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xp_logsIllyana and Forge meet. Again. It goes well enough until it really doesn't.
Clint had showed her the monitoring equipment, explaining it in easy language that didn’t make her feel like he was talking down at her, and when she’d kept showing up (the place made her nose itch, but the longer she was around it the less severe that was), he’d kept putting her to work, getting readings on her portals in various proximity to the wormhole before assigning her to Forge to see if she had the interest and aptitude for some of the mechanical side. She wasn’t sure about it, but she did like math. And the people she’d met in this place so far were tolerable. It was worth a try.
Illyana knocked politely on the door she’d been directed to, then slipped inside when no answer was forthcoming. The sensory input was overwhelming. Loud music with a heavy beat, the sound of tools, and the faint but dreaded scent of the touch of an elder one. She inhaled sharply, the smell filling her nose and making her sway in place, the door frame and her own stubbornness the only things keeping her upright as she flashed back to a looming Belasco.
“Excuse me,” she said loudly. “Am looking for Forge? Clint sent me.”
Forge was lost in his music and in his power, but then blam, out of nowhere, his head started to pound. So he muted Dimmu Borgir's Council of Wolves and Snakes and then turned to face - Demon Queen Barbie. From Halloween. Great. "Yeah. I'm Forge. Who're you?" he asked, a touch brusquely. Fuck, out of nowhere he went from neutral-to-fine to edging up to go-lie-down-with-a-wet-cloth-across-his-eyes.
Illyana tilted her head, moving a few steps into the room before snapping her fingers as she recognized his face. “Death touched scared man. Knew you would end up involved with mansion.” She didn’t hold out her hand, but she did move a few steps closer. “Name is Illyana Rasputina.”
"Oh, good. Demon Queen Barbie has a name. Nice to meet you, Illyana Rasputina. Clint gave you the pretty-pictures tour and wants me to show you some of the tech. How much of an understanding do you have of engineering or high-energy physics?" he asked.
“Queen of Limbo, not Demon Queen. Is difference,” Illyana replied stiffly. “Was stuck during weirdness with wormhole, have been shown how monitoring equipment works. Know some little about how portals act with wormhole.” She tilted her hand in a so-so motion. “Do not know much, education up here is GED. Am pretty good at maths, might understand more if you can relate to magic? Will ask questions if need.”
"Our magic traditions are very different." he pointed out. "Plus, I'm not currently practicing." he said with about 10000% understatement. "Okay. So. Physics approach is out, unless you're familiar with the effect of muon plasmas on the deformation of space/time?" he asked hopefully.
“Cat have plasma up here? Thought that was Limbo thing.” She shook her head in the negative. “Traditions different but some energies flow same, is like…” What could she think of that would make sense? “Is like basic T-shirt? Fabrics, colors, little details different. End of day two armholes and chest coverage. Can learn little details to see big picture, even if not preferred style.”
Illyana shrugged. “Would offer show and tell, but magic is not strong up here. Was taught in Limbo, currents are different. Magical sense is strongest, is how I knew about death touch.”
Forge turned vaguely green as his headache came back (not that it had ever left) with a vengeance. He swayed on his feet but swallowed heavily and kept things where they were supposed to be. For now. "You see magic clinically, in terms of energy flow." he said, swallowing again heavily. "I can tell you that my people invoke the spirits in everything." he said, and then quickly dashed into a side-room to be very messily sick.
That was a new reaction. “If sick do not want it. Do not like being stuck with needles.” She looked around the room, spying a minifridge in the corner. It had water in it, so she did the only thing she could think of. “Drink, sick is gross, burns throat.”
He came out of the bathroom a few moments later and took the water from her. He retreated back into the bathroom so he could rinse his mouth out and not swallow the water. Once his mouth was mostly clean of the yuck, he finished off the bottle of water and tossed the empty into the trash. "Thanks. Got a pretty massive headache out of nowhere. Happens from time to time, just haven't had one that bad since Halloween." he said. "You're not fucking with me magically, are you?"
“No, magic up here not strong enough for that. Can scry, sense magic, do some small spells. Cannot magic people without being obvious.” He was supposed to be teaching her something, and she liked Clint well enough. She should probably be polite. “Will use magic sense if okay? Do not need to touch, is not magic that can change, just sees what is.”
Forge just waved his flesh-and-blood hand in assent and concentrated on his breathing, on getting himself under control. It wasn't an easy task - the migraine tended to pulse in pain with his heartbeat - but he did his best to give her time to do her thing.
Illyana’s eyes unfocused as she looked him over, only her years in Limbo keeping her from drawing in a horrified breath. His magic was tangled and knotted, interspersed with the sort of inky darkness she associated with Belasco and the sorts of elder ones he’d been trying to unleash through the sacrifices of innocents like she had been. It was thickest around his hand and farther up his chest and head, thinning into wisps as she traced her eyes over his body.
The areas where her own aura tended to just… drift and met his own in the normal light leakage that everyone except the very most skilled practitioners she’d met had a bit of were clashing terribly. That, at least, she could help with somewhat. She let her magic sense fade, trying to pull her aura tighter into her body to minimize any drifting. As long as they didn’t stand too close it would probably be okay. “How is headache? Did not realize auras were… fighting? Yours… do not want to pry, but need someone in your tradition to look over. Build up is dangerous.”
Forge took an experimental deep breath and then released it. "Better." he said. "I mean, headache is still there, but it's not trying to make my head explode anymore." he said, then added a moment later, more quietly. "Thank you."
“Do not be idiot like other magic users and you will be welcome.” Illyana gave him a tentative smile. “And if want to talk about what happened to you, will listen. Can trade story about demon trauma.”
