Liquid metal shouldn't be anyone's best friend

[goestoextremes]

So uh. Hi. [How do you start a post here? Weird, especially without any telepathic skills, that many others seem to have. ]

I'm Korra... I've been on this jaunt since the beginning, but I was busy during the check-in post... Anyway, this is my second jaunt, Rome was the first and I arrived during the cruiser liminal from a world, where we also have our own version of Spirit World and elementalism and empowered alike skills, that we call bending back there. No idea if it's normal for a world to remind someone so much of their home, but this one sure does in some ways...

[ Spirit World, spirits, mercury, superpowers. ...the list could go on and on. At least she doesn't need to hide her skills here like had to back in Rome. ]

But that's enough about me for the moment. I'm actually here for something that's actually important... [ So don't push your imaginary MUTE buttons yet, even if that first part's just her rambling! ]

If you run into Jean -- light-brown eyes, brown hair with darker hue on the back and sides, average height of 175cm or 5'9" whichever makes more sense to you, long face, wears black clothes with lots of pockets and stuff this jaunt... [ Seriously, if any of you can share a picture somehow, please do! ]

His infiltrator name is John King, he is a Manticore Squire as far as I know from our first day here... His empowered ability is manipulating mercury / quicksilver. Now, I'm talking from experience, when I say this; that stuff can be seriously really horrible for health.

So...! If you happen to fight against him while they are chasing people there, or whatever, but if he gets that liquid metal anywhere on your skin or body? You should tell me and I'll make sure you stay healthy! Unless you can heal yourself or know other healers, of course, but for those of you, who don't... I can check if there's any of it in your body and metalbend it out of you. It doesn't hurt, it requires no touching and I swear it's a lot better than chances of walking around with even a little pieces of that metal in your body.

Ohh, and my waterbending has healing abilities if anyone needs those for any injuries, that you might get here or wherever we go while I'm myself.

Comments

[heartofmetal]

It should be noticed that the most common symptoms are peripheral neuropathy, which differs from one person to another. So if you experience something like burning, itching or just pain in your nerves and skin, it's best to get yourself checked. There are other symptoms as well, but nerve problems are the most notable ones.

Though I have to wonder if the person using the mercury as their power is immune to it or if he suffers from poisoning himself. Sounds like a shitty power if he doesn't get immunity alongside it.

[goestoextremes]

[ Oh good, someone else who knows about that stuff. ]

Thanks. It's really not a common problem where I come from and the way how I experienced it was... taking it to a lot of extremes, but I'd say one can never be too careful with this stuff.

Sounds like the kind of a drawback to it, that wouldn't surprise me here at all. But I'm not sure if he is immune to it, at least not yet.

[heartofmetal]

[At least his experiences have been through books, rather than experiencing them himself.]

I'm glad you managed to survive it, even if it was taken to extremes... and that you're offering help like this. I can't pull out metal from anyone's body, even if I know metal elementalism, but at least I can protect myself and others from attacks if necessary.

Yeah, you never know how the powers here work. I'll remember his description and report back if I see symptoms on him.

[goestoextremes]

[ Maybe she should write her own book about it or make someone write one about that time in her life... ]

I'm glad about that too, genuinely these days... And not offering help when I know about that stuff and can do a lot about it is not my style. Huh, so you're one of those, who can summon his own metal. That's something I can't do but I can do almost anything with any metal I find. Except platinum. But yes, protecting yourself and others from attacks is definitely always good.

...I just. Really hope he won't keep that ability everything considered. Thanks, I'm going to keep my eyes open too and hopefully see him somewhere again.

[Or should she hope that she doesn't see him here again? Not sure.]

[heartofmetal]

[What an anxiety causing book that would be.]

That's right. I mainly use it to lift and guide the metal elsewhere, but sometimes creating your own is useful as well. I'm also in the progress of mastering water as well.

[He's almost there, but not quite.]

It's bad enough he might be left with remains from his overlay.

[goestoextremes]

That sounds like a good way to use it. Ha, maybe I should learn some of them just to be able to create the elements myself whenever I need to... You can learn more than one type of elementalism? Wow, that's -- sounds like I might get some friendly competition here. Waterbending was the first I mastered and water elementalism is the only one of the things here that I have so far.

[ Competition? Something she'll never get back home because people can normally just bend one element. Also someone remind her that wood elementalism is a thing because she'd jump on that one as it's not included in her powers.]

