[Yes, but he would prefer to not go to the Lumenarium if he's corrupted. He doesn't want to add to it. But he doesn't say that. Instead he nods at the other and gestures to one of the other seats. No point in standing if they're going to have a conversation.]
I'm feeling all right. A little... frustrated by the circumstances that caused me to end up here, but nothing I can't handle.
[He isn't going to get into all of the details because he promised to not air out D's laundry unnecessarily, but he's... doing his best.]
Am I supposed to be waiting for something specific here?
[Palamedes blinks, then shuffles in to take a seat at the little table. There's a checkerboard still sitting here from the last time someone hung out in here, and he picks up a checker to fidget with.]
In fairness, 'circumstances' are what corrupt us in the first place.
[Whatever those happen to be! He's been lucky himself to never tip the scales into really corrupted, but that's what this place is for, which helps.]
I think you'd know your mind better than I do, but no, not really. Just waiting to see if you feel, you know— off. I'm here to talk, if you like. Doesn't matter what about.
That's true. I suppose I don't fully understand it - how it can change people.
[He slips his book in his bag.]
I mean on the physical sense. I can understand despair and pain changing one's body - I've seen it before - but I don't quite understand how it happened on the scale of the aether in the body itself changing. You'd say the atoms, I think?
[He looks to the other for confirmation as he leans back in the chair a little bit.]
There wasn't really time to study it at home, and I didn't have the tools to in any case. And I suspect it's different here. And I'm interested in how emotions can change things as well. We're just starting to get into researching that stuff more widely where I'm from.
Well, we're all a little metaphysical here, aren't we? Us Sleepers, being— squids. Or a close enough approximation to squids, from what I've read.
[Read in a book about sea life for children, because he didn't know what the fuck a squid was, but now he's educated!! Real squids don't look that much like what Sleepers do in the sea, in his opinion.
Beside the point. He rolls the checker back and forth on the table, thinking.]
That is to say— have you heard the popular theory? That we look the way we do in these bodies purely by force of will; the influence of the mind. If we assume that's true, and we concede that corruption targets the mind, then it stands to reason that enough of it can alter our mind's eye version of ourselves, doesn't it?
I suppose we are. ... I'm still not sure how I feel about being a squid.
[Fish are fine, squids start getting to the point where the sea life just looks and feels icky. He watches the checker roll, listening to Pal's words.]
[... Hm... it's an interesting theory, and he nods.]
So the body follows the mind... I have to say that my own small brush with corruption was... unpleasant. I could see it changing my body... so if the corruption had affected my mind more, my body would have followed suit.
[He sighs and looks at his hand - nope, it's the right shade. No corruption here that he can see.]
I still don't know what caused that initial bout of corruption. It wasn't anything at home, and I don't know of the beach itself corrupting people...
I think about being a squid more often than I'd care to admit.
[Is that positive or negative, re: being a squid? It's hard to tell. But he does think about this stuff fairly often, given— well. Both his arrival to Trench and his one untimely demise in the city did not provide a body to transform into, post-squid, and so this - the body he lives in now - surely is of his own design. Mentally. Emotionally, if the corruption-mind-manifesting connection is real.
So he thinks about squids a lot, is the point. He gives the checker a little spin, for variety.]
The blood pollution corrupts us, like— well, any pollutant would. That's what I mean about Lumenwood, and not wanting a repeat here; you can feel it, and worse, after long enough you get used to it. To continue with the theory, I'd posit that once the mind reads atmospheric corruption as 'normal,' the standards of the mind change to accommodate— but! The corruption is still there.
It does make sense. Anyone can get used to strange things as 'normal'. I've had that happen multiple times in my life, even before here. It's not quite the same thing... it's like a bad smell, perhaps. If you smell something for long enough your brain starts ignoring it until you leave and come back - but even then, it's still less noticeable.
I suppose that's why the smell of blood doesn't bother me so much - I grew up around dead animals that we sold for coin and used for food. Not to mention the battles I've been in... but the thought of having to treat that smell as 'dangerous' is a little difficult for me to wrap my head around, even though I know it's objectively true.
