nexus_crossings | Into a Rising Wind

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Into a Rising Wind

Winter holds the Nexus in its jaws, and its teeth sink ever deeper.

A month into the storm, the snow has yet to stop falling. The number of mouths to be fed has stopped dwindling, almost. Occasionally people go missing, and those who notice hope they’ve found a way back through their portals. It’s not enough to change the maths on their food supplies - all their supplies. Nobody is getting a full meal at a time, not any more. Isidor and Lyall have begun to enforce the rationing with iron hands. Both ignore the look that crosses Captain Kirk’s face when they upbraid a volunteer cook for being too generous – the look that lingers on Runa’s face if she’s close enough to hear. They’re doing what they must. They need a tight hold on their supplies if they want to get people through this. They need supplies even to send expeditions after more.

And expeditions are a difficult prospect now. Those who ventured into the storm and returned have brought stories that spread faster than Isidor hoped. The Crossroads Cafe has become a semi-official hub for those travelling outside or keeping watch on the bounds, a safe resting place kept warm by the combined power of Pokemon and Persona. In the long dark nights, people sit around the tables and share what they've seen, what they've heard from this scout or that refugee. Whispered tales of the creatures out there hunting in packs, hounding people from rooftops, even tearing open walls to reach them…

No-one goes out alone, now. Those brave enough to take the risk go in groups and arm themselves with the best weapons they can find. Sometimes they’re a risk to themselves. Not everyone knows how to handle that black market plasma pistol they picked up two days past. Not all of their team-mates keep their nerve when a figure looms out of the snows beside them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s run afoul of monsters, and who of their own folly. Safer, but little less brave, are the people recruited to keep watch on that shifting line of torches. Just a precaution. The creatures don’t come past it, everyone says. But quietly, everyone doubts.

There've been bright moments, too. A strange alchemist comforting a lost child. An expedition team fighting their way home, back to back. Families brought safely through the snow by soldiers and wizards, by heroes young and old and sometimes surprising. A volunteer cook stepping up to prepare, if not quite a hundred thousand meals, then something that feels close. A young man saving the life of a stranger who'd threatened him. The past weeks have seen people who may never have known one another before come together to offer a blanket, or guiding words, or a helping hand in a search. Small moments, glowing reminders of how much good the people of the Nexus have on their side. But the Winter goes on, and the winds never get less bitter, and the smiles get more strained with every day.

Slowly the line of torches close on the Plaza, a noose no-one can afford to flee. Sheltered space is at a premium. Most of those who remain are settled as close to the centre as they can be. Whether in the big public bunker or the Cafe, people find themselves crammed all together, and tempers regularly fray among residents not too cold and exhausted for fighting. The more responsible Nexus-goers find themselves trying to duck out of (or break up) fights, or spending hours stuffing drafty accommodation with any insulation they can find. There’s snow to be shoveled from doors, pipes to be defrosted, bandages to be changed. Anything’s better than dealing with the problem of working bathrooms.

At one end of the Plaza headquarters, a makeshift screen has been dragged into place to give a semblance of privacy to Isidor’s desk. It’s painfully early in the morning, though the nights are so long and the days so dim beneath the storm clouds there’s little sense of time any more. There’s no-one around yet to wonder about the meeting going on. The only people present are Isidor, Lyall and a handful of senior volunteers – those who remain. Blaze-37 crouches by a makeshift fireplace, stacking the salvaged wood just right before she punches it lightly, setting it alight with the flames that ripple over her fist. The other robot, Ghost, is hovering over the desk playing flashlight for them, shining a pale beam over the maps and reports laid out there. Light, too, is a precious resource, as batteries die and outlets are lost to encroaching Winter. It’s the only reason those here have gotten sleep. They work until they have no light to work by.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Suou?” the Guardian asks when Isidor says they can begin.

“Officer Suou won’t be coming.”

That’s part of why they’re here, Isidor explains. The torches’ march has taken them past the Grand Library. The Crossroads Café is now on the very edge of the safe zone, along with all the people sheltering there. Katsuya’s magic is the only thing that will protect it. He can’t leave. It’s a turning point that only drives home the larger problem: they’re running out of time. They’re running out of everything. Most refugees are in some kind of shelter by now; what they lack is food to keep them alive and fuel to keep them warm. Isidor’s volunteers have counted heads and counted tins and counted everything backwards and forwards and the numbers never get better. Either they do something now, while they have the strength, or the meals will run dry in two weeks. Less, if anything goes wrong.

