I just would feel better about trusting her if she said even a single thing that we could verify and we confirmed it was true.
Consumption
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Original
while Villagers may have been surprisingly educated when it came to things that directly affected their lives... how exactly is a random villager going to know something as subjective as "can this probably obscure individual entity be trusted".
Most likely the response would be a stinkeye equivalent as they tried to run the fellow consorting with strange entities out of their village.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
So would I. But I try to deal with things as they are, not as I wish they were. And, unfortunately, checking seems to be difficult, in this particular case. It'll just drive ya nuts, dwelling on the optimal scenario, I find.
Either that, or taking us to the local priesthood. Which would...probably be contraindicated, in this case.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Me, for now I am only willing to vote to free Delight and enlist her aid in getting us to a location safe from the high priestess's anger. Right now, I'm prepared to trust her that far- but not infinitely far.
If we are to make any deals that involve us paying a further price, I am going to vote against those deals unless Delight provides considerably more evidence of her good faith. However, we will be in a MUCH better position to gather such evidence once we get out of this jail cell.
If we are to make any deals that involve us paying a further price, I am going to vote against those deals unless Delight provides considerably more evidence of her good faith. However, we will be in a MUCH better position to gather such evidence once we get out of this jail cell.
Motile Mollusc
Bitten by a radioactive were-tilde
- Location
- Here
What sort of thing would you accept as considerable evidence of good faith?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I don't know, I'm trying to keep my mind open and be on the lookout for such evidence if it arises, rather than insisting on us pursuing a single narrowminded course of action. Some possibilities:
1) Us getting a chance to interact socially with other beings from this dimension and make sure Delight is telling the truth about the basic rules of how stuff works, like "Astrals can't lie about contractual issues."
2) Us getting to see Delight's own little realm and having good reason to decide that Delight is a decent sort based on what we find there (say, we get to actually talk to some of the souls she controls, and it turns out their 'servitude' is something extremely unobjectionable like "I have to spend eight hours a day chanting boring hymns, then get to spend the rest of the day in a pocket mini-heaven."
3) Us learning more about Delight's background, specifically, say from some wizard or vast library that lets us study her reptuation.
...
And there are more things, I'm sure, that I just haven't thought of.
Basically, I'm looking anything other than Delight's own word for Delight's basic trustworthiness and decency would help. I'm already willing to extend Delight SOME trust based on her own words, but not unlimited trust.
1) Us getting a chance to interact socially with other beings from this dimension and make sure Delight is telling the truth about the basic rules of how stuff works, like "Astrals can't lie about contractual issues."
2) Us getting to see Delight's own little realm and having good reason to decide that Delight is a decent sort based on what we find there (say, we get to actually talk to some of the souls she controls, and it turns out their 'servitude' is something extremely unobjectionable like "I have to spend eight hours a day chanting boring hymns, then get to spend the rest of the day in a pocket mini-heaven."
3) Us learning more about Delight's background, specifically, say from some wizard or vast library that lets us study her reptuation.
...
And there are more things, I'm sure, that I just haven't thought of.
Basically, I'm looking anything other than Delight's own word for Delight's basic trustworthiness and decency would help. I'm already willing to extend Delight SOME trust based on her own words, but not unlimited trust.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, what it comes down to is:
1) Do you trust her, and
2) Do you believe her?
It's possible to distrust Delight while still believing in the substantial accuracy of what she's saying. If she's not outright making everything up, freeing her is probably safe for us and the negative consequences of doing so will mostly fall on people who you can reasonably argue deserve it. But we still might not trust her enough to, say, give her free room and board inside Melia's own skull.
Me, I believe Delight, and therefore think it best to just free her now and avoid further bartering and bickering. But I don't trust her to be an entity of such upstanding character that I'd want to keep her around forever or make complex negotiations with her if I don't need to.
1) Do you trust her, and
2) Do you believe her?
It's possible to distrust Delight while still believing in the substantial accuracy of what she's saying. If she's not outright making everything up, freeing her is probably safe for us and the negative consequences of doing so will mostly fall on people who you can reasonably argue deserve it. But we still might not trust her enough to, say, give her free room and board inside Melia's own skull.
Me, I believe Delight, and therefore think it best to just free her now and avoid further bartering and bickering. But I don't trust her to be an entity of such upstanding character that I'd want to keep her around forever or make complex negotiations with her if I don't need to.
- Location
- Bowling Green
[X] Free Delight
-[X] Offer her an Elemental Hug.
--[X] Or a regular one
-[X] Offer her an Elemental Hug.
--[X] Or a regular one
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The fire elementals some day hope to find someone they can hug safely.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Just need to introduce them to Jade.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Genius.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Jade: Ummm hi?
Melia: Hi! Question - are you fire proof?
Jade: ... yes?
Melia: Excellent! I offer you hugs!
Jade: For being fire proof?
Melia: Well my fire elementals are doing the hugging.
- Location
- Somewhere
[X] Free Delight.
Nothing can go wrong!
Nothing can go wrong!
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Free Delight.
Nothing can go wrong!
Don't say that
it gives the GM ideas.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Everything can go wrong, but I'm reasonably confident it will start going wrong AFTER at least one update where I can make votes against it going wrong.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
If you're compassionate about freedom, then why not extend that compassion to those Delight holds in captivity?
And yes, she would still have slaves as some of her contractees are still alive and still have yet to serve their terms. She was even offered a chance to be free herself if she would release her contractees, but she delighted in keeping them bound.
Now if you think these people are fully deserving of their fates, I have a story to relate...
There was several businesses that popped up in the city I reside that offered loans for exorbiant fees and interest. Everyone knew that they were sharks, even poor people were not ill-informed as to the nature of these businesses.
And yet they still managed to find enough customers to make a lot of profit!
Poor people were not dumb, they knew full well what they were getting into, what they were was desperate. These businesses preyed upon victims who had no other options left.
Eventually a law was passed and these businesses were unable to charge as much for their services as they had been and they moved out of state. Any that would try to continue charging as much would be forced to refund their customers the surplus. Any that disobeyed a court order to do so would indeed find themselves facing punitive actions including possibly imprisonment.
...Delight isn't the only prisoner, she is the jailer of desperate people she targetted like an opportunistic tiger. And she is using her predatory instincts to con Melia.
For Meta-reasons, if disease is an issue, we already exposed a couple of worlds and would have exposed more if we had simply chosen other worlds to visit and had never came here.
Unless the Quest from the start was meant to be about killing every world we come across until a disease kills us, cross world contamination should not be an issue.
And yes, she would still have slaves as some of her contractees are still alive and still have yet to serve their terms. She was even offered a chance to be free herself if she would release her contractees, but she delighted in keeping them bound.
Now if you think these people are fully deserving of their fates, I have a story to relate...
There was several businesses that popped up in the city I reside that offered loans for exorbiant fees and interest. Everyone knew that they were sharks, even poor people were not ill-informed as to the nature of these businesses.
And yet they still managed to find enough customers to make a lot of profit!
Poor people were not dumb, they knew full well what they were getting into, what they were was desperate. These businesses preyed upon victims who had no other options left.
Eventually a law was passed and these businesses were unable to charge as much for their services as they had been and they moved out of state. Any that would try to continue charging as much would be forced to refund their customers the surplus. Any that disobeyed a court order to do so would indeed find themselves facing punitive actions including possibly imprisonment.
...Delight isn't the only prisoner, she is the jailer of desperate people she targetted like an opportunistic tiger. And she is using her predatory instincts to con Melia.
For Meta-reasons, if disease is an issue, we already exposed a couple of worlds and would have exposed more if we had simply chosen other worlds to visit and had never came here.
Unless the Quest from the start was meant to be about killing every world we come across until a disease kills us, cross world contamination should not be an issue.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Except that so far, the narrative seems more to suggest that people seek Delight out directly for bargains rather than the other way around. You are once again assuming that Delight is inherently malicious and predatory in nature without any kind of evidence beyond your own paranoid presuppositions.
Heck, the one example we have is of someone seeking her out rather than the other way around! Granted it is only a single example, and may represent some kind of exception, but even if you discard that example as too insubstantial to base an argument All that we are left with is the same split wherein both are equally possible.
There is no good reason to assume that Delight is as you say.
What matters is that these people found the price acceptable. They were not pressured into the deal by the other side and made the choice willingly. As long as people gave consent, there was no Delight's fault.
...ok seriously, wtf happened to the playerbase who went landslide voting on the highest risk highest reward action possible in Ignition?
suddenly paranoia everywhere!
sigh. why do I even read the discussion anymore? it's nothing but rehashing why this person is paranoid or that person is too trusting and no one is even using logic or evidence anymore.
Can we at least agree that Alivaril is a really nice person and we all like him? is that something everyone can agree on?
suddenly paranoia everywhere!
sigh. why do I even read the discussion anymore? it's nothing but rehashing why this person is paranoid or that person is too trusting and no one is even using logic or evidence anymore.
Can we at least agree that Alivaril is a really nice person and we all like him? is that something everyone can agree on?
It's the same opponents repeating the same points. The same ones that are currently down 3 to 24 in the vote.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thank you.
Imma just lock the vote to preempt further bickering. I apologize for the semi-cliffhanger which will have been around for about a month by the time I get back (around the 20th) and can update, but, well, refer to my profile.
Seriously, fuck cancer.
3.5 (OOC: Seriously, screw cancer.)
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
QM's Note: And we're back! This has been ready for about ten days, but as you can see, the staff review took a while. Honestly, I'm simply glad it passed inspection; I was worried about that after the first few days.
[X] Free Delight.
You glance around the room. So long as nothing explodes, disabling Delight's prison should be easy enough. The power sources are obvious, exposed, and likely light enough for you to lift without assistance. Still, best to make sure.
"How do I free you, anyway? Is it safe to just grab the crystals and take them out?"
Delight closes her eyes and smiles weakly. You'd been expecting more of a reaction, but given her positioning, you're not sure she's capable of more than that.
"Not entirely. Cover your hands with cloth or use some other tool. You're hauling around a fairly large pack; don't you have something suitable?"
