[Verlyna's Emerald Pond] Meditations in Green [Vizyous]

[Hadrian]

29th Winter, 510 A.V. Hadrian had been wandering about Alvadas, trying to open himself to the illusions the way the scholars had bade him do if he wanted to understand illusion and Ionu for all the trouble he went to in order to get to the city at all. It seemed like he was nearing the edge of the city, but that could all be part of the illusion as well. In trying to open himself to the illusion, to the twisting of reality -- or was reality itself an illusion as some sages claimed? -- he could not hold onto any reference point and so he often found himself dizzy or disgruntled, unsure of his own senses. As he approached the pond with its waterfall, he instantly recognized it from his reading and from stories he had heard both before and since coming to Alvadas. Knowing the story of Verlyna, he considered the risks and rewards of learning hypnotism. Certainly it would make life easier if he could get what he wanted without as much effort... Still, he had found that taking shortcuts often ruined things. Inevitably, one got out of a thing what one put into it. Trick things out of people, and tricks ended up tricking you later on. With due caution, he sat on a stone far enough away from the water that he would have to fall over and then crawl to get into the water proper. He was still leery of everything in Alvadas and didn't want to die. He didn't rightly care whether the famous hypnotist really existed now, tied to the pool where she had apparently died. If some apparition of her appeared, he would treat with it on the off chance that it was her, though he would be careful to prevent being hypnotized. He should learn to Shield better. He should do a lot of things. Alvadas, as Sahova before it, had proven how insufficient he was to the task of being an iconoclastic mage like those after whom he patterned his life. He was still vulnerable, and somehow naive for all his studies. Somehow that would have to be remedied.

[Vizyous Aconitum]

29th day of Winter, 510 AV He'd been sitting outside his door watching the crowd, when this abnormally tall man walked by him. At a quick glance, he looked taller than himself, had black hair cut short, and had very pale skin. It was a brief moment of hope and curiosity that made him stand and begin to walk after the man. Vizyous hadn't seen a Symenestra aside from himself in a very long time After a short while, Vizyous realized that the man was wandering around and getting himself more and more towards the outskirts. He often wondered about the people drawn to the mysterious pond supposedly haunted by Verlyna, and whether or not they'd react as he did. It had captured him for nearly a day and a half before he managed to leave. Not that leaving did much good, either. The pond, at least, had been a steady environment that was much more enjoyable than the Sanity Center. Vizyous had been in Alvadas for more than 20 days, it helped to get away from the dizziness of the city for a while. He suspected that the man he was following wasn't a Symenestra, too dense and claw less to be even part Symenestra, but still quite strange. There was something about him that put Vizyous on edge. As the hidden-away pond surrounded by trees and rocks that sheltered it came into view, Vizyous stood out of the clearing of the entrance behind a tree and watched as the man sat down on a rock. He noticed his wariness of the water before him, and it wasn't until a minute of silence aside from the trickling waterfall that he stepped out from behind the tree. Vizyous took care not to startle the man, lest he have the same fate as Verlyna, and spoke as timid as he could. "Excuse me, sir, may I join you?"

[Hadrian]

Hadrian had not been expecting company, but then he was never sure quite what to expect in Alvadas. How did one begin to expect the unexpected? He had the vague sense that he was getting his just desserts for claiming that a talented enchanter had to do just that with regard to his spellcraft. Apparently the gods had a sense of humor, and it was at his expense. Turning quickly, he let his gaze drop to the ground as if expecting the ghost of Verlyna to have appeared, eyes ready to hypnotize him, but the brief impression he got was of a tall, pale man and so he overrode that reaction, looking up with chlorine blue eyes. Pale as the stranger was, he looked almost like a male Konti, though slender and pretty enough in a way that one might mistake him for a tall woman in the right light. A Symenestra, he decided. He only hoped this one wasn't as difficult as Devan, though he would admit that he appreciated Devan if he didn't exactly like him. Without blinking, he engaged his Auristics, and the vision of the creature's aura confirmed that he wasn't human. It also confirmed that he was there on an energetic level, though sometimes Alvadas' illusions managed to cloud his Auristic vision too. "You may," he said, years of etiquette drilled into him by his mother as a child. He rose as if this were a drawing room and not a glade with a little waterfall. "I'm Hadrian," he added, prepared to engage if the Symenestra so desired.

[Vizyous Aconitum]

The man turned quickly although not in obvious surprise, and there was a brief moment where Vizyous could feel the other man examining him. Something about it got under his skin and made him more wary of looking directly into the man's bright eyes. Vizyous stayed where he was until the other man rose, which made a wry smile come to his lips. He hadn't met a human taller than himself or intimidating until now; Alvadas certainly brought new things.

Hadrian's stance was carefully held and showed that the man was raised to be polite, in a way, towards strangers. Or, perhaps Vizyous's question had been taken too seriously. Had Hadrian denied him his attention, Vizyous would have pursued it anyways.

"Vizyous," the Symenestra told him, his voice no longer timid in tone or volume, "What brings you to Alvadas?" He asked in common, then switched to his native tongue. "Do you speak my language?" Vizyous carefully watched Hadrian, wondering if he'd ever heard the unique language of Symenos before. He didn't suspect the man would know the language, but he had a habit of asking after not conversing in it for a long while. He moved closer a few steps, but made sure to lean against the tree beside him to show he wasn't intending to get any closer.

