thewarningafter | IC inbox for Snowblind

Hello. I was hoping to talk about the magic of your world and mine. While we have the opportunity.

[This is Dorian's way of saying he's glad Stephen's not permadead.]

Oh, you. No time like the present, huh? I'm not on anything this time -- that's a lie, I'm on pregabalin and frankly it's worse than the vicodin for my concentration, not to mention the whole compulsive speech thing that's happening right now -- that's to say that I would be thrilled to talk about something that isn't the deepest, darkest secrets of all the people around me, which was kind of a running theme when I first got out of the body bag. Demons, right? Except we're going to need to back it up and lay out some clearer definitions if your world sources its magic from anything you'd call a demon.

I neither need nor want your deep, dark secrets, never fear.

You're right of course. My world has the physical plane and the Fade. That's an oversimplification, there are other things but our world and the Fade are inextricably bound. Demons and Spirits and creatures who aren't quite either live in the Fade. Sometimes they try to come through to our side of the Veil but in general: people on one side, incorporeal entities on the other. And flowing between them: magic.

[The glee on the last word is unmistakable. Dorian loves magic more than he loves life. He figures that's a good place to pause even if Strange can play this clip as many times as he wants.]

That is different.

[He sounds a little relieved to hear it. He's been mulling it over since they last spoke, examining what he knows -- or what he thinks he knows -- in the light of what Dorian told him. Normally he might show a little decorum, give the drama of the explanation its due course, but right now he's unable to do anything but spill out his own thoughts as they come to him.]

There are a variety of planes and dimensions besides our own material dimension, but the ones with those kinds of denizens aren't so closely linked as all that. The main parallels are the astral dimension and the mirror dimension, but the only spirits in the astral dimension are our own astral bodies. Since you -- since we talked I considered the possibility that differences are related to the dimensional shield my order maintains around our world.

We are separated from the Fade by the Veil. It's a vibration that keeps the Fade from leaking into our world more than it already does. Does that sound like what you mean?

[Dorian was intensely curious not least because there were indications the Veil was artificial.]

Possibly. I don't know that I'd call it a vibration -- I don't know what I'd call it at all considering I only learned it existed shortly before coming here; I just like to let people here think I know more about what I'm doing than I actually...do.

[There's a nearly audible grimace from his end of the feed.]

It's maintained by three sanctums on different parts of the planet. They're all in major population centers, but I'm not sure which came first, the sanctum or the city. Two's enough to keep it holding. I hope two's enough. The shield protects our world, the sanctums power the shield, and we -- the, uh, Masters of the Mystic Arts -- protect the sanctums.

[He can't quite say Masters of the Mystic Arts with a straight face. He is one and he still thinks it sounds like something out of a cheesy fantasy movie.]

I think we all do that from time to time.

[That was something Dorian would note and filter future conversations for but he also felt a little bad for calling the guy out in public now.]

I think the Veil may have some similarities there. We found a number of old elven machines that when activated can strengthen the Veil. Perhaps two sanctums in operation will give your people enough time to find other ways to strengthen your shield.

Two was enough for at least a couple days, and I kind of got the biggest threat back off our doorstep before I was brought here. We can -- they can rebuild. By the time I get back...if I get back...they'll have rebuilt the third.

It's all really old, and the person who understood it best is...she's dead now. What kind of machines?

Can they promote one of your colleagues in your absence?

[Climbing the Mystical Career Ladder in Thedas was something more like the way Strange had risen in his medical career.]

About knee high, like a globe set on top of a pedestal. The emit a hum that reinforces the harmonic frequency the Veil operates on. They're old. They seem to date back to the Elvhenan Empire. Which fell millennia ago. Sorry, common knowledge.

Oh, yeah. That's not a problem. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a problem to be a man down, period, especially if they're trying to look for me at the same time as everything else, but I only just got assigned to the New York sanctum, like, the day before I got brought here. It's...more of a problem that Earth doesn't have a Sorcerer Supreme now. Don't -- if you talk to Billy at all, don't tell Billy that part. I'm supposed to be the Sorcerer Supreme in his world and if that's gonna happen in my world, it hasn't happened yet.

[Maybe he shouldn't have embarked on this conversation. It feels good to talk, though, even if later he'll regret this level of over-sharing.]

There's something that might be kind of like that in Kamar-Taj. I never saw the mechanisms in the sanctums, they're kind of...buildings. The buildings might be the mechanisms.

Erm. I won't bring it up if he doesn't.

[But lying to his traveling companion if Billy expected knowledge, wisdom, or the skill associated with that title wasn't something Dorian was going to do.]

