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TS14: Revoker Questions
Rai was in his room a while. After ten minutes Jove knocked on the door. “Did you find it?”
There was scuffling behind the door and it opened. Tan stood there, blinking in the light. He had pulled on a shirt, and his blue eyes looked confused. “Morning. Did I miss something?”
“Rai was getting your copy of Revoker. I guess he got bored.”
Tan blushed, “You met Rai?” He forced a smile, “I hope he wasn’t a problem. He tends to be a little aggressive.”
“I think he was hitting on me, but he wasn’t a problem.” Jove blushed, suddenly aware that he had liked the attention. He coughed, “He mentioned my resemblance to a revoker. We were going to get the game and see what my magic matches.”
“That makes sense. Let me get it.”
A few minutes later, Jove and Tan sat on the couch while Chris looked on. Tan explained, “Revoker is a fan made supplement, so it’s a little limited in scope. You wouldn’t have heard of it. We’re not allowed to share these with people from your world.”
“What do you mean?”
“They don’t have the second part of the Oath of Habitat in your world.” Tan said, “In addition to forbidding cannibalism, the oath was an agreement to keep the worlds separate. Older interpretations of the oath make teaching Otherworlders magic illegal. It’s why there’s such animosity towards Otherworlders, they’re not really supposed to be here.”
“Are mages allowed in my world?”
“Not exactly. The newer interpretations state that anyone who uses magic is a mage. Regardless of if you’re a revoker or not, you use magic and you are a part of this world. Mages like Azarias have permission to retrieve new bursts.” Tan’s ears twitched with excitement. “The tenants that are consistent are mages are not allowed to hold positions of power in the otherworld, and we were not supposed to interfere with its development.”
Jove looked at the book thoughtfully, “You’re telling me this is a mages only gaming book?”
“Yeah.” Tan smiled and opened to the powers section. “In Revoker, the theory is that a revoker’s power comes from their ability to devour magic. They absorb magic and gain power from it. How powerful they are is determined by their siphon. At higher levels of siphon, you can affect things other than mages.”
Jove nodded, “And the powers?”
“Binding deals with stopping magic. If you did seal Animus Dimitri’s magic, then you’ve demonstrated that whole power tree. The flip side is Guardian, making individuals harder to affect with magic and removing passive effects.”
“I’ve walked through South’s wards a few times,” Jove pondered, “but they didn’t disappear.”
“That’s Avoidance.” Tan pointed at that part of the power list. “Avoidance stops detection powers and allows you to pass through wards. That’s the third level.” He moved his finger to the other list, “Guardian is making yourself or someone else immune to direct magic.”
Jove shuddered, “Like surviving dragon breath?”
Tan blinked and stared, “Dion Dimitri as a dragon breathed fire on you?”
Jove nodded, “and knocked me into a barbeque. It didn’t harm me.”
“That’s Guardian. Only level two, but you’d need a high siphon to stop a dragon’s breath. Although, that was your initial burst, right? Just instinct. At higher levels you gain the ability to unravel existing spells.” Tan’s eyes widened, “Like the geas on Chris. Jove if you have these abilities, you could cure him.”
“I thought that would scramble his brains.”
Tan shook his head, “That’s only if the geas is pulled out. You would dissolve it directly. Since you aren’t ripping it out, it won’t tear anything else out with it.”
“I guess, being a revoker wouldn’t be all bad.” Jove thought for a minute, he wondered what it would feel like to be responsible for healing Chris. Even if he was born a monster, he didn’t have to act like it. “Do they do anything but stop magic?”
Tan nodded, “There’s some nasty stuff. Hunting makes you stronger when faced with magic, as well as lets you track mages. That’s sort of the classic revoker power. Venom, the ability to inflict wounds that don’t heal or can’t be healed with magic. Then there’s Backlash. That doesn’t stop magic, but it makes it painful to cast spells. Even to the point of inflicting damage.”
“I didn’t do any of that with Dion, and getting into a fight just to test those out isn’t a good idea.” Jove sighed, “I need to be careful. If I use one of those reflexively, someone could really get hurt.”
“And you’d be burned at the stake.” Tan gulped, embarrassed at his words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Sometimes mages can be a little superstitious. I mean, there are legends of revokers going back thousands of years, and since we know magic is real, and most of the other legends are real. It makes sense we’d eventually find something like them.”
Jove nodded slowly. “Rai said something about, well, I could tell he wasn’t you almost immediately.”
Tan flattened his ears. “If you were good at divination or empathy you’d be able to tell. You’d read either the thoughts or the emotions and notice a difference.”
“I could tell he had a different magic aura.”
“That could still be divination.” Tan thumbed through the pages, “There is a Revoker power, Analysis that lets them read magic. At high levels they can look at a spell and know what it does. That’s complimented by the Spellbreaker powers. Those represent the ability to sense where a spell is the weakest. So, instead of walking through a ward or a shield, you know where to strike to take the whole spell down. These aren’t an action to dispel, they’re part of an attack, like shattering crystal.”
“If I can understand magic, that would explain a few things.” Jove thought, “I’m normally afraid of heights, but I wasn’t scared when I rode the dragon here. Also, I had a lucky guess with how to find my room number. Still, wouldn’t I have realized how the food was being delivered, or how the suit of armor worked?”
Tan shrugged, “It’s a possibility. Since you’ve been doing these by instinct, we won’t really know until we see what you can do consistently.”
“So, we have stuff I can’t test until a fight breaks out, and stuff that’s possible that we won’t know until I get some real training.” Jove looked at the book, “Anything else I should watch out for? What haven’t we covered?”
“Incursion and Expulsion.” Tan said, “They involve strengthening or tearing down the rules of the worlds. Incursion is one of my favorites to play. You can force guns to work in Atlantis and cross between the three worlds. Expulsion is the opposite. You can cause technology to act as kind of a ward against magic, and more interesting you can force a mage to return to Atlantis. Last, since a mythic form is a special type of magic, you use expulsion to force a mage back to his non-mythic self.”
“There’s a third world?”
“The abyss, it’s kind of a magic dead world that people occasionally use to speed travel. Mystically, it’s on the other side of Atlantis as your world.”
“I’ll worry about that later.” He thought, “Hypatia said she didn’t feel uncomfortable near me in mythic form. South would have said something as well. The tests for crossing worlds will have to wait for later. What are these last two?”
“Disgust is about inspiring fear and terror. No offense Jove, but you don’t seem to have that.” Tan grinned, “This is closer. Desire is a way for revokers to attract victims. The lowest level makes the revoker attractive to every mage nearby. The highest level causes a victim to become devoted to the revoker, to the point of being willing to …” He trailed off. “I’m sure no one will accuse Chris of being your thrall.”
Jove looked to the wolf. As always, Chris showed no response. Jove said, “You decided to see me before we met. I couldn’t have done anything like that to you, right?”
There was no response. Chris’ expression reflected only Jove’s inner doubt and concern.
“Right?”
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