Vigil 8: Try jumping

[Rebonack]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Geneva is not in her lab.

No, she's in one of the server hubs for the engineering section of VIGIL.

Why?

Well...

Mostly because a not bird kind of wrecked the local records of her experimentation on it. She's checking the server backups that exist separately from the computers in her lab.

Hopefully she can figure out exactly how that effect worked so she can protect her equipment against it in the future.

At the moment Geneva appears to be a fair skinned human woman with soft pink hair done up in a conservative and business-like style. No dangling hair everywhere for her! That's a lab hazard.

You don't want your hair getting caught in machines.

[5a Violista]

[CATastrophe]

Awen is glad that Lapis is here to grab the runaway foxes.

As she holds them, Awen has a thought.

Since they seem to be able to turn invisible and probably phase through things, couldn't they just phase through her arms or something? She's glad they seem mostly content with sticking around, though.

"Any idea yet on how big their litters get?" she asks, following Lapis because Lapis knows best where these labs are located.

...

To be honest, Awen has never been in any of the labs so far. Even though she's a witch.

[Ironsmith]

[CATastrophe]

Oh good!

Miss Sara got right back to Lapis! Now she knows what to do!

She scoops up the extra fox and the other extra fox so now she's got a kitty AND two foxes. That's SIX foxes and one kitty.

"We should take Miss Eun's kitty back to her room first then we need to take all these foxes to Miss Sara's lab. I think Mister Max is going to help us he knows what to do with the animals."

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Lapis will head off toward Eun's room with cat in hand and foxes draped across her! Hopefully they don't leap off and try crawling around on Awen instead.

[CATastrophe]

Awen is glad that Lapis is here to grab the runaway foxes.

As she holds them, Awen has a thought.

Since they seem to be able to turn invisible and probably phase through things, couldn't they just phase through her arms or something? She's glad they seem mostly content with sticking around, though.

"Any idea yet on how big their litters get?" she asks, following Lapis because Lapis knows best where these labs are located.

...

To be honest, Awen has never been in any of the labs so far. Even though she's a witch.

[CATastrophe]

What? Turn invisible and phase through Awen? Now why would any of them do that? They love her! Can't she tell from the aggressively adorable way they rub their heads on her?

If not, clearly that's a sign that they should be even more affectionate. Which they are now. The two in Lapis's arms struggle to break free to rejoin with their host, falling into step (sort of; more of an orbit, really) with her if they're successful.

The cat, at least, remains well-behaved.

Lapis will find herself at the entrance to Eun's quarters soon enough. If she goes in, she'll find the other five cats dutifully waiting for her.

...At which point she might notice a problem.

Khafir has, in the past, given the warning that a population of twelve cognimorphs would be potentially self-sustaining, and therefore rapidly grow in numbers.

There are five cats already here, a sixth in Lapis's arms, and six foxes bonded to Awen.

Correction: six cats, six foxes, and two dogs. Also a squirrel. And a canary.

[Rebonack]

[CATastrophe]

"Here you go kitty! You have to stay in Miss Eun's room this is where you live okay?" Lapis says as she releases the cat into Miss Eun's room and carefully closes the door behind her so she can't get out.

There!

Problem probably solved!

Then she turns around and there are now two dogs and a squirrel and a bird all sitting on Miss Awen, too.

It strikes Lapis that these animals seem like they're making more animals really quickly.

"Oh no now they're making things that aren't foxes, too! We need to hurry Miss Awen or they might run out of places to put animals in the lab!"

And that said?

She'll go jogging off down the hall toward the labs!

Hopefully Awen with her absolutely overload of small animals (unless they're big dogs or something) will be able to follow her!

...also once they get back outside Lapis will try to shoo the bird away.

Birds aren't allowed at VIGIL!

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

They return to a nervous looking Ava and a silently staring Ilpholin, and Ava almost seems relieved to go with Shanti to the moonwell waters. Yes, submerge her. This can't happen fast enough. "I'm not afraid of water." She might be afraid of nymphs though.

Ilpholin hangs back at Anika's request, creating enough distance that might qualify as privacy, even from the superior ears of Shanti. "Yeah? What's up?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

"Okay, so we agreed to put Ava under VIGIL's custody after we un-demonify her. Is that alright with you? Figure its better than letting her anywhere near Riverside and that demon-goat again. Since it was there at the hospital wanting to 'see' her, y'know? Would probably have completely corrupted her if I hadn't saved her at the last second." Anika shudders, just being close to it had been so creepy now knowing what it could do.

