Hunting for Answers (Thoth)

Bowen

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Jul 20, 2015
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@"Thoth"

This mess just kept getting worse. It was like a can of worms filled with cans of worms that he had to somehow crawl through because there was a giant crushing wall behind him pushing him forwards.

Not a pleasant mental image.

"True form. How am I supposed to know anything about that," she muttered through her hands. "I just found about this mess." He was getting too stressed. Breeeaaaaattthhheeee. Breathe. Better.

"Remove it. So what, I turn into a dragon anyway but without weird random side effects? And sooner." She had to look at this logically. That old guy hadn't looked like a dragon. He could shift back and forth. He'd also made it sound like that was a normal thing for dragons, to be able to turn human. If he wasn't going to get out of this being a dragon thing, being able to shift wasn't going to change things but it did give her some hope. Okay. Fine. What the heck.

"Is removing it something you can do?"
 

Romi

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Oh, had he not been clear? No, he supposed not. "Yes. One of my specialties is undoing - unwinding magic. It would take a bit of time, and we'd want to be in a space large enough in case you're a particularly large dragon, but yes, I could do it." It wouldn't be terribly hard - not with how fragile the spell already was. "And yes, as you said. You'd return to your dragon form most likely. Part of the spell is essentially turning you human, and another part is keeping you from becoming anything else." Which would be some of the first bits to undo, because everything else would come after easily. "I could do it today, if you liked." Perhaps that was too forward? Maybe she wanted a day. But he'd rather get it over and done with, because he was curious to see what a dragon would look like. It would also be a nice little conquest for him, proof he could unwind magic from this world as easily as he had unwound magic from his home.

Tag to @Bowen
 

Bowen

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@"Thoth"

Head. Spinning. Also the mental image of himself as a really big dragon. Where was she supposed to live? If he were Smaug-sized and had a head the size of a truck. She wouldn't fit in her dorm, that was for sure.

What the hell what the hell what the hell.

"I don't have anything else going on today," he said, suddenly decisive even if she was talking fast so that he couldn't go back on the decision and wimp out. She had to keep moving, had to keep pushing and deal with the shit as it fell.

"How long do you think it will take?"
 

Romi

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Well, today it was. He straightened up, shifting his grip on the staff as he gestured to the door. "Let's head down to the field, then. I couldn't say how long. Maybe an hour? It also depends on how the shape shifting undoes itself. Regardless, the school is well equipped if anything goes wrong." He didn't think they would. But he had to be prepared for any eventuality, even if it seemed like a small chance. "You'll simply have to stand still, and I'll take the spell apart. If anything feels funny, feel free to say it, although I expect it'll feel funny a great deal."

Assuming she didn't protest, it would be down to one of the unused fields, normally used for track.

Tag to @Bowen
 

Bowen

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@"Thoth"

The situation quickly took on a surreal air, but Charlie wasn't going to complain. Better surreal than too hecking real. Okay. Okay. Stand still. He could do that. Standing still wasn't hard.

Tracks were even familiar. She had spent a lot of time on tracks and fields like this one. The feel and the sound of the rubbery surface under his shoes was as familiar as wind on her face, and the carefully maintained grass in the centre oval.

He just had to breathe in the moment, like fighting through the middle of a hill near the end - but not at the end - of a long-distance race, back when she actually did those things for more than pleasure.

Charlie nodded to the professor. Might as well get started.
 

Romi

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<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/y61HtcT.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Enelen led her out to the center of the field, positioning her in the center grass oval before starting his work. "Stay there." He said simply, beginning his preparations. There wasn't much - he was no ritual mage, full of them before he would even speak a single word. His preparations were downright basic - a large circle drawn around her, to give him a line of where the magic should stay inside. Of course, that was presuming that she wouldn't get any bigger than the circle, but it would be effectively pointless to draw it that large. With that done, he stepped inside, holding his staff up so that it rested just above her head. He closed his eyes, and let himself examine the spell.

It was much as it had been in his office, frayed and damaged. Like a net, thrown over the nameless girl and pulled tight to confine her. But already bits were starting to peek through, whether she knew it or not, and he wondered if he hadn't been a bit too optimistic when he'd said a month or two until it broke. It didn't matter - it would come off today.

He reached out with his magic, mumbling things under his breath that didn't sound like words at all. It was a search for the weakest spot, for the bit he could start unravelling from, and it wasn't long before he found it. A piece of the spell - the part he wanted most. The part that prevented her from shapeshifting would have to come first, and then the part that confined her to the form would come second. Once she had shifted, everything else would either dissolve on it's own, or simply require a bit of help from him.

So he pulled - beginning to unwind the spell like someone might unwind a half finished sweater, his mind lost to the realm of magic and utterly ignoring the real world.
</div>[/thoth] @"Bowen" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​
 

Bowen

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@"Thoth"

This technically wasn't Charlie's introduction to things beyond the human world he was used to, but it really was her introduction to true magic. It seemed...

