expiationnet

[Oh, hey, it's magic-rock-jumpscare-girl. ]

Yeah, but what'd it take you to make it, like ten seconds?

Maybe you can hide in the caves again to avoid the party.

I wasn't in a state to say it at the time, but thank you for that. It really made a difference.

[Who would have thought it'd turn out to be a tiny moe cephalopod...]

It's an interesting form of penance, if they're related. The party, I mean.

Edited 2024-02-06 16:27 (UTC)

[ She appreciates the audio and the faith in her abilities. ]

It took a little longer than that. But you're right, next time somebody should give me a challenge.

[ It's a big structure and a new substance and they had to transport all the materials miles away to the seashore, so that part took time. But the actual construction probably had taken place in just a few minutes. ]

Ugh, I'll go. I don't mind all the free food and dancing and everything. But I'm not dressing up.

[ She wasn't actually fishing for sincere thanks. That just makes her awkward, so Toph brushes it off. ]

Don't mention it. Were you there fighting? I couldn't keep track of everyone in all the chaos.

If it's supposed to make me feel bad for scamming people, it's really not going to work.

[ Toph is definitely not keeping her crime a secret. She's proud of it, if anything. ]

You have my thanks for your assistance. Had the rock cage been unsuccessful, the backup plan would have fallen to myself and a friend, but admittedly, our method would not have had the same cleansing effect.

I do find the party setup odd, however. They say it's tradition, but it feels strangely... lavish for a group of supposed criminals.

No big deal. I'm actually pretty surprised it worked. I was just gonna try to take it down, but everybody else wanted to do the but what if he's a friend routine. Turns out they were right.

[ Being friends with Aang has her pretty well primed for that argument, and she has no problem changing her approach when someone she likes asks her to. ]

Yeah, why do they want a bunch of tourist criminals attending their big diplomatic shindig, anyway? I know one of us supposedly did it, but doesn't that mean we want that guy to attend and make an embarrassing public apology?

I was. I can't blame you for that, though -- it was a lot.

[He certainly didn't help anything, though.]

Scamming? Is that what you were charged with?

Normally I'm better at tracking everything. Think next time we can get a nice land-based fight?

[ The battle taking place mostly on water did not do her any favors. That made it very difficult for her to track anything, and she'd had to rely on others to spot for her quite a bit. ]

Yeah, and I totally did. They deserved it. [ Toph doesn't sound defensive; she sounds bored and unimpressed. ]

I'll see what I can do.

[Not that he makes it any easier with floaty Personas, but still.]

That's interesting. You'd think they would try to keep you away from a big party with lots of people, in that case.

I must give you my thanks as well. 'Twould have taken a vast amount of aether to cast the Internment spell, and the cage allowed me to observe the creature as I had hoped to.

I really appreciate your help with the cage, Toph.

Are you sure you don't want to go to the party though? There'll be free food.

[ Well, he assumes it'll be free food. ]

Edited 2024-02-07 05:53 (UTC)

Seriously, though, that kind of thing happen a lot around here?

[ She hasn't been here long enough to tell if that was normal or not. Also: floaty Personas is cheating and she already hates it.

Toph's surprised into a laugh. ] Not that kind of scamming. Mostly chumps who'd let a blind girl bet money on street games and try to swindle me. They had it coming.

Don't worry about it. Why were you so interested in observing it? Did we learn anything?

You know, apart from the fact that it used to be a cute little ocean guy.

Hey, it was your idea. Turns out it was a good one.

[ She's not so full of herself she can't admit when she was wrong about something. Also, this whole scenario just proves why she listens when other people think they should do something else. She doesn't always agree, but she'd really have rocks for brains if she couldn't at least consider it. ]

I guess. The food is tempting. But they want everyone to get dressed up, right?

Though the effect of growth and the reversal of said effect dependent on the presence of the affliction is in itself very interesting, whereas we observed a rebuffing of the affliction's influence and very presence by the stones, there was also an active pushing of the contamination into the environment by the creature while it was affected.

