kaolinandbone | Coronation Ceremony & Gifts

The gentle but insistent tink-tink-tink of a silver spoon against a teacup carries through the crowd, followed by a clear, confident voice as Lioncourt addresses the gathered guests.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and other various but no less incomparable sentients, the main event of the party will begin shortly. If you have a coronation present for the Lady Lioncourt and have not yet placed on the central table, please do so now: everyone is likewise encouraged to take a seat on one of the benches if they wish to observe the ceremony."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

poll_the_stars

She giggles more, and waves an assuring hand at him. She clasps her free hand over her mouth and represses the laughter. "Yes, yes, fine, just - goddesses above you are a terrifying eldritch magic god-man. Thank you for being benevolent."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian - develops a complex expression, though it is mostly amused. "Thank you. I try."

There may be a bit of stress attached to that last word.

Edited Date: 2015-06-11 03:08 am (UTC)

From:

poll_the_stars

"Sorry, sorry, I'm, I'm, being very rude, I apologize." Giggle. "You have been very benevolent and helpful so far, thank you for that. Um - anyway, heh. I - could - maybe. Maybe get you arcany. I don't - fuck it'll be complicated as all hell. Aren't I glad I've had practice, yay for me, I - do not see any reason you couldn't, but wow you are - extremely strange." (Giggle.) "Please tell me you bleed."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

"If you prick me, I do bleed," he half-quotes. "Though it will need to be a very sharp knife."

"Would it help if I undid the modifications, and redid them later? -- Out of curiosity, what did you see?"

From:

poll_the_stars

"Okay, good, that - makes my life easier."

She muffles the sound that can be heard from the two of them. No eavesdroppers. Then she releases his hand, and rubs at her face. "Mm. I lack vocabulary. Like - you are - almost not human. Almost a construct? But not? You're - supposed to be that way? I think? Excessively magic in everything - aura, metal, blood, woven together like it's, it's. I would say warded that way but that's not it, it's not - it's just sort of a thing that shows up everywhere in you, being magic in various ways." She waves a hand at him. "The augments weren't even the freakiest parts, those felt sane in comparison, song and crystal and metal where it counts. Not to mention the - that was all just your physical body. There's. It was. Your - not your mind, the thing your mind is - doing something to, the - giant terrifying magic maze thing you are manipulating. Or, not manipulating, not quite - doing something to, I don't know, it was very blood and very not blood and it's a multitude of slightly unknowable magic I can barely even begin to process. Thus, eldritch magic god-man."

Edited Date: 2015-06-11 03:46 am (UTC)

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian approves of the ward. He'd apply his own, but he's not practiced enough at Eclipse magic to not, say, blot out light from within his mind.

He'll pick it up in a few years. Or days. Eclipse time acceleration was handy that way.

"Hm. I'm surprised you got that much - I expected you'd get things right, but that was a deeper analysis than I had expected.

"Yes, that is... essentially what happened. I have modified my body partially on the basis of what humans are generally like in Entelechy - it seems that evolving with magic that doesn't require a sapient to use it results in nature quite happily taking advantage. They aren't normally quite so impenetrable, but then that is the advantage of a sapient caster.

"My mind... that as also essentially accurate. In fact, the ritual that I used to become this is based on the nature of my native gods. A god of a concept has a mind built entirely in that concept. Boundaries were fairly easy as such rituals go, but Wood gave me some trouble - the giant terrifying magic maze is somewhat terrifying to me as well, as it is far too large for me to entirely comprehend, and that will inevitably be true of any entity based in the concept of unlimited eternal growth. My mind modulates the nature and rate of that growth instead, which" he smiles wryly "seems to work reasonably well."

"At any rate, thank you. I do enjoy learning more about myself and myself-as-I-appear-to-others, and the comparisons to arcany give me insight in that regard as well."

Edited Date: 2015-06-11 04:50 am (UTC)

From:

poll_the_stars

Inavet listens raptly.

"You're welcome. I'm glad I got it right, I was half worried I'd butchered it because it's sort of hard to describe. I will - let you know if I get an arcany ritual set up for you." She smiles a bit. "How can your mind be built entirely in a concept if you have two concepts?"

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian chuckles. "Now I'm curious what the qualia of reading all that at once is like. And - thank you.

"The thing that makes a god a god isn't that it's made entirely of a concept, but that it's linked so intensely to one. That's more of a matter of purity than of unity; I can get away with having a very Boundary-and-Wood mind because there is nothing but Boundary and Wood in the 'hardware,' as it were. If and when I add a third element, it will have to be interwoven with the other two, but cannot be merged - doing a three element merger, the way I have a growing maze that is both Boundaries and Wood, crosses the line into insufficiently pure.

