He chances a friendly smile (up, up at him) and hops on the wall with the athletic ease of someone very used to taking alternative routes to his municipal destinations. His clothes shopping is set next to him like an afterthought. Some of his shirts have gotten tight in the shoulders, but that comes with the territory of working out. He fishes the more important objective of the day out of his backpack. One notebook closes, another opens. Perfectly boring, they might be people from the School of Mutter exchanging notes.
He flips past several pages of crudely drawn people and notes about their skills. They're discernable enough, but an artist he is not. Midoriya finds it easier to order his thoughts on paper rather than ramble at people. He takes his cues from the most recent nerdy neat, concisely-written pages. They're accompanied by a few crooked schematic drawings of things like ceiling clearances in metric, fake entrances, and a basement (or two?).
"Thank you so much for coming. I've been wanting a private space to train since... winter, I think. And uh," how does he put this, "Paul-kun may have mentioned I work as a Hero saving people. Or maybe not, because I told him to be careful. Anyway, I'm thinking this place could double as a hideout if someone decides to make trouble. He wants to help with some traps himself. I don't know anything about magical security systems, so I'm trying to see what's possible..."
Here he trails off vaguely. This is why he's consulted an expert.
Palamedes watches Midoriya settle, eyeing the notebook when he flips the pages with idle scrutiny. Well, perhaps scrutiny is the wrong word, but the intense gray gaze of the Sixth adept has always been a little too much, as a rule; he's merely curious. After a moment he moves to sit atop the wall properly himself, to hunch low enough to rest an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, just... looking.
At the notebook. Absolutely nothing about people's shopping can hold his attention, but what looks to be notes and diagrams can. He asks, unrelated and without judgment, "Are you keeping files about people?" and then adjusts his glasses as he leans over to see the schematics.
Hmm. Well, an architect he is not, but a magical security system he can hack in a pinch. He glances up, a touch amused about Paul and his traps, then turns his attention back to the drawing. It appears to have multiple floors, which exhausts him purely thinking about how much blood that would take, but-
"You're talking about wards, if he sent you to me," he says with a nod. "A single blood ward is limited use, depending on what you want it to do. A ghost ward, for example, can dispel a spirit or spirits - but it's finite. You'd need a reapplication of wards each time one was destroyed, or even slightly used, if you want to be careful. Half of a ghost ward might as well be none of a ghost ward, after all. That, and a smattering of them are useless as alarms unless you're the necromancer— warder, let's call it. What's your blood type?"
He finally bothers to look up, after this. "Sorry. Let's start at the beginning. So, blood?"
"Kind of...? It's like... notes I'd take in school... for training..." he says, a little embarrassed. It's true, but it's also the explanation he gives to mixed company. He forgets that his nerd hobby looks weird to other people. Slightly stalkerish, if it weren't for the fact that everyone in this notebook knows they're in it. Some even helped him put it together.
He parses everything Palamedes says with a look that, for all his earlier hesitation, grows as fixated as his. He pinches his bottom lip intently. He now understands these limited-use wards as custom mines rather than permanent installation. He had hoped for something less high-maintenance.
"Warmblood. I can't do magic the way it works in this world. Technically, I can't in my world either. I've just got my meta power, super strength." And some other stuff wrapped up in it, but that's not relevant at the moment. "We call them Quirks* where I come from. They're genetic, and they can be just about anything." He continues,
"When I'm in the building--or whatever it's going to be--I don't have to worry so much about having an alarm." For reasons. "It's just whenever I'm not that I'm worried about. I want to be able to leave this place and come back knowing it wasn't discovered. Or, come back and find out who discovered it. I thought maybe trapping someone... or if there's a way to trace them..." He should probably take a breather, but he does not,
"Problem is, it needs to be big enough for some aerial training, which also needs to stay private... My other thought was a cave... a little more fireproof..." he descends into a low mutter. Location, location, location. He, too, gets ahead of himself sometimes.
"Ah," Palamedes says, to warmblood - that's unfortunate, he might have been able to reverse engineer some wards of the non-necromantic variety if not for the warmblood. There's always buying blood, but that's an even greater commitment than bugging a necromancer for new wards periodically.
Much to consider. He listens to Midoriya's explanation until it becomes Midoriya's focused ramble, faintly amused. After a moment he clears his throat, like, hello - he is also still here.
