Avishraa Reloaded

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{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol had said something about speaking to her gods, but she had - rather characteristically - failed to mention exactly when and where this would occur. So when she failed to appear in the lab for further experiments with Shyriath, it was reasonable to guess that she had decided to undergo this... procedure, whatever it was. But where had she gone?

Someone peering into her room would have seen that the glowworm-lights had been turned down. This was not part of their usual behavior, so evidently it had been done on purpose. In the dim light, there was no immediate sign of anyone around, But there was a scent on the air, as of recently-cooked mushrooms; some of them, sliced, sat on a plate on one of the tables.

On the wall behind them was a... a decoration that, a few vigils ago, hadn't been there. Someone had painted, in ochre or something like it, a kind of design. It was hard to say exactly what it was meant to be; nothing came to mind if one just stared at it... but, when glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, it was hard not to see faces emerge briefly from the shapes, only to disappear when one tried to focus on them.

At last, one might hear, from the vicinity of the angle between the round bed and one of the walls, a faint noise: a panting, edged with whimpering. Puugwol lay there, or at least surely it must be her, but she seemed to be having difficulty holding her shape; colors and textures moved and clashes across her body like waves on the surface of a pool. But it was possible to make out that her antennae were flushed and her pupils were dilated. Her gaze was fixed on the  design painted on the wall.}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss was certainly not the type to get concerned about people's voluntary self-poisonings, especially when the effect was not likely to be a lethal dose, but he'd come upon Puugwol mainly because of the not directly explained absence. If something //else// had happened to her and she needed help, it would certainly have been prudent to check. And so he gave a mildly annoyed exhale as he quietly entered Puugwol's abode, approaching to check on her without deliberately breaking her rapt attention on the image. If she'd taken too large a dose, he might need to help; it would serve no one if one of her organs shut down. Hopefully she was firmly this side of not-dying - if the situation was anything else, he would have to intervene, and she wouldn't like that, and it would make things awkward.}}

{{wst>shyriath|As he approached, his alchemist's sense clearly picked up on the psychoactive substances sloshing around in her body, and the chemical signatures of stress. Her eyes flicked to one side to glance at him, then fixed on him, or at least in his direction.

She said something in her own tongue, though it seemed to contain his name: //"Duune ta nAjnris? Nkat al-"// She stopped, slowly blinking as if something were trying to hold her eyelids back, and then reached out and gripped his ankle, since it was the only part of him she could reach. She said, concentrating desperately on the words: //"Please do not leave me."//}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|He hadn't expected her to interact with him, much less want him to stay. Biologically, nothing life-threatening was happening to her, so he had been mentally gearing up to leave before she reached out for his ankle. For a moment, he simply stood there in a kind of stupor, then shrugged the lethargy off his thoughts and sat himself down beside Puugwol, offering a paw on her shoulder. "Okay," he confirmed, softly, but made no effort to further insert himself into the scene, other than to exist for her. That part, at least, was easy.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol kept her gaze on Einriss. The image on the wall was a focus, something to look at while communing, but at this particular point she didn't need it; the faces loomed out of everything, the messages came from all around, and it was overwhelming. But around Einriss they were not quite so powerful, his color was soothing...

"The... the Lords are not gentle in their speech this time," she whispered hoarsely. "They bellow; their laughter is loud..." She shuddered as her face twisted up in a shape-change, then slumped. "Were there a shaman here, I would have undertaken this with their guidance; but all the shamans are where I came from."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"You'll be all right," Einriss assured her. He couldn't comment on the spiritualism, even if he were so inclined - he simply didn't know enough about her religion to comment meaningfully. Besides, this was a biological event that was screaming itself at him; thinking about anything other than the way her organs were fluttering with stress and her nerves were firing exaggeratedly took concentration he might have been able to muster, but only just, and the lack of familiarity prevented him from giving it an honest try. He did, however, place both hands on her now - even if that worsened the feedback he was getting - and petted her shoulder and arm soothingly.}}

{{wst>shyriath|The touch seemed to lessen Puugwol's terror; at least, the whine faded out of her panting and her transformations became slower. She transferred her grip from Einriss' ankle to a wrist. "Thank you," she managed, and then added, demonstrating an unusual insight: "I know... you were not raised in the ways of Mangukal. This must not have much meaning to you. Possibly you may find the biochemical effects interesting - at home some alchemists have said that tracing the movement of the products of //bilaak-tesh// ingestion proved to be an insightful exercise..."

She trailed off. The teal of Einriss' scales really was capitvating. Neither her conversational skills nor her current state of mind lent themselves to poetry, but she wished she could manage the words to convey the sheer depth of color there.

