the loose sheets gale retrieves. thank you. ]
You are interested in, ah, pulling apart someone's very existence?
no subject
[ just going to put his head down on the desk for a minute or two thank you. ]
It's a running text Vukotić with a rather dastardly calculatory switch, on top of it being in Netherese, but I think I have the foundation.
[ the words might be difficult but the diagrams are discussing spell components for Karsus's greatest work, whatever that means. as for the spell: ]
Oh. Yes. Most definitely.
no subject
despite knowing several languages, this book is still cryptic linguistically to him; however, the illustrations provide a introductory understanding. he bookmarks this page with a ring finger and continues perusing, looking over the pages from below the white lashes. hmmm. ]
Well, your "Dethrone" sounds not unlike a dunamancy spell called Ravenous Void.
no subject
Does it? I wouldn't be entirely shocked, there does seem to be some overlap between Netherese magic and your dunamancy, if not precisely the same.
[ the diagrams show the components for a spell - and are collectively called the The Regalia. A crown, a sceptre, and an orb. Presuming Essek has spent countless hours studying the profiles of course (no), but the shape of the crown might be familiar too, considering it appears on gale's profile image.]
no subject
Perhaps they are the same sort of magic, but called different things.
[ hmmmm. he isn't too sure he likes this book all that much actually??? sorta. when a book is interesting as hell, but kinda questionable. ]
What exactly... are you trying to accomplish with this book's enigmatic information? What are your plans when you uncover what you can of its riddles?
no subject
lifting his head up again, flipping through his notes, trying to interpret them again. ]
... It seems to speak on the nature of the orb, yes? Perhaps it has some way to get rid of it. [ drumming his fingers on the table. ] Or use it.
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well, okay. fucking cat behavior. for a moment, essek makes the most pathetic attempt to try lifting the edge of a page to sort of..... look at it "around" tara's obstruction, but then gives up because she is across the whole thing.
he glances at gale, then reaches over and forcefully pushes gale's head back down onto the table. go to sleep. ]
Absolutely not.
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Excuse me?
[
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I said absolutely not. Why would you entertain such an idea? The latter one. Nothing beneficial would come of that. [ ... ] Trust me.
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I would entertain such an idea because I can see it so much more clearly than him. I see exactly where he made his mistakes. His errors, his sloppiness, his lack of a thousand years of magical advancement since his time and I could - I could fix it. Do it better. Actually help people, instead of simply hurt them. A near endless well of magic, my magic, that Mystra herself could not touch or threaten to pull from my grasp.
no subject
And what do you think you would have to give up to obtain such a thing? Your morals? Your friends? Your empathy? Were you not the one who told me Mystra lacked the understanding of humans? There is always a price to pay.
[ bestowing upon gale a frown of judgment. ]
You are a much better man as you are.
no subject
he has arguments prepared for all of this, a while fucking spiel about how the trade would be worth it, that a god with the morals of a mortal would be objectively better wouldn't it? but that statement pretty much cuts to the quick of this particular insecurity and leaves him stunned into silence. enjoy the quiet for like 2 seconds. ]
no subject
That's what I thought, young man.
[ he taps the edge of the book. ]
Outside of the possibility of a way to remove the orb, there isn't any thing in here useful to you. The wisdom of warnings. Study them to your heart's content, fix the mistakes, but anything else will turn you into something no better than the woman who told you to kill yourself. I can promise you that.
I never wanted to be a god, but I have spent four times your age trying to learn all I could of magic, trying to master all I could. [ ... ] I am telling you this because there is something I have not told you about myself, but something you should probably hear.
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... Go on.
no subject
there is a little hesitation at first on essek's end. he draws in a quiet breath and then sighs, resigned. ]
First, a explanation. For context. My people are drow, but we and the goblins and the duergar don't live in the Underdark. We live in a city above ground, Rosohna, where we have crafted an eternal night, or throughout the rest of the territory, Xhorhas. Ironically, my people worship a deity of light called the Luxon, and we have uncovered several magical artifacts which my people have... attributed to being pieces of this deity. Those are the Luxon beacons.
They are quite powerful relics. Those who go through the ritual of "consecution" with them are then able to, upon death within the radius of a beacon, have their soul reincarnated into a child recently born in the vicinity. This, they believe, is the gift of their Luxon.
[ that's the set-up. ]
no subject
well he has about a billion and a half questions about all of that information out of a deep and genuine curiosity, but he recognizes that he is in the middle of a story here so will hold under the end. and anyway there's quite a bit of sympathy for the hesitation, it's not as if he hasn't had to tell his own little sordid tale of hubris before the fall exactly like this.]
Your orb, I take it?
no subject
Yes, something like that.
[ he, too, had a metaphorical orb. ]
I... do not really hold the same beliefs as my people. I don't care much for religion personally, and I have always thought they were wasting great opportunity to learn more about the beacons. What all they can do, why they were likely created. My people refuse to research them, refuse to question them.
And I... wanted nothing more than to prove them wrong. To find out all I could about them. So... I... stole two of them. I stole two of the beacons, and I took them to one of the only places I knew, a collective of powerful mages called the Cerberus Assembly. But this group is a part of the Empire, and the Empire and Xhorhas are adversaries.
no subject
essek had told him he thought gale would judge him for this, but he's having a hard time seeing anything but a mirror. war's moniker is starting to make sense, at least. ]
And I imagine the sudden transference of ownership of artifacts containing the souls of Xhorhas did not go particularly smoothly.
no subject
They are tethered, bonded to the beacon. Thankfully not housed. However, losing one beacon, much less two, when your reincarnation depends on its nearby radius... Well, yes. You can imagine how poorly it went.
We aren't the only people or power with them. They were... excavated from ancient ruins during an age of expansive magical growth and engineering. Not unlike the one you told me about from your world. Something similar.
[ ... ]
No one knows. Not my mother, the Umavi of our den, not my younger brother, not the Bright Queen I serve, and definitely not my... friends. The leader of the Cerberus Assembly I never particularly cared for; he is a cunning, ambitious elf. But his collective... was the only place I thought I could go to find what I wanted.
And I was fine. Before here, even at the start of here. I was nervous, of course, but I had no qualms with what I was doing. Not until... I met Laudna. And that is how I know this book will give you nothing except regret, a regret you won't even recognize because gods rarely feel shame.
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