[He fiddles with a button on his shirt, thinking.]
I suppose that's part of the problem - we can get used to just about anything, so we run the risk of becoming complacent and not noticing the pollution around us, as you were saying.
Right. Corruption is a- a mental smell, in this case.
[That sounds silly. He's going with it, anyway.]
I'm a necromancer, which gives me a complacency towards the materials of death other people don't typically have. That's the materials specifically, mind, not the dying itself.
[Some people in this town still think necromancers go around killing people and cackling over zombie armies, so like, it bears clarifying whenever he mentions it, just in case. He resumes rolling the checker.]
It gives me an advantage when it comes to working with blood here, and a disadvantage when it comes to noticing something is wrong. Or smelling the mental smell, I suppose. We're essentially the same, just coming from different prior experiences.
That said, I've never corrupted far enough to morph into a beast. Have you?
[He blinks at the admission and tilts his head a little bit. A necromancer? ... Well, the only experience he has with those has been... bad. But Palamedes has been good so far, and not gone off his rocker like most of the ones he's known or heard about.]
[Maybe a little bit off, but most academics he knows are.]
Right. I suppose most chirurgeons would have trouble with that, since most of the healing here seems to be without magic - or at least magic that isn't blood-based.
[What he wouldn't do for a few conjurors around here...]
I haven't been that corrupted, but I have had physical changes due to corruption - mostly my skin lightening. Which is... concerning, as it reminds me of some monsters that I've seen in the past called Sin Eaters.
[Ah, and there it is- the minute shift when he says 'necromancer'; he's gotten quite good at catching it, although it's always a tossup whether someone will be normal about it or set a clock to ticking behind their eyes that counts down to inevitably doing some tacky moralizing at him about dead people. He shrugs one shoulder, like, yeah, necromancer - but that's all.]
I've seen that in the Lumenarium-- there are plenty of physical changes that precede beasthood; it depends on the person. I don't have my notes with me...
[He leans back in his chair, looking towards the door, like he might get up and run across town to get a notebook. Just kidding; he doesn't need it. He holds up his fingers to count them off:]
Besides the issues of the skin, I've seen alterations in the eyes, teeth, fingers-- as well as a not-unexpected inability to stop bleeding when cut. Once, a woman came in who'd tried to eat her own tongue after it started bleeding in a fang-related accident.
[So like, it gets weird over there.]
Then again, there was that month when a number of us became beasts, but without any alteration of the mental state... Honestly, I don't think these so-called gods have set any ironclad rules.
[It really is! He leans forward a little, curious - but stays out of Palamedes' space. He's not rude, after all.]
I think my teeth were a bit longer, but my subspecies has longer fangs than the other one does. It's only after looking back on my post that I really noticed it. But all of that... it's horrible, but it's fascinating at the same time.
I certainly don't want anyone to become a beast, but the change itself is extremely interesting.
[He pauses at that last bit.]
That happened one month? What were the circumstances? Or was it seemingly random?
Oh, corruption is interesting, there's no doubt about that. There are applications-- I mean, it's a dangerous thing to leave uncontrolled and unmitigated, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be studied with enthusiasm. We should know, you know?
[Maybe the study should be done with kid gloves, but also, maybe not? Palamedes has had quite enough of vague, old documents with a limited understanding of Sleepers, or like, local Night Walkers' diaries waxing poetic about corruption relief. Those are very interesting, quite culturally relevant, but not scientific.
Scientific would be nice.]
It was random, as far as I'm aware. This town likes us to learn something about ourselves but only most of the time, and I can't say I learned very much from having too many eyes for a couple weeks. It was mostly irritating.
Exactly. I'm all for more study. I'm curious about how the corruption works, precisely... if it's similar enough to the sort of corruption I know I'd have a better idea, but as it is there isn't a lot of connection.
