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

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. ]

{VOICE OTA}

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