Messages

46

Areas / Re: Little Russia

« on: June 23, 2021, 01:31:16 AM »

Lubei

He seized mid-step, left to stare at Ivanna's early appearance. It was a good thing, not unlike ripping off a sticky bandage from a wound corroded by the unearthly that had finally begun to scab as it should, skipping the process of looking for her. Now, however, it was not his hesitation that attempted to kick his dialogue knees to the ground, but the unmistakeable unease that the angel was radiating.

"In truth, I was," he said, then cast the rest of the sentence to oblivion, breathing. "Yes. Of course. You look disturbed. Is what what you want to talk about?"

47

Areas / Re: Little Russia

« on: June 16, 2021, 06:55:37 PM »

Lubei

Deep in the halls of the Seraph of Little Russia, Lubei's nails drummed on an ornate desk as he attempted to glare understanding out of the pages spread out before him. Curled in frustration, his shoulders strained to keep him sitting straight, but discipline spoke just a little higher. It wasn't as if he was working in an office beneath another's judging awareness, or onlooking colleagues that would dare to scold him for sloppiness. This room had been given him as a guest and an ally, to use for an indefinite time, and he had to share it with no one.

Just as he refused to loosen his poise in private, however, he made no attempt to customize the surroundings. The same high walls with the same paintings, the floor with the same carpeting and furniture, the same grave carvings around the windows as had been provided to him were as visible as before the demon settled in for merely temporary rest. The only addition were books. An increasingly large stack of books made its home on his desk. Most of them related to the history of the Nexus. One was a collection of apparently local folklore. Another dealt with contemporary economic theory. Two of the thinnest were fiction of a sinfully brainless sort, and they were the most untouched.

He rubbed an uncomfortably warm palm on his temple. It seemed to Lubei that any amount of his laboring in this place only produced more issues to worry about. Nothing could be as simple as charity, or conquest and construction by any other name. Demon clan politics and heavy handed vengeance claims were almost preferrable. But most importantly, it didn't matter what he preferred, because he was no closer to knowing how to go back. Every answer he found in these pages only buried that goal further in the future.

But the worst was that he couldn't get that encounter out of his head. He couldn't get Mai away from his thoughts, nor the questions she made him ask, as omnipresent as the bird that haunted him. Lubei had searched for her, after, but their paths had not crossed again. What would he even do if he found her? It was plain they weren't compatible, or at the least they would only engage in mutual punishment through barbed words if they shared the same air. But Lubei still wanted to speak to her again. He couldn't bear the thought of how she planned to continue to live, though he had no rightful say in it.

"Perhaps Ivanna could..." His muffled words died under his tongue as he rose from the chair and slammed shut the book in his hands. It wasn't pride that kept him from asking the angel for help. This wasn't business. But just requesting to hear the thoughts of a friend on a personal complication should be no large burden.

He threw on his coat over his azure tunic and moved in search of the petite ruler.

48

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: May 09, 2021, 04:44:00 AM »

Headmaster

She shook her head with a shallow sigh, and pushed the now-empty cup away from her end of the table. "A heart like the heavens is yet a heart. Are you sure you're not the one who's grown forgetful, Fǔ Wúyí?"

The Headmaster slid her eyes away from the shade as if she had nothing to add, shaking her head as she finished the words. With a flick of her wrist, envelope paper and an inkpen floated from somewhere indistinct into her hands, and she set them down to write what she had suggested.

49

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: April 19, 2021, 09:18:51 PM »

Headmaster

She shook her head in the vague direction of the summoner, a thin and plastered smile playing at her face. "People are as transient as crowns, if not more so. Let one do as they please so long as they seek only to live leisurely or for the benefit of others."

The headmaster reached for a white pastry, thin and sugary in the shape of a cloud puff, and took a bite with the a modest crunch. "Mmm. Nowadays you'll find the Nexus is more dispersed than it has been for some hundreds to thousands of years. Relationships are as complicated as the enmity and debts between a dozen petty states, and every tiny problem they carry... but it is not my place to judge heterogeneity. With that division has come versatility and lessened dangers, at least for the moment."

She licked the sweetness from her lips and regarded Kore with an elegant flutter of the brows.

"I cannot claim expertise with soil composition or the like, but you should not have much difficulty finding an appropriate technician in Campus Town. If if would alleviate your concerns, perhaps I can write a note of address so one of our other professors will spare some time."

