Silly Plots 3: With government backing we can make it very silly

[Morty]

[An Epic Journey]

Thariza looks at the smoke with some suspicion, but hangs back and lets Willa do what she has to. If it gets them home quick... way, is the Nexus home by now and not Tyria? That's not a thought she expected to find going through her head...

[Shadowcaller]

[An Epic Journey]

Willa smiles and accepts Corvus’ help.
”Thank you, but I shouldn’t need any extra supplies if everything works as promised.”
Willa shouldn’t have trouble making the circle and calling just as she was instructed when this whole thing began.
She just has to hope that the extra passengers aren’t a problem.

[An Epic Journey]

As soon as the circle is complete, the space above it begins to fill up with a thick, greasy smoke. A voice emerges. "Ah... Is it time at last?" The voice is a low and quiet. Those gathered might feel a sense of vertigo looking into the smoke.

[An Epic Journey]

Thariza looks at the smoke with some suspicion, but hangs back and lets Willa do what she has to. If it gets them home quick... way, is the Nexus home by now and not Tyria? That's not a thought she expected to find going through her head...

[An Epic Journey]

"It's fine." Ambrosia remarks quietly as she seems to detect Thariza's tension. "This will be our way back. I had planned for us to stay longer but it seems like circumstances is having us going straight back. I'm not going to hand over this until whoever hired them has agreed to teach you though."

[Deathkeeper]

[An Epic Journey]

Willa nods.
”Yes. Our group has grown, but it is time.” she tells the voice in the smoke. She knows not to make anything like an apology to beings like this.

[Recaiden]

See?
Zophiel knew she was nice and helpful.

Zophiel smiles. "Great! A mile east." She starts to head eastward, but then turns back to give the very nice woman a wave. "Good luck picking your..." What was it she was picking? It didn't particularly look like any medicinal herbs Zophiel knew. "...herbs." Generic catch-all term.

Zophiel then continues in a direction that is eastward, but that goes towards the creek faster than just going straight east. A probably-southeastern direction, at a slightly-faster-than-brisk pace. There are, after all, still wolves around. She imagines they'll leave the white woman alone, but they'll probably still follow Zophiel until she manages to get back over the creek.

She also wants to get back over the creek again before another works-with-a-spirit-and-probably-is-a-werewolf person tells her 'you're not supposed to be here'.

I doubt Zophiel sees a woman when she turns back to wave. Just leafless trees and the whiteness of snow, and not a woman sweeping away into the woods with a basket of hemlock and snakeroot. But maybe she'll catch a glimpse.

Regardless, the directions seem true, and the wolves don't attack the paladin, just follow at a distance.
At her more than brisk pace, she'll soon come to a peculiar tree, twisted, lightly weathered, with its light tan bark in strips. It's gangly and few of branches; it still has a lot of growing to do. There's no other vegetation near it; as if the other trees are avoiding it.

[5a Violista]

The woman was hard to see even knowing where she was when she was right there. It's doubtful Zophiel could see her after walking away.

Compared to the directions of "go until you reach a river that only some people would consider a river", if this is the correct tree then it's a really good landmark. Stands out, separate from everything else - Zophiel was almost worried she'd have to look through an entire forest tree by tree to find the right one.

Okay, so she's crossed back over the creek, she found the tree, her legs are wet and freezing, her hands and ears are cold, and it's getting close to sunset. Since the wolves have demonstrated that they won't cross over the creek, Zophiel takes advantage of this opportunity to warm up. She holds her hands under her armpits to warm those up first. Once they're warm enough, she leans against the tree - so that she doesn't have to sit in the snow to comfortably warm up her legs.
She reaches under, picks off the snow that's attached to her boots and skirt, with her jacket rubs off the water that's formed on her legs, and then uses friction and movement again to get the feeling back in her legs.

Once she feels everything's good now, she checks the location of the sun to get her bearings again (after all, while she started heading off in a singular direction, after going off path enough times there's the possibility that her internal compass is now pointing the wrong way) and heads south.

[Recaiden]

If it's not the correct tree, it must be a terrible landmark for fooling one so well. Who would use this tree as a reference if there were two of them in the same forest?

The sun only gets closer to setting as Zophiel warms herself up.
But she is safe from the wolves.