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

That was not who Ambrosia had expected to see at all. She knew that Geneva was a hippogriff which she guessed meant that she preferred to appear like a human while working at VIGIL? Or was there a more practical reason for her appearance? After all, despite its multiversal culture most of the buildings and tools still seemed to be adjusted for humanoids, with the exception of that one street in Inside...

"Mrs. Geneva, we finally get to meet properly." Well, they had already seen each other a couple of times but this was the first time they really spoke person to person.

Ambrosia introduces herself with a polite nod, keeping her arms to the side as she tries to appear as subdued as possible. Not yet sure what Geneva's reaction would be to the person that attacked the base not long ago. "I'm Ambrosia Ithil, but you probably already knew that."

[bc56]

Training Grounds
Kothar has wrestled big, strong things before. He's carried along by Anika but releases once the spell is blocked, tumbling to the ground and rolling back to his feet. From here he can see he's still in a bad situation if he continues doing what he has been doing. So he switches plans.
He grabs the dummy and uproots it from the ground. Slinging it over his shoulder, he runs.
Sure, he's slower than the bear, but he's at least as fast as the other three, and much more nimble than Anika. He likes his chances better if he stays mobile.

[Rebonack]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

It becomes apparent in a hurry why Geneva is in human form as she types away (slowly) at the keyboard hooked up to the mainframe.

"Stupid tiny keys. I swear they spread these out to make typing as inefficient as possible."

She is, of course, exactly correct.

Geneva jumps slightly when Ambrosia speaks up.

"Oh, ah, hello there! I was just-" she glares over at the computer. "-trying to retrieve some remotely stored files that had been corrupted elsewhere."

Which is a complete pain.

Why aren't these machines just hooked up to the communicator system? She included the ability to give sub-vocalized commands typing shouldn't be necessary for anyone!

"With the storm, yes, that was an interesting application of weather magic. But I doubt you came all the way down here to talk to me about clouds, right? Haha*snort*hah."

She gives a little cough, eyes darting this way then that. "So...! What did you want to discuss with me?"

[5a Violista]

[CATastrophe]

While Awen doesn't want them to do that, she is confident that they definitely are capable of phasing through her hand and she's a little afraid they're going to do that to get away.

Unaware that a population of twelve is bad, it doesn't even cross her mind that she should have stayed away from the lab as they brought the cat here. Or that it would've been a better idea to go to the other place first and this lab afterwards.

She didn't expect the dogs.

Just foxes and cats.

With Lapis's panic, Awen realizes it probably is best to chase after Lapis as she jogs away, all while trying to still hold the four foxes and hopefully have the other two chase her (since they seemed to have ditched Lapis, but she can't really fault Lapis for letting go of those two because she's still a kid), so she runs to catch up. "But that doesn't make sense!" she says. "You said she only had cats, right? I get what circumstances could make a cat can have fox babies, but where did the dogs come from?" That part just makes no sense!
She really hopes they don't keep on increasing, because she'd rather not have to make eye contact with them, or, worse, call in her fox to handle some of them.

[Shadowcaller]

Training Grounds

Anika rotates around only to see Kothar grab the dummy and run.

Hold on, wasn't the rules that he wasn't supposed to make it leave the ring or whatever? So could he just grab it and run?
Eh, she hadn't really listened when Wenomir had explained them so what did she know?
In fact, this was getting a bit out of hand...

Anika changes back into her humanoid form and goes back to Wenomir. "So he won now, right? Since he grabbed the dummy and saved it." Sure, those might as well be the rules, right?

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

As Geneva jumps Ambrosia reacts by raising her hands to display her armored palms as if to show that she was unarmed.

She certainly knew the troubles of retrieving data.

"Ah, actually, weather magic was a subject on my mind when I came here but it certainly wasn't the only one." She couldn't think of a single time she had been able to discuss weather magic with anyone so she wouldn't squander such an opportunity.

Her hands settle down to her sides once Geneva seems to calm down and she brings up her tome and opens it up. "But if the whole reason for the earlier incident has been clarified to you, and you aren't too preoccupied, I wanted to discuss your planar project. Since I recently came across an incident of that nature and I figured I would try to get your opinion on it."