"Maybe another time." he said, swallowing heavily. He was not tremendously keen on sharing his deep dark shame with someone he'd just met. Even if she did help with his migraines and give him a once-over. Corroborated with the English witch had said, so that was good to know. "It's pretty personal. Relates back to my service in Afghanistan." he said by way of an explanation. "Umm, not that you know what that is. Shit."
Illyana smirked. “Is war, yes? Americans always at war, is thing I remember from boring school. Offer is open, will try to keep own aura tucked in.” She grabbed another bottle of water and cracked it open, giving Forge a few steps of space. “Now that issue is settled. Teach me thing Clint sent down for?”
"Is always war" he said agreeably. "But we're gonna have a problem here, I suspect. You've got a GED and to get into the nuts and bolts of the monitoring systems here is a graduate course in electrical engineering. So … let me think for a minute how best to explain this to you." he said.
“Show and tell is how Clint does,” Illyana offered. “Simple language. Not like idiot, but less ah… technical words? Am not great at computer thing. Threw one out of window first time was here, thought it was possessed by demon.”
"OK. You know energy flow, you just contextualize it in terms of sorcery. I can work with that. OK. So. Equipment here runs on a specialized isolated energy flow - like big nasty demon behind a ward. All it can do is give you power of a certain type - so many cycles, rushing through conduit so fast. With me?"
“Makes sense, yes.”
"OK, good." he said, grabbing a dry erase marker and wheeling a whiteboard over to draw the diagram so far. "Now, energy flow comes into our detection devices - think of them like artifacts. Magic wands, swords, pentacles, that stuff, right? Flow hits the artifact, the artifact takes it and shapes it into a web that looks for certain specifics of our friend the wormhole. Looks at how strong it is, what space/time around it is doing, how bad the distortion is, that kind of thing. More specifics require that graduate course, but I think you're with me so far, right? Information is brought back from the wormhole by the web and stored here." he said, pointing to a collection and dissemination server.
Illyana nodded along. “Might need to write down later, but yes.” She had questions about things, but they were more about limiting flow and if different artifacts affected the information. Those were not now questions, so instead of asking she simply continued to stare at the diagram, brow furrowed as she followed along with the shapes and arrows Forge had drawn for her.
"Now, the data-gathering server is kinda like a … homunculus." he said, adding a toothy grin to the diagram. It's very clever and very mischievous at the same time. We're working on it, but the homunculus here decides what's information worth passing on and what's just normal crap." he said. "It's how we not drown in information and get alerted when certain things go out of what we consider to be normal bounds." he said. He then gave her a wry look. "Every once in a while the homunculus misbehaves and needs to be spanked to bring it back into line." he said. "Like let's say you have a demon back home. You don't trust it, but it's doing a vital job for you. But it doesn't like you much and occasionally fucks with the information it's sending you. We need to be able to recognize that and filter out the crap." he said. "That's this box here." he said, adding some more connections to the diagram. "Lemme pause here. Any questions?"
“You know lot about Limbo for man that hates demons,” Illyana replied, raising one prim eyebrow. “Or very good guesser. Suppose you cannot just beat box into submission like actual demon.”
"We're in the realm of metaphor here, not literality." he said. "So, metaphorically, we have to reset the data-gathering box from time to time. It's one of the things I'm working on - to reframe it for you, it's adjusting the wards and the parameters of the summoning to make the homunculus more likely to pass along vital information and less likely to shit in your shoes." he said with a grin. "And there's a reason I'm up on demonology. Story for another day." he said.
"Let's recap. We take our energy flows from our specialized power source, send them to our array of detectors. Detectors do their thing, pass data along to the homunculus. Homunculus looks at all that information, compares it to what it knows normal is. If normal, just sends an "All's well." message to a specific set of monitors - that's what Clint showed you. If not normal, then it sends a flag - an alarm - to the monitors and then we here in eXcal take a look for ourselves, see if this is just something outside our data set or if something hinky's going on that we need to investigate. With me?" he asked.
“Wormhole gives specific energies. Devices read energies, put into numbers for tracking. Devices can alert when energy is too strong, like wards when someone is unwelcome. Sometimes machine that gets info is naughty like trickster demon, needs put back into place. Adjust wards to close holes in contract so demon cannot exploit. Sometimes is just overflow, other times is like more demons crash party?” It made sense, especially with what she’d seen of the vending machine.
“Did trickster demon get stuck in vending machine? Is very weird. Good chocolate, but weird.”
"That's an open question." he said. "You're better qualified that anyone else to tell us if the vending machine is possessed. Me, I think chaotic energies from the portal that we're not accounting for or buffering is doing a whackjob number on the poor thing." he said. "Problem for another day. Now, all these wands and pentacles and homunculi need their own energies to run and exist, right? And we provide that, but very importantly, from a _different source_ than the energies we use for the monitors. Why do you think that is?" he asked, deciding on a whim to get a feel for the woman's thought processes.
“Is not tied together?” Illyana’s answer was hesitant. “Like water, sometimes get water from lake, but if boat turns or things in water, sometimes use well or boil rainwater instead. Is not contaminated. But no demon in vending machine when I checked. Just.. weird. Not mean.”
"I see where your head is at, but the actual answer is simpler. What if someone takes your lake and poisons it. Everything that draws water from that lake is at risk. What if a mischievous water spirit takes the lake and moves it somewhere else?" he asked. "We separate monitor power from sensor power because of a concept called "single point of failure". If we lose power, we don't want to lose _everything_. Just the _one_ thing that that that source was powering. Make sense?"
“Like how wards are not tied to just one anchor if you want them strongest. Have more points, more power, easier to fix when problems happen.”
