I’ve meant to write, but there haven’t been any significant updates (until this morning, which I’ll get to in a second.)
We’re just hunkering down for winter. We have plenty of grain, dried meats, and canned vegetables for us vegans (thanks to Rasia) as well as wood to burn to keep ourselves warm (also thanks to Rasia) and to keep our freshwater supply (yep) from freezing. Not surprisingly, Helm’s Deep has no heat, electricity, running water, or insulation to speak of. Rasia told me about the beautiful, heavy tapestries that used to line the walls of the Deep back in the day and would hold the heat in, but they’re all gone, and also she might have been talking about pastries and not tapestries because I don’t speak Hungarian. (I’ve been trying to get the basics down, but most of the time, I’m just smiling at her like a dope while wholly lost as to what’s happening. It’s how I ended up with nine coats.) What I would give for a cronut.
We’re planning on getting a big fat garden up and running in the spring. We have a lead on a used solar kit so that we have some basic 20th-century lighting, but otherwise, BC34 is on a chilly, but well-deserved hiatus until everything thaws and we can put this place back together properly and self-sufficiently.
Anyway. That’s that.
The reason I’m reaching out is that Yuridia woke me up this morning at about 4 am, our time. I think I’ve mentioned it, but Yuri can “feel” magimystic currents, kind of like how we can see or smell. It’s just another sense for her. She woke me up because, as far as she could tell, it was finally gone. Magic. I mean, she calls it “free magiq”, meaning all the wild energy in the world that can be utilized to bring about change.
She can still sense the power the Silver and other forces have hoarded out there, but free magic, our magic, is gone. She said it was like she’d woken up and found she’d gone blind in the middle of the night. And as everyone else woke up, the adepts among us found their powers were gone as well. They had all agreed collectively to curb their skills, if at all possible, but now their abilities are impossible to perform. Port, Ali, everyone you haven’t met yet.
Gav said we’re now standing in the ashes of the Book of Kings. I’m not sure what that means, or what we can do, if anything, to bring about the new age, but… yeah. I thought you all should know.
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everywhere.