Vigil 8: Try jumping

[Rebonack]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Lapis IS only half drow, after all. The blue tint to her skin and her red eyes are definitely outside the human norms. Her face is a little more angular in that elf-y way, too. But with some make-up and colored contact lenses she could probably pass as human.

Anyway!

It's time for some NANOMACHINES, SON!

Lapis does her best to suppress a giggle as they do their work.

"This tickles!" she seems to think informing Mia of this fact is deeply important.

The damage to the malleus bone is pretty minor, just a hairline fracture, really. But definitely enough to cause some pretty significant ear pair. And once Lapis' ear drums and delicate inner-ear bones are repaired?

"Oh! I can! Thank Miss Mia I can hear and my ears don't hurt anymore!"

Oh no it looks like Mia is about to get a hug from the ten year old half-elf.

[Ironsmith]

[Commanders' Office]

Amazingly, to simply barge into the sorceress office without any warning has it's downsides. Namely, the sorceress isn't there.
Instead another woman is seated in one of the visitors chairs. Someone Khafir may or may not be familiar with depending how much she learned about the aftermath of the so-called 'dragon storm'. "Ah, Lady Mithar just left. But she's going to return any moment now I'm sure so you might as well take a seat." She gestures at the other seat. "Khafir was it?"

[Cessie's Office]

Khafir raises an eyebrow, momentarily confounded by how totally her third eye had failed her. She hadn't seen Cessie leave the office, and she'd been glancing in on the foot traffic through her all day; the exchange must have taken place when she wasn't looking. More pointedly, she seems to have missed any and all context for who this woman is; if she was involved with the dragon storm, Khafir at least has the excuse of having been somewhat busy in the lab wing at the time.

"Doctor Khafir, yes." She replies evenly, flicking the folder back in her direction, before holding it under her arm securely. "To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

There's nothing pleasurable about it, of course. But people tend to respond better when she's some measure of polite.

"DNA? Oh, you mean human blueprints. Sure. Let me draw it for you." The First Lightbearer is not quite sure what Eun needs her for, since her sister has all the same information, but maybe it's just more convenient for Eun to look at it sitting infront of a laptop instead of staring at a floating hologram. The girl on the screen quits her Tetris game and rapidly draws something on her slate, then turns it towards the "camera" and brings it close, so that the DNA sample effectively fills the screen and Eun can browse it at will. If she wants an electronic copy for further study, it's just a matter of uploading it on the network-disabled phone or other memory device.

Once Eun gets to analyzing the sample, what she gets out of course depends on her method. Simply comparing the sample with other samples from known human populations, using historic Earth as reference, reveals whoever this sample was taken from originated from North Africa. This might surprise Eun, given the girl's simulated image appears blonde, but further study gives an answer: she is specifically Berber, from coast of Mediterranean, with some ancient traces of European ancestry coinciding to give her light hair. Given the simulation of the girl is not fully grown yet, it's possible her hair would darken with age or pregnancy. Further comparison could narrow her place of origin further to near border of Libya and Egypt, with ancestors from Algeria, Morocco, Spain, etc.

There is, however, an unknown element to the sample. Neither it nor its effects are easy to spot because they lie in what are often considered non-coding parts of DNA, or so called "junk DNA". Since Eun is from a high technology society, she might be aware of or able to theorize some causes or functions. On the simpler side, it's possible the odd variations are copy errors - whatever or whoever collected, recorded or constructed this sample only managed to capture "functional" part of the genome, and didn't sweat the details. On the less simple side, non-coding parts of DNA can be used as information storage, both for epigenetic regulatory information or something else. For an example of "something else", entire virus strains could be "hidden" in parts of DNA, capable of being separated and reactivated at a later date. Or, if this sample was artificially constructed, the oddities might be a "desinger's signature" or even a life history.

[Eun's Lab]

None of this will be lost on Eun, of course. Non-coding DNA plays a significant role in her analysis; the sequences may not be expressed in her subject's phenotype, but they still had all the usual functions of DNA otherwise, including being subject to mutation and inheritence. More pointedly, they give her a better idea of not only where LightBearer came from, but also when. Her database will contain information about the origins of certain sequences; if they're present in LightBearer's genome, she can not only tell that she's Berber, but specifically Berber born sometime after X date range. If she had access to her world's more comprehensive database, Eun might even have been able to pin the specifics of who her relatives were. The converse is harder to prove, but a statistical analysis of unrecognized sequences, combined with a projected mutation rate, would give a potential estimate for how far in the future her genes may be from... if these genes weren't naturally occurring or somehow corrupted, the estimate would, of course, be totally useless. But she'll try that first, and try more abstract analyses as an afterthought.

[Shadowcaller]

[Cessie's Office]

The woman seems to carefully study Khafir's expression as their eyes meet and she smiles. "A doctor of what exactly? I'm Ambrosia Ithil, a dragon scholar. I act as an advisor to VIGIL at times. Mostly in matters related to spirits... and dragons of course. I understand you were attacked by one lately."