[It's not quite tempering, because there's no individual primal that they're serving. They're just monstrous, seemingly random and highly dangerous.]
I see. It's a shame that there wasn't more insight that you could glean by becoming monsters... knowing how they think would be a great boon. I don't quite understand their behavior, since while most seem to attack anyone in their space there's no real indication as to what counts as prey to them.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much of their minds are left untouched, to be able to 'think' in the way we consider conscious at all. They might not even be sentient anymore.
[He remembers the beast Paul had captured, and squeezed just enough corruption out of to make it a sad, mewling creature— it didn't seem... entirely whole.]
There's also the fact that our blood is fundamentally different from that of the local population; our own beasthood might be very different than theirs, given- at the very least- the fact that we get to come back.
[Bleak. Anyway,] You're welcome to come around here and help us study, if you want.
They might not be. They do act more like animals... but even animals think.
[He scratches his chin, curious and contemplating. If there's not enough left of them... hm. It feels bad culling them, even if he knows that's for the best if they can't be saved.]
That's true. Though it's unclear exactly how much our blood affects things. Yes, it might give us some abilities - but how much it changes us at a fundamental level I don't yet know. ... Aside from the immortal squid thing. ... Which is kind of a big deal, I suppose.
[His eyes light up a bit, and he grins.]
Really? I'd like that. There's a lot I'd like to learn, and I've always liked studying. I may not know my way around technology as well as other people, but I do know my way around magic.
Sure, I'll show you how to get into the archives, later.
[It's stupid and involves mirrors with moonlight... It's a process. Later.]
That said, I think being relatively-immortal squids is a pretty fundamental change. It used to bother me more, but I've come around. I mean, how can we be expected to study anything if we can't accept basic facts of our slightly altered existence?
[He scoffs, like, duh! Obviously one must accept the squid thing for the sake of academic pursuits. Of course.]
Viktor has our technology covered, and my specialties are obviously nonstandard, [necromancer tm] so more magical knowledge around here is a boon.
[Hm. He tries to not think about the squid thing that much, but it's true that it's a fundamental change. But a lot of things seem unaffected aside from that.]
It's mostly aetherology, but it seems to work here oddly enough. If it didn't, my magic wouldn't work. Maybe there's something about this place that fundamentally... slots in where it's needed. I need to manipulate aether, so it works. Other people study atoms, and it works. Since atoms aren't a thing where I'm from, and most people here haven't heard about aether, there must be something about this place...
I've thought the same thing about my necromancy, actually. Sometimes it feels like the darkblood powerset has... joined with it, you know? Adapted to accommodate new data, just like what happens to our squid forms when our minds wake up.
[He taps his temple, for emphasis. The darkblood powers and his necromancy are, on paper, entirely different concepts, but either his familiarity with the one has made learning the other easier, or the principles of darkblood have bent to fit the principles of necromancy he already uses.
No real way to know, he supposes, but a hypothesis or twelve isn't bad.]
Are we the only thing that's changed, or do we change the fundamental rules of this world, too? Now that's a study someone could sink their teeth into. Somebody could write a paper.
I could definitely try... hopefully some equipment washes up one day. I'd appreciate it, since I don't know how to make it myself.
[And hopefully someone he knows will wash up one day, too. Y'shtola would have a blast with trying to figure this place out.]
If we could figure out the 'rules' of this place, it'd be a huge step forward. There's no way to know all of it, at least... but if we could get at what makes things work here... but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how these 'atoms' work.
[Palamedes waves a hand, like, atomic theory? Please, simple.]
They're just pieces. Infinitesimally small— not completely, obviously, you can observe them— but they're just... bits. The things that make me, you, this table, this building, the air, and so on. Your fundamentals.
Does that sound like what you know? I swear, half of what I learn about here is just my thing under another name.
[He hmms a bit, and waves a hand from side to side in a 'maybe' motion.]
Somewhat. To put it very simply... everything is made out of aether. Individual bits... I don't think can be put under a... what do you call it - microscope. But you can watch the flow of it with special equipment, measure it.
