dualisnet | UN: presage

okay, i have to ask.

what are you going to do with this stuff? diviniations?

Research.

[Is that not clear and incredibly helpful? No?]

okay. you said that.

but seriously. are you literally doing divinations? inquiring minds want to know.

I am attempting to discern some of the nature of our entrapment here.

The tools act as a focusing lens. Consider it something like a microscope, only for inspecting something different.

In short: Something like that, yes.

[Generally, in his everyday life when he's at home where things mostly make sense, Shaun doesn't believe in magic. It's bullshit.

However.

He's been to Wonderland, and the amount of bullshit nonsense he'd seen there would fill several children's fairytale books, and more than a few adult horror books too. So he's not about to dismiss this out of hand.]

okay. i've done some exploring. i might be able to find some of that. the candles, at least, shouldn't be too hard. the obsidian thing will probably be hardest. how imperative is each material?

[Hilariously that was what Murmur was accustomed to as well, magic being something typically outside of the realm of mortal command. At least for the most part. Here he was still attempting to learn what laws governed this world. Or if they, as strangers far outside it, even needed to follow those same rules.

For now he was willing to err on the side of rebelliousness.]

Among the tools the obsidian mirror might be the most useful and versatile, but isn't wholly necessary. Any will suffice for a starting point. Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to source a mirror at a later time.

i can do a run and get back to you with what I find if you want. or idk, you can come with if you're picky about things. up to you.

While I am not picky, I wouldn't be opposed to joining you regardless. Perhaps I'll come across something else that will suit my purposes.

"Research," huh? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

'Cause it looks to a casual observer like you're trying to scry your way out of this neon hellscape.

Edited 2020-06-14 02:25 (UTC)

The probability of finding an escape from our prison through divination is exceptionally unlikely.

One may, however, glean information into the nature and purpose of our binding.

Thus: research.

[See? He's not dishonest, just pedantic. And needlessly wordy.]

One may think that would work but one would be dead wrong. I already tried it.

One may instead try asking the simple questions of the people who’ve been here. One may get better answers that way.

And you gleaned nothing at all? Interesting.

I was of the understanding that there is little and less knowledge available to those who remain.

What have you to share?

I didn’t say I gleaned nothing. I said it didn’t work. I’ve been scrying long enough to know the difference between “try again later” and being completely blocked.

And as far as your understanding goes, Jon Snow, it sounds like you haven’t been asking the right people. I have plenty to share. Try this video.

I admit I am still but recently arrived, and newly introduced to this method of communicative technology. You must forgive my awkward blundering. So you too have experienced significant interference. Excellent data.

[Now, he'd mostly been approaching this for self-serving needs, primarily of the leaving promptly sort, but this... Normally he would tend to stay out of mortal matters. With their few numbers and considerably dangerous foe, however...

Well, he does know a thing or two about bindings and plagues. Perhaps he could be of service after all.]

...Fascinating. I would inspect these sigils more closely, do they yet remain?

[well, if he's from a low-tech world, maybe that explains why he talks like a game of thrones character.]

They do. They're down in the tunnels. I can show you, if you're not too suspicious of me being a secret agent for the Head, like some people here.

[Yes. That's absolutely why. He will accept that as a viable excuse for his awkwardness with the mortal tongue.]

Are they? I cannot imagine one of the Head's minions would have need to manipulate further given the significantly reduced population. We are as herring in a barrel at this juncture. I am not concerned.

Where shall I meet you?

Well, you’d be smarter than most of the people here. They’re either not paranoid enough or too paranoid about the wrong things.

Do you know where Rick’s is? Only bar still open in town, and it’s close to one of the entrances to the tunnels.

Given such uncertainty it is unsurprising many would be wary, even of a helping hand.

I do not. However, I can find it. I will not be long.

It’s on the south end of town, near the boardwalk. I’ll be there in an hour or so.

I’m Jack, by the way.

I will meet you then.

Murmur.

