auroraexpress | EVENT: Upgrades x2!

Entry tags:

EVENT: Upgrades x2!

Who: everyone
When: Day 39, morning
Where: the train!

[Morning dawns on the Aurora with a bang -- literally. A huge crack in the air, like nearby lightning, rattling the train. Look outside in the direction of the still-corrupted island, and you'll see a towering ray of black, malevolent light shooting out into the stars. It continues for a few seconds, flickers, and dies out, leaving no trace of its brief presence.

In its wake is a silence that makes your ears ring, interrupted shortly by the sound of an alert on your Chain. There's an administrator message for you:

★: Hi everyone and good morning!

★: Thanks to all your hard work, we've been able to add two new communal cars to the train. Enjoy your new gym and library! We weren't sure what books you'd like, so we grabbed whatever came to mind. Hope they suit you!

★: Oh, and we noticed a spike of malicious energy just now. No idea what it was, but I'd keep your eyes peeled extra until we've figured it out. It might have something to do with how close we've gotten to purifying this Star.

★: Anyway, thanks as always. And remember, keep positive!

True to the prince's word, you'll find your two new cars attached to the back of the train. Pass through the garden car to find the new gym. It consists of several rooms: a weight room, a room of various machines, a studio for yoga or dance, and a training hall fully equipped with practice weapons according to the tastes of everyone already on the train. Each room is entered from a small lobby containing a few couches and a vending machine that pops out custom smoothies and cold water bottles -- which somehow only works after you've had a workout.

Behind the gym is the library. Near the entrance from the hall you'll find a terminal with a list of all available books. Searching a title will give you the location of the book on the shelves. If a title isn't currently in the library, you may request a copy be added, and it will show up within a few minutes. The library currently has two floors of shelves, containing books that characters who are or have been on the train would find familiar. If the book is common in your character's world or they have a close knowledge of it, they can probably find it here. There are, however, a disproportionate number of romances...

There's also a central reading area, with tables and comfortable chairs for studying or lounging. And a good thing, because if you attempt to remove a book from the library it'll disappear right from your hands to return to the shelves. No late returns for you, ~~Crow~~ lazybones!

For now there's no further activity on the corrupted island, so you may as well enjoy the fruits of your labour!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Looking to catch up on reading?

[Watching her dart back and forth in the library.]

[dropping an armful of heavy-looking books onto a table. most of them are anatomy and dissection guides, but there's a few scientific journals and an atlas of arcane symbols]

I am! I've been trying to work without references for weeks, it's been like a neverending exam. I am so glad for a break!

[He chuckles, coming over to look at the books.]

Always a lot easier when you can reread the material.

Especially when I'm working with animals I've never seen before! I know what snake's bones should be like, but whenever I find something new on these vipers it's like am I forgetting something or is this a novel speciation trait??

[She's excited and adorable and]

[He's still charmed until tonight.]

Sounds like you've been wanting to explore this a while. Want help?

[rip dusk]

Oh my gosh, could you? I tried taking some books out but they can't leave the library, but my lab is in a totally different car, so I've been using my phone to scan the pages I need. If I could get you to photograph pages for me, this will go twice as fast!

Sure.

[Pulling out his Chain and sitting down beside her.]

[....though that comment does certainly get a thoughtful look from him. Rean may have been right about his memory then.]

Just slide over what you need. Working on a project now?

[quickly picking a few books out of the pile and passing them over. there's pages already marked with post-it tabs.]

I have a couple projects, but the main one I've been on for a while is working on animating a viper. The skeletons I have were taken from corrupted specimens, so I need to resolve the mismatch between the host and the souls, as the mutations could make the vessels harder to identify as a valid body. I'm almost completely sure I have it worked out, but I want to make sure I have everything set with the vipers before I try getting one of the saberteeth, which obviously is going to be harder since I'm not going have, like, a dozen of those to amplify the attachment points like I do with the snakes.

—oh! And I'm going to summon a hellhound. I don't need the books for that, the library just distracted me from finishing that project today.

[Hellhound....] Is there even a hell to summon a hound from?

[Opening a book and will start taking pictures.]

So if you have more of the same creature, its easier to do? Wait, we have saberteeth here?

No, sometimes, yes. Hellhounds are just called that, they're more accurately described as a fire-associated type of black dog. This is a very unique situation where I have multiple specimens with the same degree of mismatch, usually if you have multiple specimens you would instead use a single-source specimen or assemble mixed components to approximate a complete skeleton, this is only easier for this specific scenario. And we had multi-eyed saberteeth when the jungle was corrupted, but there should be some skeletons left that I can grab. I really want to examine their skulls!