You nod, crouch down, and slowly slip the straps off your shoulders. Your caution proves to be justified; a stone elemental is lurking atop your pack, watching Delight with blank grey eyes.Menacingly.
Your brief search doesn't turn up any gloves, prompting you to add it to your nonexistent mental list of important supplies. It might be a good idea to make a real one at some point. In the meantime, a dirt-brown tunic should be good enough for your purposes. You wrap it around your hands and approach the first chunk of crystalized environmental mana.
You haven't even finished crouching down—knees, not back—when your dirt and stone elementals move to help you. You gently push them away and shake your head.
"No touching."
The chunks of mana are relatively lightweight, only about as heavy as a bucket half-filled with water. Nothing visible happens to Delight's prison when you remove each one, but since that also means nothing is exploding, you consider that a win.
You save the ant-infested chunk for last. You do your utmost to keep it intact and avoid the biggest concentrations of ants.
If the bright flash of turquoise light is any indicator, your best isn't enough.
Right foot. Left foot. Moving onto a slope, lift your feet higher to compensate.
You obey your most helpful passenger, your own thoughts a million miles away. The eternal chatter from the girl in front of you (Tessa!) is treated as nothing more than white noise. It's not like you could understand her even if you tried.
Why did he leave me?
We've been over this. You were a distraction, nothing more. With entire worlds to choose from, d'you really think he'd pick you? Get real.
Wow, Red. Rude.
I tried kind already, thanks. Five days of moping about is more than enough. Stop sulking over a stupid boy and focus on where you'll probably spend the rest of your life.
You glance up at your guide and quietly sigh. Nothing about your current situation is in any way normal. The scandalously skintight clothes of some shiny substance would have you tossed in jail if you tried to wear them back home, yet here, almost everyone is wearing them. You can't see any plants anywhere, nor have you spotted or heard any wildlife—at least, unintelligent wildlife. The various little shops built into the steel walls don't count, no matter how rude or loud they may be.
And yet, as far as you can tell, all of that is normal for the world you're on. Or… habitat, Vasil had called it? Something like that.
The habitat's lack of natural life isn't the only thing outright wrong about the place. When your not-quite-captors had first tried to feed you, your delicious meal had returned from whence it came in very short order. You don't know what they could have possibly done wrong to make your stomach refuse to tolerate it; in the past, you'd eaten raw meat without any problems at all. How could they have done worse than that?
At least they seemed to get it right after the first two poisonings. The tomato-colored sweet sludge used in subsequent attempts doesn't taste quite right, but since they're willing to give you large quantities of it four times a day, you don't intend to complain. Strange meals are vastly preferable to missed ones.
Why yes, yes they are. You're better off now than you were in that rotten little hollow of yours. Clean water, unlimited food, an unchanging climate, and your own room? Yeah, this place is great. Why aren't you focused on making sure they don't banish you from it? You're not even making an attempt to learn their language. Okay, sure, a 'Drifter' abandoned you somewhere better than you lived before. Is that really so bad?
I still think that makes him sound like a hobo.
Aren't rude lines like that my job?
You hardly have a monopoly on them.
You shake your head furiously. Red is trying to make you happy by comparing your life now to back home, but what about in between? Vasil promised you the multiverse and then abandoned you on the very first trip. Worse, he used you as a distraction. You felt his gift of language fade, listened as the Guardian's shouts phased from 'Laboratory Containment Breach' to complete gibberish.
He could've just been trying to make sure you're safe and happy. You wouldn't have gone if he said he'd leave you in a strange place. You have food, shelter, new clothes, and people concerned for your well-being. You didn't have those before.
He lied to me!
Just tell them about Vasil's Talent. He made it sound like it'd be easy to figure out once they realize it's possible.
Aiding and abetting genocide isn't acceptable under any reasonable moral system, Red. Remember the part where 'these people can fly so high they can destroy entire cities with dropped rocks?' White already thinks she's crazy; let's not encourage that notion.
"Too late," you mutter. Even if your passengers can be fairly helpful at times, you're still positive sane people don't have voices in their heads. You're honestly lucky nobody ever found out or accused you of being demon-possessed. Watching the execution of one witch (necromancer) was a mistake; you've lost track of how many times you've had nightmares about taking her place. You know you're just crazy, not possessed, but would they?
At least you're not losing arguments with us, right?
I gue—
You stop and think about what Red just said. Agreeing with her could be counted as a 'win' for her and you definitely just lost the argument about Vasil's abandonment. What was the saying Red just referenced? 'Arguing with yourself is fine until you start losing?'
Red, you're a real bitch sometimes.
Please. Dogs are much nicer than I am. Incidentally, I hope you realize we're on the ceiling.
You jerk your head up and survey the outside world. Sure enough, the slope you've been walking up seems to have been continuously realigning 'down' to fit where you're standing. The path you started out on is now high above while the ceiling has taken its place. Apart from a grin matching your own eyes in width, Tessa isn't showing any signs of acknowledging the impossibility.
Once she's sure you're watching, the other girl slowly crouches down, carefully maintaining eye contact with you the entire time.
"H--- -- b--- a-- -a--- ---s!"
Tessa leaps toward the distant ceiling, shrugging off weight and human limitations at the same time. She quickly twists her body in midair and enters into a rather dizzying spin, one which doesn't seem to care about little things like 'loss of speed' or 'objects which travel skyward will inevitably come crashing back to the earth.'
Despite the severe lack of visible control, she still manages to land on her feet without any visible damage. On the ceiling.
This is so wrong.
After blinking several times and swaying precariously, Tessa looks back up at you and grins wildly. You don't understand her accompanying shout, but the beckoning motion is unmistakable.
Go on. It'll be fun.
You look between the floor and the ceiling several times. Your sense of up and down isn't showing any signs of vanishing.
I have no idea how she did that. How would hitting my head be fun?
Please. She wouldn't risk hurting you. Don't make Green agree with me even if I am sure she would.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, I am not opposing you just for the sake of doing so.
Above you, Tessa rolls her eyes and jumps back down to you. Up to you. Over to you. Gods, this is confusing. Could I please have my brain to myself for a little while?
After a moment of hesitation, the two heavy presences in your head slowly fade. You know from experience that they won't be gone for very long, but until then, you won't have to fight to have any thoughts of your own. Three peop—three personalities are not supposed to occupy the same brain. You suppose you're lucky you can hide your insanity at all.
As soon as the thought is formed, a pair of overwhelming weights shoves you back above your mind's recommended capacity.
♪ You're not crazy, you're just a little unwell… ♪
You blink several times and try to reorient yourself. Your name is Melia, not White or Galya, and you just freed Delight from her imprisonment. A pile of jagged, ant-infested shards is sitting comfortably inside the cheapest tunic you could find on short notice, which is itself being used to shield your hands and arms from said shards. You are not crazy, you don't have voices in your head, and you're dimensionally challenged.
By the sounds of it, so is someone else.
Your initial relief is quickly overshadowed by resentment and jealousy. On the one hand, you aren't alone in being dragged across dimensions in spite of your own wishes. On the other, you're not truly unique and the other Drifter, Vasil, sounds like a bit of a jerk. Leading Galya on, using her as a distraction for something illegal, and abandoning her? Pret-ty evil. As far as first impressions go, it's a poor one.
To make matters worse, Vasil has a blatantly unfair head start over you. If he really is evil, or even just heartless? You'll have an awful lot of trouble opposing him.
You're sorely tempted to pull down Calm's curtain to help you focus. Since Delight is still in the process of struggling upright, you're guessing only a few moments passed while you were busy hallucinating, a fact which is idly noted and glossed over. You might be getting a little too used to the chaotic mess known as your life.
Delight holds up both arms and forces you to shelve your analysis of the vision. It'll keep. Being distracted around a demon really doesn't seem like a good idea.
"Would you be so kind as to help me out of these? They're dreadfully uncomfortable."
You glance down at yourself and verify the presence of your penny knife. No oddly slippery clothes for you. You're still slightly mortified by what Galya and Tessa were wearing in your vision; their flimsy excuse for proper attire didn't hide their forms at all. Galya even knew better and she still wore it!
A polite cough draws your attention back to the real world. You dump the shards of crystal down on the floor, unsheathe your penny knife, and move to free Delight.
The Astral is unnaturally still while you saw away at the thin ropes. While her immobility does make your job significantly easier, it's also oddly creepy. The feeling of unease only intensifies when you realize her arms aren't even moving in response to your own motions. For all intents and purposes, Delight is indistinguishable from a stone statue nailed to the floor. Since your elementals have occasionally imitated such immobility, you're not at all sure why you feel so uneasy.
"Do we need to worry about interruptions? As in, were there any alarms tailored to you or your prison, did you have frequent visitors, are there patrolling guards, something?"
Delight's body begins breathing and twitching again. You never thought the little motions would make such a huge difference.
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I've been here for over two decades. I'm fairly certain I've gotten a firm grasp on all my defenses and caretakers. No, we almost certainly have multiple hours at the very least. If they don't arrive in the timeframe following that, they probably won't be coming today."
Not that, then.
Nothing turns up to justify the feeling in the time it takes you to finish freeing her arms. The wooden boards fall to the stone floor and immediately splinter upon impact. As you didn't see any flaws in their polished surfaces, you're not quite sure how that came about.
Now completely freed, Delight groans, opens her eyes, and begins stretching, apparently not caring about her moderately impatient audience. She soon misinterprets your silent staring and pauses mid-stretch.
"Tremble before me, puny mortals," Delight deadpans. "I could now proceed with pointless plans for world domination if I were so inclined. Mwah, ha, ha."
Delight rolls her eyes and returns to her normal tone of voice. Maybe 'usual' would be better? Her voice will never qualify as normal.
"Right, now that we've gotten the obligatory evil speech out of the way, let's take a look at you."
You hold up both hands before Delight can begin whatever she's planning. Alleged near-certain privacy or not, you don't think it's a good idea to idly chat in hostile territory when you don't need to.
"Shouldn't we be going? We can talk about this when we're someplace safe."
"Not really, no. I'll need to do the preparations for most of your potential rewards before we head to my Realm. We'll almost certainly be fine."
