>>41015499
The sun is merciless, heat shimmering off the rocks as you make your way down the mountainside. You’ve left the wooded slopes behind, descending into the Kour itself. And needless to say, the Kour desert is most unwelcoming.
You’d come prepared to see something like the Teleran Interior, a wasteland of empty sand and dunes. What you had not expected was the rocks. Jagged white boulders and pebbles litter the dry landscape, each one catching the heat and reflecting it back up.

A team of three Kouri tribesmen are currently serving as your guides, each one bought with Quedeshi coin back at their wayhouse. They ride stocky ponies that can clear through the detritus and climb the slopes with ease. For such small creatures they are incredibly hardy and could be moving a lot faster if you hadn’t insisted on bringing your wagon.
The Kouri had laughed at that and you’re pretty sure have called you all fools multiple times in their own lilting dialect but you had no choice. Neither could you tell them your reason without blowing your cover.
But the truth is that Aashenpreet and Hiss cannot make this journey without it.

You are sitting at the front of the wagon, almost guarding the entrance. Oster is off to the side, riding one of the tribesmen’s strange little mounts. It has been a day since you resolved to take the desert route.

> Start brewing and experimenting.

> Talk to one of your guides about the journey ahead.

> Test your newfound Journey brew.

> Make sure Hiss and Aashenpreet are alright.

> Make a wish (Specify)

> Use Brew (Specify)

> Other

>>41015516
> Talk to one of your guides about the journey ahead.

> Start brewing and experimenting.
Can we try and make a whatered down blood kin to cool them off with our bane?

>>41015516
> Start brewing and experimenting.

>>41015516
>> Talk to one of your guides about the journey ahead.
> Make sure Hiss and Aashenpreet are alright.

>>41015516
> Start brewing and experimenting.

> Start brewing and experimenting.

It looks like you'll have a lot of time to kill so you might as well use it constructively. You take out your cauldron and begin to mix.

But what do you want to do?

>Experiment with the snake reagents.

>Upgrade an existing brew.

>Start working on combining.

>Make a potion you already know.

>Other

>>41015913
Experiment with different ways to use treebrew on ourself

>>41015913

>Upgrade an existing brew.

>>41015913
>Upgrade an existing brew.

>>41015944
I mean add other ingredients to treebrew that could be beneficial to cennen because he's a plant

>>41015913
Modify treebrew for self improvement brews

>>41015983
>>41016021
Why Won't help us disguise ourselves or fight shadows.

>>41016073
Because we haven't exploited our plant nature much yet and it has potential

>Upgrade an existing brew.

There are certainly many different modifications you could make to the potions you already know how to make. And indeed, wasn't the reason you recently reread your Journeyman manuals was so that you could get a better base for things like this?

Which potion do you want to work on upgrading and modifying?

> Treebrew

> Journey Brew

> Snakebreaker Flask

> Snake Oil

> Acid

> Explosive Concoction

> Beastmaster's Brew

> Sun Potion

> Collapsible Potion

> Alteration Brew:

> Other (Specify)

>>41016073
We have the sun potion for that.
Which reminds me we haven't checked on aash's wishbond yet

>>41016103
> Treebrew

>>41016103
> Treebrew

>>41016103
> Sun Potion
For killing shadows

>>41016109
nope.

>>41016098
Plant nature < Immediate problems

>>41016103
>Identification potion for souls!

> Sun Potion

>>41016103
>> Treebrew

>>41016178
I was thinking that identification plus farsight brew plus snake blood would be better actually since the identification brew doesn't really have anything to do with vision

>>41016219
That's pretty smart. Essentially that's like vision+knowledge+souls. I still wanna mess with treebrews a bit first though

>>41016219
It's more perception and understanding I think.

The recipe you say sounds like a radar, I want that.

> Treebrew

Treebrew is one of your success stories, partially due to your own unexpected plant nature and because of its commercial success. It's a very well-selling potion. Not that you've ever really tried to sell the others though.

> Just improve Treebrew to make a more potent, powerful version.

> Mix with snake scales.

> Mix with snake blood.

> Mix with Hiss venom.

> Mix with shed snakeskin.

> Do some experimenting with Eugene's potions and Treebrew.

> Mix Treebrew with Shek.

> Mix Treebrew with another potion (Specify)

> Other

>>41016351
> Mix with snake blood.

>>41016351
> Mix with snake blood.
I have absolutely no idea what this might make but I'm interested

>>41016351
> Mix Treebrew with Shek.

>>41016351
> Mix with snake blood.

>>41016351
Shek is a pretty tough plant right? I don't know if its toxic qualities would be used or if it would make a brew that makes cennen a little tougher/damage resistant

> Mix with snake blood.

You spend about an hour and use up the last of your blood supplies in the process. Reaching deep within you for your own specialty in alchemy and the blood that powers it, you do your best to combine the two into something that can actually become a coherent whole rather than just a really bad-tasting pile of crap.
Such is the alchemist's struggle.

In the end you're left with a bottle of Treekin, a potion that turns anyone who drinks it into a plant. Or well, that's not strictly accurate. Rather it grants them the soul of a plant. This has no obvious effects, neither does it change anything but for the following day anyone who drinks from it should be able to be affected by brews that affect plants.

> Test the Treekin on somebody else.

> Keep brewing with Treebrew.

> Return to experimenting but with a different aim (Specify)

> That's enough experimenting for now.

> Other

>>41016588
>> Return to experimenting but with a different aim (Specify)
Killing shadows and shadow magic with glorious light.

>>41016588
> Return to experimenting but with a different aim
Identification+farsight+blood

>>41016588
Identification farsight snake blood

>>41016681
This

>>41016677
>>41016588
I'll support this. Identification is nice, but we need offense.

>>41016817
With
> Identification+farsight+blood
We can pinpoint where he is

>>41016847
Maybe.

>>41016847
That's neat and all, but then what do we do? Don't want to get swarmed by shadow minions and have our people get injured again.

> Return to experimenting but with a different aim

More time passes as you keep brewing, the sun rising ever higher in the sky and the heat growing more and more intense. It's becoming hard to hold your cauldron now, the cheap metal drinking in the heat like water.
But you keep pressing on, until you're finally rewarded with the sight of a new potion bubbling away.

It's what you're tentatively calling a Soulsight Brew, one with the power to make you aware of everyone's souls nearby. It should prove to be very useful right now.

You put your head back, trying to avoid dripping sweat and thus contaminating the delicate brew. This is starting to get really freaking hot and you're not sure if you can continue brewing right now. Maybe when it passes.

> Keep brewing anyway. Toughen up!

> Test your potions.

> Study books and recipes.

> Talk to Oster.

> Ask the Kouri about the journey ahead.

> Go inside to see how the snakes are doing.

> Use Potion (Specify)

> Make wish (Specify)

> Other

>>41016890
> Talk to Oster.

>>41016890
> Go inside to see how the snakes are doing.

>>41016890
> Other.
Check on Hiss and aash, make sure they're alive.

>>41016927
There's already an option for that though

>>41016890
> Go inside to see how the snakes are doing.

>>41016890
> Talk to Oster.

>>41016890
>Go inside to see how the snakes are doing.

> Go inside to see how the snakes are doing.

You should probably make sure that Hiss and Aashenpreet haven't suffocated in there or something. They shouldn't be in any danger though, you and Oster are more likely to keel over from the heat before they do.
But the reason they're stuck in the covered wagon is because a hot snake is a happy snake. Maybe too happy. And you're really trying to keep your cover here.

You brush the covers aside and enter, causing Hiss to groan softly when she notices you. Hiss is lying on the floor, appearing barely sensate. She's still in her human form, albeit heavily disheveled.
Aashenpreet, for whatever reason, seems to have reverted entirely back into her massive python form. She is currently being hugged by Hiss, the two of them curled up together.
Snake's don't actually have expressions as far as you can tell but she contrives to look dopey as she curls around her companion.

"Cennen," Hiss slurs. "What's going on? Are we there yet?"