She lets that sink in. Nobody looks surprised: she’s confirming their worst suspicions and that gets a few flinches, but they understand. They talk, instead. By the time there’s a hint of daylight outside and someone knocks on the door for the first shot at rations, they have a plan. They need an expedition, bigger than any before. They need enough arms to discourage attack, the skills to get them to any buried supplies and the numbers to haul them back in quantity. Each of them walks away from the table with a mission in mind and an air of grim determination.

They have a job to do, and they’re going to need help.

((As before, so below: the main missions/subquests for the expedition prep are listed below. Tag any of them, threadhop, or post with your own character. I suggest putting your character’s name in the subject to help keep things clear. The OOC Post can be found here! If you have any questions, feel free to message me or one of the mods!))

Threads of Note

Scouting the Expedition | A Fistful of Torches | Scrapyard Sweep | The Home Front | Medical Attention | Isidor's Expedition Call | Main Expedition: The Raid

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Hermione Jean Granger might not have her wand, nor her enchanted clutch, but she is still doing everything possible to be as helpful as she can.

She has spent enough time helping Madame Pomfrey, that she knows how to help with the minor injuries. And when an injury is serious enough for someone with experience, she is extremely useful in triage situations. Assessing who needs help first, and who can wait a few minutes. She takes the time to just be a friendly face some days too. To sit by a bed and tell stories. Or to just listen to someone's concerns.

Her survival knowledge is useful when it comes to helping those prepare an expedition team. She can help ensure that expedition packs have all the items they need -- and is really good at checking and double-checking her lists. And offers recommendations to any expedition members who request them.

As Hermione meets more and more people, she updates her Arthimancy rune equation. The runes were not with her enchanted clutch when it was taken. So they are the only piece of her magic that she still has with her.

The runes can still guide her to where she is needed. And where she can help.

Hermione is unable to use her magic more than once a day, without her wand. And thus she only uses her magic when absolutely necessary. One day it was a Reparo to mend one of the machines that seized up, and to get it back in working order. Another day, it was a Vulnera Sanentur to heal deep gashes of a wounded man, was not deemed to be at the top of the triage order, but still required something of immediate attention.

Each spell exhausts her. It drains the color from her face.

Hermione finds other ways to be useful. She just needs to be useful.

It's a shame they weren't able to get her wand back. She's one of the most competent sorcerers Danny has ever seen, and he's subtly in awe of what she can do. He doesn't regret trying to help her, even if it didn't pan out as they would have liked, because it does mean she sort of owes him. A better person might not see it like that, but Danny was brought up Morganian, and while he might do something out of benign or altruistic impulses, the voice of his master is in his head telling him he better damn well be getting something out of it.

Where Hermione is concerned, he knows exactly what he wants to get out of it. He wants her to teach him. And that's not in the cards while she's wandless and there's crises all around, but if they both survive until spring, he thinks his chances aren't bad.

So it's in his best interest to keep an eye on her, and after seeing her exhaust herself one day, he brings her a cup of coffee and sits near her.

"I have an idea," he says. "Might be a bad idea, but hear me out?"

He holds out his left hand, displaying the ring. "This is my talisman. Kinda like your wand, only it's sort of...keyed to my nervous system. I can't take it off, but what if we tried kind of, uh, channeling your power through it? Might not be as hard on you?"

Hermione takes the cup of coffee, and smiles up at him as he sits beside her.

She glances at him, when he shows her the ring. And listens to his idea.

"I am not sure how well that will work, Danny. The main reason witches and wizards in my world use wands... is because most spells and charms have a special rune and invocation that go with the magic. So our wand becomes our method of 'drawing' the rune, while speaking the invocation."

"To draw the runes I need, I would have to be grabbing your hand every time I cast a spell." Hermione points out.

She sips at her coffee. With a sigh. "Once a witch is bonded to a wand, it begins to learn from and teach its partner. I would still feel like a piece of me is missing."

"I left my familiar in my world, to keep him safe."

"And my clutch was stolen. So it is like I am missing several pieces of myself."

"I would be depending on you... a lot. That is not exactly fair."

"Really?" Already, he's rewarded with some information he didn't know. "It's all rune-based? That's...not quite how it works for us."

He puts both hands in his lap and rubs the skull face on his ring thoughtfully. "I guess grabbing me by the wrist and waving my hand around would be a little cumbersome, hey?"

