Rain Rain Rain Come Down Down Down [open to multiple]

[biscuit_powered]

Very little in this place has proved familiar, and that which is familiar has proved uncanny. Asmodia's life has run the gamut from metropolis to frontier and back again, but until being taken by this Rift she had never seen anything like Manhattan. Bustling port cities she's seen, but this city is like something out of fantasy. The word 'skyscraper' is oddly appealing in its imaginative accuracy, even if the buildings it denotes are less appealing. They blot out the sky in a way even Kintargo's grizzled skyline never managed, and they make her feel simultaneously trapped and as though she should expect one to topple down on top of her at any moment.

This is far from the first time circumstances have called upon her to adapt herself to a foreign culture, but she had never imagined she would encounter one this foreign...or that she would find herself nearly powerless with no indication of when or how she might regain her magic. She's been keenly aware of her relative inability to kill her enemies defend herself since being returned here; it's as though Biscuit has completely forgotten most of the spells she taught him. It's a struggle to prepare each of the spells that remain for even one use each day, and all Biscuit can give her are Deception's spells. Maybe she should be grateful for what she has given that their survival here will likely be predicated on their ability to pass unnoticed, but she has grown accustomed to living openly and to responding to threats with violence, not subterfuge.

Not that anyone has threatened her. True, she's spent most of her time hiding out in the little living space assigned to her, quietly testing her new limits, but the worst she's gotten on her brief forays outdoors are odd looks. Odd looks she's used to, but sooner or later she'll have to make another attempt to buy some local clothing because the human guise alone isn't cutting it. Her first attempt was a miserable failure, the layout of the stores and labeling of the goods even more confusing than the grocers she's visited, and since then she's simply worn the clothes in which she arrived, washing them in her new abode's sink a few times at great inconvenience and with mixed success.

Today, at last, she is growing bolder...if only from boredom. Trouble is, she doesn't know where to go or what to do with herself, and she doesn't have any money with which to do it anyhow. She heads down to the ground level and outside only to wander aimlessly a few minutes, listless and annoyed at the realization that she has no idea what to do with herself.

If there's one thing she's always known how to do, though, it's how to take out her frustrations on strangers. An idea forms as she passes one stranger after another on the street, and once it occurs to her it sticks. It wouldn't hurt anyone, not really, and it would give her something to do for the next hour or so, and maybe most importantly, it would remind her that she's not helpless.

So that's why Asmodia and Biscuit have picked out a spot in the Sheep Meadow and commenced dancing. They're both pretty bad at it, and Asmodia's eldritch chanting is almost entirely unmusical, but for the first time in a while she's starting to feel a reassuring (if likely fleeting) sense of control. She's Asmodia Antarion. She's faced devils and felled giants, and she can and she will command the elements themselves for her own petty amusement. Enjoy the coming rainstorm, Manhattan. Or just enjoy the performance art; it's not every day you see a LARPer and a giant rodent performing a rain dance.


[OOC: Asmodia is using a hex to control the weather! Unfortunately for pranking purposes, this hex requires a literal solid hour of dancing and chanting with her familiar and she's chosen to do it in a public place, whoops. She might try to brush aside briefer distractions, but whenever anyone gets her mind too far off what she's doing she's going to have to start over. Subsequent interrupters will get an increasingly frustrated Asmodia.]

Comments

[biscuit_powered]

"But you're not a ghost," she points out, because clearly he's not. There would a lot more wailing and indiscriminately attacking people. "So you're saying that you do this at will?"

This is all distressingly bizarre and again, she really wishes she'd spent more time studying the full pantheon because maybe there's something like this in all the legends. Maybe he is a servitor of whatever being uplifted him, but he's really very insistent that he's not divine at all and he should know, shouldn't he?

"Alright," she decides. "Alright, you're -- whatever you are. Extraplanar."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Kind of?" he says after a puzzled pause, drawing the words out slowly. "I'm - I'm energy, basically. And I did it, well. I did it because I didn't really have much choice at the time."

It was Ascend or never see home again, and the thought was unacceptable, still is unacceptable. He's not dying permanently in a universe he doesn't even belong to. He hasn't made a habit of doing that yet, and he's certainly not about to start now. Never mind that he sort of already has.

'Ghost' isn't a good word for it, but neither is 'god'. But neither, he notes miserably, is 'human'.