"No. Not for days. Weeks."

"'kay."

You prod her cautiously with your foot, only for Hiss to latch onto your boot with her mouth. She doesn't have her fangs out though and the bite is a lazy reaction at best.
"Are you feeling...alright?"

She giggles.
"Never better. Shoulda come here ages ago, this feels fantastic."

You suppose it would be pretty cozy in the wagon, provided that it wasn't absolutely stifling.

> Leave.

> This is a good time to harvest reagents.

> Keep talking.

> Pet the snake.

> Use a brew (Specify)

> Make a wish (Specify)

> Other

>>41017271
> Keep talking.
> Pet the snake.

>>41017271
> Pet the snakeS.

> Leave.

>>41017271
> Pet the snake.

>>41017271
> This is a good time to harvest reagents.
Apologize for wishbonding hiss again accidentally

>>41017271
Tell aash to revert to human form and wish for hiss to gain the ability to ignore heat if she wants to

>>41017324
Did that count? I thought it had to be against their will.
Anyway, we could use this to investigate a way to break the whishbond with alchemy.

>>41017271
> This is a good time to harvest reagents.
Guys we always need more snake blood

>>41017353
We could always just ask aash to become invisible instead

>>41017410
Yeah, but this is creepy

>>41017271
>Keep talking.
>Pet the snake.

>Keep talking.
>Pet the snake.

You sit down beside them, rubbing the python's head. It makes no visible so you move on to Hiss instead.
"Yeeeah, that feels good."

You sit there for a few minutes before Hiss notices your open backpack and cauldron.
"Whats up? Were you brewing?"

"Yeah, just a few upgrades to help with our current troubles."
You tell her about the Treekin and the Soulsight Brew, as well as filling her in on the Journeyman manual potions that you had learned before.

Hiss laughs.
"You make some strange choices Cennen."

"You don't have to tell me that."
This whole journey wouldn't have come about if it hadn't been for your strange choices.

"I mean, what do you plan to do with a Farsight? Look far?"
For some reason this idea is absolutely hysterical to her.

"Uh, yes. That's exactly what it's for. And to serve as a base for experiments."

"Now, Sun potion I underssstand," she hisses. "But why this journey thing? What's your plan? Just drink up and get high to pass the time?"

"That's not what it's fo-"

"Because that sounds like fun! Gimme."
She reaches for your pack, latching around it with an iron grip.

> Give her the potion.

> No, don't.

> Just do your best to ignore her and start studying.

> Ask her about the wishbond.

> Other

>>41017662
>> Give her the potion.
Fair warning it's the human equivalent of snake oil mixed with psychedelic herbs. You'd best be careful, it can mess you up.
> Ask her about the wishbond.

>>41017662
> Give her the potion.
DO IT!

>>41017662
> No, don't.
> Ask her about the wishbond.

>>41017662
> No, don't.
> Ask her about the wishbond.
Wish to give her the ability to ignore the effects of heat if she wants to

>>41017764
This

>>41017662
"Listen snakey, seeing far means seeing prey further away means finding more prey. Binocular vision is a good evolution you know!"

> No, don't.
> Ask her about the wishbond.

You can't get the pack out of her grip but you manage to liberate the Journey Brew before she can get her hands on it.
"I'm not giving this to you, especially when you're as drunk as you are right now."

She spits at you. Or drools. One of the two.
"Then wish for me to be better. Duh."

You blink.
"Pardon? I spent my wishes ages ago."

Hiss groans.
"It's fucking back. You caught me again without thinking about it you moron. Taking advantage of meee."

Oh, did that count? You suppose it might have. She had been resisting but she was too heatstruck at the time to do it well. You shrug. Wouldn't hurt to test.
"I wish that you have the ability to ignore the effects of heat if you want to."

At first nothing seems to happen.But then Hiss' eyes slowly widen and she sits up, shoving the python off of her. She wipes the drool off her face, her fangs already extended. She looks absolutely mortified.
"Not one word," she warns you.

"Still want this?"
You hold out the Journey Brew.

Hiss looks at it (and by extension, you) with disgust.
"No, hell no! I just got free, why would I want to go back to being like that?"

"Not a fan, I take it?"

She glares daggers at you.
"Heat is good. But anything can be taken to excess and to lose control over yourself is the most hideous fate imaginable."
She stops, looking down and redirecting her glare away from you.
"So...thanks for the wish."

"Don't worry about it. I had the inkling that you weren't enjoying it as much as heatstruck-you was saying you were."

Hiss grabs you by the front of your shirt.
"Don't listen to her! I don't know what she's told you but she's a liar! I could be saying anything when I'm like that, it means nothing."

You slowly pry yourself loose.
"She, uh, she didn't say much."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well, good. How much longer is it? I lost track of time."

"We only just started. Still a lot of desert to go."

1/2

>>41018080
2/2

"So the wish-bond should stay, at least until we're out of the Kour. I get it."
She sighs.
"This is the Creator's divine punishment, I know it. To suffer an endless parade of indignities and embarrassments. Well screw him. It. Whatever."

"I suppose it depends on how much you believe the Creator influences the world."

She yawns, still shrugging off residual sloth.
"Regardless, I want to bite them."

"Who? The Creator?"

"Who else? And to think that some snakes here worship him! I can't wait until we get to the Compact House so we can completely destroy whatever Aashenpreet believes in."
She waves the python around, the giant snake still hopelessly heatstruck.
"That's right, you overgrown bitch. You can't even understand me right now, you're too dumb."
She drops the albino, letting it hit the wooden floor with a heavy thump.
"Unfortunately being able to bite the Creator is a little out of reach. For now. I'll settle for killing another spirit, that's always really fun."

"You'll have to put in some effort to catch up to me, I've got two to your one."

"I'm well aware Cennen. Your tendency to just stumble over spirits and then kill them is one of my favorite parts of you."

> "I've been thinking about that actually. Are ALL spirits bad?"

> "Do you want to kill a spirit right now?"

> Pick Aashenpreet up off of the floor.

> "What exactly are you planning to do when we reach the Compact House?"

> Study books.

> Use Potion (Specify)

> Make a wish (Specify)

> Other

>>41018297
> "I've been thinking about that actually. Are ALL spirits bad?"

>>41018297
> "What exactly are you planning to do when we reach the Compact House?"
"You said something about eating it. Can you eat spirits?"
> Pick Aashenpreet up off of the floor.
Guys... What if our wish affected both of them and Aash just heard everything?

>>41018297
> "I've been thinking about that actually. Are ALL spirits bad?"
What if we could befriend one? My bane makes that unlikely but my skill in soul alchemy gives us a chance to give it something it wants in exchange

>>41018297
>> "What exactly are you planning to do when we reach the Compact House?"
That seems awfully petty, especially since you said you wanted to learn how to counter your father. I imagine spirits and the creator could do that with ease. Also that'd destroy any chance of support from here and likely get us all killed.
> Pick Aashenpreet up off of the floor.

>>41018384
Maybe instead of saying befriend we should say "manipulate"

>>41018297
>influences the world
What if it's all a giant cycle, like a snake eating its tail? Would you have to bite your past self?

>>41018361
I think since wishes are based on our intention more than just our words it would only work on hiss

>>41018297
Ask for some blood and brainstorm some spirit damaging brews with her

>>41018386
Nah. Wishes are specifically ruled on the intent of the wisher. They're designed to give humans control over snakes as an ironic punishment, not to let snakes try and be asshole genies who twist the wording of the wishes.

>>41018297
STUDY ANTI MAGIC BREW
We could totally use that against the wizard

>>41018472
How are nonspecific intentions decided? A human might not at all understand the nuances of the request.

>>41018472
I made no comment of wishes.

>>41018495
Then it's up for the snake to clarify. We've seen Hiss turn down wishes that she couldn't actually do.