[Yes, that is a weird name, no he will not explain it further. He also won't explain how he finds the place so quickly, though she does help point him in the right direction to make the search significantly shorter. It'll give him time to see if the proprietor has tea. Alcohol isn't much use for immortals, after all.

And Murmur? Well, he doesn't look particularly special. Just a normal, perfectly average human, who might look especially at home in a library somewhere. Thanks in part to the clothing he managed to scrounge up raiding one of many now empty clothing stores. It wasn't like there was anyone to argue with him about it. Thankfully gloves weren't too hard to find. He prefers to not make his own life more difficult than necessary.]

[jack ran in hacker circles back home, and most of her contacts went by weird-ass names, so someone calling themself “murmur” doesn’t seem terribly strange to her. and really, this entire city sets a new bar for “strange” in jack’s book, but she’s adjusted just fine.

she arrives at the bar about ten minutes on the later side of “about an hour,” a petite mid-20s woman with long auburn hair and all-black clothing: ripped skinny jeans with holes in the knees; a shirt with an abstract geometric design printed in white, converted into a tank top; sleeveless denim vest covered in safety-pinned or sewn-on patches and enamel pins; well-worn boots. a large medusa head tattoo covers her left bicep, and a plain nautical star sits topside on her right wrist. four boldly inked words around her collar bones peek above the frayed neck of her shirt: NO GODS, NO MASTERS.]

You must be Murmur, [she says, sliding into the chair next to him without waiting for an invitation. it’s not a difficult guess; other than herself and the dark-haired woman behind the bar, he’s the only person here.]

[Excellent, Murmur was not fond of having people asking too many invasive questions about him, specifically. Especially immediately. He may, unlikely, but may open up very slightly after a fair amount of time had passed.

Murmur had been there for some time. Quietly sitting in his corner, watching out the window and enjoying some tea. While he was clearly waiting for someone he was not impatient, in fact he had an air about him as though he could have waited for many years and it wouldn't bother him. Something timeless, and unnervingly patient. If Nick had cared to wonder, that was.

While Jack looked very much like she belonged in the "neon Hell" as she put it, her fashion sense echoing the era perfectly, Murmur had somehow managed to seem wholly out of place even with local garb. A knitted vest over a collared long-sleeved shirt, slacks, and dress shoes. He should be in an office or a study, not a bar at the far edge of the city. The faintest hint of tattoos did however peek from beneath his collar, something that didn't quite jive with his rumpled scholar look. That, and the unnervingly vibrant green eyes. Piercing and cold.

He regards her with interest, offering a polite nod of greeting as she moves to join him.]

Indeed. [He studied her silently for a time, analyzing her with those venomous green eyes. Eventually he'd break away, turning his attention back out the window. Though there might have been the faintest hint of a knowing smirk as he did so. She was an interesting one.] And you are Jack. Would you care for a drink before we depart? Unless you are on a tight schedule.

[Is that a joke? It might be. It's hard to tell, he spoke very softly, and monotone.]

[he reminds her of the professor who taught a medieval women’s history class she took in college - a little awkward, but a well of hidden, fascinating knowledge if you could get him to talk, which was no easy feat. she studies him intently for a long moment, and she notes that there’s definitely something different about his eyes - something other than human. jack would know; her own blue eyes have a similar sharpness to them, frigid and lacking a certain vitality typically found in humans. it’s said that the eyes are windows to the soul, and jack lost hers many, many years ago, in the Devouring that brought her true nature out of the shadows and into the light.]

Got it in one, [she says, entirely straight-faced. jack hooks the toe of her boot under a nearby empty chair, pulls it toward her, and props her feet up, crossed at the ankles. she leans into the back of her main chair, fingers laced together and resting against her stomach.] My schedule’s wide open tonight. The only thing I had planned was finishing off a dungeon, and I can do that any time. You’re not in a hurry to see what’s hiding down in the tunnels?

That does sound like precisely what I'm looking for. Can you direct the way?

un: adaptiveimmunities

UN: presage

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