Avishraa Reloaded

It had been something of a strange time, coming into the Oracle's orbit. Aside from being, by far, the wealthiest of Einriss' patrons, with the attendant security and servants and visitors and surroundings, he had been privileged to witness some strange uses of her magic. On one occasion he and Enneth and Dlyss' new psycheguard had been present while she'd conversed with filmy images of people in what was, apparently, some kind of small sanctuary half a continent away. Though it had clearly been a considerable effort, it was astonishing that she was able to do it at all.

The world that Enneth had made for Einriss' experimental use had never been given a name by either himself or Dlyss, a fact that seemed to upset Enneth; she had chosen to dub it Curiosity, and no one thus far had bothered to argue. Dlyss, as she had promised, visited regularly as her time permitted, as she did now, looking with Einriss over a mountain slope dotted with extremely tiny sprouts rooted into the scree, the first effort at planting.

Dlyss seemed, in some indefinite way, to be more relaxed on this world than on Avishraa, though why this should be was unclear. Certainly, even had Einriss been inclined to do so, it was hard to tell whether this was because she was enjoying herself in any conventional sense.

“It seems probable that they will grow surpisingly fast for plants contending with rock,” she commented. “Though some of this early generation will not make it.”

“That would be expected,” Einriss acknowledged. “Indeed, even a set of good seeds in perfect environment would typically suffer some duds, though mostly in the earliest stage of gestation,” he shared, but his attention was squarely on the seedlings, hovering near the precious yield, trying to sense any affliction of weakness in them. “Can you tell which of these will thrive and which will falter?” he asked. It was a common ritual between them - he would ask, and she might share her insights if she had any, and he would analyse the differences and refine his methods.

Dlyss moved forward, carefully stepping between the seedlings. “The most likely casualties are… that one, that one…”

She pointed out approximately a fifth of the plants. Though most of them were scattered throughout the plantings, there was a cluster of them on the western downslope, with almost no likely survivors. “I am not an expert in these matters,” she commented, “but the components of the scree here are of a larger size and less closely packed than on the rest of the slope, which may be relevant.”

“Hmm, yes,” Einriss concurred. “It would certainly explain the cluster. Let's see.”

He grimaced mildly at the doomed saplings, gently trapping one between his fingers, feeling its 'form', a word he had used to describe the sense of it to Dlyss and her associates in the past. He had once tried to call it the 'taste', but although that was better at evoking a sense of the kind of feedback his mana gave him, it was confusing and misleading, being many degrees more refined than that. Something that resonated with his intuition in a primal way. A badly sickened lifeform could certainly trigger a reaction not unlike spitting out a mouldy fruit.

The form of these saplings was indeed sickly, even if it wasn't yet outwardly apparent. They were struggling. “Something is wrong with the osmotic pressure gradient over here,” he said. “So they're hypertonic.” He lingered for a moment, continuing his assessment in his customary silence. “I'll have to see if I can excise that failure mode without introducing other issues.”

Then he looked over to the scattered ones. “I'm more interested in these,” he said. “Whatever's happening to them is more subtle. Thank you for pointing them out.”

Dlyss nodded vaguely at the thanks. “Alas, I cannot see precisely what the problem is; some hereditary variable, I expect.” She pulled her white robe more closely around herself; a cold wind was starting to blow across the slope. “It will be getting very uncomfortable out here over the next few rests. It might be wise to go inside shortly - or else to find heavier clothing.”

It was good, as always, that someone had the good sense to point these things out to Einriss, because he would have stubbornly stayed outside until just before the onset of frostbite. Even knowing that it was a wise observation, he was reluctant to engage with it, his attention bundled on one of the saplings. It was foolish to assume he would lose his tacit insights if he left now - they would still be there when he got back. But interacting with his projects always came with a sense of personal urgency that was hard to shake.

Still.

With a soft sigh, he rose, nodding gently. “I would like to continue with these, but you're right that it would be wise to grab something warmer.” Not bothered by that it was an awkward thing to say, he appended: “I appreciate the nudge.” Then he pulled his attention away from the field altogether. Withdrawing from the pinpricks of life left him felling hollow, an empty vessel the biting cold could take up residence in, and he became acutely aware just how apt Dlyss's observation had been. He could easily damage himself staying out here as he was, even now.

Dlyss led the way back up the slope and into the cave. The air around the glowing orange crystal in the central chamber shimmered with heat. The oracle seated herself at a distance from it that would normally be uncomfortable - she'd have to back away shortly - but for the moment was extremely welcome.

