deercountry | 15 . JOHNUARY

Not quite clear whether he made it, or whether it was made as a place to keep him. [ He tips his head in thought. ] That's why I wonder about Mariana. She's the biggest fish around. Next time I'm on that side of the fence, it might be worth a hike to the sea.

[ He'll be able to tell whether she's out there, and that might tell them who's pulling the strings. Assuming anything plays by its own established rules, which he can't always grant. ]

There are a few commonalities, a few patterns... but it does like trying to surprise us.

I doubt Mariana gives up her secrets easily, in any case. I have other questions about her myself, but they're the sort I don't expect I'll get answers to.

[ like how he got here, which is the sort of question that starts to hurt if you think about it too long. not because it makes him sad — don't be ridiculous — but the times he's tried to plug numbers into formulas in an attempt to make his theories more than speculations. being a sleeper hasn't upgraded the hardware enough to comprehend such figures though. ]

It's more or less an exact mirror of our world, yes? Perhaps it would be easier trying to find a way through that's much closer to where you want to end up. It seems less risky than attempting to travel to Trench and back on that side.

[ of course his very normal proposed solution is ripping holes in reality. ]

[ John's expression goes wry, at that. He raises his beer in cheers as though Asriel has said something funny, and drinks.

When he sets it down, he says: ]

Oh, there are ways through. Riteoir has a cult— which I don't begrudge him, to be clear, who doesn't have a cult in this town— holed up in the other Trench. I've seen the ritual to get back to our side, but I've never tried it from here to there.

[ Of course John doesn't see issue with this. ]

Why should you? Cultists are useful.

[ clearly, because a known ritual saves a lot of time. he's already thinking ahead, formulating ideas even though he doesn't even know what the ritual entails. not like that's ever stopped him.

happily, they bring him his beer now too. ]

It sounds like some testing is in order. I don't suppose Trench glows and whispers on that side too, does it?

[ Cheers to that, too; John has another drink as he considers it. ]

Not quite. No whispers and no glow, but then, I didn't stay long enough to worry about the scenery. [ He was preoccupied with what might be termed relationship drama, at the time. She fled to that dark patch of unreality to get away from him, and so he hated it on principle. ] It was just Corruption... the worst I've seen. Beasts, spooky fog, darkness everywhere, all that.

So, that seems to make it an isolated phenomenon.

[ he's not been able to shake the thought for a similar reason, his attention all wrapped up in those cutting voices until he had no choice but to try and figure them out to stop them mocking him about the things he doesn't know yet.

he loved that woman because she was brilliant, but asriel is petty and competitive, even when his opponents are ghosts. ]

I don't think that city has simply been abandoned. I believe that place is so thick with forbidden blood the stones themselves have taken it up. Or, maybe they used to have something like our Tower and it's dead now, all the people fed to the grinder or turned zealot.

[ he was helpfully filled in about them too. ]

Maybe that was the trial run? Or the collateral damage, if more than one pthumerian got involved.

[ so many possibilities, now that mariana is also potentially in the mix. ]

Forbidden blood.

[ He repeats it slow and thoughtful, turning the concept over aloud. ]

That's a thought worth testing. [ This should probably be a red flag of a statement. ] I've never seen how it interacts with the environment, really... I couldn't tell you whether there are different flavors of Blood Pollution, but we know there are different flavors of blood. If we had a way to actually quantify Blood Pollution...

[ But the rest is even more interesting, so he moves ahead: ]

Now there's an interesting thought: that place as a Pthumerian's corpse. They say that about the Tower, you know? That he is this city, and if you're unlucky, you'll get lost in his veins.

[ John has been to the Farm. He didn't like it. ]

Could be the same sort of magic at play, but I'd need to have a closer look.

[ asriel would've tested it anyway, but the validation is an excellent bonus. ]

I might have a few places to start. The action of corruption reminds me of radiation exposure more than disease, so the key to differentiating between the types of blood pollution might be to examine what remains.

Pthumerian or Sleeper blood should contain something that animal and human blood do not, and whatever that is should have a measurable signature wherever it's been, even if it's decayed away.

[ it always sounds easy in theory, but asriel fully expects it not to be; it's not like he identified the way to confirm Dust overnight. it wouldn't be interesting if it were too easy anyway. ]

[ John had been tracing aimless patterns through the condensation on his glass, one of his usual thoughtful fidgets. His fingers go abruptly still at radiation exposure.