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

"That's what Eastside agreed to? Well I suppose that's between you and them." Ilpholin's not sure where her opinion in the matter comes in. "What would you do with her? Besides keeping her safe." In custody is very much a short term answer.

[Rebonack]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Geneva actually brightens a bit when Ambrosia mentions that she would like to discuss weather magic even if that might not be the subject she's specifically here to talk about. No one ever wants to talk about weather magic with her. At least not in the sorts of terms she's really enthusiastic about. Every pegasus weather team member she had ever spoken with back at the Weather Factory in Carousel Court had mostly just looked at her oddly when she shared her ideas. They told her that she talked about weather the way a unicorn talks about spells. It kind of weirded most of them out. As a result she never really had people she could discus her ideas with.

Which...

Well, it was kind of isolating.

Working here full time at VIGIL has been better for her, she thinks, even if there aren't really any other equestrians around.

"My planar project? Do you mean Project Rainbowbridge specifically or my investigations into teleportation mechanisms in general?" Geneva asks. "Because while related I have a number of projects that I'm investigating contemporaneously they're all focusing on different forms, manifestations, and applications of non-Newtonian motion in the Nexus."

Oh no.

Geneva uses big words when she starts getting excited.

[Ironsmith]

[CATastrophe]

"Here you go kitty! You have to stay in Miss Eun's room this is where you live okay?" Lapis says as she releases the cat into Miss Eun's room and carefully closes the door behind her so she can't get out.

There!

Problem probably solved!

Then she turns around and there are now two dogs and a squirrel and a bird all sitting on Miss Awen, too.

It strikes Lapis that these animals seem like they're making more animals really quickly.

"Oh no now they're making things that aren't foxes, too! We need to hurry Miss Awen or they might run out of places to put animals in the lab!"

And that said?

She'll go jogging off down the hall toward the labs!

Hopefully Awen with her absolutely overload of small animals (unless they're big dogs or something) will be able to follow her!

...also once they get back outside Lapis will try to shoo the bird away.

Birds aren't allowed at VIGIL!

[CATastrophe]

While Awen doesn't want them to do that, she is confident that they definitely are capable of phasing through her hand and she's a little afraid they're going to do that to get away.

Unaware that a population of twelve is bad, it doesn't even cross her mind that she should have stayed away from the lab as they brought the cat here. Or that it would've been a better idea to go to the other place first and this lab afterwards.

She didn't expect the dogs.

Just foxes and cats.

With Lapis's panic, Awen realizes it probably is best to chase after Lapis as she jogs away, all while trying to still hold the four foxes and hopefully have the other two chase her (since they seemed to have ditched Lapis, but she can't really fault Lapis for letting go of those two because she's still a kid), so she runs to catch up. "But that doesn't make sense!" she says. "You said she only had cats, right? I get what circumstances could make a cat can have fox babies, but where did the dogs come from?" That part just makes no sense!
She really hopes they don't keep on increasing, because she'd rather not have to make eye contact with them, or, worse, call in her fox to handle some of them.

[CATastrophe]

Once they're outside, Lapis manages to shoo the canary away without any fuss. Awen doesn't seem to want it around, and it's not going to risk the ire of a gigantic unempathic predator over nothing. Away it goes, to a far-off land somewhere.

Let's be honest, it's probably going to Inside.

Similarly, the squirrel bolts at the first available opportunity, chittering feverishly as it tries to find a good place to sit and wait for a host, since Awen literally has her hands full right now.

The dogs, at least, follow after Lapis, since she's running around making noise and being a very tempting target for a friendly game of Chase. They largely ignore Awen and the foxes for now, but that coukd change if Awen shows more of an interest in them.

It doesn't take long for them to reach the Cognimorph Lab, where a certain nervous lab tech is waiting for them with a set of collars and leashes.

"Good! You're here! Get them inside, quickly!" The tech beckons, pressing against the "do not feed the animals" sign by the door as he hurriedly yanks it open.

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

"Uhh... not quite." Anika had frankly thought Ilpholin would make some assumptions based on the fact Ava was still in her hospital gown. "But I figured VIGIL can talk to Eastside and they can make arrangements and stuff. See, that's why I wanted to talk to you alone since by 'custody' I mean throwing her in VIGIL-jail until they come to an agreement."