Delight finishes stretching and stares intently at you, her eyes rapidly switching to scan different parts of your body with no visible pattern or plan. You narrowly resist the urge to look down and begin your own inspection. You'll just have to hope she doesn't find anything objectionable.
Eventually, Delight establishes eye contact and smiles faintly. You're not sure why.
"You're apparently comfortable with your own appearance, yet still have at least a little concern for what I might find. Beauty is a difficult trait to manage; too much and others may be jealous or assume you're a vain fool, too little and many would experience continuous discomfort in your presence. Fret not. You're not going to have a problem with that last one either way.
"Attraction is all well and good, but I expect you could provoke protectiveness without very much difficulty. I could help make you even better at doing so. You may have trouble getting some to take you seriously after such changes. I imagine you have trouble with that already, and as such, I suspect that wouldn't be too big of a change.
"Speaking of which, your maturity leaves something to be desired and you're unusually uncomfortable with the thoughts puberty is forcing upon you. You've spent far more time socializing with your elementals than with other human beings, have you not?"
Delight pauses, apparently waiting for an actual answer. You oblige.
"I spent at least an hour speaking with other people. And that's daily, not total."
"During meals?"
"...Mostly," you admit reluctantly. Since elementals weren't always allowed indoors, you often ran outside to eat instead. Some families weren't so strict and were willing to let them stay; those families, you ate with.
"Bombarding others with an endless barrage of questions in spite of their own limitations? Continuing long past the point where they'd start spouting nonsense or would avoid your presence?"
You review some of your prior interactions with growing uncertainty. You wouldn't have put it like that, but...
"...Maybe a little?"
Delight sighs and shakes her head sadly.
"I thought as much. Few people like to admit ignorance, dear, especially when their knowledge of a subject isn't as complete as they thought it was. Do you know what a 'square root' is?"
You get the feeling she isn't talking about anything related to plants. For whatever reason, you're not nearly as happy to shake your head as you usually are. Admitting ignorance shouldn't be a bad thing, right?
"They likely would've come up when determining the ideal mana cost of dual-variable Al/E hybrid spells. Still unfamiliar?"
You force yourself to avoid hanging your head and just nod. You were supposed to be going to a magical academy to fix the holes in your education. It's not your fault a unique Talent decided to save you from semi-certain death, dismemberment, and digestion.
"You're lacking the background knowledge needed to modify your own incantations and inscriptions on the fly, then. You mentioned safety as your primary concern, but if you're that far behind, I sincerely doubt you'll be travel-safe for quite some time.
"You seem to have befriended elementals the hard way. As such, I recommend you focus on strengthening them for the time being. Letting them devour the crystals of my former prison should help with that. I advise beginning with air and stone so as to avoid encouraging the rivalries of opposing elements. That combination would do wonders for shelter, scouting, and personal protection. Fire would be the best for combat, but they cannot easily survive underwater. Improving fire whilst neglecting water would almost certainly encourage outright assault."
You twitch violently and look over at your floating fire elemental. You always thought he'd gotten along just fine with the others, even when they belong to 'opposing' elements. Mostly fine, at least. They'd learned not to pull harmful pranks on one another when they realized doing so would upset you.
Delight waits for you to look back at her.
"Now, that brings me back to repayment. Inoculation and safe passage are a given. As for everything else, I'm afraid I'd need consent for most of my specialties. Choices seem like the best way to accomplish that. First: I could rid you of the sexual thoughts you seem so uncomfortable with, although related attraction to others would be similarly crippled. Expect to inspire plenty of unrequited infatuation."
The daydreams in question are annoying, distracting, and often stage armed takeovers of your imagination. Despite all that, a painful and disruptive event demands your attention instead. If you had to pick a single one to eliminate, there wouldn't be a real competition.
"Could you kill the bleeding?"
"The bleedi—"
Delight's jaws click shut.
"Ah. Yes, although the changes aren't easily reversed—in terms of skill, not time—and you'd be completely incapable of having children for the duration. However, it is a cheap enough change I'd be willing to eliminate it without impacting our debt balance in either direction. I'll do such if you so desire."
You nod vigorously. Even if you don't get anything else good out of freeing Delight, that alone would make it worth it. Even your need for sleep isn't as awful.
"It's evil. Evil, evil, evil."
Delight shakes her head and turns away from you, smiling. After scanning the room, she crouches down and begins using one of the discarded mana crystals as improvised chalk.
"I'll do it when we're somewhere safer, then. I can still improve your appearance if you so desire, of course. Would you really be satisfied with picking the first two I offered?"
Probably not.
"Didn't you just finish saying appearance is interpreted differently by different people? How are you supposed to improve anything if it's subjective?"
The Astral briefly turns back and narrows her eyes up at you. You copy the gesture in a deliberate mockery of it, something she doesn't seem to care about in the slightest. You're still being glared at.
"There are some things which work on just about everyone. Scars, for one thing. Few people think those look good on a girl. I'd get rid of any current ones and make sure your body knows how to properly heal future would-be scars. Your hands look fine from a distance, but don't quite pass close inspection. Their minor calluses and deformities need to go. Your elbows and knees are so very much worse; the bone blatantly sticks out and just doesn't suit you. A little is fine and even normal, but you're downright pointy."
...Hold on, my knees?
You stop and look down at your legs. Sure enough, they're hidden under the grey cloth of your nicest clothing. You have no idea how Delight knew what they look like.
You rather hope your first and second guesses are wrong. That would just be creepy.
"While we're on the subject of your arms, they're too big. Large muscles may have served you well in your life thus far, but unfortunately, they don't really look right on an Arcane. I can shrink them down to something closer to what a well-raised noble would possess while keeping their functionality. Well, perhaps a bit larger. Some of those poor girls look like a particularly fierce wind would defeat them. Some find that attractive, others don't, and keeping your muscles while going so far would be really quite difficult. We might as well go with what won't sacrifice your strength. Arcanes are weak enough as it is."
"Why?"
Delight slowly tilts her head to one side, annoyance giving way to confusion.
"Excuse me?"
"Why are Arcanes inherently weaker?"
The Astral only thinks for a moment or two before turning back to her drawing. You get the feeling she's been asked this before.
"External mana will go toward improving your own Source, not the rest of your body. You'll seldom be as strong as an ordinary mortal—a Basic, if you will—and you'll need to work an order of magnitude harder for the same physical benefits. You're depicted as cloistered bookworms for some very good reasons. Why else do you think there are so few of you? Arcanes simply aren't as good at maintaining the land. Time spent teaching you your craft is time not spent on direct assistance to the community. When food is scarce, you'll still need to eat at least twice what a Basic would need.
"Human Arcanes are particularly interesting. If a parent never honed their gift, their children are more likely to be normal. If they did, there's practically no chance their offspring won't have the potential themselves, regardless of if their counterpart was an Arcane, Follower, or Basic. That particular trait is arguably one of the only reasons humans still have Arcanes at all; your craft isn't particularly kind to fools and idiots. Now, if I could continue?"
You've been talking for ages. Let others have a turn sometimes.
You stamp down the burst of resentment and simply nod.
"Good. Now, I'd need to take a look at how you'd cry. Looking terrible can still evoke sympathy, pity, or guilt, so I'd leave most of that. However, an overly runny nose? Disgust isn't useful. If you went for normal beauty, I'd adjust your spine and muscles so as to make standing up straight significantly easier. For the cute route, I'd instead ensure hunching won't damage your neck, back, and spine. Hanging or ducking your head counts. Obesity hasn't been considered attractive for centuries. Needing to watch your diet always struck me as rather unfortunate; I can let you eat practically whatever you want and still remain within the current standard of beauty."
Delight pauses and appears to consider this.
"Again, some of those girls look like they're in danger of imminent collapse. We'll go with a healthy amount instead of the famine-victim impressions. Still well within the range, just not the unfortunate end. Blushing would almost certainly need its own changes. Confining it to the cheeks in times of minor or moderate embarrassment is a must. We want you to look good, not as though you have a fever.
"Your skin color gets significantly paler underneath your clothing, marked by lines on your upper arms and around your ankles. Personally, I think you'd look a little too much like a ghost if your entire body was your original skin color—honestly, did you come from a mountain village or something? Irrelevant, I suppose. Suffice to say I'd change your body's coloration to be more regular. If you have no preference, I'd go with the slightly tanned skin coloration. Your hair wouldn't fit with the porcelain look, among other problems.
"Your f—"
"Isn't this just a little manipulative?"
Delight's voice doesn't sound as annoyed as she was the last time you interrupted. Instead, it sounds downright pitying.
"Dear, you're already cute and beautiful. You don't have to change your behavior if you don't want to; what you already have is honestly sufficient for either. Regardless, making full use of your physical gifts isn't manipulative. It's a tool, and tools are neither good nor evil. It's what you use it for that matters."
You're not buying it.
"Your feet..."
Delight trails off and sighs. "Well, you get the idea. I've spent too much time focusing on this as it is. Remember, I can work on cute or beautiful, not both."
"Why? You said I already have a nice balance. Can't I keep that while going with appropriate improvements?"
Delight hesitates and seems to pick her next words carefully.
"Emphasizing one is easier. You wouldn't truly be degrading either, it's just difficult to maintain competing impressions. Take a male with sunken cheeks and significant muscles. Do you think people are going to focus on the latter? Unlikely. A woman with a large, diagonal scar across her face, but otherwise fitting the current standards of beauty? 'Scarred.' Impact is subjective, and little details can vastly change the impression others have of you. Maintaining the balance while making everything 'better?' Much more difficult than focusing on the dominance of one or the other. If I get it wrong, I run the risk of making you 'perfect' and frightening just about everyone. I wouldn't accept that; it wouldn't be a fair exchange for freeing me. Which means more work, which means it might as well be two tasks combined."
Delight releases a trill of laughter.
"Let's put it this way: we'd want others to start wars to protect you or get your hand in marriage. We don't want them to think you look inhuman and end up with neither. Do you understand?"
Since when are wars a good thing?
"...Isn't that a little excessive?"
Delight smirks. "No."
