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 Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 6:52 pm
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Honestly, Horace wasn't the only one who thought Ollie was cute, though he didn't realize he was being cute, too.
Still, this whole situation was good; Ollie wanted cake, too. That made things easy. Power through and get it done for the dessert, Eli made a mental fist. It didn't take long for 'stickybun' (the nicknames were getting stranger and stranger) to take them away, either. He'd found a portal and they were already in the Otherworld when he finally got a closer look at Horace's box.
"Not bad, you've already got the basic soundproofing." Shifting from one hip to another, he hmm'd. "So these sigils, do you think with what you know we'd be safe making one, Ollie? Or is there another way to make, what did you call it, a cage?"
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 7:09 pm
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The world shimmered around them, and then it gave way to the dim dreary deluge of the Otherworld, the colors muted, time thick like syrup. Oliver breathed. He never noticed how heavy his side felt until he crossed the veil, but it was always startling regardless. He shifted around to sit up on his own again.
"Well, it's not like we're placing the cage on a living being. I don't know the specifics or logistics of how the spell is cast, but..." He squinted as he looked across at the box. "Insofar as I could tell, the entire thing was a very complicated piece of spellwork. We'd be working with the same concept, just on a smaller scale. If anything, having that to tie our belief into—having that physical concept to ground us—might help. Magic functions a lot off of belief." Or so Shiloh had explained to him. He believed it for the most part.
"Three is a very powerful number in magic, for reasons that I'm not exactly brushed up on. The... the sigil for the old world—my world—I'm not very informed on that either, but the one we picked for this world was the tree, the key and the trifecta. Placement in the sigil can change the outcome of the result too; like the trifecta is the roots of the tree and the keys are the branches... things like that." He took a deep breath. "Worse comes to worse, we come up with a different method to imbue the box."
"That being said, we would need three symbols to represent three... I suppose motifs. What would you both want the box to take characteristics of? It needs to be strong enough to contain the magic, perhaps have an ability to amplify the magic within it when we cast, the chance to dampen the magic when we're done..." He tapped his chin. Give me a moment to think on that one, Horace.
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 7:46 pm
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Okay, this was all very important, but- "By the way..." Eli said, and the way he paused made it sound like he wasn't going to say anything applicable to their current conversation. "What the hell happened here?" It was recognizable as Horace's house for the most part, but it was definitely missing a few walls here or there. The way Other Ashdown worked wasn't something he particularly understood yet, but he never assumed there would be this large a difference from one side to the other.
"Oh, sorry darling, off topic, I know." He crossed his arms and looked sheepish for once. "You know, my motto is go big or go home." It wasn't. "Maybe I could try amplification?"
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 11:47 am
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Oliver only looked around the house when Elliot made mention of it. "Oh." His eyes narrowed, "I guess it is kind of... ********." Eloquent. "I guess I don't bat much of an eye at Otherworld stuff anymore."
He wasn't about to start making wild random guesses anyway.
"Amplification seems suited to you." He agreed with such utter neutrality that it could've easily been an insult masked as an observation. Either way, "I could try dampening, since I'm such a downer at parties." That was a jab at Eli, considering you must be fun at parties came up every time Oliver selected to read or study instead of whatever Elliot had planned. "I'm not sure I have anything catty to say about containment and you though, Horace. But if that's alright with you...?" I'm rather bad at endearments. Uh. Actually, isn't Beau kind of silly? Since my last name is Beaumont... His gaze was wandering around; a tell tale sign he was getting lost in his thoughts again. Focus Oliver.
"Oh um, so, yeah. Blood." He wrinkled his nose a little, "I guess it plays a pretty big role in magic... so, we make the sigil, apply it to the box...?" He looked between all of them, "That just leaves coming up with symbols. We could try maybe... picking symbols that already sort of signify what we're trying to cast, or I don't see why we can't make up our own? It's all about belief and intent anyway. Preexisting symbols just have more foundation, I think."
"Also I'm not really a good artist, if someone wants to volunteer drawing the thing. Unless you want me to find Shiloh, but I don't think artistic ability matters much in casting."
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 8:38 pm
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To be fair, Oliver could be a bit of a downer, but even so, Elliot probably shouldn't have chuckled at that. He quickly cleared his throat. "Here, I'll take one, too," he said, borrowing a piece of paper just like Horace. At least one of them had been prepared.
"So, sigils really require blood? Not a lot, I hope." Sometimes it felt like magic was something straight out of medieval fantasy, so it was hard not to worry that they'd have to spill all the blood of a virgin sacrifice or something equally outlandish. "Oh, and sorry to let you down, but I'm not much of an artist, either. The magic will have to make do with our kindergarten scribbles."
And so he set to work on his own batch of ideas, just quick doodles that looked like the lowest quality 90s Word clipart. A megaphone, a megaphone with sound waves, a literal set of sound waves that grew from small to large, a few lines that looked like a volume adjustment, and quite honestly his personal favorite of the bunch, a microphone. Ah, how he loved to sing.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 9:02 pm
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"It wasn't a lot in the void." He reassured Elliot, "Just a drop. Granted, we had like... twenty some odd people contributing too..." Ollie pursed his lips as he handed out paper to everyone, "Either way, it shouldn't be that much."