>>41018508
Whoops, that was meant as a reply to >>41018361

>>41018549
>Then it's up for the snake to clarify.
Mmm, it's just a little odd is all. Like that wish for Hiss not to be heat-drunk. That was the intent of the wish, but it was applied to a specific symptom of heat, which derives from the causal chain of inebriation from heat.

But along that chain is also 'regular drunk', like from a potion. What decides where the characteristics of the wish are applied when the human may not understand the specific cause?

> "What exactly are you planning to do when we reach the Compact House?"
> Pick Aashenpreet up off of the floor.
> "I've been thinking about that actually. Are ALL spirits bad?"

You reach down and pick the python up, scratching it behind the head absent-mindedly as Hiss glares at it.
"You know, you probably shouldn't say those things in earshot of her. Even if she's listless right now."

"She won't remember anything. It'll be fine. But just wait until we reach the Compact House, then we'll show her."

"Yeeaaah...what exactly are you planning to do there anyway? When we arrive, that is?"

Hiss shrugs.
"I don't know."

"You don't?"

"I barely know anything about it Cennen, I've got to see it with my own eyes first. She says that snakes compete there with something to gain enlightenment but what do they to do that? Compete with each other over what? What purposes do albinos like her serve in all that? So I'm just planning to wait until we get there."

"And then you'll just wing it?"

She nods.
"Worked pretty well for me so far. Do you forget that I left our forest with only the desire to find the constrictors, despite not knowing where they were?"

"All too well."
She hadn't even known Teleran was an island.

"And yet here we are. You have to realize Cennen, that there is one more thing that distances me from the rest of you than just my beauty, power or royalty alone. I have a destiny. Ever since I tried to kill my father, I've known it in some form. Fate itself is bowing to me and granting me mastery."
She smiles.
"So I'll make a plan when I get there. And it'll work."

"...Are you sure you're not being a little too overconfident in this?"

"It's somewhat of a recent idea I'll admit," Hiss says. "But it all makes sense. Think about it Cennen. Have I ever failed?"

"Yes."

"I mean in the long-run. All the mistakes and opposition have meant nothing, I've still gotten everything I ever wanted so far in spite of it. It is like I am chosen, don't you think?"
1/2

>>41018813

"Chosen by who?"

"By me! Obviously. By my will and by my bloodline, inheritor to the last true kings of the mortal world, the world bends."

"Do you actually think destiny and fate and all that really exist?"

She waves a hand in a noncommittal gesture.
"Maybe. I'm not totally sure. But the effect is the same regardless of the cause. I am strong and I am righteous and those are things that let you impose your will upon the weak."

An unspoken 'Like you' lingers in the air after she spits out the word 'weak'. It might just be your imagination though.

"It just seems at odds with what you were saying earlier, that's all. That the world was stacked against you, parade of endless indignities, etcetera."

"Inconveniences at best.This discussion is over."
She actually looks a little embarrassed. She clearly hadn't intended to share her nascent half-formed beliefs and at least on some level she knows how silly it all sounds.

You decide it would be best to change the subject.
"Since we were talking about spirits earlier...do you think ALL spirits are bad?"
It's such a strange question to ask, particularly for someone who's spent his whole life being told that most spirits are benevolent or dangerously neutral at worst. But your experiences with them and constant exposure to an unrepentant maltheist like Hiss has colored your view at least a little.

"What do you mean? Of course most spirits suck. Think about it Cennen. All of the glorious spirits, all of the just and righteous ones, they all stayed here to defend their world and was punished for it. Any spirits still left after Snakefall are traitors, sycophants and cowards. They did nothing when the Creator betrayed us and chose humanity over their fellow spirits."

You decide to ignore the sudden venom injected into her tone when she mentions humanity. She's made her views well known in that regard.
2/3

>>41019024

"Yes but that was a long time ago wasn't it? Surely there must be spirits who made themselves after it. They might be nice."
And besides, while you'll probably never say this to her face, you have some rather extreme doubts about her version of events. You remember your glimpse of the dragons and you struggle to twist events enough that you could conceive of them as the martyrs undeserving of punishment that Hiss paints them as.
But then again, you suppose that if you placed exactly zero value on a human life then the crimes of the dragons were barely anything.

Hiss nods, reluctantly swayed.
"Perhaps."

"And there might be some who don't know or care about the Bane right? I was just thinking, my soul alchemy could be helped a lot if we had a friendly spir-"

"Not possible," Hiss says flatly. "Any spirit you will ever meet will be a worldly one, one that knows of humans and human souls. They'll recognize the Bane."

"Yeah but surely some of the newer ones, the ones that have just lived in the Dreaming and never visited our world wouldn't care so much."

"Maybe," she relents. "But you will literally never meet them Cennen. Because the world is here and the Dreaming is...there. The very Dream-bound nature of these hypothetical spirits prevent them from ever visiting us."

> "Yeah, I guess you're right."

> "But what if we could visit them?"

> Other

>>41019124
> "But what if we could visit them?"

>>41019124
> "But what if we could visit them?"

>>41019124
> "But what if we could visit them?"
also there very well could be some at the compact house if half of what Aashenpreet has told me is true.

>>41019124
> "But what if we could visit them?"

>>41018649
Well in this case the wish was for Hiss to be immune to the effects of heat if she wants to be. So the drunk clause never enters into it.

However, will this wish do things like make Hiss immune to fire outright? Yes. Yes it will provided that she has the potential to do so. And considering that Dragon Scales is a real, albeit obscure Snake Art, it would work.

Sorry about taking so long on that update by the way.

>>41019124
>"But what if we could visit them?"

>>41019204
>Sorry about taking so long on that update by the way.
I don't mind at all!

>Yes it will provided that she has the potential to do so.
That's the odd thing, you know? What's determining the causal potentials here?

Basically, there is a reason for snakes to be affected by heat, and that has a certain set of causes and effects. The wish changes that. Now something in the thoughts of Hiss is substituted for the prior cause-and-effect chain, allowing her to decide what happens.

But what puts the limit on what she can decide to block? And how can the human apply a general wish like "heat effects" to specific cases if he or she does not know of them? Ex. Heat is in part kinetic energy, and also in part required for things like gas vs. solid, and the life of a snake.

>>41019380
You're overthinking things. Our wish does nothing to change the heat, just how well her body can resist it

>"But what if we could visit them?"

"Yeah, they probably won't visit us. But what if we could visit them?"

"Eh?"
Hiss looks at you confused. You hold up the Journey Brew as your only answer, only making her look more confused. And then comprehension crosses her features.
"No, that's insane."

"It'll work. Maybe. They say it can let a mind access the Dreaming. And even if it doesn't then the experience might let me figure out a way to modify it into something that can."

"Cennen, it's just a drug. It's like snake oil or alcohol. It doesn't do anything but make you lose control of yourself and become lesser. It's not going to do anything."

"So if it doesn't do anything then it'll be harmless right?"

Hiss moans.
"But even if it DOES work, what do you think you'll do when you get there? The Dreaming isn't for us! It is the world of spirits, just like this world is the world of souls! I don't know if a soul can even exist in there!"

"The Sisters say that our souls go to some corner in the Dreaming when we die, you know."

"Fuck your human religions! None of you know shit! I've spoken to the Master of Tedwell Cennen. Beyond life there is nothing but the abyss, oblivion! The only afterlife is in here," she says as she pats her belly, "in the gut of something like me, soul-eater and soul-stealer."

"You don't know that. The Master didn't know that. I seem to recall you describing him to me as a depressed hasbeen. The afterlife is not given to spirits like him to know."

She scowls at your continued defiance.
"Well even if it works and even if the Dreaming doesn't simply rend you apart or make you something nasty, what do you think you'll do if you meet a spirit there?"

"Talk to it?"

Hiss groans.

> She may be right. Don't drink it.

> Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!

> Offer to let her come with you. Bringing her with you might be asking for it though.

> Other

>>41019502
> Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!
Bringing a snake to the Dreaming is an awful idea

>>41019502
> Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!

>>41019502
> Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!

