Re: Chapter IV - Earthly Delights
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:25 am
If anything, the Animate took to Tiara's blunt and fairly drug-addled approach graciously. Her frankness ripped a chuckle out of him that was a tad too warm to only be cold or polite in origin. Evidently, he'd been the object of other unconscious and clumsy insults before, and had learned not to begrudge those who landed them. "Nevertheless," he gently insisted, "I was told you looked ravishing with a clear pair of eyes, my dear. Something to go with your choice of hair color. Hold on to this bottle if only to please this dusty gentleman, hm? We'll eventually have to discuss how decent outside observers can assist you in your posting."
As far as George was concerned, kindness and congeniality were far more dangerous, when deftly applied, than any supernaturally-boosted threats.
Then came Preston's reply. The Toymaker excused Tiara's behavior a second time to assuage any doubts Hauser might've had, the mention of Vlastos driving him to pull out a small notebook he'd been carrying. It didn't seem to have been brought along for this specific purpose, however, as Preston would be able to glance at a few pages. They were covered in a mass of equations and sketched mechanism designs, along with what looked like the occasional errant cluster of absent-minded paisley doodles - random etchings of people and objects that had caught his more artistic eye. He wrote down the offered name.
"I regretfully haven't had the pleasure of meeting this particular gentleman," he confided. "Of course, the past few weeks have allowed me to learn that there is such a thing as people whose existence cannot be committed to memory. If this man is one such example, then the curse has had its intended effect and has robbed his name from my mind. I shall have to peruse my own notes back home, but I do believe my, erm, creditor is well aware of this man's predicament..."
He did a slight double-take. "Far be it from me to sound zealous or even somewhat religious, but the Architect has noticed the misuse of one of the Celestial Burdens, one of which could trigger similar or identical effects. I was redeemed from Amaxi's influence only to watch over this plane of existence's integrity; I unfortunately have no leave to wax Angelic, as it were, and rip the Burden from this poor man's chest with my own two hands. I would have attempted it, had it been possible."
His lips pursed together. "My work is rather grisly and leaves precious little room for compassion. Few are those Void Weavers I personally contact who prove worthy of joining my family. Bertram and Helena are blessed exemptions to a regrettable rule. I do hope, however, that your shared tribulations end equitably. Both this Vlastos and yourself deserve peace."
There was still the matter of their collaborating. "As for your sources, mister Hauser, I wholeheartedly understand. We might arrange for less public quarters to discuss your pick of the litter in due time. There is no real urgency on my side of things; Bertram administers what he calls a NAS from his and David's apartment: some forty terabytes of redundant storage, as I was told - all assembled using YouTube tutorials. Perfectly functional in the immediate. It is functional and is fairly secure by virtue of being kept offline, but the upload servers some of my sources have set up across the country suffer from crippling latency issues on those rare dates we set up a download run. Physical dead drops are sometimes difficult to reach, and then their contained data must be shipped here, ideally through some encrypted transmission the details of which elude me."
He chuckled a bit bashfully. "I am a tinkerer and a mechanic, you see - not a systems administrator, much less a proficient hacker. Hence my humble plea for assistance. Data acquisition should be swifter and at less risk of being intercepted by our common enemies."
In the meantime, Mary was subjected to what had to be cheer more appropriate of a graduation ceremony. "Aye, lass!" agreed Sam, arm thrown across her shoulders, "that's the spirit! Creakin' masts, spars speckled with sea foam, rain cold as death itself beatin' down on ye - and distant lands gleamin' with booty, beautiful nighttime 'spanses o' calm waters, the sunlight o' the tropics breakin' through to ye - all'a that waitin' for ye if you so much as push a little harder."
Samigina's eyes were gleaming, by now, and he closed them rapturously. "All that sweet calm, the lappin' o' the waves, the song o' the surf an' all the sea creatures singin' their songs in the deep... Salt on the air an' lazy afternoons spent usin' one o' the lifeboats like a hammock, the wind in yer ears all the while... Me bride's got dozens o' voices, miss Jameson, and they's all sweeter than the sweetest rum."
Something broke through his romantic reverie, making him scoff. "'Course, then the cap'n rouses the layabouts if the waters aren't becalmed, an' then yer stuck with the bosun's fiddlin'. That's when we'd see if ol' Tommy an' Arno would've had their heads screwed on straight. Two hundred years o' sea shanties is hard on some folks, it is."
He caught himself. "Not that they're in me fleet, though. They're fine, as much as I know. Settin' port Heavensward is kind of hard on me crew, unless Meris gives us leave to do it."
A few meters away, Helena scoffed amusedly at Meris' retelling. "Looks like Jack Sparrow here made you dodge one epic bullet," she said, side-eyeing Samigina as the demon turned lyrical in his praise of the open sea."Freeing slaves hasn't gotten any easier, though: the Internet's made it easy for loyalists to erect barriers of red tape in front of their cargo. Swap out the slave trade for sex trade or just fraudulent cargo manifests, and you have some sense of how they're carting bodies around. Lower tiers take care of reception duties, and they usually involve pretty solid fronts: talent or model agencies, biomedical research - that route. A few ballsy types set themselves up as pimps, but that's the most obvious of all covers. The Rothchilds and the Gentlemen usually hit these pretty hard - with guns or land value fuckery. Buy the Loyalists out of town and you get a week or two to hit them while they're restructuring."
