IC INTRO - JAN 2019

[phantasmods]

Sometime after the group all heads back down the mountain, comes another mass text from home base -

Hey guys? We started getting some weird readings overnight... It might be good if you started heading back this way? We're not sure what the Fissure is doing right now. (,,꒪꒫꒪,,)

So back you had better come! Along with that new friend of yours, who surely won't raise questions...

With the time issue being what it is, it's over the course of a day or two that people actually get back to the Station. Thus, there is no single feast set up like usual; instead, there are lots of hot drinks and various pots of soup made up throughout the two days that people trickle back to base. It's warm and filling, can't ask for much more.

The Station you return to hasn't changed that much from the one you left, though all your left behind pets are very glad to see you. It's now January and frost is on the ground, though not snow, at least for now. There is an air of emptiness around the Station that the first group of arrivals - the few of you who remain - will likely find familiar, though the murder sign has been updated while you were away as usual.

The androids, for their part, are very glad to see everyone (or at least, most everyone) returned safe and sound. (Though certain injured parties are destined for the medbay and Strange's fussing before they even get a chance to settle on rooms of their own.) In particular, Muon - now in a bright yellow vest instead of her previous scarf - spends a lot of time hanging out in the glider bay to welcome everyone back, both new faces and old.

TRADING POST - STRANGE - MUON - SIGNAGE CATCHALL - And don't forget to get on the housing post!

Comments

[founderinglight]

[Izunia just shrugs helplessly.]

Don't know what to tell you. I should be dead, my brother and in-laws should be in Tokyo, doesn't change that we're all here.

[eudaimonikos]

I got kidnapped by a totally different dimension like, a year ago! Or something like that, all three places I've been work on very different timelines!

[this isn't faaaaaaaaair]

[founderinglight]

[Life's not fair buddy.]

You'll have to make the best of it, I'm afraid. We're a pretty friendly bunch for the most prt, I don't think you'll have trouble.

[eudaimonikos]

Ugggggh.

[LET him FEEL his FEELINGS]

Fine. Whatever. At least everyone back home is alright. As long as I can get back within a normal human lifespan, I think it'll be fine. What are we doing to work on that?

[founderinglight]

Shouldn't be a problem, there's some sort of 'return from where you fell out' thing going on as far as anyone can tell.

[Human lifespans are short but at least that's easy?]

Right now I think that's a bit up in the air? There was something about communicating with the entity that we think is responsible, but I haven't been engaged on that end of things very much. I tend to keep track of the more practical end like supplies and the like.

[eudaimonikos]

Why not? Last time, we just tracked down all the local gods and made friends with them. Got in and out of there in six months.

[He says, like Azume was a fucking picnic.]

[founderinglight]

Local god's hurt somehow and looking for a piece that was cut out of it, is my understanding.

[Nobody gets to go home without the other piece and who the fuck knows where that is, basically.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Hmmm...]

There has to be a way of tracking that. All the gods I've ever met are really hard to miss. Is it a physical piece, or are we talking something more spiritual or whatever?

[founderinglight]

Definitely more spiritual, from my understanding.

[Izunia shrugs.]

Not exactly my area of expertise, you see.

[eudaimonikos]

[.........]

How is that not your area of expertise? You're a ghost walking around in a flesh suit.

[founderinglight]

I prefer the term ancestral spirit.

[We're just. Putting that out there.]

And it's not my area of expertise because the last god I got involved with turned my brother into a monster and fucked over my entire family, generally speaking. I'm not too terribly fond of gods.

Also, the majority of my magical ability is combative, not investigatory or analytic.

[eudaimonikos]

Some of them aren't my favorite people either, but I make it a business to know about metaphysical things in general. Given that I am one. It's good for your health.

[Like geez, take an interest in your own workings before you get exorcised or something.]

Can that body break down on you?

[founderinglight]

It's functionally human.

[So, you know, only as much as any human body can.]

Some sort of intersection between magical energy and my self-image, at least as a starting point. I can assume my other form if I must, but I don't particularly like to.

[We're just happily rolling with this subject change because gods suck so talk about anything else.]

[eudaimonikos]

So you can get back and forth between them on your own?

[Sounds like that's kinda the information he wanted.]

Good. I used to work in the human afterlife, so I know how to manage human souls in general. Never did anything in vessel manufacturing, though, so I can't just whip one of those up.

[founderinglight]

It's not really strictly a vessel, in that sense. More like a manifestation, probably.

[Beat.]

I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen when it eventually dies on me, though, for the record.

[eudaimonikos]

That's what I'm saying, that's important stuff to know.

[...Michael reaches out to poke the body. Which is to say, Izunia's arm.] Solid manifestation.

[founderinglight]

Ages, tires, needs food and water and so forth... As I said, functionally human.

[Look he's not going to experiment with killing it off and it didn't come with a handbook.]

[eudaimonikos]

Why would you manifest a body that's just gonna die off in a couple decades?

[DID YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT THOUGH]

[founderinglight]

Wasn't intentional, just kind of happened when I got here. Again, should be dead.

[eudaimonikos]

Don't rush into things, you don't even know what the local afterlife is like. [.....] Do you?

[founderinglight]

I don't even know what my normal options are aside from 'stuck in a ring for two thousand years.' Not planning to investigate any time soon, either.

[eudaimonikos]

...why were you stuck in a ring.

[He says, in a tone of voice that kinda implies that he has, at the very least, a sliver of an idea about ghosts getting stuck in rings]

[founderinglight]

Stupid asshole god who thought it was a great idea to make my brother the vessel of a divine-tantrum-produced magical plague, two thousand years spent pooling power in order for one of my descendants to die cleaning up the mess, that sort of thing.

[That's just a little bitter.]

[eudaimonikos]

You're a fucking Lucis Caelum.

[WHY DID YOU NOT TELL HIM THIS

MAN HE MET LITERALLY TWO MINUTES AGO]

From what I heard, there was a little bit of sealing people away and erasing them from the historical record in there.

[founderinglight]

If you want to be technical, as far as modern history is concerned, I'm the first goddamn Lucis Caelum.

[But then the bitter fades out into a guarded smile.]

I give Ardyn's people one punch if you're one of his, because otherwise the damn revenge cycle will never stop. Otherwise, might I ask how you know the story?