[DRAGON STORM]

Cessie mimics the gesture and returns the bow. "Go on then."

She's not too far behind Utayo however as she needed to talk to Wenomir and the dragon that apparently was Ambrosia. She had a lot of explaining to do...

[Ironsmith]

[Cessie's Office]

The woman seems to carefully study Khafir's expression as their eyes meet and she smiles. "A doctor of what exactly? I'm Ambrosia Ithil, a dragon scholar. I act as an advisor to VIGIL at times. Mostly in matters related to spirits... and dragons of course. I understand you were attacked by one lately."

[Cessie's Office]

"Applied neurotechnology and psychomechanics." Khafir replies stiffly, holding out her hand for the customary shake. "Among other things. Where I come from, it pays to cross-train." She looks over Ambrosia analytically, as though trying to glean more information about her based solely on her appearance... and likely failing. "It seems your business with the commander is rather more urgent than mine. As a courtesy, I should wait outside."

[Shadowcaller]

[Cessie's Office]

Like Cessie, Ambrosia is using gloves. Unlikely Cessie, her gloves are made of metal. In fact, the fact that she's wearing a full armor simply for a meeting is odd. But this was the nexus and people probably wore armor for all sort of weird circumstances.
"If-" But Ambrosia pauses as she too, much like Khafir, seems to be able to tell that the commander is about to open the backdoor of the office.

And sure enough. "It's best if you stay here actually, Doctor Khafir." Cessie remarks as she seemingly seem to have heard part of their discussion through the door as it was slightly open.
She glances at Ambrosia and Khafir might be able to read a hint of annoyance in her expression. "Since while we're trying to limit the spread of information, there are some people that have to know and doctor Khafir is one of them."

The sorceress sits down in her chair and looks to Khafir while gesturing at Ambrosia. "Doctor Khafir, meet Ambrosia, or should I say Megeshi. She's the dragon that attacked us earlier."

"While I couldn't control myself." The scholar interjects while maintaining the same neutral expression.

"Yes, as I understood it she was under the control of a fey and I believe her since she's aided VIGIL for a while now. All while never telling us her true identity however." She glances at the scholar once more and frowns.
Ambrosia instead turns to address Khafir though. "I apologize for any inconvenience I caused. I was rather distressed myself during the entire experience."

[Morty]

[Dragon Storm]

Wenomir frowns. Or rather, his default frowns deepens considerably.

"I would be hard-pressed to use any tool of the demons'. It's a good way to accrue long-term consequences for a temporary advantage. However, the fact that he could exert some influence over me as well is concerning. He has power over stories and can twist them against us."

It's also news to him that Blanche has any fey ancestry. On her father's side, maybe? Is Reinholdt a fey? He can't remember.

[Zefir]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Lapis IS only half drow, after all. The blue tint to her skin and her red eyes are definitely outside the human norms. Her face is a little more angular in that elf-y way, too. But with some make-up and colored contact lenses she could probably pass as human.

Anyway!

It's time for some NANOMACHINES, SON!

Lapis does her best to suppress a giggle as they do their work.

"This tickles!" she seems to think informing Mia of this fact is deeply important.

The damage to the malleus bone is pretty minor, just a hairline fracture, really. But definitely enough to cause some pretty significant ear pair. And once Lapis' ear drums and delicate inner-ear bones are repaired?

"Oh! I can! Thank Miss Mia I can hear and my ears don't hurt anymore!"

Oh no it looks like Mia is about to get a hug from the ten year old half-elf.

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

It worked. Mia wasn't so sure it will go that easy. Lapis apears like a half drow, but has the ability to shapechange. That would rise the wuestion if the damage on her ear changes in simular if she shapechanges. A concept that should be discovered further, but maybe not with a kid.

Mia knows that those things tickel and nods. Lapis may at first also hear the typical sound as small metal parts hit other small little parts. Like the same noise a bunch of bugs make only more metal like. Thought that is gone soon after.
Mia holds up a finger befor she can do the hug, not to interrupt it , but to tell her something.

"Listen carefully. Those things will stay for seven dayys in your body. They will then disapear, but in that time they will be able to heal minor wounds, stop bleeding and do other smaller tasks. Just so you know."

Then a hug will come and Mia doesn't seem to avoid it. As a high priestress this happened regular and she had to get used to it.

[Rebonack]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

HUG GET!

Also funny noises get.

Also... healing explanation get?

Lapis has now gotten several things, the most important of which is non-injured ears. That means she can head back outside and Miss Ambrosia won't have to know that she hurt Lapis by mistake and she won't have to feel bad about it!

Also Lapis' ears don't hurt.

And she can hear.

Though things DO sound a little fuzzy, still.

"Thank you Miss Mia! I need to get back to work okay I hope you have a nice day!"

And then off she goes. In spite of her rather alien alternate form the kid acts more or less like a normal child might. Maybe it isn't really needed to be nervous around her?

