ꙮ The 36 th Tower, some time after your meeting with Solei. Day’s stretching on - Aurelius probably stepped out for lunch, at some point. May have done some wandering? He’s back in the Common Room when Unua returns from some sort of adventure he was on elsewhere in the complex, at any rate, and he’s still there about half a bell later, when Caion returns.
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- The Dragon
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← Active ScenesThe 36th Tower, VI
#hunter
#caion
#synthesis
is seated on one of the many available chairs, with the tablet resting on top of the desk when Caion arrives. He’s currently leaned over it, using something that looks halfway between a pen and a knife to… carve some kind of circle into the top of it? Though rather than simply scratching the stone, it’s immediately filling it with a dull radiant gnosis.
: “Hallo, Aurelius! Is now a good time? I brought Synthesis along, they wanted to take a look at the work you’d done, but if you’re busy, we can stop back in later.”
: “Oh, no I was basically done. And more eyes on it to make sure it works are always welcome.” A few more notches here and there, and he’s finished. There’s now a large circle covering the center of the table, with a smaller circle inside of that which is a bit bolder and filled in. Small lines surround the larger circle, moving outward from it. Something about it gives you a strong impression of an eyeball radiating power, even if it only vaguely looks like one.
takes a few steps closer, and glances at the tablet. “Ah. Yes. More eyes on it to make sure it works. I get it.” He says it as solemnly as he -possibly- can.
blinks once, then begins to laugh to himself.
grins, amiably. “You’ve done some really incredible work, with that, you know. I’d love to just take a tide or two and study it, once I get the chance. But for now…”
: “Right, you said there was something you needed to ask?”
hovers in, whirligigging in greeting towards Aurelius. “It is I who had something I needed to ask, actually! There is a certain project I spent much time working on. Long ago. My memories of the project are not as clear as I would prefer them to be, but it was, at one time, my life’s work. And talking with Caion and working through a problem he had brought it back to mind. I am looking for inspiration.” They, also, peer at the tablet.
: “Ahah. Well, by all means then.” He spins the pen-knife between his fingers a few times, with it disappearing somewhere in the process as he gives Synthesis a nod.
: “The -short- version is, I think we might be able to use the tablet as a -relay-, because of the properties of the Sealed Space I noticed while I was inside. We’ve got a technique on Samudra- basically a really complex version of the way Archie and I were communicating, before you got here, a way to write text over an incredibly narrow channel, and it turns out that if you can -transmit text- you can do -all sorts of interesting things-, and… well. I’ve reason to believe we can use that to keep in touch. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to come with you when you move on for the time being, but if there’s any -possible- way that I can… know that you’re all okay, I want to give it everything I’ve got, y’know?”
is, meanwhile, transfixed by the tablet. “How does it… work? What do you do?” They keep getting closer and closer to it, feeling out its gnosis signature.
: “Oh. Funnily enough we also had someone else… working on a similar idea, after realizing that long range communications do exist here, just without extensive networks…” Aurelius shakes his head, before gesturing towards the table. “It’s pretty simple, for now. If you just put a hand - er, make physical contact with it? - and then concentrate on the tablet itself, it’ll draw your consciousness inside of it.” He gesture for Caion to demonstrate, since it’d be… slightly more awkward for him to demonstrate first.
boops a single pearl delicately into the tablet at the slightest indication that that’s appropriate to do, and then all of their pearls freeze into place as alabaster, a weird filigree of gold filling the spaces between them, suggesting motion even in its statue state.
: “…was wondering what that would look like,” -and then they go inside, too.
is already exploring every nook and cranny of the Liminal Library- peering UP into the skylights, utterly transfixed for a few moments by something- going from wall to wall, and then, “!”
: “That makes that easier, I suppose.” And he follows behind. Inside: The Library is… slightly different than Caion remembers it? For one, the pedestal with the guest book near the entrance is there now (Aurelius double checks it when entering to confirm if Caion and Synthesis’ names are in the same blue as Archie). And on the far wall, the chalky bookshelves have been removed and replaced by an enormous crystalline pane that looks like a mirror. Only it doesn’t reflect your image, but instead, seems to show a view of the outside world immediately surrounding the tablet instead.
ꙮ Additionally, one of the walls of the Liminal Library has a carefully-constructed, well-crafted setting where a single pearl might go. There’s some haziness around the rest of the wall, but the setting for a pearl is remarkably clear.
: “…ooh, the view-crystal. That’s a nice touch. Samudra being an inspiration, I see. That’s what the eye was for, then, I assume?”
