Makara IC

Ketha thinks about Steam's words before asking "Like a medical examination?"

Steam
The genasi starts to stay something, but bites her lip. "I...guess? There's not going to be any fingers slipping into anything, if that's what you're worried about. Just kinda pats and prods. Occasionally a pinch. None of which near any of your bits. Speaking of which," she clicks her tongue and gives an 'okay' sign with a hand. "Yours are very nice. Not that that's what this is about, because it's not. No bit touching. Might be a bit of tail touching, not sure if you count that as a 'bit.'" She blushes slightly when discussing bits, but is otherwise pretty collected. At least, no less collected than 'normal' for Steam.

"Have you done this before? Will I need to remove my armour?" She wasn't quite sure why Steam went on a tangent about her bits...

Steam
"Yes and...mm, not really. Helps to touch skin..." She eyes Ketha briefly before saying, "...scales, but it's gone through clothes and leather before. So I guess that whole thing about your bits was really pretty unnecessary, huh?" She chuckles awkwardly for a moment, before saying with a satisfied sigh, "Ah. Yeah. Good times. So, you ready? I've probably made this seem like a much bigger deal than it is; what's a bit of touching between friends?"

The end of Steam's sentence grows concern and suspicion inside Ketha. "I hope this is not warlock trickery," Ketha calmly concludes...

Steam
"Really? You think I'd try to sneak something onto you? I...oh, that does kind of sound like me. Well...I won't! Definitely just a magic check! Uh...pinkie-promise?" She extends a mostly closed hand to Ketha, only a pinkie extended.

Ketha stares blankly at the extended finger. She briefly compares it to the size of her equivalent. "I will take your word on it," she concludes without moving her hand. She also summons Mibis and instructs the winged snake to stay on guard while Ketha and Steam are distracted...

Steam
"Great! You probably won't regret this!" She reaches inside her blanket and draws out a thick book, bound in leather that is so deep a red it is almost black. A large symbol is embossed on the cover, its many edges radiating out from a central spiral.

She begins incanting, using the same phrases she did moments ago. Tentatively reaching an open faced hand out to Ketha, she moves forward, setting it on a shoulder, before slowly making her way down that arm, and on reaching the end of that moves to the other shoulder and repeats the process, eventually taking a position behind Ketha where does a lot of patting the plate armor, pointedly avoiding any 'bits' areas.

She tries to maintain light conversation with Ketha between saying the arcane phrases. "Any prior hexes or incantations on you that you could tell me about? Don't worry if you can't; classic hex move to ban that."

((Steam rituals Identify on Ketha))

The ritual reveals to Steam that..... Ketha is not under the effects of any spells. While she can get a very vague sense of the ambient magic in the area, it's pretty faint since this spell isn't really meant to learn about magic in that way.

Steam
"Good news!" The genasi says as she takes a step back, having gotten as much information from magically prodding the dragonborn as she could for the moment. "The magic that's everywhere doesn't stop being there when we're also there, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything but being there. So...yay! We've learned nothing and could have done none of this! Also, you're not otherwise cursed. So that's good."

Noticing the amount of exclamation points in the last post, Ketha gives Steam a quick and quiet "Shush", while pointing at the resting party members...

Steam
The genasi gives a quick gasp and a short nod, before adding a quiet "Right. Quiet. Yayyyy."

Steam continues trying to hold light conversation with the dragonborn, asking things about her, like "So you seem pretty comfortable in that armor, have you done a lot of stuff in heavy stuff like that?" and "You said that you came from a farming town, yeah? Which sister city were you near?"
Her voice continues to be relatively quiet, at the start, but as the conversation continues it slowly climbs back up, never reaching quite 'normal' volume, but just a hair under.

"It wasn't near the sister cities," comments Ketha "And I did my training in armour like this."

"How?" asked Ketha. "How one would train, or how I trained?"

"My parents trained me, as did they all my siblings when we were young. Opso-" Ketha holds her tongue as she catches it slipping into Draconic. "-Father taught us magic, Mother taught us how to fight."

Steam
"Family business; gotcha. I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere..." She pauses for only a second in thought, before continuing with a hand wave. "Dunno, it'll come to me later. But family stuff! Much respect for actually sticking with it. My dad tried to get us to do magic stuff too, but it was a lot more 'Theirastra memorize all these scrolls' and 'Theirastra don't climb the pillars' and 'Theirastra don't investigate these super tempting forbidden things'." She huffs a little, before letting out a calmer breath and checking her volume. "That's all part 3 stuff though, we'll get back around to that another time probably. For now though, Ketha! What brings a family-trained-sword-wizard-from-a-small-village-not-near-a-sister-city all the way to the the mildly cursed ruins above? Some sort of noble quest of destiny?"

Steam
The genasi cocks her head, unsure. "Did you? I don't think we got there quite yet. I remember swapping stories about our meetings with the guard-bandits, or 'gandits' as I'm going to refer to them as from now on, but I don't remember chatting up why we came here. Well, Parveth chatted that part for me, but still pretty sure we're lacking you and Adelinde's biz. Wait...no, Adelinde was doing like a tour of the cities, yeah? Were you there for that? Bleh, too much to keep track of. Regale me with your tale once again, forgive me ever so much if you have told me it before." Steam finishes her mock eloquence with a curt bow before sitting on the floor, tightly huddled inside her blanket and grinning excitedly as she awaits Ketha's tale.

Whether Ketha is simply thinking hard on how to tell or tale or just dozed off, Steam doesn't know as her ritual finishes and she learns a few interesting things.

The four doors (front, two side rooms, and the room filled with junk) all appear to have magic of the abjuration variety on them. The Lockand does as well, abjuration especially but also other kinds are there but too complexly for Steam to read the aura well enough to know which kinds specifically. Also there appears to be another large object (large as in around the size of the doors, not say the entire room), which also appears to have strong abjuration magic, somewhere around 15 feet beneath the room, not dead center but to a side as well. This is odd since Steam knows this spell doesn't penetrate solid stone or... really very much solid anything.

Steam
Noticing the dragonborn starting to drift off, Steam gently says, "Ketha? Not time to go back to sleep just yet, though..." She yawns, "...it is pretty tempting..."
Still eying the magic source, she begins scooting herself across the floor to the spot roughly above it.

Steam finds herself wandering over in the direction of the larger side room.

Ketha shakes her head and rubs her eyes before opening them after a yawn. "I was awake," she states in a sleepy voice, "Just thinking. Where are you going?"

Steam
The genasi looks up from intently staring at the floor. "Huh? Nowhere. Just creating a better flow for the room, y'know? But uh, I'd asked about your reasons for coming to the ruins?"