"A ward disappearing is a fairly clear indicator of discovery, I'd say," he offers, then, "I'm handy at a trace, in a pinch. A ward would help with that, but only if you're willing to injure trespassers."
Which he thinks might be in the cards, if traps are on the table. He raises a hand like, allow him to explain, and he explains, "I don't know how much Paul has told you about me, but psychometry is my specialty — that's an energy trace, more or less, to see the memories in the thing. Essentially. Trace energies last longer with a powerful association, for example... being slapped by a ward while trying to trespass. Of course, you'd still have the middleman, but ideally my contributions would be the last resort."
Given traps and a carefully chosen location, and so on. "If what you want is a seal purely to react when it's broken, that's straightforward enough. Just, you know - finite. How do your files help you train?"
He makes a strangled sort of noise when Palamedes brings it to his attention that he's gotten carried away. ("Sorry--") It's been a while since he pitched headlong into fast muttering. In a way, it's a sign he is once again in better spirits. So is grabbing a pencil seemingly from nowhere (from his pocket, he has no magic) and jotting down Palamedes's definition of psychometry as well as the limitations he's described.
"A supplement to the physical measures, got it. I don't want to injure intruders if I can help it. Don't want to just hit a curious bystander. Maybe just scare them? Anyway, a seal is better than nothing. Like--huh--the ones they put on sauce bottles..."
Calling them files makes him sound like a detective. Or an office worker. He doesn't flip the pages back, but he drags an idle thumb across the papery edges, which makes a satisfying fwip.
"If someone has a cool move, I note it down. I might be able to use or adapt it for my work. Or if I know everyone's skills, I can team up better too. It's been useful in emergencies."
Oh, look at him go. Palamedes watches him write, almost compelled by the urge to explain, in detail, everything he possibly can about necromancy in the next five minutes, but he resists. That would be a lot, for one thing, and for another, a pocket guide to necromancy is probably a bad idea to leave floating around unwarded itself. Psychometry is fine; he does make a face at "sauce bottles," though. Wow.
"A blood ward doesn't flash lightning and make a spooky ghost noise, for what it's worth. I can do you 'slaps them around,'" he is counting these off on his fingers, "'diverts approach,' although that won't be customizable to ignore the people you've approved, or 'disappears when crossed,' without any other effects."
So in short, he isn't too sure about scaring off intruders, unless getting papercuts from nowhere is scary, more or less. He shrugs; ultimately, it's Midoriya's choice.
"And your thing is super strength, you said. I can see how that'd be handy in an emergency. Is it safe for you to carry around a record of everyone's skills?" He is trying to set up some kind of enemy-proof training facility, after all; Palamedes must assume a level of danger that would be made worse if someone stole this notebook. "Just wondering."
Midoriya is the king of coming up with stunningly mundane analogies for extraordinary things. He once (and still) compared an unbridled, painful release of his own power to an egg exploding in a microwave. At present, he privately compares each new stage of it as a series of locked doors. He's going to use the analogy of sauce bottle seals, even just in his head, and Palamedes can do nothing about that. He avidly watches Palamedes count the ways in which he can put blood on a thing and have it be very effective.
"Still impressive..." He can't help a small, brief grin, but this is business, and he's been at work-studies long enough to rein expressions of admiration in. "Another disadvantage of hurting an intruder is blood pollution. Let's just stick with 'disappears when crossed.' And 'diverts approach' might be useful not around actual entrances, but fake ones or something. Don't want to put too many of those in case we need to enter or exit through an alternative route, or even turn it into a shelter for more people in a big emergency."
He draws a quick, barely-comprehensible doodle of a sauce bottle while tapping his lip and looks up.
"You're right about that. I've had to be careful what I actually write down. It's incomplete on purpose. Just stuff they've shown everyone in public--and only what will fit in here. Even back home, when I memorized one notebook, I switched to a new one."
"Blood wards are sources of blood pollution," Palamedes points out, helpfully. There's no way to one hundred percent avoid the blood, or using it, or being slowly but surely corrupted, and he's made various overtures about bleeding on everything responsibly, but not to mince words: blood wards are also blood pollution. It's best to minimize, though; he'll concede the point about harming intruders, even if it would be easier.
Maybe that's too necromancer of him, to be careless about harming intruders. It comes with the territory.