"Right, exactly. And if the anchor fails, you only lose _one_ thing tied to it, because other things have other anchors. Sure, more of a pain in the ass to maintain all those anchors, but in an emergency or when under attack, it's not a single point of failure to lose an anchor."
“Unless you do wards poorly, then one anchor breaks all and wooooooosh,” she agreed, clapping her hands together lightly to emphasize the sound of failure. “Is nasty to see.”
"You get it." he said with some amusement in his voice. You had to pitch things weirdly to get it across to her but she got the base concepts, at least. "OK, let's try some troubleshooting. You come down for your turn at monitoring duty, and all your monitors aren't giving you data. What do you think might be the problem?" he asked, then handed her a dry-erase marker and let her have access to the diagram on the board if she wanted it.
“Turn off and on again?” She didn’t understand many jokes made around her, but that one had been explained fairly kindly. “Make sure things are connected right.”
He nodded. "Head's in the right place. Make sure connectors are good _first_, then power cycle." he said. "If you power-cycle but your connectors are bad, nothing will change, right? But if you check connectors, make sure they're all good, then power cycle, you're more likely to get monitoring back on the go."
“Makes sense. Like plug in phone to get power for use.” He wasn’t terrible at this. Clint was better, but she had a feeling Clint had more experience breaking things down into small pieces than Forge did. And neither of them talked to her like she was stupid. None of them had, even if she’d sometimes caused raised eyebrows while they were stuck together.
It was nice.
Forge added some more details to the whiteboard, including several new power sources and adding some arrows about where power goes and where information went. "There. That's good enough for the fundamentals. There's a whole lot I'm glossing over here but this will be enough to give you the basics. As you keep reminding us, you're not stupid, it's just that your education is specialized and from our point of view, deeply weird. Congrats." he said, capping his marker and putting it on the tray designated for such things. "With this diagram and your knowledge of how flow works - admittedly from sorcery, which is eighteen different kinds of weird - you should be able to do some baseline is-it-plugged-in-is-it-turned-on troubleshooting. I'll see about translating what the sensors are looking for into a frame you'll have better chances understanding, but I'm gonna need to get someone on Team Magic to help me break it all down."
“Wanda or Topaz probably best,” Illyana replied. “Wanda knows me from last time was here, is not… magic, necessarily, but very smart. Topaz is rarely idiot about magic.” It would’ve been highest praise from the teenage girl she’d been, though she would’ve been reluctant to voice it. “Less magic users now than then.” She didn’t offer her hand as politeness dictated, instead inclining her head. “Thank you for teaching, are credit to team. Will email questions if have them, try to avoid headaches?”
"See what I can do." he said with a wry look, then returned her semi-bow with one of his own. "You're a good student, in your own way. We file off the raw edges and bring up your understanding of the mundane world, you could be a force to be reckoned with. Your Majesty." he said with a smirk.
"Also, little thing about me? All those flows we've been talking about? I see them Intuitively. I understand them. It's my mutant gift. I understand the math of the universe. It's what helps make me such a good engineer." he said simply.
“Would be good for magic too, if you get unblocked. Lot of math in beautiful magic.” She grinned, the faint quirk of lips a little lopsided before sobering into a serious look. “Do not think anyone here could handle, but if your people have powerful magician, need to get that looked at. Twisted magic is… not thing I would wish on someone. Is part of how Belasco ended up in Limbo, able to kidnap children like I was.”
"I manifested very young, didn't grow up knowing or believing in magic. Uncle showed me the Universe as it actually is, and then I went off and ran from it to enlist in the Army." he said. "Complicated family situation." he said with a shrug. "Came back missing a hand and my leg, lotta bad shit went down. Spent a lot of time building new hand and leg, making my way in the white man's world with my gift of math. Also cheated the white man out of a degree, which is always fun." he said with a laugh. "Said uncle is a bigshot among my people, a very important man. There's … reasons … why I can't go talk to him about my magic." he said, then swallowed heavily as his headache came back more than a little. Funny how it'd almost disappeared when he was explaining power and data flows to Illyana.
"It's one thing to walk into this world, the world of magic, of your own free will. Hell, I only barely accepted it as the real deal. It's unbelievably fucked up that someone would kidnap a _child_. No offense but it explains a lot." he said.
“Was meant to be part of sacrifices, little innocents taken to open bridge between worlds to elder ones.” Her smile was brittle. “Same ones that I sense on you, is why I was hostile at Halloween. Do not… Life is already hard, do not have to add demons. Is why I do not understand when people here attract them like sport. Limbo demons annoying enough, do not want to face those.” She shrugged. “I was lucky, but was at expense of other people choosing to make sacrifice so I survived. Do not always thank them for it, even now.”
Forge just swallowed a lump and nodded. "In my case, we … we were under attack. Ambush from the Taliban. They were chewing me and my guys up, reinforcements were inbound but by the time they got there we'd all be dead. So I made a choice. A horrible, horrible choice that's stained me ever since." he said. "Cost me my hand, my leg, scarring all up my side, and … more." he said. "My self-respect, my honor, my … everything. I had no right to do what I did but when you're staring down a gun and knowing you're going to die, you make some bad decisions." he said.
“Survival instinct very strong sometimes,” Illyana agreed. “Is why I am Queen now. Do not want the power, but other options are bad. Can at least pull it more to neutral it is when left alone. Harsh. Unforgiving. Fight to survive. But not children as sacrifice, open door to horrors best left unnamed.”