You try to convince yourself she was exaggerating. You don't think you succeeded.
"Wouldn't the world be used to altered individuals by now? I doubt you're the only Astral out there who offers beauty n stuff."
Delight slowly turns around, deeply inhaling as she goes. Judging by her darkening expression, you might've just stepped in a pile of sssssomething undesirable.
"They use glamours and templates. Templates! What kind of self-respecting Astrals are they? They don't take existing traits and work with them, they don't even take care to ensure their victims would be recognized as the same person as they were before. They just grab whichever one looks closest, feed in the right colors, and let magic warp their bodies to fit. When an Arcane inevitably realizes and grants immunity to everyone nearby? That's how you get all these stupid 'witches make deals with demons, bewitch kings, and turn into crones when discovered' myths. Those lazy lumps are easily responsible for half the poor reputation of dealmaking Astrals, if not more. People come to me because I do things right. I don't use lazy crutches like illusions, templates, or glamours. I adjust your fascinatingly complex bodies manually, and I try to provide what I agreed to.
"Did you know my existence may be the second best-kept secret around? Manipulating creatures to the extent of my skill is widely considered to be all-but impossible. I can't really blame anyone for thinking such; few other Astrals have the patience to study you and mortals don't live long enough. Magic makes general physical changes easy, but precise physical changes are another matter entirely. Why else do you think the lazy lumps resort to templates?"
Your mind remains latched on a single remark. When Delight finally finishes ranting, resorting to deep breathing to calm herself down, you set your question free.
"What's the best-kept secret?"
Delight stops inhaling to instantly answer.
"I don't know."
...I suppose I should have expected that.
Delight finishes one last breathing cycle. You don't think the technique ever helped you calm down, but it seems to have helped Delight. She grabs another shard of crystal and resumes her work on the inscription.
"Let's move on to something easier. I could extend your natural lifespan to twice of what it would've been without my intervention, with nearly all of it spent in your prime. If anyone asks, blame elven or unicorn ancestry."
What.
You're about ninety-nine percent certain your Talent just mistranslated that word. Elves, okay, sure, they can have half-human children with a little magical help. You've heard plenty of stories about half-elven individuals. Unicorns? They're just magically-resistant pointy pale ponies with pricy pelts.
"Unicorns?"
Delight's twitches and nods, still facing away from you.
"Shapeshifting wretches unhealthily obsessed with clueless innocence, magical potential, and unsupervised individuals possessing both. Their activities would actually be pretty funny if the consequences weren't permanent."
Delight cranes her neck and gives you a long, level look. A premonition of doom creeps up your spine and lowers your eyebrows.
Don't you dare.
Delight smiles brightly, ignoring your silent threat and glowering.
"You're lucky you know how babies are made. You're just their type otherwise. Still, be wary of white-haired gentlemen in undeveloped areas, would you?"
You slowly exhale and try to change the subject. Delight may have covered enough content to prompt hours of questions, but it's not as if you can ask all of them at once.
Your careful reasoning doesn't stop you from asking the second one which comes to mind.
"Why is the 'craft' of an Arcane less forgiving than other crafts? Isn't it pretty safe as long as you're careful?"
Delight shakes her head vehemently.
"A slip of the tongue can harm you and everyone around you. Even if you know what you should say, the universe doesn't care about that. It cares only of what you speak aloud. B, C, D, or Z instead of E? Fifty instead of fifteen?"
Delight shakes her head again. You spend the moment wondering just how complex your translation Talent even is. It doesn't seem likely that the pronunciation of those particular numbers and letters would be so similar in whatever language Delight is speaking right now. Does it operate off intent instead of what they're actually saying? How would lies work?
"Any single one of those would drastically change the parameters of a spell. If the mistaken order is incompatible with the rest of the chant, all the mana you invested will spend itself however it can. This generally amounts to a fusion of fire, force, light, and sound. If you want to be boring, you can just call it an explosion."
No, not really.
"Fortunately, I could give you a failsafe Blessing. If it detects the clash indicative of an invalid order, it'll just absorb the mana into itself. It'll even work on inscribed spells if you're close enough to whatever portion is clashing. A meter or two? Somewhere around there. Of course, you'll need to recharge it every so often if you haven't made any mistakes for the last several days. I don't think the recharges will be be too expensive either way. Certainly preferable to the possibility of spontaneous explosions, yes?"
You open your mouth to respond. Unfortunately, Delight moves on before you can comment. Explosions shaped toward the sky would be pretty, wouldn't they?
"I believe you claimed your biggest concern is safety. I mentioned I could make it easier for you to invoke protectiveness in other humans. Sadly, being heartstoppingly adorable doesn't really help you against dumb beasts unless other people are around to save you from them. Instead, I could set you up with an amulet capable of making the ears of most mammals bleed. I may even be able to work in something to kill plants when you scream. I expect I'll need to; it wouldn't be sufficient payment otherwise. Still, those leave insects and reptiles. Those can be nasty."
Delight pauses and shakes her head. She seems to do that a lot.
"On second thought, I think such an amulet for mammals, plants, and insects should be sufficient. Tweaking it not to harm intelligent beings is going to be quite difficult as it is. I may even need to resort to a medallion instead of something more aesthetically pleasing."
Delight sits back and surveys her work. Personally, you're not sure how she's going to get a mana crystal into the center of the dusty diagram.
Apparently satisfied, Delight stands up and stretches. She doesn't display any desire to look back at you, something you find just a little bit annoying. It's harder to hear her when she's facing away. You don't like straining your ears and devoting brainpower toward making sure you hear her right. At least it's preferable to dwelling on inappropriate daydrea—no, no, go away!
"If you're going to be making a habit of breaking into guarded facilities, you'll likely want to be hidden from magical sentries. I can give you a field almost identical to the one which hides me from such detection. Barely costs a thing and it's very useful. Now, it won't help you if you go and cast a spell right in front of them. The field isn't designed to eat outgoing signatures, just incoming ones. Nor will it do anything for mundane triggers—pressure plates, tripwires, an opening door, that sort of thing. On the bright side, it'll also hide you from most types of divination. Very useful."
You immediately spot a flaw in the proposed idea.
"What about my friends? I'm not leaving them behind. I doubt they'd even let me. Anyway, aren't they, like, continuous spells or something?"
Delight waves one hand dismissively.
"By the time their passive byproducts are too much for the field, they'll be able to suppress them on their own. And really, elementals are everywhere. The only ones people set sensors for are Air, Water, and Dark. The others tend to be awful at spying and sneaking; why bother?"
You perk up at the mention of dark elementals. You hadn't even been sure they existed outside of folklore.
"Are you sure dark elementals are real?
Delight shrugs, nods, and finally turns to face you.
"They're seldom found anywhere near Earth's surface. I don't recommend trying to find or befriend them; everyone knows light makes them uncomfortable. I expect light elementals wouldn't like the dark, but as they make their own light, that'll never be a problem for them. Darks can't 'make' darkness; that's not the way it works."
"How does it work, then?"
You regret the question as soon as you ask it. She probably dropped enough hints for you to put it together on your own.
Despite your worries, Delight seems to take your question in stride. You vaguely hope others have asked the same in the past.
"Darkness doesn't 'grow' in enclosed spaces, nor does it have any substance of its own. It's simply the absence of light. If there's no light, you get darkness. Understand?"
You nod and try to think of a truly intelligent question. You shouldn't be asking stupid ones, especially when you're still in hostile lands.
Delight doesn't let you finish. You're starting to think she just hates silence.
"I'm having trouble thinking of what else to offer you. Poison immunity? I should be able to change your body and sense of taste to destroy or expel harmful substances soonest. You'll spontaneously begin bleeding whenever they're forced out. It'll still clot as normal once the poison is gone."
Delight hesitates and appears to reconsider her words.
"Such 'immunity' wouldn't do anything for mana above your tolerance levels, obviously. And some poisons might open up a pretty big wound on their way out. Still better than letting them stay in you."
Delight goes silent. It takes her a small eternity to admit defeat.
"That's it. Beauty, cuteness, 'imagination reclamation,' failsafes, sonic accessories, stealth, or poison near-immunity. I think two of those options and the previous promises should be a fair reward for my freedom. I suppose I'll also let you have access to the safer part of my library during your first visit to my Realm; you'll need something to keep you occupied while we ensure you won't unleash the next Grey Water on the world. You can always negotiate for more when we're discussing terms for taking me with you."
You're still leery of that whole idea. Back home, you never spent enough time with a single family to especially attached to them. Honestly, if you're going to take someone with you, you'd prefer they be closer to your age or something. You at least want to like them. You know Delight probably doesn't mean anything when she teases you, yet it's still embarrassing.
You shake your head and drag your attention back to the present. You can wait to decide on whether or not to bring Delight later. Right now, you should be focusing on your rewards.
You don't really see the point in 'improving' your appearance right now. Sure, now you're extremely conscious of all the flaws Delight pointed out, but they're not life-threatening. Manual breathing is just as annoying.
Oh, dammit. Wait, I don't need to watch for swear words in my own mind, do I? Is it considered impolite to think up creative curses in polite company? Or—ugh, focus!
You suppose you're apparently a little spoiled by having beauty to start with, but you don't really see the point of it. Or rather, you don't see why you should bother going for it now. You're not interested in getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend just yet. Those you've already met have been sympathetic enough, so really, do you have a good reason to invest in either?
"Why should I bother with improving my appearance? I'm not interested in, um, romance, and I'm not sure I believe being cuter would make that big of a difference in protection or whatever."
You jump as Delight claps her hands together, grinning a little too widely. Her impression of a serial killer is not appreciated.
Nor is that comparison. Thanks, brain.
"The minds of humans are designed to identify potential mates and subsequently impress them. Humans really can't help it. Even if they know they don't have a flame's chance Outside, making you happy will often make them happy. "
"That sounds really, really, really creepy and cruel. I don't think that's my thing."
Delight gifts you a look, effectively conveying how utterly ridiculous she thinks you're being. You disagree.
"You'll have earned it. If they want to look better, they should've freed me or leased their soul."