The doodle makes him smirk, briefly— a sauce bottle it is, then. He hums, considering the overall effectiveness of an incomplete guide to the local powerset. More useful by far than not having it, he supposes - but he's never had to keep carrying anything around after he's read it once.
"Am I getting a page? Don't draw me as a sauce bottle unless absolutely necessary, if you don't mind. How much do you know about necromancy?"
He nods. Hunters know every instance of bleeding is pollution. He'd just like to keep it to a minimum, even if he has friends who wouldn't mind smacking around intruders indiscriminately. Midoriya would like to smack people around responsibly.
"I can? That is, if you want?" Midoriya can't help a small note of excitement. Palamedes, should he give his blessing, would appear as a long, thin man with glasses, clothes shaded in gray with a pencil, under his name in katakana.
"Other than it raises and manipulates bones, nothing. Not sure if healing is connected, come to think of it..."
Midoriya rubs at a spot on his neck. He hasn't researched the purview of some of the inhabitants of Bone House, only encountered it. He thinks of the inscrutable man with the eyes he met on the beach during battle. He lent his skeletons to the fray and removed adverse effects from Midoriya, who stumbled into Illarion's swan song: a contaminating eldritch soup. Midoriya is glad to be rid of the e̴̩̅ẙ̸̝̌ẻ̵̫͂s̸̛̝. They were uncomfortable and slowly multiplying.
"Bone magic is only one school of necromancy, actually." He considers; it's probably ill-advised to spread necromantic facts around town, but - just bones is too little information, actually, for his satisfaction. He holds up his fingers one by one: "You've got your bone adepts, your spirit magicians, flesh magicians: subsets blood and lymph. The actual necromantic medium is thanergy, sometimes thalergy; death and life energies, respectively. Raises bones is, first of all, begging to be made into a dirty joke, but also fundamentally incomplete as an understanding of the craft. You can put me in your notes if you write down the correct information."
Those are his terms— well, term. It's just the one.
"Curative science is a different concept, obviously, but if you're creative enough, thanergy and thalergy can be manipulated to mimic 'healing.' Not one-to-one." The implication here is that he personally is creative enough, write that down. He adds, "Flesh magic can manipulate the body's performance, but not precisely the same as healing; someone like me couldn't snap his fingers and cure a disease, for example."
He pauses significantly, so Midoriya can write things down, ask a few questions if he likes. Call and response, see. "My psychometry - the tracking - also falls under the umbrella of necromancy, although it's highly specialized."
He chokes a little in the back of his throat at the mention of boner jokes. He wasn't going to say it... Paul told him that Harrowhark, for example, uses the (presumably donated and therefore sustainably sourced, of course) bones of her people's dead. Midoriya is under the impression this is part of venerating one's dead, or at least permission to recycle, even if it takes a form completely opposite of how the dead are treated in his world. Midoriya didn't want to be culturally insensitive! Midoriya knows it's unusual to most people, and doesn't talk about the skeletons with others unless it comes up. He doesn't want anyone to be judged before actually having a chance to introduce themselves. It's Midoriya's default not to gossip, even to a close friend.
Midoriya's notes are far more organized and concise than the way he speaks, and they are as accurate as the information he's given. His pencil skates with a controlled freneticism over a page soon to be titled Palamedes.
"I've encountered a healing Quirk in my world. That one just speeds up the body's natural recovery, though a strong dose can use up too much of the patient's energy. Every Quirk has its limits. And I've seen another that returns someone to how they were before. That can look like healing too, but without being careful, it can also be taken too far."
Only now, having finished writing, does he pause and really take all this in. This branch of magic can be incredibly powerful, holding sway over life and death. He was already impressed that the man with funny eyes could "heal" without a touch. What he did was a little more than just augment a body's performance. Like many Quirks Midoriya has encountered, it has enormous potential if trained well in the right hands--and also frightening implications.
Midoriya is not frightened. It is true that some people in his world ascribe good or evil to someone's ability, but he has always seen it as simply something special. A tool, unique to a person and how they use it.
"It's easier for me to understand the physical magic. What about the spirit? Other than tracing energies, what else does that cover?"