It's a pretty funny mental image as far as he's concerned, but he manages to bite back his instinctive giggle in favor of expounding on his own earlier premise. "Ours is based on Circles. Old, old rituals sort of...compacted down. The Morganian pentacle, or the Merlinian circle. That's why the rings."

He taps his again. "It's a tiny ritual circle, with all the domains of magic represented in it. Time, Matter, the Elements, Transformation, the Mind, and the Forbidden Domain." His finger goes around the band of the ring as if he's pointing out where the hands of a clock would go to indicate the time of day.

"Fair doesn't matter, though. Not right now. Surviving matters, and whether it'd even work or not."

He hesitates a moment and adds in a low voice, "It used to come off. The ring. It's not actually normal like it is now. But my master told me he'd break every bone in my hand if he ever caught me without it and I think I sort of freaked out and fused it onto the skin."

"We do have rituals and traditions that are still respected. But for us, magic often acts a source of energy, often achieving work on behalf of the user." Hermione explains. "Magic comes from within..."

"And that is why I can still cast wandless. But wands channel magic so as to make its effects both more precise and more powerful. Which is why I am so exhausted if I attempt any spell without that focus." Hermiones explains.

Danny remind her of a few of her friends. She can see a few pieces of Ron, a few pieces of Malfoy, a few pieces of Neville. And it is the thought of Neville that puts an idea into Hermione's mind. She might not be able to properly cast spells right now... but she could still teach him. Teach the runes. Teach the charms and spells..

"You are right. Surviving matters." Hermione studies him. "You have a great potential Danny, to become stronger. To survive this. And I can help you."

"I can teach you the incantations of the magic, without using my own magic."

"What would you think about that?"

"It's some kind of connection for us," he says. "Some quirk in our brains that makes us able to reach out with our will and make the universe do what we ask it to. But everyone's got a different opinion what it's for, don't they? At least, that's how it seems back home."

He wishes he had had friends that Hermione reminds him of. She's completely unlike his old master, that's for sure. But Danny has been pretty isolated since he first began learning. Dependent. Even his mother has no idea where he is.

He turns very red when she says he has potential. It's the kind of thing his master said before he accepted the apprenticeship, but stopped saying soon after.

He fidgets a moment, because as much as he was angling for this, he didn't expect to have it dropped into his lap, so to speak, and he's afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up. After a moment, though, he nods, swallows, looks at her, and says:

"All I want is to learn everything I can. I don't know if it'll work the same way for me as it does for you, but I'll try anything."

"There is a lot of research on the magic gene in my world. It seems that some people are just born with the ability to cast spells... and others are not." Hermione smiles.

"Then you will adapt and figure how to do it your own way."

Hermione reaches out into her bag of runes, and pulls out one rune and places it on the table in front of him. "Let's start with something that could be useful for the situation."

"Reparo." She pronounces it 'reh-PAH-roh'. "A mending charm."

"The charm can be used to repair a broken object and works on most materials. It is only suitable for use only on inanimate objects. It is a level one spell. And taught to first year students at Wizarding School."

"This rune is the shape of the hand movement we use."

"It's hereditary in your world? Pretty sure it's not in mine," Danny blinks and looks thoughtful, because that's an interesting difference. "...although, I've heard some people saying all sorcerers are reincarnations of one another. Like some kind of power touched us way back in the when and we just keep recycling it from one generation to the next. There's no way to prove that though, except maybe complicated dark magic."

"Of course, they say the Prime Merlinian--" Wait, he's talking too much. "Never mind, I'll tell you anything you want to know but I should be listening."

Good job, Danny. Get offered the chance to be a student again and flub it up by talking too much, why don't you? He squirms in his seat when she pulls out the runestone, peering to look it over thoughtfully without touching it. "Reparo," he repeats, imitating her pronunciation quite well.

"So, wait, it's not material-specific? Just the one charm and it'll repair glass, metal, stone, whatever?"

That's unbelievably versatile, by his standards. "And this is a basic spell for you."

Just...holy shit.

"Not everything. The Reparo charm does not seem to work on objects of powerful and complex magic." Hermione notes softly.

"Charms is one of the first thing wizards are taught in my world. Charms adds certain properties to an object or creature. And as you learn and master charms... you can adapt the charm itself. Or start casting hexes."

"When we come to Transfiguring, it becomes more complex. A transfiguring spell can change an object or creature into something utterly different." Hermione knows how strange it might sound. "We change reality itself with our magic."