>>41019502
> Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!
my bane will knock me out of it shortly if it is soul related. I also carry the biggest stick there is there I'll be fine and who knows I might figure out a way to help you with some of your long term problems.

>>41019502
>Other

Can we like, test it on something else? You know, more safely?

This is some planar metaphysics shit.

>>41019502
> Offer to let her come with you. Bringing her with you might be asking for it though.
What could possibly go wrong?

>>41019502
>Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!

>>41019380
>What's determining the causal potentials here?

The 'potential' Hiss is just the theoretical MAXIMUM HISS, one with complete control over all her Snake Arts and in the very prime of her power as opposed to the 12 year old stripling with delusions of grandeur that she is now. The reason for this is because a wish can strengthen her, bringing her briefly up towards that theoretical level so that she can accomplish a request but only in the most direct fashion. Thus a wish made to her is much more likely to be fulfilled while a wish made to Aashenpreet will be weaker since Aashenpreet could spend her entire life mastering Snake Arts and still only end up with a fraction of the Arts that a perfected Hiss has.

And just to be clear, this isn't some sort of time fuckery or what have you, it's just an unlocking of inner possibility.

>>41019641
Well, the whole system is predicated upon the contention that there is in fact a provable and reachable 'Dreamland', in which some reality-linked actions take place.

I mean, do we know if this stuff does that and how snakes might be viewed there? It doesn't seem like they'd be viewed particularly nicely.

In before it really is just psychotropics, though that rarely happens in these situations.

>>41019678
>unlocking of inner possibility
I perhaps meant, what is the source of that possibility? Power is only reality to the ability to change reality. There must be some blocking element which limits what sort of causal systems a creature can change per 'power level'.

When you wish for Hiss not to be affected by heat per choice, you're giving her additional control over the environment. But there is an enforced limit to the control -other than- the intent of the wish. You see?

>>41019703
Snakes were specifically banned from entering the Dreaming as part of their curse

>>41019792
It's literally Creator level magic at work.

>>41019824
Indeed, but how is that enforced? Are they blocked absolutely, or does something come to kill them?

>>41019851
Either way we don't want to bring Hiss along

>>41019851
The creator said you shall not pass, do you want to hurt Hiss or Aash finding out?

>>41019850
That's what I'm getting at here. OOC, it's obviously the QM interpreting the wishes and applying their effects from his or her viewpoint.

But IC, it seems like there would have to be some sort of 'active judge' that circumvents causation, and that decides what limits there are for each creature.

You can basically make things happen without personally understanding how, which perhaps means that the thing which does is directly intervening.

>>41019892
The Creator is literally this world omnipotent omniscient god/dess Pretty sure it's doing the interpreting, or it set up a magic system to do so.

>Cowardice is the enemy of innovation. Drink it!

"Well, I'm going to give it a try anyway."
You lift the bottle to your lips. It tastes like burnt cinnamon.

"Cennen, no!"
Hiss leaps forward and knocks it from your hand, fear in her eyes.
"I specifically forbid you to do this. That's an order!"

But it's too late. Your vision begins to blur almost entirely, the wagon around you bursting into a scene of blurred color. Everything is so bright, so vibrant. And yet everything bleeds into everything else, threatening to become indistinguishable.

You're on the floor. When did you lie down? Hiss is kneeling over you, shaking you around. She's not gentle but you barely feel it, as if some essential part of you is dissociated. It's not your body, it's just a puppet of meat and bone.
"Cennen! Stop! Come back!"
You can't recognize the emotions in her voice anymore. It's all just a drone.

Hiss' anguished face blends in with the canvas behind her, just a shell of light overlapping itself.
Of course. It's all just light. It's all just light!

With this in mind, you look out and see THROUGH the wagon around. Out to Oster and the Kouri and the desert, the long-winding desert of flesh that bleeds a thousand stones.
But none of it is real to you right now. Everything you can see is just light, transparent fleeting things overlapping each other.

You see through Hiss and Aashenpreet and Oster and everything else until you can no longer distinguish them at all.

Only the desert is real, a worming ribbon of putrefied skin squirming under the sky. The sky! A blue void that threatens to devour you. It's empty up there. It's all so empty. How does anyone live their days underneath such a hungry void?
The sky and desert meet at that horizon and make love, intermingling until you can no longer tell one from the other.

You are walking through the desert and a snake bites you. You die.

1/2

>>41019877
Indeed, in this case perhaps.

>>41019884
Mm, no. But these are the sort of questions we should be asking. Just how absolute are these restrictions? Is the 'creator' fallible and error prone? What is the actual purpose of the 'punishment'? To improve the demeanor of the snakes? Would not a creature which created everything also have created the potential for the snakes to act as they did? Why -this- punishment as opposed to something else? Is it actually the creator's doing? Why would a powerful and good being have to resort to punishment, could not it explain why such actions were bad to do instead?

>>41019932

And when you live again the sky and desert and everything else fall away. All of it is just light, even them.
Beautiful and hungry and ephemeral, the world itself is nothing but a shell of souls and you let yourself fall beyond it.
Drifting not up or down but in a direction that cannot be told, escaping reality entirely.

What awaits you there is nothing. It's a hungry nothing, one that promises to eat you alive and even the memory of you.
There is nothing here, there could never be anything here. This is outside the world, Without and it was dead before the world first lived.

Fortunately your stay in the starless expanse is brief and you are not flayed.
In the distance there is another light, a guiding star not unlike the one you left behind. By deciding to follow it, you are already there.

You wake up, clear-headed and without influence. You are floating in small pool, the water somehow able to support you. Your hands are clasped over your chest.
The pool you are floating in is sitting in a cave, a crystalline grotto carved from a muted rainbow of colors.

You are alone.

> Call for help.

> Try to reach the shore.

> You don't want to be here. Sink back down.

> Check your pack.

> Other

Now you lot are starting to tread into the realm of questions I can't answer without revealing Stuff.

>>41019924
I will say however that the Creator is not usually regarded as omnipotent. Just very powerful.

>>41020058
The punishment was that he altered the very nature of the dragons. What could be happening here is that instead of there being some sort of barrier around the dreaming that prevents snakes from entering, the change inflicted by the creator rendered them unable to exist there.

>>41020081
> Check your pack.
Gotta make sure we have a (possibly metaphorical) arsenal of high explosives to 'persuade' people with.

Also, I'm totally imagining>>41020058
being Cennen's internal monologue.

>>41020081
> Try to reach the shore.
> Check your pack.
>Are we naked?

>>41020058
Also, despite the grandiose name the Creator didn't create everything. The Bones of the Earth were here before they arrived from Without and a lot of the world creation was done by spirits.

>>41020081
> Try to reach the shore.
> Check your pack.

>>41020170
So it's entirely possible that the creator doesn't know the reasons why one action occurs or not. That may be why it had to resort to punishment rather than obviously demonstrating why certain actions were bad to do. It would not know the 'purpose' of life, should there be one.

Which of course means that wishes themselves may not go through the creator at all, but another universal principle which interprets the intended causation.

>>41020081
> Try to reach the shore.

>>41020081
>Try to reach the shore.

> Try to reach the shore.
>Check your pack

You flip yourself over and start swim. It's easy, the water clinging to you and pushing you forward. You reach the shore after only a few seconds, glittering sand crunching beneath your feet.
Several grains of sand fling themselves into the air at your touch, transforming into insects and flying away.

Once safe upon the shore, you turn around and behold the pool that disgorged you. The water is perfectly clear, letting you see all the way to the bottom. Or rather, letting you see all the way to its lack of a bottom.
The pool is a circular shaft that leads down into infinity, a pit that falls into emptiness. Or...not? You bend over the water and peer into its depths.
You can see something glimmering at the bottom of the well, rendered small by distance but vast in truth. A gleaming pearl of blue, brown and green, a halo of stars and a moon swinging about it.
Weird.

The cave around you is faintly glowing, the entire place carved from what looks like a single rainbow crystal.
You are clothed, thankfully. You're not sure what you were expecting there. But what about your pack? You pull it off your shoulders and paw through it, trying to see if your potions came through. Can you transport things from one world to the other?