Of particular note, one the octopede was purged of the contamination, the contamination in the surrounding area began to recede on its own, regardless of the presence or proximity of the stones...

Furthermore, although... notably unnerved by my following it to the water's edge, even though free from the cage, the creature did not begin regenerating the substance as a defense mechanism, which leads me to the hypothesis that the contamination it spread was not a part of its natural physiology...

Which leads me to the question, how did it come to become a vector for the contamination in the first place? Given the creature's natural habitat, our answer may lay somewhere in the waters surrounding these isles.

[And if that long rambling scientific analysis is not enough, Erichthonios belatedly remembers she asked not one, but two questions... the first of which he had yet to answer.]

A-ah. And the reason I was interested in observing it is because I had been studying the contamination since we were made aware of its manifestation in Rumpitur.

I had been studying the stones concurrently as well... thus the fortunate discovery of their ability to not only ward off the infection, but to drive it into retreat.

[The stones had reacted to him when he had picked them up in December... so naturally he tested them against every living thing he could keep still enough.

An easy task for someone specializing in binding magicks.]

[ Toph is already predisposed to dislike these devices given they are not that hospitable to blind people, but the fact that she can't rudely interrupt and cut someone off is another mark against them. ]

Okay, thanks, but I didn't ask for a whole lecture. Is there a short version? Do we know where it came from?

I have a feeling that they don't want us to think all that hard about it.

[ Hi, Toph! Long time no see! ]

C'mon, it's a party! Don't tell me you don't like dancing. I'm sure we could show those guys a move or two.

I am glad keeping it alive was worth the trouble. In hindsight, perhaps it doesn't much matter if it was but another creature of the depths that was inadvertently infected. But perhaps in the future, we'll be the better off for it; we did get some valuable insight into the rot from the battle and its defeat, after all.

I do wonder about that. It could be that they fear us... or want to manipulate us by appealing to our better natures, I suppose. Perhaps both. I cannot help but find it a little suspect.

Where've you been?

[ She'd been actively looking out for the people she likes during all the chaos, and hadn't run across Claude. ]

Yeahhh... I don't really dance. Pass on that one. It's not like I mind parties, but I'm not dressing up.

It doesn't matter to me that much, [ Toph says, just to be clear she is TOUGH and doesn't care about killing things, ] but if we don't have to kill it to defeat it that's probably better. Plus, now if something else turns up, we know this works.

Do we know whose fault it was? Maybe they want to use the party to get us all in one place and figure that out.

[ Toph isn't paranoid, but she has a very healthy sense of suspicion as a baseline. ]

I personally do not know, but a closed setting like this means talk spreads quickly. I have heard the someone in question is being punished accordingly, though I know no more than that. So I have my doubts it has anything to do with that particular incident, unless they've taken it to heart more than I could ever imagine.

I would eventually like to find out the why of it all, though. Why are the rocks so effective in driving away the rot? What properties do they possess that makes it so? Where did they come from? Where did the rot come from, for that matter? So many unanswered questions... but it would be foolish to think this will be the last time we deal with it.

Not all the time, but still more often than I'd like.

[Hilariously, she's not the first person to think that Personas are cheating. This is fine.]

Blind? [He says that like he's surprised. Which he kind of is. He didn't even notice. To be fair, there was a lot going on -- and he was not doing so great. ANYWAY.] I guess if they were trying to take advantage of you first, they kind of set themselves up for it.

Yes, it seems so. Don't like wearing fancy clothes?

[ He's teasing a little. William has been to his fair share of formal occasions so he's grown used to wearing formal clothes. ]

Edited 2024-02-09 14:31 (UTC)

What would be a challenge? [It's an earnest ask! Because that is just magic to him so how is making a crystal a little disc and making a rock shaped like a cage different. He has no idea.]

You don't mind dancing, but the dressing up's a dealbreaker?

[girl you cannot even see yourself?? But ok he can understand the comfort aspect.]

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