...yeah, I... am going to make sure that I find him as soon as everyone get back to liminal after this.

[heartofmetal]

Yeah, it looks like we can. Me and Mikasa tested to see if we can teach them to one another and what do you know. So if you want to know metal, I can show it to you at some point? Oh, the name's Edward Elric.

[She's a damn fast learner, even. He'd love to be as fast and learn Everything.]

That's a good plan.

[leftbehindagain]

...oh god, is that what's wrong with him?

[goestoextremes]

[ . . . ]



. . . What do you mean?

[leftbehindagain]

I talked to him last week. His hands were shaking and he said he'd just taken some sick leave from work, but... he didn't elaborate.

[goestoextremes]

That could definitely be from the mercury, yeah. ...I guess it means that his health is getting worse.

[leftbehindagain]

No one deserves to be killed by their own superpower. That's just ridiculous.

Maybe I can come up with something to stop it.

[goestoextremes]

It is ridiculous and really shouldn't happen. [ although ow, that kind of hits her really hard considering her situation a few years ago. ]

Hey, if you're going to do something like that, I want in on your plan.

[howexciting]

I will also be available for healing, if necessary.

[He knows people probably aren't going to visit him, but. It's worth a shot.]

[goestoextremes]

Great! The more people with healing powers we have, the better.

[ Excuse you, mister, but Korra would personally kick or throw people at your way if necessary and she's quietly just making a list of people with healing powers here. ]

[howexciting]

My healing is rather different than yours, I would imagine. I learned it from the greatest healer we Travelers have ever had. Your water bending... do you manipulate water within the body to heal it?

[He's glad someone's willing to get stubborn Travelers to go be healed.]

[goestoextremes]

I imagine I'm going to see a lot of different ways to heal here, most of them being very different than mine. That Traveler sounds like a really amazing healer... I learned my healing skills from the best of my world's history.

Nope. I need water on my surroundings to do it and Jean taught me water elementalism, so I can even summon my own water now. Since waterbending can't do that even though I can find water almost anywhere with it but... Never a bad idea to be able to make my own water too.

[howexciting]

... she was. She truly was. [There is a wistfulness in his words that seems to translate over the Network.]

I see. That is... quite useful, actually. Remarkable, even. You can use it practically anywhere, because there is water in the air, is there not?

[awitchdidit]

Ah, mercury poisoning. The natural selector that caused the world's alchemists to evolve into plain old chemists, at least in my version of reality. Thank you for the warning.

The rest of what you say is interesting as well, though. I myself actually existed in something very similar to Liminal Space, and I've noticed a few people mention Jaunts reminding them of home before. Tell me what you can about dealing with Spirits. My experience is with Demons, which may or may not be the same thing, depending on who you ask.

[goestoextremes]

We don't have alchemist back in my world, but mercury poisoning was used there to try to end people with powers like mine from existing. Then all benders would have had the same levels of power in the middle of people with no special abilities. Which is bad, when you need a person like me there to bring balance to the world. You're welcome, I think we all need that warning now when things are getting a little crazy with security here and he's one of them.

Something very similar to Liminal Space? That sounds interesting... I'm glad this isn't the first time, it's a little -- much to be just a coincidence even if it's probably still just that.

Spirits, okay. This might take some time.

I have the Light Spirit called Raava sharing this body with me. She's part of a ten thousand year old cycle, where she shares her powers with one human at a time and moves to the next one, when the previous one passes away. She's the reason why I'm the most powerful bender in my home world; most people can only bend one element -- water, fire, earth or air -- or not any of them, but I can bend all four one at a time or all at the same time. She comes to the rescue if I need help, otherwise she stays out of sight.

My first reincarnation, who started the whole cycle used to live with the Spirits after he got banished from living with humans. He separated the mortal world and the spirit world by closing the spirit portals and someone made me re-open them some years ago for... his own selfish reasons. I didn't even know about Raava back then but I learned about her and her uh, let's call him evil twin of darkness and chaos, after that. That someone taught me how to calm angry spirits by waterbending and made me trust him, but in the end he fused with that dark spirit and let's just say it went so well that he doesn't even exist anymore. Not that he even looked like himself after that transformation, guess that's a good lesson about greed and hunger for power among other things.