[biscuit_powered]

"...I don't get it," she admits, because she doesn't think she's going to get it if it's not something that fits into those familiar terms. "But if you're not a god, you're not a god -- and I do know about making hard choices," she offers, because he's looking so down about it all. The guy could be (is) mistakable for a god, and he's moping about it. If she had that kind of power --

If she had that kind of power, she'd hopefully have the sense to keep a lid on it lest something even bigger and stronger come along. Maybe that's the take-home for today, all things considered.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yeah, um. It's complicated," he says after an indecisive pause, expression momentarily flickering into something pained. Complicated in far too many ways, many of which he has no idea how to define, let alone address.

"Sorry about the interruption." It feels a bit belated at this point, but it bears mentioning. "I was just curious, is all." He's gotten a close look at the varied brands of angelic magic, but nothing like this, nothing similar to a hex. It's intriguing, he won't deny it.

[biscuit_powered]

"I could start it again?" she offers, though the thought of beginning all the way from the beginning -- and with a dedicated audience -- isn't as appealing as coming out here to do it in the first place had been. "It just -- just takes an hour. Of dancing."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Oh," says Daniel, his expression reforming, taken aback.

He doesn't want to request for her to start over or do it again since, well, an hour of dancing sounds like a bit of a commitment if it's done in the linear sense, which seems to be the general course for non-Ascended beings. He is genuinely interested in the many and varied forms of energy flowering out at infrequent points all about the city but in this case it's not so much natural as it is a conscious effort, and that's quite a bit different.

It leaves him feeling unsure as to what one should say to that.

"Oh," he says again.

[biscuit_powered]

"Yeeeah," she replies because believe her, she gets it, even if she's thinking more in terms of him not wanting to stick around and watch her dance for an hour. Lest he think that all her magic is useless due to time constraints, she adds, "There's quicker stuff but not, you know, weather. Do you...do you have magic, where you come from?"

Not a question she'd ever imagined she'd ask any reasonable person, but this world is so devoid of spellcasters that she's having to face the possibility that her own world might not be the norm.

[peacefulexplorer]

"Not generally." He shakes his form's head. Unless one counted the Ancients, which didn't qualify so much as 'magic' as simply the higher plane lending access to more power. "Clarke's third law, you know."

[biscuit_powered]

"I don't know," Asmodia points out with a sigh. "Who's Clarke, and how'd he manage to outlaw magic? Because that wouldn't stick even where I come from, and believe me they're big on laws there."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Oh. Oh, no." Well, he really should have realized that wasn't a great reference. Her universe has already proven to be significantly different from his own. "It's not - Clarke's third law - 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' We don't have it, really, just - technology that seems like it."

[biscuit_powered]

"Uh huh." Law of the universe then, not a law of the land. She mulls it over, considering the implications of the concept. There's technology back home that looks like magic at first glance, to be sure, but it's easily distinguishable if you're studied. "If it's indistinguishable, why do you assume it isn't magic?" she asks.

[peacefulexplorer]

It's a fair question. One side of his mouth quirks upward as his shoulders lift in a shrug.

"Can't promise I understand it, but I have some friends who can explain the science of it." With plenty of in-depth, polysyllabic words he can't remember.

[biscuit_powered]

"Then it's not indistinguishable, is it?" asks Asmodia, the edge of her own mouth quirking up at the little victory of logic. She waves a hand at his apparently incorporeal form with a rueful smile. "So this is technology, huh?"

[peacefulexplorer]

"In a sense." He considers it, thoughtful. "It is possible to digitally Ascend. There are - lots of ways to go about it, I guess. In my case?" His smile softens, but retains its rueful edge. "I kinda got lucky. Ascension's just a science we haven't fully figured out yet."

[biscuit_powered]

"Well, back home it's usually, you know. Divine. Think you could teach me how? I'm always open to new experiences."

And if it's not divine, she might actually have a shot at it. Ascending from the mortal coil isn't exactly something to which she's devoted her life, but if there's opportunity...well, she really doesn't see why he's so glum about living on a higher plane of existence.

tw: brief suicide ideation

[peacefulexplorer]

"To Ascend?" He looks at her, aghast.

Maybe to her, it's an honest question. Even if it were his home, it would still be a reasonable question. Despite it, his shoulders drop briefly in a movement suggestive of the uncomfortable shuffling of feet.