It's a bit like how everyone has a respiratory system - air goes in, it circulates, air goes out. And aether works similarly - you take aether into the body and it's used to help construct it or feed it or whatnot. Then it flows out gradually, or with the use of magic. When we die, aether is released from our bodies and joins the Lifestream, where the aether of our souls is broken down and joins with others to form new souls.
By that explanation, your aether sounds more like my thanergy than atoms, although— forgive me if I've explained this one already— we aren't all equipped to handle thanergy innately. Or... eat it.
[Except for, well, sickos. But he's not going to get into that right now. He sits back, waving the checker idly.]
If it's measurable, it's close enough to atomic structure. But we're getting off topic. Come here and study with us whenever you're able; we'll draw up some charts to do a proper comparison of all this eventually.
[This is not a bit, even if the whole class will likely just be Nara'a and maybe Nico. It's fine, he'll enjoy it.]
Anyway; you don't have to sign up, or anything like that, but Allen's the person to talk to if you want to feel more official. Otherwise you can just start turning up.
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no subject
I'm feeling all right. A little... frustrated by the circumstances that caused me to end up here, but nothing I can't handle.
[He isn't going to get into all of the details because he promised to not air out D's laundry unnecessarily, but he's... doing his best.]
Am I supposed to be waiting for something specific here?
no subject
In fairness, 'circumstances' are what corrupt us in the first place.
[Whatever those happen to be! He's been lucky himself to never tip the scales into really corrupted, but that's what this place is for, which helps.]
I think you'd know your mind better than I do, but no, not really. Just waiting to see if you feel, you know— off. I'm here to talk, if you like. Doesn't matter what about.
Endwalker spoilers
[He slips his book in his bag.]
I mean on the physical sense. I can understand despair and pain changing one's body - I've seen it before - but I don't quite understand how it happened on the scale of the aether in the body itself changing. You'd say the atoms, I think?
[He looks to the other for confirmation as he leans back in the chair a little bit.]
There wasn't really time to study it at home, and I didn't have the tools to in any case. And I suspect it's different here. And I'm interested in how emotions can change things as well. We're just starting to get into researching that stuff more widely where I'm from.
no subject
[Read in a book about sea life for children, because he didn't know what the fuck a squid was, but now he's educated!! Real squids don't look that much like what Sleepers do in the sea, in his opinion.
Beside the point. He rolls the checker back and forth on the table, thinking.]
That is to say— have you heard the popular theory? That we look the way we do in these bodies purely by force of will; the influence of the mind. If we assume that's true, and we concede that corruption targets the mind, then it stands to reason that enough of it can alter our mind's eye version of ourselves, doesn't it?
no subject
[Fish are fine, squids start getting to the point where the sea life just looks and feels icky. He watches the checker roll, listening to Pal's words.]
[... Hm... it's an interesting theory, and he nods.]
So the body follows the mind... I have to say that my own small brush with corruption was... unpleasant. I could see it changing my body... so if the corruption had affected my mind more, my body would have followed suit.
[He sighs and looks at his hand - nope, it's the right shade. No corruption here that he can see.]
I still don't know what caused that initial bout of corruption. It wasn't anything at home, and I don't know of the beach itself corrupting people...
no subject
[Is that positive or negative, re: being a squid? It's hard to tell. But he does think about this stuff fairly often, given— well. Both his arrival to Trench and his one untimely demise in the city did not provide a body to transform into, post-squid, and so this - the body he lives in now - surely is of his own design. Mentally. Emotionally, if the corruption-mind-manifesting connection is real.
So he thinks about squids a lot, is the point. He gives the checker a little spin, for variety.]
The blood pollution corrupts us, like— well, any pollutant would. That's what I mean about Lumenwood, and not wanting a repeat here; you can feel it, and worse, after long enough you get used to it. To continue with the theory, I'd posit that once the mind reads atmospheric corruption as 'normal,' the standards of the mind change to accommodate— but! The corruption is still there.
