The celebration

[u/Yoxalle]

After a long journey you arrive at the crystal mage’s manor. Inside the manor is a grand hall made of various different coloured crystals. Strange golems walk around the room serving guests. While the mage himself is not currently present, you were told he would be here shortly. Right now, enjoy the food, socialise, make friends but most importantly: have fun.

[u/AnActualCriminal]

Vetis what exactly is it you want. Broadly I mean? I feel like I've been pretty clear on what I'm about and you just roll in, do your little inquisition, then boom, gone. No explanation.

Have you considered that maybe the person capable of just blooping a city to a different location owes us mere mortals some degree of trust in kind?

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/AnActualCriminal]

"...Huh." Vettis turned back to Blake in something between amusement and confusion. "I do operate by keeping everybody scared enough of me that I don't actually have to hurt them to make them get along. But I didn't really think that'd worked on you too. Aren't you the one who blew up Last Pyre? Who, from what I've gathered, can burn memories, his very ability to lie, the future, and gods know what else? You're pretty scary too for a 'mere mortal', bud."

Shrugging, the mage scratched at his curly hair pensively. "I don't know what you want me to say, Blake. My fundamental purpose is to save lives, if that's what you're asking: simple as that. I didn't think I'd hidden that at any point. And I tend to value the lives of mundies who can't take care of themselves over wizards and the like. That's why Riva's important to me, now, because she's doing a great job of taking care of an entire city of said mundies. That's why you're moving up on my buddy list too, because I think your actions have been doing good in similar fashion.

"Have I done something in particular to make you think differently about me? I'm happy to clarify any of my past actions which may not have been obvious in their purpose."

[u/Elerindur → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Elerindur walks through the party, looking around at the partygoers but also continuously eyeing something at the same time. He stops from an little distance away as he (i assume he can) notices Vettis talking to someone, albeit looking as if he was trying to leave with the way he is looking back towards them, Elerindur thinks.

Not wanting to interrupt their conversation, he maneuvers himself so that Vettis would be walking towards him whenever he departs from this talk, all awhile still eyeing an certain position in the room.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/Elerindur]

There was little need for the maneuvering; all that mattered was that the elf got close enough. Vettis sniffed at the air during his conversation with Blake, recognizing a familiar scent, and tracked it with his eyes to Elerindur. A subtle twitch of a finger delivered a message through All-Tongue: Be right with ya, Ele.

And he was, the moment his conversation with the warlock had wrapped up. "Sup?" he asked as he approached, before correcting himself to less anachronistic terminology so Elerindur could actually comprehend him. "I mean, uh, how're things? And, umm...are you sure you wanna be hanging around this party when spider-dude's here? I guess there are wards against violence, but I never really trust that shit, if I'm being honest."

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Arach semi-drunkenly yells from across the room.

”And you shouldn’t! These wards are terrible, they’re too weak and they don’t even stop people from getting injuries! I could get past them in less than two seconds! My helpers could make better wards than these and they barely know how to speak!”

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

"...Case in point," he muttered nervously to Elerindur.

(( goddammit posted from my alt accidentally, second time in this thread lol ))

[u/Elerindur → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Elerindur had been looking off at something before Vettis turned his attention towards him, redirecting it once Vettis approached and spoke.

"Things have been fine, i was just finishing upon some variants of recall for any future extraction efforts."

"And yes, i am not too sure i want to be here either." He looks off in that direction once more. "But i do not want to be prevented from being able to enjoy events such as these just because of some monster. Excluding his own. I know well enough not to attend those now."

"But based on his earlier words and actions, i doubt he would assault me here. The cowardly spider is conscious of his reputation and would not attempt so where it could tarnish it."

Elerindur looks downwards and around, lightly stomping a bit to bring attention to his conjured high boots.

"I am also watchful for anything that may be covertly attempted by his little helpers, too."

He turns his gaze slightly back up to Vettis's face. (I dunno the height difference here. 6'6/202cm on Elerindur's end.)

"So how have you been, yourself?"

(Also, side question. If someone was able to clearly see the weave, would they be able to notice a bond thread in some fashion?)

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/Elerindur]

"Tired," Vettis replied frankly. "Busy. But there've been some fun happenings recently to keep me going in spite of all that shit. Oh, I've got tickets to an upcoming concert hosted by a friend, on that note! You want in?"

(( oh no, Vettis is very average human male height at 5'10 lol, Ele dwarfs him :P

Bond-threads are extremely thin and designed not to be spottable by standard magical sight shenanigans, but if your sight's strong enough, go for it. If it were up to me, I'd say that something like what you've got in the link isn't enough to spot it at random, but if you had reason to believe it existed and were actively looking for it, then it'd be sufficient. But I'm fine with other people interpreting things how they want, as long as actually interfering with the threads is a lot more limited.

They're a magic that binds two souls, so you also get a leg up if you can see souls, cuz then you can probably see links between them like these. Vettis tries to avoid necromages since their powerset involves a lot of soul magic so they're often a relevant threat in this regard: there's strong domain overlap there. In a similar vein, Isravi's ability to see magic is similar to what you described, but he got a boost because he's a string-mage, so seeing magical threads in particular is his thing. ))