"And you're describing what I'm pretty sure are an endless parade of crushes. I don't want to break hearts everywhere I go."
"It'd be a learning experience. Not joking there, by the way. People need to learn not to think with their hindbrains; learning how to ignore infatuation is a very important life skill. Better you than someone actively cruel, right? You're actually nice. You can immediately claim you're not interested in romance or are already taken if you want. I've found such actions sometimes help people avoid infidelity later in life. If they know someone is look-don't-touch and still try to touch, the consequences are their own damn fault."
You're starting to regret getting into an argument with someone several centuries your senior. You can't quite decide if she's spouting comforting nonsense or not, and considering the subject matter, you feel like that is itself a loss.
You try to change the subject matter before this gets any worse. You honestly didn't think her argument was that good, but she soundsreasonable...
"What about 'cuteness' and calling it that makes me feel silly. That isn't as bad, right?"
Delight sighs loudly.
"Look, do you really think so many perfectly nice people would want to be beautiful if it were a bad thing? No? Okay then. Now, as for cuteness, it has a great deal of overlap with beauty. I think you have a more suitable personality for it, too. You'd still have plenty of people attracted to you, but many more would find themselves inexplicably smiling for no discernible reason. They'd hate seeing you unhappy and would often go out of their way to make sure you aren't. It'd be nearly impossible for most to think of you as any sort of threat even if they're presented with direct evidence of such. Even if they do believe it, their first instinct will—would be to rationalize it away and come up with some reasonable explanation to your own benefit.
"Of course, that overlaps into some of the problems I mentioned earlier. Just as some would have trouble thinking of you as a threat, others would be incapable of believing in your competence. Failing that, they may want to take on the entire workload themselves so you don't have to. Last but not least, aren't your social skills rather lacking? Wouldn't you prefer it if you had a much easier time getting people to like you and forgive any missteps? What about for them to willingly answer your endless questions and enjoy doing it?"
Delight's exasperation is slowly replaced by demonic glee.
"Come to think of it, let's add sponsorship to my list of potential rewards. I'll try to tailor opportunities to your specific strengths, but if you let me improve your appearance in either style? I could set you up as the unwedded, untouched daughter of a protective merchant prince and watch you bring some royal court or another to complete chaos. It'll be hilarious. All those nobles trying to get on your pretend-father's good side with gifts, honeyed words, etcetera? Great source of income. Meanwhile, a completely different set showers you with the same. Provided, it wouldn't be the entire court, but there would be more enough people to upend most of their day-to-day operations. You could get married if you want to—"
"No."
"—But if you don't, you can just head to another world with your ill-gotten gains. We could even fake a kidnapping or something so they don't realize what happened."
There's that 'we' again. In all honesty, you're starting to genuinely fear releasing Delight on another world. She sounds as though she's doing well enough in one used to people like her. What happens if the occupants are completely unprepared?
The person in your vision, Galya, mentioned another Drifter and the possibility of imitations. The timing seems rather suspicious to you; you're definitely one to believe in omens. And really, if anyone could puzzle out dimensional travel, you suspect it would be an immortal Astral with entirely too much patience.
You shake your head and try to focus on the decision at hand. You don't even know if a Drifting Delight would be a bad thing. Either way, you should probably assume these rewards are the only ones you'll be getting from her. You're not too happy about that, but you suppose that's the point; she wants to go with you and the best way to make that happen is by having something you want.
Of course, her offers will still need to outweigh everything I don't want. Good luck with that.
"I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself; please pick two rewards. I'll need to do the prep work for most of them before we head to my Realm, and really, we should get going soon."
Sadly, no fancy voting methods this time and I can't really count by intent. Once voting has unlocked, vote for the combination you'd like to have. I'll be leaving it open for over 24 hours (about 1:00 PM EST) after the unlock point, so you won't need to worry about tactical voting until the deadline approaches.
[] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[] Appearance Improvements ("Beauty").
[] Imagination Reclamation.
[] Magical Failsafes.
[] Sonic Amulet.
[] Stealth vs. Magic.
[] Poison Immunity.
[] Sponsorship.
[] Longevity. You have more pressing things to worry about. Even changing your appearance should help you in interactions with others; meanwhile, this isn't really beneficial until you're, like, forty. You'd like to make sure you get to your seventeenth birthday before you worry about your seventieth.
The newest tumor by my grandmother's gut turned out to be benign and my grandfather seems to be doing as well as an extremely old man who just had melanoma can possibly be. Classes started on the 28th, so I'll be busy with those, but as I've juggled them and frequent updates simultaneously before, I'm not too worried.
[X] Free Delight.
You glance around the room. So long as nothing explodes, disabling Delight's prison should be easy enough. The power sources are obvious, exposed, and likely light enough for you to lift without assistance. Still, best to make sure.
"How do I free you, anyway? Is it safe to just grab the crystals and take them out?"
Delight closes her eyes and smiles weakly. You'd been expecting more of a reaction, but given her positioning, you're not sure she's capable of more than that.
"Not entirely. Cover your hands with cloth or use some other tool. You're hauling around a fairly large pack; don't you have something suitable?"
You nod, crouch down, and slowly slip the straps off your shoulders. Your caution proves to be justified; a stone elemental is lurking atop your pack, watching Delight with blank grey eyes.
Your brief search doesn't turn up any gloves, prompting you to add it to your nonexistent mental list of important supplies. It might be a good idea to make a real one at some point. In the meantime, a dirt-brown tunic should be good enough for your purposes. You wrap it around your hands and approach the first chunk of crystalized environmental mana.
You haven't even finished crouching down—knees, not back—when your dirt and stone elementals move to help you. You gently push them away and shake your head.
"No touching."
The chunks of mana are relatively lightweight, only about as heavy as a bucket half-filled with water. Nothing visible happens to Delight's prison when you remove each one, but since that also means nothing is exploding, you consider that a win.
You save the ant-infested chunk for last. You do your utmost to keep it intact and avoid the biggest concentrations of ants.
If the bright flash of turquoise light is any indicator, your best isn't enough.
Right foot. Left foot. Moving onto a slope, lift your feet higher to compensate.
You obey your most helpful passenger, your own thoughts a million miles away. The eternal chatter from the girl in front of you (Tessa!) is treated as nothing more than white noise. It's not like you could understand her even if you tried.
Why did he leave me?
We've been over this. You were a distraction, nothing more. With entire worlds to choose from, d'you really think he'd pick you? Get real.
Wow, Red. Rude.
I tried kind already, thanks. Five days of moping about is more than enough. Stop sulking over a stupid boy and focus on where you'll probably spend the rest of your life.
You glance up at your guide and quietly sigh. Nothing about your current situation is in any way normal. The scandalously skintight clothes of some shiny substance would have you tossed in jail if you tried to wear them back home, yet here, almost everyone is wearing them. You can't see any plants anywhere, nor have you spotted or heard any wildlife—at least, unintelligent wildlife. The various little shops built into the steel walls don't count, no matter how rude or loud they may be.
And yet, as far as you can tell, all of that is normal for the world you're on. Or… habitat, Vasil had called it? Something like that.
The habitat's lack of natural life isn't the only thing outright wrong about the place. When your not-quite-captors had first tried to feed you, your delicious meal had returned from whence it came in very short order. You don't know what they could have possibly done wrong to make your stomach refuse to tolerate it; in the past, you'd eaten raw meat without any problems at all. How could they have done worse than that?
At least they seemed to get it right after the first two poisonings. The tomato-colored sweet sludge used in subsequent attempts doesn't taste quite right, but since they're willing to give you large quantities of it four times a day, you don't intend to complain. Strange meals are vastly preferable to missed ones.
Why yes, yes they are. You're better off now than you were in that rotten little hollow of yours. Clean water, unlimited food, an unchanging climate, and your own room? Yeah, this place is great. Why aren't you focused on making sure they don't banish you from it? You're not even making an attempt to learn their language. Okay, sure, a 'Drifter' abandoned you somewhere better than you lived before. Is that really so bad?
I still think that makes him sound like a hobo.
Aren't rude lines like that my job?
You hardly have a monopoly on them.
You shake your head furiously. Red is trying to make you happy by comparing your life now to back home, but what about in between? Vasil promised you the multiverse and then abandoned you on the very first trip. Worse, he used you as a distraction. You felt his gift of language fade, listened as the Guardian's shouts phased from 'Laboratory Containment Breach' to complete gibberish.
He could've just been trying to make sure you're safe and happy. You wouldn't have gone if he said he'd leave you in a strange place. You have food, shelter, new clothes, and people concerned for your well-being. You didn't have those before.
He lied to me!
Just tell them about Vasil's Talent. He made it sound like it'd be easy to figure out once they realize it's possible.
Aiding and abetting genocide isn't acceptable under any reasonable moral system, Red. Remember the part where 'these people can fly so high they can destroy entire cities with dropped rocks?' White already thinks she's crazy; let's not encourage that notion.
"Too late," you mutter. Even if your passengers can be fairly helpful at times, you're still positive sane people don't have voices in their heads. You're honestly lucky nobody ever found out or accused you of being demon-possessed. Watching the execution of one witch (necromancer) was a mistake; you've lost track of how many times you've had nightmares about taking her place. You know you're just crazy, not possessed, but would they?
At least you're not losing arguments with us, right?
I gue—
You stop and think about what Red just said. Agreeing with her could be counted as a 'win' for her and you definitely just lost the argument about Vasil's abandonment. What was the saying Red just referenced? 'Arguing with yourself is fine until you start losing?'
Red, you're a real bitch sometimes.
Please. Dogs are much nicer than I am. Incidentally, I hope you realize we're on the ceiling.
You jerk your head up and survey the outside world. Sure enough, the slope you've been walking up seems to have been continuously realigning 'down' to fit where you're standing. The path you started out on is now high above while the ceiling has taken its place. Apart from a grin matching your own eyes in width, Tessa isn't showing any signs of acknowledging the impossibility.
Once she's sure you're watching, the other girl slowly crouches down, carefully maintaining eye contact with you the entire time.
"H--- -- b--- a-- -a--- ---s!"
