synopsychic | [Secondish day of Chuck E Cheese Liminal]

So hey. Everybody. Tell me what all our asshole patrons had to say about Moebius. I already talked to Malik and Matthew, so I got their stories. Already know that we killed one of 'em, so Moebius was a punishment, presumably for that. Death was behind the whole doing-things-over part, and Devil was behind the whole kill-all-your-friends part.

Also there's the tidbit that Lovers claims they don't make the places they send us to, they just pick 'em. Which is interesting. Unless she was lying, though I'm guessin' she wasn't.

But mostly I wanna hear if any of the rest of you talked about Moebius with your Trump. I got most of my memories of that Jaunt back, but not much of anything from that whole thing we apparently did to earn it, and I'm thinkin' that's gonna be pretty important. I'm hopin' somebody else can give me somethin' to go off of to jump-start workin' on that.

Besides, nobody ever talks about this shit, and we're down to too few people who lived it to let people forget about it.

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Yeah.

[Mention Liara again, Armin. He dares you. ~~Actually, no, please don't. He's pissed off about that.~~ Thankfully, the second question is much easier to answer.]

Already got that cleaned up of direct sensation and emotion for less-traumatizing review, so yeah, you want it, you got it. Come find my forge, it's over by the pizza tables. I'll interface it over to ya.

All right. I appreciate it - I'll be there soon. [Not knowing either of them terribly well, Armin's not aware of how much of a sore spot Liara might be for Riddick. He hadn't intended to poke at it - he knows how it is, he's certainly has enough sore spots himself. At the same time, he's not going to avoid mentioning those Travelers who have vanished - to do so would seem disrespectful to him, erasing their role among the Travelers, what they accomplished, their impact on everyone.]

***

[He shows up at the forge about five minutes later, looking around attentively - he's never been in Riddick's created room before.]

[The forge space itself is where Riddick is waiting, examining some lengths of steel in vaguely sword-looking shapes, looking for flaws or things to work out. He beckons Armin in further once the door slides open.]

C'mon in, kid.

Thanks.

[He enters without hesitation, evincing only light curiosity for the room.]

You can make magic weapons, right? That's why you built the forge?

I can make anything that's metal, but yeah, magic weapons are part of that.

[He puts the metal back into a barrel of other metal scraps, and the hammer left over from that infiltration onto the anvil.]

Can't pick what they do. They just amplify whatever's in a person already. Their hereditary gifts, is how Ridou put it.

Does that mean everyone has these... 'hereditary gifts'? [He's simply curious - do they exist in people who come from worlds without magic?]

Edited 2017-02-22 06:25 (UTC)

Yeah. Could be it makes you more persuasive or a better fighter. It's whatever's in you, in your family-- don't gotta be magic.

[Riddick shrugs.]

So you wanted the death record, right?

Interesting.

[Armin takes a deep breath at the question, nodding firmly.]

Yes, I would.

Lucky for you, I've already made a clean copy, so this'll be quick and easy.

[Riddick holds up a hand.]

You've been interfaced with, right?

[He nods.] I have.

[And yet, it's only with a seemingly inordinate amount of resolve and trepidation that he takes Riddick's hand a moment or so later. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it's the interface itself, rather than its contents, that Armin is wary of. Then again, as someone who was first corrupted and later killed via interface, burned away from the inside, maybe it's not so surprising after all - at least to anyone who knows the story.]

[Riddick may or may not know, depending on what Armin himself has shared and what's been on the network about it. He's a minimalist when it comes to interfaces, though. As soon as their palms touch, the connections flickers to life, only just banded wide enough for a single file transfer. If and when Armin accepts it, the connection flickers out again.]

Let me know if you come up with anything useful from that, just in case it's something more useful than I did.

[He hasn't spoken with Riddick about what happened individually, but he had shared much of the experience with the Magician over the network. Not the death itself, but the moments leading up to it, losing control of the interface and feeling it start to rewrite him.

There's only a short hesitation before he accepts the file, and he lets out a long breath when the transfer is complete, the tiniest tremor in his voice. Beyond that, he shows no sign of his uneasiness, at either the transfer or at all the deaths that are now in his head. It's more than he ever wanted to know - unfortunately for him, not more than he felt he ever needed to know.]

I will - thank you.

[It is, at least, heavily sanitized. This is the file he gave to Phillip and has since edited for clarity and further emotional distance. All emotions and physical sensations have been removed, and textual notes were added here and there with what additional things Riddick has recalled about them through reconstruction, so it's like more watching a video with annotations, just inside one's own head. There will be no trauma gained from this, unless watching people die is traumatic for Armin.

Riddick waves off the thanks, and lets Armin move on to wherever else he's going-- or letting him sift through things right where he's standing if he really wants to.]

[It's not traumatic; he's seen too much death to let it get to him so readily. On the other hand, that doesn't mean it's easy for him to see, or that it doesn't affect him. He's not so jaded as that, and seeing he and his friends die again and again isn't an experience he's fond of.

But it happened - so he's resolved to take it and learn from it. With what they all suffered, it's the least he can do.

He nods seriously to Riddick, before heading back to his rooms to thoroughly investigate his new memories.]

[Secondish day of Chuck E Cheese Liminal]

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