: “Yup!”
meanwhile, is buzzing around the wall with the Pearl-setting in it. “I do not understand. Caion and I only formulated a hypothetical approach last night. Does this Space respond to sensitively to -desire-?”
: “…Is that not where we were going to keep the music player and is something else…?”
ꙮ You don’t remember doing anything to this wall, at any rate. Although you were fussing about in here rather extensively later than was advisable. Maybe you were hit by a stroke of intuition and… forgot about it? You’re the only one who’s been -in- the Library, at any rate, thank goodness for the Guestbook.
scratches at the back of his head, wonder if it was a Jorule thing or a Sage thing.
ꙮ What an excellent question!
: “I mean Solei did mention *pearlcaster* so... but also, Tsem and Tasna's farcasters seemed more crystal based so who knows.“
whirls towards Aurelius, suddenly. “Tasna?!”
: “…Oh, did you know her too…?”
very… quietly… steps towards Synthesis, and there’s no -shoulder- for him to put his hand on, but he tries to be present, and he looks -wary-.
: “Tasna, I…” Their pearls spin and gyre, in increasingly erratic orbits.
scratches at the side of his face. “…Someone already gave you the lowdown on the whole five worlds thing, right…?”
looks up, plaintive-
vibrates, from the inside out, splitting into five streams and then re-melding and splitting and re-melding, increasingly unsteadily-
ꙮ And the sun shines.
ꙮ It shines, so brightly.
: “Uh -“
ꙮ It shines, so brightly, and so kindly, and so gently.
: “Are you okay? … Is he okay? I - it was going to be good news, if it helps…?”
coalesces, in a different shape, bound, impossibly, by Sunlight, speaking with a single, clear voice. “Tasna is alive?”
: “(First Principles.)”
: “She is.”
gnosis-laughs, like Unua’s. “Oh. That’s very good.”
: “That’s… very good.”
: “You are… Aurelius? This work is yours, and your companion’s?”
nods slowly. “Yeah.”
: “It is beautifully made. I wish, so badly, that I had more time.”
: “..It sounded like we’d still be here for a couple more days at least…?”
: “If Tasna is alive, and I was right, then I have no regrets.” They look up at the skylight, in wonder; they look back to Aurelius, and their voice is warm. “My leaf has already fallen, Aurelius. My time is at an end. I am Thesis. I am who Synthesis once was. When Tasna - I had a premonition that she still lived. I spent everything, trying to find proof. I looked with the mind’s eye into the depths of the North where she was lost, and It looked back at me. And then I shattered. And, for some reason, the Light in this space has seen fit to give me this moment.”
: “But it will not last. So.”
: “Ah.” He… looks like he understands, more than a non-pearl usually would.
: “Synthesis has given to you of themself. I will give you a gift that they could not. Caion, your theory is accurate.”
After a moment, he gestures towards the viewing screen. “The alabaster it… it’s armor. Protective. Keeps you safe while your mind is… elsewhere.”
drifts past Aurelius to the viewscreen, and observes the alabaster, and… laughs, and laughs, and laughs. “Of course. Of COURSE. She must have projected herself -fully- through whatever passage she found, rather than stepping through bodily. Tasna, my friend, you brilliant fool. She couldn’t have known what would happen.”
: “Well.”
: “Would you like another gift, Aurelius? In gratitude for this unexplained act of grace which you seem to have facilitated?”
: “…I’m not sure I’ve really done anything to deserve it, but I’ll never turn down Free Stuff.”
: “None of us deserve any of what we experience. Unexplained grace, unexplained tragedy. These things simply -happen- in the only way in which, given specific initial conditions when the experiment was run, they ever could have happened. We’re just along for the ride.” And then they lean in two directions at once…
: “Wait, before you go!”
: “Is there a message you want us to give her, for you?”
steps away from a smaller fraction of themself, manipulates it with their pearl-tendrils. [Tinkerer] The largest pearl from that cloud drifts over to the wall of the Library, and embeds itself inside it. They turn towards Aurelius, holding the rest of the shorn-off whorl.
: “Tell Synthesis to keep singing. Tell Solei I’m proud of them. And tell Tasna…”
: “Tell Tasna that she’s a damn fool, and that I love her very much, and I’m glad she’s still swimming. And that I can, truly, say that I have no regrets. Alright?”
focuses his eyes on Thesis intently, and they shimmer gold for just a moment as he places his fist over his heart. “I will see to it that she knows.” He lets out a breach, then reaches forward towards the offering.
hands it over. “Feed it gnosis if you need to make more pearls. Caion, you should be able to figure out the rest–“ -the sunlight starts to fade.
blinks. (He hadn’t moved, for the entirety of that long, sprawling Moment you experienced in the Light.) “Wait, what-“
says, at almost the exact same moment, “What just occurred? My consciousness was disrupted. That was very unsettling!”
