shellphones | [open]

Entry tags:

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Type: Video
Sender ID: hasapoint (Lashan)
To: Public
Subject: waterproofing charms
Warnings: none!

[FIRST: You get a very close shot of Lashan's eye as she squints at her shellphone. We have here that double-doozy of a medieval and an old person and while she's pretty sharp, these devices are not intuitive to her.]

'S it working? The bead's glowing.

[aka 'the light's on'. The video pulls back a bit but like, it's still pretty close and the angle is unflattering. This whole thing feels completely unnatural to her and the lines between her brows are deepened in a frown.]

I'm Sister Lashan. I'm a lay sister, not a nun. I've made some charms for waterproofing. They're not well-tested though. If you help me with that I'll give you one. Want to know their tolerances and if I have to tweak anything before I start selling them. I'm on Elrut.

[yeah this has made her feel ridiculous and stilted. She prods at the phone with a finger.]

...How do I- [she found out how to end message! this was Not guaranteed.]

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[ Oho, someone who needs help testing something? Sounds like the perfect task for a ~~insatiably curious princess~~ dedicated researcher like Zelda. ]

Hello, Sister Lashan. My name is Zelda, and I am a researcher from the kingdom of Hyrule. I would be quite interested in testing your charms. Can you tell me more about them? What specifically does "waterproofing" entail?

[Lashan is literate, and reads better than she writes, but it's not second nature to her and texting feels completely unnatural. She is, she reflects, too old for this shit and she's not going to give herself a headache poking out anything lengthy.]

LIKE WAX

[Sorry, Zelda.]

[ Well that clarified absolutely nothing. Maybe Lashan isn't adept at using the text feature of the shellphone. Understandable, all things considered. Zelda's tech-savviness is a rarity among folks from vaguely medieval fantasy worlds.

Let's try video instead.

Zelda switches to the video feed and offers her usual polite smile in greeting. ]

My apologies. Will this work better?

Edited 2024-09-10 17:57 (UTC)

[With a certain ironic grace:]

It will, thank you.

[aand, just gonna mostly copy how she explained it to Darin]

You have to activate one and kind of touch it to whatever you want it to work on - not rubbing, exactly, but touching enough of it so it 'knows' what to cover. And you have to give it a little time. But once it does it's like a coat of wax or oil. Water beads and pools but doesn't soak in.

It was taught to me as a resort to riding through many days of rain. That's not the same thing as going into the ocean, you understand, so it might take some adjustment.

[ Zelda lights up as comprehension dawns. Ah, so that's what Lashan meant by "like wax"-- literally, almost!

She nods animatedly. ]

I believe I understand now. The coating applied by the charm is reliably water repellent, but may not be fully waterproof if submerged. Would I be correct in this assessment?

That's the gist, yeah. And I'm not confident but I feel like seawater may be more... wearing or penetrating than fresh.

It also works better on things that aren't living. Best of all on metal.

[ Zelda shuffles some papers around off screen before finding a blank one where she can jot down a few notes. Yes, saltwater will be definitely be more corrosive than fresh water.

An eyebrow quirks up. ] Can it be used on living things? Would the coating not inhibit one's ability to breathe?

[ Zelda assumed this was for inanimate objects only... (Why does it work best on metal though?) ]

[that paper stuff again! it's weird how comfortable people here are with writing, paper must be so much cheaper than parchment.]

Yeah but it's tricky. The problem's more that the body has to have water in it, so you see how it could go wrong. Better to err on the lighter side so it wears off more easily.

[ That does sound... potentially troubling, to put it lightly. She'll just stick to inanimate objects... ]

How long does it usually take to wear off? And is it possible to remove the coating at any time, or do you always need to wait for it to wear off?

[ She's starting to get a rough idea of some things she could test this out with. Perhaps something unusual, like a lit lantern. That could make it easier to explore underwater. ]

For the charm not to work at all? Depends on the use. My aunties taught me to stitch or etch the word - it's the focus, there's no inherent power in the symbol - directly onto clothing and gear. When it wore off the stitching would come loose, that kind of thing. I met a kalyke later who taught me to use a charm but that's got the same principle. If it starts coming apart, the power in it's exhausted.

[looks like everything is translated, so 'kalyke', we'll go with literally 'sword of a Twin God'.]

I can strip it. Anyone else is just going to have to not take the charm with them if they want to wash it or whatever, the range isn't very far.

[zelda if you do that it'll snuff out when it goes under and can't get any fresh air!]

[ RIP underwater lantern experiment... But at least a failed experiment will still yield useful data.

Zelda nods along as she listens to Lashan, jotting down more notes here and there. All incredibly fascinating stuff! She's never heard of anything like this. ]

So once you use the charm, the waterproofing enchantment is permanent? [ Or at least, more or less permanent. ] If I were to use the charm on my journal, for example, the waterproof coating would last until forever? [ Her eyes light up with intrigue. ] Interesting. I had the impression that it would last for a few hours, or perhaps a few days, and need to be reapplied periodically.

[this pointy-eared kid is getting ahead of herself.]

Child... Try to hear what I'm saying, not what you want to hear. I just told you that the word comes apart when it's exhausted, whether that's the stitching on the item or the charm. There's only so much power in either.