Heading south quickly brings her out of the tress, to a clearing. Well, it's pretty clear of trees, anyway. It's still full of grass. Tall grass. Taller-than-Zophiel, sticking way up out of the snow grass.
In the cleaning, it's a few degrees warmer - not so much warmer that there's no snow, but noticeable.
The tall grass is full of creatures, watching Zophiel with or without eyes, scampering around with or without hearts. The air is full of the buzzing of bees((?) no, wasps) coming from the far east side of the clearing.

More importantly, there's a building, a wizards' tower! The tower seems to shift as you look at it, like a holographic engraving. Is it square or round? Is it black or white? Does it have individual bricks or is it one piece of stone - or is it wooden? Does it have five turrets or none? Is it capped with shingles, or are those the branches and leaves of a tree like the one she used as a landmark? None of these questions have answers.
But there's definitely a door around on the other side, where the grasses have been cleared away a bit to make gardens.

[5a Violista]

The paladin is really glad that it's warmer - even though it's not warm enough yet. She stands on her toes, trying to peer over the grass and wishes she were taller. Being tall is one of those things you take for granted because for as far back as you can remember, you were always tall and everything else before that was just a false memory implanted into you, and so the only experience you've had being short are those few times you were a woman, where you've had more things to think about than just being shorter than normal. And, sure, all of that is probably a common enough experience that Zophiel isn't the only one feels that exact way.

As Zophiel walks through the grass, she gets the feeling like anything could jump her at any moment. That's the sort of feeling tall grass gives. She's not entirely sure about what she's seeing or hearing, with the bugs and the structure...the only thing she knows for sure is that it seems to be in flux, but still keeps the same general pattern.

Since she can't see over the grass, she has to walk right up to the tower in order to find where the door is. Once there, she circles around to the side with the gardens, and...yeah! That's got to be the entrance. It's too late to turn back and procrastinate the explanation any farther.

She walks up to the door and knocks. "Hello?" she calls out.

Then, realizing that a random woman knocking on the door, who is more dressed for spring weather than winter weather would give a wrong impression, she adds one more thing to clarify everything. "It's Zophiel."

[Recaiden]

The door swings open.
A kobold in a butler uniform waves Zophiel into the tower, telling her that she's welcome, as Lady Danir has been expecting her to come. Let's take that snowy jacket and hang it on the coat rack, and perhaps Zophiel would take a seat by the hearth, and get warmed up properly?

Inside, the tower seems to be all wooden. Besides the aforementioned fireplace, there's stairs up, stairs down, a rounded doorway leading to a hall and into a kitchen, where you can hear someone cutting vegetables. Shelves with books, shelves with magic widgets, a coffee table with an eclectic variety of seats around it, and some shuttered windows (although there didn't seem to be windows outside), a record player (quiet at the moment), and a tiny airplane hanging from the ceiling.

Besides the butler, the room also contains two little dragon hatchlings (black scales, lots of fins) who had been chasing each other across the sofas and footstools. When Zophiel arrives, they freeze, and one bolts downstairs while the other bounds over towards the visitor.

[5a Violista]

Zophiel thanks the kobold for taking the jacket, and as was suggested, moves over to the hearth to warm up.

It's really helpful, actually: much better than a campfire. Because with a campfire, you're either crouched, sitting on something cold, or sitting on snow. After finding an appropriate place to sit and sticking out her legs to warm those up first, she finally gets a chance to look around at all the neat things.

She can hear that the kitchen's over there. There's lots of shelves - which makes sense. All the chairs suggests that guests come over semi-frequently. And...oh! It's a baby dragon! One that came up to her.
Zophiel holds a hand out, palm up, to show that she's not a danger, and then says to the little dragon, "Hi, how are you?"

[Recaiden]

The butler nods politely at Zophiel's thanks.

The baby dragon bounces over and reaches up to put both her front claws on Zophiel's palm.
"Hi! I am fine." the wyrmling says in a practiced manner.
"If you're Zophiel, why don't you have any swords?" Getting right to the important questions.

[5a Violista]

Honestly, Zophiel wasn't really expecting the wyrmling to talk back. Right, she thinks. Dragons can talk here. Should've expected-slash-remembered that. She manages to conceal her mild surprise by blinking a couple times.

She keeps her hand still.

The dragon's right, though. Not having swords is probably one of the most important questions. "I didn't bring them because I didn't think I'd need them today," she says, neglecting to mention that half the reason they weren't brought is because she still needs more practice using them with this body. "Why, is there a reason I should have them?"