Tessa leaps toward the distant ceiling, shrugging off weight and human limitations at the same time. She quickly twists her body in midair and enters into a rather dizzying spin, one which doesn't seem to care about little things like 'loss of speed' or 'objects which travel skyward will inevitably come crashing back to the earth.'
Despite the severe lack of visible control, she still manages to land on her feet without any visible damage. On the ceiling.
This is so wrong.
After blinking several times and swaying precariously, Tessa looks back up at you and grins wildly. You don't understand her accompanying shout, but the beckoning motion is unmistakable.
Go on. It'll be fun.
You look between the floor and the ceiling several times. Your sense of up and down isn't showing any signs of vanishing.
I have no idea how she did that. How would hitting my head be fun?
Please. She wouldn't risk hurting you. Don't make Green agree with me even if I am sure she would.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, I am not opposing you just for the sake of doing so.
Above you, Tessa rolls her eyes and jumps back down to you. Up to you. Over to you. Gods, this is confusing. Could I please have my brain to myself for a little while?
After a moment of hesitation, the two heavy presences in your head slowly fade. You know from experience that they won't be gone for very long, but until then, you won't have to fight to have any thoughts of your own. Three peop—three personalities are not supposed to occupy the same brain. You suppose you're lucky you can hide your insanity at all.
As soon as the thought is formed, a pair of overwhelming weights shoves you back above your mind's recommended capacity.
♪ You're not crazy, you're just a little unwell… ♪
Not helping, Red!
You blink several times and try to reorient yourself. Your name is Melia, not White or Galya, and you just freed Delight from her imprisonment. A pile of jagged, ant-infested shards is sitting comfortably inside the cheapest tunic you could find on short notice, which is itself being used to shield your hands and arms from said shards. You are not crazy, you don't have voices in your head, and you're dimensionally challenged.
By the sounds of it, so is someone else.
Your initial relief is quickly overshadowed by resentment and jealousy. On the one hand, you aren't alone in being dragged across dimensions in spite of your own wishes. On the other, you're not truly unique and the other Drifter, Vasil, sounds like a bit of a jerk. Leading Galya on, using her as a distraction for something illegal, and abandoning her? Pret-ty evil. As far as first impressions go, it's a poor one.
To make matters worse, Vasil has a blatantly unfair head start over you. If he really is evil, or even just heartless? You'll have an awful lot of trouble opposing him.
You're sorely tempted to pull down Calm's curtain to help you focus. Since Delight is still in the process of struggling upright, you're guessing only a few moments passed while you were busy hallucinating, a fact which is idly noted and glossed over. You might be getting a little too used to the chaotic mess known as your life.
Delight holds up both arms and forces you to shelve your analysis of the vision. It'll keep. Being distracted around a demon really doesn't seem like a good idea.
"Would you be so kind as to help me out of these? They're dreadfully uncomfortable."
You glance down at yourself and verify the presence of your penny knife. No oddly slippery clothes for you. You're still slightly mortified by what Galya and Tessa were wearing in your vision; their flimsy excuse for proper attire didn't hide their forms at all. Galya even knew better and she still wore it!
A polite cough draws your attention back to the real world. You dump the shards of crystal down on the floor, unsheathe your penny knife, and move to free Delight.
The Astral is unnaturally still while you saw away at the thin ropes. While her immobility does make your job significantly easier, it's also oddly creepy. The feeling of unease only intensifies when you realize her arms aren't even moving in response to your own motions. For all intents and purposes, Delight is indistinguishable from a stone statue nailed to the floor. Since your elementals have occasionally imitated such immobility, you're not at all sure why you feel so uneasy.
"Do we need to worry about interruptions? As in, were there any alarms tailored to you or your prison, did you have frequent visitors, are there patrolling guards, something?"
Delight's body begins breathing and twitching again. You never thought the little motions would make such a huge difference.
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I've been here for over two decades. I'm fairly certain I've gotten a firm grasp on all my defenses and caretakers. No, we almost certainly have multiple hours at the very least. If they don't arrive in the timeframe following that, they probably won't be coming today."
Not that, then.
Nothing turns up to justify the feeling in the time it takes you to finish freeing her arms. The wooden boards fall to the stone floor and immediately splinter upon impact. As you didn't see any flaws in their polished surfaces, you're not quite sure how that came about.
Now completely freed, Delight groans, opens her eyes, and begins stretching, apparently not caring about her moderately impatient audience. She soon misinterprets your silent staring and pauses mid-stretch.
"Tremble before me, puny mortals," Delight deadpans. "I could now proceed with pointless plans for world domination if I were so inclined. Mwah, ha, ha."
Delight rolls her eyes and returns to her normal tone of voice. Maybe 'usual' would be better? Her voice will never qualify as normal.
"Right, now that we've gotten the obligatory evil speech out of the way, let's take a look at you."
You hold up both hands before Delight can begin whatever she's planning. Alleged near-certain privacy or not, you don't think it's a good idea to idly chat in hostile territory when you don't need to.
"Shouldn't we be going? We can talk about this when we're someplace safe."
"Not really, no. I'll need to do the preparations for most of your potential rewards before we head to my Realm. We'll almost certainly be fine."
Delight finishes stretching and stares intently at you, her eyes rapidly switching to scan different parts of your body with no visible pattern or plan. You narrowly resist the urge to look down and begin your own inspection. You'll just have to hope she doesn't find anything objectionable.
Eventually, Delight establishes eye contact and smiles faintly. You're not sure why.
"You're apparently comfortable with your own appearance, yet still have at least a little concern for what I might find. Beauty is a difficult trait to manage; too much and others may be jealous or assume you're a vain fool, too little and many would experience continuous discomfort in your presence. Fret not. You're not going to have a problem with that last one either way.
"Attraction is all well and good, but I expect you could provoke protectiveness without very much difficulty. I could help make you even better at doing so. You may have trouble getting some to take you seriously after such changes. I imagine you have trouble with that already, and as such, I suspect that wouldn't be too big of a change.
"Speaking of which, your maturity leaves something to be desired and you're unusually uncomfortable with the thoughts puberty is forcing upon you. You've spent far more time socializing with your elementals than with other human beings, have you not?"
Delight pauses, apparently waiting for an actual answer. You oblige.
"I spent at least an hour speaking with other people. And that's daily, not total."
"During meals?"
"...Mostly," you admit reluctantly. Since elementals weren't always allowed indoors, you often ran outside to eat instead. Some families weren't so strict and were willing to let them stay; those families, you ate with.
"Bombarding others with an endless barrage of questions in spite of their own limitations? Continuing long past the point where they'd start spouting nonsense or would avoid your presence?"
You review some of your prior interactions with growing uncertainty. You wouldn't have put it like that, but...
"...Maybe a little?"
Delight sighs and shakes her head sadly.
"I thought as much. Few people like to admit ignorance, dear, especially when their knowledge of a subject isn't as complete as they thought it was. Do you know what a 'square root' is?"
You get the feeling she isn't talking about anything related to plants. For whatever reason, you're not nearly as happy to shake your head as you usually are. Admitting ignorance shouldn't be a bad thing, right?
"They likely would've come up when determining the ideal mana cost of dual-variable Al/E hybrid spells. Still unfamiliar?"
You force yourself to avoid hanging your head and just nod. You were supposed to be going to a magical academy to fix the holes in your education. It's not your fault a unique Talent decided to save you from semi-certain death, dismemberment, and digestion.
"You're lacking the background knowledge needed to modify your own incantations and inscriptions on the fly, then. You mentioned safety as your primary concern, but if you're that far behind, I sincerely doubt you'll be travel-safe for quite some time.
"You seem to have befriended elementals the hard way. As such, I recommend you focus on strengthening them for the time being. Letting them devour the crystals of my former prison should help with that. I advise beginning with air and stone so as to avoid encouraging the rivalries of opposing elements. That combination would do wonders for shelter, scouting, and personal protection. Fire would be the best for combat, but they cannot easily survive underwater. Improving fire whilst neglecting water would almost certainly encourage outright assault."
You twitch violently and look over at your floating fire elemental. You always thought he'd gotten along just fine with the others, even when they belong to 'opposing' elements. Mostly fine, at least. They'd learned not to pull harmful pranks on one another when they realized doing so would upset you.
Delight waits for you to look back at her.
"Now, that brings me back to repayment. Inoculation and safe passage are a given. As for everything else, I'm afraid I'd need consent for most of my specialties. Choices seem like the best way to accomplish that. First: I could rid you of the sexual thoughts you seem so uncomfortable with, although related attraction to others would be similarly crippled. Expect to inspire plenty of unrequited infatuation."
The daydreams in question are annoying, distracting, and often stage armed takeovers of your imagination. Despite all that, a painful and disruptive event demands your attention instead. If you had to pick a single one to eliminate, there wouldn't be a real competition.
"Could you kill the bleeding?"
"The bleedi—"
Delight's jaws click shut.
"Ah. Yes, although the changes aren't easily reversed—in terms of skill, not time—and you'd be completely incapable of having children for the duration. However, it is a cheap enough change I'd be willing to eliminate it without impacting our debt balance in either direction. I'll do such if you so desire."
You nod vigorously. Even if you don't get anything else good out of freeing Delight, that alone would make it worth it. Even your need for sleep isn't as awful.
"It's evil. Evil, evil, evil."
Delight shakes her head and turns away from you, smiling. After scanning the room, she crouches down and begins using one of the discarded mana crystals as improvised chalk.
"I'll do it when we're somewhere safer, then. I can still improve your appearance if you so desire, of course. Would you really be satisfied with picking the first two I offered?"
Probably not.
"Didn't you just finish saying appearance is interpreted differently by different people? How are you supposed to improve anything if it's subjective?"
The Astral briefly turns back and narrows her eyes up at you. You copy the gesture in a deliberate mockery of it, something she doesn't seem to care about in the slightest. You're still being glared at.
"There are some things which work on just about everyone. Scars, for one thing. Few people think those look good on a girl. I'd get rid of any current ones and make sure your body knows how to properly heal future would-be scars. Your hands look fine from a distance, but don't quite pass close inspection. Their minor calluses and deformities need to go. Your elbows and knees are so very much worse; the bone blatantly sticks out and just doesn't suit you. A little is fine and even normal, but you're downright pointy."