Funny how these things go. ]

I think you're onto something there. [ His tone is still level and thoughtful, but there's been a subtle shift towards something dark and inward, his mind elsewhere. ] Next time we get together, I'll bring some notes. There are necromantic principles useful for conceptualizing the forms of energy we might be seeing here. You might get a kick out of the theorem mathematics.

I'm sure. I've been curious about that since your demonstration, and since you're doing me a favour, we'll make it an exchange. You will have a clearer understanding of my approach once you understand Dust anyway.

[ if it's about conceptualising energy, he's sure there's overlap somewhere. it's an easy rabbit hole to go down, though, so asriel drinks his beer and remembers his original point in coming here. ]

You also mentioned the world wasn't always like this. What did you mean?

[ He tips his head in interest, at Dust, but carries on to the question. ]

The Pthumerians are pretty recent, in the scheme of things. They remade the world into the shape you see now... magic and all. It was a simpler place, before that. No Corruption, no monsters, just humans on a planet.

Well. That changes quite a lot, doesn't it?

[ it's a subtle shift, but he and stelmaria both are listening with rapt attention now. ]

I had assumed they were native, at least. They would not have any more right to meddle with us if they were, but some people act like we're meant to be polite guests in someone's home.

I suppose the next question is: why?

[ John's smile is utterly humorless. ]

Why invade? They don't usually bother unpacking that bit, in the alien movies. [ Still: ] Depends on who you ask. It was destined across millennia, with a whole grand prophecy, if you're into that sort of thing. Or the head of the Pthumerians took notice of us, and wanted to see what she could use us for.

[ He drinks, and begins to fall into the rhythm of a story: ] Pthumeria was a world of gods or monsters, whatever your preference, separated from ours by a great unimaginable sea. The queen and her partner were enamored with man. They conceived a child who would keep a human shape, and they wed her to a human— some small-town mayor in coastal Maine, apparently, no idea why that was the play— so that the two would create a little girl. That's Julia Sodder, the first hybrid. The girl born to end the world.

[ if you're into that sort of thing. he rolls his eyes at the mention of a prophecy before he can think about not doing it. whatever. it's a habit he has no reason to break. prophecies are never, ever going to be a thing for asriel, as he is critically unprepared to unpack what it all means for his entire life to have been a part of one. ]

Well, I can fully admit my complete ignorance of alien movies.

[ it's safe to assume if he's ever seen a movie, it was some tragically uninspired propaganda piece because the magisterium had greenlit it for public consumption. ]

But I might've thought monsters from another world wouldn't fall for the same tired cliché of pinning all of their hopes on a little girl, at least.

[ It could've gone either way, with Asriel: grim belief or the eyeroll and sigh. He prefers the eyeroll. John, who hasn't expected anyone to get his references for ten thousand years and still hasn't adjusted to the change, waves off the concept of movies wholesale. ]

That's the worst or the funniest thing about them, depending on perspective. They really seem to get a kick out of human clichés. The way I've heard it told, Julia read stories, and dreamed up some of her own, and so she started dragging in monsters and heroes from all worlds to this one.

[ He pauses, wobbles a hand. ] Sort of this one. That's why they call us Sleepers. She slept here in reality, and we - the old guard, anyway, the earlier cohort, which I was lucky to miss out on - had to walk in her dreams, dodging old clichés and scraps of bad memory.

[ John's expression has gone wry and distant again, in the way of a personal joke or something quietly significant. ]

All the while, this world decayed to match her nightmares, and the rest of the Pthumerians came piling in. If you want my take? That kid was a terraforming device. Brilliant piece of magic, but, you know, pretty sad.

Edited (slight tweak) 2023-02-02 17:44 (UTC)

Terraforming.

[ he repeats the word with care like he's testing it out. he never thought of anything like that. why would you when you can just keep opening doors until you find something you need? ]

That's a word I've never heard before, but it's not hard to figure out given the context. Interesting.

[ his tone threatens a tangent, but with an effort, he puts a mental pin in it. snappy new words aside, asriel's expression has taken on the somewhat predatory quality he sometimes gets when he's thinking. which is probably... fine. ]

And what became of the girl? No gratitude from the current regime for paving the way for the rest of them?

[ John sees it in him: the sharp-edged fascination, the fixation of a man who could make himself a problem. He surrounds himself with people like this. What it stirs in him is one part sensible dread, three parts caught interest, like a man watching a storm brewing far offshore. ]

There was some infighting. The queen died in childbirth, I think, and her partner was never really sold on it. They call her Mother Mercy, but I hear she has a rough history. She killed the girl to stop the plot, but [ he spreads his hands to indicate Trench around them ] that didn't quite pan out.