The knowing didn’t make her look at Forge in a new light, specifically, but there was a flicker of something that might become kinship, if they worked at it. “Know you do not want to talk to Uncle, but need to. Magic could turn on you, eat your insides. Take you over. Better to untwist, make what penance you need. Every day, fight result of being partial sacrifice. Do not say lightly what could happen, have seen it before. More likely to end up under my rule or worse, if you do not.”
Forge sighed. "Wish it was that easy. It'd be like you, I don't know, having to tell your big brother about all the nasty shit you've done, either for survival or for ambition, and then risk alienating your family. And that's assuming that your big bro taught you right from wrong when you were little, was there for you and loved you and all the stuff siblings are supposed to do. I don't know, I'm an only child. But you see my point here."
Illyana winced. “Have told him some of it, but Pyotr is… friendly dog you see in children’s movies. Do not know breed, has pretty gold fur? Parents think I am dead, and have already mourned two children. No need to give them shock, have to explain kidnap by demon. I do understand. But if parents were magic, had magic to make me whole again, would tell them every awful detail, even if after I had no parents, no big brother.”
She stepped back, clutching the bottle of water in her hand. “Uncle may be upset, disappointed. But will be upset, angry at self if he could have helped, but pride did not let you tell. I know because Pyotr is mad at self, mad at mansion for not telling him I was here before. A little disappointed I am rude bitch, maybe, but not mad I survived.”
Forge laughed. "A golden retriever. The breed is called a golden retriever. And now I'm going to have trouble _not_ seeing him that way." he said with another laugh. Then he calmed himself to look straight into her ice-blue eyes. "So we're both cowards, in our own ways." he said. "But for me, it's like this. Naze taught me Cheyenne magic. Respect for spirits, reinforce the natural order. To promote life, healing." he said. "And in Afghanistan, I twisted it all. Used it to kill, to use souls and blood to summon monsters from my people's nightmares. Everything we stand for, centuries of tradition, gone in an instant. Pissed on, stomped into the dirt. How can I go to him and say "Oh hi, Uncle Naze, I violated every precept you have, shit on all your traditions, and almost called in our multiverse's greatest enemy to save my own useless ass." he asked. "If the magic twists and festers, good. Maybe it'll kill me and Naze can find another apprentice."
Illyana gave him a stern glare, reaching out and flicking him solidly between the eyes. “Was wrong, you are also magic idiot,” she complained. “Waah I made terrible mistake and cannot face consequence of own scared actions, must make it problem of everyone else.” It was not a polite mocking, and she only barely held back from flaring her aura out. No. She had been taught better, and would not be that unkind. Besides, she didn’t want his vomit all over her new shoes.
She didn’t hold back from light touching, however, twisting her small hand in his t-shirt with a snarl. “You will tell him, own up to actions like man. Not bring them on head of people here who are not prepared, did not ask to be fodder for elder ones. Uncle might be mad. He will be disappointed. Will need to do work to get back to even place with magic, atone for damage done, work to prevent damage from spreading, causing mess. Or will end you myself, prevent them from using Forge skin like puppet. You understand?” She kept her eyes firmly locked to Forge’s, refusing to step back. Soulsword itched to be free, to show him exactly what sort of threat she could be if he didn’t get his shit fixed.
"You threaten me again and I will put a very special bullet in your brain." he said flatly. "Yeah, my shit probably needs fixed. Yeah, I'm not real keen on talking to Naze and risking everything I've ever had with him. But if you think I'm gonna allow myself to get turned into a meat puppet you are deeply mistaken." he said. "I'm locked up so tight I get fucking migraines every time my magic even twitches." he pointed out. "So the only person whose problem this is is me." he pointed out. "Also, I'm gonna tell you a little secret that your demon buddies neglected to tell you about souls."
"Do you want to hear it?"
Illyana let out a high laugh, harsh in the stillness of the room. “You teach me about flow, about multiple systems, about failure of energy, and you think tiny lock on giant magic block is stronger than taint of elder one?” She let go of his shirt, stepping back. “You are fool, waste of Uncle’s strong magic. Or Uncle is fool, perhaps, to teach so poorly. Can lock it away, will just fight and fight, taint will creep closer, darker, and you…” The disgusted noise she made wasn’t far off from someone gagging. “Cannot be around such stupid. And think you can teach me, ME about souls. Hilarious.”
"Wow. You must be damned near blind in this realm." he said. "I never touched the Adversary with my magic. US Army artillery strike did for his portal before he could enter our realm." he said. "And the demons I did use my magic against are all dead, gone, torn to shreds. Don't mistake my shame and regret for demon-taint, demon girl." he said.
His knowledge of soul regeneration, he decided, he was going to keep to himself.
“You do not have to touch elder ones for them to link thinnest threads,” she snapped. “Can see your taint, the blockage. Is like trying to hold back ocean with small, shallow thing. May work for a while, but ultimately will fail. Might just take you,” Illyana swallowed, disgusted and mad and so very, very tired of people screwing around with magic they weren’t fully equipped to handle. “Might just take you,” she began again, voice hoarse. “Might eat you alive like disease with no cure. Or might make you puppet. Slow, winding. Invade thoughts, actions, learn. Make people think you are just changing with passage of time until is too late. Last actions might be watching in horror as it compels you to destroy loved ones.”
She turned, heading towards the door. Her back to Forge wasn’t a deliberate insult, but if he tried to harm her, well. She wasn’t entirely unprotected, even up here.
He was going to need to bump up his anti-magic operations, even if working on them invariably put him down with a migraine. Maybe he could get the design good enough that April could handle things from there. Maybe. He'd really hate to put her in the crosshairs but, as she liked to remind him, she could take care of herself. As much as it hurt him, it might be time to work more on Project Magic Bullet, or depending on how frisky she wanted to get, maybe Project Neutralizer.
