spellminders | {VOICE OTA}

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{VOICE OTA}

[Today you feel a few strange pulses in your signets before you hear anything over Qri's network. It's fairly pleasant, exactly as the signet communications tend to be, and fortunately doesn't at all resemble the strange fluctuations that plagued everyone back on days 103-105. It's more like someone poking at the network to be sure it's stable and not going to do any more of that before they speak. They seem to conclude it's safe after all.]

Hello? Oh, hi-- hi, everybody. It's Geir. If you don't know me, I'm the dragon.

[He's very matter of fact about it. He's the dragon. You're probably aware, his tone seems to say.]

Listen, I don't actually care if you know me, you should just help me and Nines out! He knows all kinds of technology things, so I asked him what we could find out about the Hub with them. But the question is really, what does everyone want to find out? There's been a lot of weird to chew on!

Chew...on? [9S echoes this thought quizzically, for an instant quite distracted. But right, right, the matter at hand—] Er, anyway, like Geir said we’re lacking data on our surroundings. And to know what we’re dealing with, gathering more would be best, so I was thinking I can probably scrape enough parts together to build a pod for that job, once we know what kind of information it should collect. I mean, unless we want everything...

[Geir's tone is still bright and interested. he loves hearing about this, even if part of him is still skeptical.]

Nines isn't even the only person who knows how to build... robots. I know a bunch of you build stuff. Who wants to help?

[9S clears his throat, quietly tacking a little disclaimer on:]

...Not that pods should be mistaken for machines or anything.

[When your kind’s fought machines for millennia certain lines get drawn. Thin, confusing grey lines. (Geir doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just lets it stand.)]

((both 9S and Geir may reply to your toplevels, and also feel free to jump each other! this is the start of a player plot to get a little more technology on the island. ♥ more details here!))

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That's not what I-... never mind.

[ It would take him too long to explain, and that's more effort than he wants to infuse into this. ]

I guess my big question is where all the technology even went. Has anyone actually covered the whole island?

[ Not that he's volunteering, but it would be nice to know if someone already did the hard stuff for him. ]

[in honesty, Geir understood the question that Noctis was asking, but decided to answer teasingly because he's been asked variants of "are you REALLY a dragon?" a couple of times now. it's become equal parts comical and annoying, depending on how and when it's asked... but the mild tease seems to have gone over Noctis's head this time, and he decides not to pursue it further. it was probably a little ungenerous of him to react like that, anyway -- most humans seem very sheltered about the whole dragon thing. better to move on.

because Noctis's assumption that there was more technology is an interesting one, he instead asks what seems like the obvious question to him:]

How do you know that there was more technology than this here in the first place? I don't think all worlds must have it. Mine doesn't.

[in fairness, though, he doesn't know for sure that it wasn't so. who knows what happened to the people who obviously lived here...?]

But, no, no one that I know about has gone over every inch of the island. I think Jay is keeping track of where people have gone so far, if they tell him. Maybe there's more somewhere! It would be nice if we could find out more about what happened here.

You have a point. But don't people from the outside bring things with them all the time? I brought my phone here with me.

[ Not that he intends on leaving it behind, but others may have been more careless than himself. How do they know someone did come here with a blender or something useful? ]

There's probably stuff like that just thrown around everywhere.

[ Again, he's not volunteering to look for it but someone should. Maybe a talking dragon with awesome flying powers who can easily traverse the island faster than himself. ]

I don't know what people bring with them. I didn't bring anything.

[he supposes that someone could ask the coven at large the way he's doing for this other topic, but surely if anyone had a piece of technology that would materially change everyone's lives, they'd just say something if they wanted to offer it...? he thinks about what Noctis is suggesting to do with that priority, instead.]

So if Nines made something to learn more about the island, that's what you'd want it to find out? What technology people used to use here?

[it's an oddly historical bent from Geir's perspective, but maybe Noctis just wants more technology stuff to use, and he thinks that finding it would be easier than making it. that does make sense. Geir has a vague idea that you need pieces of other technologies to make more of them, so maybe he can follow the logic, after all.]

I wonder how he would do that. We can ask him!

You don't really... have hands. I don't think you can carry much anyway.

[ Unless he has a dragon back pack -which is honestly kind of cute to imagine. He has to stop himself from smiling at the mental image, thankful this is only an audio feed. ]

But yeah, that's the gist of it. Was anyone in this place before we got here? The coven and all that I mean.

[ Or was this all uninhabited before their arrival? ]

Oh! I know some people used to be. We found the huts and the mansions here already, I heard -- and there's a bunch of other things scattered around.