Instead, she said: "Also... also... from this place within the mist, your scales seem very luminous."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|If anyone was able to appreciate the effects of intoxication on a person's judgement calls, it was a lifegiver-alchemist. He tried not to be too visibly taken aback by the sudden compliment, cycling a little through a mild mental confusion that rattled around in between all the sensory input from the fascinating biological trainwreck he was witnessing, through a brief embarrassment, and landed on something that bundled the illicit interaction together into an emotion that had commonalities with an admission of guilt.

But even given that he was mentally occupied mostly with her biological state, he managed to shake it off, find his footing, put the whole thing into perspective, and say: "Mmm, I suspect that's from the added electrical activity in the nerves of your eyes. Your retinas may currently be more sensitive to the higher-energy wavelengths, like the blues." At least he said it with a mild, friendly smile, and didn't break contact.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"Possibly. But there may also be contributing effects in, in the visual cortex - sensory artifacts are usual with //bilaak-tesh// ingestion..." She glanced aside, where a ghastly face grinned out at her from the wall. Her grip on him tightened momentarily "They show the faces and voices of the Lords to me. The things that the //bilaak-tesh// reveals are wondrous, they are gateways to meaning, but not always pleasant."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss wasn't convinced that there was much meaning to be found in bilaak-tesh, but he had enough tact not to say it to Puugwol's face. Since the conversation seemed to help stabilise her, he put some effort into continuing it: "What are your Lords telling you, then?", he asked with a mild curiosity, though most of his attention remained on the chemical imbalances and the frantic efforts of her organs to correct it.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"Many things," she whispered, "many things. They have many voices. One cannot listen to all of them at once. Some say I should examine again the possibility of visiting the Citadel, that I am limited in remaining in this world. Others say I learn more about life by remaining on an alien world than I would be going back. Others speak of the future, that back on Avishraa, there is coming war and blood; that there are a blade and a storm and a spark and that all unknowing they bring death behind them in pursuit. They speak of fire from the sky-"

She stopped, shivering, and then said, "Meaning, much meaning, but I cannot see what the meaning means."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Very coherent, as expected. Einriss frowned mildly, only with some willpower resisting the urge to begin interfering in her little experiment by helping her body purge the toxins. Biologically speaking, the worst of it was well over, there was no need for him to meddle. "Perhaps once this... session is over, you can go over their arguments again and pick out the one that seems most fruitful," he recommended, running a hand over her rippling skin carefully in a soothing gesture.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"Yes," she murmured. "That is usual, in any case. The mortal mind can only see while within the mist, but can only translate what it sees once it comes back." Her gaze turned back toward Einriss' face. "What is Oldstone like? I wanted to see it, but did not get to before the Oracle had me brought here."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|It was the first time Einriss had really been made aware of how little of Oldstone Puugwol had seen. That, perhaps, explained the voices in Puugwol's head suggesting she explore Avishraa. "It's... a place, I suppose." Having spent his life there, it was simply normal to him, and he struggled for a moment to think what might be worth calling out.

"The natural landscape around Oldstone is quite a bit barren, but it does have the occasional hardy surprise," he mused, a little haltingly. "Not a large amount of inspiration for work, but some of it, at least. The really interesting parts, of course, are what's been engineered.

"Specifically, you might like the subterranean caverns we use for temperature-controlled agriculture. Some of them are lined with crops that obtain their energy directly from silicate compounds - they grow very slowly, but steadily. It's quite a sight, really; some of them will grow practically anywhere if you let them, and since these don't do any photosynthesis, they don't reach toward light sources. Instead, the entire inner lining of the cavern is covered, bar the pathways maintained between the crops, like an inverse fluffy cushion."}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol tried to imagine what it all must look like, based on Einriss' words, but imagining things was difficult in while in the grasp of //bilaak-tesh//; the inner eye tended to be overwhelmed by what was beyond the veil. After a while, she gave up.

"They must have difficulty adapting such plants to these tunnels," she replied slowly. "Or perhaps because of their slow growth they are not yet ready for cultivation. I have looked into the farms they have here, but they contain only Avishraan fungi." A slightly wistful look crossed her face. "When I was found after crossing into the Citdadel, I was near death. While I was being cared for, they told me a little of Oldstone. They said that most newcomers went there, and I should have liked to go; but then the Oracle came with a book, and brought me directly here. Of course it has been very interesting, but it seemed strange to come so far only to be diverted."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"Perhaps we could ask that they bring you some samples," Einriss mused. There was less movement between Oldstone and Oghiras recently, even Einriss had not been blind to the change, but surely some were still switching between the worlds while they toiled away here to advance the sciences? He had a suspicion that the cause of the scarcity of movement was 'politics' and associated tensions, and a need to lie low, which he found distasteful - surely what they were doing here would be to everyone's benefit, and need not be guarded as it was - but that was a known disagreement with Dlyss. She was, simply, much more paranoid than he was, and given her abilities, it was wise to assume it was for good reason.}}

{{wst>shyriath|"Perhaps," she murmured. "But it would be interesting to see things in person. And to see what it is like in a town with only witches - there was no such thing at home. And possibly to talk to many lifegivers together about what they have learned. But when I asked Dlyss if I could make a brief journey, at least to gather samples for the purposes of comparative biology, she said no. She said..."

