3240/The Song of Ice and Fire

The Song of Ice and Fire
Date of Scene:	05 September 2020
Location:	Queen of Heaven - Derelict Church
Synopsis:	Sera and Nessa experiment with fire magic in preparation for facing Vega and his ice minions.
Cast of Characters:	Sera, Nessa Donovan

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Sera has posed:
Sera has been struggling to remember exactly how one makes fire. She made her hand very very warm, true. She can summon a sword and shield, a lasso even. So many spells that she used commonly in battle with Angela and when she was stuck in Hel. But somehow, fire just didn't seem that useful while she was in Hel and the memories of it have faded. So many songs of magic faded from her mind. She just needs to jog it free.

Sera invited Nessa to join her, as she can so easily create things that are very meltable. She has pinned up musical notation on the crumbling walls, her notes of notes she's jotted down since the cemetery battle when the skeletons got faster, fiercer. It's time to do her heritage proud and be a warrior.. even though she was never of the warrior caste.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa likes music. She really does. She enjoys singing. That's just a bit of her she keeps tucked away to a more private section of her life. She doesn't /mind/ the singing so much as comparisons that get made more often than she'd like to singing ice-cursed blondes. She can put aside her annoyance, though, for more important causes. Causes like stopping the ice that was troubling the city. Ice that threatened people around her.

The derelict church was a great place to practice--it was doubtful that anyone would be injured by an accidental ice or fire blast somewhere like this. "Alright. I can't make moving constructs, but I can create a replica of one of the skeletons... make a similar mass so that you can see what seems to be most effective on ice of that size and shape." She's already starting to form the ice sculpture version of the skeleton even as she talks, pieces of ice coming together to build an approximation of what they'd faced before.

"I can even make some of those blasts of cold air they do, if you want to see if you can counter something like that in an effective manner."

Sera has posed:
Sera hmms thoughtfully and nods her head, "That all sounds fantastic. We'll start off simple though. I need to try and start the fire you see. Once you get it going then it's a matter of controlling it, but starting it is the biggest battle." She clears her throat as she wanders around, singing out a few lovely sounds that echo out through parts of the open roof where it had collapsed in. The refectory is the worse off part of the building, but it's cluttered with tables and chairs.

"I vague recall learning how to make fire blasts, flaming swords, flaming shields, ...but perhaps most importantly to our journey, a special flaming sword that could burn away a soul. We had .. er, Angela and me that is, had to once use such a thing against a liche who had allied himself with some demons."

She starts to sing out a slightly familiar song now as bright white magical energy fills her eyes. The magic leaps out to her hands where a sword and shield made of magic white light appear. She licks her lips and then wanders over to her sheets of music. "Let's see now..." She begins to sing a new song to Nessa's ears. It sounds harsher, sharper, .ºoOoº.ºo though despite how pretty it sounds, she holds her sword aloft and only a small pillar of smoke puffs from it, "Darn."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"I've never worked with fire, so I'm not entirely certain I know how to help with a spark... but I can certainly offer you something to fight against," Nessa notes, watching Sera as she starts her song, conjuring up the magic. She seems thoughtful for a moment.

"So if your music is how you weave your spells... what do you remember fire sounding like? Is it a soft tune that gets stronger once it starts to catch on?" She figures that if the music relates to its subject, perhaps it's a reflection of it in a way. After all, what do ice and fire sound like?

Sera has posed:
Sera claps her hands together and smiles to Nessa, "Friction, it is sharp, angular. I think." She tilts her head and then holds up her sword again, "Come on. This is meant to be the easy bit, there are so many other things that need practicing. Like, fire whips, and fire projection." She moves on to her next best guess on the wall and hums it softly. The sword flickers and twists just from the little hum like a flame dancing. "Promising."

She shuts her eyes and sings out dramatically almost like bjork, .ºOo. .ºOoo.OO.,. Her blade shimmers and flickers like a flame with wind blowing across it and then it smokes and bursts in to an intensely blue flame. Sera blinks her eyes open and peers at her flaming sword, then swishes it about in the air a bit. "Hey. I got it!"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Sharp and angular," Nessa muses. "Not how I pictured fire. That's interesting." It's definitely something she seems interested in--magic of any form always has something to teach her. She does go a bit wide-eyed at the flamed sword, making sure that there's plenty of space between it and her. Not that Sera's attacking her, but she's just reflexively not a fan of fire.

