semi-closed

[megatheorem]

Who: Palamedes and associates
What: a librarian loose in the city (closed starters)
When: early Dec
Where: Around (tm)

Content Warnings: necromancy stuff, possible mentions of violence and suicide

plotting comment is here if you would like to go wild with pal 😌

Comments

[getsmy]

What makes you a necromancer, then, if not the raising the dead? Merely tampering with them-?

[he puffs out his nose, all told, not impressed. A serial killer could argue themselves as more ethical than Sherwood, that's no great feat. Not that Ives holds any interested in defending the man as better or worse than any other who tamper in matters they should not have]

[megatheorem]

Sanctimonious for a murderer, but okay. I was born with the ability to do a type of magic that requires something we call thanergy, or death energy. Our Empire produces thanergy for historical reasons that are fascinating but presently irrelevant, so — while a nearby death produces a plume of thanergy any necromancer could harness, directly interacting with the recently deceased is more of a military thing.

[All said in the tone of a prim little teacher, like an educational placard at a museum about bone wizards. He feels no powerful urge to justify a thing he was born with as more morally upright than killing a dude to conjure a skull lady, like what's-his-name, so.]

Personally, I'm in research. I wouldn't last a minute in a military battle.

[getsmy]

What makes up such thanergy? And by what way could you produce it?

[His tone isn't judgmental as he goes on, thinking it best to give some context into how much things work as he's known them. He's genuinely curious about if this is different,]

Upon Myddvai, such energy would be a person's soul, which is the lifeblood of our World Tree. That is not a resource that should be used by anybody. Yet, it was what those of Sherwood's ilk tapped into for power. A cost so hidden they never understood what they were sacrificing.

[megatheorem]

Cell death. [Does he have to explain what cells are to someone from a place that sounds like a storybook, he wonders; he won't, just in case it's, uh, condescending.] Cells die all the time; a necromancer has a natural amount of thanergy reserves just from existing, but I've known some who'll... well.

[He makes a face, nose wrinkling. This thing is Gross, but:] Eat someone's hair? Bite a finger? It's always vulgar, but it pops a few fresh cells. Most ordinary-scale necromantic tasks don't require that much thanergy — I have enough in me right now to last.

Now! The soul is another story entirely. No necromancy involves souls unless you want to call one up and talk to it — assuming they'll come, anyway, if they're in the mood — and then... that's it. They go back.

[Unless you're God and his fucked up friends, but Palamedes has carefully compartmentalized "necromancers" away from "God and fucked up friends (laymen term: Lyctors)," so he's not touching any of that.]

Anyway, that's how my psychometry comes in; the past-within-the-thing. Thanergy leaves traces on objects and I can read it, you know, see who's been around and what they were doing. That kind of thing.

[getsmy]

[Ives listens with calm attentiveness. No, he does not know what a cell is, but he can guess from context clues that it's some unit of... relatively insignificant measure. It's not a soul, at the least, which clear it of his more dire and personal concerns.

He's no longer looking at Palamedes with such harshness, returned to a steady and extremely deadpan tone for... what is not actually a joke, but probably sounds like one]

If you find that little to be vulgar, I won't mention what generates magic in my world.

[megatheorem]

Okay.

[...Well, eating hair and/or chewing on a friend is pretty weird, so... cool. He won't ask.]

I have a question. [A beat, because he's going to ask anyway, but the illusion of waiting for permission, etc:] Why did your age keep fluctuating for a bit back there?

[getsmy]

[Ives is from a whimsical sex comedy with dark humor- his bar for vulgar is pretty high. He does nod when Palamedes take a beat before his question, not that it mattered much that Ives acknowledged him or not]

The events of this memory were four of my lives ago... I am only twenty in this current one. I was closer to seventy-five at this time.

[megatheorem]

[That explains not giving a shit about the murder, Palamedes thinks. He does not repeat this out loud, for reasons.]

Huh. [old people....] Well, barring a miracle, I only get the one shot. Doing it all over again sounds... tiring?

[Unproductive?? He'd hate to be twelve again, for instance. Might as well just keep getting older without stopping.]

[getsmy]

All souls upon Myddvai are reborn, but they are usually... shuffled about, not born in the exact same order. The Giants are exempt of this, we are always reincarnated the same and with our twin sibling. We can begin to recall the memories of our past lives once we're adults, around our latter teens.

[a brief shrug, in short:]

So, yes, it is extremely tiring.

[no arguing there, it's why Ives looks like a fresh faced, young twunk while acting like some world weary grandpa most of the time.]

If you do not count my being reborn in this place, I am on my 24th life of note.

[megatheorem]

No offense, but that's the worst.

[Super mega the worst... he'd have lost it by now. He accepts this as the truth, at least, not just for having seen the age fluctuation himself moments ago. It's not nearly the weirdest thing that's happened in this place by a wide margin.

So, congrats: Not That Weird.]

Well! By my best guess, these things decide to let us out when some kind of resolution is reached. Or closure — it was closure for me. So...

[A slight nod; any ideas?]

good spot to end off!

[getsmy]

Oh, the stories I could tell that prove you right... [it's pretty intense to deal with, just, emotionally weighed down with so many memories. The fact he's this stable at all is a testament to some serious mental fortitude. He'll brag about it another time...]

Closure... closure, closure... [he repeated with a distracted tone, looking around. How could he ever hope to have something like that from this moment?

Ives' staff lay on the ground in the scene, still in focus. Ah. It was something. He finally pulled himself up from the ground, moved to it, and knelt down on one knee. Hesitating only briefly, he grabbed it with something of a wince.

The memory turned to a void and there was a deafening snarl and then snap of wood. Both would be wrenched from the memory and awaken wherever they had been.]