2020-08-20: What May Make Malevolence
- Log: What May Make Malevolence
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Kaguya
- Where: Claiborne
- Date: August 20, 2020
- Summary: In Claiborne, Kaguya and Harmaus meet to speak of recent turn of events, but also the way forward to the 'truth' the Seraph endlessly seeks.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
There are many places where the meeting of two... shall we say, 'accomplices' in a small frontier town would be appropriate. Down by the still yet-to-be-dismantled gates, perhaps. In the tavern, or at the town square. Maybe at the general store or at the stables, even.
Generally speaking, the 'roof of someone's house' is not among these.
But Seraph Harmaus, obeying some inscrutable demands of his nature, is sprawled out on the angled tile roof of someone's property as the sun begins its lazy drift down towards the horizon.
This would be bad enough if he were alone, but he's not.
The final sounds of the day's construction, elsewhere -- the creatures' mark has not yet been pasted over by repairwork -- echoes across the rooftops. The lazing Seraph barely so much as quirks an ear, his arms folded behind his head as he soaks up that last bit of sunlight.
"What learns it?" he asks, his eyes still closed. "We listen and hears much, but not all. Seeking, seeking, still..."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Of course it's a roof. Why not a roof? Kaguya sits on angled tiles, head tilting back and forth a little as she looks into the distance thinking on something. She has done some helping, but she certainly isn't right now. It's sunset. It's fine.
"So," Kaguya says, "The things that messed up this town belonged to a wizard. Same guy, I hear, who did a lot of Malevolence stuff over in Krosse, which is like, the next continent over? I heard stuff about it but haven't seen it, apprently it was super excessive."
Kaguya waves her hand vaguely. "Long story, mostly secondhand." Pause.
"Anyway uhhhhh I also found a bunch of new plants to experiment with but that's not the kind of learning you had in mind probably."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Aah," utters the embodied Seraph, barely even nodding as he takes in the information Kaguya has for him. "We hears this. Krosse. Became a domain, yes. A rare thing even on Lunar!" He half-cracks an eye to look at her. "So here, rarer yet? But domain is gone, gone before we goes to Krosse. A pity. Word travels slowly and so does we!"
Kaguya has some new, rare plants, she says.
And that's about it.
"Yes, yes. New plants, new skills, new hopes. The same with us all. But it has heard nothing more of Malevolence? Aah... a hard thing to find."
Harmaus remains silent after, the only sound in Claiborne the hurried bam-bam-bam of someone attempting to finish this or that part of resconstruction before the light's gone.
"We has thoughts. Will it hear?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Yep, much rarer here. It's the only one I know of. I missed it, but, I'm not complaining that much honestly, it seems like it was kind of a mess. And back then I thought Malevolence was just a thing that bugged humans. It seems... a little bigger."
New things, new things. "That's right--no more about Malevolence, yet." The small blonde folds her hands, looking over to the noise for a moment and then back to Harmaus. "Hmmm," she vocalizes, but it's really just to sound like she's debating it. Her answer, really, is
"Sure. Go for it. I'm curious."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He unfolds an arm from behind his head to gesture, lazily, with that hand.
"We has three ideas," Harmaus begins.
"First, though the power in Baskar Village was too strong, yet, the journey was not in vain, no. We meets another there -- a woman, a former Hellion. 'Ida Everstead-Ray'," he says, as if tasting the syllables. "We thinks, we talks to it. Ask it our questions. Maybe we learns something."
He unfolds a second finger.
"We knows one that became 'more' through Malevolence once, nearly. Nearly, then backed from the precipice! It runs from us, but cannot run forever. We finds it and talks to it."
And then he unfolds a third finger.
"Lastly... we may make Malevolence."
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Three ideas! Kaguya turns to look again at Harmaus, inclines her head as she waits for what the ideas were. The power was too strong, but--"Ohhh, her," Kaguya answers. "Yeah, you did get to run into her. It was a whole thing, her being like that for a while."