...Hold on, my knees?
You stop and look down at your legs. Sure enough, they're hidden under the grey cloth of your nicest clothing. You have no idea how Delight knew what they look like.
You rather hope your first and second guesses are wrong. That would just be creepy.
"While we're on the subject of your arms, they're too big. Large muscles may have served you well in your life thus far, but unfortunately, they don't really look right on an Arcane. I can shrink them down to something closer to what a well-raised noble would possess while keeping their functionality. Well, perhaps a bit larger. Some of those poor girls look like a particularly fierce wind would defeat them. Some find that attractive, others don't, and keeping your muscles while going so far would be really quite difficult. We might as well go with what won't sacrifice your strength. Arcanes are weak enough as it is."
"Why?"
Delight slowly tilts her head to one side, annoyance giving way to confusion.
"Excuse me?"
"Why are Arcanes inherently weaker?"
The Astral only thinks for a moment or two before turning back to her drawing. You get the feeling she's been asked this before.
"External mana will go toward improving your own Source, not the rest of your body. You'll seldom be as strong as an ordinary mortal—a Basic, if you will—and you'll need to work an order of magnitude harder for the same physical benefits. You're depicted as cloistered bookworms for some very good reasons. Why else do you think there are so few of you? Arcanes simply aren't as good at maintaining the land. Time spent teaching you your craft is time not spent on direct assistance to the community. When food is scarce, you'll still need to eat at least twice what a Basic would need.
"Human Arcanes are particularly interesting. If a parent never honed their gift, their children are more likely to be normal. If they did, there's practically no chance their offspring won't have the potential themselves, regardless of if their counterpart was an Arcane, Follower, or Basic. That particular trait is arguably one of the only reasons humans still have Arcanes at all; your craft isn't particularly kind to fools and idiots. Now, if I could continue?"
You've been talking for ages. Let others have a turn sometimes.
You stamp down the burst of resentment and simply nod.
"Good. Now, I'd need to take a look at how you'd cry. Looking terrible can still evoke sympathy, pity, or guilt, so I'd leave most of that. However, an overly runny nose? Disgust isn't useful. If you went for normal beauty, I'd adjust your spine and muscles so as to make standing up straight significantly easier. For the cute route, I'd instead ensure hunching won't damage your neck, back, and spine. Hanging or ducking your head counts. Obesity hasn't been considered attractive for centuries. Needing to watch your diet always struck me as rather unfortunate; I can let you eat practically whatever you want and still remain within the current standard of beauty."
Delight pauses and appears to consider this.
"Again, some of those girls look like they're in danger of imminent collapse. We'll go with a healthy amount instead of the famine-victim impressions. Still well within the range, just not the unfortunate end. Blushing would almost certainly need its own changes. Confining it to the cheeks in times of minor or moderate embarrassment is a must. We want you to look good, not as though you have a fever.
"Your skin color gets significantly paler underneath your clothing, marked by lines on your upper arms and around your ankles. Personally, I think you'd look a little too much like a ghost if your entire body was your original skin color—honestly, did you come from a mountain village or something? Irrelevant, I suppose. Suffice to say I'd change your body's coloration to be more regular. If you have no preference, I'd go with the slightly tanned skin coloration. Your hair wouldn't fit with the porcelain look, among other problems.
"Your f—"
"Isn't this just a little manipulative?"
Delight's voice doesn't sound as annoyed as she was the last time you interrupted. Instead, it sounds downright pitying.
"Dear, you're already cute and beautiful. You don't have to change your behavior if you don't want to; what you already have is honestly sufficient for either. Regardless, making full use of your physical gifts isn't manipulative. It's a tool, and tools are neither good nor evil. It's what you use it for that matters."
You're not buying it.
"Your feet..."
Delight trails off and sighs. "Well, you get the idea. I've spent too much time focusing on this as it is. Remember, I can work on cute or beautiful, not both."
"Why? You said I already have a nice balance. Can't I keep that while going with appropriate improvements?"
Delight hesitates and seems to pick her next words carefully.
"Emphasizing one is easier. You wouldn't truly be degrading either, it's just difficult to maintain competing impressions. Take a male with sunken cheeks and significant muscles. Do you think people are going to focus on the latter? Unlikely. A woman with a large, diagonal scar across her face, but otherwise fitting the current standards of beauty? 'Scarred.' Impact is subjective, and little details can vastly change the impression others have of you. Maintaining the balance while making everything 'better?' Much more difficult than focusing on the dominance of one or the other. If I get it wrong, I run the risk of making you 'perfect' and frightening just about everyone. I wouldn't accept that; it wouldn't be a fair exchange for freeing me. Which means more work, which means it might as well be two tasks combined."
Delight releases a trill of laughter.
"Let's put it this way: we'd want others to start wars to protect you or get your hand in marriage. We don't want them to think you look inhuman and end up with neither. Do you understand?"
Since when are wars a good thing?
"...Isn't that a little excessive?"
Delight smirks. "No."
You try to convince yourself she was exaggerating. You don't think you succeeded.
"Wouldn't the world be used to altered individuals by now? I doubt you're the only Astral out there who offers beauty n stuff."
Delight slowly turns around, deeply inhaling as she goes. Judging by her darkening expression, you might've just stepped in a pile of sssssomething undesirable.
"They use glamours and templates. Templates! What kind of self-respecting Astrals are they? They don't take existing traits and work with them, they don't even take care to ensure their victims would be recognized as the same person as they were before. They just grab whichever one looks closest, feed in the right colors, and let magic warp their bodies to fit. When an Arcane inevitably realizes and grants immunity to everyone nearby? That's how you get all these stupid 'witches make deals with demons, bewitch kings, and turn into crones when discovered' myths. Those lazy lumps are easily responsible for half the poor reputation of dealmaking Astrals, if not more. People come to me because I do things right. I don't use lazy crutches like illusions, templates, or glamours. I adjust your fascinatingly complex bodies manually, and I try to provide what I agreed to.
"Did you know my existence may be the second best-kept secret around? Manipulating creatures to the extent of my skill is widely considered to be all-but impossible. I can't really blame anyone for thinking such; few other Astrals have the patience to study you and mortals don't live long enough. Magic makes general physical changes easy, but precise physical changes are another matter entirely. Why else do you think the lazy lumps resort to templates?"
Your mind remains latched on a single remark. When Delight finally finishes ranting, resorting to deep breathing to calm herself down, you set your question free.
"What's the best-kept secret?"
Delight stops inhaling to instantly answer.
"I don't know."
...I suppose I should have expected that.
Delight finishes one last breathing cycle. You don't think the technique ever helped you calm down, but it seems to have helped Delight. She grabs another shard of crystal and resumes her work on the inscription.
"Let's move on to something easier. I could extend your natural lifespan to twice of what it would've been without my intervention, with nearly all of it spent in your prime. If anyone asks, blame elven or unicorn ancestry."
What.
You're about ninety-nine percent certain your Talent just mistranslated that word. Elves, okay, sure, they can have half-human children with a little magical help. You've heard plenty of stories about half-elven individuals. Unicorns? They're just magically-resistant pointy pale ponies with pricy pelts.
"Unicorns?"
Delight's twitches and nods, still facing away from you.
"Shapeshifting wretches unhealthily obsessed with clueless innocence, magical potential, and unsupervised individuals possessing both. Their activities would actually be pretty funny if the consequences weren't permanent."
Delight cranes her neck and gives you a long, level look. A premonition of doom creeps up your spine and lowers your eyebrows.
Don't you dare.
Delight smiles brightly, ignoring your silent threat and glowering.
"You're lucky you know how babies are made. You're just their type otherwise. Still, be wary of white-haired gentlemen in undeveloped areas, would you?"
You slowly exhale and try to change the subject. Delight may have covered enough content to prompt hours of questions, but it's not as if you can ask all of them at once.
Your careful reasoning doesn't stop you from asking the second one which comes to mind.
"Why is the 'craft' of an Arcane less forgiving than other crafts? Isn't it pretty safe as long as you're careful?"
Delight shakes her head vehemently.
"A slip of the tongue can harm you and everyone around you. Even if you know what you should say, the universe doesn't care about that. It cares only of what you speak aloud. B, C, D, or Z instead of E? Fifty instead of fifteen?"
Delight shakes her head again. You spend the moment wondering just how complex your translation Talent even is. It doesn't seem likely that the pronunciation of those particular numbers and letters would be so similar in whatever language Delight is speaking right now. Does it operate off intent instead of what they're actually saying? How would lies work?
"Any single one of those would drastically change the parameters of a spell. If the mistaken order is incompatible with the rest of the chant, all the mana you invested will spend itself however it can. This generally amounts to a fusion of fire, force, light, and sound. If you want to be boring, you can just call it an explosion."
No, not really.
"Fortunately, I could give you a failsafe Blessing. If it detects the clash indicative of an invalid order, it'll just absorb the mana into itself. It'll even work on inscribed spells if you're close enough to whatever portion is clashing. A meter or two? Somewhere around there. Of course, you'll need to recharge it every so often if you haven't made any mistakes for the last several days. I don't think the recharges will be be too expensive either way. Certainly preferable to the possibility of spontaneous explosions, yes?"
You open your mouth to respond. Unfortunately, Delight moves on before you can comment. Explosions shaped toward the sky would be pretty, wouldn't they?
"I believe you claimed your biggest concern is safety. I mentioned I could make it easier for you to invoke protectiveness in other humans. Sadly, being heartstoppingly adorable doesn't really help you against dumb beasts unless other people are around to save you from them. Instead, I could set you up with an amulet capable of making the ears of most mammals bleed. I may even be able to work in something to kill plants when you scream. I expect I'll need to; it wouldn't be sufficient payment otherwise. Still, those leave insects and reptiles. Those can be nasty."
Delight pauses and shakes her head. She seems to do that a lot.
"On second thought, I think such an amulet for mammals, plants, and insects should be sufficient. Tweaking it not to harm intelligent beings is going to be quite difficult as it is. I may even need to resort to a medallion instead of something more aesthetically pleasing."