Asking this dragon's name before continuing the conversation is only polite, right? "You know my name, so what's your name?" she asks.

[Recaiden]

That doesn't conceal anything, Zophiel. It just makes you look more surprised.

"Why didn't you need them? What if a monster appeared?!"
The most important reason is that having giant swords is part of Zophiel's image, and without them, is she really a Zophiel at all? But the wyrmling doesn't know how to say that.
"I'm Ayako!" she announces proudly. Then she takes her claws back and runs around Zophiel in a little circle.

And there's the sound of someone coming down the stairs.

[5a Violista]

If the wyrmling managed to get that point into words, then it would be really convincing. As it is, Zophiel hasn't really had time to think about that particular point yet. "Are there a lot of monsters around here?" That was less of a asking a question and more of just stating it, because the answer doesn't really matter - the fact is, Zophiel doesn't have swords here right now.

She watches Ayako run around a little, but as soon as she hears the sound on the stairs, the paladin turns her head to see who it is.

[Recaiden]

"No. Just the ones mom brings."

Coming down the stairs is Cleo, of course. She's wearing a fancy gray dress instead of her wizard robes and hat, but she still has her sword. It would be silly to go anywhere without your sword, even in your own house.
"Zophiel! I'm so glad you made it. You didn't have any trouble finding the place, did you?"

Then, looking over the room, "Ayako, I expect you haven't been bothering her." Right? Will Zophiel confirm that?
Ayako nods quickly and scrambles over towards the staircase.

[5a Violista]

Zophiel sees Cleo and smiles.
"Yeah! Thanks. I did get a little lost after getting to the stream, but some people were willing to help me out," Zophiel says, seeing no reason to lie about what happened.

She watches Ayako run off. "It's fine, we were just talking a little," she says, confirming that there's been no bothering going on.
The paladin stands up, as a greeting for Cleo.

Unsure of where to start, Zophiel rubs the back of her neck and just says, "Your place is pretty nice."

[Recaiden]

"Ah, sorry. But you finally made it." Cleo's smile doesn't dip for a moment.

Ayako looks up to Cleo.
"Good. Why don't you run on to the pool?"
"Aww. Ok." And the wyrmling disappears down the stairs.

Cleo comes and sits down next to Zophiel.
"Oh, thank you! I helped build the place, a, a while ago now."
She doesn't need to rush into an explanation. Now that she's here, it should be easy to make sure she doesn't slip off without giving some answers.

[5a Violista]

If you're ever trying to avoid explaining something, you should always have your emergency exit in mind.
Zophiel, however, didn't plan out an exit strategy.

She sits back down once Cleo does.

"That's nice," Zophiel responds, trying to think of some way to transition into the explanation. Since that's failing, she instead just continues the conversation. "So who else lives here with you? I saw two little dragons, a butler, and I heard someone else."

[Recaiden]

Luckily she avoided asking about the details of the shifting tower. It's quite a topic, and in impressive piece of architecture/botany/chronomancy. One could discuss it for quite a while.

Cleo has a bit of trepidation about answering that question, but it also makes her smile wider. There's a lot of options for answering this.
"You've met Buko." that's the butler. "That's Marea in the kitchen, also works here. There's two more little dragons, and one bigger one, that's just in my part of the tower. Then there's Spako (my fellow wizard) and I think Sylvess stays with him sometimes. Æternius may still be here somewhere, but we never see him. Finally there's Batu, the apprentice. And Sandstone is here so often she basically lives with us." So no more than 13 people. It could fit several more.

[5a Violista]

Zophiel will keep that topic in mind in case she ever wants to put everything off even farther.

Sure that she probably won't be able to keep all of these people in mind, Zophiel just listens instead of trying to remember it all. "I see." Nod, nod. "It sounds exciting here," with so many people.

"So..." She leans back in her seat. She sighs. "I promised an explanation, didn't I?" That's as good of a way as any to start off an explanation, right? But, in spite of that, she says, "I don't even know how to start it all."

"I guess the main points would be why I'm a woman now" but not why her shadow's not; that's unrelated, "why I left in the first place, the old Order I used to be in? I ended up dismantling it" ('dismantle' is a euphemism for 'destroy', in this case) "I've found out that a large number of my memories from before coming to the Town - I mean the Nexus - are fake...and I said I found a temporary solution to the reason I left? I should probably explain that, too."