Like he was missing a huge part of what was happening. She could see the circle the professor had drawn. Other than that, though, there was just the staff he was holding over his head -

Char still didn't see anything. She could feel something, though. Something was off. Different. Not unbalanced, but a... a different balance. It was unsettling.

That unsettledness was his only warning before something definitely just fell apart. Something that made up Charlie changed, something about her sight changed but he couldn't put her finger on it and just closed his eyes, but then she couldn't balance and suddenly there was grass tickling all along his underside from jaw to -

uh

Enelen would get to sort out Charlie before the newly unbound dragon did, what with the way her eyes were still closed. Sleek, smooth-scaled, and reflective like a mirror under the sky, Char's horse-sized and rather triangular head fit neatly between his outstretched forelimbs - the first of four sets of paired limbs, as the folded wings anchored behind her true shoulders didn't completely hide the smaller but still functional pair tucked over his hips. Even the membranes between the slender supporting fingers on those wings, and the similarly fashioned fins running along most of his tail were glossy; only her claws and the exposed tip of the scorpion-like barb at the end of her tail didn't reflect anything.

The released magic was probably pretty noticeable as well; Charlie's aura of anti-magic was finally out, and that one thing that had no intention of letting itself be stuffed back into inactivity.
 

Romi

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<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/XEYKs7X.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">He could feel it coming ondone, bit by bit. It was, to say the least, immensely satisfying. It was like slotting the last few pieces into a puzzle, and being able to step back and look upon it. One last tug and it was done, the rest of the magic unweaving itself.

Of course, he rapidly stopped being able to feel anything at all, and he let out a gagging noise. He'd spent his entire life with magic, and it suddenly felt... strange. He still felt that he could do magic, if he really tried, but it would be like fighting his way out from under a soaking wet blanket. He felt wrong and somewhat sickly under it, and it immediately soured his mood.

Magic was his life, and not having magic was no good.

He stepped backwards, the circle broken to the point of uselessness by the size of the dragon (although, somehow, he'd thought it would be larger), and found he couldn't quite appreciate the thing with the fact that it was crushing his magic.

"You appear to have some kind of... natural... aura. That stops magic." Or at least dulled it greatly, and his tone of voice would make it no question that he wasn't particularly fond of this development in particular.
</div>[/thoth] @"Bowen" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​
 

Bowen

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Jul 20, 2015
950
@"Thoth"

uh

uh.

um.

Being told that you were a dragon really wasn't good preparation for this AT ALL. NOPE. NOT ONE BIT.

He had claws. And scales. And they were super shiny and somehow she wasn't expecting the shininess any more than the other details, like how he could kind of actually feel those scales moving whenever he breathed or shifted or blinked. And there was a lot of blinking, and some lowkey panicked breathing, and as little shifting as she could manage because he had a strong sneaking suspicion that there were exactly zero joints in the places she expected them to be. Plus the scale thing and the weird muscle thing

OH AND THE SIZE THING because Char's head was very solidly on the grass but Professor Enelen was a whole lot smaller-seeming than he had before.

Somewhere around that point was when Charlie realized that the professor looked even more... off than she felt, and automatically raised his head in concern.

... bad idea. That went way too high and all he'd done was lift his head what seemed like an inch or two, not clearly several feet. Time to put that back down before the disorientation turned into nausea.

An aura that stopped magic? What?

Char blinked a few more times, and finally, hesitantly glanced at her own body. Shiny like her fingers, with...

nope too many limbs time to stop looking. He couldn't see an aura any more than she had before, though.

"I'm sorry," Char said as soon as he stopped completely freaking out inside. Now she was just... almost completely freaking out inside. Okay. Okay. Breathe. He'd prepared for this sort of thing. "Is- do you think - is there anything I can do about it?"
 

Romi

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<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/XEYKs7X.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">It was pretty obvious, even in Enelen's own distracted state, that the girl was going to need a bit of time adjusting. She was doing a lot of blinking and a lot of shifting around, and as much as Enelen wanted to stand there and fawn over every detail of an actual dragon, he'd spent his entire life with his magic, and not having it felt... wrong. Sickening and gross. Like someone was holding him down under the water, trying to drown him. He wasn't going to die from it, but he was pretty close to outright puking, and he edged backwards, hoping he'd find the end of it.

By fifteen feet it was starting to lessen, and by about twenty five feet it was completely gone, the feeling no longer crushing him. He felt normal again, and he took a moment to take several deep breaths before turning back to the dragon, raising his voice to be heard.

"Possible, but unlikely. My hope is that your aura dissipates... or at least shrinks when you return to human form. Assuming you even can return to human form, which is likely but far from a guarantee." Considering the spell had essentially held the dragon in human form and specifically prevented shapeshifting, it seemed likely that a dragon would be able to swap between the two. Otherwise, it would have been an enchantment - no need to bind someone who couldn't shapeshift with a spell that would prevent shapeshifting. "So I suppose you should attempt that - trying to get back to human form."
</div>[/thoth] @"Bowen" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​
 
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