[ she's taking a second to absorb all of this, what he's telling her, though she doesn't get so fascinated that she forgets to ask about something else. ]
How long does it normally take? For one to find their discipline.
You usually don't find it yourself. The school I went to tests for it. You should theoretically have one by the time you're in your first year, so like age 23 or so. Not being able to find it can mean you're late forming one or it's just rare and they don't know how to test for it. My friend is a Traveler which is really rare so at first they thought he was something else because usually when someone can hear voices they're just a telepath
[ it's a school that remarkably sounds a lot like aretuza, all things considered, although even they usually wait for someone to display any sign of being able to channel before snatching them up.
these days, though, it seems that any fine family who can pay to send their daughters will earn them a place beneath the rectoress, even if the girls themselves show no talent for it whatsoever. ]
I'm guessing this Traveler friend of yours discovered his ability the hard way. Where did he teleport to first on accident?
I think he said it was Hong Kong? That's a city on the opposite side of the planet from where we were
He's teleported into volcanoes and the ocean, too, thankfully nowhere that immediately killed him
Thankfully for him anyway
[Look, Quentin doesn't, like, hate Penny, he was sort of sad when he died for a minute there, but he can't pretend there haven't been days when the guts a volcano would have been a more suitable place for him than bothering Quentin.]
Oh yeah definitely. Apparently a lot of Travelers die before they even graduate Brakebills
Actually that even sort of describes Penny but he didn't like directly die because of Traveling but he also wasn't officially dead, I guess? It was confusing but I'm pretty sure he's like 95% officially dead now and he got replaced by a Penny from another timeline
Wow I almost never just like lay my life out like this and realize how fucking crazy it sounds
Brakebills is the name of your academy? [ as someone who went to a school to train those in magic herself, that piece of his story seems fairly straightforward. ]
You're not wrong. It does sound fucking crazy, but it almost makes an impressive amount of sense to someone who knows more than a little about magic themselves.
There are few things chaos can't achieve, but its power is rooted in balance. You cannot create something by drawing from nothing, or there will be consequences. And yes, there is a school. Two of them, in fact. Aretuza trains girls who are worthy enough to ascend to sorceress. Ban Ard is for the boys.
Oh yeah that makes sense, magic doesn't really have a cost in the traditional sense but the trade-off is that it takes a lot of skill and there are spells that can go off like a bomb if you screw them up
Well I guess the cost of trying to do too much magic is you can become a niffin which is sort of a demon made of magic, they don't care about anything but magic, my ex-girlfriend was one for a bit but she got better
So there is a consequence to how much power anyone can reasonably possess. How did your ex-girlfriend recover from her condition?
Not entirely. The boys are encouraged to pursue means of further edification, and the girls are initially intended to look like pretty window dressing for royalty even while privately cleaning up political messes themselves.
I fixed her. I don't know if anyone's ever done it before, but the thing is that making a body and animating it is easy, but a niffin is dead, so their Shade is in the Underworld, and you can't really bring someone back without their Shade. A living person can lose their Shade and survive but you can't start living without one. So I got her Shade back and then the spell worked.
Hmm, gross. CAN girls study whatever they want to? Is it like they're just encouraged in different directions but anyone can actually do anything they want? Or are you actually barred?
Does that mean you traveled to the underworld to recover the part of her that was missing?
It's less of an encouragement and more of a firm direction. They don't respond well to sorceresses who decide to forego their intended duties and live life by their own choosing.
Yeah. A friend of mine had lost her Shade so we went to the Underworld together to get it. We found Alice's Shade in the process of looking, and she chose to bring back Alice instead of her own Shade.
That's shitty. You should get to do what you want.
What was it that happened to your friend without her own Shade?
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood didn't see it that way. Simultaneously, I was more than inclined to tell them to go fuck themselves.
It's not really my story to tell and it's a long one, but the very short version is that she needed it amputated during a magical medical procedure gone wrong.
Good. Some people need to be told that. I think Brakebills was mostly okay, but in hindsight there were definitely some moments where I wish I'd said "no, fuck you."
It seems as though magic can accomplish much in your sphere, Quentin.
I've found it's never a good idea to let the truth fester in silence. And it's always very satisfying to deliver a good fuck you to someone who deserves it.
[ too bad she isn't taking her own advice on the former, especially when it comes to hiding the truth from geralt. ]
For the most part, yeah. I mean, sometimes it seems like for every thing we fix with it, five shitty things pop up in its place. But sometimes it's worth it.
I mean, I'm usually too anxious to stay quiet for long, so that's...a version of that, I guess.
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How long does it normally take? For one to find their discipline.
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these days, though, it seems that any fine family who can pay to send their daughters will earn them a place beneath the rectoress, even if the girls themselves show no talent for it whatsoever. ]
I'm guessing this Traveler friend of yours discovered his ability the hard way. Where did he teleport to first on accident?
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He's teleported into volcanoes and the ocean, too, thankfully nowhere that immediately killed him
Thankfully for him anyway
[Look, Quentin doesn't, like, hate Penny, he was sort of sad when he died for a minute there, but he can't pretend there haven't been days when the guts a volcano would have been a more suitable place for him than bothering Quentin.]
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Does that mean those with that power have a slightly lower lifespan, compared to other magic wielders?
[ it seems a fair question to ask, considering. ]
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Actually that even sort of describes Penny but he didn't like directly die because of Traveling but he also wasn't officially dead, I guess? It was confusing but I'm pretty sure he's like 95% officially dead now and he got replaced by a Penny from another timeline
Wow I almost never just like lay my life out like this and realize how fucking crazy it sounds
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You're not wrong. It does sound fucking crazy, but it almost makes an impressive amount of sense to someone who knows more than a little about magic themselves.
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And yes, there is a school. Two of them, in fact. Aretuza trains girls who are worthy enough to ascend to sorceress. Ban Ard is for the boys.
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Well I guess the cost of trying to do too much magic is you can become a niffin which is sort of a demon made of magic, they don't care about anything but magic, my ex-girlfriend was one for a bit but she got better
Do boys and girls learn the same things?
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Not entirely. The boys are encouraged to pursue means of further edification, and the girls are initially intended to look like pretty window dressing for royalty even while privately cleaning up political messes themselves.
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Hmm, gross. CAN girls study whatever they want to? Is it like they're just encouraged in different directions but anyone can actually do anything they want? Or are you actually barred?
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It's less of an encouragement and more of a firm direction. They don't respond well to sorceresses who decide to forego their intended duties and live life by their own choosing.
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That's shitty. You should get to do what you want.
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I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood didn't see it that way. Simultaneously, I was more than inclined to tell them to go fuck themselves.
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Good. Some people need to be told that. I think Brakebills was mostly okay, but in hindsight there were definitely some moments where I wish I'd said "no, fuck you."
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I've found it's never a good idea to let the truth fester in silence. And it's always very satisfying to deliver a good fuck you to someone who deserves it.
[ too bad she isn't taking her own advice on the former, especially when it comes to hiding the truth from geralt. ]
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I mean, I'm usually too anxious to stay quiet for long, so that's...a version of that, I guess.