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[prodigalvampire]

Okay, everyone, I can't take the silence anymore. What's the consensus on the party Halcyn's throwing? It smells like a trap to me, but that's never kept me from a good time.

[There's a pause here as though he's shifting verbal gears.]

And has anyone else noticed the altars around town? Weird, right?

Comments

[skyward_eyes]

People can do magic back home as well, if they attend a Garden and have access to a GF. But it's not true magic. Paramagic is just channeling magic taken from monsters and places of power. So it's very different than true magic.

[prodigalvampire]

Good for them? Magic's magic where I come from, but I don't even know how we got into this weird debate. Magic is...it just is, whether you can use it, or use some weird facsimile of it, or whatever, it's life, it's death, it's everything in between. Most of the time it just does its magic thing without intelligent minds manipulating it.

[skyward_eyes]

[It isn't just is. Nida sighs.]

Perhaps for your world. Perhaps for here. But not all places.

[prodigalvampire]

That's fair. I'll have to keep all this in mind if we ever take a day trip to your world.

[skyward_eyes]

I doubt we will.

[Which of course means they might. He sighs.]

I would prefer not.

[prodigalvampire]

Sarcasm's really not your strong suit.

[He breaths a sigh.]

Let me guess: it has something to do with dragons, but not bears.

[skyward_eyes]

Oh, it is. But you're just so... Serious.

[No, it's not that. Nida shakes his head.]

I can't go home.

[prodigalvampire]

What, did your world kick you out?

[skyward_eyes]

Less that, more whether or not I'm alive is a valid question.

[prodigalvampire]

So, you can't go back to your world because you could be dead? That's kind of a weak argument, isn't it?

[skyward_eyes]

You're kidding, right?

[prodigalvampire]

Not at all. Are you saying there's no one there depending on you at all?

[skyward_eyes]

No one at all.

[He could be so easily replaced.]

[prodigalvampire]

No friends, no family, no teammates? What, were you a hermit?

[skyward_eyes]

No. A spy.

[prodigalvampire]

The last time I checked, spies had friends.

[skyward_eyes]

Well, I guess I'm an exception to the rule. I don't spend a lot of time with my coworkers back home.

Or, you know, at home itself.

[prodigalvampire]

And your coworkers are the only people you can hang out with?

[skyward_eyes]

I'm part of a mercenary academy. We don't have much socialization outside of the organization. And before you ask, no, it's not really possible to change that.

[prodigalvampire]

Sounds like you hate it. Do people get conscripted in your world?

[skyward_eyes]

Mostly only the orphans with nowhere else to go.

[And they never really had a place to go after either.]

The Garden is an independent force, though. Beholden to no one nation. Which means, of course, we're also not citizens of any one nation.

[prodigalvampire]

So, this Garden kidnaps kids no one's going to miss and people just...let this happen?

[skyward_eyes]

No. Orphans that aren’t wanted or needed are sent away to the Gardens. We’re discarded.

[prodigalvampire]

Okay, so orphans are conscripted at the Gardens? You guys are a private Oliver Twist army?

[skyward_eyes]

“Oliver Twist?”

[He parrots from name back, clearly not knowing it.]

Those who graduate at my level are the best fighters in the world. Though those at equal rank to me are way better.