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no subject
He flips past several pages of crudely drawn people and notes about their skills. They're discernable enough, but an artist he is not. Midoriya finds it easier to order his thoughts on paper rather than ramble at people. He takes his cues from the most recent
nerdyneat, concisely-written pages. They're accompanied by a few crooked schematic drawings of things like ceiling clearances in metric, fake entrances, and a basement (or two?)."Thank you so much for coming. I've been wanting a private space to train since... winter, I think. And uh," how does he put this, "Paul-kun may have mentioned I work as a Hero saving people. Or maybe not, because I told him to be careful. Anyway, I'm thinking this place could double as a hideout if someone decides to make trouble. He wants to help with some traps himself. I don't know anything about magical security systems, so I'm trying to see what's possible..."
Here he trails off vaguely. This is why he's consulted an expert.
no subject
At the notebook. Absolutely nothing about people's shopping can hold his attention, but what looks to be notes and diagrams can. He asks, unrelated and without judgment, "Are you keeping files about people?" and then adjusts his glasses as he leans over to see the schematics.
Hmm. Well, an architect he is not, but a magical security system he can hack in a pinch. He glances up, a touch amused about Paul and his traps, then turns his attention back to the drawing. It appears to have multiple floors, which exhausts him purely thinking about how much blood that would take, but-
"You're talking about wards, if he sent you to me," he says with a nod. "A single blood ward is limited use, depending on what you want it to do. A ghost ward, for example, can dispel a spirit or spirits - but it's finite. You'd need a reapplication of wards each time one was destroyed, or even slightly used, if you want to be careful. Half of a ghost ward might as well be none of a ghost ward, after all. That, and a smattering of them are useless as alarms unless you're the necromancer— warder, let's call it. What's your blood type?"
He finally bothers to look up, after this. "Sorry. Let's start at the beginning. So, blood?"
no subject
He parses everything Palamedes says with a look that, for all his earlier hesitation, grows as fixated as his. He pinches his bottom lip intently. He now understands these limited-use wards as custom mines rather than permanent installation. He had hoped for something less high-maintenance.
"Warmblood. I can't do magic the way it works in this world. Technically, I can't in my world either. I've just got my meta power, super strength." And some other stuff wrapped up in it, but that's not relevant at the moment. "We call them Quirks* where I come from. They're genetic, and they can be just about anything." He continues,
"When I'm in the building--or whatever it's going to be--I don't have to worry so much about having an alarm." For reasons. "It's just whenever I'm not that I'm worried about. I want to be able to leave this place and come back knowing it wasn't discovered. Or, come back and find out who discovered it. I thought maybe trapping someone... or if there's a way to trace them..." He should probably take a breather, but he does not,
"Problem is, it needs to be big enough for some aerial training, which also needs to stay private... My other thought was a cave... a little more fireproof..." he descends into a low mutter. Location, location, location. He, too, gets ahead of himself sometimes.
*Kosei, lit. "Individuality"
no subject
Much to consider. He listens to Midoriya's explanation until it becomes Midoriya's focused ramble, faintly amused. After a moment he clears his throat, like, hello - he is also still here.
"A ward disappearing is a fairly clear indicator of discovery, I'd say," he offers, then, "I'm handy at a trace, in a pinch. A ward would help with that, but only if you're willing to injure trespassers."
Which he thinks might be in the cards, if traps are on the table. He raises a hand like, allow him to explain, and he explains, "I don't know how much Paul has told you about me, but psychometry is my specialty — that's an energy trace, more or less, to see the memories in the thing. Essentially. Trace energies last longer with a powerful association, for example... being slapped by a ward while trying to trespass. Of course, you'd still have the middleman, but ideally my contributions would be the last resort."
Given traps and a carefully chosen location, and so on. "If what you want is a seal purely to react when it's broken, that's straightforward enough. Just, you know - finite. How do your files help you train?"
—Right, and also that.
no subject
"A supplement to the physical measures, got it. I don't want to injure intruders if I can help it. Don't want to just hit a curious bystander. Maybe just scare them? Anyway, a seal is better than nothing. Like--huh--the ones they put on sauce bottles..."
Calling them files makes him sound like a detective. Or an office worker. He doesn't flip the pages back, but he drags an idle thumb across the papery edges, which makes a satisfying fwip.
"If someone has a cool move, I note it down. I might be able to use or adapt it for my work. Or if I know everyone's skills, I can team up better too. It's been useful in emergencies."
no subject
"A blood ward doesn't flash lightning and make a spooky ghost noise, for what it's worth. I can do you 'slaps them around,'" he is counting these off on his fingers, "'diverts approach,' although that won't be customizable to ignore the people you've approved, or 'disappears when crossed,' without any other effects."