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

"Rainbow bridge actually. Since it's a way to send people home from the nexus, correct?" Ambrosia latches onto that one as she didn't want to admit to not knowing what 'non-Newtonian' was. "Since I believe what I saw was the opposite of that. To bring things to the nexus which in theory must be easier I figure. Since the nexus already seem to pull things into it naturally. This was just an attempt at controlling it and that has some unnerving implications considering what worlds there are out there."

She makes a quick note in her tome to look up 'newtonian' as soon as she was done here. Appearing ignorant was not something she was a fan of.

[Rebonack]

[CATastrophe]

"They're not really any of those animals they're a different that hasn't got shapes," Lapis explains.

Again.

Is Miss Awen just not listening very well?

Lapis isn't sure.

Anyway yes Lapis is running any most any dog or dog-adjacent entity can agree that running for any reason is great let's go!

"We got them here but when we took Miss Eun's cat back to the rest of her kitties there were dogs and a squirrel and a bird too! I don't know where they others came from no one was petting those they just appeared and the dogs are here but the squirrel went in a tree and the bird flew away because birds aren't allowed in VIGIL."

Why is it that Lapis and Anika are the only ones who seem to know about this rule?


[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

"That's a reasonable enough description of it, yes. Project Rainbowbridge is meant to be a quite literal bridge to worlds that have formed only transient Einstein-Rosen bridges with the Nexus. That's as opposed to more stable connections, like permanent or transient bridges. It's difficult for people from such worlds to return home because the link exists for a small amount of time before closing," Geneva explains with the upbeat enthusiasm of someone talking about a subject that really fascinates them.

Then the explanation is considered!

"Hmm, well, that does happen occasionally. Triggering the Nexus 'grease trap' function intentionally, I mean. I've experimented with it myself in a very controlled environment before and I've found it isn't terribly difficult with the right equipment and know-how. I take it that this is being used for specifically nefarious purposes?"

[Morty]

[Training Grounds]

Wenomir seems to be thinking along the same lines as Anika, because he claps his hands. This is evidently a signal to stop, because the three other Vigil members halt.

"Yes, that's enough. Good work, Kothar. I asked Anika to charge in to see how you'd react. Taking the dummy and running demonstrated quick thinking."

[Shadowcaller]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Ambrosia takes another note to find out what 'Einstein-Rosen' means before she continues.

"It doesn't seem to have been used for anything but experimentation so far from what I've gathered. At the time I arrived there sabotage had caused a malfunction which turned a huge swathe of land into what I best can describe as a criss-cross of dimensions. All trying to fill the exact same place. It also brought along a large host of creatures from those dimensions which made the situation even worse as plenty of them were hostile. But all that pales compared to the end-goal of these experiments which is to bring an entire world into the nexus which I'm guessing is on a completely different scale than you operate. I'm guessing they must be planning to use some sort of shortcut to accomplish this? Since it seems insane to think that they could transfer over an entire world here."

[Rebonack]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Obviously it's a type of bridge, Ambrosia.

There are arch bridges and suspension bridges and pier bridges and Einstein-Rosen bridges!

Amsbrosia talks.

And Geneva listens.

"Hmm."

She doesn't respond right away.

Mostly because she's thinking about the situation.

"It sounds like a case of intentionally manifested kaleidoscope pattern terrain. This happens in Outside, occasionally, but I don't know if I've ever heard someone causing it before. And bringing a whole world into the Nexus would, ah... hmm... how to explain this."

This is a hard one to conceptualize.

"By my count there are currently seventeen full worlds integrated with the Nexus. It just doesn't... The effect isn't quite what you would expect it to be. From the descriptions and data I've been able to gather, Inside begins existing on a landmass somewhere in the world in a tentative fashion. It becomes possible for people to freely travel to and from the City to other parts of that world. As you get further away from Inside the influence of the Nexus gradually diminishes until it's no different than any other part of the host-world. I believe Riverside, if you're familiar with it, is an example of a city that exists concretely on a world that is integrated with the Nexus. Far enough away from the epicenter to avoid the oddest manifestations of the Nexus but still close enough to feel its influence."