Does that make sense?
no subject
I suppose that's why the smell of blood doesn't bother me so much - I grew up around dead animals that we sold for coin and used for food. Not to mention the battles I've been in... but the thought of having to treat that smell as 'dangerous' is a little difficult for me to wrap my head around, even though I know it's objectively true.
[He fiddles with a button on his shirt, thinking.]
I suppose that's part of the problem - we can get used to just about anything, so we run the risk of becoming complacent and not noticing the pollution around us, as you were saying.
no subject
[That sounds silly. He's going with it, anyway.]
I'm a necromancer, which gives me a complacency towards the materials of death other people don't typically have. That's the materials specifically, mind, not the dying itself.
[Some people in this town still think necromancers go around killing people and cackling over zombie armies, so like, it bears clarifying whenever he mentions it, just in case. He resumes rolling the checker.]
It gives me an advantage when it comes to working with blood here, and a disadvantage when it comes to noticing something is wrong. Or smelling the mental smell, I suppose. We're essentially the same, just coming from different prior experiences.
That said, I've never corrupted far enough to morph into a beast. Have you?
no subject
[Maybe a little bit off, but most academics he knows are.]
Right. I suppose most chirurgeons would have trouble with that, since most of the healing here seems to be without magic - or at least magic that isn't blood-based.
[What he wouldn't do for a few conjurors around here...]
I haven't been that corrupted, but I have had physical changes due to corruption - mostly my skin lightening. Which is... concerning, as it reminds me of some monsters that I've seen in the past called Sin Eaters.
no subject
I've seen that in the Lumenarium-- there are plenty of physical changes that precede beasthood; it depends on the person. I don't have my notes with me...
[He leans back in his chair, looking towards the door, like he might get up and run across town to get a notebook. Just kidding; he doesn't need it. He holds up his fingers to count them off:]
Besides the issues of the skin, I've seen alterations in the eyes, teeth, fingers-- as well as a not-unexpected inability to stop bleeding when cut. Once, a woman came in who'd tried to eat her own tongue after it started bleeding in a fang-related accident.
[So like, it gets weird over there.]
Then again, there was that month when a number of us became beasts, but without any alteration of the mental state... Honestly, I don't think these so-called gods have set any ironclad rules.
no subject
[It really is! He leans forward a little, curious - but stays out of Palamedes' space. He's not rude, after all.]
I think my teeth were a bit longer, but my subspecies has longer fangs than the other one does. It's only after looking back on my post that I really noticed it. But all of that... it's horrible, but it's fascinating at the same time.
I certainly don't want anyone to become a beast, but the change itself is extremely interesting.
[He pauses at that last bit.]
That happened one month? What were the circumstances? Or was it seemingly random?
no subject
[Maybe the study should be done with kid gloves, but also, maybe not? Palamedes has had quite enough of vague, old documents with a limited understanding of Sleepers, or like, local Night Walkers' diaries waxing poetic about corruption relief. Those are very interesting, quite culturally relevant, but not scientific.
Scientific would be nice.]
It was random, as far as I'm aware. This town likes us to learn something about ourselves but only most of the time, and I can't say I learned very much from having too many eyes for a couple weeks. It was mostly irritating.
no subject
[It's not quite tempering, because there's no individual primal that they're serving. They're just monstrous, seemingly random and highly dangerous.]
I see. It's a shame that there wasn't more insight that you could glean by becoming monsters... knowing how they think would be a great boon. I don't quite understand their behavior, since while most seem to attack anyone in their space there's no real indication as to what counts as prey to them.
no subject
[He remembers the beast Paul had captured, and squeezed just enough corruption out of to make it a sad, mewling creature— it didn't seem... entirely whole.]
There's also the fact that our blood is fundamentally different from that of the local population; our own beasthood might be very different than theirs, given- at the very least- the fact that we get to come back.
[Bleak. Anyway,] You're welcome to come around here and help us study, if you want.
no subject
[He scratches his chin, curious and contemplating. If there's not enough left of them... hm. It feels bad culling them, even if he knows that's for the best if they can't be saved.]