But alas, your pack is full of nothing but dandelions pressed tightly against each other. Hundreds, thousands of them. It probably means something.

> Try to empty your pack.

> Explore the cave.

> This is my last chance to dive back in.

>>41020508
> Try to empty your pack.
> Explore the cave.

Try to make a potion out of nothing, the dandelions are Eugene's magic, maybe you can do something neat here with your art.

>>41020508
> Explore the cave.
I bet spirits would be interested in earth plants

>>41020508
We're a dandelion! Fuicking wizards.
No point trying to emptying our pack, we've been down that road.

> Explore the cave.
> Other. Nobble EVERYTHING.

>>41020508
Dump the dandelions into the water and create a massive brew

>>41020508
> Keep pack full.

I don't know what will happen if we dump out the dandilions, but we might need them later.

> Try to brew with dandilions and water.

We don't need heat anymore! I'm sure brewing with what is possibly our own soul won't go wrong.

> Explore the cave.

You tread slowly through the cave, smooth crystal beneath your fingertips. The cave is less complex than you originally figured. All of the paths orbit the central pool.
There is nothing else here, a tomb of barren crystal.

It only takes you ten minutes or so to walk a full circuit of the cave. In that time you only find one exit, small tunnel leading down and then opening out into a cave-mouth nearly three times your size. But from where that mouth leads you cannot say, for the exit is blocked off by some sort of skein. It's like the skin of a bubble, watery and rippling with reflected colors.

You can't see beyond it and when you reach out to prod the barrier, it stretches away from you. Can you pop it? It seems quite delicate.

> Go back and brew.

> See if you can just sneak your way through it.

> Punch it.

> Other

>>41020677
> See if you can just sneak your way through it.

>>41020677
Go back and fill our pack with water and activate the dandelion brew
inb4 cennen replaces plant nature with brew nature

>>41020677
> See if you can just sneak your way through it.

>>41020677
>> Go back and brew.

Lets test out this place before leaving and maybe not being able to come back.

>>41020677
Brew first, then explore more.

Maybe try to take some water with us as well in case we find other interesting things to brew with.

>>41020776
We can come back whenever we want with a journey brew

>>41020677
Lets try and conjure something, like a flask to store the water.

>>41020835
I think our pack will suffice

>>41020835
Maybe we could use our bane to make a bowl out of ice somehow

>>41020807
You don't know that, Anon, you're just talking out of your ass there. We already lost the option to go back once, I'm not willing to just assume it won't happen again.

>>41020915
I think he means coming back to the dreaming once we return to the physical world.

> Go back and brew.

You're not ready to just go and leave yet. Anything could be out there! And who knows if you'll ever be able to come back here. You don't know how it works.
You walk back to the pool and take your pack off, contemplating the dandelions within.
What will these do?

Your course is set, there is now only the means to follow it.

> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.

> See if you can empty the pack into the pool and try to brew the whole thing. Bigger is better right?

>>41020915
I don't know what would possibly prevent us from returning

>>41020956
> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.
I don't want to fuck with our escape route

>>41020956

> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.

>>41020956
> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.
>>41020983
This, also, the dandelions are probably related to our soul, so I'd like to keep them.

>>41020956
> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.

> Dump the water into your pack and brew from there.

You lean down and do your best to hold the dandelions down while you drag your pack through the pool and scoop up as much water as you can.
The pack holds it quite well, still as watertight as ever.

You give it a bit of a shake and lacking any discernible source of flame, attempt a cold brew. You go through all the motions, using your own finger to stir the large concoction.
But something doesn't feel right. You're doing everything right but nothing is happening.

No, it's more than that. What you're reaching for, the alchemy, the Art...it isn't there. You have no magic whatsoever. It's gone.

>Drink anyway.

>Freak the fuck out.

>Call for help.

>Flee

>Pray

>Other

>>41020952
Oh, I meant coming back to this part specifically. For some reason, stability isn't what comes to mind when you talk about the "Dreaming World".

>>41021134
>Drink anyway.

>>41021134
Drink it anyway. Just a sip.

>>41021134
>Drink anyway.

We must test this thoroughly before proceeding to freak out.

> Pray

At least let Hiss know we're safe and doing okay here.

>>41021134
> Eat some of the Dandylions.

They're actually quite palatable.

>>41021134
Go back to that weird barrier

>>41021134
> Drink anyway.
> Don't panic
> Go back to the tunnel.

>>41021134
If we go back to the barrier, I say we test it by throwing a dandelion at it.

>>41021194
Also may have diuretic effects. Could that be the stealth meaning?

>>41020508
>It probably means something.

Dandelions reproduce by drifting spores. Also tend to be yellow, sun-like flowers.

If this is a dream world, do we have any past experiences with dandelions?

>>41021203
Bubble popping may probably be our next step. Symbolism in-bound.

>>41021174
nah man spirits will hear us

>>41021332
The wizard who turned our soul into a plant soul was the Dandelion wizard. Remember?

>>41021370
"And get buried under dandelions."

But now, they're in our pack. Almost as if we have him... in the bag.

We're definitely in dream-land symbolism town local. So figuring this stuff out should probably be a top priority.

>Drink anyway.

Shit, shit, you need to not panic. That's your first priority. Just remain calm and think about this logically. Could it be that your soul remained behind? But is the soul the seat of Art? And if your soul isn't here then what is thinking right now?
No, your soul, your consciousness, all that is plainly here. It's self-evident by your very own thoughts. Unless...Unless everything inside your head is but an illusion. Are you not just some insect or whiff of air that has deluded itself into thinking, into being? Are you? And if you are not, what is the difference?
For some reason you can feel the embrace of dissolution dogging your footprints and you know that this is the Dreaming. If you ever lose faith in yourself you will cease to exist. Simply questioning your own nature draws oblivion close.

You shake your head to banish all such thoughts and raise the pack to your mouth, drawing in one long draught. It tastes bitter and it is deathly cold.

Too cold. Way too cold. You can feel it numb your mouth, your throat. You drop the pack and fall to the ground, spitting and coughing. The dandelions are gone. Your heart is frozen and the dandelions are gone.

But you are alright. You feel fine.

You bend over and vomit profusely. You may have been lying about feeling fine. Your spew has ice in it.
You sit down and remain seated for some time. You don't know how long.

Nothing occurs in that duration. The cave is still and empty save for you.
And then you rise, and you inspect the wall of the bubble barring your way.

> Try to sneak past it.

> Try to pop it.

> Other (Specify)

>>41021460
Our pack was also filled with his potions which were filled with his magic.

>>41021485
> Try to sneak past it.
We are sneaky No doubt about it. Whenever it's counted we've been a nobbling and sneaking master. We can sneak past this bubble no issue whatsoever, because we are that good, and existence is on vacation.

>>41021485
> Try to sneak past it.

>>41021485
> Try to sneak past it.
Guys why the fuck would you vote to drink it anyway

>>41021485
Well here's the issue, we're in magic dream land.

So possibly if we believe we exist, and we obviously do, it won't be a problem.

If we're obviously in in dream land as well, we can probably believe that as a dream we should feel fine about ourselves.

As we clearly exist, we can then perhaps question the nature of our existence and the reasons for it, without denying it.

So I'd say we meditate on the nature of the reality that we see before us. Why would this barrier be here?

Also in regards to the 'dream world' thing. The Dreaming isn't actually a dream world. Or more specifically, it is but it isn't yours.

>>41021610
>meditate
go back to banished quest

>>41021532
>>41021485

This, if our existence in the Dreaming is based on our faith in ourself, then we can totally sneak up on and past a simple barrier.

I think we should try to brew a potion again, but that we should BELIEVE it will work this time.

>>41021631
Well yes, but that's the point of >>41021610, we should be asking what these things represent.

If we're aware of the dreamlike nature of the reality here, we can simply believe that we exist and are perhaps doing fine, then question why exactly that is in this place and time.

