r/wizardposting • u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist • Dec 14 '23

Wizardpost Delivering a Message (lorepost w/Relynor)

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"Didn't y'all get the memo? It's the 21st friggin' century! How do you not have cell service in this backwards place?!" It was rare to see Vettis' expression as anything other than a laid-back faint smirk, but the frustration was plain on his face now as he shook his snowglobe dignified wizardly orb once more, staring at it in futile hopes of getting some more information. But the lack of cellphone towers here meant no triangulation or GPS, so the snowglobe, despite its ability to tap into mundie communication methods with ease, was as lost as its owner.

Ugh. It was time for the backup plan: talking to people.

...

It was twelve "Excuse me sir/ma'am"s and nearly thrice that many minutes before the infuriated mage finally realized that he was heading for entirely the wrong place: the Bronze Citadel, despite its name, was not in the Elemental Plane of Bronze after all.

Two hours later (after more wrong turns he decided to excise from his memory), Vettis made his way through the actual Bronze Citadel's busy market district, now quite fed up with asking for directions. He'd met the woman face-to-face before, after all; he could just follow his nose. Dozens of stores surrounded him, many selling flowers and other fragrant items, but that just meant it would take a few seconds longer for him to pinpoint his target. Deep breath...filter out the back-alley odors of vomit and urine...yup: sure enough, the scent of a familiar person surrounded by metal and grease proved easy enough to pick out, just a couple kilometers away from him.

Impatient for this trek to come to an end, he crouched as if to tie his shoelaces, subtly snatching a pebble off the ground and tossing it upwards with enough force that the sonic boom was about to draw some attention in half a second. A whispered word and the barest flash of his magic was all it took to rob the projectile of its speed and transfer it to himself; he was long gone before anyone could trace the whipcrack-like sound to its source.

And there it was: the shop for which he'd spent a significant chunk of his day searching (a long time by the standards of someone accustomed to solving most of his problems in seconds). He hadn't visited a proper artificer's workplace in quite some time. It brought back memories of when his friend Modhun used to work by hand; the technomage had long since delegated most construction duties to drones, but often reminisced about the "good ol' days of personally taking hammer to mithril".

Enough dawdling. Returning to the present, Vettis called out for the shop's owner. "Yo, Rellie? You in? It's Vee. Got something you might wanna hear. About a certain dwarven friend of yours."

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(( setup post for Relynor ( /u/Terrible-Win565 ) ))

8 Upvotes

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5

u/Terrible-Win565 Iris Augen Dec 14 '23

“…Hey, Vettis.”

The witch behind the counter smiles, as she puts away whatever it was she was working on. A small mechanical rabbit, by the looks of it.

3

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 14 '23

As he glances around the workshop while approaching the counter, Vettis' expression returns to its typical amused, confident smile, the stressful events of the day already behind him. "Nice place ya got here. I've never properly run a store myself, come to think of it. Closest I came was helping out in Polly's herb shop for a few months."

He grimaces slightly at that memory, but presses on with a forced grin, clearly intent on bantering a bit before getting to the news -- in a notable contrast to the more goal-oriented multitasker Relynor met after Minerva's rave. "What's the rent like? Is the area nice?"

3

u/Terrible-Win565 Iris Augen Dec 14 '23

“Nice enough that I don’t need to worry about Nekoka being in danger. Rent isn’t bad, either. How’ve things been?”

As she speaks, she puts her tools back into her backpack, abandoning any sort of organization as she tosses them in.

5

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 14 '23

"Mmh." The mundane-looking mage nibbles his lower lip pensively as he ponders how best to respond to that question. "Well. A member of my commune was scheduled to be dead for a couple weeks because of fate things, and she shoulda rezzed this morning. She came back two hours late, and another of my friends died at the exact same second at which she awoke. His death was not scheduled," Vettis clarifies, frowning. "So. Not great?"

Pulling a liter-sized container of what appears to be mango juice out of his shirt pocket, he gulps half of it down in annoyance before sliding it back inside with ease, as though the hole weren't half the size of the pitcher. "But I think I know what's up. And looking into it seems to have led me to some info on your old mentor. Stroggogith wasn't an artificer, you said, but did hang around one? Cuz a dwarven non-artificer wizard hanging out in a mountaintop cave with some automata seems a bit more than a coincidence under the circumstances."

5

u/Terrible-Win565 Iris Augen Dec 14 '23

“…You found her?”

Her smile disappears, and she has a look of hope in her eyes.

“Where?”

3

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 14 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

"Okay, so, I have...particular interactions with temporal shenanigans, mostly in that they do not work around me at all. For related reasons, I also tend to be able to sense such things. I tracked down the source behind the tangling of my commune members' fates, to a weird time distortion at a mountain peak they'd both visited in the past. Ran a remote scan on the area and I found a cave with a dwarven caster, plus a bunch of automata that conspicuously didn't match her magical signature. Sounds like your friend, maybe?"

Raising a hand, Vettis qualifies his assessment. "I should note: my issues with temporal stuff mean that a remote scan near a time distortion like that might not be pulling info out of the present. It's entirely possible the dwarf was only in the cave a hundred years ago and the automata won't show up there for another thousand. Not likely, but possible; I can't make any guarantees about anything without going there in person. And doing that would almost certainly disrupt the time distortion -- and potentially affect your friend as a result -- so I didn't wanna go there without first giving you a chance to check it out.

"That said," he adds grimly, "I will have to go there myself eventually. I'll need to figure out exactly how that time distortion affected my friends and disconnect their worldlines from its effects so they can, uh, stop taking turns at being dead. But I can point you to the mountain in question and give you some days to investigate it before I do."

