lexicality | so there was this deck of cards, right

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

incanted

"No. Well. Not very much. But if it's that dramatically easier to do magic with device help, and if they're hard to come by and potentially resentful anyway, it's worth trying to talk one into it."

From:

cardistry

"...I dunno," Brilliance admits. "I mean, the one thing I know for sure I wanna do with my future is not blow up any inhabited planets; past that, I haven't really thought about it much."

From:

incanted

"Well, for the short term, it's very kind of you to help us figure out the magic we command ourselves, anyway."

From:

lexicality

"Can we magic our homework done, that would be cool, I was going to do mine with Jessica but then stuff happened."

From:

incanted

"I really don't know - what sorts of things can magic do?" Bella asks Brilliance.

From:

cardistry

"Probably not your homework," snorts Brilliance.

From:

incanted

"Okay, but in general - conjure stuff out of nothing? You set up a shield during the fight; can that scale? Last a long time? Could I power generators with slightly more controlled magic energy blasts if I learned enough electrical engineering?"

From:

cardistry

"I don't know everything magic can do," says Brilliance. "And I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. What would you do with a magical shield that lasted a long time? Use it as an umbrella?"

From:

incanted

"I'd be safe in war zones with a persistent shield, if I decided to fuss with those instead of working on peaceable stuff. And did you mention healing spells - how good are those, how long do they take?"

From:

cardistry

"Um, depends?" he says. "Pretty good, I guess. Better than what this planet's got, as far as I can tell. And you'd be prety safe in war zones with just your Barrier Jacket."

Edited Date: 2013-04-10 06:11 pm (UTC)

From:

incanted

"I'm concerned about scale, if I spend sixty hours a day just healing people that's a lot of people but it's not going to add up to as many as I'd like. Barrier Jacket - that's the magical girl getup with the dress and the footwings and the little cape and the armwarmers and stuff?"

From:

cardistry

"Yep," says Brilliance. "It'll stand up to a lot, especially with me behind it."

From:

incanted

"Why does it look like that?"

From:

cardistry

"Barrier Jackets are kind of like incantations," he says. "If you're trying for something when you make it, that's what you'll get, and if you're not then it just... ends up being something."

From:

incanted

"...Well, I didn't know there was anything to try for, but you did," Bella points out as Lexi pulls the car into the driveway and they both hop out.

From:

cardistry

"I wasn't really thinking about designing a great set of clothes at the time," he says. "Turned out pretty good, though, didn't it?"

From:

incanted

"At least it has reasonable coverage, I wouldn't want to be going around like Wonder Woman trying to get people to aim at defended spots two inches across."

From:

cardistry

"Oh, that's not how it works," says Brilliance. "Well, it is and it isn't. How much of you it covers is related to how strongly defended you are, but you could take a 'fuck you' to the face in that thing and walk away. It'd hurt, but it wouldn't kill you."

From:

incanted

"Can I switch outfits without you helping?" Bella asks.

From:

cardistry

"...Kinda sorta," he says. "The Barrier Jacket's another thing you get for free through me that you could probably manage on your own but it'd be harder and I wouldn't know how."

From:

lexicality

"I think you should keep it, Bella, sounds super-handy," opines Lexi, flopping onto the couch.

From:

incanted

Bella rolls her eyes and heads upstairs to their room. "So - basically - how do spells work? How are they fueled, how are they constructed and directed?"