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[Gwolfski]

So, a void berry sends something to the void for a brief moment in time.

Also, a theory. The more magical something is, the faster it dissipates into the void.

Conjecture: Wizards of the mages guild who have worked with magic for years have significantly more magic in them than us. We have already demonstrated our ability to survive for brief moments in the void.

We could make some void berry wine...

Capture a bug and put it in the void portal. Record the time for it to dissipate.
We also know that painting something in life paint will likely kill it quite quickly, but not instantly.
Capture another bug of the same type. Douse it in life paint. Put it in the void. Record the time to dissipate.

Hopefully this will give us proof of theory.

+1. Repeat this several times so as to minimize any experimental error.

+1 Seems like the best thing to do for now.

+1

[Paxiecrunchle]

Please tell me this is not dead?

[wierd]

It updates like, once a month. Veeeeerry sloooooowly.

[wierd]

Been 15 days, no updates... Bumping

I will restate a old suggestion in bold.

• See how the Darkmana affects portal size when the two are in proximity. (If we can suck energy away from the powered portal, it should shrink a little. Alternatively, the open hole to the void dimension might let us suck "pure void" and deposit it into depleted crystal, to get "Pure void" crystal for making paint.  (the precise process here, being to 1) crystallize a pot using the slower and safer darkmana method. 2), paint the new darkmana on the bottom, to create a paint charger. 3) Fill the paint charger with 'useless' paint made from depleted crystal. 4) Place the loaded charger near the portal. 5) wait.
  
  Making the paint chargers gives us some equipment to sell to the guild to help our admission, additionally by putting a few near the misbehaving portal it will let us investigate if the portal can be forcibly shut down by excessive depletion of the wall, (if it does, then the concentrator might also break, allowing us to fix it with the on/offable version posted prior, if not, then more thinking is required. Push comes to shove, we have a convenient garbage disposal. Put a curtain over it.)
  

[Chiefwaffles]

Consensus:
Eat Voidberry
Capture a bug and put it in the void portal. Record the time for it to dissipate. (Repeat several times)
Capture another bug of the same type. Douse it in life paint. Put it in the void. Record the time to dissipate. (Repeat several times)

Test if proximity of Darkmana to portal influences anything (e.g. size).

Crystallize pot with Darkmana glyph, paint new Darkmana on bottom to create paint charger, fill with depleted crystal paint, and place near portal.

You consider doing some tests with a Darkmana glyph, but unfortunately you just don't have the supplies to make enough paint - a single Darkmana glyph takes 2 units of Crystal Paint meaning 2 units of Linseed Oil; you only have enough supplies total to make one Darkmana glyph. Which isn't enough.
So you shelve the idea for now and continue onto other tasks.



The first one being to eat a Voidberry. You immediately feel ever-so-mildly odd. Like a tingling sensation in your throat and stomach. It's not immediately noticeable nor worrying, but it's not something you've experienced before. Other than that, nothing happens for a bit.
But without warning, you find yourself in the Void. It's a surreal experience matching your last (accidental) venture here. You feel less than weightless - as if moving is just easier than it regularly is. When you focus your eyes, you think you can almost see winding lines of a just barely-noticeable "mana rainbow" color permeating the Void. None within reach. Not that you can move. Or that you think you can move, at least. You can try, but nothing appears to happen.

Then you're back in reality. You feel somewhat hungry, and take a break to eat whatever it is that you eat before continuing.


But with the self-experimentation done, you move onto experimenting with other things. You find four bugs. You douse two in life paint (using 1u Minor Life Paint) and keep the other two relatively untouched. One by one, you put them into the void and record how long it takes for them to dissipate into nothingness. You notice that the two painted bugs have died by the time you start putting them in. Oh well.
Measuring time, as it happens, is really tricky when you don't have anything but your mind to measure time with. You make do, but the certainty and precision of the measurements probably aren't great.

The two unpainted bugs dissipate in the span of hours. If you had to guess, it was anywhere from one to four. The painted bugs actually take longer to dissipate - probably between five and... nine? hours. Something like that.