If the new guard has an opinion on her, I haven't heard it. It's treated like a legend, now, which mostly means you have to dig through a lot of old books and old Sleepers to get the story.

[ it's not a happy ending, so again, the more appropriate response here would be to give it its proper solemnity and gravity in speaking of the dead and the end of a world, but instead, asriel continues looking more pleased than anyone has any business being given the topic. it validates the idea that he's come here for a purpose, so why shouldn't he be? asriel has always been in the business of declaring his role in the world; he is incapable of living quietly and feels like he's finally cleared a roadblock. ]

Yes, of course, it conveniently lost to history, and with some modifications along the way, I'm sure.

Not that I'm assuming this Mother Mercy is a simply a victim of bad publicity. The Pthumerian fondness for clichés can only mean that epithet was chosen to be deeply ironic.

[ consider the child that he must've been to become the man that he is, and it's easy to figure out how well he would've done with nuns in his life. ]

In any case, their taste for human drama will also be their downfall. As these things go, someone always comes along eventually and spoils the game.

[ John is not the guy to call him out on looking insufficiently troubled by death. Honestly a breath of fresh air that he's not getting frowned at about it. He leans in over the table like a conspirator, dark interest in his eyes. ]

She was not a very nice nun.

But it won't be an easy shakeup, when it comes. [ You'd think you could kill an ocean the way you kill a planet, but no; whatever Mariana is, she's the wrong shape for that. She's too much a monster and too like a ghost, and John knows when he's met something he can't take in a fight. ] Not all Pthumerians are made equal, mind, but the big ones are very big.

[ leaning closer reminds asriel that he's wondered previously about john's unusual eyes, but generally, that's not a thing you just ask a guy about outright, so he's kept it to himself. looks aside, it's his interest that asriel cares about more. ]

I wouldn't expect it to be easy.

[ he says it as someone might about deciding to climb a mountain or hunt a lion. ]

That's why you start small. It's for the best anyway, when lacking for reliable data and samples. It's just a matter of accounting for scale after that, not to mention the power inherent in the specimens themselves. I get the impression there isn't a lot you couldn't do with enough potent blood, assuming you're willing to take the risk.

[ It's funny: this is the kind of ally he would've killed for, a year ago. Back before he threw start small out the window; back before he got really mad. When the risks seemed less like risks and more like the inevitable.

Now he just sits in the same familiar bar and listens to the same familiar plan for deicide. John drinks his beer. ]

Blood might be the crux of it. Here I thought I was an expert, and that's gone out the window... I've yet to crack the system. [ He hasn't really been trying for a while now. ] Every time we turn over a new stone, we find puzzle pieces.

[ Brings them back to Riteoir, really. The things you can do with local magic; the ways you can turn the system in on itself. ]

Put enough pieces together, and eventually, an image starts to take shape.

[ it took him most of his first life to defeat one false god, and now he's exploring the idea of talking on several, so he knows this isn't a sprint. asriel maintains a pace that's more like a machine than a person, though, which is easy for the low, low price of working to the exclusion of all else. ]

There are answers in that city; it's just a matter of getting them. The rest is testing, but that will take time. Equipment and samples don't appear overnight.

[ asriel already likes to hear himself talk, but the beer loosens him up to a bit of thinking aloud as well. ]

Does that mean I'm counting you in? You can say no, but you should still teach me some of those tricks of yours. It would be a shame to waste them.

[ In one sense, John hasn't really had conversations like this— all rigorous ambition and disregard for the limits, a minute from demonstrating theorem mathematics on the back of a napkin— in lifetimes. It's been a hell of a long time since he was in this position: men with nothing to their names but underdog enthusiasm and necessity, untested magic and the fire to use it. He's been feeling the old days more and more, since he washed up on this shore. Remembering the first stumbling steps of a fledgling empire.

In another, this is the same conversation he's had twenty times, except he's usually the guy waving the war banner. His banner-waving has been getting weaker by the day. The empire's wheezing its last, these days, and clawing his way back towards it hasn't won him anything but bruises. He's had a bad go of it, taking potshots at the bastards kicking them down. It isn't a popular opinion, and it's looked a hell of a lot like a hopeless one, too.

But what else can he do, right? Chara has always had the right of it: what the fuck else can people like them do.

John finishes his drink. He sets the glass down with a final, decisive click. He resolves himself, for probably the twentieth time, to ill-fated deicide. ]

Let's get testing.

15 . JOHNUARY

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belatedly wraps this