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thecrossinglogs2024-11-09 11:57 am
thecrossingmods) wrote in thecrossinglogs2024-11-09 11:57 am
TEST DRIVE #1
TDM # 1
Welcome to The Cavern, wayward souls.
It's good to see you again.
The TDM is game canon and will be active NOV—JAN. For further details about the setting, please reference our current setting page. All the information there is fair game for this TDM.
It's good to see you again.
The TDM is game canon and will be active NOV—JAN. For further details about the setting, please reference our current setting page. All the information there is fair game for this TDM.
arrival
— THE RIVER
The River is wide, black, and deep. It is so deep, and so dark, and so cold, that when you wake deep beneath its surface you may, for a moment, think that this is all there is. An abyss, a vacuum, a void. Nothingness in all directions.
It might even be what you expected, coming from wherever you were Before. The blackness, at least. Perhaps the cold. Maybe even the pain: all-encompassing, all-consuming. If a mortal wound brought you here, it might feel like it's being torn open anew, over and over again.
The current is simply slow, however, not non-existent. And you can swim. (Or, even if you can't, that's more of a procedural problem than anything: you don't need to breathe down here, it seems. Perhaps you don't need to breathe anymore at all.)
It hurts. It hurts so much. But if you can just concentrate long enough to pull yourself up onto the rocky shoreline, or even enough to get your head above the surface of the water, that pain will dissipate, almost as if it was never there at all. When you have the presence of mind to examine yourself, you'll find that you are actually hale and whole, with your body exactly as you expect it to be.
There are others in your same predicament. Maybe they can help you; maybe you can help them. You're all in this together, after all.
— THE CAVERN
Once you do finally pull yourself free from The River, you'll find that there was never any abyss at all. On the contrary, there's quite a lot to see — though your eyes might need a minute or two to adjust.
The Cavern yawns around you, the main chamber alone large enough to house a small town, and the ceiling too high to make out through the darkness. There's some light: you can see the eerie green glow of bioluminescent plants lining far-away walls, and tracing the underside of the land bridge that extends over The River. There are pinpricks up high on the cliffs above The River that are organized enough to suggest intervention, or at least planning.
There's something else, too — something orders of magnitude brighter than anything else in the chamber. Its glow is dim on this side of The River, and it's difficult to discern where exactly the light is coming from, just that it isn't coming from anywhere outside the cave. You feel as though you might be safer if you got closer, but maybe that's just because any light at all is comforting in a situation like this. If nothing else, you'd probably find whoever is holding it.
Either way, whether you follow the light or don't, there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts. Or to share them, if you're so inclined, with the others that are here with you, emerging one by one from the depths of The River.
Perhaps you've already accepted what's happened to you. Perhaps you need time, and it will take some discussion with the others to arrive at the one thing you all have in common. Perhaps even after that it's still too much, or you still aren't ready. However you get there, though, there's no way around it: you are dead.
If you have questions, The Ferryman is available to answer them.
KEEP TO THE LIGHT
— THE LANTERN
The source of the light is a lantern — specifically, it is The Ferryman's Lantern, an ornate metal lamp hanging from the end of a tall wooden staff. It's large, weathered from use, and despite how improbably far its glow casts — from the land bridge over The River, where The Ferryman is holding their vigil, up the cliffs above and into the subterranean city's many tunnels — it isn't so bright that it can't be comfortably looked at. The Lantern has an unmistakable aura of comfort and safety (maybe because of, or maybe in addition to, the light it casts), no matter how close or far you are from it.
It's only at the very far edges of the glow, where the last bits of light are swallowed by the darkness, that this sense of safety begins to fray. It's here that you can see them, prowling the boundary: wisps of something that you can barely see. Many somethings, in fact.
They can't cross into the light, it seems. All they can do is wait for you to leave it.
— THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY
Maybe you'd rather stay for now, though. There's plenty still to explore within The Lantern's shroud: to start with, the network of tunnels you can see built into the cliffs above The River.