: “Uhh. Well. You were Thesis again, for a little bit. They wanted me to let you know they said… Keep singing.”
: “Oh.” They look up at the skylight, for a few moments. “I certainly don’t intend to stop! There’s so much music in the world to hear, Aurelius…”
smiles slightly. “It’s true, we haven’t even gotten to the halfway point yet.”
: “You say very weird things, has anyone ever told you that? Also, -what- is that… thing you all do with your voice sometimes?”
: “This?”
: “Yeah, that. I thought it was Wolf being Wolf but I swear all of you have done it, even Archie.”
: “Oh. That’s actually really easy.”
: “You just infuse your words with a little bit of gnosis. Hell, you’re even doing it right now. You just don’t realize it. This particular flavor is liminal. You, of course, are using pellucid.”
scrunches up his face. “I was yesterday old when I even properly… learned what liminal gnosis even was. That shouldn’t even be possible, and you say it’s ‘really easy’.” He -laughs-, though. “You and Archie both, I swear.”
wandered over, meanwhile, to look at the wall with the big pearl embedded in it, curiously.
: “It’s so easy you do it without thinking about it! You’re doing it right now!”
: “This is what you’d sound like if you weren’t.”
ꙮ Design diagrams are starting to sketch themselves on the wall in shimmering black ink, slowly and methodically.
: “…it’s a little like what Salme did with her voice when she was telling Solei the story earlier, right? But… in the impossible sixth gnosis that suddenly has always existed?”
: “Yeah, you heard her talking in flourishing during the meeting.”
tilts his head towards the wall.
says, with profound affection, and in devout hope that he’s doing Almachadtan swearing right, “You’re all so fucking weird.”
: “What’s going on with the wall?”
: “Some of us more than others.”
: “Yeah, no argument there.”
: “Uh, speaking of. If you are going to be… hrm. Would Of Clan make sense…? How different are otter clans than Beast clans…? Well whatever. The others have accepted you as part of the larger group and you are obviously very, very important to Archie.”
: “…And we have multiple pieces of Synthesis with us now too I suppose…”
: “…So I guess you should probably know there’s not… exactly six of us. More like… 6.6?”
scratches at the back of his head. “Alright, you’ve got me. Where’ve you got ⅔ of a person stashed away?”
: “…Mostly inside his head.”
: “But sometimes here, or other… liminal spaces between.”
: “OH. THAT’S WHY THIS WEIRD SONG SOUNDED LIKE THE OTHER ONE BUT TOTALLY DIFFERENT.” They flail, but not in a about-to-flail-themself-apart way this time.
: “I… hunh. Okay.”
: “What’s your name?”
: “Yeah, it’s a MUCH cooler remix of Altan Arslan. Thought it would be funnier that way. Anyway, hey. I’m Jorule.”
: “‘Some more than others’, indeed. It’s nice to meet you, Jorule.” He offers to shake hands. “Man, no wonder Aurelius always looks like his eidesis is about to rupture. And no wonder that it doesn’t.”
shakes the offered hand.
: “Hahaha.”
: “Anyway what is happening is that that pearl is starting to integrate itself to a system I was working on.”
: “–oh. That’s what Aurelius meant when he said… huh. Okay.”
: “So… you work on it from your side, whatever the Depths that means, and I work on the interface for it outside based off of Tasna’s designs, and we meet in the middle and shake hands again?”
: “Yeah. I was told that no long range communication networks existed when we got here. And. And! I Guess that was TECHNICALLY TRUE because as far as I know Tasna and Tsem’s farcaster was only a two way thing and… it’s hard to imagine pearlcasters would be wide spread if they require the same pearl splitting off into multiple pieces, but.”
: “Oh, I guess we could do that too if you want. I kinda had a plan for little hand held devices and a UI mock up to better facilitate both the BBS and the video player, but if you had something laying around too that could be an option as well.”
: “We’ve been trying to figure out a way to duplicate the properties that make them work, there’s only a couple of them. And… thanks to whatever just -happened- now we’ve got as many as we need for this project, at least.” And he looks at Jorule and Jorule’s Nouns and just… laughs. “I’ve got a design in mind that I know can interface with the pearls, although it does seem like we’re… alarmingly on the same page and I’m going to consider that a victory.”