[Deathkeeper]

DRAGON STORM

Spako's expression...well he's a bird at the moment so he can't really manage a facial expression. But he doesn't seem particularly cheery at the notion.
"I'm not going to be using tools from the demons. Besides, one of their Lords and I haven't exactly had a lot of positive interactions."
Amusingly, Spako's interaction with the demons at the staff's "auction" by Kelligan is probably the most positive interaction and of the Vigil members have had with that particular demon lord.

[Ironsmith]

[Cessie's Office]

Like Cessie, Ambrosia is using gloves. Unlikely Cessie, her gloves are made of metal. In fact, the fact that she's wearing a full armor simply for a meeting is odd. But this was the nexus and people probably wore armor for all sort of weird circumstances.
"If-" But Ambrosia pauses as she too, much like Khafir, seems to be able to tell that the commander is about to open the backdoor of the office.

And sure enough. "It's best if you stay here actually, Doctor Khafir." Cessie remarks as she seemingly seem to have heard part of their discussion through the door as it was slightly open.
She glances at Ambrosia and Khafir might be able to read a hint of annoyance in her expression. "Since while we're trying to limit the spread of information, there are some people that have to know and doctor Khafir is one of them."

The sorceress sits down in her chair and looks to Khafir while gesturing at Ambrosia. "Doctor Khafir, meet Ambrosia, or should I say Megeshi. She's the dragon that attacked us earlier."

"While I couldn't control myself." The scholar interjects while maintaining the same neutral expression.

"Yes, as I understood it she was under the control of a fey and I believe her since she's aided VIGIL for a while now. All while never telling us her true identity however." She glances at the scholar once more and frowns.
Ambrosia instead turns to address Khafir though. "I apologize for any inconvenience I caused. I was rather distressed myself during the entire experience."

[Cessie's Office]

"No apologies are necessary or relevant." Khafir replies matter-of-factly. "You may have difficulty believing it, but you are not the first in Vigil's history, or my own, to have something resembling a psychotic episode and cause extensive damage. It is exceedingly unlikely you will be the last." She takes this moment to hand her file off to Cessie, as though quietly drawing emphasis to an imminent incident in the making. "A statement of regret will not make any inconveniences... less so. Nor will its absence hamper repair or recovery efforts. As far as I am concerned, the matter was closed before we met."

[Vahnavoi]

[Eun's Lab]

None of this will be lost on Eun, of course. Non-coding DNA plays a significant role in her analysis; the sequences may not be expressed in her subject's phenotype, but they still had all the usual functions of DNA otherwise, including being subject to mutation and inheritence. More pointedly, they give her a better idea of not only where LightBearer came from, but also when. Her database will contain information about the origins of certain sequences; if they're present in LightBearer's genome, she can not only tell that she's Berber, but specifically Berber born sometime after X date range. If she had access to her world's more comprehensive database, Eun might even have been able to pin the specifics of who her relatives were. The converse is harder to prove, but a statistical analysis of unrecognized sequences, combined with a projected mutation rate, would give a potential estimate for how far in the future her genes may be from... if these genes weren't naturally occurring or somehow corrupted, the estimate would, of course, be totally useless. But she'll try that first, and try more abstract analyses as an afterthought.

Excluding the oddities, Eun's analysis would temporally place the sample donor at late 1800s and early 1900s. Including them, the analysis returns "indeterminable" - as she feared, the error margins are so large a numerical estimate is useless. It can be taken as evidence the sequence was tampered with after the fact: no natural pathway of evolution would allow this amount of genes to change, yet leave the rest of her genome recognizable as a human of such specific place and time. That would, in turn, suggest the sample donor may not have been a member of the society who created the artefacts Eun's dealing with. Either it was recovered or reconstructed well after the donor's demise, or the donor was, somehow, brought into contact with the artefacts after their construction. Due to existence of multiple Earths, the latter possibility cannot be easily eliminated.

[Shadowcaller]

[Cessie's Office]

Ambrosia raises an eyebrow. This woman reminded her far too much of her father though- ah, yes. There it was. Something was wrong with her emotional output as her mind had been changed somehow.

Well, well, if humans were capable of lessen their emotional output she couldn't help but to wonder if they could increase it too. Would certainly help with her hunger pangs.

But this was not the time for such thoughts... "I don't have difficulty believing that, but it was hardly a 'psychotic episode'. If I had those I wouldn't be here right now."

"She just means it has the same practical outcome as one." Cessie argues, seemingly coming to Khafir's defense as she hands over the file.

"Of course, but the distinction is still important as this was caused by an outside force." She takes another moment to observe Khafir as if fascinated by her. She was like the heliots of her own world but trapped among humans which had to be one of the sadder fates that she had heard of.

"Before I leave two alone, as I suspect Khafir's matter will take less time than my own, may I ask you what you've done to your mind, Khafir?" If she was anything like the heliots back home straight-forwardness was usually the way to go. Though the question was if she even wanted to talk about it.