Architectural magic?

[Dorian is very eager to hear more about that.]

We have something similar. Buildings laid out as glyphs. The time and effort required are incredible. So naturally they tend to be the work of either the Elvhenan Empire or the Tevinter Imperium. Some say the entirety of Kirkwall is one big spell that uses the alleys and buildings to channel power. It might explain some things about Kirkwall in general if that's true.

[Stephen doesn't much like the sound of that halfway promise, but he's successfully distracted by the bit about the buildings.]

That's my guess, yeah, without having done my reading yet. When Kaecilius and his zealots were trying to take down the sanctums they were destroying the buildings themselves. What about Kirkwall would that explain?

Kirkwall's Circle has a long history of madness and death. Even the soporati who should be immune to such effects frequently report feeling as if someone is watching over their shoulder. The Knight-Commander of the Templars of the Kirkwall Circle appears to have been a bit hrm, overzealous even before she got her hands on a cursed object. Southern Templars can repel magic.

If the city itself is a glyph channeling magic, it would keep the area unsettled. And I don't just mean rumors. There are verifiable patterns that far more mages go bad and far more murders happen in Kirkwall than is normal.

And people just keep living them? What is this, a horror movie? If the house is haunted, move out. It's not that complicated.

I asked their new Viscount about that. His answer involved a lengthy diatribe about my ancestry, port tariffs, and a paean to the pride of his people and their melting pot.

Of course it did. God forbid we show any common sense when we can be patriotic instead.

I am in full, if hypocritical, agreement. To his credit, Varric did agree with me when I said it was a shithole. But then he's a dwarf and they're immune to magic. And mostly immune to lyrium an occasionally immune to not being stubborn assholes who need to find new places to live.

A dwarf? So it's elves and dwarves, you've got the whole subset of fantasy races. Not fantasy, obviously, same as I'm not a comic book -- I've been thinking a lot about interdimensional reverberations and their apparent effects on works of fiction in neighboring universes.

[There's a pause.]

Elves, dwarves, Qunari, and humans make up the intelligent races of Thedas. Humans and Qunari came from somewhere else. There must be other worlds out there because we came from somewhere.

Do you mean the reverberations of people crossing from one world or... Alright, I don't usually mention this. But when I was in the crossroads, there was a book. Varric had been working on another of his serials, Hard in Hightown. There was a chapter there, one Varric claimed he hadn't written. It included a character who sounded a great deal like someone we lost in battle two years before.

Huhh. That's...creepy.

[Sorry, Dorian, full, unfiltered honest over here.]

Could be people crossing over, but I don't think it is. I think our universes echo into each other. There are people here who I know aren't real in my world, and people here who know me as someone from a -- it's a kind of book. With pictures.

[Dorian doesn't disagree.]

Well, that's- hrm. Perhaps if there are as many potential iterations of the world as some have posted, then a world where your life is coincidentally the subject of fiction seems not entirely unreasonable. Or some people have insights into other worlds without recognizing what they are doing.

Or perhaps any story is reflected somewhere because we follow similar patterns. You are not so different from mages I have met in my own world. In terms of personality and so forth.

[Dorian speaks slowly, processing as he talks.]

In an infinite multiverse, infinite things are possible. Of course, that presumes that the multiverse is actually infinite, which we'd have a hard time proving. Or disproving. Or testing at all, frankly. So sure, it could just be that when you have enough monkeys banging on typewriters they'll eventually write my life story. And illustrate it. I've thought it's probably that middle possibility, but if you're going to claim that there's anyone out there like me other than me, we might have to go with patterns of life. Or maybe mages are just all handsome, talented people because that's what it takes, I'm not going to discount that possibility.

Alas, I have met mages who are less than talented or handsome and not merely in comparison with myself.

Though I do agree with the impossibility of testing how many universes there are. Perhaps the people who've passed through this place represent all the worlds there are. I doubt it but until others come, it's the data we have.

There was someone a great deal like me here. Same name, same perfect teeth and hair.

The first Dorian, yeah. Died before I came here, only ever saw him as a name on the obituary. That's...most people who have had other versions of themselves here before them don't like to talk about it. Then again a lot people are sensitive about anything I put on the census.

Well, I'm not exactly happy a version of me kicked the bucket here. But it does open up some fascinating lines of inquiry, does it not?

I find that most people are sensitive about things that matter or would provide better insight. After all, they might provide better insight into them as well.

[So many reasons Dorian decided working with Spirits was preferable to working with humans.]

@navialernovictoria, audio, post-tabletgate

audio | afternoon 257

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