Ooooh, okay, makes sense.

Because of the corruption. Also this can be a teaching thing. [Cause he's learning.]

I can keep an eye out for bodies. I wanna get a lay of the land.

Oh, cool! I always forget to think about my own stuff that way.

Things are probably a little different out there now, but there's a couple people that went out exploring when the jungle was still dangerous. I got most of my snake skeletons and some gecko from 80H, she's been super helpful. Besides the village, she can probably point you to some interesting places.

People do seem to struggle with remembering. Though maybe I'm just neurotic enough to keep track usually.

All the more reason to explore. Plus I can probably carry it back. I'll ask her.

Have you made sonething ftom a corrupted creature before?

I think I just get distracted. I do the thing and then, oops! That could have counted.

[and almost in demo, INSTANTLY back into teaching details]

Well if you find one, bring back a body if at all possible! It's going to be a lot messier to process, but if it's fresh then I can do some anatomical studies on it, and if it's gross, that's still an extra check on getting the most complete set of bones. Probably by now it's going to be more gross than fresh, but the most successful animations are with full skeletons, even if they're composites! Like my Isildur is a single-source specimen, and so is Lori, but I had to build Isolde out of a couple skeletons. Luckily all from the same pack group as Isildur, so that was a boost.

But no, I haven't tried actually calling down anything into a corrupted creature's skeleton yet. There's a lot of variables that are making things risky, and it's really only in the last couple days that it's at a point where it feels safe to actually try a full animation. Like, I've done some puppeting, and that does have some risks, but it's not a complete anchoring. I needed to have solid spellwork prepared, specimens of good quality, a reliable draw on uncorrupted souls, all my familiars understanding the new risks, and I had to double-triple-quadruple check that I'm not missing any relevant abilities of my own. I couldn't even do a beginner's ward on my first day here until I got enough sparks!

That does seem to happen a lot. The downfalls of most things being inherently emotionally charged.

So bones are the very least. I'm sure I could do at least that much. Though maybe I'll just bring a bag along just in case. Being the same pack though...that really makes a difference?

[Listening, but still taking pictures. Go go multitasking.]

That does sound pretty complicated. What happens if it goes bad after anchoring?

Well, it could honestly be wishful thinking, but I think it helped to strengthen the attachment between Isildur and Isolde. Plus even though she's a composite, her bones have more similarity to each other than if I had used bones from a different site. And her bones are related to Isildur's, and he has a huge level of working tangibility, so the security is great. Of course, dragonwolves were also pack animals, so there's a social element.

[still flipping through the books and marking pages]

If it goes bad, it can become dangerous for me. If we summon something corrupt, Isildur and Isolde will kill it.

Because of differences in environment and what they might have consumed, right?

Dragonwolves are a thing? [That sounds SO AWESOME.]

Dangerous as in need to kill the corrupt thing or something else?

Dangerous as in I could suffer personal, magical injury.

[SHRUGS and slides another book over for photographing. that's about all she wants to say on that question.]

Those can be a material factor. That the bones are all from adults helped too, since obviously I couldn't easily swap in a juvenile's skull or a subadult's femur. She would be lopsided! And they're not really a thing anymore. Isildur and Isolde's species is extinct.

I see. Is there anyone on the train qualified to help with that, just in case?

[He doesn't need details, he just needs to know she'll be okay.]

[Taking the book and will take pictures.]

That's a shame. A dragonwolf sounds like all kinds of awesome. [He paused.] Maybe when your world develops cloning? There's been some stuff that's worked for some species. About the only reason Polar Bears have been lasting.

No, but I have my familiars to protect me. I haven't had an accident in years.

Maybe, but it's probably cheaper to pay me to do necromancy than it is to create and raise a clone?

For short term, but there's a lot of reasons to wanting a race to not be extinct.

I can see reasons for studying their musculature, vocalizations, or appearance if you wanted a different perspective than what I work with, but a clone is still going be technically extinct. Dragonwolves died out thousands of years ago— their entire ecosystem is dead.

Point on the ecosystem, but there's studying the living version. Maybe they do something unique. Could be whenever your universe gets to terraforming planets, dragonwolves might be a good creature to have.

That's getting past hypotheticals and into straight sci-fi for me.

....you shouldn't be too far from it, actually. Well, if your world is on a similar timeline. It was around the twenty-first century some terraforming stuff started happening.

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[bond]

Re: [bond]

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