Delight sits back and surveys her work. Personally, you're not sure how she's going to get a mana crystal into the center of the dusty diagram.
Apparently satisfied, Delight stands up and stretches. She doesn't display any desire to look back at you, something you find just a little bit annoying. It's harder to hear her when she's facing away. You don't like straining your ears and devoting brainpower toward making sure you hear her right. At least it's preferable to dwelling on inappropriate daydrea—no, no, go away!
"If you're going to be making a habit of breaking into guarded facilities, you'll likely want to be hidden from magical sentries. I can give you a field almost identical to the one which hides me from such detection. Barely costs a thing and it's very useful. Now, it won't help you if you go and cast a spell right in front of them. The field isn't designed to eat outgoing signatures, just incoming ones. Nor will it do anything for mundane triggers—pressure plates, tripwires, an opening door, that sort of thing. On the bright side, it'll also hide you from most types of divination. Very useful."
You immediately spot a flaw in the proposed idea.
"What about my friends? I'm not leaving them behind. I doubt they'd even let me. Anyway, aren't they, like, continuous spells or something?"
Delight waves one hand dismissively.
"By the time their passive byproducts are too much for the field, they'll be able to suppress them on their own. And really, elementals are everywhere. The only ones people set sensors for are Air, Water, and Dark. The others tend to be awful at spying and sneaking; why bother?"
You perk up at the mention of dark elementals. You hadn't even been sure they existed outside of folklore.
"Are you sure dark elementals are real?
Delight shrugs, nods, and finally turns to face you.
"They're seldom found anywhere near Earth's surface. I don't recommend trying to find or befriend them; everyone knows light makes them uncomfortable. I expect light elementals wouldn't like the dark, but as they make their own light, that'll never be a problem for them. Darks can't 'make' darkness; that's not the way it works."
"How does it work, then?"
You regret the question as soon as you ask it. She probably dropped enough hints for you to put it together on your own.
Despite your worries, Delight seems to take your question in stride. You vaguely hope others have asked the same in the past.
"Darkness doesn't 'grow' in enclosed spaces, nor does it have any substance of its own. It's simply the absence of light. If there's no light, you get darkness. Understand?"
You nod and try to think of a truly intelligent question. You shouldn't be asking stupid ones, especially when you're still in hostile lands.
Delight doesn't let you finish. You're starting to think she just hates silence.
"I'm having trouble thinking of what else to offer you. Poison immunity? I should be able to change your body and sense of taste to destroy or expel harmful substances soonest. You'll spontaneously begin bleeding whenever they're forced out. It'll still clot as normal once the poison is gone."
Delight hesitates and appears to reconsider her words.
"Such 'immunity' wouldn't do anything for mana above your tolerance levels, obviously. And some poisons might open up a pretty big wound on their way out. Still better than letting them stay in you."
Delight goes silent. It takes her a small eternity to admit defeat.
"That's it. Beauty, cuteness, 'imagination reclamation,' failsafes, sonic accessories, stealth, or poison near-immunity. I think two of those options and the previous promises should be a fair reward for my freedom. I suppose I'll also let you have access to the safer part of my library during your first visit to my Realm; you'll need something to keep you occupied while we ensure you won't unleash the next Grey Water on the world. You can always negotiate for more when we're discussing terms for taking me with you."
You're still leery of that whole idea. Back home, you never spent enough time with a single family to especially attached to them. Honestly, if you're going to take someone with you, you'd prefer they be closer to your age or something. You at least want to like them. You know Delight probably doesn't mean anything when she teases you, yet it's still embarrassing.
You shake your head and drag your attention back to the present. You can wait to decide on whether or not to bring Delight later. Right now, you should be focusing on your rewards.
You don't really see the point in 'improving' your appearance right now. Sure, now you're extremely conscious of all the flaws Delight pointed out, but they're not life-threatening. Manual breathing is just as annoying.
Oh, dammit. Wait, I don't need to watch for swear words in my own mind, do I? Is it considered impolite to think up creative curses in polite company? Or—ugh, focus!
You suppose you're apparently a little spoiled by having beauty to start with, but you don't really see the point of it. Or rather, you don't see why you should bother going for it now. You're not interested in getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend just yet. Those you've already met have been sympathetic enough, so really, do you have a good reason to invest in either?
"Why should I bother with improving my appearance? I'm not interested in, um, romance, and I'm not sure I believe being cuter would make that big of a difference in protection or whatever."
You jump as Delight claps her hands together, grinning a little too widely. Her impression of a serial killer is not appreciated.
Nor is that comparison. Thanks, brain.
"The minds of humans are designed to identify potential mates and subsequently impress them. Humans really can't help it. Even if they know they don't have a flame's chance Outside, making you happy will often make them happy. "
"That sounds really, really, really creepy and cruel. I don't think that's my thing."
Delight gifts you a look, effectively conveying how utterly ridiculous she thinks you're being. You disagree.
"You'll have earned it. If they want to look better, they should've freed me or leased their soul."
"And you're describing what I'm pretty sure are an endless parade of crushes. I don't want to break hearts everywhere I go."
"It'd be a learning experience. Not joking there, by the way. People need to learn not to think with their hindbrains; learning how to ignore infatuation is a very important life skill. Better you than someone actively cruel, right? You're actually nice. You can immediately claim you're not interested in romance or are already taken if you want. I've found such actions sometimes help people avoid infidelity later in life. If they know someone is look-don't-touch and still try to touch, the consequences are their own damn fault."
You're starting to regret getting into an argument with someone several centuries your senior. You can't quite decide if she's spouting comforting nonsense or not, and considering the subject matter, you feel like that is itself a loss.
You try to change the subject matter before this gets any worse. You honestly didn't think her argument was that good, but she soundsreasonable...
"What about 'cuteness' and calling it that makes me feel silly. That isn't as bad, right?"
Delight sighs loudly.
"Look, do you really think so many perfectly nice people would want to be beautiful if it were a bad thing? No? Okay then. Now, as for cuteness, it has a great deal of overlap with beauty. I think you have a more suitable personality for it, too. You'd still have plenty of people attracted to you, but many more would find themselves inexplicably smiling for no discernible reason. They'd hate seeing you unhappy and would often go out of their way to make sure you aren't. It'd be nearly impossible for most to think of you as any sort of threat even if they're presented with direct evidence of such. Even if they do believe it, their first instinct will—would be to rationalize it away and come up with some reasonable explanation to your own benefit.
"Of course, that overlaps into some of the problems I mentioned earlier. Just as some would have trouble thinking of you as a threat, others would be incapable of believing in your competence. Failing that, they may want to take on the entire workload themselves so you don't have to. Last but not least, aren't your social skills rather lacking? Wouldn't you prefer it if you had a much easier time getting people to like you and forgive any missteps? What about for them to willingly answer your endless questions and enjoy doing it?"
Delight's exasperation is slowly replaced by demonic glee.
"Come to think of it, let's add sponsorship to my list of potential rewards. I'll try to tailor opportunities to your specific strengths, but if you let me improve your appearance in either style? I could set you up as the unwedded, untouched daughter of a protective merchant prince and watch you bring some royal court or another to complete chaos. It'll be hilarious. All those nobles trying to get on your pretend-father's good side with gifts, honeyed words, etcetera? Great source of income. Meanwhile, a completely different set showers you with the same. Provided, it wouldn't be the entire court, but there would be more enough people to upend most of their day-to-day operations. You could get married if you want to—"
"No."
"—But if you don't, you can just head to another world with your ill-gotten gains. We could even fake a kidnapping or something so they don't realize what happened."
There's that 'we' again. In all honesty, you're starting to genuinely fear releasing Delight on another world. She sounds as though she's doing well enough in one used to people like her. What happens if the occupants are completely unprepared?
The person in your vision, Galya, mentioned another Drifter and the possibility of imitations. The timing seems rather suspicious to you; you're definitely one to believe in omens. And really, if anyone could puzzle out dimensional travel, you suspect it would be an immortal Astral with entirely too much patience.
You shake your head and try to focus on the decision at hand. You don't even know if a Drifting Delight would be a bad thing. Either way, you should probably assume these rewards are the only ones you'll be getting from her. You're not too happy about that, but you suppose that's the point; she wants to go with you and the best way to make that happen is by having something you want.
Of course, her offers will still need to outweigh everything I don't want. Good luck with that.
"I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself; please pick two rewards. I'll need to do the prep work for most of them before we head to my Realm, and really, we should get going soon."
Sadly, no fancy voting methods this time and I can't really count by intent. Once voting has unlocked, vote for the combination you'd like to have. I'll be leaving it open for over 24 hours (about 1:00 PM EST) after the unlock point, so you won't need to worry about tactical voting until the deadline approaches.
[] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[] Appearance Improvements ("Beauty").
[] Imagination Reclamation.
[] Magical Failsafes.
[] Sonic Amulet.
[] Stealth vs. Magic.
[] Poison Immunity.
[] Sponsorship.
Earlier, I mentioned that certain sacrifices must be made for the purposes of writing this quest in English. Said sacrifice is that your base language is English. All other aspects of your translation Talent(?) are fair game and open to scrutiny.
As always, feedback would be appreciated. I know this post comes off as an infodump—partly because it is an infodump from Delight—but I couldn't think of a good way to break it up without making it even choppier than it already is.
Unrelated note to self: When your magic system involves math, you aren't allowed to blame anyone else when you have to do a surprisingly large amount of it. Special thanks to @Vebyast for introducing me to Inkscape and a few tutorials for it.
As always, feedback would be appreciated. I know this post comes off as an infodump—partly because it is an infodump from Delight—but I couldn't think of a good way to break it up without making it even choppier than it already is.
Unrelated note to self: When your magic system involves math, you aren't allowed to blame anyone else when you have to do a surprisingly large amount of it. Special thanks to @Vebyast for introducing me to Inkscape and a few tutorials for it.
Voting will be locked for 120 minutes after this first goes up.
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Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
What does 'imagination reclamation' do though... I've read the post twice and I can't find where she describes that one.