Clint had showed her the monitoring equipment, explaining it in easy language that didn’t make her feel like he was talking down at her, and when she’d kept showing up (the place made her nose itch, but the longer she was around it the less severe that was), he’d kept putting her to work, getting readings on her portals in various proximity to the wormhole before assigning her to Forge to see if she had the interest and aptitude for some of the mechanical side. She wasn’t sure about it, but she did like math. And the people she’d met in this place so far were tolerable. It was worth a try.
Illyana knocked politely on the door she’d been directed to, then slipped inside when no answer was forthcoming. The sensory input was overwhelming. Loud music with a heavy beat, the sound of tools, and the faint but dreaded scent of the touch of an elder one. She inhaled sharply, the smell filling her nose and making her sway in place, the door frame and her own stubbornness the only things keeping her upright as she flashed back to a looming Belasco.
“Excuse me,” she said loudly. “Am looking for Forge? Clint sent me.”
Forge was lost in his music and in his power, but then blam, out of nowhere, his head started to pound. So he muted Dimmu Borgir's Council of Wolves and Snakes and then turned to face - Demon Queen Barbie. From Halloween. Great. "Yeah. I'm Forge. Who're you?" he asked, a touch brusquely. Fuck, out of nowhere he went from neutral-to-fine to edging up to go-lie-down-with-a-wet-cloth-across-his-eyes.
Illyana tilted her head, moving a few steps into the room before snapping her fingers as she recognized his face. “Death touched scared man. Knew you would end up involved with mansion.” She didn’t hold out her hand, but she did move a few steps closer. “Name is Illyana Rasputina.”
"Oh, good. Demon Queen Barbie has a name. Nice to meet you, Illyana Rasputina. Clint gave you the pretty-pictures tour and wants me to show you some of the tech. How much of an understanding do you have of engineering or high-energy physics?" he asked.
“Queen of Limbo, not Demon Queen. Is difference,” Illyana replied stiffly. “Was stuck during weirdness with wormhole, have been shown how monitoring equipment works. Know some little about how portals act with wormhole.” She tilted her hand in a so-so motion. “Do not know much, education up here is GED. Am pretty good at maths, might understand more if you can relate to magic? Will ask questions if need.”
"Our magic traditions are very different." he pointed out. "Plus, I'm not currently practicing." he said with about 10000% understatement. "Okay. So. Physics approach is out, unless you're familiar with the effect of muon plasmas on the deformation of space/time?" he asked hopefully.
“Cat have plasma up here? Thought that was Limbo thing.” She shook her head in the negative. “Traditions different but some energies flow same, is like…” What could she think of that would make sense? “Is like basic T-shirt? Fabrics, colors, little details different. End of day two armholes and chest coverage. Can learn little details to see big picture, even if not preferred style.”
Illyana shrugged. “Would offer show and tell, but magic is not strong up here. Was taught in Limbo, currents are different. Magical sense is strongest, is how I knew about death touch.”
Forge turned vaguely green as his headache came back (not that it had ever left) with a vengeance. He swayed on his feet but swallowed heavily and kept things where they were supposed to be. For now. "You see magic clinically, in terms of energy flow." he said, swallowing again heavily. "I can tell you that my people invoke the spirits in everything." he said, and then quickly dashed into a side-room to be very messily sick.
That was a new reaction. “If sick do not want it. Do not like being stuck with needles.” She looked around the room, spying a minifridge in the corner. It had water in it, so she did the only thing she could think of. “Drink, sick is gross, burns throat.”
He came out of the bathroom a few moments later and took the water from her. He retreated back into the bathroom so he could rinse his mouth out and not swallow the water. Once his mouth was mostly clean of the yuck, he finished off the bottle of water and tossed the empty into the trash. "Thanks. Got a pretty massive headache out of nowhere. Happens from time to time, just haven't had one that bad since Halloween." he said. "You're not fucking with me magically, are you?"
“No, magic up here not strong enough for that. Can scry, sense magic, do some small spells. Cannot magic people without being obvious.” He was supposed to be teaching her something, and she liked Clint well enough. She should probably be polite. “Will use magic sense if okay? Do not need to touch, is not magic that can change, just sees what is.”
Forge just waved his flesh-and-blood hand in assent and concentrated on his breathing, on getting himself under control. It wasn't an easy task - the migraine tended to pulse in pain with his heartbeat - but he did his best to give her time to do her thing.
Illyana’s eyes unfocused as she looked him over, only her years in Limbo keeping her from drawing in a horrified breath. His magic was tangled and knotted, interspersed with the sort of inky darkness she associated with Belasco and the sorts of elder ones he’d been trying to unleash through the sacrifices of innocents like she had been. It was thickest around his hand and farther up his chest and head, thinning into wisps as she traced her eyes over his body.
The areas where her own aura tended to just… drift and met his own in the normal light leakage that everyone except the very most skilled practitioners she’d met had a bit of were clashing terribly. That, at least, she could help with somewhat. She let her magic sense fade, trying to pull her aura tighter into her body to minimize any drifting. As long as they didn’t stand too close it would probably be okay. “How is headache? Did not realize auras were… fighting? Yours… do not want to pry, but need someone in your tradition to look over. Build up is dangerous.”
Forge took an experimental deep breath and then released it. "Better." he said. "I mean, headache is still there, but it's not trying to make my head explode anymore." he said, then added a moment later, more quietly. "Thank you."
“Do not be idiot like other magic users and you will be welcome.” Illyana gave him a tentative smile. “And if want to talk about what happened to you, will listen. Can trade story about demon trauma.”