Geneva holds up her hands to belay any objection here. "Mind you, this is tentative. Every integrated world can have wildly different physical laws. This makes it difficult to predict the exact nature of the relationships. My assessment of Riverside is possibly inaccurate; I'm not completely certain. But its qualities DO fit well with the model I've constructed. And I'll admit that this isn't the scale I'm aiming to operate at. The amount of energy that would be required to accomplish something like this would be staggering on a level that beggars belief. You're talking about moving universes into conjunction with each other."

[Shadowcaller]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Now Ambrosia listens.

While Geneva talks.

She takes some notes as Geneva's theories were fascinating. Even if she hadn't been able to prove them strictly speaking they seemed to hold some credence.
"Which is why it's so concerning that someone must have access to this amount of power. Or at least believe they can as they hadn't yet but seemed confident that they would in what must be a near future. Though that is just me speculating mind you. Either way, even an attempt to do this... I imagine that terrible things could happen if something goes wrong." While this isn't strictly a question Ambrosia is pausing as if to see if Geneva was going to fill it in with something.

[Earl of Purple]

Bird Hunted

"Yes, I guess we do know that about it, don't we... It's likely that there's going to be another, unless whoever sent it thought it isn't worth it. We don't know what kind of resources going into making such a bird, or directing it or anything. Might be they've burnt a century's worth of effort or something to keep themselves secret." Although that amount of time seems unlikely to Felicity.

They also know the bird wasn't limited to three-dimensional shapes, and could compact itself down to two dimensions in order to hide in a painting. That might be interesting for Geneva to know, and if any information from the hoopoe's detonation survived, it's likely the method to cancel out its method of creating two-dimensional bridges from a one-dimensional surface did, although the information on how the method came to be developed might not; the applied science survives, the reason for the development of said science might not.

[bc56]

Training Grounds
Kothar stops and walks casually back to replace the dummy. "Many thanks," He bows courteously. "You need more?" A question. Is this enough demonstration?

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

She assumed it meant Ava was returning directly to the hospital after the procedure. Well no, that was just a possible guess. She didn't bother to make any presumptions about the situation at all, knowing better than to try and predict Anika.

"So basically you have no idea what to do with her and just plan to hold her until you can figure it out," Ilpholin clarifies as she mulls it over. It's a tricky situation either way and definitely steeped in something deeper than any of the four of them. "She's a powder keg either way Anika and I'm not so sure it's a good idea to hold her so close. If you're asking for alternatives...?" Ilpholin thinks for a moment. While she certainly would love to get her hands on that talent and motivation and turn Ava into a proper warrior for the war for Nexus' soul. Ilpholin could offer to return her and take Ava someplace secret and safe, training a clandestine assassin.

Or Ava could stay with VIGIL. Eastside will either want her to hang or to build a statue of her. Either way, it's going to drag VIGIL into the spotlight, perhaps even forcing them to finally make a choice instead of merely flirting with demonic sympathies. VIGIL has the support of the cities and the people... but the people's wills turn readily and if VIGIL doesn't comply with whatever Eastside's people demand on the situation, schisms could begin to form. VIGIL's true colors will begin to shine and the demonic taint that's been leaking through the leadership will finally tarnish their light or be cleansed.

"... I don't have any to offer you. Keeping her in VIGIL's custody is as good a plan as any," the nymph finally concedes.

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

Anika gives Ilpholin the tumbs up. "Cool, I just figure Ava wouldn't want to return to Eastside jail considering that the goat clearly wanted to get in touch with her. So having her here at VIGIL is probably for the best."

She then gestures for the nymph to follow as she starts to try to catch up with Ava and her sisteri. "But come on, let's get that cleansing out of the way first."

Shanti have led Ava to the enormous petrified trunk of what must have been an titanic tree at one point. Now its stump serves as the base for a large well which is, as Ava will probably notice, not containing water. At least not in a traditional sense.

The liquid contained within is emitting some kind of azure-colored smoke which casts the entire wellspring in a soft blue glow. "Are you comfortable walking in right now or do you want to wait for the others?" Shanti inquires as she gestures at the well.

[Reinholdt]

[Moonwell]

"There's certainly an argument to be had that it's for her own safety. At least until that goat can be killed. Was she one of the ones with MERC? Might be harder to get her if they're covering for her," Ilpholin muses.