'Accident' he'd said, and it hadn't exactly been untrue. He hadn't conformed to any of the stipulations the Others insisted upon - he'd broken rules, he'd circumvented them countless times, twisted loopholes upon loopholes, discussed or negotiated his way out of punishment, he'd acted arrogantly and brashly and self-righteously. And it had placed him beyond anyone's help, placed him in a position where he was left mnemonically scrubbed, mind empty and open, cast into physical flesh. He'd never wanted it, he'd never believed himself worthy until that doubt had been riven open and Oma had extended that road to him.

"It's not really a consistent thing," he says slowly, looking away. "And I'm - well. I'm an anomaly. It's not really for humans, not really for anyone at that level in the evolutionary scale."

Could he? If she was dying, if there was no other way, and if he had to -

The mass of his energy shifts, pulling deeper into itself. Maybe. Maybe he could. Maybe the effort would trigger some cessation of his existence. Maybe that wouldn't be so terrible.

[biscuit_powered]

That look he gives her -- it's like she'd asked him something bad. Like she'd asked him to teach her how to become a lich or vampire...or, maybe, how to pledge one's soul to a patron. Her grin falters as it becomes immediately apparent that she's overstepped something big, as he goes on explaining anyway, reiterating what she'd already guessed: it's not for her. Not him, either, except by chance.

She forces a chuckle. "Hey, it was a joke," she lies lamely. Maybe it was a little bit a joke. "I've got a good setup in this body, don't worry about me."

[peacefulexplorer]

"Yeah," he says, expression resettling into something conflicted. "Good. That's - better."

He scrabbles for a means to redirect the conversation, away from the hefty, uncomfortable weight of the topic he doesn't want to broach.

"You're probably more powerful like this, anyway." He nods at her, trying to will nonchalance into his form's posture. "The Rift seems to be, uh, actively suppressing most of what I should be capable of."

[biscuit_powered]

"What, seriously?" If she was expecting some kind of consolation from him, she didn't expect it to be that. There's no way a mortal being is more powerful than someone who can legitimately describe himself as 'ascended' and pop around here and there seeing through people's illusions at will.

Or...maybe not. A grimace settles over her features as she reflects on how much power she's lost since arriving here, until she catches herself and schools her features into a tight smile. "I mean, yeah! Yeah, if it's, uh, stopping you doing stuff, that's not -- great. You're right, you're completely right, at least I still have my magic. Alll of my magic."

She never was a very good devotee of Deception.

[peacefulexplorer]

That affirmation sounds a little too repetitive to be completely - well. Being what he is doesn't allow everyone the same measure of privacy as it would if he were human, as he has no grasp over how to turn each sensory capability off.

"Just, uh. Be careful, maybe," he offers, skirting the topic, lifting his gaze skyward speculatively. "If you try anything too big the Rift tends to, ah - hit back."

His tone doesn't seem to know whether to settle on wry or melancholic.

[biscuit_powered]

"I think it's more if you try anything too direct," says Asmodia, perfectly happy to skate right on by the subject of her current power level. "I tried to, uh...look at it, the first day I was back here, the same way I looked at you just now. From what I've heard I shouldn't have been able to see anything at all, it's not really magic making this all happen, exactly, but it knocked me flat. Literally."

[peacefulexplorer]

"It's more like, uh - an entity." Is that even the right word for it? It's beyond his conception no matter what form he's in, even while on a whole other plane. "It's sentient to an extent, it has moods and it - experiments with us when it feels like it. But it doesn't really lend itself to being understood."

Either it doesn't want to or it's just entirely on another level, and neither option is all that consoling.

[biscuit_powered]

"Yeah, I don't know if what I saw was actually the Rift or if it was what the Rift wanted to show me, but it was...something else." Something else she's surprised in hindsight didn't give her an aneurism. "It's not like you are, if that's any comfort," she adds, because while Daniel's just a magical nonentity the Rift was...something visible, kind of, or a void, or both. She frowns, trying to steer her mind away from the memory of how it had just opened into nothingness -- no, let's not talk about that, either, it's another subject to avoid.

"Experiments how?"

[peacefulexplorer]

"Like, well, like this, for starters." He gestures at himself, mouth twisting wryly. "I think it wanted to see what would happen. See if I could do it. And that's not even getting into the dreams."

Whether it had been curious or vindictive or both, he's left with little doubt that the Rift did what it did to him purposefully.

"We're its things," he finishes glumly. "To toy with whenever it feels like it."

[biscuit_powered]

"So it killed you?!" Because he was pretty clear on death being a primary component of how this happened to him. "Dawn's mercy," she mutters. And for something like him, too, to consider himself one of its things...not promising. Not promising in the slightest.