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IamLEAM1983
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Post by IamLEAM1983 »

Have you ever run out of via before?
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IamLEAM1983
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Posts: 3707
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Post by IamLEAM1983 »

"I've gotten close, but Tanner's explainer on how vulnerable drained liches can be scared me pretty straight just a few years into this part of my existence. I didn't have Zebediah's resources, but I was more stable, so I think I started unlife as the most responsible lich imaginable, maybe even to the point where I was a little paranoid. I kept a little patch of loose soil behind the boarding house I occupied in the first few years, and I came down to it every night to bury my hands in it, to relinquish as much of the via I'd siphoned off throughout the day as I could spare without feeling too drained. I kept my first spells as small and as self-contained as I could, which really drilled the basics of arcane safety into me and also got me in touch with my affinity for detail work. I wouldn't seriously push things until Elysium, and even then there was a baseline level of power I didn't let myself get past. If I reached it, I defaulted to mundane weaponry until I got the sense I'd built up some reserves again. Aspasia and her friends changed things, though. Once I had a more concrete group of people to protect - and especially once Rendell realized Asp had betrayed him - all bets were off. I had to push, and I pushed hard.

Now, being drained isn't exactly the same thing as being tired, for me. I'm only ever classically exhausted if I've had to put in some intense mnemonic or intellectual work, but slinging long-memorized spells is something I can do for hours, now. When I'm exhausted in your sense of the word, I usually go for a snack or a nap. When my reserves are nearly depleted, though, my motor skills turn sluggish and I can feel the smaller bones in my hands, fingers and toes partly come loose. It's not exactly visible,  but I can feel some of the flatter bones in my palms wiggle a bit, and trying to make a fist sends tremors down my hand and forearm, with some of the bones sort of softly clattering against one another, like a really quiet wind chime. Colors are muted a bit, and it gets a bit hard to focus. At that point, I can tell a part of my etheric field's retreated out of my greater anatomy and into my skull, seeing as I get this strange and honestly indescribable sense of brain fog, as though I've gone part-ghost in the confines of my own skull and can trace the contour of the inner cavity...

I've only ever reached that point once in '75, and Aspasia had to help me out back so I could stick my hands in the diner's herb garden. It's the only time I've ever killed plants by leeching off of them - and basil doesn't get the credit it deserves, it's one tough herb, almost a weed, I've always thought. I've always preferred to avoid needing to leech life out of anything or anyone, for obvious reasons. I'm much more comfortable knowing that my unconsciously sampling bits and pieces of life force won't cause anyone undue harm.

I feed the Last Round's patrons and they feed me in return. I've likely micro-dosed Aspasia and Miranda dozens of times before in the past, but something tells me love and paternal instincts have always ensured neither of them would feel any adverse effects.

Now, you might wonder why I felt compelled to be careful around a being who wasn't tied into the world's arcane web. I don't have a solid answer, to be honest, except that being careful felt merely like a form of respect I owed her. I think a part of me always suspected, though, that she wouldn't stay removed from the local ley lines for long, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing's happened yet, but Asp turning to a sort of Syncretic blend of Neopagan rituals tells me she wants to develop some sort of sensitivity or connection. Plus, now that my daughter has the guidance and support of a gaggle of dead martial artists smushed into a milennia-old jade blade, I have more than reason enough to want to be careful. Asp being a Chimera isn't the be-all, end-all excluding factor it used to be, anymore - it's the only certainty in a growing mass of questions that've pushed me to take up journaling again.

My own wife is starting to want answers, and I'm powerless to help. The only thing I can do is head back to the drawing board, see what I can figure out to help her. That requires experimentation, and that rests on all the safeties I put in place earlier. I wouldn't be much of a researcher if 'Spasia had to tuck my bones in a bag somewhere, fold up my clothes and bury me near a ley line for a week or two.

Besides, it'd make for an awkward voicemail on the diner's box. Our cook's out recharging. Be back in a few."
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