"Maybe another time." he said, swallowing heavily. He was not tremendously keen on sharing his deep dark shame with someone he'd just met. Even if she did help with his migraines and give him a once-over. Corroborated with the English witch had said, so that was good to know. "It's pretty personal. Relates back to my service in Afghanistan." he said by way of an explanation. "Umm, not that you know what that is. Shit."
Illyana smirked. “Is war, yes? Americans always at war, is thing I remember from boring school. Offer is open, will try to keep own aura tucked in.” She grabbed another bottle of water and cracked it open, giving Forge a few steps of space. “Now that issue is settled. Teach me thing Clint sent down for?”
"Is always war" he said agreeably. "But we're gonna have a problem here, I suspect. You've got a GED and to get into the nuts and bolts of the monitoring systems here is a graduate course in electrical engineering. So … let me think for a minute how best to explain this to you." he said.
“Show and tell is how Clint does,” Illyana offered. “Simple language. Not like idiot, but less ah… technical words? Am not great at computer thing. Threw one out of window first time was here, thought it was possessed by demon.”
"OK. You know energy flow, you just contextualize it in terms of sorcery. I can work with that. OK. So. Equipment here runs on a specialized isolated energy flow - like big nasty demon behind a ward. All it can do is give you power of a certain type - so many cycles, rushing through conduit so fast. With me?"
“Makes sense, yes.”
"OK, good." he said, grabbing a dry erase marker and wheeling a whiteboard over to draw the diagram so far. "Now, energy flow comes into our detection devices - think of them like artifacts. Magic wands, swords, pentacles, that stuff, right? Flow hits the artifact, the artifact takes it and shapes it into a web that looks for certain specifics of our friend the wormhole. Looks at how strong it is, what space/time around it is doing, how bad the distortion is, that kind of thing. More specifics require that graduate course, but I think you're with me so far, right? Information is brought back from the wormhole by the web and stored here." he said, pointing to a collection and dissemination server.
Illyana nodded along. “Might need to write down later, but yes.” She had questions about things, but they were more about limiting flow and if different artifacts affected the information. Those were not now questions, so instead of asking she simply continued to stare at the diagram, brow furrowed as she followed along with the shapes and arrows Forge had drawn for her.
"Now, the data-gathering server is kinda like a … homunculus." he said, adding a toothy grin to the diagram. It's very clever and very mischievous at the same time. We're working on it, but the homunculus here decides what's information worth passing on and what's just normal crap." he said. "It's how we not drown in information and get alerted when certain things go out of what we consider to be normal bounds." he said. He then gave her a wry look. "Every once in a while the homunculus misbehaves and needs to be spanked to bring it back into line." he said. "Like let's say you have a demon back home. You don't trust it, but it's doing a vital job for you. But it doesn't like you much and occasionally fucks with the information it's sending you. We need to be able to recognize that and filter out the crap." he said. "That's this box here." he said, adding some more connections to the diagram. "Lemme pause here. Any questions?"
“You know lot about Limbo for man that hates demons,” Illyana replied, raising one prim eyebrow. “Or very good guesser. Suppose you cannot just beat box into submission like actual demon.”
"We're in the realm of metaphor here, not literality." he said. "So, metaphorically, we have to reset the data-gathering box from time to time. It's one of the things I'm working on - to reframe it for you, it's adjusting the wards and the parameters of the summoning to make the homunculus more likely to pass along vital information and less likely to shit in your shoes." he said with a grin. "And there's a reason I'm up on demonology. Story for another day." he said.
"Let's recap. We take our energy flows from our specialized power source, send them to our array of detectors. Detectors do their thing, pass data along to the homunculus. Homunculus looks at all that information, compares it to what it knows normal is. If normal, just sends an "All's well." message to a specific set of monitors - that's what Clint showed you. If not normal, then it sends a flag - an alarm - to the monitors and then we here in eXcal take a look for ourselves, see if this is just something outside our data set or if something hinky's going on that we need to investigate. With me?" he asked.
“Wormhole gives specific energies. Devices read energies, put into numbers for tracking. Devices can alert when energy is too strong, like wards when someone is unwelcome. Sometimes machine that gets info is naughty like trickster demon, needs put back into place. Adjust wards to close holes in contract so demon cannot exploit. Sometimes is just overflow, other times is like more demons crash party?” It made sense, especially with what she’d seen of the vending machine.
“Did trickster demon get stuck in vending machine? Is very weird. Good chocolate, but weird.”
"That's an open question." he said. "You're better qualified that anyone else to tell us if the vending machine is possessed. Me, I think chaotic energies from the portal that we're not accounting for or buffering is doing a whackjob number on the poor thing." he said. "Problem for another day. Now, all these wands and pentacles and homunculi need their own energies to run and exist, right? And we provide that, but very importantly, from a _different source_ than the energies we use for the monitors. Why do you think that is?" he asked, deciding on a whim to get a feel for the woman's thought processes.
“Is not tied together?” Illyana’s answer was hesitant. “Like water, sometimes get water from lake, but if boat turns or things in water, sometimes use well or boil rainwater instead. Is not contaminated. But no demon in vending machine when I checked. Just.. weird. Not mean.”
"I see where your head is at, but the actual answer is simpler. What if someone takes your lake and poisons it. Everything that draws water from that lake is at risk. What if a mischievous water spirit takes the lake and moves it somewhere else?" he asked. "We separate monitor power from sensor power because of a concept called "single point of failure". If we lose power, we don't want to lose _everything_. Just the _one_ thing that that that source was powering. Make sense?"
“Like how wards are not tied to just one anchor if you want them strongest. Have more points, more power, easier to fix when problems happen.”
