GLoG 89

[Morty]

[Infirmary]

"Sure, after I've put Tuskfang to bed. This really isn't a good place for him," Reelshka says. The baby in question is staring at the weird thing that makes noises like people but looks like one of his toys. Provided nobody stops her, the goblin leaves. She'll be back in a while with clothes.

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

"I was banished here. It made my body wrong," she replied. "Different. I feel... congealed. Stuck. And my thoughts are muddled."

Her choir sounded less like a harmony and more monotonous to her, now. But she didn't voice it to these others like that. She was sure they wouldn't understand. They couldn't understand. They were too different, too alien. They had no context for what it was like to be her before she was warped by that horrible weapon.

"I just want to be my self again. I don't want to die like this. I don't want my self to go extinct."

Then the other holds out... something... at her.

She looked at it. Flimsy. Of a rather bland color. Like a skin flayed off something, but not. What was it for? Was it some ritual she wasn't aware of? There was so much involving fellowshiping with others that she didn't grasp.

"I don't understand?"

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

"Would you kindly place the cloths on the counter, Andy?" Such rages barely deserve to be clothes, so they are merely cloths.

After whirling back and forth a short distance in a sort of nod to Reelshka, the not-a-toy turns its attention back to Choir.

"Can you identify the realm you were banished from? It is likely that a majority of your symptoms are due to having what is simply referred to as a body, specifically, a living human body which exists in three full spatial and one partial temporal dimension."
Her speech is consistent with bound minds attempting to explain their bodies, although her command of language is oddly fluent despite the lack of context.

"There is little danger of your self becoming extinct in the near future. The current shell you inhabit has a limited lifespan, but its time is relatively long, and will almost certainly last long enough to restore you."

"The item being offered to you is referred to as a 'medical gown', an instantiation of the 'clothing' type. It is used for temperature regulation, partial concealment, and light protection of the body. You may wear it if you wish...I can assist if its shapeform is unfamiliar to you in a degree precluding its unassisted use."

The poor thing seems rather lost.

"If it will help you communicate, you should know that this unit is only a part of myself, and is superior in several ways to the human form you currently possess. Alternate: I am also outside of my native realm, although I am a voluntary visitor, and not a product of banishment."

[Rebonack]

[Infirmary]

"I was in a city looking for food. A human city full of humans, tiny mewling things. They always had food there, locked away inside of stone towers I had to break open and dig out. One of their machines challenged me. A machine nearly as large as my self, a giant compared to them. We fought, but I was winning. I always won. I survived my battle against the King at his strongest, and there is none stronger. But he is dead and he had no equal. The humans used a new weapon, not like the other ones. It didn't freeze or explode or pierce or cut or burn. It threw a patch of blackness at me so dark that it was painful to look at. I felt it ripping my self apart. I could feel my bodies dying. And then when I had only a few bodies left I was here and I was human," Choir recounted, her face once again contorting with emotions uncertain of how to shape her expression. "That blackness did something terrible to me. I don't want to be human. I want to be my self again."

She paused, considering.

"I've always had bodies. Many, many bodies. Sometimes I let my bodies scatter to forage for food. Sometimes I brought my bodies together to fight or hunt. But now... I think I only have one body. Having only one body makes me feel very vulnerable. It's a large body..." she continued, rubbing one hand against the other. "But humans are so fragile. Even if they can breath poison without being hurt. I don't like it. It doesn't feel right."

Suddenly she gasped, eyes widening at some horrible truth suddenly dawned on her. Something so incredibly simple and yet so totally alien that she hadn't ever considered such a thing before. "I can still think... I only have one body, but I can still think. When I have fewer bodies together thinking becomes harder... I always assumed that since humans only had one body they couldn't... ...can they? Can humans think?"