"I do agree on containment surrounding the others." He was drawing out things too, but his symbols were far more simple and easily defined; the con sordino, a decrescendo. He tapped his pencil to his chin in thought. "Either mean to dampen in layman's terms, when it comes to musical notation..." Well there you go, then.
"So perhaps... we have the symbol for containment surrounding the other two, the symbol for dampening can... maybe be a secondary layer too, and the one for amplification can be in the center?" He was tossing ideas out.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 10:04 am
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After listening to the both of them, and checking out their ideas, Eli sketched a quick possibility for combining them. "I like the arrows as the sound waves," he said, having chosen the cartoony ones simply because they fit the circle better. "Oh, but this one has the mute in the middle rather than the amplification symbol. And it seems a little haphazardly thrown together, I suppose."
For a short moment he debated, then drew a new sample. "The dampening symbol is still in the middle, but... now everything is in threes. Didn't you mention threes are quite strong in magic or something like that?"
One final time he picked up his pen, but this time he moved the mutes where they might better reinforce the containment itself. "Or perhaps like this? Of course, if either of you have ideas for combining everything, let's compare them."
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 12:56 pm
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Oliver considered all of these carefully. "Three is a powerful number, yeah." He was a little worried to have everything in threes; how was one supposed to define amplification, and then dampening in the same sigil? If anything, the sigil was reading out as a full out cancellation rather than the step-by-step process they were looking for. Then again...
"I think the last one works." He said after a moment, "You have the amplified waves bouncing inwards, and then when they inevitably bounce back out, they'll reach the dampening symbols you've placed. I mean, speaking in hypotheticals of course." He traced his finger along the symbol. "If it doesn't, we can just start over." He clapped his hands together definitively, but then winced at the motion.
"I-If we're... decided then." He coughed a little, "We should get it drawn down. I brought a sharpie," He produced the black marker from his bookbag. "All that's left is to do that and then cast until the magic takes."
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 2:47 pm
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Horace peered over at Ellie's paper. Those look great, stylish! "I like the third one, too." He took the outstretched marker and nudged the box over a bit before crouching down and beginning to draw. It helped that, with his memory, he was able to pull up the symbol in his mind's eye instead of having to stare at the paper.
Are your hands okay, Olliebee? he asked mentally, distractedly. Then he closed the final circle on the symbol. "I think that should do it. Then we've got to bleed a bit on it - each of us." He closed his eyes for a second, remembering what Leila had showed him. "Put our hands on it, concentrate on our symbols, what each of them means solely and together.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 6:01 am
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The fact he'd never worked with anything like sigils before made Eli a touch nervous about attempting to assemble one, even if he didn't outwardly show it. Masking that sort of thing was a skill, after all. Now, knowing he'd done at least a halfway decent job, he looked genuinely pleased.
"Wonderful. Might as well give it a go-" he sing-songed, mimicking the decisive hand motion until he realized Oliver was definitely wincing. "You alright, dear?" Concern flitted across his vision.
"Oh, um- Did anyone bring anything for, you know, making this whole bleeding thing a little easier?" Eli supposed he could bite through his own skin if he really needed to, but it sounded a bit messy.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 5:27 pm
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"I'm fine," He wasn't fine, "Mostly." Still kind of a lie but a little better.
"It's alright if it's not perfect, like I said. The magic should help nudge it into place when we cast I think." At least, it had in the void. Even if it didn't, their purpose should get across regardless. "I have an X-ACTO knife in my bag, hold on..." He produced it after rummaging around slowly.
"So we uh..." He swallowed really hard, "Just have to... cut our hands like so," he made a diagonal mark down his palm, "And let the blood run into the sigil. Horace is correct. Magic is fed by intent, so you need to take a lot of factors into consideration when you cast something like this. Clear your mind of outside factors, focus on what you really consider important." He took a deep breath, "I'll begin."
The hesitation in his shaking hands was very real.
And then like a knee jerk, the knife slipped against his palm, the cut more like a scratch and less like a cut, the blood welling in small bubbles that Oliver evidently didn't deem adequate. He repeated the motion again—it was easier the second time—and watched as the blood ran down his hand and dripped into the sigil Horace had drawn.
To dampen wasn't merely to excise. The energy would flow into the box—flux—and then build and build and build until its power of destruction peaked. To dampen was much like pressing the mute pedal on his piano—to take the sound there and soften it—to let the noise reverberate out and then smolder down into a quiet hush. He wasn't supposed to take away that power. He was supposed to let it ring out, and then when it came time for applause he would bring it back down into a whisper, only at the end; don't end the show too soon, hit the last note together with all the others.
The x-acto knife was passed to the next individual wordlessly, his head dipped low and his eyes closed reverently.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 8:46 pm
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"Oliver!" he said, startled. "You didn't have to - your hand..." Horace was pretty sure any old blood would have done the trick and not just his hand.But he trailed off, letting Oliver concentrate, a frown fixed in place on his own face. Horace took the x-acto knife. Somewhere in this, there was a lesson about cross-contamination and blood.
Slowly, he dug the knife into his palm, hissing as it cut. Horace dragged it alongside his scar and, once done, passed the knife to Elliot. Where Oliver had let his blood drip, Horace opened his palm and smeared it around the sigil, just touching the edge. He kept his hand pressed flat to the box and closed his eyes, too. He felt it running in him like electricity and poured it into the metal box, containing it - a conductor, but limited. It couldn't get out, would only go where he willed.
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