Danny nods slowly, thinking this over. "We don't...well, I wasn't taught that way. Where I come from, sorcerers gain levels. You start out at one, and then as you gain power and skill you go higher and higher. Seven hundred seventy-seven is the max, but most sorcerers don't make it there."

"And most apprentices become adepts at around two-fifty."

"I know a lot of illusion, I can teleport real short distances, and I can do a lot of attack spells. Some minor healing. A little shielding." He worries his lip, and then he reaches up to pluck something out of thin air; a small book. It's as if it was hanging out in a pocket dimension or something right next to him all this time. And it's tiny, but he sort of...unfolds it, until it becomes the size of a mundane college text.

"This is my Encantus. It's...sort of a manual? I don't know if you'll be able to read it. It's supposed to be magically encrypted for the owner. But you can see, if you want."

"It is amazing how different some magical worlds are." Hermione would love to talk more about these differences. But at a better time, when their very survival is not at stake.

She watches him pull the Encantus out of thing air, and as he unfolds it from a tiny shape into something larger.

"All my magical books were in my clutch." The one that got stolen from her.

Hermione opens the book, to see if she can read the text or not. She knows several different magical written languages. And perhaps this will be one she can understand.

Honestly, Danny would love to compare notes, too. His strengths as a sorcerer are ambition, an inquisitive mind, and a willingness to fail now in order to succeed later. "Yeah, we should talk about it when there's not...you know, all this?" He gestures at the sky through the walls of the tent, which neither of them can see at the moment, but they both know the snow is still falling. It's been falling, there seems no reason it should stop now.

"I want a bag like that," he says, making a face. "Would be a huge help on the street. Could pack food for days. But, yeah, I didn't cast the pocket spell on this one. It's bound to me; my master did it."

Looking at the Encantus text is a little like reading a book in a dream. The letters are very clear and distinct, but overall the order of the words doesn't quite make sense. Still, it's not wholly worthless to look at. Some phrases will jump out at her and be clear enough. Sentences about ritual circles and fire magic, comment about Merlin learning to breathe water like a fish does, and the phrase 'Lady Morgana Who Bows to No Man'.

There are also illustrations, and those are perfectly clear. She can see the symbols for the domains of Morganian magic easily enough, a detailed anatomical diagram of a human heart, and in the back of the book there's a section on history, with portraits of sorcerers of note. Maybe some that aren't of note, too, because Danny sheepishly reaches over and flips a few pages until they come to what is clearly his own portrait. The caption reads, Danny J. Gladstone, Morganian, Appr. Johnathan 'Jack' Shane, AKA Lukas Drakov, AKA Israfil Li Fonti... There are several more AKAs listed, but no picture cross-referencing the other sorcerer.

"There's kind of a directory," Danny explains.

There is stories of Merlin and Morgana in Hermione's world. She knows they are different from Danny's... especially after seeing the phrases in the Encantus. She smiles at the illustrations and the portraits.

"This is very remarkable Danny." She smiles at him.

He smiles back, encouraged. "We're not allowed to let non-sorcerers touch 'em," he explains. "But you're a sorceress, so you're okay, I guess?"

"It's all I've got to learn with, is the thing," he says. "At least, unless my master comes back for me."

'Unless' now, not 'until'. "I was reading the healing section a lot. I can do flesh wounds and I was working on learning broken bones but I won't know if I can handle those until I run into one."

"Not anymore. We can learn together." Hermione nods with a soft smile.

"Now is the best time to learn and use these spells. It will help you get stronger."

He's thinking about healing magic now, and he's about to tell her something about figuring out how to knit skin together, but what she says strikes more or less right at the heart of him, and he blinks at her, slowly turning pink.

"...Till the Spring comes?" He asks quietly. "Y'promise?"

There's nothing he needs in his life more than a teacher, and a friend.

"Even after spring comes. I will be there for you Danny." And a promise like that from a Gryffindor carries a lot of weight.

If Danny were sorted, he'd land right in Slytherin. He's not cruel, though, and while he's been told to look down on non-magical folk, he only manages it about a third of the time. He's just ambitious, and a little bit amoral when it comes to material things, and getting what he wants.

She's completely thrown him off his stride now, though, and his eyes look watery.

"My master's not coming back," he admits. "I'm not sure what I did wrong. But I can do better, I promise."

"I may not understand a Master and Student dynamic... since that is not how others learn in my world. But I do think we can be great friends, Danny." Hermione smiles.

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Into a Rising Wind

Hermione Granger -- Just Being Useful

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