As Einriss followed, she turned to look at him. No amount of precognition allowed her to read minds, but after a while of behavioral observation one could assemble an idea of what someone might be thinking. After a certain amount of hesitation, she said, “Barrenness in the environment causes you discomfort, does it not?”

“Quite,” Einriss admitted. And maybe he would have left it at that, but after all this time, he had learnt some things about Dlyss - that as an Oracle, she could see many things, and the things that she could not see were a frustration, and he would do her a disservice if he didn't elaborate. “It feels like an empty stomach,” he described it. “Except that my whole body feels it. Like someone had carved the marrow out of my bones, and replaced my muscles with strings. Not pain, just… discomfort. Another reason to get back to my work quickly.”

Dlyss absorbed this information impassively, appearing to consider it. “I suppose it is unavoidable,” she said, “given the nature of the environment where these plants will be called upon to grow. Lichens and the other small things that live by habit at these altitudes do not have much life force to detect, as a rule.

“But aside from the pure utility of what we hope to achieve with these,” she continued, turning back toward the crystal, “they certainly will have the secondary effect of bringing life to places which lack them. The gods, I imagine, will approve - most of them.”

Einriss was not generally the type to chuckle, but Dlyss's remark prompted one anyway. “Ah, which god are you thinking of disgruntling with our work?” he asked in amusement, foraging for a warm coat, much of his mind longingly wandering back to the field outside, but not quite enough to close him off to friendly conversation.

Though Einriss had seen faint hints of emotion had crossed Dlyss' face from time to time, usually when she was upset, he had never yet seen any sign of amusement; this occasion proved to be no exception. She remarked gravely, “Uvuun takes no pleasure in anything brought into existence, for all things are done in defiance of Him.” She paused, and added, “He is a difficult god.”

From anyone but Dlyss, it would have been humorous understatement.

“But for that reason,” she added, “His opinion can be left out of our calculations. And the others, I expect, will be pleased, when they notice at all.”

Einriss was shrugging into a loose-fitting but tightly-woven, warm garb that would let him spend more time out in the bitter cold, nourished by his own trapped body-heat. It folded his wings against his body, too - a reasonable precaution when one didn't want to expose more surface area than necessary to the elements.

He pawed briefly at his face, as though probing how chilled it had become, and began to loop a scarf around his neck in response to what he determined. “I feel like Uvuun has it all wrong,” he quipped. “More life means more food later.”

It wasn't an argument and it wasn't presented in a way that Dlyss would mistake as one, and so he wasn't expecting a response to it. Instead, he huffed out a breath and declared: “I'll head back to the patch for another rest, see what I can tweak or learn.”

Dlyss nodded. “I shall remain here for a short while before returning.” A thought seemed to strike her, and she added, “How comfortable are you with modifications to animal life?”

Einriss, who had begun to turn to leave between Dlyss's two statements, snapped his attention to her quite suddenly. “Oh, I would be delighted to try it sometime!” he said, nodding mildly. “If there's a project you have in mind. The intuitions you're helping me build will probably only be of partial use there, but if you'd be willing to lend your predictive skills again, I see no reason why that couldn't change. Animals may be made of different things, but the principles of growth and mutation are the same; getting it right would be like learning another language not too different from the one that one grew up with. There might be some tripwires, but they ought to be surmountable. What did you have in mind? I presume something other than merely more robust fish?” He looked at her with unconcealed delight and enthusiasm.

Dlyss gave him a look that was ever-so-slightly softer than usual, a echo of a parent indulgently watching a child with a new toy. “There are no solid plans, yet; merely possibilities glimpsed in the future. It may prove necessary to investigate more than one, and to have multiple lifegivers on hand to collaborate on them, if enough can be found.

“But it would be… helpful, I think, to have your participation in such an endeavor when the time comes. The present project will first need to be brought to a point where it is more self-sustaining, of course.”

For all his social blindspots, Einriss could tell when someone was dangling a proverbial carrot just out of reach. That she wouldn't even share any of the options she was envisioning disgruntled him a little, but he knew from prior experience not to bother trying to press it out of her. If she hadn't volunteered any yet, she wouldn't in the next few sentences. It was quite possible she couldn't, even if she wished it.

At least the emotion was countered, in part, by the prospect of coordinating others to greater effect - while it would prove daunting, and potentially involve managing people, which he was hardly skilled at, it did multiply his options quite literally, and so the prospect intrigued him. “And help I shall,” he said, a shrugged but sincere promise. “Back to the seedlings.”