megatheorem: (032)
palamedes THEE sextus ([personal profile] megatheorem) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-04-04 12:05 am

catchall for homies

Who: Palamedes and Friends (and Other)
What: the necromantic urge to come back from the dead
When: April (various)
Where: various

Content Warnings: death talk and necromancy inevitable, all else tba

it's a catchall baby, see prompts
wannasmash: "I'm not your senpai, but I've noticed you." (noticed)

i know a guy...

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-14 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
On the recommendation of a dear friend, Midoriya meets with the person called Palamedes at the Lamp Location in Willful Machine. Even plunged into eternal night, the district has adapted by setting up more lights. Shoppers and canals glitter under them. If the wind blows wrong, the smell of trash in the water reaches their noses, but that never stopped anyone from getting their errands done.

It's just an idea for now: a few notes about a private training space scribbled in his ever-present notebook. His old habit of keeping notes has served him well here, filling up the journal he found in his bag when he first washed up on the Farther Shores. Fixing up an old apartment is one thing, an entire building another. Whether it's an old warehouse or a cave or something else entirely, he's in over his head.

Then there's the matter of the all-important security system. (Paul's eyes lit up at the prospect of arranging traps.) This private space is also a secret hideout in case his enemies (specific or hypothetical) decide to make trouble. There's also the matter of more intelligent Beasts to consider. In the varied world of Deer Country and its denizens, security should be in layers. Midoriya knows nothing of electronics or magic, but--Paul knows a guy.

"Palamedes-san?" His accent forms his name carefully. "It's me, Midoriya. Sorry if it's crowded, but I figure no one will pay attention to us around here. I brought my notes."

Midoriya is in civvies, a plain hoodie jacket and jeans. He pulls down a simple black mask that hid his face from his freckles to his neck. It's a common enough fashion statement in Trench, especially if blood pollution is high, or if one is a Hunter. In the shopping district, he'd look like he was about to rob a store, if he didn't stand so straight and attentive.

He's a relatively short young man around Paul's age, with a polite but not stuffy demeanor. He has a riot of dark green hair under his hood. His eyes are the same forest color. They are open and inviting, but purposeful. He carries a backpack and a canvas bag with today's shopping.
wannasmash: "Thanks for everything." (smile scuffed)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-17 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
He chances a friendly smile (up, up at him) and hops on the wall with the athletic ease of someone very used to taking alternative routes to his municipal destinations. His clothes shopping is set next to him like an afterthought. Some of his shirts have gotten tight in the shoulders, but that comes with the territory of working out. He fishes the more important objective of the day out of his backpack. One notebook closes, another opens. Perfectly boring, they might be people from the School of Mutter exchanging notes.

He flips past several pages of crudely drawn people and notes about their skills. They're discernable enough, but an artist he is not. Midoriya finds it easier to order his thoughts on paper rather than ramble at people. He takes his cues from the most recent nerdy neat, concisely-written pages. They're accompanied by a few crooked schematic drawings of things like ceiling clearances in metric, fake entrances, and a basement (or two?).

"Thank you so much for coming. I've been wanting a private space to train since... winter, I think. And uh," how does he put this, "Paul-kun may have mentioned I work as a Hero saving people. Or maybe not, because I told him to be careful. Anyway, I'm thinking this place could double as a hideout if someone decides to make trouble. He wants to help with some traps himself. I don't know anything about magical security systems, so I'm trying to see what's possible..."

Here he trails off vaguely. This is why he's consulted an expert.
wannasmash: "Gotta invent a new move..." (frown hmm thumb)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-17 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Kind of...? It's like... notes I'd take in school... for training..." he says, a little embarrassed. It's true, but it's also the explanation he gives to mixed company. He forgets that his nerd hobby looks weird to other people. Slightly stalkerish, if it weren't for the fact that everyone in this notebook knows they're in it. Some even helped him put it together.

He parses everything Palamedes says with a look that, for all his earlier hesitation, grows as fixated as his. He pinches his bottom lip intently. He now understands these limited-use wards as custom mines rather than permanent installation. He had hoped for something less high-maintenance.

"Warmblood. I can't do magic the way it works in this world. Technically, I can't in my world either. I've just got my meta power, super strength." And some other stuff wrapped up in it, but that's not relevant at the moment. "We call them Quirks* where I come from. They're genetic, and they can be just about anything." He continues,

"When I'm in the building--or whatever it's going to be--I don't have to worry so much about having an alarm." For reasons. "It's just whenever I'm not that I'm worried about. I want to be able to leave this place and come back knowing it wasn't discovered. Or, come back and find out who discovered it. I thought maybe trapping someone... or if there's a way to trace them..." He should probably take a breather, but he does not,

"Problem is, it needs to be big enough for some aerial training, which also needs to stay private... My other thought was a cave... a little more fireproof..." he descends into a low mutter. Location, location, location. He, too, gets ahead of himself sometimes.

