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Linya and Bella are working on wishes, in between light chat about runecasting and their personal lives. It is radiantly obvious to people paying attention that Bella wants to kiss her and Linya is married, although neither statement is made.
Ivans are playing cards.
Mileses, including Solvei, are debating the wisdom of borrowing another strategy game from Bar; Mark, a voice of caution, does not know what will happen if all of them (Solvei, Mial, Miles, Milo, Stalas) all start screaming at each other in twenty directions.
And -
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thisvorlunatic
The rest of the Miles table peers at Milan to find out what is so funny, and each break out in a grin when they see it.
onceandforall
"Do you definitely not recognize us?" sighs Bella. "Because if there's an us in your world we probably need to hug her or something."
first-and-final
"Can't say that I do, no," says Milan. "But it's a big world, is there some guarantee that I'd have met her already?"
isthisart
"Not at all, but if you haven't met you you'd have a hard time getting her through the door while continuously holding it open, so it's functionally similar."
first-and-final
"Yeah, that's true. Is 'Hubris' that hilarious?" he asks the giggle contingent.
unmarred
"The fact that you wrote it down right after mentioning that you were thinking of world names in terms of what you would and would not like to have written on you," says Inlaith.
first-and-final
"Okay, that's fair," says Milan. "...I now feel compelled to issue a general warning, in case the fact that I named my world after it is misleading: hubris gets you killed, indulge with caution."
onceandforall
"This is again not true of our worlds. All hubris gets me is a 'sorry, no can do, try again' from the fluffy wish-granting alien."
first-and-final
"I figured, or I wouldn't have thought you needed the warning," says Milan. "Since you are all alive and in some cases astonishingly healthy."
"Astonishingly yourself," says Milo, somewhat ungrammatically. "What's with those scars?"
"You first, what's with the radiant glow?"
"Fairy blessing. Perfect health. Which is convenient because I also have a fairy curse, fragile bones, it seems like painful and disabling conditions are a theme with us."
"Hah. Nice, but I wouldn't trade you," says Milan. "My curse is that my pain never fades, but my blessing is that I always have the mental space to cope, and I can turn it up and down to my liking. For example, witness how I am currently neither suffering terrible agony nor talking like a sylph. ...If you don't have sylphs in the science fantasy planes, substitute 'four times as fast as normal'."
"Astonishingly yourself," says Milo, somewhat ungrammatically. "What's with those scars?"
"You first, what's with the radiant glow?"
"Fairy blessing. Perfect health. Which is convenient because I also have a fairy curse, fragile bones, it seems like painful and disabling conditions are a theme with us."
"Hah. Nice, but I wouldn't trade you," says Milan. "My curse is that my pain never fades, but my blessing is that I always have the mental space to cope, and I can turn it up and down to my liking. For example, witness how I am currently neither suffering terrible agony nor talking like a sylph. ...If you don't have sylphs in the science fantasy planes, substitute 'four times as fast as normal'."
thisvorlunatic
"Good God," says Miles. "You can just become intensely manic at will?"
"I'd trade for that," says Mial, deeply impressed. "Not that you'd want what I could get you in return."
"I'd trade for that," says Mial, deeply impressed. "Not that you'd want what I could get you in return."
middlingalong
"I mean, things as they are now he wouldn't have to keep it, but he's a you so I guess he would," says Aurin.
isthisart
"I assume you won't touch science painkillers with a thirty-foot pole."
first-and-final
"You assume so very correctly," says Milan.
"So why are some of your scars fading so fast I can actually see it happen, and some of them not going anywhere?" wonders Milo.
"The fading ones are from the skirmish game I just played," Milan explains. "Mocked—that is, illusory—weapons can inflict realistic illusory harms up to and including fake death without doing any lasting damage at all, if you're a normal person. Me, I get scars, but they tend to stick around for a few hours at most. And the pain stays, of course. The pain always stays."
"So why are some of your scars fading so fast I can actually see it happen, and some of them not going anywhere?" wonders Milo.
"The fading ones are from the skirmish game I just played," Milan explains. "Mocked—that is, illusory—weapons can inflict realistic illusory harms up to and including fake death without doing any lasting damage at all, if you're a normal person. Me, I get scars, but they tend to stick around for a few hours at most. And the pain stays, of course. The pain always stays."
thisvorlunatic
"...You're doing this deliberately, aren't you," says Mial. "Playing a game in which people try to fake cut your head off with a fake axe, to raise the ceiling. I don't know whether I'm impressed or appalled."
unmarred
"Impressed," say Mark and Inlaith in precise unison. They look at each other and grin.
middlingalong
"So we shouldn't have Mial teleport away and get a light? Lights are not a science thing," says Aurin.
middlingalong
"Healers. They're just born that way, they drink a lot of water and absorb sunshine and if they do this," he cups his hands together, "they get a little ball of light and if anybody who isn't a light touches it they are healed. Doesn't actually fix scars, those they have to dig out first."
first-and-final
Milan blinks. "...I mean, having somebody dig out my scars and apply healing would certainly be an interesting way to bump the ceiling up a little - nice phrasing, unusually short me - but I doubt it would fix anything, and it might just add a bunch more scars."
middlingalong
"You probably couldn't get them to do it if you weren't knocked out or at least dosed on painkilling potions - I don't know if potions count as a science thing."
first-and-final
"Yeah, I'm not keen to try any potion brewed in Science Fantasy Land. And painkillers do shit for me anyway - they work on current pain, not past or future. So if I'm not presently injured they're completely useless, and even when I am, as soon as the painkillers wear off the echoes are just like I'd never taken any."
onceandforall
"You know, I'd never thought of my world as a Science Fantasy Land before but when I go home I'm going to have a new appreciation for gravity and microwaves."
isthisart
"Unfortunately it sounds like you'll be very inhibited in your ability to bring home useful souvenirs. Pens are obviously out of the question, I'm not sure if you even want runecasting books."