"Right, exactly. And if the anchor fails, you only lose _one_ thing tied to it, because other things have other anchors. Sure, more of a pain in the ass to maintain all those anchors, but in an emergency or when under attack, it's not a single point of failure to lose an anchor."
“Unless you do wards poorly, then one anchor breaks all and wooooooosh,” she agreed, clapping her hands together lightly to emphasize the sound of failure. “Is nasty to see.”
"You get it." he said with some amusement in his voice. You had to pitch things weirdly to get it across to her but she got the base concepts, at least. "OK, let's try some troubleshooting. You come down for your turn at monitoring duty, and all your monitors aren't giving you data. What do you think might be the problem?" he asked, then handed her a dry-erase marker and let her have access to the diagram on the board if she wanted it.
“Turn off and on again?” She didn’t understand many jokes made around her, but that one had been explained fairly kindly. “Make sure things are connected right.”
He nodded. "Head's in the right place. Make sure connectors are good _first_, then power cycle." he said. "If you power-cycle but your connectors are bad, nothing will change, right? But if you check connectors, make sure they're all good, then power cycle, you're more likely to get monitoring back on the go."
“Makes sense. Like plug in phone to get power for use.” He wasn’t terrible at this. Clint was better, but she had a feeling Clint had more experience breaking things down into small pieces than Forge did. And neither of them talked to her like she was stupid. None of them had, even if she’d sometimes caused raised eyebrows while they were stuck together.
It was nice.
Forge added some more details to the whiteboard, including several new power sources and adding some arrows about where power goes and where information went. "There. That's good enough for the fundamentals. There's a whole lot I'm glossing over here but this will be enough to give you the basics. As you keep reminding us, you're not stupid, it's just that your education is specialized and from our point of view, deeply weird. Congrats." he said, capping his marker and putting it on the tray designated for such things. "With this diagram and your knowledge of how flow works - admittedly from sorcery, which is eighteen different kinds of weird - you should be able to do some baseline is-it-plugged-in-is-it-turned-on troubleshooting. I'll see about translating what the sensors are looking for into a frame you'll have better chances understanding, but I'm gonna need to get someone on Team Magic to help me break it all down."
“Wanda or Topaz probably best,” Illyana replied. “Wanda knows me from last time was here, is not… magic, necessarily, but very smart. Topaz is rarely idiot about magic.” It would’ve been highest praise from the teenage girl she’d been, though she would’ve been reluctant to voice it. “Less magic users now than then.” She didn’t offer her hand as politeness dictated, instead inclining her head. “Thank you for teaching, are credit to team. Will email questions if have them, try to avoid headaches?”
"See what I can do." he said with a wry look, then returned her semi-bow with one of his own. "You're a good student, in your own way. We file off the raw edges and bring up your understanding of the mundane world, you could be a force to be reckoned with. Your Majesty." he said with a smirk.
"Also, little thing about me? All those flows we've been talking about? I see them Intuitively. I understand them. It's my mutant gift. I understand the math of the universe. It's what helps make me such a good engineer." he said simply.
“Would be good for magic too, if you get unblocked. Lot of math in beautiful magic.” She grinned, the faint quirk of lips a little lopsided before sobering into a serious look. “Do not think anyone here could handle, but if your people have powerful magician, need to get that looked at. Twisted magic is… not thing I would wish on someone. Is part of how Belasco ended up in Limbo, able to kidnap children like I was.”
"I manifested very young, didn't grow up knowing or believing in magic. Uncle showed me the Universe as it actually is, and then I went off and ran from it to enlist in the Army." he said. "Complicated family situation." he said with a shrug. "Came back missing a hand and my leg, lotta bad shit went down. Spent a lot of time building new hand and leg, making my way in the white man's world with my gift of math. Also cheated the white man out of a degree, which is always fun." he said with a laugh. "Said uncle is a bigshot among my people, a very important man. There's … reasons … why I can't go talk to him about my magic." he said, then swallowed heavily as his headache came back more than a little. Funny how it'd almost disappeared when he was explaining power and data flows to Illyana.
"It's one thing to walk into this world, the world of magic, of your own free will. Hell, I only barely accepted it as the real deal. It's unbelievably fucked up that someone would kidnap a _child_. No offense but it explains a lot." he said.
“Was meant to be part of sacrifices, little innocents taken to open bridge between worlds to elder ones.” Her smile was brittle. “Same ones that I sense on you, is why I was hostile at Halloween. Do not… Life is already hard, do not have to add demons. Is why I do not understand when people here attract them like sport. Limbo demons annoying enough, do not want to face those.” She shrugged. “I was lucky, but was at expense of other people choosing to make sacrifice so I survived. Do not always thank them for it, even now.”
Forge just swallowed a lump and nodded. "In my case, we … we were under attack. Ambush from the Taliban. They were chewing me and my guys up, reinforcements were inbound but by the time they got there we'd all be dead. So I made a choice. A horrible, horrible choice that's stained me ever since." he said. "Cost me my hand, my leg, scarring all up my side, and … more." he said. "My self-respect, my honor, my … everything. I had no right to do what I did but when you're staring down a gun and knowing you're going to die, you make some bad decisions." he said.
“Survival instinct very strong sometimes,” Illyana agreed. “Is why I am Queen now. Do not want the power, but other options are bad. Can at least pull it more to neutral it is when left alone. Harsh. Unforgiving. Fight to survive. But not children as sacrifice, open door to horrors best left unnamed.”
