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

[midst_of_threads]

"Figuring things out. The threads might know something, but I'm now sure what to ask. And I need to see a soul die without actually killing anyone. Do you know what death is?"

[affodell]

"Are you talking to me or the threads? What do you mean, what it is?"

[midst_of_threads]

"You, sorry Cayra. I know what kills people, not eating, losing blood, large wounds, sickness. But I don't understand why. It seems almost random. A fever or losing a hand will kill one person, but the next one will be fine."

[affodell]

"A medeomancer might know more about that. Maybe we should go find some medeomancers and you can cure their vices so they can, like, consider questions in a halfway normal fashion, and ask them why some people survive fevers?"

[midst_of_threads]

"Good idea. What vice do they have?"

[affodell]

"It's sort of hard to tell, actually, but they seem to stop thinking of people as people. Including themselves. They still want things but they don't - contemplate being the sort of thing that wants things. They fail basic tests like - if you had a coin in your pocket and there was one on the ground over there that I was looking right at, and I told you 'bring me the coin', and you felt like obliging me, you'd go pick up the one on the street. A medeomancer might ignore me or might give me the one in their pocket but they wouldn't pay attention to what I was looking at, or realize that I couldn't have known there even was a coin in their pocket. I'd like to be able to heal people besides myself but I couldn't have taken the vice."

[midst_of_threads]

"That's awful," Flynn grimaces, "Is there anyone in your world who studies how 'mancies work? Maybe we can figure out a way to share weaving or get rid of vices completely?"

[affodell]

"There is unfortunately only so much you can learn about how 'mancies work without picking up any of how the magic itself works and getting hammered with vice. There's statistics-type stuff but I'm not sure that would help. You can fix vices, at least some of them, though."

[midst_of_threads]

"Is there a specific vice for studying magic or is it the vice of whatever branch you're studying?"

[affodell]

"Second thing. Like, if you want to know whether specific parts of emotional disregulation can be avoided by learning only certain aspects of pyromancy - if you're trying to figure out if you can get uncontrollable delight without uncontrollable anger or sadness - then you're going to learn something about what the aspects of pyromancy are."

[midst_of_threads]

"Does anyone know where your magic comes from?"

[affodell]

"Nope. I mean, people say 'from the flowers' but that doesn't really mean anything. We don't know where the flowers are from or who started putting magic instructions in them."

[midst_of_threads]

"Hmm, maybe some of the more powerful weavers will have an idea once their vices are removed."

[affodell]

"Maybe."

[midst_of_threads]

"Do you know where any medeomancers are?"

[affodell]

"Not near where the portal in my world is, I don't know any amenities I didn't have to look up in order to find a bed-and-breakfast, there. But I can find one via speakflower network easily enough."

[midst_of_threads]

"Speakflowers seem really useful."

[affodell]

"They're great. Although I won't be nearly as dependent on them now that I'm not forcibly extroverted."

[midst_of_threads]

"Let's go see if we can find some medeomancers."

[affodell]

"Sure. Let her follow me," Cayra tells the portal, and in she goes, and out she pops into the alucine she was in before this all started.

[midst_of_threads]

Flynn steps through after her.

[affodell]

And here they are in the alucine. Cayra interacts with her speakflower, then confidently sets off in a direction. "Found one. A really advanced one, with a handler/friend he's used to paying attention to, so he won't do anything wacky. Fix him and receive inside knowledge on anatomy and how to fix it when it breaks."

[midst_of_threads]

"Do advanced medeomancers still want to heal people when they get that advanced?" Flynn says, following her.

[affodell]

"I think the idea is they make it a habit. I've been to see medeomancers, before, I was incredibly clumsy before I started picking up automancy and I'd go in with sprains and scrapes. They don't talk to the patients, they aren't gentle about it if the injury's in an awkward location, they don't warn you if it's going to hurt, and sometimes it doesn't occur to them they might want to wear pants if they're going to be in public, but yeah, if you're going to learn medeomancy you do it because you want to make it an absolute habit that you're not going to drop - when you see injuries you heal them."

[midst_of_threads]

"Is extroversion the most bearable vice?"