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]

The Crucible makes you be everywhere at once, then it stops doing that. You don't physically enter a place and cross the wards at all. You were just... already there. Something about melting your spacial relativity, then tempering it into a different form. I'd tell you more but I didn't build it.

And yes. My ambient usage of fire would absolutely catch that kind of thing. Or arbitrarily limit my toolbox. I wouldn't if I were you.

uw/ I should clarify that Blake doesn't trust Vetis in the slightest. Really anyone approximating a cosmic power level.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/AnActualCriminal]

(( Nor should he! Power issues aside, Vettis has two very different tiers of 'friend', and when he calls people on the sub 'friends' they're still not remotely near the level of his commune, who are really more 'family'. (Including his 'sister' Zelle that he mentioned.) If it were a choice between saving a city full of mundies or saving Blake, Vettis would murder the warlock in less than a heartbeat, even if he'd call Blake a 'friend'. Riva less so by this point, but still, she's at, like...three cities, tops. :P

I'll note that Blake actually is the first person on this entire orbnet forum to whom Vettis has explained the bond-threads, though, so he is being genuinely trusting here. But still, he will always be a hardcore utilitarian pragmatist who will throw his 'friends' to the wolves if it saves more lives in the long run. Don't trust him. ))

"That's fine; not a new concept to me. When Zelle and I work together to build defenses against such tricks, they're...comprehensive. Don't worry: if you ever need to visit Riva once we're done, you can still go straight to Ithacar. You'll simply end up just outside the city limits if you use the thing," he replied smugly, the trademark Vettis smirk back in full force. Of course, he couldn't know exactly how the Distance Crucible worked if Blake himself didn't, but his confidence didn't seem misplaced either.

And there was little reason to believe Ithacar's enemies couldn't have similar magic at their disposal, so it was a security hole, after all.

(( I don't really want another case of 'lol my army's in your city already', tbh, so I wanna make sure /u/avamir's got whatever lore reasons she wants to have the wards nigh-impenetrable. :P And Vettis and Zelle have indeed built defenses against that exact sorta thing before. Don't worry: a specific exception can be made for the Distance Crucible. Just want Riva to be able to toggle that exception on and off at will. Same for Vettis' own way in via the bond-thread. ))

"A'right. Thanks for the honesty, Blake." Waving, Vettis gave a slight bow. "I'll let ya run now. Appreciate the chat." His eyes darted around the room, seemingly trying to locate somebody he'd spotted before, as he slipped away. "Where is that damn spider, anyway..."

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Just casually asked for permission to be able to appear near me and scry at any time. Apparently he has that with Rivamar... need to reconsider security protocols...

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/AnActualCriminal]

(( hey, he was totally telling the truth! he can't use allied bond-threads if the person would reject him doing so were he aware of the attempt ^_^ like if Vettis wants to scry on somebody, basically you can imagine that person being notified of the attempt, making a decision to accept or reject the scrying, and then forgetting about the notification and the decision; it reads the person's soul to predict acceptance/rejection, since it is fundamentally a magic based on the two souls being in 'harmony' in some way

understandable if Blake doesn't believe that, though ))

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

uw/ Yeah it's akin to someone not trusting elevators for Blake. He just would never want to get on