50

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: April 05, 2021, 07:36:04 PM »

Headmaster

If the cloaked woman is bothered by the way the scales of this invisible conflict tilt inevitably to the shade's side, she does not show any of it. Her lip barely curves even at the warmth and pleasant aroma of the tea, though she has thanked the shady professor for his troubles as always. Her mind is elsewhere, perhaps many places, but none of them with the smolder of bloodlust. Yet.

"So, Miss Kore, how much of the Nexus has -" And at this she pauses, rolling her next words under her tongue before voicing them, raising her eyes between the two other women at the gathering. "Miss Hua already shown you?"

51

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: March 18, 2021, 11:52:19 PM »

Headmaster

At any other time, the Headmaster might find it in herself to be amused at the endearingly awkward place where the specter's words leave this woman who is a walking axiom. Right now, she wishes to drown herself in a giant mug of coffee, and laments that she can't, because it would mean leaving this group unsupervised.

She squints under the hood, and the eyes half-concealed beneath golden bangs soar through memories that were not hers until she took them. The taunt of the one roiling in resentment is not meant for her, but the woman called the Headmaster is its only recipient. Does it matter whether you mean the shape of the river or the contents of it when you name it? It slips around her, yet hits with the coldness of bitter ages.

"And you are no longer the kind of being that can defeat anyone. Manners would go a long way," she says. Shaking her head with almost eager sincerity as she turns her face to the new teacher and the familiar. "Since you're here despite my suggestion, I hope you have a good selection of sweets to go with the tea, Interim Professor."

52

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 18, 2021, 05:54:50 PM »

Longirsu

"Hmmph." His lips twitched in the ghost of a smile, as he slipped his hands into the folds of his coat, leaving the sample soul safely inside. "Just wait. We will have ourselves a bounty."

Longirsu had not interacted at length with souls as materials, despite his words. Observation was entirely different beast, and one he had only seized a while after rebuilding Ib... but with the ideas he had gathered here, and an object employed by this woman for these purposes to reverse-engineer, he was confident in his chances.

He closed his eyes and reached for the crystal instead. His hand withdrew as if it had touched something too hot, before he put it away too. This was for Ib. Whatever foulness he touches, it will not be her burden. Only his. Only him.

53

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 13, 2021, 09:43:20 PM »

Longirsu

His gaze contemplatively lowered itself. That made sense. A diverse array of samples and high-qualities attributes for experimentation would ensure a better understanding of the variables involved and how they interacted, in work of this kind.

"I'll see what I can do. It won't do to have subpar subjects because the materials were lacking," Longirsu said, before meeting the elf's mien through lidded, purposefully mundane eyes. His idea of a perfect lifeform was far more mechanical. But synthetic was synthetic, whether a masterpiece of flesh or gears. What mattered was the inside.

Not that he would ever allow himself to catch Ib in such oddly cut clothes.

54

Areas / Re: Nexus Campus Town

« on: March 12, 2021, 03:14:16 PM »

The Headmaster

"I'm afraid access to the library is restricted at the moment." The hooded woman pushes the air in front of her to the side, black sleeve swaying, and a tilted bookcase on the floor level shook, dragging itself back into its place against its kin, not one book falling out. She speaks with a thrum of honed patience, "Part of that is so I can work easier on repairs. I have no intention to be a bother, and visitors should respond in kind."

Something invisible and arcane arises as she perceives them. It splits itself from the tasks where it slowly toiled, pushing against Fu Hua's reaching dominion, moving like the mass of an elephant before a creeping predator after its young. The Headmaster's magic does not purify, but it claims nonetheless, and the dark phoenix can feel it in the way it reacts like static against the low tide of her condensed desires.

"Were you looking for something specific? If you notify the groundskeepers, you can still be lent certain volumes." She pauses and tilts her head, slightly to the side, slightly forward, letting them see her golden eyes clearly.

55

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 12, 2021, 03:15:18 AM »

Longirsu

He shrugged in, for once, careless sympathy. That was true. It wasn't as if he hadn't been analyzing everything he could without causing obvious offense. If his eyes were as sharp as she implied hers were... but that was a train of thought for another day. The holy grail wouldn't be fashioned in a single noon.

"That can be arranged," Longirsu said, mouth curving thinly at the suggestion. "Your flexibility is enviable. Were it so easy for all of us who seek something untouchable. But I digress. I might be able to show you something else of interest, when I bring you these... materials. Do you have preferences? If all goes as I suspect, the most easily obtained souls shall be by necessity those of armed combatants."

56

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 07, 2021, 03:33:49 PM »

Longirsu

So many warnings. Worry about the danger of a rival, extending to a new partner? Or merely polite caution from entreating with someome who was as suspect as any of them in their power?