"She might answer your questions. She might want to punch you, though. She does that."
"She's pretty good at it," Kaguya admits then. "But if you actually want to talk to her hey, cool I guess."
Almost became 'more'. The thing over the precipice, the 'truth' Harmaus is looking for. "...You might have to be subtle to get more out of her though--she seems upset about it."
But the third--Kaguya tilts her head. "Make it?" she says. "What did you have in mind? I don't exactly have the stuff to make it in a lab."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
He waves that hand in the air dismissively. "Maybe, maybe not. We finds out! If it will not talk, then we have other plans."
He seems unconcerned about the potentiality that Ida might not want to talk about it -- or that she might become violent if pressed. One might even get the impression that this is not exactly a first, this sort of reaction, for him.
Silence carries over the village for a time. Perhaps they've finished for the day? It's hard to know, but it seems likely.
He doesn't seem to care to elucidate further on the matter of the second plan; apparently that's between him and his wayward 'friend'. But for the third...
"Ah, ah," Harmaus cautions, waving a finger as if to scold. "It thinks about it better! What is the nature of Malevolence? Where does it linger? How is it birthed? When it thinks on what is said about Malevolence, it has its answer!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya shrugs a little too. Other plans. They probably aren't very nice, but the way she sees it neither are Harmaus or Ida. They get along a little better than they did once, but that just means they aren't coming to blows immediately.
...On the other hand, the second plan--Kaguya catches that it's someone different still, yet. That's that. But number three...
"Siiiiiiiiigh," Kaguya sighs. "Filgaia doesn't generate it the same way--or at least, I haven't seen it happen here. But when it works you just kinda get a bunch of humans together and make everything miserable. Like the stuff underneath that village was generating it."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Yes, yes," Harmaus agrees, though there's a vaguely irritated edge to the remark. "The Blue Star is not the same as Lunar. That is the mystery we seeks answer to! But, Malevolence can exist here, yes?"
In particular, it coagulates around places where people gather.
On Lunar.
"Yes," the Seraph says again, finally pushing himself upright on the rooftop. He shakes his head and rolls his shoulders in a lengthy stretch. "Yes. It understands. It exists most where people are."
On Lunar.
"But, it resonates best with the ugliness of people. Why? We knows not. Some nature of the mystery that hides behind? Or some other property..." Again, Harmaus shakes his head. "We mulls it not now. We talks about what can be done. ...It resonates best with ugliness inside. Desperation, hatred, terror... but ah, none such in short supply on the Blue Star!" He bares his teeth briefly, then glances over at her. "We needs one thing more to make it bloom bright, yes? What makes it take root in Krosse, in Baskar Village?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"It can exist here, yeah--Yeah, exactly. You need..."
Where people are. Resonates with the ugliness of people. That's a way to put it. "Might figure out why." Kaguya looks into the distance a little--desperation, hatred, terror... No, none of that is in short supply on Filgaia. Kaguya knows that for sure. She's steely for a moment as she looks to nothing in particular.
But then, "...Huh. Yeah, that's right. One more thing. I'm not actually clear on the details of what allowed it in Krosse--but I bet it was a seed. You can't get more of the plant without actually planting it first--all that misery and awfulness is just the soil, the nutrients it needs to grow."
"...So you need a 'starter', a spark."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
They need a place where people are.
They need a lot of ugly feelings.
But more than that, they need--
"Yes."
Harmaus response is for once a simple one, his gaze off towards the horizon, in the direction of the sun. "A 'seed' is needed. A spark for the flames... If we had but been able to take that piece from the grounds..."
He shakes his head, though, apparently unwilling to linger long over bygones. "Perhaps something remains still. Perhaps nothing. But once we finds a 'seed', then, yes, we has much fertile soil!"
He cocks his head, then looks at Kaguya.
"Where thinks it we can find a seed? We wonders if it has thoughts?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
One thing, the one thing that makes it different and makes it possible. Kaguya is wary, of this new plan--but she does need to understand Malevolence better, to be able to deal with it too. They still have common ground on this one.