"This is the primary limit on the number of Mantles that can be acquired - both the difficulty of interfacing with previous elements, and the fact that eventually one runs out of appropriate mental subfunctions that are both interwoven enough to be ubiquitous and independent enough to interact only rarely with the rest of the mind. The current record is four elements; the holder of that title believed a fifth was barely possible, but died in the attempt, so I do not expect I will be pushing my own mind quite so far."

Edited Date: 2015-06-11 10:25 am (UTC)

From:

poll_the_stars

She nods. "That makes sense. Thank you.

"Reading it was... A hell of a thing. Like reading a complex theory paper that's been badly translated by children and trying to figure out the meaning anyway. When I have no experience with where the theory is based. Or seeing a world tree for the first time. I recall feeling very tiny and insignificant and out of my depth." She snorts. "I laughed then, too."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian smiles. "Well, I can start helping you on the theory part, though the mechanics will likely take some time if you want it to be relevant to your own world. Though I can regale you with Entelechy tales fairly freely.

"I remember the first time I met a Primordial Dragon, I ended up cheating with magic to not fall over from the presence and calling it out for plagiarism. You see, s/he had seen a ward I was working on but hadn't quite finished in the future, copied it, finished it, and refined it into something far more thorough than I could've made within the course of our conversation. It was a rather enlightening experience."

(He's leaning on the translation magic, using a gender-neutral person word that is translated to a synesthetic sense of ambiguity, to pronounce "s/he" properly.)

From:

poll_the_stars

Inavet nods again, then snickers. "That's. Kind of messed up, did s/he at least give you a copy of the ward?"

(Elvish has a word for a gender-neutral person already, she doesn't need to think of a clever trick to solve this problem.)

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian shrugs, mildly amused. "S/he cast it in front of me without warding it from my sight, so I assume so. I have a copy, at any rate."

From:

poll_the_stars

"I count that as giving you a copy. But seriously, I'd love to hear theory."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian nods. "Where should I start? I can discuss... hm, that is an interesting complication.

"I can start with the mechanics of gods, or the mechanics of spell circles, or the mechanics of the Third Order Ritual. At any point, however, I may cross over into mechanics that apply to your world, at which point it will start sounding mysteriously incomprehensible. Do let me know - not only will that tell us things about how alethics works in your world, but also I can use perfect comprehension to cut through some of the effect. Ah - this is an improved version that is at least blurred to not be targeted to you specifically, though it may end up sounding like a close friend or family. If that makes you uncomfortable we can always simply stop."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Mm. I did experience your first version. It wasn't that bad. I don't think I'll be very uncomfortable, but I'll let you know if I'm bothered. Which of those is the most basic? I would rather work my way up to the complicated stuff rather than dive in and work my way down."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

"Mm... Traditionally, the mechanics of spell circles are taught first, but the mechanics of gods are at a similar level and the one informs the other. It's your call."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Mechanics of gods, then, let's not be traditional."

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian nods and starts explaining.

"In much the same way that there exists, say, the concept of a 'table' independent of any particular table, there exists a concept of a 'mind' independent of any particular mind..."

Right off the bat, his voice becomes entirely incomprehensible. Every word is intelligible, but none of them seem to link to a concept or each other.

From:

poll_the_stars

.... Slooooow head tilt.

"I do not understand a word you're saying. Well, I mean - I understand the definitions, but they don't connect. That's probably a good thing. If somewhat - well, annoying."

Edited Date: 2015-06-13 05:11 am (UTC)

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian actually smiles at that.

"It is definitely annoying, yes, but it also means that the most thorough forms of independent immortality I know of - including daeva invulnerability, and possibly even Orz's redundancy - is available to you."

He blinks. "I haven't had to do this in a long time." He pull a piece of paper out of his pocket, and exquisitely fine flames race in a complex pattern about it, scorching a rather familiar circle in smokey filigree. Smiling a little sheepishly, he brings the circle to his face, and speaks in a strange language through it. As he speaks, the circle flashes into light as the paper dissolves into ash, and the circle of light is the last thing to fall to the ground.

Somewhat ruining the moment, he then carefully sweeps up the ash into a napkin and ties it into a small pouch. His voice taking on a familiarly unsettling comprehensibility, he says to Inavet: "No reason to make more work for our hosts."

Edited Date: 2015-06-13 05:55 am (UTC)

From:

poll_the_stars

"Not even to embrace our inner pyromaniacs," says Inavet dryly.

From:

meletiti_entelecheiai

Aisilian gives her a sad smile. "Quite, yes."

Edited Date: 2015-06-13 06:25 am (UTC)

From:

poll_the_stars

... Inavet raises an eyebrow. She opens her mouth to ask, but - the porcelain servants call for silence. She closes her mouth, question unspoken, and instead gives Aisilian a very confused look, before she turns to watch the main event.