The biggest hurdle is figuring out how to get into the city. You can spy the entrances, marked by dimly glowing torches set into the open mouths of tunnels, but they're so high up! Surely you're not meant to climb?
Well, yes and no. Some investigation reveals a series of wood-plank catwalks leading up to the lowest tunnel entrances, but it's a long climb. If you're feeling impatient (and brave), there's also a system of pulleys, ziplines, and simple rope elevators connecting the higher levels to the lower ones. The ropes have clearly been here a while, but they're probably safe, right? What's the worst that could happen, you die all over again?
(Too soon? We get it.)
There's plenty to see once you reach the city itself, even if there isn't much in way of a population. (Until now, at least!) The lamps and torches lining the walls are packed with the same bioluminescent plantlife that can be found elsewhere in the cavern, so there's no risk of them spontaneously going out. There are signs placed strategically throughout the tunnel system to point you toward major landmarks, using only simple iconography.
The city itself certainly appears lived in, even if it's currently empty; in fact, if you pay close attention to the signage and the decor, there appear to be layers of activity not unlike the rings of a very old tree. Older tapestries covered with newer ones with entirely different patterns; boxes of radically different table trinkets carefully stored in apartment closets, to make room for new ones on a shelf; evidence of the stone market stalls having multiple different usages, many of them apparently in sequence.
Some of those tapestries or trinkets might even be familiar to you, like they came from a culture of your homeworld. Strange, though, since you didn't arrive with anything similar on you. Where could they possibly have come from?
VENTURE IN THE DARK
— THE WRAITHS
The Cavern is big, and The Ferryman's Lantern only reaches so far. If you want to explore, you'll need to brave the darkness— and whatever else might be waiting out there for you.
You'll have some light, at least, even if it isn't much: the luminescent plants grow throughout the cave system, including its winding tunnels and cramped smaller chambers. As for whatever else might be lurking out there, well... without The Lantern, there's not much you can do to keep them at bay.
The Ferryman calls them "wraiths", if you were curious enough to ask beforehand. They're more what you might typically expect from the idea of a ghost: pale and insubstantial, like mist struggling to take and keep a shape.
And they certainly do have shapes; those shapes are just incomplete, sometimes blurry, like a pencil drawing that has smudged and faded over time. They have faces that seem to have been stretched too long or too wide; they have eyes with no color, unblinking, always staring back; some of them have mouths that never close, while others have no mouths at all; some of them have hands with wispy tendrils of grasping fingers; others' limbs seem to have lost their shape entirely.
There are dozens of them lingering just outside the boundary of The Lantern, and many more roaming throughout The Cavern. They do not speak, or otherwise make any sounds at all. They do not swarm, either, even when one of The Ferryman's souls crosses the boundary. They simply watch, and, seemingly at random, some will choose to follow you anywhere you go throughout The Cavern.
Annoying, maybe. Creepy, certainly. But that seems to be all. Just remember: The Lantern is the only thing that keeps the wraiths at bay. They can't hurt you, out in the darkness, but they will notice you, they will follow you, and they will remember you.
If your exploration takes you to the catacombs, you may find that your wraith shadows get lost just as easily as you in the tunnel system. Perhaps they get distracted? Or maybe they have some curiosity about the tunnels that outweighs their curiosity about you? Either way, it's possible to lose them for some amount of time there— but the wraiths aren't bound by petty things like physics the way you are. They will find you again eventually, either by floating through some wall, appearing at the dead-end of a tunnel, or even just waiting at the entrance for you to emerge again.
If, on the other hand, you find yourself stumbling upon the whispering pools, you'll discover that wraiths gather in droves there, circling the pools, sometimes trying in vain to press their faces to the water. The wraiths that followed you here seem to be the only exception; whatever the pools are saying, it's apparently not interesting enough to draw them away from you.
Aren't you lucky?