Zophiel runs her hand through her hair. "They're...they're all related, so I'm sure I'll explain all of it, but is there any part you'd like me to start with?" or, alternatively, any part that Cleo's already basically figured out or doesn't care about, and so can be skipped over.

[Recaiden]

"Let me guess: you're a woman now because you originally were, so even after you got cured of that contagious curse that's going around, you stayed this way. I know how these things tend to work." And your shadow's like that thanks to being influenced by Anchor's shadow. We all know what's going on there.

After that, though, Cleo leans forward in her seat.
"Not to skip over the fake memories thing, but let's start with the temporary solution."

[5a Violista]

"...Yeah."
"You got that pretty quickly."
Zophiel laughs and feels pretty foolish. "That's a huge weight off my chest. That's one of the things I like about you. I spent so long worried about how I was going to explain it, but you caught on before I even said anything." That actually really simplifies things.

"But it's not that I was originally a woman, but rather I'm her, but she isn't me. If that makes sense." It probably doesn't. Zophiel's had a hard time trying to come up with a way to describe it, and that was the best description she could come up with. Zophiel leans forward and looks down at her knees. "Like...even if I die, she's still around but if she comes back, I stop existing." This is, of course, just conjecture because if Zophiel had ever tried it out and stopped existing, then she wouldn't be here to explain it, but if Zophiel tried it out and didn't stop existing, then she'd know that she was wrong.

Okay. On to the part Cleo's curious about. "So, basically, there was a seal that started coming undone about the time Alkania was born, that was keeping me and her separate. A couple years ago, I've come up with a four-part seal that effectively does the same thing. It could be permanent so long as I only focus on maintaining it, but..." She trails off, not really wanting to admit the real reason it's temporary. The paladin does say it, though, because it's something that could be easily inferred: "...but I got lonely." That's a dumb reason, right? Zophiel sighs. "Pretty ridiculous, right? And being in the Nexus seems to be quickly chipping away at the seals. That contagious curse? Completely destroyed the physical seal, and I have no idea how I'm going to get it back."

She turns so her back faces Cleo. At her nape, some relatively-fresh magic-infused ink can be seen. "The one here," pointing at her back, "seals away my powers and I have to reapply it every week, and sooner if it rains." She faces back forward. "The other two are a mental thing that weakens when I get distracted, and a more...spiritual one that's going to eventually break no matter what I do."

So, yeah. "Temporary because once that fourth one falls apart, all it will take is a curse, followed by antimagic, and something distracting me and then that's it."

Zophiel's glad she finally told somebody about this.

[Recaiden]

Cleo smiles at the moment of laughter.
"If it helps, this isn't how I normally look either." she offers.

But then things get much more concerning.
"So the man we knew was the seal, in a manner of speaking? Your past and your body fabrication to keep her away?"
That's, uh, that's a pretty terrible situation, Zophiel.

"It's not ridiculous. I've been through being perfectly isolated for years. I know how lonely it is. To do it forever doesn't bear thinking about." It was much easier by the second decade, but only because she knew it would end someday. "So the spiritual seal is doomed - why is that, by the way?, the magical seal is short term, and the other two are quite breakable." There are lots of implications of this that she doesn't want to get into at the moment.

Thus, on to the most important (to Cleo, at the moment) question.
"Who was she?"

[5a Violista]

"Yes, that's essentially it," Zophiel says, confirming that her past self was, in a matter of speaking, the previous seal.

Cleo asks the two questions Zophiel was dreading the most. Yes, that's probably the most important question to Cleo, and the spiritual seal one is also pretty important to Zophiel, so obviously it's the questions the paladin avoided the most. She's never actually said these out loud, since she was hoping not saying them would mean they weren't actually reality. "The spiritual seal is basically just the remnants of the previous one." She sounds pretty somber about this, likely because of what this implies because of what the last seal was. "From what I can tell, the only way it was maintained was through extremely painful demonic magic and periodic mind-wiping." This is something that he started to figure out before leaving the Nexus and had been foreshadowed a little bit way back then.

There.

She said it.

And saying things out loud means you can't lie to yourself any longer about it not being real.

Zophiel sighs, then flips her head back. "Basically...she's a sadistic goddess of assassination, among other things.. Doesn't care about others. Would probably be okay with being alone forever. Basically, the opposite of me...I think that was intentional. My homeworld...basically, time and space were being destroyed and the presence of the divinity was the only thing that could reverse it. She refused to help, so they sealed her away and were using me instead." Seems like a reasonable response, right? She wasn't actually necessary for the plan to work, anyway.