DRAGON STORM

"I do have the runes copied down right here if you're interested-" She holds up her claw to prod at the tome hanging around her neck like a necklace. Wenomir probably realizes this is the tome she was always carrying around in her human form. Now absolutely tiny in comparison as unlike the rest of her its still the same size.
"-but if that's how you feel I won't try to convince you otherwise."

Of course, Ambrosia being a dragon she would probably be able to easily defeat hordes of the same demons and that's not even accounting for how they're supposed to be weak against dragons.

"However, as always, I will offer you my counsel regarding demons, fey and... whatever else you might have need of." Though her just offering "counsel" now seems a tad weak considering her apparent capabilities.

[Murkus]

[Delivery for Lapis Lazuli]

It happens one day that Lapis is called to one of the sky-shuttle ports. Apparently she's received a couple of packages!

Two of those packages look like long, perfectly ordinary boxes. They have a return address sticker with flowing font that reads The Toy Tinker. The third and last box is peculiar. It is of the shape and size, roughly, of a typical fire hydrant. A wooden cylinder no taller than a child with a dome top painted in bands of red and black. It has a fat, highly pressable button situated on top and a labeled knob on the back. The knob has various marked settings: Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, Legend.

[Morty]

[DRAGON STORM]

"Right..." It occurs to Wenomir that Ambrosia is trying to act like nothing happened. Or close to it. But they can't just go back to business as usual after all this. He glances over at Cessie. "I should probably discuss it with Cessie. And it seems that the woman who came here after you wants a word, so I'll leave you to it." He heads over to speak with Cessie and leaves Ambrosia and Thariza for Utayo.

[Ironsmith]

Excluding the oddities, Eun's analysis would temporally place the sample donor at late 1800s and early 1900s. Including them, the analysis returns "indeterminable" - as she feared, the error margins are so large a numerical estimate is useless. It can be taken as evidence the sequence was tampered with after the fact: no natural pathway of evolution would allow this amount of genes to change, yet leave the rest of her genome recognizable as a human of such specific place and time. That would, in turn, suggest the sample donor may not have been a member of the society who created the artefacts Eun's dealing with. Either it was recovered or reconstructed well after the donor's demise, or the donor was, somehow, brought into contact with the artefacts after their construction. Due to existence of multiple Earths, the latter possibility cannot be easily eliminated.

[Eun's Lab]

Again, a possibility Eun is quite familiar with, as her home Earth was involved in a long-running conflict with another Earth; the idea of two coming into contact is not only a possibility, but a familiar scenario.

...Still. Even if there was tampering, or the DNA was harvested from another Earth, there is still a mystery as to the significance of this particular strand. Who was this person? The first one LightBearer's counterpart ran into? A traveler in her own right? A candidate picked from a larger pool of genetic possibilities?

Eun doesn't have the information she needs to do much more than speculate on the subject. For now, she'll make a note of it and move on to the anomalies. The extensive concentration of "mutations" in this section of the genome, while the "functional" portion has been left untouched, suggests tampering. The most obvious thing to check is the possibility of a string of quaternary data; she'll run that through the computer and see what comes up. She'll also check for any viable protein sequences that might indicate the DNA just being outright foreign; a sufficiently advanced society might manage to hide the DNA for symbiotic organisms in there, or it could be that LightBringer's model was a human hybrid of some form; she's already showing at least as much genetic dissimilarity as humans and other primates, it strikes Eun as entirely possible that she's looking at an engineered attempt at creating a viable bridge between humans and... something else.

[Cessie's Office]

Ambrosia raises an eyebrow. This woman reminded her far too much of her father though- ah, yes. There it was. Something was wrong with her emotional output as her mind had been changed somehow.

Well, well, if humans were capable of lessen their emotional output she couldn't help but to wonder if they could increase it too. Would certainly help with her hunger pangs.

But this was not the time for such thoughts... "I don't have difficulty believing that, but it was hardly a 'psychotic episode'. If I had those I wouldn't be here right now."

"She just means it has the same practical outcome as one." Cessie argues, seemingly coming to Khafir's defense as she hands over the file.

"Of course, but the distinction is still important as this was caused by an outside force." She takes another moment to observe Khafir as if fascinated by her. She was like the heliots of her own world but trapped among humans which had to be one of the sadder fates that she had heard of.

"Before I leave two alone, as I suspect Khafir's matter will take less time than my own, may I ask you what you've done to your mind, Khafir?" If she was anything like the heliots back home straight-forwardness was usually the way to go. Though the question was if she even wanted to talk about it.