You receive a visit from the same Mages' Guild representative that visited your house before. His eternally-uninterested eyes quickly scan your room before you close the door just enough to prevent him from seeing most of your house. Without saying a word, he pushes the door open and you aside to continue appraising your little crystal workshop.
Foresight prior to opening the door had you block the portal with some various furniture, and that seems to be enough to fool the official. He informs you that the deadline is coming up. You may want to visit the Mages' Guild to see the advantages offered to members, he states. Sure, they have a few regulations, but that's because they're interested in keeping mages from being seen as tyrannical overlords. You see how well mages can be seen by the public? That's thanks to them, he states matter-of-factly.
He stares at the dead life-painted "I" mouse as he continues droning on. Your services could likely be quite useful in paying off your debts if you're not able to pay any part of the fine, in fact.

Eventually he leaves the hut. But as he does, he reminds you that the local chapter will not allow an unregistered mage to practice independently so close to them for much longer.


2u Elemental Sand and 2u Elemental Water were used tending to the berry plants.
The rest of the plants reached maturity. The Elemental Water and Elemental Water/Elemental Sand berries seem to be the same as before - meaning you gather 6x Voidberries. The regular one (as far as you know) is producing regular berries. Whodathunk. 3x Berries are harvested from that one.

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Money: 9 Silver Coins
Reputation: Nobody
Clothing: Cloth Robes
Equipped Gear:

• Crude Invisiglass Spear

Residence/Workplace: Some distance outside a Shop/hut in a village. Crystallized interior.

Spells
Nothing
Magical Artifacts

• Bag of Sand - A tiny cloth bag that can just fit part of a hand. Large pinchfuls of Elemental Sand can be retrieved from it on demand for primary use as a blinding implement. Recharges at dawn. [10 Uses]
• Timed Bag of Water - A tiny delicate human hair-cloth bag. When a hand is present inside, a roughly-hand-sized "hole" opens to a place full of sand. It's possible for a grain of sand to fall through? let large amounts of Elemental Water through. Recharges at dawn. [1 Use; 5 seconds/use]
• Large Timed Bag of Sand - A large cloth sack. When a hand is present inside, a roughly-finger-sized "hole" opens to a place full of sand. Recharges at dawn. [1 Use; 60 seconds/use]
• Jar of Water - A large (20u) jar that opens a portal to the Water Plane when a hand is present inside. Fills to the top and tends to overflow quite a bit. Recharges at dawn. [1 Use]
• Darklight Cloth - A piece of cloth with the Darklight glyph on it. Appears to create a shroud of darkness, almost "absorbing" the light from the surrounding area, as long as pressed on. Recharges at dawn. [1 Use; 10 seconds/use]
• Drained Paint Charger - A small crystal container with a Darkmana glyph on the bottom that slowly "charges" paint inside, raising its intensity. Can fit 2 units at a time. Has a strange very faint "rainbow" aura around it when not charging anything. Currently completely nonfunctional.
• Darkvoid Cloth - A piece of cloth with the Darkvoid glyph on it. Brings it and anything nearby it into the Void for an unknown duration of time before being brought back to Reality. Recharges at dawn. 1 Use; ? seconds/use]
• Elemental Sand Portal - When activated, it opens a portal to the plane of Elemental Sand that can be entered by an average-sized person with large amounts of effort. Requires some external source of mana.

Equipment

• Basic Paint Creation Equipment
• Crude Paintbrush
• Sand-Sucker-Upper
• Hand Pump

Items & Utensils

• Potted Mature  Berry Plant - E. Sand [1/5 turns until bearing fruit]
• Potted Berry Plant - E. Water [5/5 turns until bearing fruit]
• Potted Berry Plant - E. Water & E. Sand [5/5 turns until bearing fruit]
• Potted Berry Plant - Regular [5/5 turns until bearing fruit]
• Book: Channeled Calligraphy - An Introduction
• Small Crystal Torus
• 1x Dead Mouse (Minor Life Paint "I" on back w/ intent of sapience)
• 1x Mouse [Stored in Makeshift Cage]

Materials

• 14u Human Hair Scraps
• 7u Walnut Oil
• 3u Cattail Reed
• 6u / 20u Elemental Sand [Stored in Sealed Jar]
• 10u / 20u Elemental Water [Stored in Jar of Water]
• 2u Linseed Oil
• 2x Crystal Chunk
• 7x Voidberry
• 3x Berry
• 1x Large Cut Log

Magic Paints

• 0u Minor Void Paint
• 0u Moderate Void Paint
• 1u Crystal Paint
• 0u Minor Life Paint
• 1u Moderate Life Paint

[wierd]

YAY, Update!