Image credits: 1, 2, 3 + stock imagery unless otherwise noted
The River is wide, black, and deep. It is so deep, and so dark, and so cold, that when you wake deep beneath its surface you may, for a moment, think that this is all there is. An abyss, a vacuum, a void. Nothingness in all directions.
It might even be what you expected, coming from wherever you were Before. The blackness, at least. Perhaps the cold. Maybe even the pain: all-encompassing, all-consuming. If a mortal wound brought you here, it might feel like it's being torn open anew, over and over again.
The current is simply slow, however, not non-existent. And you can swim. (Or, even if you can't, that's more of a procedural problem than anything: you don't need to breathe down here, it seems. Perhaps you don't need to breathe anymore at all.)
It hurts. It hurts so much. But if you can just concentrate long enough to pull yourself up onto the rocky shoreline, or even enough to get your head above the surface of the water, that pain will dissipate, almost as if it was never there at all. When you have the presence of mind to examine yourself, you'll find that you are actually hale and whole, with your body exactly as you expect it to be.
There are others in your same predicament. Maybe they can help you; maybe you can help them. You're all in this together, after all.
— THE CAVERN
Once you do finally pull yourself free from The River, you'll find that there was never any abyss at all. On the contrary, there's quite a lot to see — though your eyes might need a minute or two to adjust.
The Cavern yawns around you, the main chamber alone large enough to house a small town, and the ceiling too high to make out through the darkness. There's some light: you can see the eerie green glow of bioluminescent plants lining far-away walls, and tracing the underside of the land bridge that extends over The River. There are pinpricks up high on the cliffs above The River that are organized enough to suggest intervention, or at least planning.
There's something else, too — something orders of magnitude brighter than anything else in the chamber. Its glow is dim on this side of The River, and it's difficult to discern where exactly the light is coming from, just that it isn't coming from anywhere outside the cave. You feel as though you might be safer if you got closer, but maybe that's just because any light at all is comforting in a situation like this. If nothing else, you'd probably find whoever is holding it.
Either way, whether you follow the light or don't, there's plenty of time to be alone with your thoughts. Or to share them, if you're so inclined, with the others that are here with you, emerging one by one from the depths of The River.
Perhaps you've already accepted what's happened to you. Perhaps you need time, and it will take some discussion with the others to arrive at the one thing you all have in common. Perhaps even after that it's still too much, or you still aren't ready. However you get there, though, there's no way around it: you are dead.
If you have questions, The Ferryman is available to answer them.
KEEP TO THE LIGHT
The source of the light is a lantern — specifically, it is The Ferryman's Lantern, an ornate metal lamp hanging from the end of a tall wooden staff. It's large, weathered from use, and despite how improbably far its glow casts — from the land bridge over The River, where The Ferryman is holding their vigil, up the cliffs above and into the subterranean city's many tunnels — it isn't so bright that it can't be comfortably looked at. The Lantern has an unmistakable aura of comfort and safety (maybe because of, or maybe in addition to, the light it casts), no matter how close or far you are from it.
It's only at the very far edges of the glow, where the last bits of light are swallowed by the darkness, that this sense of safety begins to fray. It's here that you can see them, prowling the boundary: wisps of something that you can barely see. Many somethings, in fact.
They can't cross into the light, it seems. All they can do is wait for you to leave it.
— THE SUBTERRANEAN CITY
Maybe you'd rather stay for now, though. There's plenty still to explore within The Lantern's shroud: to start with, the network of tunnels you can see built into the cliffs above The River.
The biggest hurdle is figuring out how to get into the city. You can spy the entrances, marked by dimly glowing torches set into the open mouths of tunnels, but they're so high up! Surely you're not meant to climb?
Well, yes and no. Some investigation reveals a series of wood-plank catwalks leading up to the lowest tunnel entrances, but it's a long climb. If you're feeling impatient (and brave), there's also a system of pulleys, ziplines, and simple rope elevators connecting the higher levels to the lower ones. The ropes have clearly been here a while, but they're probably safe, right? What's the worst that could happen, you die all over again?