[Cessie's Office]

Khafir straightens and adjusts the collar of her labcoat. "I was a test subject for a series of experimental neurological alterations." She replies matter-of-factly. "In my case, the stated goal was to create a neural structure which would allow the brain to process remote visual stimulations through the use of quad-spatial tunneling. However, as this is something the human brain never evolved to handle, extensive modification was needed in order to avoid fatal complications. That meant partial alteration of the amygdalae, hypothalamus, and other portions of my limbic system. My 'third eye', in the sense of the artificial organ created to facilitate my clairvoyance, was built in the space created by those limbotomies. I'm told it was quite a fascinating endeavor."

It still is, by her reckoning. She just can't get excited about it in the same way an unaltered neurologist could.

[Shadowcaller]

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

As Wenomir gets closer to Cessie she gestures for him and Blanche to follow her and leads him all the way back to her office. Finally, only behind that closed door she speaks. "What did she tell you? Since rest assured I'm going to have a talk to her soon, but not like this." She gestures down at the fact she was using an elemental body at the moment.

[Cessie's Office]

Cessie would have remark on Ambrosia's rudely straightforward question if Khafir's story hadn't come as such a surprise to her. She had known there was more to her than just met the eye, but test subject? She sure hoped that she had been willing at least. The idea to alter one's mind so drastically made her doubt that but Khafir and her disagreed on a lot of things.

It didn't seem like she minded this line of questioning for one so she was going to let it slide since it didn't sound like it would take up a lot of time. It would also give her some crucial perspective on Khafir.

Ambrosia have reached down and brought up her chained tome which she has started to take notes in. "And how old were you when this experiment took place?" She inquires as looks up from it.

[Vahnavoi]

[Eun's lab]

Some sequences bear resemblance to genes found in non-human animals and even plants - that is, some non-coding sequences could, with minor prodding, become new functional genes. It might take a few thousand years for each change to happen naturally, but it would be still be considerably faster process than other forms of genetic evolution. It looks like these sequences may have been set to be activated by some environmental change. For what purpose, is harder to say. It's also hard to say what would happen if they got activated inside some cells of an extant organism. Would they get rejected, or would they cause gradual change in that organism? That is: if a real human girl was cloned from this sample, would they remain human, or would they perhaps become something else in some conditions?

Some sequences have no clear matches to any genes found in historic Earth organisms, suggesting they are artificial or extraterrestrial in origin.

[Zefir]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

HUG GET!

Also funny noises get.

Also... healing explanation get?

Lapis has now gotten several things, the most important of which is non-injured ears. That means she can head back outside and Miss Ambrosia won't have to know that she hurt Lapis by mistake and she won't have to feel bad about it!

Also Lapis' ears don't hurt.

And she can hear.

Though things DO sound a little fuzzy, still.

"Thank you Miss Mia! I need to get back to work okay I hope you have a nice day!"

And then off she goes. In spite of her rather alien alternate form the kid acts more or less like a normal child might. Maybe it isn't really needed to be nervous around her?

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Mia follows Lapis, but seems to take a little distance. Kinda making sure she has a second to react if you think about it.

"Just one question. What happened to you there outside? I mean the other shape you took."

[Rebonack]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Lapis pauses mid-step and glances back at Mia, doing a mostly good job of not stumbling as a result of this motion.

"Huh? You mean when I was unbound?" she asks.

Since she's MOSTLY SURE that's what Mia is asking about Lapis decides to say some more words about it.

"All of me can't be here at the same time so the extra bits stay all curled up twistways and twineways but the rest of me is harder to hurt than little girl me so if a fight gets really bad then I take that part out and put little girl me away that way it doesn't get hurt like what happened to my ears."

See?

Very simple.

Lapis is some sort of extra-dimensional entity and she keeps the rest of herself folded away into hyper-loop dimensions. Completely mundane explanation, really.

"But I guess maybe you were wondering if I'm really a girl or not because I am I'm just a seraph too since I'm both of those things just not really at the same time."

Perfectly comprehensible.


[Delivery for Lapis Lazuli]

Oh boy.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy Lapis is so excited she doesn't know what to do with herself!

She comes running down into the airship port and-

"Lapis, no running in the airship dock," one of the dock-hands reminds her.

"Sorry Mister Wilson!" Lapis replies, slowing her run down into a power walk that is almost, but not quite, as fast as running. She gathers up the collection of boxes (and the funny hydrant shaped thing), stows them away in her inventory, and then power-walks back out of the dock.

Lapis knows exactly what she needs to do next.

Since she had only talked with Miss Cessie about Cora's toy sword gift she REALLY needs to show her the other things that she got from Mister Sticks to make sure they're okay.

LapisLazuli: Miss Cessie Cora and Bastion's gifts came and Mister Sticks made an extra thing I want to show it to you to make sure it's okay and safe.

This message is not marked as vitally important since Lapis knows that only messages about the security of VIGIL are vitally important.

[Zefir]

Spoiler

Show

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Lapis pauses mid-step and glances back at Mia, doing a mostly good job of not stumbling as a result of this motion.

"Huh? You mean when I was unbound?" she asks.

Since she's MOSTLY SURE that's what Mia is asking about Lapis decides to say some more words about it.

