thefarshore | Heaven's BBS

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Posted: July 18
From: Li Tieguai

Good afternoon, everyone. Please excuse my change of name: this is Cho Hakkai.

I appear to have reappeared. Although I don't want to give undue hope to anyone who's recently lost a god or shinki, I'd like to announce that my classes will be continuing as usual.

To those who were living upstairs at the school the past few days, I expect you to help me clean up the mess. You know who you are.

[There are animal cracker crumbs everywhere.

And apart from that he's just not going to mention the events of last few days. At least he wasn't an actual child, but....]

Does anyone have an idea what might have caused it? I'm certain I felt something in the air for a few hours before it happened.

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Yes, it was around midnight, I believe. I felt something, like a sudden wave of... I hesitate to say 'magic'. Power, perhaps.

I was in my god's temple at the time, and others present there were affected, so I don't think location was an issue. I had wondered if it might be due to my resistance to magic, but again, whether it was even magic or not...

Were they all affected similarly? All growing older, or younger?

I made the mistake of going to bed early that night, so I'm afraid I slept right through the event itself.

My god grew younger. His other shinki was younger on the first day, then older on the next. If there's any rhyme or reason behind who was affected, and how, I fail to see it.

In any case, I'm glad it's over. No realm should contain that many unsupervised children at one time.

I can't disagree. At least I was old enough to look after some of them, but they were quite a handful.

It's a shame there's no clear explanation. I'm not very well acquainted with that sort of magic, though.

If it was magic at all, I'd certainly like to meet whoever cast it. The sheer amount of energy and focus it would require to alter so many people so drastically, and for such a length of time... it's incomprehensible.

From what you know about magic, could it be possible to "balance" making some of us a decade or so younger with others many decades older?

In order to make it easier to cast such a spell?

[He thinks that might be where Gojyo's thoughts had been running -- he'd jumped to the idea of just one person doing it as soon as Hakkai mentioned the aging of the library goblins, and it's not a bad idea. It's just that Hakkai has no idea whether it's plausible.]

[It takes him a while to respond--he has to try to work out the necessary formulas and other complex scholarly mage junk.]

I'm afraid this is well outside my area of expertise; power of this nature, if it is a form of magic, would fall under the category of dark magic or, more specifically, curses.

If I assume that it conforms to the rules and constraints of magic that I'm familiar with, then stealing years from some of us and giving those years to others would 'condense' the spell, in a sense. It would still be utterly impossible for any mortal to cast it.

...Of course, I suppose the heavens are rather lacking in mortals.

Ha ha, they are indeed. Thank you, though, I'm afraid any of these sorts of spells are outside my area of expertise!

[And knowing that it would make it easier does make him wonder if that's what happened, and if -- for instance -- shinki were constrained to growing younger by the fact that many of them did truly die. Maybe not all... but many. And the extra years, needing to go somewhere, were cast into the library goblins....]

If a curse like that were cast, would it require any kind of physical marks or objects to carry the magic? That you know of?

Certain curses require the use of something from the intended target's person--a hair or a fingernail clipping, for example. But as for whether a curse of this nature would fall under that category or not, I fear I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to say.

It does seem unlikely, though, that someone went around secretly gathering hairs from every single person who was affected. Not impossible by any means, but unlikely.

Very unlikely. I suppose you're right.

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I've been wondering, in fact, if it might be something near the library. The goblins seem to have been most seriously -- and fatally -- affected.

I noticed. None of the gods or shinki aged to that degree, did they?

It may be worth looking around. The library would make an excellent place to hide something... and if there's any residual magic lingering in the area, I may be able to sense it.

No. I think the most that I saw in a god was approximately forty or fifty years older.

It seems that Fuujin's shinki, Kaede, is recruiting library workers. That might be a good excuse to stop by and examine the library.

I'll do the same myself. I don't have much experience with magic, but I can sense spiritual energy.

Library workers?

[As if Erk ever needed an excuse to stop by the library.]

I suppose the goblins do need to be replaced... I'll be sure to look into that. Thank you for telling me.

I'll let you know if I come across anything out of the ordinary.

And I'll let you know if I find anything, too. Good luck.

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