(Too soon? We get it.)
There's plenty to see once you reach the city itself, even if there isn't much in way of a population. (Until now, at least!) The lamps and torches lining the walls are packed with the same bioluminescent plantlife that can be found elsewhere in the cavern, so there's no risk of them spontaneously going out. There are signs placed strategically throughout the tunnel system to point you toward major landmarks, using only simple iconography.
The city itself certainly appears lived in, even if it's currently empty; in fact, if you pay close attention to the signage and the decor, there appear to be layers of activity not unlike the rings of a very old tree. Older tapestries covered with newer ones with entirely different patterns; boxes of radically different table trinkets carefully stored in apartment closets, to make room for new ones on a shelf; evidence of the stone market stalls having multiple different usages, many of them apparently in sequence.
Some of those tapestries or trinkets might even be familiar to you, like they came from a culture of your homeworld. Strange, though, since you didn't arrive with anything similar on you. Where could they possibly have come from?
VENTURE IN THE DARK
The Cavern is big, and The Ferryman's Lantern only reaches so far. If you want to explore, you'll need to brave the darkness— and whatever else might be waiting out there for you.
You'll have some light, at least, even if it isn't much: the luminescent plants grow throughout the cave system, including its winding tunnels and cramped smaller chambers. As for whatever else might be lurking out there, well... without The Lantern, there's not much you can do to keep them at bay.
The Ferryman calls them "wraiths", if you were curious enough to ask beforehand. They're more what you might typically expect from the idea of a ghost: pale and insubstantial, like mist struggling to take and keep a shape.
And they certainly do have shapes; those shapes are just incomplete, sometimes blurry, like a pencil drawing that has smudged and faded over time. They have faces that seem to have been stretched too long or too wide; they have eyes with no color, unblinking, always staring back; some of them have mouths that never close, while others have no mouths at all; some of them have hands with wispy tendrils of grasping fingers; others' limbs seem to have lost their shape entirely.
There are dozens of them lingering just outside the boundary of The Lantern, and many more roaming throughout The Cavern. They do not speak, or otherwise make any sounds at all. They do not swarm, either, even when one of The Ferryman's souls crosses the boundary. They simply watch, and, seemingly at random, some will choose to follow you anywhere you go throughout The Cavern.
Annoying, maybe. Creepy, certainly. But that seems to be all. Just remember: The Lantern is the only thing that keeps the wraiths at bay. They can't hurt you, out in the darkness, but they will notice you, they will follow you, and they will remember you.
If your exploration takes you to the catacombs, you may find that your wraith shadows get lost just as easily as you in the tunnel system. Perhaps they get distracted? Or maybe they have some curiosity about the tunnels that outweighs their curiosity about you? Either way, it's possible to lose them for some amount of time there— but the wraiths aren't bound by petty things like physics the way you are. They will find you again eventually, either by floating through some wall, appearing at the dead-end of a tunnel, or even just waiting at the entrance for you to emerge again.
If, on the other hand, you find yourself stumbling upon the whispering pools, you'll discover that wraiths gather in droves there, circling the pools, sometimes trying in vain to press their faces to the water. The wraiths that followed you here seem to be the only exception; whatever the pools are saying, it's apparently not interesting enough to draw them away from you.
Aren't you lucky?
Image credits: 1, 2, 3 + stock imagery unless otherwise noted
the cavern
( It's the easy, sleazy, feline crawl of it all, the slither through the catacombs that get him. As if they're vermin, belly down, head bowed, back molten. No dignity in this here fine exploration, and the itch that pulses in pinpricks and spider webs in Claire's palms warms, coils, grows. The gelid edge of his frustration drowns it.
Must be hours he's walked the subterranean deserts. Must be a hot minute. Must be ugly, when his patience thins.