The knowing didn’t make her look at Forge in a new light, specifically, but there was a flicker of something that might become kinship, if they worked at it. “Know you do not want to talk to Uncle, but need to. Magic could turn on you, eat your insides. Take you over. Better to untwist, make what penance you need. Every day, fight result of being partial sacrifice. Do not say lightly what could happen, have seen it before. More likely to end up under my rule or worse, if you do not.”
Forge sighed. "Wish it was that easy. It'd be like you, I don't know, having to tell your big brother about all the nasty shit you've done, either for survival or for ambition, and then risk alienating your family. And that's assuming that your big bro taught you right from wrong when you were little, was there for you and loved you and all the stuff siblings are supposed to do. I don't know, I'm an only child. But you see my point here."
Illyana winced. “Have told him some of it, but Pyotr is… friendly dog you see in children’s movies. Do not know breed, has pretty gold fur? Parents think I am dead, and have already mourned two children. No need to give them shock, have to explain kidnap by demon. I do understand. But if parents were magic, had magic to make me whole again, would tell them every awful detail, even if after I had no parents, no big brother.”
She stepped back, clutching the bottle of water in her hand. “Uncle may be upset, disappointed. But will be upset, angry at self if he could have helped, but pride did not let you tell. I know because Pyotr is mad at self, mad at mansion for not telling him I was here before. A little disappointed I am rude bitch, maybe, but not mad I survived.”
Forge laughed. "A golden retriever. The breed is called a golden retriever. And now I'm going to have trouble _not_ seeing him that way." he said with another laugh. Then he calmed himself to look straight into her ice-blue eyes. "So we're both cowards, in our own ways." he said. "But for me, it's like this. Naze taught me Cheyenne magic. Respect for spirits, reinforce the natural order. To promote life, healing." he said. "And in Afghanistan, I twisted it all. Used it to kill, to use souls and blood to summon monsters from my people's nightmares. Everything we stand for, centuries of tradition, gone in an instant. Pissed on, stomped into the dirt. How can I go to him and say "Oh hi, Uncle Naze, I violated every precept you have, shit on all your traditions, and almost called in our multiverse's greatest enemy to save my own useless ass." he asked. "If the magic twists and festers, good. Maybe it'll kill me and Naze can find another apprentice."
Illyana gave him a stern glare, reaching out and flicking him solidly between the eyes. “Was wrong, you are also magic idiot,” she complained. “Waah I made terrible mistake and cannot face consequence of own scared actions, must make it problem of everyone else.” It was not a polite mocking, and she only barely held back from flaring her aura out. No. She had been taught better, and would not be that unkind. Besides, she didn’t want his vomit all over her new shoes.
She didn’t hold back from light touching, however, twisting her small hand in his t-shirt with a snarl. “You will tell him, own up to actions like man. Not bring them on head of people here who are not prepared, did not ask to be fodder for elder ones. Uncle might be mad. He will be disappointed. Will need to do work to get back to even place with magic, atone for damage done, work to prevent damage from spreading, causing mess. Or will end you myself, prevent them from using Forge skin like puppet. You understand?” She kept her eyes firmly locked to Forge’s, refusing to step back. Soulsword itched to be free, to show him exactly what sort of threat she could be if he didn’t get his shit fixed.
"You threaten me again and I will put a very special bullet in your brain." he said flatly. "Yeah, my shit probably needs fixed. Yeah, I'm not real keen on talking to Naze and risking everything I've ever had with him. But if you think I'm gonna allow myself to get turned into a meat puppet you are deeply mistaken." he said. "I'm locked up so tight I get fucking migraines every time my magic even twitches." he pointed out. "So the only person whose problem this is is me." he pointed out. "Also, I'm gonna tell you a little secret that your demon buddies neglected to tell you about souls."
"Do you want to hear it?"
Illyana let out a high laugh, harsh in the stillness of the room. “You teach me about flow, about multiple systems, about failure of energy, and you think tiny lock on giant magic block is stronger than taint of elder one?” She let go of his shirt, stepping back. “You are fool, waste of Uncle’s strong magic. Or Uncle is fool, perhaps, to teach so poorly. Can lock it away, will just fight and fight, taint will creep closer, darker, and you…” The disgusted noise she made wasn’t far off from someone gagging. “Cannot be around such stupid. And think you can teach me, ME about souls. Hilarious.”
"Wow. You must be damned near blind in this realm." he said. "I never touched the Adversary with my magic. US Army artillery strike did for his portal before he could enter our realm." he said. "And the demons I did use my magic against are all dead, gone, torn to shreds. Don't mistake my shame and regret for demon-taint, demon girl." he said.
His knowledge of soul regeneration, he decided, he was going to keep to himself.
“You do not have to touch elder ones for them to link thinnest threads,” she snapped. “Can see your taint, the blockage. Is like trying to hold back ocean with small, shallow thing. May work for a while, but ultimately will fail. Might just take you,” Illyana swallowed, disgusted and mad and so very, very tired of people screwing around with magic they weren’t fully equipped to handle. “Might just take you,” she began again, voice hoarse. “Might eat you alive like disease with no cure. Or might make you puppet. Slow, winding. Invade thoughts, actions, learn. Make people think you are just changing with passage of time until is too late. Last actions might be watching in horror as it compels you to destroy loved ones.”
She turned, heading towards the door. Her back to Forge wasn’t a deliberate insult, but if he tried to harm her, well. She wasn’t entirely unprotected, even up here.
He was going to need to bump up his anti-magic operations, even if working on them invariably put him down with a migraine. Maybe he could get the design good enough that April could handle things from there. Maybe. He'd really hate to put her in the crosshairs but, as she liked to remind him, she could take care of herself. As much as it hurt him, it might be time to work more on Project Magic Bullet, or depending on how frisky she wanted to get, maybe Project Neutralizer.