"I don't make a habit of consorting politely with the unreasonable, but I will keep that in mind," he responded, clasping his hands in front of him with a long intake of air. "I will have enough to keep myself busy soon, at any rate. War is a profitable occasion for many things, and I would like to learn more of the expertise you possess with... life and death."

As an exchange, ideally, not a pittance. But as far as bargaining chips went... His instruments and research were made to cut to the strata of all things, but their means were inextricably linked to Longirsu, and that did not make them easy to repurpose. He thought of her house and how she identified herself. If the manner of her abode too, spoke of a measure of pride, a clear point of persuasion presented itself. The inventor was aware of many slaves in Jiral whose features and ancestral traits were similar to Eruraviel's, and likewise identified as elves. He couldn't imagine it would be difficult to bring a number of these captives into his custody and arrange to redeem them into the sorceress's watch in secret. Would she welcome that? Or would she find it a burden? He needed to know her better.

His irises whirled mechanically towards her, and he chuckled dryly. "I would like if you could suffer to not scrutinize me every moment with those eyes of yours, but the impulse is understandable."

57

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 03, 2021, 04:24:25 PM »

Longirsu

"Hah. Keep your secrets then, mad hatter," he scoffed. That was all he could say to not slobber at the information being offered, but his dry distaste was as sincere as it got. Relying on an ambiguous exchange from an even more ambiguous figure? Not a chance.

Longirsu pointed blearily at the device he'd given Eruraviel. "A communicator. No one should be able to easily intercept the wavelength," he said, as his eyes refocused on the sorceress. "No, I have not investigated this Succubus King yet. My current target is the power plant in Columbia. The unease with its neighbors and former parts is set to intensify in the time to come, and I intend to take advantage of that."

The woman's pointed ears stood out to him. Jiral's fixations would not be sympathetic to Eruraviel, nor she to them. Longirsu was not unaware of this, but he had no true allegiance to the militant city-state. They were a means to an end, a shining example of humanity's worst tendencies he was glad to exploit, and once his power base was secure and they could not tear their eyes away from the wars they desired and had made themselves reliant on him to continue, they would be easy to discard.

58

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: March 01, 2021, 08:24:48 PM »

Longirsu

The inventor clicked his tongue, aborting the pleased hum of affirmation he had thought to give. He'd known him for minutes, and William dying of boredom was sounding preferrable to his help. Leave it to this man to remind Longirsu like a thunderbolt in a clear sky how pointless it was to get in a good mood. He would remember that threat, but he wouldn't turn down generosity now. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

He would not be using titles with them after this, however.

"That is fine," he said, nodding to Eruraviel. He retrieved a small object from his clothes, a sealed hexagon of stainless metal as though a closed pocketwatch, and slid it across the table. A gesture for their newly founded cooperation. "I hope in due time, I will convince you this was a wise decision. In the meantime... I should ask. Would I be incorrect to surmise you're aware of the great tear in the so-called Citadel of Sorcery?"

59

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 24, 2021, 04:16:29 PM »

Longirsu

Fascinating. Longirsu took the crystal in his hand and set it carefully on the table before him. Small-minded, if William had never seen the need to obtain more of these even though he had a clear direction to begin doing so. Perhaps merely indolent, if his goals did not necessitate such a thing, if he did not wish to go out of his way to offer this resource to the people of this world.

But he was getting distracted. The lines of his forehead creased in unfocused displeasure, twitching as Longirsu became aware of the dryness in his throat and made a sound to clear it.

"Well. You have heard my intent, I have heard yours. And you do not sound disinclined to what I could bring to the table, nor to being in the know of my progress. So what do you say to the matter of our association... Lady Eruraviel? Sir William?"

60

Areas / Re: The Great Northern Forest

« on: February 18, 2021, 03:46:08 PM »

Longirsu

He raised his gaze, honing it like iron sights on the so-called "lacrima". Stopping the soul vial on the flat of his palm, he pensively covered his mouth with his other hand, and his musings left his lips unwittingly muffled.

"The process is reversible? The structure of the crystal must have qualities analogous to memory alloys, but for energy conversion... I see. It seems you have a point about their value." Longirsu's irises spun, darting to the gems integrated to the elf's body, then back. "Capacity is difficult to compare, but their mechanisms seem different. You say lacrima are naturally-occurring, but their workings are automated with the projection of willpower? Fascinating. A shame that reproducing them is not viable."

In other words, he had brought them up to brag, compared to Eruraviel's methods, which appeared to be a byproduct of her sorcery. But even if William lacked the skills or knowledge to make these... given the time and the resources, it might not be beyond Longirsu.