Fee-fi-fo-fum. He smells the crackling, half-burnt energy of the wisps and glimmers of presence and their shadow play, the countless entities that orbit him like moths to flame. He's left them to it, less charitable than indifferent. The strong can afford a certain largesse. And be they alive, or be they dead, Claire Stanfield will grind their bones to make his —
Tinny, gravelly, scorched-earth sound, something in between tectonic shift, babe's wail and laughter. Oh. Oh, it's a — man, farther out, steps ahead. Presumably. Or a better-grown revenant, unlike the infant hauntings that cling and orbit Claire's arms and gather at his back, as if bashful children confronted with a particularly diabolical clown. Don't get anywhere close to their well earned credit, clowns.
This jokester of a fella, though. He's a riot and a half, and Claire's bloodless but grinning, slaughter-free and (still) proud, waving along in a greeting that ripples through the dozens of wisps that surround him. )
...you know anything livelier? Little jazz in your repertoire?
no subject
[Celehar pauses in the process of straightening his robes, his attention fixating on the stranger approaching him in a way that his preoccupation with the spirits had not previously allowed him. Red hair, and again those strange, blunt ears - a truly strange place he has found himself, among strangers not of the Elflands or their neighbors.
A character, this, certainly. Celehar is used to being the odd one when it comes to the dead, but for a man to walk with a smile through a place such as this... it sets a prickle running down Celehar's spine as he turns to face him fully. He's frowning at the seeming non-sequitor, those long, pointed ears of him shifting back against his skull.]
I do not take your meaning, Mer.
no subject
( ...small town, maybe a village. No where with a local paper? Definitely no radio, let alone a joint. To think there are still people, in between Claire's carefully curated honey-slowed blinks, who haven't heard of jazz. )
Right. ( Can't be helped. Worse sins to be committing in the thickened miasma of an unyielding dark. Things go missing when lights're out long: dignity. Limbs. ) Old-fashioned?
( There's an edge of that to the man's ensemble, what little of it sketches out before Claire's feline, sharpening gaze. No drawn blade, no gun. That's all that matters in an early acquaintance; metal's honest, it betrays itself. Glistens even on a starless night.
So, they're not for quarrel, then. Shame! Might as well walk together, Claire waving his very best friend to wander along, grit stone and the slick of the river's cold condensation tumbling underfoot. Where are they headed? Who knows? Where Satan opens his door. )
Try a little song and dance. Beats prayer any day of the week and twice on Sundays. ( If he were ribbon-rope of fleshless form, he wouldn't care for anyone's misplaced compassion. ) You'll be popular.
no subject
'Old-fashioned', hah. It's certainly a more interesting choice than the 'provincial' he might otherwise have expected. He walks through the catacombs still, not stretching his legs to leave this new stranger behind.]
If you want for entertainment, Mer, I suggest you find an Opera-house for it, for I have no talent for it. [Singing would be painful for everyone involved, with a voice like his.] I know well the reputation of my calling.
no subject
( Testy, testy. Some folks just don't take the absence of sunlight well. Need all that grass and air and their wine, too. Sure, Claire knows the kin and kind.
And he knows, above all, the only danger in a stagnant, abyssal trench is lying still. Move it, move it. Keep moving. If the confused chasm of this world is only a dream within his dream — he's unlikely to have excluded antagonists.
He starts, slowly, to invite a pace. )
Mer, huh? Afraid you've got the wrong guy. Must be I've got one of those common faces. ( ...virtually and unhelpfully invisible in the enshrouding darkness. ) Name's Felix.
( As luck will have it, perhaps not one of those common names. )
no subject
[An honorific, then, one that hopefully clarifies itself in the use, though Celehar seems ill put-upon by the response once again, his lips pressing together. Felix certainly isn't aligning with Celehar's expectations.
Not that anything about walking through this strange, impossible crypt meets expectations. Even the man's name sits strangely on Celehar's tongue. He can, at least, introduce himself in turn.]
