Inbox - Fade Rift

[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

Comments

crystal.

[charmoffensive]

So that's what you've been up to.

[ —on a slight delay, after That Post, but what is he meant to do, check the network every day or something? ]

I suppose you might have told me already if you've discovered something disastrous, in all your studies.

[nonvenomous]

Do you?

[ Suppose? ]

How would you like me to contact you in the event of such a disaster?

[charmoffensive]

[ Unseen eyebrow raise. Brightly— ]

However you like.

[nonvenomous]

A public announcement of my arrest, perhaps.

[charmoffensive]

Certainly. Then we can discuss it all in more detail after I spring you.

[nonvenomous]

Can you fly a griffon?

[charmoffensive]

[ A beat, then; ]

How hard could it be?

[nonvenomous]

I agree that we would be best served by finding out together when it's a matter of life or death.

[charmoffensive]

I'm not so good with animals. Besides Thot, anyway. But desperate times, and all that.

Is what you're doing really jail worthy?

[nonvenomous]

A vocal fraction of Riftwatch certainly seems to think so. Are you concerned?

[charmoffensive]

No,

[ but should he be, underscored in his tone. ]

Curious, rather.

[nonvenomous]

[ An intake of breath, a pause, a shifting of notes on a desk somewhere in the Gallows. ]

What would you like to know?

[charmoffensive]

Well—

[ An indecisive pause. ]

What are you looking for, exactly? Besides how good lyrium might be for scrapes and bruises.

[nonvenomous]

A transmutative integration of lyrium into the existing tissue, [ says Richard, easily. ] Lyrium becoming flesh.

[charmoffensive]

I feel that implies distressing things about the flesh, if it doesn't work that way on everyone else.

[nonvenomous]

There was an ordeal before our arrival here wherein a plague appeared to draw lyrium directly out of Templars and Rifters, sending the former into withdrawal and rendering the latter weakened and to some degree incorporeal.

So, [ Loxley said he was curious. ] yes.

[charmoffensive]

[ And he is, still, listening intently to unpleasant things in some comfortable corner, away from that island full of aggravating people.

After a weighty pause, he infuses some cheer in his voice as he says; ]

I don't feel make believe. Although, further to that point, are you in want of volunteers?

[nonvenomous]

Lyrium is real, [ Richard reasons. ] Spirits are real.

[ Ergo, vis a vis, concordantly -- he pauses. It’s a long pause and the scratch of his pen pauses with it, leaving a neat little beat of dead air to sink on Loxley’s end of their crystal connection. ]

Several Rifters have already reached out to us off the record. Should we need additional volunteers I’ll see that you’re added to the list.

[charmoffensive]

Alright.

[ :) ]

What happens, then, if you're successful with this transmutative business?

[nonvenomous]

[ Another pause, inscrutable through the crystal as its light fades. It's easy to forget how readily Loxley will accept a lie. ]

We'll have a better understanding of the nature of our existence here.

[charmoffensive]

And philosophically?

[nonvenomous]

Do you have specific concerns?

[charmoffensive]

That the natives of this plane will welcome any excuse to fuck us over in the long run, mainly, but I don't think there's much else to do for that. Maybe you can just tell everyone that turns out we're very normal and corporeal.

[nonvenomous]

[ He could lie again. But frankly, what's the use? ]

Regardless of what I or any of us say, there will come a time when this war is won or lost and any Rifters remaining will be forced to hide themselves or die fighting.

[charmoffensive]

[ There's a beat, the active swallowing of another flippant remark. ]

I don't know if we're so friendless as that.