auroraexpress | (no subject)

Nope! These guys were Ice Age predators. Big prey, big dragonwolves.

[despite being a skeleton, there’s a great whuff of warm air when he sniffs]

That old, huh? Did they have fur?

[....that is very freaky.]

[Still gonna pet.]

They're the oldest of my familiars, and about as old as I can summon. And no fur, just skin and scales.

[Isolde swings her big head over, jostling with Isildur for attention. pet ME pet me also.]

So were they in ice or was there like...not ice places?

[Chuckles and will shift so he can pet them both.]

They could tolerate winter pretty well, but these specimens are from the west coast. Even at the last glacial maximum when the landmass was 30% ice, California and really most of America was free of the ice sheets.

Aren't the scales kind of poor insulators?

Huh. I always thought everything was just covered with the ice age. [That's because you've been on ice planets, Wash.]

Sure, but they're dragons, not lizards. Magical creatures can have increased tolerances.

There was a lot of ice and some of the deepest glaciers were over two miles thick, but actually many areas were affected less by the physical presence of ice and more by increased aridity. The cooler temperatures and the drop in sea level did a lot to the weather.

....fair point. So it's magic?

Oh. Huh, I just always imagined it was just ice everywhere.

Magic and some key changes to metabolism and fat distribution. These guys were very active hunters.

I can draw you a map of the ice distribution if you want it. There were some very interesting changes to the coastline and lake formation that accompanied the glaciers.

....I'd say yes, but I'm also not sure how familiar I am with Earth's geography. I think I mix it up with other planets.

Well, basically the important thing is that these guys weren't in a glacial area, at least not their hosts.

Their ho-oh, their original lives? Or...past?

Are they the same souls or different?

[going back over to the deer]

Host means their bones. They're both made of an conglomeration of soul fragments that may or may not include the original residing soul, but regardless they hold no specific memory of any of their past lives except for what's instinctive or held in common between the pieces. Isolde and Isildur are effectively new, independent beings.

[Will give the Familiars one last pet and will follow Eliza back over to the deer.]

Thus why it's better to draw from a pack? So the soul is more cohesive?

[picking up the red chalk and getting one of the many many white pieces just scattered around her lab to make some quick markings on the deer. dotted "cut here" lines in white and more arcane symbols in red.]

I have some theories that could have played a role in their effectiveness of their bindings and the success I've had with calling them long-distance as ghosts, but when I cast their initial summonings I didn't set a focus for any particular soul or group of souls. I do an open broadband casting that's species-limited, of course, but otherwise will collect from any location or age so long as the power levels and the cooperativity balance out.

[Watching her work and will pick up a knife and sharpen it. Always good to have a sharp knife.]

How long do ghosts even hang around?

Oh, I call it a ghost when I summon Isildur independent of his bones, but the whole sort of... lingering spirit of the deceased idea of a ghost? That's not really much of a thing outside of ER necromancy. Our souls begin decaying very quickly, and you need a really particular set of skills to engage a haunting, and even then most methods are suuuuper frowned up upon now.

[So much magic]

....huh. Why is it frowned upon?

It's inhumane. Can you lift the deer by its legs for me?

[Will grab the legs and lift up the deer.] Fair.

So how big of a net does that broadband cover? Can you draw from the other side of the planet? Reach farther back than the Ice Age?

Ten to twelve-thousand years is my upper limit, and that really needs a quality specimen and my familiars' support. I haven't tested my limits with distance to that extreme a degree, since the cost of the flight to a closer summoning location would be worth the reduction in risk. Even being a few hundred miles out of their original range can add a lot of difficulty, and that really stacks when it's something extinct... Like I can summon a common pigeon with really no effort at all. There's more time spent drawing the circle than there is on the calling. But a teratorn takes hours and hours.

[without breaking a beat as she starts on disemboweling the deer]

Edited 2019-09-26 04:09 (UTC)

[Nodding, just holding the deer steady for her as he watches her work.] That makes sense. The location thing. What's a teratorn?

[piling the organs into a bin to the side and shooing away her suddenly VERY interested familiars. they may be skeletons but instincts want those snacks.]

No, greedy butts, you'll make a mess. Later— Teratornithidae is a family of extinct vulture relatives. Rocs are bigger, but for non-magical animals, they were some of the biggest flighted birds around. If not the biggest! I've been working with one for a locomotion study, since there's still some work to be done on figuring out how exactly they got airborne and how agile they were on the ground.

[Chuckling.] I'm sure there'll be plenty of leftovers. Might even get fancy cooked meat.

Oooh, giant bird. That does sound cool. Maybe I could help? I'm pretty good at math and trajectory stuff.

Unfortunately, I have neither the loaned teratorn skeleton, the notes, the cameras, nor the motion-tracking computer programs with me. I do a lot of work where I summon something so it can participate in someone else's study.