16 . spring catch-all

[necrolord]

Who: John Gaius and company.
What: Important conversations, old ghosts, bodyswaps.
When: March into April
Where: Trench

Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

[slightlytaller]

[He stepped away and cast John a sharp, knowing smile in reply. ]

And reveal all of my secrets?

Please. I'm the Worst Kind of Mage, but I'm not stupid.

[necrolord]

And a scholar. [ Being rebuffed doesn't seem to rattle him: John just turns to examine the workspace, his posture casual in Waver's body. ] I'll trade you. Call it another party game... truth for truth.

Easy stuff to pass the time, you know. What's the worst kind of mage? [ And, as a funny aside: ] I don't get to answer that one or whole schools of necromancy start dreaming up civil wars.

[slightlytaller]

[Despite the eyeroll, Waver stopped to consider this question. John wasn't someone he made a point of interacting with, but the whims of the Patrons seemed to think it was necessarily. Running a hand through the short hair on the body he was in as compulsive action, Waver levelly regarded John.]

I'm a scholar that doesn't make seeking out the Root of Knowledge the main point of my craft, [he explained, not missing a beat.]

Most of my peers believe that it is where Magic exists in it's purest form. I call it 'magecraft' for a reason: actual magic and science cannot coexist.

... Is that a factor on your Earth? What's left of it, anyway.

[necrolord]

[ John considers this, approximates it to his own world, gets halfway to a bit about the Root of Knowledge and its relationship to the Tree of Knowledge and how humanity didn't do a bang-up job with that the first time round—

And then he falters, because Waver goes for the throat. There is a moment's uncomfortable silence, then he tips his head to take the point. ]

Science is just our system of describing the world, and magic is all the bits we didn't expect. The stuff we needed new systems to describe. I could show you some great papers on the essentials of necromancy, the mathematics behind the energy transfer... Hell, I could write a few on the systems here. Even if peer review would kick my ass.

[slightlytaller]

Ugh. Peer reviews are the worst.

[And for a second he realized with incredulity that this mundane sort of complaint was something that they had in common. ]

It's interesting that they compliment each other on your Earth. The advances in biological sciences have wrecked the possibility of making human-like homunculi. I've only met one that was successful in my entire life, and she was so cloistered by her clan that she didn't know how to use the brick of a cell phone she had been given.

[necrolord]

[ Instead of digging at him, Waver seems willing to run with this. To talk shop. He leans a hip against the table and settles in to do nothing, carding his fingers again through his unfamiliar hair. ]

Catch me up on homunculi. What's her story?

[slightlytaller]

I met her a handful of times over a decade ago, in the middle of a ritual we were on opposing sides of. It's not like I knew her personally.

[Of course he was willing to talk shop. They had nothing better to do, and it gave him time to think. Frowning thoughtfully, Waver folded arms that were unfamiliar and leaned against the wall with the slovenly air of someone who focused too much on the internal machinations of the mind instead of more ordinary, mundane affairs.

Sucking in a breath, Waver continued.]

I just know the rumors about her clan, [He ammended, thinking of the spunky young woman with the ethereal aura and an suble strength that reminded him of a steel cable wrapped in silk.]

Einzburn was the name. They had mastered the art of crafting Homunculi over the course of generations. I'm willing to bet since the very dawn of magecraft as we know it. Mage clans are notorious for being untrusting, and tend to strictly keep to themselves.

Especially the older ones.

All I can say about her is that she comported herself with the confidence to stand beside and support her chosen Knight, although I suspect that she was not the one originally partnered with that legendary figure.

It was the mid Nineties, and I remember her speaking about how Japan was the first time she had driven anywhere that wasn't her clan's property. The unseen parts of her team had given her one of those chunky bricks they called phones-- but, when someone finally called, she got so flustered that she shoved it at me.

...It was like watching someone realize they were holding a bomb. Good thing I knew how to answer.

[Doubly good that the call was actually for him.]

[necrolord]

[ He wants to pry at the nitty-gritty, the theory, the overlap between worlds. But the story is honestly too good to pass up, and so John gets comfortable. He makes a soft sound of amusement at the description of the brick phone, the fluster of a manmade girl. ]

You'll need to walk me through what a Homunculus is made of, and made for, after you tell me who was on the call.

[ They have time to kill, and for the moment, the air between them isn't frozen with tension. For a little while, they can bear this. ]

Cw: type moon, flesh monsters, reference to slaughtering children

[slightlytaller]

An unknown party-- obviously someone on the Einzburn's side, and obviously the tactical part of their team.

[Frowning irritably, Waver told him the basics of the beast that had stalled the course of the mage war that he has forced his way into in Japan. If questions arose on matters of the Holy Grail War, Waver answered crisply and left the details vague.

A mage doesn't reveal all secrets, after all.

His own role had been simple: he was the line of communication between his partner and the rest of the teams that had been called under a temporary truce to fight the eldritch summoning of flesh, tongue-tacles, cillia, and other vicera.

The call had been a strategic ploy-- where the best place was to coordinate a multi-pronged killing blow on the abomination born of the imagination of the duo that hunted down the town's children and slaughtered them in the night.

At the end of it, he sighed-- wearied of his own life and aggrieved by the memory of witnessed horrors.]

... I guess you see now exactly why I'm not bothered by the What of you do and the how you do it. Just the Whydunit.