So in short, he isn't too sure about scaring off intruders, unless getting papercuts from nowhere is scary, more or less. He shrugs; ultimately, it's Midoriya's choice.
"And your thing is super strength, you said. I can see how that'd be handy in an emergency. Is it safe for you to carry around a record of everyone's skills?" He is trying to set up some kind of enemy-proof training facility, after all; Palamedes must assume a level of danger that would be made worse if someone stole this notebook. "Just wondering."
no subject
"Still impressive..." He can't help a small, brief grin, but this is business, and he's been at work-studies long enough to rein expressions of admiration in. "Another disadvantage of hurting an intruder is blood pollution. Let's just stick with 'disappears when crossed.' And 'diverts approach' might be useful not around actual entrances, but fake ones or something. Don't want to put too many of those in case we need to enter or exit through an alternative route, or even turn it into a shelter for more people in a big emergency."
He draws a quick, barely-comprehensible doodle of a sauce bottle while tapping his lip and looks up.
"You're right about that. I've had to be careful what I actually write down. It's incomplete on purpose. Just stuff they've shown everyone in public--and only what will fit in here. Even back home, when I memorized one notebook, I switched to a new one."
no subject
Maybe that's too necromancer of him, to be careless about harming intruders. It comes with the territory.
The doodle makes him smirk, briefly— a sauce bottle it is, then. He hums, considering the overall effectiveness of an incomplete guide to the local powerset. More useful by far than not having it, he supposes - but he's never had to keep carrying anything around after he's read it once.
"Am I getting a page? Don't draw me as a sauce bottle unless absolutely necessary, if you don't mind. How much do you know about necromancy?"
no subject
He nods. Hunters know every instance of bleeding is pollution. He'd just like to keep it to a minimum, even if he has friends who wouldn't mind smacking around intruders indiscriminately. Midoriya would like to smack people around responsibly.
"I can? That is, if you want?" Midoriya can't help a small note of excitement. Palamedes, should he give his blessing, would appear as a long, thin man with glasses, clothes shaded in gray with a pencil, under his name in katakana.
"Other than it raises and manipulates bones, nothing. Not sure if healing is connected, come to think of it..."
Midoriya rubs at a spot on his neck. He hasn't researched the purview of some of the inhabitants of Bone House, only encountered it. He thinks of the inscrutable man with the eyes he met on the beach during battle. He lent his skeletons to the fray and removed adverse effects from Midoriya, who stumbled into Illarion's swan song: a contaminating eldritch soup. Midoriya is glad to be rid of the e̴̩̅ẙ̸̝̌ẻ̵̫͂s̸̛̝. They were uncomfortable and slowly multiplying.
no subject
Those are his terms— well, term. It's just the one.
"Curative science is a different concept, obviously, but if you're creative enough, thanergy and thalergy can be manipulated to mimic 'healing.' Not one-to-one." The implication here is that he personally is creative enough, write that down. He adds, "Flesh magic can manipulate the body's performance, but not precisely the same as healing; someone like me couldn't snap his fingers and cure a disease, for example."
He pauses significantly, so Midoriya can write things down, ask a few questions if he likes. Call and response, see. "My psychometry - the tracking - also falls under the umbrella of necromancy, although it's highly specialized."
no subject
Midoriya's notes are far more organized and concise than the way he speaks, and they are as accurate as the information he's given. His pencil skates with a controlled freneticism over a page soon to be titled Palamedes.
"I've encountered a healing Quirk in my world. That one just speeds up the body's natural recovery, though a strong dose can use up too much of the patient's energy. Every Quirk has its limits. And I've seen another that returns someone to how they were before. That can look like healing too, but without being careful, it can also be taken too far."
Only now, having finished writing, does he pause and really take all this in. This branch of magic can be incredibly powerful, holding sway over life and death. He was already impressed that the man with funny eyes could "heal" without a touch. What he did was a little more than just augment a body's performance. Like many Quirks Midoriya has encountered, it has enormous potential if trained well in the right hands--and also frightening implications.
Midoriya is not frightened. It is true that some people in his world ascribe good or evil to someone's ability, but he has always seen it as simply something special. A tool, unique to a person and how they use it.
"It's easier for me to understand the physical magic. What about the spirit? Other than tracing energies, what else does that cover?"