Can't help but love them

[aestrix]

Raezenoth has sent his manifested form to sleep. He doesn't need it to sleep, it could (and has) gone years and years without such, but sometimes it's nice to not have a body. To go back to how he was in the beginning - a whisper on the wind, a swirl of desert sands, the rustle of the sparse grass. All of his domain, instead of split and splintered and crammed into flesh for the convenience of having hands. Anywhere in it, instead of forced to move at his (admittedly considerable, for a god) top speed. He isn't sorry to have a manifested form, isn't sorry to walk among mortals and call them friend. But he is a god. He doesn't always have to have a body. So he doesn't.

He tidies up his domain. He finds people who need things, who want things, and slips in items that would let them get what they need, and then what they want, by their own power. He's very accustomed to this, he's had a lot of practice, but he tries to outdo himself every chance he gets. Tries to inspire his followers to a little bit more of that stubborn brilliance he loves in mortals so. Tries to help them improve. The mortals make the god, after all. It is the greatest irony, he thinks.

He is the wind, and the ground, and the water beneath it, and he is all of the little things that help people without snatching away their ability to help themselves. It's nice. Quiet. Soothing, after his recent near-mistake involving deleting slavery from existence.

He'll have a visitor soon. He'll wake his body up for that, it's bound to be interesting if nothing else.

Comments

[greatcomposure]

"Spellbooks exist, through which people can learn spells. Casting spells depletes a kind of personal energy reserve called MP, of which people have varying amounts that can improve with practice. A particular spell costs a particular amount of MP, and some of them also cost zorkmids, which are a specific kind of gold coin. If you've read the Quality Discount Spellbooks thread, you've seen some of the spells I know about. I don't know of any drawbacks to learning the magic system, although the coin costs of spells can be inconvenient since you have to be physically carrying all the coins you need for the spell at the time that you cast it."

[aestrix]

"Oh, it's that magic system." Pause. Head tilt. Thinking. "... Yes, I believe I would like to learn it."

[greatcomposure]

"I brought a spellbook," she says. "They habitually destroy themselves after reading, but usually not in a way that damages anything else."

[aestrix]

"You make it sound like it is an unpredictable destruction method."

[greatcomposure]

"It is."

[aestrix]

"The multiverse continues to not be boring. May I have the spellbook?"

[greatcomposure]

"Yes."

She retrieves a read magic spellbook from her bag and hands it to him.

[aestrix]

He takes it. He reads it. It splutters, fizzes, and then turns to goo and drips to the floor.

Raezenoth looks at the gooey remains of the book.

"Thank you," he says.

[greatcomposure]

"You're welcome. What's your MP?"

[aestrix]

"Sixty-two."

[greatcomposure]

"Enough for one casting of plane shift, which I recommend learning. Likewise planar message, minor and major planar ally, lesser wish. I can retrieve copies of all of those from home later, if you want them."

[aestrix]

"Yes, please."

[greatcomposure]

"I also brought a copy of the spell catalogue if you want to look through it yourself," she says.

[aestrix]

"I believe I would, thank you."

[greatcomposure]

Cordelia digs out the catalogue and hands it to him.

[aestrix]

"Thank you. Do you want me to actively lead you around my domain, or leave you to your own devices?"

[greatcomposure]

"I think a guided tour would probably be more informative."

[aestrix]

"Very well." He motions to the book in his hands, and it - disintegrates into sand and is blown away. That's. Possibly freaky.

"Follow me?" he offers, floating off of the bed and landing neatly.

[greatcomposure]

If he wants to disintegrate his spell catalogue, that's his business.

Cordelia follows him.

"If you want a copy of the introductory book on spellcasting, I can provide one of those as well," she adds.

[aestrix]

"I would appreciate that," says Raezenoth.

He walks, instead of flying. To be polite. Walk walk, walk walk.

The desert outside is - less harsh than one might expect. It's hot, and there's a lot of desert out there, but it's varied. There's a large sandstone rock over there. There are shrubs, small cacti, sparse grasses - even the occasional slightly dead looking tree. There's a small almost-mountain behind them, with the cave in it, and more large rocks that likely could hold caves of their own. They follow a dinky, hard to see path that picks its way through the terrain.

"There is a town nearby with one of my temples," he says, as he walks. "It was the fifth to be founded in my domain. It's rather old. I have a certain fondness for it - the first settlers there were clever and figured out farming underground near the aquifers. I liked their ingenuity. So I built a temple underground and helped harden the sand to sandstone so they could expand it further. And they have."

Is that pride? That sounds like pride. (It is pride.)

[greatcomposure]

(Cordelia provides a copy of INTRODUCTION TO SPELLCASTING before they start. Presumably the disintegration that ensues is some kind of storage method.)

"Humans will do that," she says. "My home planet is a desert, and not nearly this habitable, and we've managed nicely there for hundreds of years."

[aestrix]

(Yep, this one gets disintegrated, too.)

"I like that humans do that. I am sorry that your desert is not as habitable, but I'm glad you've managed."

[greatcomposure]

"We live mostly underground. It's not possible to go out comfortably on the surface without special equipment. That's one of the things I appreciate about the planet I live on now - it has an outdoors."

[aestrix]

"I think I would hate living only underground. I like the sky."

[greatcomposure]

"I like the sky too."