Puugwol paused, trying to remember the phrasing. "...yes. She said I 'talk too much'."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|If Einriss had been any more socially capable, he might have understood what it meant - that there were secrets here that Dlyss did not want shared with even as much as the rest of the Chosen - but it was a turn of phrase he had no experience with, being rather quiet and unassuming by default, himself, and so it simply struck him as a non-sequitur.

"What a strange comment! You don't talk more than most people," he observed, a little defensively. "And there are definitely people who are more talkative still back in Oldstone who aren't causing any trouble. Why would she care?"}}

{{wst>shyriath|"I think-" -and it was clear, from Puugwol's tone, that she was slightly confused as well- "-I think she meant about particular subjects. She said that there are things that it is important not be said. She said that people in the Citadel should not be made aware of the existence of //this// place, and asked if I would be willing not to speak of it; I said I would not, and she said she knew. Then she asked me if I would be willing not to speak about my homeland and what it was like there; I said I certainly would not do that either, and she said she knew that too. She said: 'That is why you must stay here.'"

The shapeshifter paused, and her form rippled again before she continued, "I tried to leave anyway, to see if I could. There were guards in the corridor to where they keep the book, so I changed form to that of someone who I have seen come and go. But there is some kind of enchantment there, meant to undo Shift-magic transformations. I think it was not expected, when it was made, that someone should try to pass who had made a change of form made permanent..." She grimaced with the recollection of pain. "The experience of an attempted return both to my default form, and to my //original// form, when those things are now different, was... unpleasantly instructive."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss paused to imagine the change, rendering it in his own mind as a kind of nausea, the sort you might feel when your visual input was mismatched with what your sense of balance told you was happening. But while he could appreciate how unpleasant that must have been even just by that analogy, for the act of subterfuge, he had very little empathy. Still, his tone remained gentle as he spoke: "As much as Dlyss's instructions are sometimes strange or even frustrating, she is an Oracle, remember that. If she says not to go to Oldstone, there will usually be a good reason for it. If you try to covertly circumvent her rules, frankly, you should both expect it to fail, and for the failure to be unpleasant." He did not outright say 'and you would deserve it', but it was clear that he wasn't exactly actively upset that she had learnt this lesson the hard way, even if his voice was mostly soothing.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol did not seem offended, though neither did she seem contrite. "I had not been asked to be brought here;" she said,  "I did not see fit to ask to leave." If there had been any doubt in the matter before, then very clearly she was a Kaean.

"I am not in a //hurry// to leave," she added. "There are many interesting things here to study. There is work to do. There is you; I have not had a real collaborator before. Hardly anyone else I speak to understands the important things. But surely Dlyss cannot expect me to stay here forever."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|The reasoning - that she had been put here without explicit agreement, and so expected to be able to leave without explicit agreement as well - made sense to Einriss, but there was really no point in him commenting on it, since he wasn't the one that needed convincing. "Forever is a long time," he said, eventually. "I think even an Oracle cannot look that far." While it was crystal clear to his reasoning, from an outside perspective, it really was an unusually roundabout way of saying that he heavily doubted Dlyss would keep them here for any appreciable length of time. Then, by way of elaborating: "I suspect things are a little tense right now, in her political game. But as far as I've been able to see, those things come and go like the weather, being in their nature fickle and causeless. I wouldn't worry about the long term."}}

{{wst>shyriath|"I suppose not," Puugwol replied. She went quiet for a little while, her changes gradually smoothing out as she listened to the further whispers of her gods. Finally she asked, in the tone of someone with something on her mind, "Tell me - tell me, when our work here is done, do you have any plans on what you will study next?"}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"A respiratory symbiont," Einriss said, without much pause. "Something that would let us breathe underwater. I know it can't work indefinitely, all possible byproducts of carbon dioxide to oxygen metabolism need dealing with in some fashion, but it would be fascinating to even allow an hour under water without surfacing, purely using biological aids, without needing to tamper with takmar genetics to achieve it. After all, other organisms have a faster generation turn-over, yielding quicker experimental results - more stable ones, usually, too." He nodded along to his own thoughts as he spoke them. He would have equally liked to get back to his agricultural projects, really, but this topic was the one that needed the most //study//, and so it came to mind first.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol seemed to consider this, watching him with an otherwise unreadable expression. Finally, somewhat hesitantly, she asked, "If I am at liberty at that time, would you consider a continuation of our collaboration?"}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|I would hope for it, even," Einriss revealed - and in his manner of being bad at concealing his true feelings, it was quite obvious that he meant it, rather than that it was some kind of empty platitude he felt compelled to utter. Puugwol and he had very different styles of working, but they had complemented each other well, and for all his social blinders, Einriss had no illusion that he was any less eccentric than Puugwol with her desire to take drugs.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol was visibly pleased with Einriss' response.

