Rosebush island

The woman flustered. "Please, I want to know. And he's not my boss. We're equal partners though he thinks he's the big star of the show (...)" she started by which the man immediately interjected. "I am! This thing would be nothing without me. This bloke is just keeping the island like this and they sell dumb tourist some bullshit story. There is nothing interesting about this entire island," he said and. "Let's go!" he said as he started walking, expecting everyone to follow.

The woman refused to set a single step, and the cameraman looked utterly conflicted.

Roll looks at the three of them, having a slight idea on what to do. He looks at the woman and lowers his voice, "Look, I'll speak to you off the record without those two present, just ditch them or say you'll catch up. You get the answers you seek and I get to keep myself myself away from what ever he is planning."

The woman looked at the cameraman and nudged her head telling him to go after the guy storming off. The man looked delighted and just bolted. The woman sighed deeply and nodded. "About time someone called the nobhead out," she said. She took a little pause and then turned to Roll expectantly. "So, what's the deal? And please don't tell me his rambles are true, I'm not buying it."

"The best thing I can tell you is that your readings on your equipment are caused due to my magic and it's interaction with things here on the island." Roll answers softly, making sure that no else could over hear. "I touched the talons, used a bit of my magic and saw some kind of weird network. The network's other end is the village and the well, which you saw me at. So there is nothing spooky going on, it's just my magic you're registering." He had no idea if this would fly with the woman at all.

The woman nodded. "I'm still a bit new to the magical universe, but something strikes me as odd." she started and paused for a little while. "Why are you the only one that can interact with this island where everyone else has failed miserably according to documentation held by the city?" she asked quite sharply. "And what kind of network? I've seen nothing about a network of any kind."

"It's due to the nature of my magic which is called Transfusion. It means it can only be used when I channel the magical energy into it. It just so happened the well and the talons are made of metal so my magic reacted to them. The network I saw was metallic and spread all over the island, there is probably no record of it due to no one being able to channel their magic with the structures here." Roll answers to the best of his ability to this woman. He relaxes a bit, wondering what else he could say about it.

"Can't be!" the woman said as she visibly recoiled. "The last tainted mage died thousands of years ago," she said and sighed upon realizing what she said. "Seriously though, you're just someone who can use metal magic, right?" she asked in disbelief.

Roll frowns slightly at the woman's reaction and raises his hands to use air quotes for a certain word, "The "tainted mages" as you call them weren't anything of the sort. That is a history written by people who wanted to justify their actions. To that end, no I do not use metal magic. I came to find answers and to find a truth past the lies that have been told here." He doubt the woman would even want to believe him at this point, but if she didn't, she didn't.

"So transfusionists is the correct term?" the woman asked, clearly overwhelmed. "You don't look tainted to me," she affirmed and nodded. "Can you cast something? Like you did just now that made the wind whistle differently for a flash? I wonder if it's truly you who's giving us the readings."

"It is and I assure you that I am not corrupted, tainted or anything of the like." Roll answers, but at the woman's next question, he looks a bit uneasy, "I'm not that adept at spell casting, it's another reason I came here. I thought maybe I could learn something to help me understand it."

He looks at his sword in the ground, tapping his foot on the grass, "That wasn't exactly me casting a spell, that was more like some weird reaction with my magic flowing into my sword and the rosebush and the island. I guess I could give it a try." He reaches for the hilt of his sword with his right hand and grasps it as quickly as he possibly could.

Just grabbing the sword did nothing really. As he could remember from his touching the talons and the swords at the well in the village, this place is where there was a hole in the underground network of tendrils and metallic roots. This place is also the highest of the entire island.

The woman rose an eyebrow as nothing seemed to be happening. "Are you doing something?" she asked, perhaps a tad bit impatient.

"Well, I'm just grabbing the sword, let me try pumping some of my magic into it and pulling it out." He answers, remember the hole as here and maybe what he did was fill it when placing the sword in. Taking a breath, the young man injects a bit of his magic into the sword, pulls on it a bit while aiming for some of the plant leaves with the edge of his blade.

At first, the same mental nudge occured as when he put the sword in, but the magic added did something. it created a clear image. Or at least, Roll thought it was clear. The image of the talons flashed, and an instant later he could swear he saw a semi-translucent island floating in an ocean somewhere totally different. The water was greenish-turquoise while the waters on melody were deep blue.

Him touching the rosebush at the same time added a whole different sort of tune. Not the horrid screech, but a perfect harmony as Roll has never heard before. Unfamilliar words were spoken and an image formed revealing the location of the destination realm compared to the rest of the magical universe. A planet, one that's not on any map Roll has ever seen.

Then as suddenly as all started, everything faded back to normal. The rosebush wilted and was blown away into dust. Even the woman's gizmo read normal background radiation after spiking for a long time at that one specific frequency.

She looked at him in askance: "What the hell just happened?" she wondered. "This isn't right, this isn't possible. What did you do?"

Roll would find the ugly disharmonious whistle of the wind is completely gone now.

The red haired man slowly comes back to his senses and looks down at the where the plant had been. He rubs his head a bit, but looks to the woman, "I infused my sword with magic and I touched the bush with it as I was pulling it from the ground. Whatever I did, the bush; imparted some information to me and I heard a harmonious tune with what happened. It's like...I made my sword....sing." The young man grows quiet, listening to the wind and finally looks towards the direction of Talons.

"Who makes the sword sing heralds the dawn of a new era," the woman mouthed and looked at Roll, equal parts disbelief as well as awe. She then removed a part of her jacket, revealing a hidden camera she yanked a tiny card out of the camera. "This is the memory card. I don't think the world is quite ready to see this yet," she said. "I'm sorry," she immediately said apologetically.

Roll's eyes darts to the card and back to the woman, but nods. He wasn't happy about it wasn't off the record. "None of the magic dimension is ready for this and what are you planning to do with the card now?"

She extended the hand containing the card. "I'm giving it to you. I'll leave it up to you if you ever want to show this," the woman said and then sighed. "I'll tell my partner I forgot to load up the camera's memory card, but that your explanation was a boring one anyways. He's inclined to believe me when I mention it was boring," she explained and sighed, looking as if she felt somewhat guilty about the whole thing.

Roll takes the card from her and looking a tad guilty that he might be putting her job at risk, "Thank you miss and I'm sorry you have to deal with such a blowhard. I'm sorry if I placed your job at risk due to all this."

The woman barked a laugh. "Pfft, beats working in some dead end cubicle job for some other random blowhard, at least this is exciting," she said. "Seriously though, if you're going to release this, please credit me. That's all I ask. Don't even mention my partner," she said and chuckled vindictively. "Be well friend," she said, made a quick gesture and take off.

"I shall do that miss." Roll answers and watches her leave the site. After a moment, he turns to look down at Kiko, "Well little guy, you're the hero of this quest." He reaches over to pet the bunny, "You really deserve all the carrots you're getting."

Kiko emerged From one of Roll's backpack sidepockets. The little bunny heaved a sigh of relief upon noticing the normal wind and danced a victory dance, definitely liking the foresight of carrots, lots and lots of carrots... And Roll's success of course... But carrots...

Roll couldn't help but laugh seeing Kiko dance, "Come on, let's get off this island." Knowing Kiko would follow, the young man heads back to the docks.