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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 20:30:13 GMT -6
He thought of it as words merely because he thought in words, and generally in Common specifically. But when Rhys asked Noa for the meaning of a word he didn't know, he conveyed it as his memory of the exact sound. So Noa got to hear a telepathic echo of his own voice mixed in with what he knew as Rhys's mental voice, which was a little disorienting at first.
Noa gave Rhys a hand signal to indicate that he could tune back in for a second. "Any," he said again. "Any rock. Does that help?"
{Ohhh,} Rhys said. {Can you say it again?}
"Aaanyy." It did feel kind of stupid to have to drag out each word, but how else was Rhys going to learn and remember? He had to commit each word to memory, and in the beginning it was hard for him to keep track of them as his vocabulary grew.
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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 20:36:53 GMT -6
But at least he was getting faster at this part, which was good, because he was having to do it with most individual words he learned. Hopefully he'd move past having to do that eventually, but his case was unusual enough that Noa didn't know what to expect in terms of his progress.
Not that Rhys needed Noa to tell him that they were looking for gems, of course. He already knew that. But he had to say something for the sake of their Common practice, right?
Things were quieter while Rhys searched. Noa would ask him things like, "Turn right or left?" or "How much further?" and Rhys would answer, with much more eloquence and detail than Noa could speak to him. But for the most part, Noa let him focus on finding gemstones, since it was something that took some focus on Rhys's part to pull off, even with the spell.
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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 20:55:16 GMT -6
Only once Rhys had located a likely spot to dig did Noa resume more regular conversation, though sometimes in the process of digging and talking at the same time, he got a little ahead of himself and said something with too many unfamiliar words. When that happened, they would take a short break for Noa to clarify, with Rhys listening in with his telepathy again, and possibly repeating a new word a few times to drive it home. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing either; Noa's body was such that he benefited from the frequent breaks. But it did slow things down, and it was hard to get into any kind of zone with the digging when they did it like this.
The spot they found didn't yield a lot, but Noa came away with a few gemstones, which was better than nothing. Holding up the spoils, he said to Rhys, "How many gems are there?"
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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 20:59:36 GMT -6
There was another pause. Rhys did know 'how many', but it probably took longer to remember, since he didn't hear it as often as 'what' or 'when' or even 'why'. {Gems? There's... two, right? That one's an ore. Wait, what's the word for ore?}
"Ore," Noa supplied, then said it again, drawn out. "Yes, two gems, one ore. What's this one?" There was a fourth thing in the little collection.
{Oh, that's a |rock|,} Rhys said, chest puffed out in pride. Instead of thinking of the concept for 'rock', he had thought one of Noa's Common words back at him. Noa grimaced slightly in distaste, but whatever; it was in service to Rhys learning the language, and even if Rhys was the one who stood to benefit most, his learning to read would still be useful to Noa too.
"Yes," Noa said blandly. "Let's go. Find me some more gems."
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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 22:22:22 GMT -6
They made more 'conversation' over the course of the rest of the trip, though what they could talk about was limited, so it was stilted and awkward at times. And once Noa had had his fill of digging, they packed up what they had found and headed home.
It didn't quite become a routine, since Noa had a tendency to change his schedule on the fly, but they did make their way to the mines at least once if not twice a week. And as Rhys learned more words, their conversations became longer and more elaborate, and that aspect of their trips became more productive. After several weeks, they could actually hold a decent chat without Noa having to mind what he said -- most of the time, anyway. Rhys still got confused if Noa got too colloquial with his phrasing, but he could puzzle out meanings most of the time, or ask about isolated words he didn't know.
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Post by Noa on Aug 4, 2023 22:30:53 GMT -6
He would still need to keep up with it, of course, which meant that he would have to make an effort to listen to Common on a regular basis, but thus far his discipline had held, and apparently the novelty hadn't worn off yet. Noa didn't get it; the older he got, the more he genuinely felt that he preferred to take the easiest and fastest way to get what he wanted, and if he'd had telepathy, he would have found it a massive pain to stop using it. But he and Rhys didn't have the same attitude about a lot of things. Most things, really.
