Welcome to Gaia! ::

Siber nodded understanding through each answered question, keeping it all filed away. So the Blademaster was basically a god figure, and the druid seemed to speak of him more in a terror/awe manner than a terror/horror manner, meaning that he had fulfilled his role properly over the past years.

"Yeah, I see what you mean." He took the Cheez-its back and pocketed them. Siber was feeling a vague desire to side with the druids eventually and try to learn more about them as a whole, but they had no active interest in that which interested him, it seemed, so it would have to wait. As a dæmoniac, he felt it may have been the connection to non-human, animalistic beings which caused this attraction to that particular group.
"Right now, I'm just waiting for people to get their acts together, mostly, aso we can get moving for this Abaddon business. I feel like we've wasted too much time as it is, myself, but the people commanding the operation are by far more experienced than I, so I suppose I'll let them make the decisions.
"Is there any way I can... contact you, once this is over? Your group interests me more than the others, and I'm getting tired of this whole 'Hunters and Warlocks' thing. I feel like it's reaching the limits of usefulness to me. Or at least, it will have after this, whether we live or die." He smirked wryly.

Siber's ears perked up both at "druid magic" and "poison." Druid magic would be fun. He took the leaf, giving the Smoky reference a light laugh.
"Thanks. I think I'll take you up on that." He glanced around. "Is there any more secluded place you'd prefer, or is this a... quieter magic form, shall we say, than things like elemental evokers?"

Paul was now on the streets. He had the Molotov Crab-Cocktail tucked into a pocket, and the Athena rifle strapped across his back. He'd barely met much of anything about the cyNet 3 group, but he was curious. T. C. Zero? What did T. C. stand for? The Blademaster? If this being called the Blademaster was powerful enough to intimidate a group of androids armed with magic-armor-piercing weapons, what was he capable of, and where did he stand?

Kind of irritating. My understanding of the politics behind all of this are still very limited, leaving me with essentially no ROE.
Robert responded.
Haha. Not funny.

Do you know much about these people?

Eh?

Huh.

"Spying?" the druid repeated with a chuckle. "The mundane humans, definitely. Every secret police force and domestic spying unit for a long while has been the b***h of a mundane-human Councilor. They keep tabs on their enemies that live on this world that way. CyNet3 can tap every database that could possibly be connected to the internet. Those two are about the only ones who are into the heavy spying. Oh, uh. My name, right. My name is Anthony. Anyway, so...."

Alternating between bites of the sandwich and explanation of the theory and the process, the druid explained the basics of bouncing his magic, paradoxically, off of his own body to send it into his own body. He explained how to know what common chemical bonds to look for in toxins, how to neutralize them, and how to actually identify them at all in the enormous mound of chemicals that was a human body. Then he explained how simple alterations to stomach acid, saliva and the bacteria in it, and other natural substances in the human body could be made into poisons, sedatives, and finally - a specialized substance, a defense taught to as many of their members as possible, a chemical that was itself imbued with Unreality, then secreted from the skin to form a shield against both magic and physical strikes, both of which would be deflected by the emission of mana from his skin when he release the substance.

"We'll start with the shield - it's more complex but less dangerous in terms of chance-of-self-harm, and it's a good general-use application of druidic magic. Also, it'll give you experience with chemical alteration within your body so you don't end up filling your fingers with nerve gas or something."

((Yes, Siber will be the first player character learning a shield.))

The druid took a deep breath. "Essentially, you take the process of modifying a substance on an elemental level - then, you not only alter it with magic, but you imbue it with magic. The most common thing to get changed like this is sweat. If you have any enchanting experience, I think that's the closest vanilla magic equivalent to this. You open a little Unreality into each particle of solid matter within the sweat. When the liquid evaporates, it leaves the particle of Unreality-imbued salt or whatever and the shield is maintained. Essentially, by forcing the essence of Unreality into a particle of reality, you create a localized web of Crossover around you. It will... sort of push away anything approaching you unless you will it not to.

"Oh, and your first shield will probably take at least half an hour just to refine the basics. It'll get much faster afterwards."

"Twenty three minutes," the druid answered, raising an eyebrow. With no warning he spun around and delivered a backwards kick at Siber's solar plexus. His foot stopped just before making contact with his clothing. He spun back around into the same position he'd just been in with a single fluid motion. "Wow. Your first time doing that and your shield has enough of a push to protect your clothing, too."

((I know, I'll try to avoid it in the future. I was enjoying myself XP))

Siber blinked before the kick hit and had only begun to try to block it before the shield did his work for him.


He smiled triumphantly. "Well, my clothes are very important to me." He laughed. This was cool. "Thanks for teaching me; it'll really help. So, if I'm just standing next to someone, this'll take effect if I don't consciously turn it off? Is that right?"