I decided to keep the portals open after our huge fight to let humans and spirits exists together... To say that it didn't go well at first would be a huge understatement, when they tried to get used to living in the mortal world and humans tried to get used to them.

Most spirits I've seen are friendly, or if they're aggressive or have other negative feelings in them, sometimes they can be calmed down by one's own calm and positive feelings. But they all have their own personalities and some of them are... less friendly from what I've heard.

I don't really have as much experience with them as I should have by now, I guess. There's been a lot going on, I should be back home going around the Spirit World to learn a lot more about them... But uh, I flew on a Dragon Bird Spirit once to get fast across the Spirit World. And a spirit guided me to someone, who I didn't even knew I needed to meet to fix my problems after I got back to my feet from surviving that mercury poisoning. Sometimes I talk with a really old and wise man, who lives in the Spirit World nowadays.

So uh, they've been guiding me a lot, it just took me a long while to find my spiritual connection. I get their help when I hit my lowest point or whenever I need it. And at least some of them can talk, so it's not exactly quiet in the Spirit World back home.

...What are Demons?

[awitchdidit]

...you've had quite the eventful life, haven't you? And you seem to be quite the friend to your world's Spirits, too. I wonder if the ones here might look on you the same way. Have you asked Raava about it, or is that more of a synthesis instead of a channeling?

As for demons...well, they're not dissimilar to your Spirits or this reality's. They have their own worlds, largely separate from the human one, but they can be summoned or channeled or they can possess people or objects. I counted several of them as my familiars and servants at home, although I can only conjure the weakest ones in Liminal Space.

[Her Dungeon was an exception, but she's not quite ready to talk about it with a stranger.]

The difference is that demons tend to reflect the more...chaotic side of human emotion. The parts less accepted by polite society - greed, lust, pride, violence, desires outside of one's social station...spiritual beings who follow or enforce the rules of God and man would instead be Angels, which I have less experience with. Demons are powerful, and can be friendly and helpful, but when one makes contact with them, it should be done cautiously.

[goestoextremes]

Just a few years, but the world has changed a lot in that time. Things started happening, when I was 17. The things with Raava and her counterpart happened when I was 18, same with the mercury poisoning later that year. I spent three years away from almost everyone recovering from it and the latest dictator tried to do stuff with spirit energy. It didn't work.

And I'm what we call the Avatar there, a former bridge between the mortal world and the spirit world until I left the portals open -- but it still gives some advantage on relationship with spirits sometimes, I guess, though they seem pretty welcoming and helpful to most people. ...That's a very good question, actually, we should check. I can talk with her, she answers via telepathy.

So they have multiple different worlds on their own and you summon them from there? Wow... How do they get along, when they suddenly live in the same space? Oh hey, Spirits can also possess people, not that I've seen it happening often.

[ Spirits can't be summoned like that and well, getting along with someone/something from somewhere else is always a challenge in her experience. ]

So these demons would be more like they're from Vaatu's -- Raava's counterpart -- side or at least he'd probably like them. [Which seems to be just fine by Korra, she's the bring balance to the world girl. These sound interesting.] And being cautious is never a bad thing around something powerful.

[awitchdidit]

You're remarkably understanding for someone serving as a vessel for a Spirit of Light and Order. Then again, even Angels can be sympathetic, even when it's their job to hunt people like me...in all honestly, other than abilities, demons and angels and humans are all not terribly different. It all comes down to power and points of view.

That said, it's rather rare for humans and demons to have any contact at all. They need a...well, a bridge, like a Witch, or a very dedicated summoner, and demons almost always need a vessel to inhabit. A world like yours or the one we're in now would be incomprehensible to most humans of my world.

[goestoextremes]

Well, I'm also responsible for bringing balance to the world and light or darkness can't exist without the other. ...That and over three years of fully recovering from mercury poisoning gave me a lot of time to think about everything. But I've never really been hunted by all Spirits. ...then they look a lot different than Spirits, who can look like just about anything, mostly I've seen animals. Everything usually comes down to those two, even if power isn't always a special ability.

...A vessel like what? [...Does she even want to know? She sure doesn't want to guess even though this sounds like a really logical puzzle.] Hey, it's all about what we're used to and who knows where we're going next or if that's something most of us aren't used to.

[forcechanic]

I might be able to help with that too. I can definitely manipulate down at that level. I've never tried it in a body before but I know other Jedi have.