: “Oh that’s a good point I hadn’t really thought too hard about getting the pearls linked up with the PDAs since I was still thinking about trying to replicate the crystal farcasters so, hell yeah if you got hardware plan that’d save me some time.”
: “I need to test some theories, but we’ve got a couple of days until the Circle gets its act together anyways.”
: “Oh man, do you know how close HALF of those idiots were to saying ‘lol you couldn’t stop us from going even if you wanted to’ by the by? They’re all so hot blooded with no chill, kinda funny seeing them try and be on their best behavior here.”
LAUGHS.
: “I’m so very glad they didn’t have to, for several reasons. But I can… imagine. Honestly, I’m pretty sure Silver-Throat would have said screw it and taken us where we needed to go with or without permission, but it would have been… mmmm. The Expeditions northwards have an unpleasant history, I don’t want to imagine how people would have reacted to that.”
: “Yeah, that’s fair. Definitely would have made the return trip back here a LOT more ak~ward.”
: “And that’s the best case scenario. It’s… only after I’ve been talking to all of you that I’ve realised just how -much- of our lives are governed by the thoughtstorms. You don’t… think about it, day by day, you know?”
: “Yeah, humans are crazy adaptable and can get used to just about anything. Between you and me though, Samudra definitely wouldn’t be my pick of which of the five planes I’d wanna live on if I had one though.”
: “I’d ask which one -would- be your pick, although if it’s not Almachadta I wouldn’t know the first thing about it. I briefly saw images of it, in Salme’s Mask. And she and Wolf are- they’re both very good people. I’d like to see their world, sometime.”
: “If you’re curious, there is a mind melting guide about ‘em you could peruse, so long as you’re bubbled.”
: “Why is there a…”
just shakes his head.
: “I assume Aurelius or the Awoken has it, if it’s mind-melting?”
: “Sometimes we’re you doing magic you get a bonus.” He produces a strange coin in one hand, and a pamphlet in the other.
: “Honestly it’s kind of wherever it needs to be at any given moment. Made it accessible to anyone from the pocket dimension.”
: “Excuse me?” And then he blinks. And thinks of all the times he’s seen Aurelius pull things out of his ass. And needs to abruptly sit down on one of the nice couches.
: “Stupid pun names exist beyond Samudra, turns out.”
grins.
laughs. Shakes his head. “That’s so stupid.” And then he can’t stop laughing.
: “Yeah, haha. Real useful though.”
: “Oh, I’m -going- to learn how to do that now that I know it’s possible, even if it takes me tides uncountable.”
squints. “…Probably won’t take you that long, now that you know about liminal gnosis, look like you got a pretty decent stock of arete laying around.”
: “Hello, I’ve been a student of the arcane arts for most of my life, and yesterday I learned of a hidden sixth tone of gnosis. And… -all- of you can just.. see things that I can’t, and if it weren’t such a fascinating -problem- to solve, it’d be frustrating as eelcatching.”
: “We’re definitely cheating like fuck, for what it’s worth.”
: “And I… want to know more about what that means, but I think I’ve exercised the virtue of Relinquishment to its capacity for the day.” He frowns. “But I did say I’d cheat if I had to, I have no compunctions against using any tools that are available.”
: “Yeah that is definitely an entire ass other thing I have to prepare a power point presentation for for the rest of the class, can probably upload you the notes after the fact too.”
: “Well, I’m looking forward to reading -that- in a good dense bubble.”
has no idea what a ‘power point presentation’ is but he can infer from context that it’s something like an academic paper. He knows how to handle those.
nods seriously. “Anyway yeah just make sure the reading devices you link the pearls up to are good at vertical displays, like a scroll.”
: “And good talk, catch ya later.”
: “Good to meet you, Jorule. …thank you for trusting me with the truth.”
is back after a brief flicker, looking none of the worse for wear, but maybe a bit put out with a hint of confusion, which doesn’t last too long.
catches that look. “Are you alright? That must be strange for you.”
: “…Yes and yes.”
: “Okay, good.” He stands up from the couch, brushes himself off- goes to get Synthesis’ attention, who’d been humming Aurelius’ leitmotif to themself in increasingly-fanciful elaborations in a corner. “I’ve… got quite a bit of work to do in the next few days, apparently, and I think I need to lie down for a while before I do any of it.”
: “I can imagine. Glad things were… illuminating, at least?”
: “Tremendously so. Even if i have several more questions than I started with. Answers in time, I’m sure. Answers in time.”
nods slightly as he looks to the wall with the pearl embedded in it, realizes that’s NOT his problem, then nods again and leads them back to the academy.