"All of me can't be here at the same time so the extra bits stay all curled up twistways and twineways but the rest of me is harder to hurt than little girl me so if a fight gets really bad then I take that part out and put little girl me away that way it doesn't get hurt like what happened to my ears."

See?

Very simple.

Lapis is some sort of extra-dimensional entity and she keeps the rest of herself folded away into hyper-loop dimensions. Completely mundane explanation, really.

"But I guess maybe you were wondering if I'm really a girl or not because I am I'm just a seraph too since I'm both of those things just not really at the same time."

Perfectly comprehensible.


[Delivery for Lapis Lazuli]

Oh boy.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy Lapis is so excited she doesn't know what to do with herself!

She comes running down into the airship port and-

"Lapis, no running in the airship dock," one of the dock-hands reminds her.

"Sorry Mister Wilson!" Lapis replies, slowing her run down into a power walk that is almost, but not quite, as fast as running. She gathers up the collection of boxes (and the funny hydrant shaped thing), stows them away in her inventory, and then power-walks back out of the dock.

Lapis knows exactly what she needs to do next.

Since she had only talked with Miss Cessie about Cora's toy sword gift she REALLY needs to show her the other things that she got from Mister Sticks to make sure they're okay.



This message is not marked as vitally important since Lapis knows that only messages about the security of VIGIL are vitally important.

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Mia seems a lot more confused then Lapis might think of.

"That sounds like it's some kind of suit you wear. Does that mean your something different that fits in those selfs? I'm also not firm with seraph. I have never heared that they got another form they keep of battle if I got that right."

[Rebonack]

[Dragon Storm - Command Center]

Lapis is smiling all big!

But as she reads the confusion of Mia's expression that smile slowly falters.

"Um..."

Like a suit?

She doesn't think it's like different clothing she puts on since she does put on different clothing sometimes. Mostly just her VIGIL support staff uniform but other things too!

"No? Like... you're more than one thing but you're still Mia, right? Like you're a healer! And you make robots! And other things! You can be all those things you are at the same time! And I'm a little girl and a seraph, but I can't be both of those things at the same time. They don't fit at once."

It's so hard to explain the other directions to people who don't understand them so Lapis decides maybe it would be better if she just shows Mia?

The little girl blossoms.

That's a poetic way to put it.

Just sort of blooming like a flower, except more and more and more dragon-magpie-glass-star keeps coming out, unfolding and unfurling as the little girl is folded up like hyper-dimensional origami and put away. It's difficult to describe Lapis' unbound form in specific words. She is certainly like things but in a lot of ways it's like trying to describe the way that a cloud might be like things. She's incredibly abstract.

Like a dragon, might without match.
Like a magpie, iridescent enthusiasm for life.
Like glass, hard and sharp and sure of purpose.
Like a star, brilliant in her radiant existence.

As time passes the universe seems to slowly start making sense of her and her features gradually become more concrete.

"See?" the seraph asks. "I can't be both at the same time. But both are me."

[Morty]

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

Wenomir makes a sound between a sigh and a growl, one that Cessie is very familiar with by now. He makes it when tired with a situation, which is often.

"She tried to attack the King in Rags. Eat him, even. But he turned the tables on her and controlled her from the inside. Made her think I'm Jarowit, the old war-god from my homeland. He seems to have forced her to re-enact an old legend about a dragon trying to avenge their kin. She said that it's a... weakness of her kind that he exploited to be able to do that. But she was still dismissive of him throughout. I'm guessing to avoid admitting defeat."

[Ironsmith]

[Cessie's Office]

Cessie would have remark on Ambrosia's rudely straightforward question if Khafir's story hadn't come as such a surprise to her. She had known there was more to her than just met the eye, but test subject? She sure hoped that she had been willing at least. The idea to alter one's mind so drastically made her doubt that but Khafir and her disagreed on a lot of things.

It didn't seem like she minded this line of questioning for one so she was going to let it slide since it didn't sound like it would take up a lot of time. It would also give her some crucial perspective on Khafir.

Ambrosia have reached down and brought up her chained tome which she has started to take notes in. "And how old were you when this experiment took place?" She inquires as looks up from it.

[Cessie's Office]

"Depending on whether you count by when alterations began or when they concluded, forty-eight to fifty." Khafir replies, gently running a wrinkle out of her sleeve.

Worth noting; she does not look fifty. Despite the sort of world-weariness in her voice, Khafir's age looks to be closer to twenty, maybe a well-kept twenty-five. Cessie might be aware of the discrepancy if she's ever handled any of her paperwork, in which case she'd also be aware that this was still a long time ago; fifteen years, if Khafir's been honest.

"Were there any further questions?" Khafir asks, glancing at the book. As much as she can understand the need to relieve scientific curiosity, she does have business here.