>>41021654
>is based on our faith in ourself
Oh! Detail!

Snakes were banned from the place, and Hiss obviously has unparallelled and insane self-confidence.

Could be decently powerful here.

>>41021485
>>41021654
This. Conjure a potion.

>>41021714
Pretty interesting endgame scenario...

>>41021654
We already believed that it would work the first time anon. Our thoughts have no power here beyond our own existence. We can't will things into existence or exert any control over our surroundings

>>41021816
But lets try infusing our will into the potion this time, and transmuting it through the power of belief! We didn't know what would happen last time, so we just kind of went with it.

This time, let's just tell the damn thing to work and becoming what we need.

Ingrediantless brewing!

>>41021867
Our alchemy only works in the physical world.

>>41021867
>Ingrediantless brewing!
The full metal... the full metal alchemist!

>>41021867
>>41021894
Bet this is how Tolemeny figured out how to make potions out of nothing I back home.

> Try to sneak past it.

You ponder the existence of the wall for a few minutes. You think therefore you are. Maybe. If you are but the belief that you exist, what does that say about this?
That, you think, it is malleable and prone to influence. Here the lines between thought and action are blurred, perhaps no longer requiring the medium of your body for the former to transfer to the latter. Or maybe the distinction between the two is more fluid.

You can get past this bubble without breaking it. You know you can. Are you not a nobbling master? All of this lies within your balliwick.
So you reach out and press yourself against the skein, feeling it flex and stretch against you.

You don't push against it or try to simply walk out, instead you just let yourself slide along it until you reach the wall of the wave and only then do you push, opening a gap between the wall of the bubble and the side of the cave.

And just like, you slip through. You try not to think too hard about it. Sometimes a bubble isn't just a bubble.

You are also falling through the air quite fast, gravity as strong as ever. You open your eyes and behold a new world.

Everything is in strange shades here, the sky done in ochre, the horizon a solid bar of color. The land below is a series of bands, ochre splendor, mud and clay smeared over the invisible to give it form.
And there is so much of it.

You can see forests, some twisted trees growing out of them hundreds of times larger than the forest itself and with new forests growing atop their leaves. A mountain range curls around it like a spiral, rippling and moving as if it breathed.
1/2

>>41021867
I like it. We're brewing through sheer force of will!

>>41021943
Well if it's a universe with actual real really real dreamworlds and magic, I'd say there's a decent chance of connection between physical materialization through the sorcerous interlink between dreamlike interpretation and reality manifestation.

The qi forms the composition of substance from the eternal tao, yo.

>>41022008
>tfw I'm not high enough for this conversation

>>41021977

The air around you is filled with islands, collections of rock and rainbow clay stuffed together into floating contraptions that bear their own landscape.
Indeed the huge tree and the breathing mountains and the forest that you are plummeting towards are just perched on top of another of those, free-drifting islands all the way down against a backdrop of shifting ochre bands.

It continues on as far as you can see and you can see forever. Distance isn't the same here. Instead of receding out of sight, the lands in the outskirts of your vision become less detailed, looking at first like paintings and then smearings of mud upon a cave wall.

And it is all alive. The world creeps and crawls with movement, the landscape itself moving as it wills. The rocks, the clay, the trees and the flames, each single one of them a life. Most of them are quiescent but you can see behemoths in the painted distance, huge moving landscapes. There is no distinction, you realize, between the inhabitants of this world and the world itself. Spirits, for those are what you assume them to be, are simply the Dreaming made animate.

You flip yourself over as you fall and behold the place from whence you came, a huge quicksilver bubble suspending against the chaos. The cave and the pool must be within that.

And with that in mind, it's time to stop falling! You concentrate and will yourself to stop, to fly. Nothing fucking happens.

You hit the ground quite hard.

You awake in the mud. Quite literally in the mud too, you have indented yourself deeply into the soft ground here.
You lever yourself from the crater, loam clinging to your body like a shroud. Around you is a forest, each tree corkscrewing up towards the sky and spreading frilled tendrils to caress each other.
And you are not alone.

2/3

>>41022156
3/3

Just a few meters away you can see something in the undergrowth. Multiple things. You can't make them up as they seem to blend in with the trees behind them but you can hear them stepping, hear them snuffling the ground.
They are looking for something and while you are quite aware of their invisible presences, they do not seem to be aware of you.
The soil and mud clinging to your body, in your nostrils and inside your mouth disguises you for now but it probably won't for long.

> Try to discreetly flee.

> Call out to them.

> Pray.

> Just stay very still.

> Attack!

> Other

>>41022156
>Spirits, for those are what you assume them to be, are simply the Dreaming made animate.
Oh dear, we're in Matrix Shinto land with aboriginal accents.

Quickly, develop a Harry Dresden demeanor!

>>41022204
Quietly observe them to discern their nature. Herbivores? Carnivorous rabbits? Susanoo's tears?

>>41022205
Hell's bells..

>>41022204
> Just stay very still.

>>41022204
> Call out to them.

Manifest a sword of Ice, it is literally a part of you via spiritbane and if you must fight you can one hit kill all of them if need be.

>>41022204

> Just stay very still.
>Watch them, try to figure out what they are

>>41022204
Try to will a mud creature to form and provide a distraction.

Guys we seriously can't impose our will to create anything here

>>41022347
That's a defeatist attitude. If we could, that attitude would prevent us from ever finding out.

Just remember Hiss. Insane self confidence. Wild experimentalism.

What if we CAN matrix this place because there is no mudgolems?

Also note that we have plant powers, might come into play what with being in mud and all.

>>41022391
You're being an idiot. The Dreaming is created by the Creator for spirits. It's not some place for humans to come and do whatever the hell they want

>>41022347
Hence the create an extension of ourselves made out of ice which is the representation of usbweaponizing our bane.

>>41022417
I guess there's a slim chance that would work. The best we could do is like an icicle or something and probably not on such short notice

>>41022416
Again, that's a defeatist attitude. You don't -know- for certain what the purpose of all this is, nor what you can really do.

You can't just parrot what you've been told. Embrace the adventure.

>>41022347
Maybe not create, but like >>41022272
said the spiritbane is part of us.

Not sure it's a great idea to whip it out right away though since we're on a mission of diplomacy.

>>41022204

"Hail, and well met spirits. What a lovely day it is to be doing the job assigned by the Creator, yes? What are you doing, perhaps I can assist you?"

Lets not lie to them, but let them make their own assumptions as to what we are/are doing here.

>>41022487
When the fuck has cennen ever talked like that

>>41022440
We've done it before in a world far stricter on such things. This should be easy by comparison. We can make on easy, just not sure whether it's guilty crown rules or just poofs into our hand.

> Just stay very still.

You keep yourself still and wait, trying to get your company to reveal themselves. Wait, a thought crosses your mind! If belief is all that is important here, can you not influence the world itself and impose your will?
You dig deep and desire the mud around you to come to life, animating some sort of...mud monster to form as a distraction.

The mud completely fails to do anything. Unfortunately it seems that the only thing here whose existence is truly in doubt is yourself. The Dreaming is not beholden to your will or your belief. In fact, it may be the other way round. It is by its tolerance and your belief that you currently exist within it at all.

Robbed of your brief yet tantalizing glimpse of true power you silently grumble and settle down to wait to see if the creatures reveal themselves.
They do not reveal themselves. Instead you get better at seeing. They were practically in plain sight all along but their nature, their oneness with the landscape around them made it impossible for you to see them. Your eyes, accustomed to the mortal world, saw them and saw only trees and dirt and leafmould.

But they are here, circling about the forest. There are three of them that you can see. One of them is made of bent and wizened wood, shaggy with vine-fur and with three quintuple-jointed arms growing from its empty eye-sockets. The second is like a stone, grey and pebble-hided with a thousand legs and beady eyes. The third is of flesh, or what appears to be flesh, a green humanoid covered in scales. Each scale is a face which is perfect because it has none of its own.

