spellminders | {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!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Really? Not at all?

[How in the world does that work? Is it a Qri-like situation with nebulous energy sources? Making himself use this phrasing is a struggle, but he's gonna do it!]

Because you're magical?

[...Why did he do it, that sounds so dumb.]

[Geir laughs a little, but at Alphonse's bafflement, not at his use of the Forbidden Word. he's not sure he's going to be able to give him a satisfactory answer.]

I think it's just because I'm a god -- or a monster, or whatever. I'm closer to the Tree than humans, though. It's not quite the same as having magic.

[he wonders if it's worth getting into how hungry he is all the time, but he decides not to. he already knows that that doesn't strictly have to do with food, and this is already a lot for Alphonse, he knows from past conversations.]

Maybe the Tree sustains us because we're supposed to exist. I'm not sure exactly how it works either.

The Tree?

[It's practically an automatic response, but he's not sure he really expects an answer since Geir basically just said he couldn't explain it. There's something uncomfortably familiar in that phrasing, though--something that reminds him of homunculi and their assertions of being closer to the Truth than humans. Combined with talk about gods and monsters it invokes a sense of wariness that's probably noticeable over the telepathy, even if it isn't directed at Geir himself.

At any rate, this is probably not the time to demand an otherworldly mythology lesson.]

...Well, as long as being so far away doesn't interfere with it.

The Tree is-- power. The world rests in its branches, but it's-- it's not the same as a normal tree you walk up to. It's solid when you move closer to it, but closer to it isn't just a place.

[Alphonse isn't wrong to think of the comparison. Geir doesn't know the words "it's another order of existence," and he can't talk about the power of metaphors and how they intersect with the world (and would think it was a bit of a blasphemous assertion anyway), which means that offhand, he can't find words that Alphonse would be sure to recognize about it. he tries one more time anyway:]

We talked about power: I guess you could say, it's something you can reach out and grab if you have power enough. I'll try to talk about it better some othertime, okay?

[losing his nature more than he has already as a result of being far away from home is a scary thought, but apart from the effects of being in a low frequency place for his powers, he hasn't noticed any changes.]

...I guess it's close enough. Or physical distance isn't the same thing. Or it's just part of me enough that it doesn't matter. I don't feel any different, anyway.

[he was born to be hungry enough to eat the world. he's still hungry.]

[Abstract as the whole thing is, it strikes more of a chord with Alphonse than a lot of perfectly mundane descriptions of magic have managed to do. Maybe it's because his own body is sustained through similarly convoluted means.]

I'd definitely like to hear more about how your world works sometime.

[Saying he understands might be a stretch, but he's certainly interested.]

But I'm glad it's not causing you any problems here. I hope you're still eating every now and then, though.

[He is deadly fucking serious when it comes to food.]

I'd tell you. We can talk about it!

[Geir's perfectly willing to talk to Alphonse. he's probably said more about the mechanics of his world and his own existence to him than anyone here, really, even if it's all been highly theoretical; he's not going to start talking about his destructive nature immediately after some of the reactions he's gotten, but it's kind of nice to look at the systems by which he exists the way an outsider would.]

...I do eat, though. Vern always makes me take a couple of bites of whatever he makes. It's really good -- I never had much cooked food before I met him.

[he got scraps, now and again, but not since he got too big to fit under the table in Odin's dining hall.]

I still wouldn't mind knowing where the game was, and how much of it was around, though. It'd make life easier for everyone.

And let us know about any problems in advance. With so many people to feed, I'm a little worried about the rate we're killing things off.

[How many boars can possibly exist on a magic island floating in space, anyway?]

You're probably right to be. I know that the human towns I've seen have wide fields even for just a few people. We don't really have that much land cultivated, do we? And winter's coming on.

[Geir's tone is half-disinterested -- agriculture is not something he has experience or affinity with at all. on the other hand, he certainly doesn't want anyone starving to death either. that wouldn't be looking after the coven at all.]

...we should've probably gotten more food to bring back in Aimintas...

Yeah.

[He restrains himself from another maybe if we'd known more about what to expect rant. Just this once.]

There's not much we can do about that now, though. We'll just have to be more careful if there's a next time.

[It's an optimistic if, but hey, there's a tiny, tiny chance that maybe by some miracle this will all get resolved on the next world and everything will be fine.]

We will be!

[Geir doesn't echo Alphonse's optimism, but he doesn't sound very bothered by it, either. if he's honest with himself, he isn't really ready to suddenly leave the coven any time soon. the Hub and their surroundings have become half-comfortable in his time here, and he's not nearly done talking to people yet...]

That reminds me, though -- you and your brother are okay, right? No supplies that you need?

He'll be better once we're somewhere with real food again.

[He can joke about it, so they're probably fine.]

Thanks for asking, though. It's not the first time we've been in this kind of situation, so we can get by.

You guys seem pretty adaptable. If I'm going to be telling you about where I'm from, you should tell me about your world too, okay? I wanna hear more!

[he thinks of something and adds conscientiously:]

If you don't mind.

[he's getting better at this for sure. he thinks that it's safe to ask this, though. Alphonse is obviously touchy about the whole armor thing, but Geir already knows that Alphonse will talk about how alchemy works in his world without much restraint; he doesn't think it's too nosy of a request.]

[The addition almost makes him laugh, but obviously he can't refuse such a carefully polite request.]

Fair's fair, right? You've got a deal.

Ehehehehehehehe! I'll hunt you down for it when we're done with this!

[in the meantime, they have some robots to build and stations to install. full steam ahead.]

{VOICE OTA}

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