[Eun's lab]

Some sequences bear resemblance to genes found in non-human animals and even plants - that is, some non-coding sequences could, with minor prodding, become new functional genes. It might take a few thousand years for each change to happen naturally, but it would be still be considerably faster process than other forms of genetic evolution. It looks like these sequences may have been set to be activated by some environmental change. For what purpose, is harder to say. It's also hard to say what would happen if they got activated inside some cells of an extant organism. Would they get rejected, or would they cause gradual change in that organism? That is: if a real human girl was cloned from this sample, would they remain human, or would they perhaps become something else in some conditions?

Some sequences have no clear matches to any genes found in historic Earth organisms, suggesting they are artificial or extraterrestrial in origin.

[Eun's Lab]

Curious. That would imply that LightBearer's biological counterpart was expected to be exposed to a number of potential environments, over multiple generations. That might suggest an attempt at improving the longterm survivability of a group of planetary colonists or a population anticipating global disaster. But, as previously noted, that's well beyond the capabilities and motives of 19th century Earth.

Which sort of begs the question; who would want to scoop up someone from this seemingly random point in history, stick them full of adaptability genes, and then shove their genetic profile into a computer?

Maybe these apparently extraterrestrial genes could help. Eun scrolls through to see if she has enough of them to put together a basic profile of their expressed phenotype, checking for the complexity that would indicate an alien form of life (or simplicity indicating a man-made origin).

[Shadowcaller]

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

"'From the inside'? I hope you're being metaphorical there. Or was he actually inside of her?" Cessie raises an eyebrow. "Since if she ate him- I think you're not giving me some crucial context here, Wenomir." The sorceress rubs her forehead tiredly. "But regardless, we need to first make sure she's completely free of his influence and then find out why she's been hiding this from us for so long. She's not a member so there was never any kind of requirement for her to aid us, but-" She let's out a frustrated sigh and starts to wander back and forth behind her desk. "Am I being too demanding here? She's helped us in the past while asking nothing in return. Even helped me and some of my friends, so there's really nothing we can demand of her. It's just, knowing this, she could have done so much more..."

Cessie stops and sits down in her chair, gesturing at Blanche. "What's your perspective on this Miss Turath? Give you didn't know Miss Ithil before this... dragon revelation."

[Cessie's Office]

Ambrosia looks up from her tome. "No, that' should be it for now. Though I do find your field of study fascinating considering how it relates to my own so perhaps we shall discuss it further at some point. But until then..." She then gets up, makes a curt bow and leaves the room.

Cessie clears her voice once the scholar has left. "So what is it you wish to discuss? You may speak freely."

[Arkhosia]

Dragon Storm - Private Talks

Spoiler

Show

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

Wenomir makes a sound between a sigh and a growl, one that Cessie is very familiar with by now. He makes it when tired with a situation, which is often.

"She tried to attack the King in Rags. Eat him, even. But he turned the tables on her and controlled her from the inside. Made her think I'm Jarowit, the old war-god from my homeland. He seems to have forced her to re-enact an old legend about a dragon trying to avenge their kin. She said that it's a... weakness of her kind that he exploited to be able to do that. But she was still dismissive of him throughout. I'm guessing to avoid admitting defeat."

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

"'From the inside'? I hope you're being metaphorical there. Or was he actually inside of her?" Cessie raises an eyebrow. "Since if she ate him- I think you're not giving me some crucial context here, Wenomir." The sorceress rubs her forehead tiredly. "But regardless, we need to first make sure she's completely free of his influence and then find out why she's been hiding this from us for so long. She's not a member so there was never any kind of requirement for her to aid us, but-" She let's out a frustrated sigh and starts to wander back and forth behind her desk. "Am I being too demanding here? She's helped us in the past while asking nothing in return. Even helped me and some of my friends, so there's really nothing we can demand of her. It's just, knowing this, she could have done so much more..."

Cessie stops and sits down in her chair, gesturing at Blanche. "What's your perspective on this Miss Turath? Give you didn't know Miss Ithil before this... dragon revelation."

Blanche seems a little surprised to be addressed for input directly, but recovers well. "I would generally concur with the Co-Commander here. She seemed very frank and willing to assist, but with a certain... posturing, or saving face to it. She also felt it prudent to mention that the King in Rags could have some sway on the fey, though I can't quite make heads or tails of why." Her brow furrows in thought.

"If I were in your place here, I would definitely work with her, but consider establishing her mental safety an utmost priority. Not our own control over her per se, just a focus on ensuring that this King in Rag cannot turn her against us once again either remotely or on the battlefield himself. The two that followed her could be easy recruits into assisting with this considering they followed her in an attempt to mitigate harm," the catgirl assesses.

The two Commanders may note that Blanche seems to have gotten... for lack of word, a bit more comfortable around them and addressing them. That stiff, overly protocol-concerned manner of hers back in the early days has smoothed out into something more casually professional. An effect of the gradual increase in familiarity and personal respect towards them over the years, perhaps.

[Morty]

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

Wenomir shrugs, as if to indicate to Cessie that he doesn't have a lot more context than she does.