"Well, that's progress. And pretty, really."

Sera has posed:
Sera nods her head, "It's about creating friction in song. There's many ways to do that I suppose. I only really learnt the one way. Though since I'd forgotten it, I wrote down a dozen potential ways it might work. We're lucky it worked on the second try." She grins and then approaches the first ice skeleton. "Let's see if it's enough though..."

She cuts with the sword against a skeleton arm and it digs in like a sharp blade, then starts to melt where it stops. Sera frowns and pulls the sword away. "Effective, but not effective enough. It needs to be hotter I think." She paces back and forth thoughtfully, twirling the sword. The flames make 'woosh' sounds as they cut through the air. "Hotter would mean, more magic .. and air, not fire."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa moves close to the ice skeleton to take a look at the 'injury'. She holds an ungloved hand up to seal the ice back up, restore it to its former ice-boned glory. "You're right. It needs to melt like butter when you swing." There's some thought there. "So you need some kind of touch of air into the magic to make it more effective?" For the moment, Nessa seems to be glad her magic is all ice-oriented. She knows what she can do without mixing magics together.

"Or perhaps you can find a way to pull more air from around your sword."

Sera has posed:
Sera smiles and says, "Yes. I hadn't considered this, though I kind of remember how the air songs go. But I suppose I should have thought of it, because flinging fire requires it. The trick is not to accidentally do it wrong and do water songs, then the fire will go out."

She begins to sing again, trying to find her pitch and rhythm as she holds up her sword. ..ooOOoOo--_-^-_-. The dust on the ground twirls around her a little and she stomps on it, "Nope. Let's try that again. Needs to be the sword, not the air that gets the air."

-->0OoOoo__, she sings and her eyes widen as she remembers that tune. The blue flames around her glowing white sword erupt in to vigorous rage and she grins, stepping forward and taking another slash at the skeleton. The sword cuts smoothly through its arm 'like butter'. She twirls it and brings it around for another cut, this time through its torso. The melted ice connecting the top half to the bottom half acts like a smooth surface as the top half of the sculpture slides of and crashes to the ground.

"Well. That's actually quite a lot to remember. I should write this down.. but may be first we see if I can't fling some fire around?"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"You don't want to blow the fire out accidently either," Nessa muses. Heat, energy, temperature... whatever the magic was composed of, it made a dramatic difference to what came out. She does laugh, just slightly. "I must say that the whole music aspect of the magic is new to me. I've never seen it done quite like that. Aside from dramatic Disney princess stuff..." She shrugs a bit, but blinks as she watches the sculpture get cleaved with a fire slice.

"Okay, definitely doing better with the heat there." She does make sure to stay /way/ back again. The heat alone could be a little much. "Right, we should definitely try a few things. You've got the sword down, but you're definitely gonna need something useful at a range. Don't know what kind of fight we're going to be in, after all."

Sera has posed:
Sera smiles and nods her head, "Yes, and a heat shield for that ice breath. Hm, I think I'm getting the hang of this. Though.. really, I should write this stuff down." She awkwardly holds the sword and shield in one hand and then takes out her phone and brings up the notes and starts to one handedly write down the song she was just singing, and the previous one to get the fire going in the first place.

After painstakingly thumbing her way through the notes she stuffs it back in to her pocket and says, "Okay. Fire flinging time." She grins excitedly and says, "This is not something I've done in a really long time. I remember it starts like the lasso but you kind of let the song go after a bit and give it a good ol' bit of momentum with the body. Best you stand behind me because I'm going to try and throw the fire at the skeleton."

She nibbles on her bottom lip as she ponders. "So," she murmurs to herself, "start the lasso but let it go... start but let go." She backs up and then begins to sing again. She runs forward, turning the beautiful song into almost a battle cry as she cuts the sword through the air.

The fire lashes out from the tip of the sword and wraps around the skeleton torso, slicing through it, but it remains attached to the sword. It sizzles out of existence moments later.

