INTROS + MONTHLIES

[trainmasters]

Who: newbies + everyone
When: Day 56, late morning
Where: The Aurora and surrounding area

[Yet again this morning, you get an announcement on your Chain:

WELCOME NEW HEROES

Newbies are waking up in their rooms, in pyjamas or in nondescript team-coloured underwear. As usual they get the basic welcome message, as well as a prompt to view the IC guide.

When you're done welcoming them, or while you're at it, you'll notice that while clocks say it's late morning, the sun has still not risen. As it was on the first Star, the sky remains dark and empty and the air somewhat cold. Not cold enough for the frost you see on the windows, though...

From a distance, the frost looks like a typical wintery pattern of ice, beautiful and delicate. But on inspection it's not frost at all -- it's a sugary mold climbing up the sides of the train and, outside the immediate clearing, growing in thick fuzzy patches on the trees and bushes.

Touching or inhaling this mold will cause your skin to start to crystallize painfully into sugar. Physical affection will heal you, but it'll also give you a psychic link to the person you touched. For a few hours you can sense eachothers emotions, and in some cases even share thoughts or memories.

The mold will last for the remainder of the OOC month, but who knows what else tomorrow will bring!]

Comments

[shintaiprotagonist]

Welcome, indeed.

[bowtiedbones]

[the array go quiet and unpowered, and Eliza scuffs the outer lines of the summoning circle and the ward around Xian before going to pick up her new snakey friend. Amber is still wrapped in spellwork and the net, though nowhere near as tightly bound as Lori is.]

Do you want to hold her? She slithers like a real snake, no scales or muscle required!

[shintaiprotagonist]

I'd be happy to.

[offers her an arm to climb]

[bowtiedbones]

[hols out Amber and she slithers right onto his arm, perfectly trusting. there's a half-realized sensation of scales gripping and moving, though of course she's only bone.]

She's a summons, so she has good behavior, but remember for snakes: no sudden movements.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Of course.

[moving slowly, pets her skull with a fingertip, if she lets him]

[bowtiedbones]

[:o allows]

She doesn't have any venom, either. That doesn't stay with the bones.

[shintaiprotagonist]

[petpet]

Can you communicate with her?

[bowtiedbones]

Yep! She'll do anything I ask of her.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Useful.

[bowtiedbones]

She’s not a familiar so there’s some limitations, but she’s way above the level of an average snake. It’s her connection to me that keeps her extant, so she’s instinctively faithful to it.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Her instincts remain, then, to some extent? Though I suppose that's only natural, given the composition of her soul.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh, absolutely! If they didn't retain any of their original natures, that would be most of the reason for summoning gone.

[shintaiprotagonist]

[nods]

When I think of necromancy, the craft of animation does not involve the soul at all, though some instincts will remain, if my intuition is correct. But I think I am a mere initiate of the art, and those more skilled than I might answer differently.

[bowtiedbones]

I can animate them without calling down the soul, but there's no instincts that way when I do it. It basically becomes a big puppet.

[shintaiprotagonist]

I will have to experiment with my methods. I know, in general, what I'm capable of, but the details are not always present.

[bowtiedbones]

Be very careful if you do! This island is still wholly corrupted.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Not to mention that I'm not certain the spells I know would even recognize the creatures here.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh gosh, and that! I've spent so much more time studying these snakes than I've spent on summoning them! All the animals are new, and it's way harder to summon an animal if I don't know how it moves or what its habits are.

[shintaiprotagonist]

To gain familiarity with the soul fragments?

[bowtiedbones]

And to better enable them to inhabit the body. And to actually move the body! I can't just put a soul in a skeleton and expect it to slither around all by itself. A viper doesn't have the magic for holding its bones together.

[shintaiprotagonist]

Ah, so the soul simply controls the animating energies.

[bowtiedbones]

Yeah, it's the consciousness.

[shintaiprotagonist]

[thoughtful]

To me, that statement seems both correct and not. The higher soul as the seat of consciousness, yes; the lower soul as the seat of instinct. It seems your world does not make that distinction.

[bowtiedbones]

We only have the one soul.

[shintaiprotagonist]

From what the memory I have left tells me, humans at least have...two separate souls is incorrect, as they are both linked entities, but we refer to them as two souls. Beasts and creatures without reason have only the lower soul; I know not whether beings with only the higher soul exists, save ghosts.