To her eyes, she wasn't the only one. Where the faces of her god looked out at her - from the designs on the walls, the shadows of the room, even from the faint reflections in Einriss' scales - they grinned encouragingly. //Think what interesting things you could do,// they seemed to say.

She was inclined to agree. And she had projects of her own to pursue, which, perhaps, Einriss might be persuaded to participate in as well. She had made some progress in permanently modifying herself, but doing so through her own magic alone was... relatively inefficient, so perhaps...

Her grip on Einriss' arm, which had remained relatively firm through the conversation, loosened. //Bilaak-tesh// had taken her on an unexpected turn into terror, but it was now in the realm of the more helpful communion with the gods that devotees of Mangukal sought. Einriss was, perhaps, not the optimal replacement for one of the shamans, but he had managed the role in a pinch.

//A position of trust,// the Lords insinuated into her mind. //And if worthy of trust in this, and possibly in your own future projects-//

Puugwol's face briefly scrunched up. She knew what they were getting at. The Oracle had felt moved to make the same argument to her, somewhat less persuasively. But, perhaps, they both had a point. Her stare at Einriss became direct, filled with a sort of hazy thoughtfulness, and the tip of her tail curled lazily this way and that.

"There are some things that should not be decided within the grasp of //bilaak-tesh//," she said slowly, as if half to herself, "but: do you still think that producing eggs between ourselves would be the best option for obtaining experimental specimens?"}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Einriss briefly reflected on that this was a strange change of topic - not being privy to the thought process that had led her from the first point to the next - but wasn't deterred from thinking about it in earnest. "I cannot say whether it is the //best// option," he mused openly. "As that depends much on what parameters are important to you. But I do believe it would be //convenient// for you." Again, as before, his statement was delivered matter-of-factly, as though he weren't capable of thinking about it from a perspective of lust - although whether that would be true if they would actually pursue such a union was a different question altogether, and he might yet be weird about it in //other// ways, too.}}

{{wst>shyriath|The answer appeared to satisfy Puugwol. She also was not quite thinking of it from a perspective of lust - //bilaak-tesh// interfered with that sort of thing in any case - but it might, perhaps, be true to say that the prospect of an extended scientific collaboration had stirred up some embers of interest. Her tail flicked back and forth again.

"Some time after I have fully returned from my time within the veil," she murmured, "perhaps you could raise the matter again. I have not-" She paused, as if trying to assemble the right words. "I have never mated with a male voluntarily, so it would be a... different experience. But one of the lessons of my god is that different experiences are themselves lessons."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|"As you wish," Einriss promised, his tone neither reluctant nor magnanimous. That there were dark patches in Puugwol's past was not a surprise to him after what the Oracle had told him, though he wasn't presently realising that Puugwol didn't know that he had previously been told about this, and so his lack of comment might be taken as indifference, rather than as a polite acknowledgement that it was not something to pry into.}}

{{wst>shyriath|Puugwol did not bother much about Einriss' reaction; in the grip of //bilaak-tesh// it seemed unimportant, though she might have felt a bit differently in her usual state of mind. In any case, the memory, though somewhat anxiety-inducing, was less so than it might have been, because of the... the brain-thing. In that respect, at least, it had been successful, if probably not as much so as it'd been intended to be.

"Thank you," she said aloud, and added, "and... thank you for remaining. //Bilaak-tesh// has rarely beset me with terrors, but it is never an impossibility. But the visions have become more pleasant now; I would be pleased if you wished to stay, but if you have other things that need doing..."}}

{{wst>pinkgothic|Other things always needed doing, but as far as his list of chores went, he was effectively here to collect Puugwol, and he was certainly not going to do that until the drug was out of her system. It was, evidently, mellowing out a little at this point, judging by the signals he was getting from her biochemistry. There was little harm in simply waiting it out, even if that meant forgoing the small meal he had been planning to eat soon, and perhaps proffering himself as a bony plushie as she slept at the tail end of her journey. "I can stay," he reasoned, and managed not to accompany it with a deep, reluctant sigh. As soon as her body stopped being quite so talkative, he could probably at least think about some of their projects and advance them in ideas. It wasn't all lost time - and he //was// fond of Puugwol, and helping her was enjoyable in its own right.}}