genessia | Guess who's back? [Open] [Probable Shadowbringers spoilers]

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Guess who's back? [Open] [Probable Shadowbringers spoilers]

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[Certain persons in the cities will recognize, if not the individual, then at least the race of the person who's just popped onto the network. To the one or two likely to remember her, she looks... rather a lot more world-weary and worn down. Kind of sickly, to be honest. Still, she offers a wry smile to the camera.]

Have to say, I didn't expect to be summoned back here again. Thought I might be done with that for a while, after the Exarch did his thing. [No, she's not going to say his name here. He asked that she call him the Exarch, and so she shall.] That aside, if memory serves, I'm going to need a job. And directions - this key doesn't look like the one I got last time, which suggests that the Commons aren't the default rooming arrangement anymore.

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[It's easy to get lost in a city that's built for people at least double your height. Especially when you're having a little trouble with your vision, and your hearing, and... really all your senses. And what feels like the world's biggest migraine.

Is it any wonder, then, that she's ducked into a cafe to wait out the brighter part of the day? Odd that the sky outside is unaffected, but then, Genessia has always been resilient against the afflictions of its residents.

Sipping a cold drink - looks like iced tea, from here - and applying a bag of that same ice to the side of her head, she might be easily mistaken for a lost and confused child...]

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[She sighs, visibly deflating. It makes her look even smaller than she is, and it's quite obvious something is badly wrong. And... she trusts Ted. Don't ask why. She makes a quick adjustment to her device - she's gotten a lot more adept at using things like this, apparently.]

I'm in... quite a lot of trouble. The kind that can't be solved with medicine or magic. I was called to a shard of my homeworld recently. A world inundated with Light aether. In trying to save it, I took a great deal of that aether into myself...

[She takes a deep breath, tries to center herself... and visibly fails. What the hell could shake her like this?]

This other world - this shard - is plagued by monsters called Sin Eaters. Beings composed mostly of light aether. They hunger for aether - any aether, but especially that of the living. The greatest among them are known as Light Wardens. ...I've absorbed the essence of four of them.

[Does she need to draw a picture?]

[There it is: his magnetism for bizarre and tragic backstories. Though he's not entirely confident he understands this one. After a few anxious moments, he decides if the worse of two possibilities is likely.]

...Are you saying your nature will become base like theirs?

Aye. There is no known cure; over time I will enter a state of catatonia and then... well. Suffice to say that someone will have to take care of the aftermath. Someone who won't be affected by the aether released after... well. After.

[She's going to turn into a monster. Monsters have to be slain. Except this monster has a habit of possessing new hosts.]

[That's quite the burden. In the past he'd have been driven to alarm bordering on hysterics, maybe with evangelical injunctions for good measure. But those never worked out for him.]

...I see. This has happened before, I take it. Tell me all you know about this aether.

Not to me, but I've seen it happen to another. It's... not pleasant, either to experience or to see. [Body horror type stuff.]

Light as an aspect is... kind of an overarching category. It typically holds sway over the elements of water, ice, and earth - the elements of stagnation. When Light gains an overwhelming upper hand over a world, it causes a vast flood, which utterly destroys nearly all life it comes in contact with. The few it spares are... changed. Bleached out, their physical forms warped in grotesque mockery of their original bodies.

The 'champions' of Light are called Light Wardens. They're immensely powerful, but that's not the most dangerous thing about them. When felled - and they have been defeated before - their essence takes a new host instead of dispersing. Typically that of the person who defeated them... and that new host becomes a new light warden.

[Eorzea doesn't really have the concept of angels, so she can't draw the obvious parallel.]

Just by being here... I'm afraid I may overbalance this entire world.

That I wouldn't worry about. This "entire world" has its own mien quite apart from those it inspires.

[He's confident aether is and always will be very much its own thing.]

Am I correct in assuming you've defeated four wardens and, so far, been the exception to the rule?

Aye. I returned the night sky to what was left of the world, but when I'd finished, the light began to overtake me.

[She's quiet for a few moments, looking away from the camera and trying to make a decision.] There is a tradition in the first. When a person is known to have been infected, they're allowed to live most of what remains of their life. But just before they would turn... they're given one last meal. Their favorite, as anything else is typically met with indifference. It... they lace it with poison, to prevent the person from turning.

Mm, that shouldn't be too hard. I'm a decent cook and venom's not hard to find.

[Mainly because of pokemon. They're just crazy about poison. He hopes he's not thought as too crazy himself for being so casual and forward about all this. While he's hoping, he hopes that Aes doesn't take death too seriously in Genessia. At least not the bodily kind.]

You've told me about light aether, specifically, but not aether in general. I'd like to hear more about it. I remember you saying something about how the more one had, the better caliber weapons they could wield.

It would need to be something especially strong, in my case. I've developed something of an immunity, over the years. [At least to magical poisons. Something entirely foreign to her is likely to work just as well as it would on someone else.]

That's more to do with your personal well of it than the elements, but that's the basic gist of it. You can improve your well via training and hard work, study, and facing challenges... the usual ways of getting stronger. As for aether itself...

[She goes thoughtful for a few seconds - there's a lot to remember, here.] Essentially, aether is life. It's typically one of the six classical elements - ice, water, earth, fire, wind, and lightning - as well as either light or dark. Light and dark doesn't mean good and evil, mind you - it has more to do with stagnation and change. Banality, as the fae call it. Any of the elements can be of either aspect, but they tend towards one or the other more often than not.