They are crawling and creeping about. Looking for something. Looking for you?

> Freeze

> Learn to listen.

> Flee. Some things are best left unheard.

> Pray.

> Other

>>41022584
>> Freeze

>>41022584
> Learn to listen.

>>41022584
> Learn to listen.
lol suck it matrix anon

>>41022584
Well obviously we listen to see what they might be talking about.

On a side note, if this turns into Kamigawa, we make a jitte.

Although, it does seem that our beliefs do affect our material existence, which is a functional part of reality.
So there would be some sort of body-interface between our beliefs and the landscape as a limiter. It may not be beyond expansion of that interface.

>>41022584
> Learn to listen

>>41022661
>lol suck it matrix anon
Yo dude, if you never try you never know. Take some Buddha into your awareness.

>>41022663
dude I know you think you're smart but you're really not in this situation

>>41022584
>> Learn to listen.

Does this mean we can learn to be STRONK!?

>>41022663
What the shit are you blathering on about? We got here by stabbing spirits in the face, this ain't a mystical journey to find ourselves.

>>41022703
And who are you to just casually insult people?

Obviously there's a connection between the reality of the story's landscape, the character's body, and the character's beliefs. So don't be a dick.

>>41022728
I don't mean "here" directly, moreso the whole Soulbane thing and not getting eaten by Hiss, w/e. Irreverance has served us well.

>>41022734
God, you're a fucking faggot. It's the whole

> On a side note, if this turns into Kamigawa, we make a jitte.


It's America day, motherfucker, on an English board. Stop trying to impress people and just say what you mean. Communication is pointless if you're being obtuse by design.

I'm not the casually insulting guy you talked to before, but Christ is it annoying when people talk like that.

>>41022784
>It's America day, motherfucker, on an English board.
Your argument for being insulting on the internet is that you don't want to hear about an American card game with a Japanese theme?

The situation is similar to Shinto and Kamigawa's story, and you are obviously a very angry and mean person.

>>41022836
Fucking weeaboos. It's people like you that make it so difficult to tell people you like anime.

> Learn to listen.

What are you doing? What you're listening for now, the scrapes of their feet on the ground and the huffs of the breath, all of these use your ears. But since when has a spirit ever spoken to you with SOUND?

You do your best to recall the sensation of the spirit in Melire's freezing voice in your mind, the thoughtspeech of the lightning-man in Taldenral. Sure, all of those had been directed directly at you but there's no reason that your mind shouldn't be open to all of them surely?

So you open yourself up and listen, the world growing cold as you suddenly feel the cold presences of their words.

-The Gate opened, I saw it!-

-If it can open once, it can open again-

-Do you think the keepers arrive soon?-

-Maybe they didn't notice. We can get in before they come-

-The Gatekeepers can go fuck themselves. All they do is act all somber and pretend they mean anything outside their domains-

For some reason you were expecting them to sound a bit more...ethereal. Grander.

-Something came through. Find it and we can find the way to open the Gate-

-Before the keepers arrive-

-They aren't coming!-

-I wish I shared your confidence-

-But what comes through this way through a Gate anyway? Any of the Lost could just come through their halos-

-A mortal? It's not unheard of-

-I hope so. That'll make this much easier-


> Reveal yourself. These seem to know what's going on and you might need their help.

> Keep hiding.

> Freeze.

> Try to discreetly leave.

> Other

>>41022897
>>41022836
>>41022784
Oh I get it.

You're on /tg/ right, on /tg/, and you can't handle a Magic: The Gathering reference?

Stop shitting up the quest.

>>41022914

> Keep hiding.

That last line makes me very nervous.

>>41022914
Now it's escape time.

It seems the want to use us to get through to the normal world. We sneak away, and like, try to listen for something like a town.

>>41022914
> Try to discreetly leave.
I don't want to be here when the keepers show up

>>41022978
If anything we want to find a secluded spirit who doesn't much care for other spirits and doesn't know much about the material world or spiritbanes

>>41022930
MtG is shit, and you're shit for referencing it like it means anything. Why don't you just start dropping 40k memes too.

You faggot.

>>41022914
> Try to knobble one of them. Use the SpiritBane intimidation factor.

>>41022996
Keepers might be on our side, if these guys are as seedy as they seem.

It's between hiding and leaving, and QM said the hiding might not last forever.

Can we tell how these guys are looking around? Do they seem particularly vigilant?

>>41022914
> Try to discreetly leave.
inb4 that one anon spews more philosophical bullshit

>>41023039
I think we should stay away from the law while we have the whole spiritbane thing going on.

>>41023039
>Can we tell how these guys are looking around? Do they seem particularly vigilant?

They still haven't seen you so not much. Otherwise no, you can't tell. They don't have much in the way of human body language. Or human bodies.

>>41023039
any spirit who knows what's what or is in a position of authority won't be on our side because of our bane

>>41023054
>philosophical bullshit
Well I mean, clearly these spirits have a legal system of sorts, and these particular ones appear to have a system of consciousness which operates as a belief-accuracy-confidence matrix, since they are arguing over future possible events.

It's very strangely human to be honest. They're not just acting like trees.

It also brings up the question of what our plant aspects actually do for us, especially in a place like this.

> Try to discreetly leave.

You slowly raise yourself from the mud, the closest of the creatures (the rocky centipede) only a few feet away from you. And yet none of them seem to notice you as you slowly crawl away. Where are you heading? You don't know. Away from these creatures at the very least.

-Wait. If it's a human, how are we going to see it?-

-True, the last one that came through was too small. We could be looking at it right now and we wouldn't know-

-Right, right. Humans work on weird rules, we need to be seeing right-

You start crawling a little faster as silence falls, the spirits with eyes staring off into the middle distance. And their eyes seem to focus on you.

-There! She's getting away!-

> Stop and greet them.

> RUN

> Attack!

> Threaten them with these 'Gatekeeper' things they're so afraid of.

> Other

>>41023230
That's awkward.

Probably a combination of running and yelling "keepers, there they are!"

>>41023230
>> RUN
[SCOOBY DOOBY DOO NOISES]

>>41023230
> RUN
NOPE.

>>41023126
Well yeah, you've met spirits before you know. They've acted quite human in the past.

And there are spirits who act like trees, they're just the trees. If they're ambling about and moving it's fairly evident that they don't want to act like trees.

>>41023230
> RUN
They can't see our bane mark until they get close right?

>>41023315
Correct.

>>41023230
> Stop and greet them.
I'd really rather not get lost here by running off. If we do run can we at least do our best to remember where this place is?

>>41023304
Indeed. But you wonder then, what's the difference between a human spirit in the Dreaming, and a spirit more merged with natural formations?

What's the crux of survival for them? Why act like humans when, as trees, their goals for food/shelter/reproduction might be very different? A human acts as a human does because a human does not have the form and properties of a tree: but these spirits do.

Which also notes how us, having the essence of a plant, might relate to the fact that we are still acting like a human.

Could we for instance conjure the effects of treebrew on ourself from the properties of this world?

>>41023404
Apparently there's a big difference between human souls and spirits. And the ability to speak is not exclusively human in this setting. Spirits lived on earth before humans even existed and then they were taken back here into the dreaming

>>41023404
This is a spiritual plane. Biologic procesess are not at play here. More than tree-spirits I'd describe them as consciensless-spirits.
Cennen may be a plant-like organism but he has a conscience.

> RUN

Yeah, fuck this. You're not sticking around for whatever these things want with you. You stop crawling and get to your feet and start running, the soil slippery beneath your feet.
But you keep yourself from falling over and dash forward, weaving around the trees. You've built up a good head of speed when you feel words strike your mind like ice.

-Stop that-

The spidery wood-thing lifts one of the arms sprouting from its eyesockets and pinches the fingers in the air, the same way that you would hold your fingers in the air as a child and pretend to squish the heads of people in the distance.
Only in this world, perspective doesn't truly exist for those who know their way around it.