We just don't know who they are, or why they left. There wasn't any sign of them when the first few people in the coven showed up.

[and isn't that just ominous?]

[ There are horror movies that start out like this... and abandoned mansions aren't really an ideal hangout. ]

Doesn't exactly sound that inviting. How do we know what happened to them won't happen to us?

I don't know that at all! But as long as I'm around, I'll try to protect the coven if something happens, and I'm pretty strong. So I feel like it'll be fine...

[Geir's tone dips almost into a cajoling range; as unreassuring as that might sound, he is trying his best to be. he genuinely doesn't believe that anything could just kill off the whole coven willy-nilly with him here to protect it -- and he's equally genuinely committed to doing so. he makes the statement without consciously acknowledging his own committment to himself, but it's undeniably there.]

[ He wishes he was as reassured by the dragon's words, but given present circumstances, he's not going to be sleeping easy any time soon. ]

I'll take your word for it. So I take it no one wrote anything down at all? Kind of weird they wouldn't leave records behind.

[ Unless they were certain nobody would come after them. Or just didn't write and spent their time communicating telepathically. ]

You're going to have to ask someone who can read about that one. I've seen-- papers around? I don't know who's found what on them.

[that's an interesting question, in fact. he decides to try to nudge Noctis towards doing something with it.]

I bet if you asked people like this, they'd tell you if they'd found anything! It's sort of bad that we aren't sharing what we've found out. Jay or Kosuzu might know.

M-me? That seems like... kind of a lot of work.

[ He guesses he could broadcast it, but there's no telling what other things he might broadcast with that. Not to mention, Noctis would rather keep his presence pretty low-key and avoid any public appearances. ]

Why don't you do it since you're already asking about other stuff?

I can't read. What would I do with it if people told me what they'd found out about papers and books?

["that seems like a lot of work" was not the reaction Geir expected to that question, and the bemusement in his tone might show it. is Noctis interested in the topic, or not? he guesses the answer must be "not very."]

...I'll mention it to Jay next time I talk to him, I guess. Maybe he knows someone who's already doing it.

Wait, why can't you read if you can talk?

[ He doesn't know what one thing has to do with the other, but if he's already stretching the limits of his imagination by being a talking dragon, then reading doesn't sound too far out of the question. ]

[Geir can't imagine what one has to do with the other either, but none of the logical chains that take him to "why would someone ask that question?" take him to a good place. he's a bit tired of people being shocked he can't read, but if Noctis is asking why he can't read if he can talk, it implies something more -- that if he can't read he's some kind of beast that can't reason and speak, either. he decides not to read that far into it, but his tone does get a bit more clipped in his response.]

Why can't anyone do anything? I never learned. I'll pass on your question.

Can't you just learn now? It's not like there's anything better to do.

[ Not that he's offering to teach him. Someone with more infinite amounts of patience should do that in his stead since he doesn't even know where to start with a dragon. ]

[Geir can't quite believe what he just heard, and he can't help repeating it, either, just to make sure. can he have misheard what this guy is saying? is Noctis really suggesting--]

You want me to learn to read so I can ask your question for you?!

You say that like it's a bad thing. Don't you want to learn how?

[ Don't underestimate the measure of his unwillingness to do something!! ]

If I did, it wouldn't be just to save you work!

[Geir's startled enough that his hard-won attempt at having a sense of tact scrapes off like a bad paint job, leaving only blunt disbelief behind. oh, well. he hasn't managed to get very good at tact yet anyway.]

Um, I don't really care about papers, so I'm not going to learn to read just to find out more about them. I don't think I want to learn to read anyway. That's poet-work. I'd probably be bad at it and thinking about it feels weird.

Shouldn't you do things yourself too?

[he's in the no-tact zone now. it's a very honest place.]

I do things. Here and there. I fished a lot earlier.

[ Which was mostly for his own relaxation, but he did catch a few things to feed everyone else. That was his contribution for the day. ]

Fine, I'll go ask... later.

[ Later probably being never. He's not about bothering a bunch of people with questions. ]

All right...

[what an odd exchange that was. it did make Geir think more about his own reasons for not-quite-wanting to learn to read, though, and he's suddenly not entirely whether "I'd probably be bad at it" is legitimate disinterest, or avoidance for the sake of not wanting to be bad at something. it's not an immediate concern, so he'll put it to the side for now, but it's certainly a new thought.]

Well, good luck.

[ He'll probably need it, considering his low chance of success. ]

Yeah, yeah, catch you later.

[ He couldn't be any less enthused about the prospect. ]

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