[Lord he hopes he doesn't have to go through the process of testing toxins out to see which would work. "How about this Grimer sludge? No? Venonat, try sprinkling here, please..." He's had enough morbidity for a lifetime.]

I see. Evidently these light wardens can transfer it upon death to whoever's nearby. Compulsively. Are there other means of moving it around?

[If it comes to that, she'll just ask him to do it the old fashioned way. Beheading is gross but undoubtedly effective.]

That's about the size of it, aye. And... honestly, with the amount we're talking about here, no. None that I know of, at least. Any magic strong enough to use that much aether is going to be... really bad for the planet it happens on. Most likely a Calamity in its own right. Granted, that's only covering bases I'm familiar with. There are magics and powers from any number of worlds here - maybe one of them will be able to do something.

...Well, there is one way. But I don't know anyone in this place that can open rifts into the void, and I would need a focus of some kind to channel it through...

[She must have said something funny to produce the nervous giggling.]

Ahehe, "the" void? Were you looking for one in particular? What would you require for such a focus?

[My that's a very specific question to ask, especially with such nervous laughter. She's raising a brow at you, Ted.]

Theodore Satchel. You have not been meddling in void magics, have you?

[She shakes her head; it isn't like she can judge someone else for their pursuit of power.]

Something that can both store and transmit a vast amount of aether. At home, we had a very rare mineral called white auracite - fashioned appropriately, it was capable of the job at hand. I think Thancred had the last piece... alas, he isn't here, nor can I reasonably expect him to turn up. Someone capable of drawing out aether without taking it in could also theoretically do the trick.

No! With magic I only patronize, never practice!

[He said like one caught in the cookie jar. He dies a little every time the full thing's said, you know that?]

It's just...God preserve us, this may be easier than we thought. Please, say what qualities you meant when you spoke of this void.

And that piece you mentioned; would it be sufficient?

The void is... well, the Void. It's nothingness. A place where nothing can exist for any length of time but the twisted creatures it itself spawns - what we call voidsent. A rift opened into it without the proper seals will suck in anything in its vicinity, until it either runs out of power or is dispelled. As for the auracite... I don't know. It was fashioned as a weapon to be used against Ascians, not for this, and I don't know the secrets of its manufacture.

[That's a "yea" on the nothingness, and a "nay" on the monsters and the supernatural vacuum. For once he's actually hoping the horrible thing might be of use.]

More narrowly, what qualities of that void would be required? Just the space itself?

Well, could this auracite be fit for the purpose, if you had it? Would it work?

Mostly the empty space. As long as there's somewhere to send it, and a way to make sure it doesn't come back, it should work.

[No, she's not going to mention that the method she knows for sure would work involves a person taking it all in, and then sacrificing themself on the other side. She's not going to make that an option for anyone else, not after the first time...]

[This is working out more cleanly than he'd hoped.]

If that's all that's needed, and the auracite you mentioned is fit for the task, we may be able to resolve it within the hour.

Can you recall the exact time the auracite came to be? In Eorzean time, I mean.

If you mean when it was created... then no. I wasn't even in the same world when it happened. I do remember when it was first shown to me, though.

[Actually she remembers two different, distinct pieces. The first had been used to finally and completely slay Igeyorhm, Lahabrea's Ascian partner in crimes against mortality.]

If you mean to call the piece from my world to here, don't. It's needed precisely where and when it is - and I know not whether we would have time to make another, there.

No. Despite appearances, a recreation could be easily made. All you'd have to do is make a Subarchway to whenever you saw the piece, take it--along with anything else useful, I suppose--then shut it down again when you were finished. Perhaps you might even direct all the aether into said Subarchway, so long as you're quick about bringing it down immediately thereafter.

[Now that, that gets him an odd look.] Tell me more about these subarchways...

[Should it surprise Ted that she's actually been in the void before? ...No it probably shouldn't.]

[A very well-furnished, lively void in comparison to his. Still, he'd say both have their good points over Subarchways.]

Upon the sacrifice of something important to you, like a memory, possession, or sense, you may, depending on the color of your necklace and the corresponding city, open a subarchway that simulates your memories. The greater the sacrifice, the larger and more extensive it will be.

The world's gotten more lenient with them. Used to be that whatever one sacrificed was gone forever, but now you'll be refunded if you elect to shut it down. They function much like the archways into other cities; only those like us, with pendants, can enter and leave freely.

More to the point, you can specify where and when it leads, so long as such a place is one you recall. Anything you find there ought to function just the same, even if it's removed.

[Something immediately comes to mind, but she really doesn't want to give it up. So, when he says she can regain it by simply closing the arch... she breathes a sigh of relief.] I think I can arrange that, aye. I just hope Urianger and the rest don't try to stop me when I snatch it and run... though if it's a recreation of what I remember, that shouldn't be a problem.

[...Could she sacrifice the light she's gathered like that? No, probably not - it wasn't something she considered personally important, after all. She was just a vessel for it really, at this point.]

Give me a day... maybe two, to rest. And then we'll try this theory of yours and see if it holds water.

[It's a sign of respect that he refrains from the usual warnings he'd give about the Subarchways; that they're fake, not to let one's sentiments spoil and turn perverse, etc. Aes, thank goodness, seemed to understand all that and, for once, treat them the only appropriate way: as a means to an end. So he's visibly relaxed when he responds.]

All right. Glad my pamphlet-reading is of use. Call me when you're ready.

[He gave a small, reassuring smile.]

Until then, go under the Mercy.

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Guess who's back? [Open] [Probable Shadowbringers spoilers]

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