[Hadrian]

'And along came a spider,' he thought, his eyes never leaving the man. Vizyous. Though wary, he did not attempt to take a standoffish attitude with him. He was honest: curious. "I came here to learn," he admitted, "about illusions." This was true so far as it went, but he was always in search of learning. There was also the spur of the moment urge to go somewhere else after spending far too much time with his family on the heels of his mother's death. There were depths untold. "I'm sorry, but I don't speak Symenos," he said, assuming that was the language he heard. It sounded a bit like Devan cursing, after all. "Though I would like to learn that as well. Perhaps someday." He paused. "And what are you doing in Alvadas, Vizyous?"

[Vizyous Aconitum]

He remained quiet as Hadrian responded, noticing that while his answer seemed honest, it also was very short. It must have been a half-truth, of sorts, or perhaps Hadrian was wary of giving out personal information. Vizyous couldn't blame him, although it made him more curious.

"Symenos is a hard language to learn, although so are many others I've heard." He was about to say more about Symenos, but then something occurred to him. It was probably because he hadn't seen anyone standing so close to the waters of the pond, but the question arose of what would happen should someone go, or more accurately in his mind, be shoved, into the waters? Would they become paralyzed, or did Verylna's magic wear off or not affect them?

His eyes lingered on the water for a while before he brought them back to Hadrian. With a shrug, Vizyous tried to find an answer to the question Hadrian had asked him in return.

"I've come to Alvadas to see if living in madness will cure one's own madness or prolong it. I suppose I've come to learn of illusions, also, just in a different way." Suddenly, Vizyous's face lit with a smile and he began walking towards the waters of the pond, although didn't get too close. "My friend, have you ever thought of what may happen to those who enter these waters? I must admit, I've just become curious. As someone eager to learn, it must have occurred to you also?"

Although his intentions had originally been bad, Vizyous asked in honesty. He could feel his old ways of trying to sway others beginning to arise, but in this case he didn't fight it. He was genuinely curious, even if it was more than slightly mad to think about.

[Hadrian]

When it seemed that Vizyous was going to stay for a while, he loosened up a little, at least inasmuch as he would be a bit forthcoming when questions were asked. He was just not skilled in the social arena. "I speak Nader-canoch," he said, "and the rudiments of Isur. Languages come fairly easily to me, I suppose... At least, the mechanics. I don't speak them all that much, but I can read and write." He was, of course, a socially awkward person and didn't speak all that much in his native Common either. The speculative glint in Vizyous' eyes put him on quiet alert, though he wasn't sure what he might be thinking. It was difficult to follow the logic of a Symenestra sometimes; their minds worked so differently from a human's. "Well, the madness here is divinely inspired, anyway," he offered, and then followed his glance toward the pool and waterfall. "I have been meditating a bit on Verlyna's story and the waters here. It's difficult to say anything for certain about anything here because it's all cloaked in illusion. For all I know, we might be sitting in a room with a leak in the ceiling dripping into a rusty old pot and it looks like a lush little water garden to us... I'm... trying to be open to the illusions, but... it's difficult."

[Vizyous Aconitum]

OOCSorry for the late response, I've been so busy since Friday!!
Vizyous could remember the strange Isur that he encountered only a few days ago. "I saw an Isur only a short while ago. He saved me..." His scoff came out harsher than he intended but expressed his doubt, "I was about to fall into this pond, apparently." The Symenestra turned away from the waters and faced Hadrian, studying him.

The notion that the beautiful environment around him could actually be a room with a leaky ceiling made Vizyous remember, as he often forgot, that most everything seen in Alvadas had a questionable existence. "Yes, even when Syna rises, I wonder if it's really Syna I'm looking at. I understand your point..." His response was a hurried mumble more to himself than Hadrian, but then his attention went back to the man, his mouth quirking up a bit from the serious expression that had come over him. "It would be quite amusing for someone immune to illusion if this really is a pot catching a leak. Would that mean Verlyna drowned from falling head first into a bucket?"

"I must admit, I considered throwing you in to test out whether this water is magical at all. My apologies, I'm a curious person." Vizyous smiled apologetically and shrugged his shoulders, "Although there's something about you.. I feel you're one to have a trick up your sleeve."

[Hadrian]

He considered all this with a straight face. "It could mean anything or nothing, that's the problem with everything in Alvadas." He glanced up to squint at the sunlight filtering through the leaves. "I wonder what Syna sees from up there, if She's fooled by Ionu's city of illusions or if she's laughing at us for what we do without knowing it... Anyway, I'd considered what Symenestra blood might do as a magecrafting reagent, so I suppose we are even." He had also wondered what he might Maledict out of the body of a Symenestra, but he had not yet mastered Circles that would work on sentient life matter. His skill at Glyphing was just not there yet. "Do you seek magic?" he asked seriously.

[Vizyous Aconitum]

Seek magic? He had no idea what it meant to seek magic. Vizyous had heard rumors of what magic had done to those who used it, but whether it was something he was looking to use was undecided. When it came down to it, Vizyous traveled to Alvadas for the illusion in it, and that was magic, wasn't it?

"I came to Alvadas for the magic within it." The playful tone that had a habit of clinging to his voice was no longer there, Vizyous realizing the seriousness of what he was saying. "I do seek magic." His eyes sparked with interest, glancing up at Syna as he considered what she did think of all that happened within Alvadas. "Although I don't know much about it at all."