odd little alucine

[affodell]

It's never previously occurred to Cayra to put a door across an alucine boundary, but now that she's encountered it in practice it makes sense. It makes it visually obvious and it lets you lock it if you want. This door wasn't locked, and it looked like it led to a public bathroom, not a bar, from the signage, so she's still confused. Still, it's a good idea. She twists open the glass vial pendant around her neck and bends her head to the little blue lily inside to make a note of it; as an afterthought she tries to send it off to her antheomancer-chatcircle, anything to have a decent conversation, but it doesn't go. Her flower doesn't look wilting, but she can put it back in the garden and get a fresher one for the vial later. At least her personal files look okay. She closes up the vial again, giving the flower a touch of antheomancy for its health, and finds a bathroom inside the bar that dominates this little alucine.

And then she emerges into the bar. It doesn't seem to be staffed. Or stocked. Why wasn't it locked?

Hello, anybody here?

with Flynn (ErinFlight)

with Harry (andaisq)

Due to some icon rearrangement errors, some of Flynn's tags appear with an incorrect icon. The correct face for this thread is Rosario Dawson's.

Comments

[erinflight]

Flynn settles down to begin learning lithomancy.
Cayra sees how to give Flynn permission to learn lithomancy, use lithomancy, or learn and use all 'mancies.

[affodell]

Learn it, yes - for the time being. There will be enough evidence of the trend the vice is taking soon to reevaluate.

[erinflight]

Flynn begins. She is slower than average, but not outside the normal range. As she studies, faint threads become visible around the flower. They do not interfere, but are simply present.
Cayra sees Flynn begin to, very gradually, lose her empathy.

[affodell]

Cayra stops her. "That's - not helping."

[erinflight]

"What do you mean?"

[affodell]

"There are threads - they don't seem to be doing anything, or presumably I would have had the chance to stop you, but they're there, and your - empathy is fading away, which lithomancy does not do by itself."

[erinflight]

"Fuck!" Flynn hits the ground with a closed fist several times then springs up, shoving the flower vial in Cayra's general direction.

[affodell]

Cayra takes it and puts it around her necklace. "So it's not just doing weaving that gets the vice like you thought."

[erinflight]

"I guess not. I'm not getting worse just existing, right?"

[affodell]

"I don't think so, but I don't see why using a knowflower would cause any problems on its own either. Maybe you should try using it to learn a little Radial? And if that's a problem too then - see if you can use speakflowers safely, I guess."

[erinflight]

Flynn takes the flower and tries to learn Radial. At first nothing happens, but then a single thread appears, twisting around the stem of the flower.

The drop in empathy is miniscule, if Cayra hadn't been looking she might not have noticed it, but it is there.

[affodell]

Cayra stops her.

"That's - very slight, but there. I don't have a good explanation. I don't have a bad explanation. Knowflowers don't do that, and you weren't doing anything with weaving, so what the heck?"

[erinflight]

"I can always see the threads, but when I'm not weaving they look, look isn't the right word, seem very far away. When I weave they sort of get closer and other people can see them. That's what the threads around the flower were doing, but I didn't call them."

[affodell]

"Do you suppose the threads are sentient? And they - want to know what you're doing, or something?"

[erinflight]

"Maybe? I can't talk to them, but they do seem to have their own ideas."

[affodell]

"How do you know you can't talk to them?"

[erinflight]

"Actually, I don't. I've never tried. I'm not sure exactly how I would though? Weaving is automatic, like moving an arm. I could try and read their thoughts?"

[affodell]

"Yeah, maybe. We could also still try to find an oneiromancer. Actually, we should do that anyway, I'll put a stamen out about it -" Cayra fiddles with her speakflower. "Someone will get back to me eventually probably about that."

[erinflight]

Flynn begins to weave with permission from Cayra, and reaches out towards the threads.
A cloud of threads descends around her, obscuring her from view. She's never called this many before.

Suddenly, she feels them in her mind. Alien, incomprehensible, overwhelming. Alive.

Her empathy, self-control, rationality all start plummeting downwards.

[affodell]

Cayra interrupts.

"What happened?"

[midst_of_threads]

"You were right. They're definitely alive and very strange. There was nothing in them that was human or that I could even understand."

[affodell]

"They were affecting you. Fast. If you didn't get anything out of that brief contact I don't think you could get anything out of a longer try."

[midst_of_threads]

"Are the vices an attack? If they wanted to hurt us, there'd be easier ways to do it."

[affodell]

"You'd think. They come when you call, and when you use knowflowers - I didn't see any threads when you were notetaking on the speakflower. Try that just a little bit now?" Cayra hands over the blue one.

[midst_of_threads]

Flynn tries and nothing happens. "There were threads the first time you handed me a flower though, remember? I was just taking notes then."