I can make an enchantment last a long time. Indefinitely, sometimes. But there's no 'forever' for my work. At some point after I die, it does too.

[ She tends to do that a lot... ]

Ah, my apologies; it seems I misunderstood. [ Zelda briefly dips her head in an apologetic motion. ] Magic has never been my strong suit, you see. I still regularly struggle with my own powers.

You have to be able to listen, or you'll never be able to benefit from anything you're told. Slow down. Don't pick three words out of a sentence and fill in the rest on your own.

[she's not going to belabor the point past this, but she wants it established.]

Never had a teacher?

[ Lashan's question is an innocuous one, not the kind that would normally illicit a strong reaction from someone, but Zelda visibly startles when she hears it. Suddenly her mind is flooded with memories of Hyrule-- hazy, indistinguishable memories of her mother, the teacher she never had; and clear, vivid memories of her ancestor, Sonia, the teacher Ganondorf stole away from her.

Prior to this, Zelda appeared composed and self-confident on screen, but now she seems to wither slightly. ]

I... I did not, no. Not in regards to my magic, that is. My mother was to be my teacher, as our power is passed down matrilineally, but she passed away before I was old enough to begin my training. [ A pause. ] I did briefly receive some tutoring from a distant relative of mine, but she was... killed recently. For the most part, I am self taught, I'm afraid.

Ahh. I'm sorry to hear it. Being partially-trained can be more dangerous than not having any training at all, sometimes. It's a difficult position to be in.

[Lashan's shifted to be grave and understanding.]

Wish I could help. I never fully unlocked my own potential and pretty well just have a grounding and a bag of tricks. I've taught them before, but it was to people with a similar magic to mine.

[ Zelda nods in agreement. It's her partially-trained time magic that worries her the most. When it first awakened, she accidentally sent herself several millennia back in time and got stuck there. What if she did that again someday? Or, worse, if she did that to someone else?

(She needs to set aside some time and resume practicing the lessons Sonia taught her.) ]

What sort of magic do you have?

[ She assumes the waterproofing charms are only part of it. ]

Edited 2024-10-17 20:18 (UTC)

I've got a pretty wide spread. Some of my parents and aunties and uncles could've taught me but I was a young hellion who wanted to live by the bow and sword and I thought magic was boring. Not an uncommon opinion among the boys, and I'm not a boy but I've got a lot in common with them. So they pounded enough of the basics in that I wasn't a danger and figured I'd come around when I was older.

[She cants her head, hoping she doesn't have to spell out I never got the chance.]

I've got several Mind-Gifts and the Mage-Gift in some strength. I've picked up some things as I've gone on, I can manipulate lightning and other people's spells a bit, but my specialty's ended up being enchanting items. Mostly swords.

[ There are enough clues in Lashan's story for Zelda to reach the conclusion Lashan doesn't want to say outright. It sounds like whenever Lashan did come around to the idea of learning more about her magic, it was somehow too late.

Zelda doesn't really understand what "Mind-Gifts" and "Mage-Gifts" are (such terms don't exist in Hyrule), but the rest of Lashan's explanation of her magic makes Zelda's eyes light up again. Lightning! Her surrogate mother could command the power of lightning... as well another young woman Zelda knows back home. And enchanting items?-- Zelda's eyes widen at the mention of swords specifically. (Would Lashan's magic be able to repair the broken Master Sword somehow? Not that the legendary blade is here...) ]

That sounds incredible. I have a friend in my homeland who is capable of commanding lightning. She has been training tirelessly for years now to master that skill.

My own magics are a bit more obtuse. One is a divine sealing power passed down through my family by a Goddess who was our distant ancestor. The other is a power to move objects back and forth through the current of time.

It's difficult! One of the problems with using lightning is how there's a ghost of it inside people, including the mage, that calls it to the body. The true thing overwhelms the ghost and harms the body. So, I'm reluctant to use it much. The kalyke I worked with, Duty, he showed me all this but is a special case.

[second time she's mentioned 'sword of a Twin God']

Huh. I'm somewhat aware of divine magic as a general subject but I expect it's different. Our gods don't, hm, favor bloodlines. Not time though. So... what, the future's fixed for you? It can't be changed?

Kalyke, you mentioned that once before. What is that? I have not heard such a term before.

[ It kind of sounds like it might be a title, but Zelda is trying not to make assumptions. ]

I... do not know, actually. There is still much about this power I do not understand. Myself, I am only able to move small object backwards in time-- only a few seconds, or at most a whole minute. If a cup falls to the ground and breaks, I can guide it backward in time to before it broke. My teacher described it as guiding an object back through its memories, helping the object "remember" the form it took before it was broken.

[ She shakes her head. ] I apologize if that does not answer your question. It is a strange power.

Kalyke are from the Plains, where I was born. Different cultures than the countries around them. They're mages who put something of themselves into swords and the like so when they die, they stay with us and can share their skills and power. They're very rare. It's only attempted about once in a century, and most who make it that far don't survive more than a few decades. Ones who last longer can be frighteningly powerful as they learn. Supposedly the first ones were chosen by our gods, even now they're holy people.

[Lashan purses her lips and narrows her eyes, considering this cup situation.]

I'll say. Does it work on small animals too?

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