Thara Celehar. I do hope that entertainment is not what brings you here.
no subject
( Slow and steady wins whatever race is determined to morph into a marathon survival of the fittest. They're in top shape, he supposes: young enough, nimble enough, strong enough. Blind, but for marginal glimpses of shapes flinching and shivered in the dark.
Could do worse. Could do better. He feels the restlessness again, like a tug on a wet silk knot, and now he tightens. Breathes. In and out and in again, and he is nothing, he supposes, if not excruciated by purpose.
His fingers, passing by, spider over rock, tickling away layers of moist dust and matted moss. )
I bring myself here. ( And softer: ) Aren't people found where they put themselves?
no subject
Celehar's mouth twists, an expression that may be hidden somewhat in the dark, and stares down this figure who is his companion for the moment. Perhaps he should expect nothing less than to meet such a strange man in a strange place like this one, but the man answers each question like a street philosopher.
If he were asking these questions as a Witness, Celehar would have many reasons to suspect this man of something. As it is, he bites the inside of his lip for a moment and then answers, in as calm a tone as he can summon;]
Nevertheless, you have a reason for wandering amongst these shades?
no subject
( He wipes his hands clean of invisible motes, straddles them on his lower back neatly, clasped and tight. Gentlemen walk like this, with sturdy posture. Fits a cavernous promenade. )
Sure. I followed a chicken across the road. ( A beat. ) This was on the other side.
( Cracks himself up, he does, Claire does, gaze molten lead and thinning. They could be any two fond friends, any strangers in a long night, killers in a closet. They could just have a laugh. Keep walking. )
You know that one? Funny, right? ( And pointing back to where a knot of wisps bundle and tighten and pulse loose, trailing behind them: ) They're laughing.
( Takes a tough crowd not to appreciate a classic. Sometimes, they do better without their teeth. ) What are you here for, pal? The view?
no subject
Not for entertainment.
[He pauses in their ambling path, kneeling again to check some scatter of rubble, his hands gentle and cautious as though the act might truly uncover something precious among the lichen-tattered stone.]
I hoped that there might be some sign of their remains, that these ghosts could be put to rest.
no subject
( ...dropped something? The walls strain, silence sycophantic. A world alive, playing pretend. He looms, smear of passing soot on his cheek begging quick retrieval, tip of his finger hasty to sweep it off, on instinct — then, because it might be a pretty thing to become some other monster's monster, to press it in.
It comes to him like an afterthought: he could try to push this man, crouching and kneeling and bent down, he supposes. Could burn his face with rubble-stone, crown his throat with hard clutch and draw him up the walls. Where there's a will —
He looks away, from nothing to nothing. Whistles. )
If you need to say prayer service, go ahead. ( Prayer, right? ) I'll watch your back.
( He surprises himself to realise he's decided so. )
no subject
A prayer would be for the benefit of - [Of the living, he would usually say, but no, that isn't quite true here, now is it? They are more alike these shades than he cares to think about.] - of our hearts, not for the ease of theirs.
[As neat as he's going to get, considering the circumstances, Thara looks ahead once more.]
... Still, I would like to search a while longer.
no subject
You know, priest...
( Father's for blood, for family, for insinuations of more than placid commitment. Is the gentleman of the holiest cloth least likely to betray itself with stain of blood, gut and innards' waters? Perhaps. Staring's doing Claire no kindness, but extrapolating between ambiguities — sure. He's got the look.
But at least they're going somewhere. Anywhere. Rising. Head to turn around the block, maybe, where Claire suspects he's glimpsing the better part of a pale, dissipating tendril — hide and seek, huh? Bit of chase? Figures even the dead need some leisurely diversions. )
Where there're bones, there's something gnawing on them.
( Casual, casual. Breezy and fine. ) And those remains you're looking for run big.
( The mouth that might enjoy them could be bigger. )
no subject
But the insinuation only has Celehar gesturing a casual dismissal, his attention already focusing ahead once more.]
If there is anything left of these bodies, it must be little more than bones, by now. Little to attract carrion-feeders. If any remain to give rise to a ghoul, it hopefully will not have had much to feed on. It can be named - or at the very least, easily outrun.