Ava takes a moment to look over the tree and the water, but almost doesn't even wait for Shanti to prompt her, already walking towards and into the moonwell. "Please," there's a light strain in her voice as she almost begs the Night Elf. "I don't want to be this any longer than I have to be. Whatever it takes."

[5a Violista]

[CATastrophe]

Awen knows they're not really foxes – that's obvious – but she feels Lapis just doesn't know it well enough and thus is unable to explain properly.

It's okay, though, because there definitely is someone who knows what's up.

She doesn't mind Lapis taking care of the dogs, though, since the spare foxes seemed to stop caring about Lapis.

Following the lab person's instructions, she takes the foxes she has with her into the door. "Come on, keep up," she tells the ones that she's not carrying.

[Ironsmith]

[CATastrophe]

"They're not really any of those animals they're a different that hasn't got shapes," Lapis explains.

Again.

Is Miss Awen just not listening very well?

Lapis isn't sure.

Anyway yes Lapis is running any most any dog or dog-adjacent entity can agree that running for any reason is great let's go!

"We got them here but when we took Miss Eun's cat back to the rest of her kitties there were dogs and a squirrel and a bird too! I don't know where they others came from no one was petting those they just appeared and the dogs are here but the squirrel went in a tree and the bird flew away because birds aren't allowed in VIGIL."

Why is it that Lapis and Anika are the only ones who seem to know about this rule?

[CATastrophe]

Awen knows they're not really foxes – that's obvious – but she feels Lapis just doesn't know it well enough and thus is unable to explain properly.

It's okay, though, because there definitely is someone who knows what's up.

She doesn't mind Lapis taking care of the dogs, though, since the spare foxes seemed to stop caring about Lapis.

Following the lab person's instructions, she takes the foxes she has with her into the door. "Come on, keep up," she tells the ones that she's not carrying.

[CATastrophe]

"Yes, yes, hurry, hurry!" The tech hisses, waving them inside and closing the door behind them as the last of the foxes trails in after Awen.

After which he lets out a relieved sigh and slumps against a table. "Okay, that's one layer of isolation, I can start breathing again." He groans quietly, running a hand over his forehead. "Within a contained environment like this, we can limit their exposure to-"

Hang on.

"...did you say you chased away one of them?" The tech confirms with Lapis. "That's... that's not good. Not good at all." He winces. "It only takes one and a host to establish a breeding population. If you lost track of one of them and we can't find it back, we could be up to our eyeballs in cognimorphs by this time next week!"

The dogs running around the tech's feet bark enthusiastically, like this is the best news they've heard all week.

"...I'm so fired." The man groans, slumping against the wall. "The higher-ups aren't going to be happy about this. They're going to take it out on my boss and she's going to take it out on me. Kind of. She's going to say containment was my job and this represents a critical failure, and that's probably the end of my VIGIL career." He sighs and places his head in his hands, unswayed by the pair of beagles licking at them.

[Rebonack]

[CATastrophe]

They did it!

Yay!

Now everything will be fine!

But wait, oh no!

Mister Max is saying everything WON'T be fine!

"Yeah bird's aren't allowed in VIGIL," Lapis confirms to the subject of bird chasing. Was he not listening? Seriously how is it that only she and Anika seem to know about this rule? "Do you need me to go find the bird for you? I can do that I'm good at finding things since I'm a Seer."

Possibly the best one ever.

"And maybe Miss Awen can find the squirrel the not-animals like her more than they like me."

Like how the one fox made a whole bunch more foxes just from being near her.

There, see, easy solution!

"Don't worry Mister Max Awen and I can find the not-animals for you it'll be easy."


[Bird Hunted]

"If the bird comes back we'll find it for sure, Miss Felicity! We'll be vigilant!"

Lapis is very sure of this.


[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

"It's worth investigation, certainly. Simply due to the energies involved I would feel much more comfortable being familiar with the techniques that are being used and what the threshold for a false-vacuum collapse is," Geneva says.

A...

What?

What's a false-vacuum collapse?

Whatever it is, the way Geneva said it makes it sound like that's about the worst thing that could possible happen.

"I take it you're familiar who's carrying out these experiments?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Moonwell]

"There's certainly an argument to be had that it's for her own safety. At least until that goat can be killed. Was she one of the ones with MERC? Might be harder to get her if they're covering for her," Ilpholin muses.