"...so, yeah. I guess that's it. Kinda depressing, right? Know any way to raise the mood?"

[Recaiden]

Well, that pretty much explains what's wrong with the old seal. Painful demonic magic is best used...not at all. And repeatedly erasing Zophiel's mind isn't an option.
"Lighten the mood?" Cleo flicks her hand, and the record player starts going.
"I could tell you about the things that happened to me, but I don't know that we should be trying to lighten the mood. That- it's extremely depressing!" she cries.

"Last big question - what's happening to that world, now that you're here?" How awfully pointless if space and time collapsed anyways.

"It seems like there's three main options:"

"Undo the seals and just put an end to it all. But you'd be gone, so that one's out." Although if she didn't know Zophiel already, she'd be very tempted. It'd be so easy. An enchantment-breaking and some conjured water...the situation that the assassin of the gods is in is just awful. Even if she's as bad as Zophiel is good, people don't deserve to be sealed inside paladins to have their powers used to preserve the world against their will.

"Fix the containment. I'm, uh, not bad at magic, if I can say so. I'm sure we could rebuild the physical seal, and probably improve the drawn one. Make it waterproof, if nothing else." Sealing an evil deity is exactly the sort of thing people come to wizards about. I'm sure she can help.

"Or, we find some way for you both to exist, so you can just be you, without all these seals and worry." Move Zophiel to another body, or find the Zophiel that was within the goddess all along and bring her to the surface, or maybe they can pull off something with time-travel...

[5a Violista]

"Even if it is depressing, if you want to talk about it, go ahead." But it's not necessary. The music does help with the mood, though.

"Honestly," Zophiel shrugs. "At this point, I don't really care what happens to that world." That's one thing the seal has in common with the sealed. In fact, it might just be because the seal has weakened that it's adopted some of the viewpoints of the sealed. Or maybe they're just not complete opposites in the first place. "It'll probably still be fine. Me not being there might make it a little harder, but in the end it won't change anything one way or the other." So it's still awfully pointless and pointlessly awful.

Zophiel listens to the three options. If given the choice, Zophiel would prefer to not be gone, so she agrees that the first option isn't really an option.

She also gives her opinion on the other two. "I like the second one - it sounds very possible," she says, starting with the benefits of that option, "but it also sounds like it's just a stopgap." And then, "Making it waterproof or making it last longer definitely sounds great, but basically everything I know about magic seals is basically from trial-and-error. To fix the physical seal, we'd need some sort of flesh-shaping stuff or permanent transformation that doesn't depend on magic to work..." 'permanent', of course, referring to how it would affect a normal person. Eventually, something will come along to allow this form to re-assert itself, but that's as good as Zophiel could hope for.

And, option three, "That option sounds nice," she says, "but I can't imagine how it would work." Which is why it's good to talk with and get help from outside sources, Zophiel. If you just kept this all to yourself, you wouldn't have somebody who probably could figure out something actually consider how to make it work.

[Recaiden]

Cleo sighs. Poor world. Poor Zophiel.

"Well, I suppose so, but even a stopgap is better than nothing." How long did it take Zophiel to lose half his seals in the Nexus? That can't go on like this.
"So maybe turning you to clay, sculpting you back how you should be, and then turning you back would do it? Or track down some of those things that changed me the first time. And upstairs we have lots of special inks for enchanting - usually not people, but they would work for most seals. Or could it be tattooed on for good?"

"But as for actually fixing this for good..." Cleo taps her hand on the hilt of her sword; outside the wind howls, and the fireplace jumps up. "The sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven was forged to sever gods from their vessels and sources, and it does this very well. It also makes an excellent gardening tool. I suspect I could cut behind you and separate out the goddess from the paladin. But it can be unpredictable." It could do anything. There's a not-inconsiderable chance that some other spirit would see the empty space behind the seal as a cozy retirement home and hop in.

"We could take your soul out of your body, and put it somewhere else. Then perhaps we could maintain the physical and painted parts of the seal safely, without you putting them at risk. But perhaps the goddess would be wherever you were? Although if so, we...no, one shouldn't multiply Zophiels unnecessarily. Multiplying goddesses, though..." She'll probably need to do a lot of studying these seals. "Would you mind being taken apart and put back together a few times, for research purposes?"