[He says all of this perfectly matter-of-factly. Of course ghouls exist, and of course they might be stopped.]
no subject
( Hold up. Just a while, to think in style. He rescues from deep within the troves of his black heart a moment's alert to blink and blink and blink — and comprehend that stupor's a strange disposition to communicate in the dark. A private affair, as it were.
Then, brushing tussled hair off where the high humidity of the cavern's sticking it to his forehead, mighty agreeably: ) ...ghouls?
( That sounds like the start of a story, not the end of a conversation. Mythical, almost. Just a little... unhinged. )
no subject
[Still perfectly matter-of-fact - he's ready to continue on, but having to turn to catch Felix, realizes through something - maybe the simple stillness of the man's posture, maybe the movement to brush his hair back from his face, that more explanation might be required.]
In the south they are not a problem, but in the north, untended graves will often raise a ghoul. Do not dismiss them as mere legend, Mer Felix - they are as real as these ghosts.
no subject
( Ghouls. Ghosts. Revenants and wisps from beyond an unwatched grave, and Claire's blinking, oh, he's blinking, he's letting it sink and steep, tip of his head nearly unnatural in the strain on the upper steps of his backbone. The set of his shoulders.
So he's with a kook. Sure. Off his bender. Gone with the wind, and all the other euphemisms that politely describe they who must be gently escorted but not heeded. Can't even take offense with a maniac, can you?
You just nod, politely. You just get on with things, and you walk on, and you make sure they don't trip on their laces. )
Are the ghouls in the cave with us right now?
no subject
[Celehar gestures to the strange wraiths that have once more collected around them. He says this, too, entirely evenly. In those black robes, with his pale hair and severe face, he does not look like a man much inclined for joking, but then madness can come in many forms.]
But, as I said - should there be, they will be slow.
no subject
If I were dead — ( A pause, considering, considering, considering. Letting it settle and wait and weigh down his tongue, digesting it like an allergen. Could be poison, the revelation of it all. Could be exposure therapy.
He whistles, tinny. )
If I were dead. ( And he isn't, he decides, because death is the end of all things, and he was their beginning, and to be frank, he sees no incentive to undo himself during polite conversation — ) And someone brought me back, I wouldn't return with an attitude. Slow or not slow.
( No, sir. Not Claire. ) I'd be mannered.
no subject
The internal debate takes him several long seconds, delaying his response. In the end, he resettles himself, and lands on;]
Ghouls are creatures of flesh and hunger. I do not believe many would choose to return as one. [And those that would... Celehar suppresses a shiver, one hand landing against his chest.]
no subject
( Because the ghouls — who may or may not be in the cave with them — are paragons of flesh-born misfortune, and theirs is the righteous indignation of the newly revived. Sure. He's got compassion to extend to bundles of joy and bones risking the natural order of the dearly deceased just to come back for a good time.
For a moment, Celehar's silence a construct of sluggish stupor between them, Claire fills that space with the whole of his body, the entire, stretched-out length of his geometries: here, his arms up and extending, then his spine a mean, snapped arc. Like a cat that's always known solidity is just a point of view. )
I don't see one. ( They barely see anything, dregs or drips or ashes. A hard breath swells and tortures his lungs in licks of agony. Too much vastness, too little oxygen. Nothing like staleness and squalor. )
That's what you do? You... chase ghouls with your day? ( Pray over them, more likely. ) Put'em to bed? That's a living?
no subject
[It is the easiest answer he knows how to give for that question, as solemn as it is, but it's not quite adequate. Or rather, it's the evasive version. He may not be entirely sure of this Felix, but as far as one can be said to truly understand death, he has spent more time living with it than most.
... and when that steadfast denial on Felix's part wears off, Celehar might anticipate some worry for the man.]
Little of it is ghouls, however. Most aspects of dealing with death remain mundane, if morbid. A question of simple practicalities.