IC Inbox | Ryslig

[summonthesuit]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, HASNOFEAR. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 13.15.15.14 *** HASNOFEAR has joined 13.15.15.14 <HASNOFEAR> Hello! This is Steven Grant! If you need something, just leave me a message and I'll get back to you asap!

Comments

[leggierissimo]

Oh? Well, if that doesn't sound familiar... That's basically my job, though I don't destroy them. I test and judge, and anyone that doesn't pass is returned to the collective soul code for reuse. Only for my district, though - in a system built for refining, it's better to have quality over quantity, so it's very small-batch.

[summonthesuit]

[Steven's heard stories about afterlives in other worlds before and somehow, each one is stranger than the next. Stranger, and fascinating.]

Souls can be reused? Is that a bit like reincarnation, or...?

[leggierissimo]

[Oh boy, Steven, wait until you hear about the Game.]

It's exactly like reincarnation. Sometimes we can pull a soul from the overall code and turn it into a Noise, but it's not the ideal course, so it's only done in emergencies.

[summonthesuit]

[Oh good, Steven's a big fan of reincarnation. Sure, eternity in peaceful bliss sounds fantastic, but if the alternative is eternity in torment or outright destruction, that just makes it a system of two extremes. More and more, he's started to think the judging process isn't fair. It's better, then, to give someone a second chance.

Joshua's words don't entirely add up, though. He frowns, looking a little lost.]

A Noise? Sorry, I don't... What's a Noise, exactly?

[leggierissimo]

The aforementioned creatures that eat souls. One created from the soul code is considerably more tame than naturally-occurring ones, however. They tend to appear like heavily-stylized animals. I don't suppose you were here back in June?

[It would make things a lot easier. If not? He has other ways.]

[summonthesuit]

[June... Jeesh, that month is such a blur to him. His tail starts swinging left and right a little restlessly.]

I was, but just barely. I was busy moving in and exploring the city and... Getting used to all the bonkers shit that goes on 'round here. There was a lot to process.

[leggierissimo]

Ah. Was that the month you arrived? I assume you probably weren't pulled into things that month, then, if it doesn't sound familiar.

[Not that he'll elaborate! Instead, he'll gesture with one hand to the floor. A hologram of a stylized frog flickers into existence, but it looks considerably more realistic than any hologram has a right to. Breathing, natural movement, the works.]

This is a Noise. One of many, and relatively innocent unless you're unequipped to tackle it.

[summonthesuit]

[The sudden appearance of a hologram frog causes him to take a step back, lightly alarmed. How? It looks really neat, but also HOW?]

O-Oh... That's a funny-looking little bugger. And this came from a human soul...? Or was it, like, a frog soul? Do frogs have souls?

[leggierissimo]

[Did he just blow his once-a-day illusion Fourth boon? Maybe. But it's worth it.]

All living things have soul, but not in the way you're thinking. Soul is an ambient energy, in a sense. When a person or an animal dies, and in the person's case they don't pass the test, the soul that made them them returns to the collective. Noise can be created from that energy and bound to a pin, to be summoned at will, but there are also naturally-occurring Noise that sort of just form themselves. They're not nearly as obedient.

[He keeps his eyes trained on the Noise frog. A little gesture of his fingers makes it change, as though he's swiping through a gallery on his phone - first a bird, then a wolf and a jellyfish, before finally settling on a grizzly that looms as tall as a werebear. After a moment, he lets the illusion fall, and the room is back to being Noise-less.]

They latch on to and feed off of negative human emotions, so if you've ever been in an unexplainably intensifying bad mood, that's probably why. If Noise exist in your world, anyway.

[summonthesuit]

[Steven would agree it's worth it. That illusion is really cool! In fact, all of the forms it takes are cool, even if some are also bit terrifying. He would've liked to try touching them, but alas, they're already gone. MAAAN...]

Oh... I wouldn't know if Noise exists in my world. Wouldn't be surprising if it did, though. But is that why you think Nephilim should've been able to feed off of energy? 'Cause souls are a kind of energy in your world?

[leggierissimo]

[Unfortunately, even if he'd tried, his fingers would have gone right through them. Alas! In the end, they're only incredibly realistic holograms.]

More or less, yes. While in my world souls are energy, in this one they aren't. It's a bit different here. I wouldn't consume soul energy back at home either, but when you have such a distinct separation of soul and energy here, it's easier to go for the option that is less likely to leave someone a husk.

[summonthesuit]

[Fingers going through the holograms would've been cool in its own way!]

Yeah... Makes sense. The person you feed on ends up dead either way, but there's something about taking the soul out first that's... Eerie. No better word for it.

[leggierissimo]

Mm. It seems cruel, honestly. It helps to leave them alive for energy feeders, but I know I wouldn't want to be sent into a vegetative state.

[Again. Not that he remembers much of it, though.]

[summonthesuit]

... Yep. Same here.

[He doesn't have any real experience with those kind of states, but he already knows he would hate it. This conversation took a pretty dark turn, didn't it?]

Anyway, all the more reason to ask Mana for a different food source, innit?