"Or perhaps if you briefly stopped existing, you could be recreated without her. Would there be any way to contact this selfish goddess, without undoing the seals all the way?"

[5a Violista]

Zophiel gives her thoughts and feedback on each of the suggestions.

"I think either of those ways to change my body sound like they could work," she says, "but if you change my body to clay, I don't think there'd be enough clay," given how much more massive Zophiel's old body was compared to the current one. "...but I don't know how that magic would work, anyway, so maybe it'll work out."

"Special enchanting ink would be strictly better than what I'm using in every way," she then says, "and...I've considered a magic tattoo. It'd last a lot longer but I feel it'd still be susceptible to magic removal, and if that happens I won't be able to re-infuse it with magic on my own." And then, thinking back to Marlick Bay and what happened with the siren call, she adds, "and I can think of some situations where it'd be helpful to modify the seal; which I imagine to be a bit harder with a tattoo."

"Cutting me separated or taking out my soul both seem...I don't know. If you think they'd work, go ahead, but I don't know enough about souls or multiplying godessess or whatever to say one way or the other what I think about it." But she's a little worried they might also sever her paladin powers or have other similar weird effects. If she's going to be doing stuff at VIGIL, she imagines doing something that could remove her powers to be non-optimal.

"If there's other options available, I'd rather not stop existing, even if it's temporary...but I'd be okay with being taken apart and put back together however many times is necessary."

And, finally, Zophiel considers the last question, and does mental calculations[?] and uses her finger to mime drawing symbols in the air. "I could...probably modify some of the seals in a way that it'd let her partially free," she says, sounding unsure at the beginning of the sentence but getting more confident and sure as the sentence goes on. "...Yeah. I think I could do that, but I'd have to plan out what changes I'm making first."

Then: "But, I'll let you decide which you think sound like the best options to try," Zophiel says, "because I trust your judgment and you probably know better than I do how they'd turn out."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Felix’s Tower]

Krayger considers the question. Is he being offered a job?
”Well, I can say that I likely won’t be any more noisy than your current tenants. Hooves and stone stairs aren’t the best combination for quiet passage but I have had a lot of practice trying to be polite about that.”
He shakes his head.
”But in terms of them at least, between my nephew’s job and Dipsnig’s wolves I dare say my family does have quite a bit of experience with animals.” Though he doesn’t think Felix’s animals might be as animated as some of the ones he knows. He doubts that the cat that vandalized the guest bed would turn and ask for a beer like Xun would.

[Felix's Tower]

"Well, if you don't mind taking a bone with you and storing it someplace safe, it can give you easy access to my tower. But-" Felix leans forward, fixing Krayger with his gaze and slowly wagging a finger. "No guests. No visits for friends. Not so much as a casual mention of this place, understand? But that way, you can borrow a book or two of mine, and stop by with those other books of yours whenever it's convenient."

[Deathkeeper]

[Felix’s Tower]

Ah. So it’s a library card. A morbid library card.
Krayger nods to the old mage.
”Aye. I can keep a secret, sir. You can count on that. And...thank you. I know that it’s a lot to put trust in someone you just met. I just hope that I can make it worth it. The people I spoke to, ah, seemed doubtful that someone my age would be able to learn much, apprentice or self-taught.”
He knows it sounds silly to say that in front of someone he knows is much older than him. But it did sting to be told that they simply refused to accept students after their teens.

[Recaiden]

Cleo is of the opinion that possibly releasing an evil assassin goddess and ceasing to exist is just, you know, a bit higher priority than being able to help VIGIL as effectively.

"Okay, so the first thing is to get you better ink to redraw the seal. Wait right there." Cleo hops to her feet and heads upstairs, humming excitedly.
She'll come back a minute later with a huge pot of glimmering black ink, and a little note.
"Here. And there's the ingredients you'll need to bring when you need more."
Soot that's never touched the ground, the scale of a mermaid, a silver coin, you know, normal ink ingredients.
"Waterproof, doesn't run, holds magic very well. You're probably making the right call about the tattoo, with all the strangeness that can happen."

"Clay is pretty malleable; you're not that much smaller now. Okay, maybe you are. But not just any clay will do for adding back the mass. It wouldn't have the fine structure it needs."

She'll hold off on announcing which solution to pursue until they've fixed the earlier seals.

"And, uh, I understand why you left." Cleo doesn't say that Zophiel should have told her back then. But she should have!