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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2024-03-30 [2024/04/13 18:11] – created shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2024-03-30 [2025/05/24 18:57] (current) – pinkgothic
@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 {{wst>shyriath|"Oh. Oh yes, I suppose you would not know of it," Puugwol replied. She paused for a moment, and then explained, "It is a fungus of the forests of my homeland. A parasite of trees. It displaces their native fungus-symbionts and causes the trees to die, and thrives on the fallen wood. It prefers trees that concentrate certain elements and compounds, particularly indoles. It is part of how I speak to my gods."
-In such a context, that last sentence was... unexpected. A psychoactive fungus, possibly? <c>
+In such a context, that last sentence was... unexpected. A psychoactive fungus, possibly?
 "I have found pieces of wood with the correct properties, but in such small pieces that the //bilaak-tesh// cannot thrive properly on them," she added, as they emerged into the harsh, dim light. Ahead of them was a track that led down into a valley at the foot of the mountain; flanking it on either side were tree-stumps in sufficient quantity to suggest that the Oracle's followers came this way to harvest timber.
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 {{wst>pinkgothic|"I tend to the seeds of life most of all," he said, in a tone of acknowledgement. "Under my guidance, life grows into a different shape from its inception. My leaf-wing, for example, is from a specimen I grew from an altered seed, then grafted its pieces into place once it had matured. That said, that was a special case - some of the most important parts were instructing my own body to merge with it. It took time - not at all as convenient as your shifting," he smiled. "But I suppose the permanence is built in to how I do things, which grants it some charm. And if I have done it once, the result can usually reproduce, or be made to do so somewhat easily. And yet, it's difficult to see what will work and what will wither; Dlyss has helped me considerably by looking into the futures of my creations."}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"It is good to hear that she can be so forthcoming... when she chooses." These last words Puugwol pronounced with a certain amount of disapproval. "She has not always been willing to provide me with answers to //my// questions - I understand that she is a busy personage, but when a refusal takes more time to say than 'yes' or 'no, one wonders what the motivation is."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Puugwol's observation startled Einriss mildly. Of course the Oracle had not always been perfectly forthcoming, but it had always struck Einriss as more of an issue of vocabulary - that they might talk past each other. What Puugwol was describing seemed to involve no talking at all; not in any meaningful sense.
+But it was also less of a biologically-themed topic than before, and so he was able to split his attention and spread out his perception to look for signs of what Puugwol was looking for, even as he asked: "She does not assist you with her gift?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"She has not yet had work for me," Puugwol grumbled, "so there was nothing to assist with - at that time. It was... curiosity, of a sort. But I believe that having answers would improve my understanding and capabilities in the long term and that giving them to me would have been a worthwhile investment on her part. The one that was most frustrating was a question, ultimately, about the past.
+"Some transformations when shifting are easier than others, you see. I understand that when cutting gemstones, there are particular planes and angles along which a clean break is more easily obtained - I imagine it is something like that. There are things... implicit in the body that can be brought out. Some are things that are... variations, mutations. Things that appear in people sometimes, like a different scale color, or even the third eye I had when we met. But there are others that are not like that, that hardly ever appear in people, but which are... buried, somewhere inside..." She trailed off, struggling with a better way of putting it, then gave up.
+"I had an idea about why this was. I think perhaps that neither we, nor other beings, were created as we are. I think that we //became// how we are, proceeding from living things that were different from us. So that was one of the questions I asked of Dlyss, since of all people she should know how it happened." Puugwol assumed a sour expression. "She did not like that question," she added.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|By now, Einriss was inspecting a fallen, aged tree that was partly hidden by other foliage, sniffing at it with some interest, verifying his initial impression that it might be suitable for Puugwol's purposes. "This, maybe?" he interjected into the ongoing conversation, summoning her attention, but then continued with their talk by saying: "What you say sounds intuitive to me. In what manner did she not like the question?" There was confusion in his voice; he couldn't conceive of being upset at a question like that, and so by proxy couldn't conceive of someone else being upset at it, either.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol lifted her own muzzle, her nostrils working; she brightened up and slowed the cart to a stop, disengaging herself from the harness. "She said-" Sniff sniff sniff. "Yes, I think this might be suitable. -what she said was..."
+There was a pause and a faint movement in her throat, and then she said, in a very passable imitation of Dlyss' voice and inflection, if not her accent, "'This is not a matter meant for common knowledge. The gods have told us what we need to know about the origin of people.'" There was another movement in Puugwol's throat, and she added, in her normal voice, "I wonder at her gods, for being so stingy with their knowledge."
+She hunkered over the fallen tree, examining it, sniffing, clawing carefully at the bark and sniffing again, and then looking at the leaves before looking around. It was clear that, although there were a number of different species here, at least some of the living trees, scattered among the others, were of the same kind as the fallen one, even though they didn't smell quite as promising.
+"Perhaps it must undergo some decay before it has the right concentrations," she mused aloud. "But if we can cut some pieces off this one, they will be enough to last for some time, if this wood indeed proves suitable."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss shook his head mildly at her Dlyss imitation. The accuracy of the voice entertained him, but certainly not what it was saying. It seemed like a strange thing for Dlyss to get so defensive about, when she was actively encouraging the manipulation of all kinds of life into different forms, but he was willing to leave it at that. He was, after all, used to not understanding people's emotional reactions.
+"I can help you carry chunks back," Einriss offered, looking for suitable weak points in the rotting wood by careful touch, reckoning that it likely wouldn't even need cutting as much as a good yank at the right moment.}}