"She said that dragons like her can digest spirits, and clearly the King in Rags is close enough to a spirit she tried to do it. Which doesn't seem like a good idea, but the King apparently keeps an enslaved dragon, which seems to have made her angry enough to be reckless. I don't know why she's hidden her nature from us for so long. It's not as though we'd have chased her with pitchforks if we'd known."

[DRAGON STORM - Outside]

"I don't know how well that went," Thariza says as she watches Wenomir leave. "He reminds me of Rytlock Brimstone if he was human. Both of them probably practice glaring at people in a mirror." She hopes this little bit of levity keeps Ambrosia's spirits up.

[Shadowcaller]

[DRAGON STORM - Private Talks]

Cessie listens closely to Blanche, seemingly agreeing with what she says until she suddenly asks for a clarification. "Did she say she'd aid us on the battlefield?" She glances at Wenomir, hoping he could confirm this. "But furthermore, I don't think we should imply that she would need 'handlers'. Best to just present her the chance to get herself checked up and doing so would be in her own self-interest."

She pauses as if considering this further as Wenomir presents further information. "I think I might know why she hid her nature from us." She looks between Blanche and Wenomir.

"Can you hear how we're discussing her right now? We're suddenly trying to figure out the best way to manipulate her to be on our side. Not as a person, but a tool. I can certainly see that she might have kept it hidden from us since she didn't want to be used which I certainly can empathize with. Once it's revealed that you have great powers all your 'person attributes' suddenly become a lot less important in comparison to how you can be used. Plenty of mages are treated exactly like that in my homeworld. Less like people and more like tools of war." She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "For whatever reason she's not interested in fighting and probably suspected that we might still ask her to if we knew that she was a dragon. That we would try to guilt or otherwise try to manipulate her into doing so and considering how I was talking about it a few moments ago, she was probably right."

Cessie let's out a sigh. "We need to keep treating her as a person. Dragon or not, we have to try to respect her choices." She looks to Wenomir. "That being said, I still need to discuss this with her in detail. Perhaps you should do too at some point." Then to Blanche. "Miss Turath, considering this warning regarding fey that she gave us, do you know if any of our members are fey? Miss Sunfletcher for instance, does she count? I can't recall a single one right now."

[DRAGON STORM - Outside]

"You will have to tell me about this 'Rytlock' at some point, Thariza. It isn't the first time you mention him." The dragon says as she turns to her. Though the charr can likely tell that Ambrosia is sounding rather somber.

She glances at Spako as if to confirm that he was still there before looking to a person she just barely recognized. "Ah, are you Utoya? We finally meet."

[Earl of Purple]

Bird Hunting

The synth wasn't expecting Lapis to wriggle so, meaning the Empyrean can get past and into her room easily. The hoopoe is still in the painting, and it's tagged! It's definitely still in the painting.

Although that changes as the synth reaches down and touches Lapis' shoulder, trying to get her to turn around. "Hey! It's rude to just barge into someone's bedroom, and it could have been dangerous. Had I been working on my power armour and you knocked it, it could have collapsed on you. Then splat, no more barging child. So get out of my room, I don't have any birds in here. Just the painting, and that was here first." If Lapis does as the synth wants and meets the cyborg lady's eyes, then the tag on the hoopoe moves as the hoopoe disappears from the painting. It's now in a dark cupboard in Dr. Khafir's lab, and no longer two dimensional. Unlike last time, there's only a very limited amount of time it exists in both places at once.

[5a Violista]

[Airship Gantry]

Awen, having finished taking care of anything that would've been dangerous for someone who couldn't fly, asks if there's anything else here she can do to clean up.
Of course, they initially turn her down, thinking a witch like her wouldn't be properly using her time to do minor cleanups.

However, she insists.
Cleaning up things is, to her, pretty relaxing since she is a dual-class maid-witch. Well, sort-of. She's a former maid and she's a witch.
So she starts helping out with the more menial cleaning tasks there, too. Cleaning up broken boxes and supplies that spilled out, and so on.

[Arkhosia]

DRAGON STORM - Private Talks

The catgirl's widen a little as she starts to understand what Cessie means here, and she nods. "You're right, though I still think it's something worth suggesting if she will be hanging around the base in any capacity. Not as a proactive defense should she fight with us, just a general precaution that this whole event doesn't play out again. Which might be easer said than done considering Ambrosia's efforts to save face.

"As to that, I'm not really sure." The catgirl shifts a little. "Anika's an elf, as are a few other members, but I don't know if any of them are fey elves or ethnicities that don't have that kind of connection." The Nexus seems to be surprisingly wide-ranging in this regard. Some elves trace their lineage directly from some named faerie or whatever, others just look at you funny about the whole idea of fey kinship.

A beat. Blanche thinks for a little. "I might also have some fey ancestry on my dad's side, but I'm pretty sure it's miniscule. Around 1/11th or something?" Never enough to have it come up before, at least.