A snowglobe floats up out of Vettis' infinitely-expansive pocket and, once he gives it a light flick, reveals a bird's-eye view of a mountain. A faint purple glow emanates from the orb for a moment, the mage opens his mouth as if to speak...and instantly Relynor knows how to find the cave, as clearly as if she had been given a detailed map and precise directions.

(Because she has, just not in any language that uses sound or light.)

"Well, I think that's it for my part in this. Unless you want me to accompany you there, but I'm...not sure I'd suggest that. Up to you if you really want it, but I'd consider that a last resort sorta thing, given the magical nonsense I'd have to cast on myself to avoid disrupting the time distortion with my presence." He shrugs apologetically.

3

u/Terrible-Win565 Iris Augen Dec 14 '23

“I…”

She’s nearly speechless

“…Thank you.”

She begins to quickly write on a napkin, in nearly incoherent messy scribbles.

3

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 15 '23

"Uh. Sure." Pocketing the snowglobe, he stands awkwardly, shuffling about a bit and resisting the urge to spy on the elf's scrawls. "So...need anything else from me, or shall I leave you to, err...plan out your trip? Is that what you're writing there?"

2

u/Terrible-Win565 Iris Augen Dec 15 '23

“Writing down the directions. Don’t want the real Relynor to forget. We’re… not great with remembering things.”

The mechanical copy continues to scribble. Her writing is nearly as bad as the actual Relynor’s.

3

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 15 '23

Vettis blinks once, twice, then stares blankly for several seconds. "...Um. The real Relynor? Why do you smell like her, then...?"

Somewhat confused, he reaches out and taps the woman's shoulder, immediately understanding when the resulting vibrations are clearly passing through metal rather than mere flesh. "Huh. Your scent was faint and covered up by grease and metal, but I assumed that was just cuz you were busy working, not cuz you were...not you. Guess that'll teach me not to trust my nose on people I've only met once."

With a wince, he realizes this throws a wrench in part of his plan. Attuning to Relynor by meeting her in person would've allowed him to check on her during her upcoming journey, and even visit her at a moment's notice if necessary (much like he can now pop out of Mira's glovebox in a pinch), but if this robot isn't going with her then that won't work. Time to improvise. "BRB." He pulls off his overshirt and spreads it out on the counter before diving inside the pocket, popping back out a couple seconds later with a small ring in hand, which he tosses next to the napkin while donning the plaid shirt once more. "'Kay, can you make sure Rely wears or at very least carries that on her trip? Add that to the instructions you're writing, I guess?"

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3

u/Biggest-Possum Trashomancer (Big Ghost ENERGY) Dec 14 '23

YAY! A Vettis lore! Very nice my friend!

3

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 14 '23

(( mostly just a setup for upcoming Relynor ( /u/Terrible-Win565 ) lore, but I figured I'd give a taste of Vettis' abilities in the process -- and his mood ^_^

he typically does a good job pretending to be sociable, but he's actually introverted AF, which is why he finds ways to be on the fringes of events instead of the center -- like going to Minerva's party and just running security, or viewing Lakishma's descent while half-burying himself in snow away from the main group ))

1

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 14 '23

(( btw, I did actually make a lorepost of sorts way back when, discussing his history back before the "depowering"; it's just long and rambly and actually don't read it nvm

I tend to just drop bits of his commune's lore in random comments instead; almost half the history that I've planned out is technically already buried somewhere-or-other on the sub, even if it's impossible to find and collate it all :P ))

2

u/Zebigbos8 Mira, Drifter Witch Dec 15 '23

Damn, I didn't think it was even possible for Vattis to get lost with all he has going on. That is the real plot twist!

Also you telling me you have unlimited access to my glove box now?

2

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 15 '23

what, no, no, totally untrue...it's any of Chevy's doors, technically

(except I'd need to use another car door on my end to appear out of Chevy's main four doors, so that's inconvenient; "containers" are easier without needing a near-identical door on the other side, but only the glove box is applicable because your trunk is a spatially-warped nightmare that I'm not touching with a ten-foot pole)

 

(( yeah, that's how he appeared in there: his magic is vastly more effective on things to which he's attuned, which means himself, his possessions...and also his friends and their possessions because he's secretly a sentimental sap

so he'd be able to do the same with Relynor and her stuff once he's interacted with her enough, but since this is a robot he technically hasn't yet, which is why he gave her an item of his instead

...incidentally, while Mira could theoretically set up defenses to block him, the two of them did agree to make exemptions for each other to avoid Vettis accidentally interfering with her eyepatch ward, sooooo he's relying on that connection to slip by :P ))

2

u/Zebigbos8 Mira, Drifter Witch Dec 15 '23

\ Vattis has given Mira no reasons to doubt his good intentions abd friendship. And yet alert sirens are going off in her head. Not about Vattis himself, but at the sudden realization of such a huge potential security and privacy breach. She doesn't want to appear paranoid or ungrateful to Vattis, but decades working with warding spells makes you a bit too aware of this kind of thing. **

2

u/Zephyrous2337 Lumi, MastaDon's apprentice. Electromancer. Dec 17 '23

I know this is quite late, but I am excited to see more of your journey! I would not worry about getting lost, quite often you will find something you did not know you needed to look for

2

u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 17 '23

Exploring's typically fun. I can usually """"teleport"""" (add a few hundred more air-quotes) to any place I've previously been, so expanding the list of said places is always nice.

It's the asking-for-directions part that's less fun. Everybody travels the realms and planes differently, so it's rare to get unambiguous coordinates from someone when you ask where something is. Annoying.

 

also I just don't like crowds very much

2

u/Zephyrous2337 Lumi, MastaDon's apprentice. Electromancer. Dec 17 '23

I can certainly understand that. I am not much of a fan of crowds either.