Your feet leave the ground as massive fingers reach out and pick you up. You are dragged back, your feet dangling helplessly in the air as the suddenly huge spirit lifts you to its eyeless face. How did it get so big?? Did you shrink? Is size real here?

-Here it is. A human-

-Why did she run?-

-Why do humans do anything?-

-I don't understand it. It's not anything. IT'S NOT ANYTHING.-

-Haven't you seen one before? You get used to it-

-Can she talk?-

-Humans can't speak right. They shake the air instead-

-With what?-

-Their tongues.-

-Queer. How do they get anything done?-

-From what the Lost have told me, they don't-

-Look, this one's frozen. Why is this one frozen?-

You are lifted suddenly, still held high in the air. The ground seems to be almost a mile beneath you as the titanic spirits crowd around your suddenly-minuscule form. The trees loom behind them, each trunk now impossibly gigantic.

And then something in the world around you shifts imperceptibly and your perspective changes. Everything is normal sized once more and you hit the ground heavily as the now man-sized spirits inspect you.
Their thoughts do not form words but instead only unworded disagreement and reproach before all three of them melt away into the landscape.

1/2

>>41023633
>Biologic procesess are not at play here.
But then consider why might they have the form of trees, which back in the normal world have that form for those biological processes.

>>41023715

-Where are you? Are you hurt?-

The mountainside moves.

> Whatever this thing is, you don't want anything to do with it either. Keep going.

> Just stay where you are.

> Call out.

> Pray

> Other

>>41023740
> Call out.

>>41023725
They don't really have the form of trees. Not these three anyway. Only one of them is even made of wood.

>>41023740

> Pray
Since apparently speaking is inefficient

>>41023740
Just talk back to the mountain side, maybe wave. In the spirit-talk way, if we can figure it out.

And did those spirits just reverse-matrix us? How rude. But then... maybe we can eventually do such things after all. Harry Dresden style.

>>41023740
> Pray

>spirits are completely innocent eldritch abominations
I like it

>>41023725
They look like trees to us, that doesn't mean they are actual trees.

>>41023740
We should say we're on a journey motivated by curiosity to see what spirits are like here because the ones on earth are awful

>>41023833
Some of the spirits? That's the question: Why?

These spirits share -some- properties with humanity, and even act in ways very directly human, like concern about the future presence of 'law enforcement'.

Why have a society like that as a nature spirit?

>>41023868
Spirits came before humans so technically we act like them.

>>41023876
That's semantic, the comparison actually works both ways and does not presume origin.

Technically, humans could have come from the same prior origin as spirits, and might share qualities that way.

>>41023908
Read the fluff pastebin m8

>>41023935
Dude, the plot point is not revealed, that's why I'm speculating.

We don't have perfect information about the Creator's origin and demeanor.

>>41023868
Different classes of spirits. Different types of consciences.
Why do humans act like humans?

>>41023961
seriously just read it
http://pastebin.com/DVfpJgFZ

>>41023974
Again, I have. I do not believe you understand what I'm asking.

>>41023966
>Why do humans act like humans?
In real life? Consider what hands do. They're shaped to grasp objects.

Consider why tree leaves expand and grow toward the sun.

There's a purpose in each shape, which is why the shapes in the Dreaming which mirror them, but do not seem explicitly used for that purpose, is an odd dichotomy.

>Pray

You send out a plea for help, trying to keep it as wordless as possible since otherwise it might prove too confusing.

-There you are-
It's impossible for you to tell this thing apart from all the others.
-You don't have to pray, I can see your soul now-

You look around, still trying to spot the newcomer when the rock beneath the mud rises up and forms a fist with you in the middle. You bite back a scream as the entire mountain bends over you and picks you up.

And then suddenly you are sitting atop the mountain itself, your legs hanging off the lip off a giant ledge set into the cliff-face. Beside you is a small stone cottage and a small pile of stones, the kind that you'd see on the road as a traveller's grave.

The pile moves, each rounded stone sliding and moving atop each other to form a slumped figure of roughly hewn earth.
-Do not fear, you can speak to me. Though I have never been Lost, I have the ken for listening to humans-

Uhuh.
"Thanks? Who are you?"

The cairn of stones twitches as if considering.
-I am the mountain sometimes.-

"Sometimes?"

-According to the last human, it's really more of just my job. I don't understand.-

"That's great! Neither do I! What is all of this?"

-This is the Dreaming, the mind of the Creator. We are their thoughts-

"I'm not anyone's thought."

-I suppose not. That is why it is hard to see you. You are so small-

"I'm the same size as you!"

-No, you don't understand. But it will be easier to explain this to you then it was to the last one, I have the ways of human-thought now. Everything here is perception. You see and you create-

You can feel your forehead creasing.
"Then why can't I make anything?"

-My apologies, I was using a proverbial 'you'. You cannot do as such because you are not anything here. Your perspective does not matter. Or if it does, only very little. Like a mote or a sleeper.-

"What?"
Motes? Sleepers?

1/2

>>41024032
-Everything here is perception but it is also spirits. We birth ourselves by thinking and making ourselves distinguished by our thought. We think and see and thus we are. But by the same understanding, all here that is not one of us is still one of us but...asleep. Or unborn-

You think you're starting to understand now. You point down to the forest below.
"Like that tree?"

-They are spirits. But they sleep and do nothing, such have they fallen into the way and the ken of trees. They have lost their perspectives and will remain as such until they are reborn. And because they have no perspective I can do this.-

The cairn rotates itself into one long arm that reaches out and plucks a tiny tree from the landscape.
-I am told that when our worlds were one, your people called this dreamcrafting and said it was magic. A lie but a convenient one-

"That thing there, where you pick up the tree. That thing back there did the same with me."

-I know. It is because you have no dreamcrafting, thus you have no opinion on how things should be. Just like these blind sleepers or most of this mountain.-

> "They said something about Gates and keepers. What are those?"

> "What's your name?"

> "So there was another human here before me?"

> "Where's the Creator?"

> "Why won't my alchemy work here?"

> "So why should I stay here then? What's to stop any spirit from just unmaking me?"

> Other

>>41024084

> "What's your name?"

> "Where's the Creator?"

> "They said something about Gates and keepers. What are those?"

>>41024084
So dreamcrafting seems to be based on the importance of our opinion here, yes?

But what determines that importance? Clearly we do have a view of how things should be, like when we tried to animate the mud.
Can we simply make a convincing argument to reality?

>>41024084
> "They said something about Gates and keepers. What are those?"
Why do you call spirits in my world Lost?
> "Where's the Creator?"
Have you ever thought about visiting the material world?

>>41024150
>So dreamcrafting seems to be based on the importance of our opinion here, yes?

More of the other way round. You have no dreamcrafting, ergo your opinion doesn't matter since you don't get a say.

>>41024084
Can you help me gain a perspective?

>>41024084
> "So there was another human here before me?"

> "So there was another human here before me?"

Ick. I was really hoping to get one more update in so I could bring this thread to a more natural end but I really have to go to work soon so I'll call the thread ended here.
As usual, thread archived, next thread probably tomorrow but check the twitter closer to the release date etc, etc.

This was a fairly long thread! I hope you guys had fun and that you looked kindly upon me unloading my inner bullshit upon the world.

>>41024227
Not gonna lie, it was confusing as fuck. I'm interested to see where it goes though

>>41024227
>that you looked kindly upon me unloading my inner bullshit upon the world
Of course! Creativity is fun, as is considering the mechanics of reality.

Really, more quest runners should compile their concepts into books. They're quite entertaining among the normal fare of fantasy.

>>41024227
Looking forward to see the rest of our little acid trip-journey.
Thanks for running.

>>41024246
>Not gonna lie, it was confusing as fuck

Yeah I had a clear picture in my head but unloading it into words is not always as easy as it seems. But you guys questioning really helped me define it so I had a lot of fun.

If you guys are still hankering for fantasy quests, Black Company is still running over at >>41018471
It's fun quest and it's only at the second thread.