Sera turns back around and returns to her start point, "Almost." She tries again. Similar result. "Really almost." The third time is the charm though, the song ends in a short clipped note and this time the flame leaps in an arc from her sword and slashes through the air, slicing through the skeleton torso. Small embers of flame dance on the ground and go out.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa doesn't need to be asked twice to move out of the way of the potential fire. Her hand is held out to repair the statue again, the ice reforming into a sturdy skeletal shape. "So we'll have sword, shield, and flamethrowers." The last bit is said with amusement, but she watches as Sera begins her attempts to send out fire.

She fixes her attention, a little more wide-eyed as the fire is sent of again. "Remind me not to get in your way when you're doing that. Like, at all. That's some potent stuff... I think it'll definitely help, too. This whole mess could get tricky."

Sera has posed:
Sera chuckles, "Don't worry I'll be careful. I don't want to burn my friends. Especially not at this heat. It's like having a heater next to my arm." She widens her eyes and then grins, "Okay, so time to try and defend against that ice breath thing they do. That's the most concerning thing. I mean, I could do what Strange tends to do and just stay behind the heavy hitters doing magic. But I'm kinda digging this independence thing and if I'm going to be on my own then I need to be able to fight. Simple as that."

She nods thusly, then sings the air song over her shield, holds it out, then thumps it with the flaming sword. Fire spreads over the shield instantly like wildfire. She takes a few steps back from Ness and then holds her shield out like a proper guard. "Okay, let's see how bad this gets..." The sword remains hidden behind the shield, so as to not have it go out.

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Well, if all else fails, use me as a shield for one of those blasts," Nessa laughs. "But... if I'm not close, perhaps a shield would be good in a pinch." She moves to give plenty of space. "Alright, I'm going to try and imitate about what I think one of those blasts is, but I'll tone it down just a tiny step in case the shield doesn't work well at first. I'll start it, and if you feel like you're handling it well, let me know and we'll see how high we can get things before it's too hard to block."

With a nod, Nessa holds her hands out as she begins a blast of icy cold in Sera's direction, much like the skeletons had done before. At least that's something she's able to imitate well. The skeletons certainly had a skillset much like her own.

Sera has posed:
Sera peeks her head out from behind the shield and nods her head, "Okay, that's sensible." She dips it back in to safety and braces herself. The icy cold air hits the shield and at first it stays warm and so does Sera. But soon the icy area and the fire create water and that water sticks to the magical shield, which then puts out the firey protection and it ices over. The weight breaks the magic and the shield disappears in a flurry of little dotes of light, which makes a shield of ice fall to the ground and smash. "Oh dang."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa winces, stopping the icy blast when she realizes just what went wrong. "Wow. I didn't actually think about that happening. /Wet/." She seems thoughtful. "Maybe if you can like... flare the shield's flames a bit? Push the blaze out a little further so any water drips off as opposed to sticking and putting out your fire? This seems almost more like a mechanical design flaw than a magic one."

She laughs. "Never thought I'd be sorting out something like this."

Sera has posed:
Sera chuckles and stares down at the ice imprint of her magical shield. "Yes. Welcome to the line between what magic can do - anything - and what reality will put up with - not much. The suspension of disbelief as I like to call it is essential when doing complex magic. It's not about what people will believe or not, but what nature will put up with. I think you're right though, push the flame shield out further so that it doesn't form an icy barrier... or.. make the whole shield out of fire."

She purses her lips thoughtfully and grins, "You know that second option sounds like more fun. But it'd mean my will against theirs and I suspect they aren't also wielding a sword, wings, who knows how many other spell effects at the same time. So.. projection."

She sings out again and the shield returns, then she sings a longer version of the air song and taps herflaming sword to it. It burns in bright blue once more and she takes cover, "Go!"

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Alright, round two!" Nessa's hands go up again, offering forth an icy spray much like the first. She starts at the low intensity, only moving higher if it seems that it's being well-defended against. "This may be extremely helpful if Vega ends up directly attacking us and we're facing him instead of an army of ice skeletons. Anything icy your way should be able to be held off, though if it's too fast it might get through. Like ice shards."

