poll_the_stars | Do not mock the humble survey

Avet... has found herself annoyed. She has only one form. This isn't the problem, but this is what led to her noticing the problem. There is no way to preview what a dragon will look like. There are species books of birds and bugs and animals - but some of them are sub-par on noting where the dragon's colors go, and miscellaneous gods that she doesn't worship help you if you want to see what your color will look like on the form.

She is going to solve this problem. By taking some surveys. As in, grab photo paper, gather up a list of lines to go visit, and then knock on some doors and ask some questions and create a book series that organizes all possible forms, all known forms, what known lines look like in the forms - that sort of thing.

She starts with blue groups, because blue groups have the most available forms - she's gotten all of the big lines (well, all of the big lines that gave her the time of day) and is on the smaller ones. The ones with only one or two people. Or, in some cases, none.

This particular one's easier than some others; she doesn't need to fly to another country. It's Esmaar. She flies to the address of one 'Avar,' no line name. Apparently he had one and had some kind of explosive spat about it and gave it up. Not that it's her business. He's just another person for her survey.

She knocks on his door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

poll_the_stars

Ha. It is, I think.

Do you want to meet up for language conspiracies?

From:

thisvorlunatic

Sure! Where? My house has the advantage of allowing us to easily consult my mother, who is a nominally retired research wizard, emphasis on nominally.

From:

poll_the_stars

Your house sounds good, yeah. Helps that I can already teleport to it. Are you open this Chenen?

From:

thisvorlunatic

Yep! Around lunchtime, say?

From:

poll_the_stars

Sure! See you then.

Around lunchtime on Chenen, there is another knock on Mial's door. Surprise, it's the survey dragon.

Edited Date: 2015-05-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

From:

thisvorlunatic

Surprise!

(Not surprise. No surprise at all. Entirely unsurprise.)

"Hi, Avet!"

From:

poll_the_stars

(Yep.)

"Hi, Mial," she says, smiling at him.

From:

thisvorlunatic

"C'mon in."

From:

poll_the_stars

She does!

"So, magic language? I think the best place to start is likely figuring out how Draconic works. I mean, we kind of explain it away as 'dragon magic' but no one actually knows a ton about dragon magic either. We should probably fix that."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Let's fix that!" he agrees. "That seems like something that should be fixed."

From:

poll_the_stars

She grins at him. "So - to start we should find something to let us observe the magic, or if one doesn't exist, go through the trouble of inventing it. Which, annoying, but you know." Pause. "This is the sort of thing we should likely ask your mother."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"My mother did actually help somebody refine a spell that looks at dragon magic once," he says. "For shren-related purposes. I can't promise it looks at it particularly well, but we can go ask her for it."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Sure. Lead on?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

Up they go to his mother's office!

"Mother, where'd you put that dragon magic analysis...?"

From:

greatcomposure

"I'll look it up. Hello, Mial. Who's your friend?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Mother, this is Avetlarin, the survey dragon. Avet, this is my mother, Koridaar."

From:

poll_the_stars

"It's nice to meet you," she says warmly. She gives Mial an amused look. "'The survey dragon.' Well, accurate."

Edited Date: 2015-05-30 10:43 pm (UTC)

From:

greatcomposure

"It's nice to meet you too," says Koridaar. She peruses a shelf and comes up with her notes on the spell. "There you are."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Thank you." With notes acquired, they can probably go scurrying off to be nerds together now.

From:

thisvorlunatic

Nerd time! Nerd time!

From:

poll_the_stars

Nerd time!

First step: read the notes.

"... Um?" says Avet when she gets to a certain part of it mentioning what shrens look like in terms of dragon magic. "That is what a shren looks like to the analysis?"

Edited Date: 2015-05-30 11:49 pm (UTC)

From:

thisvorlunatic

"What, constantly on the verge of dying? Yeah, pretty much," says Mial.

From:

poll_the_stars

"That's kind of disturbing. Uh, no offense."

From:

thisvorlunatic

He shrugs. "None taken. But yeah, that's what it looks like. Infected or hatched, same result either way. Mother was originally trying to find some kind of cure, but it's not the kind of condition you want to mess with if you don't know what you're doing, and at a certain point you can't figure out what you're doing any better except by messing with it."