When the machine spoke of the 'medical gown' Choir hesitantly picked it up to examine it. Smell it, eye it, lick it. Finally she settled on draping it over her back like a cape. Though at the mention that the machine was only a fragment something not altogether different from a hopeful smile tugged at her face. "You have many bodies, too? You're like me? I've only ever found one other like me, many bodies and a choir of voices. But it was discordant and vile. Unnatural and perverted and full of deadly poison. I tried to exterminate it, but it was resilient like I am. Or... like I was..."

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

The machine listens patiently to her explanation, trying to think of what she could have been. At the mention of breathing poison, all the previous models leave its mind and it starts afresh, finally admitting that it doesn't know. A new experience!

It folds its arms back up as it answers. "Affirm: humans can think. They are in fact renowned for their exceptional ability to think, among singular animals. A great deal of thinking capability is concentrated in the organ known as the brain, which can equal several lesser creatures combined in cognition."

The machine backs away a half turn of its wheels, shaking back and forth, negative. "I believe that I am more similar to a human than I am to you, but I do possess similarities to you that they lack. You appear to be a colony organism, whereas I am a hive. However, there are others in this realm of existence more similar to your described means of existence. I know of one whose component bodies are each semi-distinct humans."

"Allow me to clarify, the garment is meant to be placed on the opposite side of your body. Did the humans have a name for what you were? It may be familiar to us and allow us to help you return."

[Zefir]

[Infirmary]

Andy puts the clothes close to the necomer.

"Yes, we humans are able to think. I'm for example a human as we see it in this dimesion."

"Or maybe you got a name for yourself?" he adds to the car-doctor's question.

[Rebonack]

[Infirmary]

Is that... guilt she's feeling at having killed so many humans? She never felt guilt before over her actions. But then, she had been sure that humans weren't aware since they only had a single body. When she had a single body she couldn't think, and so it stood to reason that humans were the same. By the same token, she had tried to kill that disgusting toxic abomination even though she was sure it was aware. But she had a good reason for that.

Guilt...

It had to be because of the human body. It was warping her thoughts.

"Colony and... hive? I don't understand the difference. Those words mean the same thing, don't they?" she asked, though she wasn't sure how she knew this. Simply that she did. She simply knew a great deal of language were before she knew none. Her thoughts had been a great deal more visceral before, she recalled. Thoughts of sensations and images and scents. Thoughts of actions. But now her thoughts were words. So many words were pouring out of her mind. Including the words that the humans screamed when her smaller bodies slew them.

"Destroyer. They called me destroyer."

She fiddled with the garment until she managed to cover herself with it. It seemed silly, but thinking back the humans she had seen always covered themselves with such things. She hadn't ever understood the purpose of it.

"I was told I needed a name by... Reelshka... I never had a name before, so I picked one. Choir. Call me Choir, because that's what I am. Or was... many voices in harmony to make a whole. I can still hear my song, but it's muddled and monotonous now."

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

The patient appears upset. This may have been a difficult revelation for it. Hopefully it doesn't try to reinterpret humanity all at once, that would likely tax it severly. Besides, thinking can be dangerous when one lacks as much information as this one apparently does.

"There are subtle detinctions in the words; a colony is gestalt, whereas the hive is an extension of certain of its parts." The machine is fairly sure of the difference, having participated in several modes of thought. Why, it once had only a single body itself. That was not a good time, although not because it couldn't think.

Destroyer. Apparently a description of Choir's action-state relative to the humans. But it could also refer to one of at least 5 mythological figures known to it, a classification of aquatic war vessel, several types of aircraft, spacecraft, fighting machine, and military units, a type of autonomous vehicle not known to have any thought, several musical groups, sports teams, and low-importance 'supervillains'. Most of these can be immediately discounted for relevance. Even the one example of a voracious dangerous many-bodied entity does not seem to match the patient. "Choir. As it is customary for introductions to be relatively symmetric, I am called 'Kestrel', and this is 'Andy'. Are you sure that the song has changed, and not your perceptions of it?" It inquires cautiously.

[Rebonack]

[Infirmary]

A gestalt, many bodies and many voices forming a single choir. As opposed to a single voice with many bodies. That... makes sense. When disharmony arose amongst her voices she always simply brought those collections of bodies together in communion. Thoughts and memories became one. Harmony was reached and the song of her self continued.