Sera has posed:
Sera lets out a little 'woo' sound as she can feel the pressure of the flames against the icy blast once more. Water starts to drip down in front of the shield, but also steam starts to hiss up in to the air above the blast. "By the Goddess, it's working," she says and laughs. She braces herself a little better and contemplates, "Well there's still a magical shield behind it, if the ice shards do cometh for me." She hmms, "I can see myself whipping the sword to sling fire around the ice cone and attack the neck or something so that they lose their heads. It might take a few attempts for real though."

She peers up at the ceiling above that didn't all down, condensation forming from the steam on the beams. "Nature will always find a way to balance the magic back to neutral. Thus we should never tempt it too much. Okay let's stop. I need to write this down."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
Nessa stops the spray of ice as soon as Sera's ready, and she offers an excited grin. "This is progress, at least. I'm glad we'll at least be more prepared for this coming conflict. I'm honestly not sure how well it'll go... but I'd rather at least have more options open to us." Her hands go to her pockets to retrieve the gloves there and tug them on.

"Thanks for all the help in this, by the way. It's appreciated."

Sera has posed:
Sera blinks, "Are you kidding? First of all, Ladies Book Club for life. Second of all, Infinity Watch. Third of all, this is fun. Fourth of all... hmm, not sure there's a fourth, but you're helping me too. It's been a really really long time since I've used this much magic. Well, not this much, this variable in kind."

She hmms and sits down on a broken pew for a moment, "Now I should consider just what it takes to make a soul burning blade, because if we cannot force that necromancer into a prison, or to hell, we'll have no other option than to destroy it."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"No matter what we've got to be rid of him. I don't think there's any real chance of him being a productive member of society, especially since he's a soul without a body. First thing he's gonna do is find a body," Nessa frowns a little. "As far as souls go, I'm not sure how to destroy one. I can check in with my source on random magical knowledge, as I'm sure he's got more of an idea of how souls work than I do." She moves to take a seat herself, seeming thoughtful.

Sera has posed:
Sera typetypes in to her phone, two thumbs this time. Much faster. She smiles to Nessa and says, "Hey the more knowledge the merrier. We'll do what needs to be done and it shall be epic. People may even sing songs about it, make a hollywood movie, or adapt it in to Frozen 3." She nudges an elbow teasingly to Nessa and then hms. "I remember it involved the sword, the flame and the soul song. I remember the soul song. It's how I was looking at how those skeletons ticked back at the ice castle." She type types madly on her phone, composing a little bit of a song as she goes. "I'm not sure I'm going to have this testable before Vega shows up. Then again, what could I possibly test it on anyway. There's not a bunch of free roaming souls just laying about needing to be burnt in to oblivion."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"Well, I guess we'll just have to do a lot of improvising when we get down to it," Nessa notes. "I don't think there's much more of a solid plan to what we're doing. I've got more research I need to do and I really need to check in with others to see if they've found anything else useful." She frowns. "I'd rather no one else get hurt. I've seen enough just watching Tristan. I hate seeing the kid get caught up in this." She's certainly not pleased about that.

Sera has posed:
Sera twists her lips. "I'm a bad person. I assumed he was in on it. Some weird little ice fantasy designed to entertain or terrorise the neighbourhood. You realise of course we're being lied to still. If Vega is meant to be the second best ice mage in the world, and this other Loki fellow is meant to be the best ice mage in the world, and that nice witch we met in the cemetery was unaware of what she was guarding exactly.. then some other group or individual bested Vega and locked him away, which makes them better than Loki...." She taps the side of her nose. "I tend to look at what's going on in the world like someone is trying to tell a story. I'm a bard by nature and sometimes an author. I can't help but assume a narrative."

Nessa Donovan has posed:
"There are a lot of lies," Nessa says, her voice a little softer as the tiniest of frowns creeps up. "I'm pretty sure Loki is the one pulling strings and pretending to be Vega. He visited me again, doing his best to spread more lies and obscure things more. To be honest, there are few things I'm sure of. There are so many narratives to this story that everythings twisted and it's hard for me to have a good view of what's going on from the middle. I'm a player in the story even if I don't want to be."

She glances over to Sera. "Vega's the obvious threat, not the only one, but the one we need to tackle first. We'll have to see what we can do the rest of it."

Sera has posed:
Sera releases her magic and the glow fades from her eyes. She smiles to Nessa and nods. She offers her forearm, "We'll deal with whatever comes our way. Until we meet again friend Nessa."