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"Massster..." this came from a disembodied head floating in front of Raistlin's desk. The archmagus didn't look up immediately, busy scratching writing onto a piece of flattened parchment, the quill in his thin golden fingers practically vibrating with the speed of his notes.

Genessia was a land of fascinating marvels. He'd be sure not to forget a single one.

"Masssster pleasssse," the head tried a second time.

Finally, Raistlin glanced up, impatient at the interruption. "What?"

"Therrrre is an intruderrr in the Grrove."

That. That was interesting, and Raistlin's hand finally stilled. "In the Grove, you say?"

"Yesssss. The defenderrrssss have not been able to kill it..."

Extremely interesting. Something from Genessia, no doubt, nothing else would make sense. The blackrobe dabbed the last of the ink off the feather quill onto a pad and set the instrument aside, and then took the time to carefully close up the inkwell. This could take a while.

And so it was that whatever this stranger was doing, he suddenly wasn't the only living creature in the dark, ancient grove. Raistlin lurked in the deepest shadows, silently watching.

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"And I suppose it is a choice between one or the other?"

How annoying.

"Or we could go hit up a twenty four hour donut shop."

"...A what?"

Look, that threw him a bit, okay? The context of Wade's previous suggestions had sounded like living arrangements, and now a shop?

"I am not living in a shop."

"Well did you want to find a place to live or did you just wanna find stuff to do? Because if it's living arrangements yeah, it's camping, or an apartment."

"...An apartment in the city."

Gods above. What a shitty choice.

"Very well, something to do. I can decide where I will live, later."

And keep an eye out for someplace selling tents.

"... Yeah. ... Yeah it's gonna be in the city, yeah. Sorry, buddy." Looked like it was that twenty four hour donut shop then!

"Pretty sure I saw a place in town on my way over here. Hey, they tell you about chroma here?"

Raistlin went for the door, then, the butt of the staff hitting the floor with each step.

"The power that will supposedly be needed to fuel my magic."

He still had doubts.

"They were quite evasive on the details."

"Yeah, that and pay for shit. Apparently you can use chroma to buy stuff too. Haaaaven't figured that out yet."

He was following along because well of course he was. He had to be able to lead the way after all.

"So you know how generating it works, right?"

"They were reluctant to explain it beyond a necessary source of power."

Because really, would anyone want to explain to the blackrobe god-killing archmage that he was going to have to touch people? And not just when curiosity took over, like when he'd grabbed Wade's face in their first meeting, but like... in general.

Touching in general.

It's okay.

Wade can't die anyway.

"Gotta touch people." He wiggled his fingers at Raistlin for emphasis.

"Hand holding, hugging, beating a dude to death in an alley way with your bare hands, snuggling..."

Aaaand Raistlin stopped walking, confusion warring with distaste on his face before distaste won.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's how you make the magic power money stuff, through touching." Said plainly, calmly, with the full expectation of something unpleasant in return.

"I don't make the rules. If you want I can show you how to slap a dude in the face five times before he can react though."

Raistlin just stayed where he was, standing there outside the apartments. After a moment of processing this information, his second hand had to join the first on the staff, clutching it as his balance went wobbly.

Not with illness, this time, but genuine shock, and...

"What?" Oh good, rage! Lots of rage. The grip on the staff was well and properly white-knuckled.

Well, can't fix this now. Better he tell him, than someone else that the guy didn't like so much and that who also couldn't eat as many fireballs as he could.

"So that's a no on the face slap tutorial?"

Look, nothing he says is going to make this any better, he knows that.

Raistlin was again silent for a moment, before hissing between his teeth, "This has to be a mistake."

Magic didn't work that way. It didn't. It was a solitary thing, a pact between the mage's own soul and the three Gods of magic...

Solitary, clean. Untarnished by the fumblings of others.

"I mean you could test it, maybe I heard wrong. I'll totally let you poke me in the face or something."

A test? Data. That sounded promising, even if the knowledge that this world would demand that he touch another person to survive galled him to no end.

"...Is this the reason I feel as though I have been casting when I have done no such thing?" Honestly, he'd chalked the tiredness, the drain he felt, up to his normal lack of constitution. The furnace inside him devouring him as it had in all his memory. But now that he knew about this...

"The Gods of this place dare drain my power? I have sacrificed everything, everything so that I would rely on no one but myself! And they dare--!"

Aaaaaand, coughing fit. It started with a hitch, then an explosion of coughing, the mage doubling over and holding onto his staff for dear life.

Edited 2019-08-21 09:39 (UTC)

"I mean, probably." There was a vague note of helplessness to the response, as casual as the tone was. Well, what else was he supposed to do? Take a bus to city hall and start menacing everyone? He was pretty sure there was nothing a bunch of pencil pushers could do about the laws of reality.

... Didn't mean he didn't want to do something though, as the wizard's emotions got the better of him and triggered a violent coughing fit. The best he could do was hang close, waiting to catch Raistlin if the man's balance was compromised.

Drained as he was, after a full day of wandering the moon and then everything that had followed on the world proper, losing power by inches... and not even noticing it because, what was being tired? What was feeling drained? The furnace consumed all.

After all of that, it was unavoidable that he was gonna have a real abrupt meeting with the ground, barring Wade's intervention. The coughs went wet, the rare inhale between almost more of a rattling squeak, and then the world just sort of tipped to one side and whoop, there he went.

And there was Wade, looping a hand under his waist to carefully, easily, haul him back up and just.... hold him up.

"Hey, there's a bench a few feet to the left, if you need a moment."

One would think it'd be obvious that the other man needed a moment. Probably several moments all strung together.

But Wade wasn't about to make that choice for him.

Holy fuck. What?

Not that Raistlin could comment on -- this, whatever this was -- at the moment, too busy trying to get air--

He'd be easy enough to get onto the bench, at least.

Well, after a moment, he would just... carefully begin to ease him towards the bench. Unless instructed otherwise, the other man would be helped down.

After which, yes, he'd be released and allowed to sit without Wade clinging to him.

Despite the obvious moment of hesitation on Wade's part. Nothing was mentioned, but that moment where he seemed like he might just not let go was probably obvious enough.

Still coughing hard into one hand, Raistlin's other still snapped out to latch onto Wade's arm, gripping hard enough to be white-knuckled again.

Can't talk yet but don't you fucking go anywhere.

Welp.

And so the merc settled down right next to him, comfy as you please, just letting the wizard grip his arm in that iron grasp.

Not going anywhere, don't you worry. Still nothing said about it, lounging next to Raistlin as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

Finally, some goddamned air.

"Is that--"

Is that this chroma shit they were just talking about.