Ava takes a moment to look over the tree and the water, but almost doesn't even wait for Shanti to prompt her, already walking towards and into the moonwell. "Please," there's a light strain in her voice as she almost begs the Night Elf. "I don't want to be this any longer than I have to be. Whatever it takes."

[Moonwell]

"Uhh... I guess?" Anika had honestly not thought much about it. But Ilpholin was right, was that goat with MERC? That'd be horrible! "We should probably ask them. Maybe they're not even aware that it's a demon?" Like how they wouldn't be aware that they were protecting a demon band? Some willful ignorance there.

Meanwhile, at the moonwell, Ava will feel a shiver creeping up her spine as she enters the liquid. It does simply feel like cool water but there's a energy to it. Like it's boiling, vibrating against her skin.
"Of course, I'll get to casting right away. But while I'm channeling I cannot have any conversations to you other than perhaps one-word exchanges. Just so you know." Then she will sit down at the edge of the water as green energy start to swirl around her. She appears to be in some form of meditative state with her eyes closed.

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

The scholar nods. "Yes, a 'demon' or more accurately a yokai of the legion variant. Basically, a lot of spirits gathered together as one mind. I also suspect they're a kind of ghost. As in the spiritual remains of a person or persons in this case. Though these are not nearly as decayed as that label would suggest which makes me think they have a phylactery of some sort. Essentially, a replacement mind or brain for when your original one dies." A lot of odd terminology there but Ambrosia is attempting to explain it at least.

[Rebonack]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Geneva has a similar problem to Ambrosia, here.

Words that she isn't familiar with.

Well, to be fair she knows more or less what 'demons' are but in her experience creatures that have that word applied to them can vary dramatically. So, like Ambrosia, she has some homework to do. Unlike Ambrosia she can do it right now. It takes a few sub-vocalized commands to her pipgear.

'Demon' 'yokai' 'legion yokai' 'aggregate ghost' 'phylactery'.

The terms are searched and rapidly cross-referenced. That last one in particular is unknown to her. Two main hits. Some sort of religious devotional trinket and a storage medium for an undead spirit. Ah, probably the second one, then.

Geneva is reading the relevant information as it pops up on her augmented reality display. Ambrosia might be able to tell from the very subtle eye movements.

"Interesting... Do we have a motivation for why this aggregate spirit is undertaking this experiment? I would imagine there's some reason why it wants to integrate a world with the Nexus. That doesn't seem like typical behavior for a ghost, here or anywhere else."

[Shadowcaller]

[Geneva and Ambrosia in NERD TALK]

Ambrosia clears her voice once she's being addressed again. The scholar had already been itching to explain this as she had gone over the explanation in her mind a few times while Geneva was searching around for terminology. "Well, as I mentioned, they aren't a ghost in the traditional sense. The term being somewhat lacking as I haven't encountered anything like this before." She might even have to make a new term for it!

"However as long as you understand it the exact terminology probably isn't important. But I do want to make clear where I'm coming from here before I go into the possible motives of this being. Since I'm sure you noticed that phylactery has two definitions. While I'm not completely certain of the etymology here it seems like the religious meaning of the word has come to primarily been associated with devotion, even beyond death. People were buried with their phylacteries as a sign of their faith even in death. Apparently the people who practiced this sort of thing could somehow infuse a part of their souls into these symbols so a part of them could linger on even beyond death. These were supposedly used as ancestral advisors of sort though my sources of these were somewhat skeptical of these claims. Describing them more as a religious practice than an actual science. However, I happen to know that items of a similar purpose, though far more advanced, do actually exist and its the closest word which I could apply to it." She pauses, giving Geneva a moment to take all that in, and for herself to breath, before continuing.

"Now, what does that have to do with any of this? Well, the people who constructed these items are not particularly religious but devotion is still a major factor in the motivation to linger beyond death. Its to continue to be able to use one's wisdom and skills to guide their society. As these phylacteries take a lot of resources to create simply letting their leaders live forever is not a strong enough motivation. Only the most useful people that have proven their devotion to their own society and not themselves are granted this boon. I speculate, considering the practical benefits of this practice as well as the fact that this being seems to be made up of scientists rather than leaders, that whatever people this 'ghost' came from was motivated by something similar. So they believe that undertaking this experiment is in the best interest of their people which is of course what VIGIL designates as 'demons'."