That's true. Though it's unclear exactly how much our blood affects things. Yes, it might give us some abilities - but how much it changes us at a fundamental level I don't yet know. ... Aside from the immortal squid thing. ... Which is kind of a big deal, I suppose.
[His eyes light up a bit, and he grins.]
Really? I'd like that. There's a lot I'd like to learn, and I've always liked studying. I may not know my way around technology as well as other people, but I do know my way around magic.
no subject
[It's stupid and involves mirrors with moonlight... It's a process. Later.]
That said, I think being relatively-immortal squids is a pretty fundamental change. It used to bother me more, but I've come around. I mean, how can we be expected to study anything if we can't accept basic facts of our slightly altered existence?
[He scoffs, like, duh! Obviously one must accept the squid thing for the sake of academic pursuits. Of course.]
Viktor has our technology covered, and my specialties are obviously nonstandard, [necromancer tm] so more magical knowledge around here is a boon.
no subject
[Hm. He tries to not think about the squid thing that much, but it's true that it's a fundamental change. But a lot of things seem unaffected aside from that.]
It's mostly aetherology, but it seems to work here oddly enough. If it didn't, my magic wouldn't work. Maybe there's something about this place that fundamentally... slots in where it's needed. I need to manipulate aether, so it works. Other people study atoms, and it works. Since atoms aren't a thing where I'm from, and most people here haven't heard about aether, there must be something about this place...
no subject
[He taps his temple, for emphasis. The darkblood powers and his necromancy are, on paper, entirely different concepts, but either his familiarity with the one has made learning the other easier, or the principles of darkblood have bent to fit the principles of necromancy he already uses.
No real way to know, he supposes, but a hypothesis or twelve isn't bad.]
Are we the only thing that's changed, or do we change the fundamental rules of this world, too? Now that's a study someone could sink their teeth into. Somebody could write a paper.
no subject
[And hopefully someone he knows will wash up one day, too. Y'shtola would have a blast with trying to figure this place out.]
If we could figure out the 'rules' of this place, it'd be a huge step forward. There's no way to know all of it, at least... but if we could get at what makes things work here... but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how these 'atoms' work.
no subject
They're just pieces. Infinitesimally small— not completely, obviously, you can observe them— but they're just... bits. The things that make me, you, this table, this building, the air, and so on. Your fundamentals.
Does that sound like what you know? I swear, half of what I learn about here is just my thing under another name.
no subject
Somewhat. To put it very simply... everything is made out of aether. Individual bits... I don't think can be put under a... what do you call it - microscope. But you can watch the flow of it with special equipment, measure it.
It's a bit like how everyone has a respiratory system - air goes in, it circulates, air goes out. And aether works similarly - you take aether into the body and it's used to help construct it or feed it or whatnot. Then it flows out gradually, or with the use of magic. When we die, aether is released from our bodies and joins the Lifestream, where the aether of our souls is broken down and joins with others to form new souls.
no subject
[That's fun, right!! Chemistry!!]
By that explanation, your aether sounds more like my thanergy than atoms, although— forgive me if I've explained this one already— we aren't all equipped to handle thanergy innately. Or... eat it.
[Except for, well, sickos. But he's not going to get into that right now. He sits back, waving the checker idly.]
If it's measurable, it's close enough to atomic structure. But we're getting off topic. Come here and study with us whenever you're able; we'll draw up some charts to do a proper comparison of all this eventually.
no subject
[Not right now, because he senses this is a chalkboard and notes kind of lesson.]
And I'd love to study here. Things work so differently... I've been trying to rebuild my frame of reference a bit, but it's a little slow going.
no subject
[This is not a bit, even if the whole class will likely just be Nara'a and maybe Nico. It's fine, he'll enjoy it.]
Anyway; you don't have to sign up, or anything like that, but Allen's the person to talk to if you want to feel more official. Otherwise you can just start turning up.