*Kosei, lit. "Individuality"
wannasmash: "Oh no, huh?!" (oh no huh)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-23 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
He makes a strangled sort of noise when Palamedes brings it to his attention that he's gotten carried away. ("Sorry--") It's been a while since he pitched headlong into fast muttering. In a way, it's a sign he is once again in better spirits. So is grabbing a pencil seemingly from nowhere (from his pocket, he has no magic) and jotting down Palamedes's definition of psychometry as well as the limitations he's described.

"A supplement to the physical measures, got it. I don't want to injure intruders if I can help it. Don't want to just hit a curious bystander. Maybe just scare them? Anyway, a seal is better than nothing. Like--huh--the ones they put on sauce bottles..."

Calling them files makes him sound like a detective. Or an office worker. He doesn't flip the pages back, but he drags an idle thumb across the papery edges, which makes a satisfying fwip.

"If someone has a cool move, I note it down. I might be able to use or adapt it for my work. Or if I know everyone's skills, I can team up better too. It's been useful in emergencies."
wannasmash: "There's something in my shoe." (frown hmm down)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-24 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Midoriya is the king of coming up with stunningly mundane analogies for extraordinary things. He once (and still) compared an unbridled, painful release of his own power to an egg exploding in a microwave. At present, he privately compares each new stage of it as a series of locked doors. He's going to use the analogy of sauce bottle seals, even just in his head, and Palamedes can do nothing about that. He avidly watches Palamedes count the ways in which he can put blood on a thing and have it be very effective.

"Still impressive..." He can't help a small, brief grin, but this is business, and he's been at work-studies long enough to rein expressions of admiration in. "Another disadvantage of hurting an intruder is blood pollution. Let's just stick with 'disappears when crossed.' And 'diverts approach' might be useful not around actual entrances, but fake ones or something. Don't want to put too many of those in case we need to enter or exit through an alternative route, or even turn it into a shelter for more people in a big emergency."

He draws a quick, barely-comprehensible doodle of a sauce bottle while tapping his lip and looks up.

"You're right about that. I've had to be careful what I actually write down. It's incomplete on purpose. Just stuff they've shown everyone in public--and only what will fit in here. Even back home, when I memorized one notebook, I switched to a new one."
wannasmash: "Thanks for everything." (smile scuffed)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-05-02 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
cw: mention of body horror eyes

He nods. Hunters know every instance of bleeding is pollution. He'd just like to keep it to a minimum, even if he has friends who wouldn't mind smacking around intruders indiscriminately. Midoriya would like to smack people around responsibly.

"I can? That is, if you want?" Midoriya can't help a small note of excitement. Palamedes, should he give his blessing, would appear as a long, thin man with glasses, clothes shaded in gray with a pencil, under his name in katakana.

"Other than it raises and manipulates bones, nothing. Not sure if healing is connected, come to think of it..."

Midoriya rubs at a spot on his neck. He hasn't researched the purview of some of the inhabitants of Bone House, only encountered it. He thinks of the inscrutable man with the eyes he met on the beach during battle. He lent his skeletons to the fray and removed adverse effects from Midoriya, who stumbled into Illarion's swan song: a contaminating eldritch soup. Midoriya is glad to be rid of the e̴̩̅ẙ̸̝̌ẻ̵̫͂s̸̛̝. They were uncomfortable and slowly multiplying.
wannasmash: Oh I just remembered we were about to drop the latest hot album. (oh remember)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-05-03 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
He chokes a little in the back of his throat at the mention of boner jokes. He wasn't going to say it... Paul told him that Harrowhark, for example, uses the (presumably donated and therefore sustainably sourced, of course) bones of her people's dead. Midoriya is under the impression this is part of venerating one's dead, or at least permission to recycle, even if it takes a form completely opposite of how the dead are treated in his world. Midoriya didn't want to be culturally insensitive! Midoriya knows it's unusual to most people, and doesn't talk about the skeletons with others unless it comes up. He doesn't want anyone to be judged before actually having a chance to introduce themselves. It's Midoriya's default not to gossip, even to a close friend.

Midoriya's notes are far more organized and concise than the way he speaks, and they are as accurate as the information he's given. His pencil skates with a controlled freneticism over a page soon to be titled Palamedes.

"I've encountered a healing Quirk in my world. That one just speeds up the body's natural recovery, though a strong dose can use up too much of the patient's energy. Every Quirk has its limits. And I've seen another that returns someone to how they were before. That can look like healing too, but without being careful, it can also be taken too far."

Only now, having finished writing, does he pause and really take all this in. This branch of magic can be incredibly powerful, holding sway over life and death. He was already impressed that the man with funny eyes could "heal" without a touch. What he did was a little more than just augment a body's performance. Like many Quirks Midoriya has encountered, it has enormous potential if trained well in the right hands--and also frightening implications.

Midoriya is not frightened. It is true that some people in his world ascribe good or evil to someone's ability, but he has always seen it as simply something special. A tool, unique to a person and how they use it.

"It's easier for me to understand the physical magic. What about the spirit? Other than tracing energies, what else does that cover?"