Punctual bastards, those mages-- just a single day (their time) since we rubbed elbows with the greasy used car salesman local guildmaster..

• OK, let's take some items with us for trade.  I presume they want stable enchantments, so let's take the "Jar of Water" and some mana crystal chunks with us.  Given that it is a catalyst for more advanced magic, it might be useful/needed at the guild, and might offset our costs.  Getting on the wrong side of the guild is bad juju for us at this point.

[Madman198237]

Uhhhhh, Chief? We should be easily able to measure time within a quarter hour. There's this thing, (I presume it exists in this world as well) called the Sun, and it's predictable, and most people knew enough to tell time by it. At least, if we're getting measurements in our units of time, we know enough to tell time down to AT MOST a margin of error of half an hour.

[Chiefwaffles]

When did I ever say there was a sun?
Further thought leads you to conclude that the unpainted bugs last probably between two to three hours; the painted bugs, between seven and eight. Any more precision will require other methods of telling time other than the sun.

[wierd]

The cheap solution is an hour-glass, but the glass maker will not make us one out of the kindness of his heart, and we are already up to our eyeballs in fines from the guild.

Let's deal with the 800lb gorilla first, then we can figure out a way to accurately measure the passage of time.

[Madman198237]

If anything, we should start by

Hide our stuff out back in a hole in the ground or something, and then go talk to the Guild about what they expect, and how we can get it in writing.

[qwertyuiopas]

Theory: If life is an energy that can be manipulated, putting unstructured life paint directly on a creature is disruptive more than beneficial. Maybe it's pulling from the creature, maybe it's overwhelming the creature from outside. Maybe direct paint can be used with the right patterns to reduce or avoid harm, maybe it'll only be viable if the glyph is on a worn item to keep it separate from the body. Maybe the size or complexity of a creature plays a significant role in whether it survives long enough to benefit.

Is there a way to test that theory while minimizing costs (time (guild deadlines), resources, GM effort)?

Then again, it would be a little silly (but perhaps the fun of this game) to rediscover all of magic theory from scratch, when it's clear that there are readily-available books in a non-guild bookstore. If that much information is available in general, there's probably more within the guild (though how eager they are to open their knowledge to a troublemaker like us is uncertain, and they'll almost certainly place limits on topics that must not be explored. At the very least because transforming random citizens into a giant blob horror won't be good for the guild image, but I expect they'd be following the Obstructive Bureaucrat trope significantly more than that).

No immediate suggestions, but if resources are more plentiful later it would be very interesting to try varied shapes on creatures of various sizes. The goal would be to produce observable differences in the outcome, not immediately grow a second head on a living rat.

Finally, as an experiment on glyphs, I'd be interested in seeing if there's a difference in behaviour from a N-pointed star outline shape where either the outer or inner points are erased. Would one have an inward movement and the other outward? Which one? Can the polarity be revered entirely through intent when drawing them? But before any of that, which paint would most likely give observable differences with minimal environmental damage if things go wrong? And even before that, time and materials seem too constrained, so I'd wait a while for other matters to be dealt with first.

[Detoxicated]

It seems as if they actually want us to join. It makes sense too as this would increase their power and they wouldnt get their hands dirty.

join the guild. Work to pay off our fines and learn as much as possible while at it.

[Paxiecrunchle]

It seems as if they actually want us to join. It makes sense too as this would increase their power and they wouldnt get their hands dirty.

join the guild. Work to pay off our fines and learn as much as possible while at it.

This. Offer them services because we have no monies and our sales are slow.

[FallacyofUrist]

Under no circumstances join the guild.

Maybe we could leave town? Become a wandering wizard? Set up shop in a forest?

[ZBridges]

It seems as if they actually want us to join. It makes sense too as this would increase their power and they wouldnt get their hands dirty.

join the guild. Work to pay off our fines and learn as much as possible while at it.

This. Offer them services because we have no monies and our sales are slow.

+1