And now, at last, he could use those conversations as background noise while he did his mining, rather than using most of his focus to teach Rhys a language. The productivity of their trips improved, which was a good thing too, because the frequent trips were starting to wear on him physically.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 5, 2023 20:19:00 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Aug 6, 2023 18:03:48 GMT -6
He would have to ease back on the number of trips he was making again to give himself time to recover a little. That was maybe easier said than done, given the amount of gems he needed to buy the crystals to power his research, but... Could he simply send Briar in his stead? He already had Briar running around doing all sorts of things, and there were other things he preferred the Sprite to focus on, so then again, maybe not. And as far as he could tell, Briar had neither any masonry skills to speak of, nor an eye for gemstones at all. Teaching him would take time, and if Noa could do that himself, then he may as well just... do it.
But the reality was that sooner or later, his body would probably start failing him to the point that he couldn't do the mining himself anymore.
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Post by Noa on Aug 6, 2023 18:07:36 GMT -6
That was only if he didn't have any breakthroughs, but... In all his years of work to try and find a cure, or even a way to stave off the effects of his condition, successes had been few and far between. And they tended to be small -- tinctures or spells that alleviated some symptom or another a little, but nothing close to meaningful gains in his overall health. Instead, it had been an uneven but gradually accelerating decline since his late teens, though some of it had briefly been offset by the fact that he had been growing. Truthfully, he was probably still growing -- or would be, if his body wasn't already well into the process of being ravaged by that which would eventually take his life.
Noa paused in his work, breathing hard. His arms shook, and his hands stung. They had been soft hands once, but they had since grown callused.
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Post by Noa on Aug 6, 2023 18:10:49 GMT -6
A shame, then, that they simply weren't callused enough. Not a lifetime of work, but bursts here and there when his research or his lifestyle necessitated it. That was how he had come by most of his skills.
{Take it easy,} Rhys said, concerned or maybe nervous for his health. A wave of healing magic washed over him, and the edges of his exhaustion grew less sharp, though they didn't go away. he wasn't injured, and what was wrong with him, Rhys's magic couldn't heal.
He wanted to keep going. Ruminating on the state of his work had only renewed his sense of urgency. But he knew, too, from years of managing himself, that it wasn't smart to simply push through it. He knew from experience that if he did, he would pay for it later. With a heavy sigh, he slumped down to the ground, then closed his eyes.
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Post by Noa on Aug 6, 2023 18:13:58 GMT -6
There was nothing to do but wait for his breathing to even out, and then resume... by which point the weariness would have had time to settle, and it would be harder to make his limbs move the way he wanted. But it was that, or keel over.
"No crystals?" he said to Rhys, though he knew what the answer would be. Rather, he could sense it for himself, since Rhys didn't have the ability to detect magic the way that Noa did.
{I don't know, but I don't sense anything... really intense,} Rhys said. Apparently the crystals had a certain 'intensity' to them, though that was also shared by a concentration of ores or other valuable gems and minerals, so relying on that aspect of Rhys's borrowed gem sense wasn't a surefire way to tell. And of course, there also had to be crystals to find for either of them to sense them.
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Post by Noa on Aug 6, 2023 18:17:19 GMT -6
If there was genuinely nothing around, then no amount of meditating on the subject would get one to turn up.
Still, in a somewhat vain hope, Noa tried to block out the sensations of his body and focus on the energies around him. It wasn't as easy as it used to be. When he'd barely had any nodes of his own to speak of, the presence of a magic crystal had been almost a tangible thing. But now... It was like light pollution; because he was so saturated with magic, it was much harder to sense anything outside his own presence. Even other magic users were hard to notice if he wasn't actively looking for them, let alone a single crystal. He had entertained the idea of coming here without some of his nodes, but almost immediately dismissed it again. Anything could happen at any time, and it wasn't as if he could rely on his strength to get him out of it.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 7, 2023 3:31:09 GMT -6
They're not magical, but...
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