As for Naberius, he seemed preoccupied by Matriel's mention of the planes merging. "Yes," he said, agreeing, "but no amount of self-control will suffice in fixing the problem of lodging the untold droves of our respective planes on a planet that can support ten billion individuals if resources are spread thinly. Either this plane's physical laws are altered to account for this merger, or we somehow divvy up the neighboring celestial bodies. Earth to the mortals, Luna to Heaven, Mars to the collaborating Hellspawn..."
As far as George was concerned, kindness and congeniality were far more dangerous, when deftly applied, than any supernaturally-boosted threats.
Then came Preston's reply. The Toymaker excused Tiara's behavior a second time to assuage any doubts Hauser might've had, the mention of Vlastos driving him to pull out a small notebook he'd been carrying. It didn't seem to have been brought along for this specific purpose, however, as Preston would be able to glance at a few pages. They were covered in a mass of equations and sketched mechanism designs, along with what looked like the occasional errant cluster of absent-minded paisley doodles - random etchings of people and objects that had caught his more artistic eye. He wrote down the offered name.
"I regretfully haven't had the pleasure of meeting this particular gentleman," he confided. "Of course, the past few weeks have allowed me to learn that there is such a thing as people whose existence cannot be committed to memory. If this man is one such example, then the curse has had its intended effect and has robbed his name from my mind. I shall have to peruse my own notes back home, but I do believe my, erm, creditor is well aware of this man's predicament..."
He did a slight double-take. "Far be it from me to sound zealous or even somewhat religious, but the Architect has noticed the misuse of one of the Celestial Burdens, one of which could trigger similar or identical effects. I was redeemed from Amaxi's influence only to watch over this plane of existence's integrity; I unfortunately have no leave to wax Angelic, as it were, and rip the Burden from this poor man's chest with my own two hands. I would have attempted it, had it been possible."
His lips pursed together. "My work is rather grisly and leaves precious little room for compassion. Few are those Void Weavers I personally contact who prove worthy of joining my family. Bertram and Helena are blessed exemptions to a regrettable rule. I do hope, however, that your shared tribulations end equitably. Both this Vlastos and yourself deserve peace."
There was still the matter of their collaborating. "As for your sources, mister Hauser, I wholeheartedly understand. We might arrange for less public quarters to discuss your pick of the litter in due time. There is no real urgency on my side of things; Bertram administers what he calls a NAS from his and David's apartment: some forty terabytes of redundant storage, as I was told - all assembled using YouTube tutorials. Perfectly functional in the immediate. It is functional and is fairly secure by virtue of being kept offline, but the upload servers some of my sources have set up across the country suffer from crippling latency issues on those rare dates we set up a download run. Physical dead drops are sometimes difficult to reach, and then their contained data must be shipped here, ideally through some encrypted transmission the details of which elude me."
He chuckled a bit bashfully. "I am a tinkerer and a mechanic, you see - not a systems administrator, much less a proficient hacker. Hence my humble plea for assistance. Data acquisition should be swifter and at less risk of being intercepted by our common enemies."
In the meantime, Mary was subjected to what had to be cheer more appropriate of a graduation ceremony. "Aye, lass!" agreed Sam, arm thrown across her shoulders, "that's the spirit! Creakin' masts, spars speckled with sea foam, rain cold as death itself beatin' down on ye - and distant lands gleamin' with booty, beautiful nighttime 'spanses o' calm waters, the sunlight o' the tropics breakin' through to ye - all'a that waitin' for ye if you so much as push a little harder."
Samigina's eyes were gleaming, by now, and he closed them rapturously. "All that sweet calm, the lappin' o' the waves, the song o' the surf an' all the sea creatures singin' their songs in the deep... Salt on the air an' lazy afternoons spent usin' one o' the lifeboats like a hammock, the wind in yer ears all the while... Me bride's got dozens o' voices, miss Jameson, and they's all sweeter than the sweetest rum."
Something broke through his romantic reverie, making him scoff. "'Course, then the cap'n rouses the layabouts if the waters aren't becalmed, an' then yer stuck with the bosun's fiddlin'. That's when we'd see if ol' Tommy an' Arno would've had their heads screwed on straight. Two hundred years o' sea shanties is hard on some folks, it is."
He caught himself. "Not that they're in me fleet, though. They're fine, as much as I know. Settin' port Heavensward is kind of hard on me crew, unless Meris gives us leave to do it."
A few meters away, Helena scoffed amusedly at Meris' retelling. "Looks like Jack Sparrow here made you dodge one epic bullet," she said, side-eyeing Samigina as the demon turned lyrical in his praise of the open sea."Freeing slaves hasn't gotten any easier, though: the Internet's made it easy for loyalists to erect barriers of red tape in front of their cargo. Swap out the slave trade for sex trade or just fraudulent cargo manifests, and you have some sense of how they're carting bodies around. Lower tiers take care of reception duties, and they usually involve pretty solid fronts: talent or model agencies, biomedical research - that route. A few ballsy types set themselves up as pimps, but that's the most obvious of all covers. The Rothchilds and the Gentlemen usually hit these pretty hard - with guns or land value fuckery. Buy the Loyalists out of town and you get a week or two to hit them while they're restructuring."
As for Naberius, he seemed preoccupied by Matriel's mention of the planes merging. "Yes," he said, agreeing, "but no amount of self-control will suffice in fixing the problem of lodging the untold droves of our respective planes on a planet that can support ten billion individuals if resources are spread thinly. Either this plane's physical laws are altered to account for this merger, or we somehow divvy up the neighboring celestial bodies. Earth to the mortals, Luna to Heaven, Mars to the collaborating Hellspawn..."