Kaguya considers. A seed, a spark--whatever metaphor she decides to use. Resting her chin on a fist, Kaguya looks to the horizon, too. "Right, that piece might've done it. Or if you can find a Hellion somewhere..."
Kaguya hmms again. "So where... Obviously, the simplest approach is to find one on Lunar and bring it--that's how we got it here in the first place. Or find a Hellion, or..."
"Looking there might be a good bet--or you could look and find that Seymour guy, and ask where he got the Malevolence to start it up."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It's hard to tell what, precisely, is going through the Seraph's mind at the best of moments.
It's nearly impossible to tell it, now. He stares at the horizon as if intent upon that distant point, otherwise a still statue as he regards the coming dusk.
"Hellions hardly, here," he says to her, without missing a beat -- or the chance to flash her an impish grin. "No, no, it needs better source than that. Lunar, alas, lacking -- we has not the path open," he muses, rubbing at his beard.
Tracking down the Trial Knight is -- for various reasons -- not in the cards.
But. There was one other.
"Ah. That its name? Seymour? Spira's scion," he says, because this alliteration business is apparently a thing now. "Yes, yes... if we finds it, we asks it..." He shoots her a glance. "It knows where 'Seymour' sleeps?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya can't tell what Harmaus is thinking, and so she assumes it's something dangerous. But she can handle it, obviously. She's still interested to see where he's going--interested in this 'truth' he talks about.
"True," Kaguya admits of Hellions--she grins back. "Hmm... Yeah. Lunar we don't have the way to get there and back, unless we beat it out of Odessa, which, I don't think the ones we can reach can control it..."
But one other--not the Trial Knight, who Kaguya wonders about now and then, but Seymour. "Right, the dead guy from Spira who's still kicking! That guy!"
Kaguya shakes her head. "No idea where he went after he ran off from that village, so we might have to wait for him to show his face again. I'm not sure how to track a dead guy."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
'Something dangerous' is a fair assessment of the Seraph, frankly.
"Tcha," is Harmaus' assessment on that subject matter (specifically, on shaking it out of Odessa's grasp), shaking his head. "We only has one body. One bad bullet and, beljaaaa--!" he says, gesturing as if to pantomime an explosion. "I starts over from scratch, yes? Claiming a body like this," and Harmaus thumps his chest, "not easy, no! Lose time, effort... I has eternity, but so much wasted."
He cocks an eyebrow as Kaguya goes on about Seymour, mentioning he's dead.
"Ah, ah. Dead but walks? Hm, hm." He frowns, fleetingly. "We learns more about it, yet--"
Which is when Kaguya mentions the major wrinkle -- no one knows, really, where the man got off to.
"Yes, yes, is a problem. But it forgets what it speaks to! Secrets like this..." and he gestures for the horizon, "...we will find it. Without failing."
He turns his gaze to her, regarding her. "Yes. If other avenues fail -- no, even should we succeed, we seeks out Seymour."
He finally stands, facing her. "Whether we wither or waver we goes further. It understands, yes?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Yeah, it's uhh... It's definitely... valuable," Kaguya says, and she just kinda looks over Harmaus's form and nods. She sounds dubious, but it's just that she's not exactly complimentary about it--she sees the logic.
It's just, c'mon.
"But that's fair. It's pretty dangerous to mess with them, and there's no reason to become target if we've got other options."
Moreso than they already are, naturally.
"Mm-hm. Dead but walks, all right. Creepy guy." But... hmm. "I guess that's true. This is kind of what you do, huh?"
"...Cool. Then, I'll leave finding him to you. I'm kind of interested in what he was up to, myself, so let me know if you do."
Kaguya looks up, and lifts an eyebrow. "Hm?" She asks, and then--it understands. "Right--even if we don't have a clear way forward, you're gonna keep going, and not give up. Me, too."