Her song...

Was it really different?

Or did her human thoughts simply make her hear it differently?

That idea was... troubling...

"I'm not sure... I've never thought like a human before," she admitted. The idea that humans could think with only a single body still disturbed her. Because of their... brain? Which organ was the brain? She had found many organs when she first took the humans she had killed apart. It had been a surprise then, an honest surprise. She had expected the humans to disperse into many bodies like she did when they were injured. She had hoped that she would be able to take communion with them, to share their thoughts, their voices, their life song. She had hoped to find something like herself. But all she had found were congealed organs that couldn't change, bodies bound in a single shape that had no thoughts of their own. Not even small, simple thoughts.

It was why she was sure they couldn't think. They only acted like they could think.

But... she had been wrong.

What else had she been wrong about?

"Is there a way to make me right again... Kestrel?" she asked. She spoke the name only tentatively, as though afraid that she might break some unknown rule of fellowshipping with others.

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

Success. Choir considers the question without anger. With reasonable concern instead; it is a disturbing thought, that a change of perspective could alter the relative quality of something, so much worse if that thing is part of oneself. What would its own processes seem like from Choir's native perspective?

"It is not in my immediate power to make you right, but I believe we can accomplish it. It is likely possible to end or reverse your banishment. However, the machine and the weapon it used to banish you are both unknown to me; it will likely not be an easy process. There is unfortunately a considerable chance that you have none of your original bodies remaining alive, and that they would not be restored by the ending of your banishment." It speaks warmly, hoping to reaffirm her uncertainty. Choir's mere existence is interesting; in its own region of existence, swarm intellects even vaguely like the one described were considered, but never achieved. Even hives were not properly implemented before it had remade itself.
"Even in that regrettable case, there will be ways to restore you to something like, if not exactly the same as, you were before."

It pauses briefly to consider the possibility that Choir is delusional. This would be the most reasonable conclusion on any other world, but there are enough curious but true beings here that Kestrel takes her at her word.

"Could you describe your bodies? Size, shape, composition, other relevant information. Relative to humans if necessary."

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

The notion that her original bodies may all be extinct, leaving her only with a horrid, congealed human form, filled Choir with a deep sense of sorrow. She had hope that she would be right again, but she wasn't sure how well founded that hope was.

"But if I can still hear my song, even if it's muddled, maybe there is something of my bodies left in this one? Just... stuck," Choir reasoned. "Maybe there's a way to allow them to become plastic again?"

If that were the case, if her bodies are still with her and simply have their voices muted and driven into a state of slumber, then maybe if she could wake them... If she could wake them then she would be able to make herself right again. Then she wouldn't need to feel vulnerable and threatened. She could begin growing again.

"My bodies are very small," Choir recounted. "When I have many bodies together they're too small to see the individuals. I'm... not sure what they look like. I've never seen them since individual bodies can't see well. They foraged for food and they spawned more bodies. But when I brought them together, when there were enough for them to gain a voice, I could see them. Hard shelled and red. And... eight. I always made eight limbs regardless of the greatness of the voice. I'm not sure why. It felt right. And a tail. With cerci at the end like a pincer."

She focused hard, trying her best to remember details.

"I learned from the lifesong of others I ate. I learned new ways to join my bodies together. To make voices that sang louder and clearer for a beautiful choir of self."

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

A new question presents itself: should they be helping Choir? An intelligent, alien super-predator, without understanding of how other beings exist, apparently absorbing patterns or chractersistics from its prey. With replicating components of a size beneath the visual range; it is amazing that the humans defeated her, as described.

But she's so adorably clueless. "It is possible. Could the weapon have forced your bodies into this human shape?" The machine rolls along a bit, collecting lenses and scopes before attempting to look at Choir more closely.
"What will you do once you are back?"

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

"I don't know," Choir admitted. "I felt it ripping my voices apart and killing my bodies. I... don't think it did this to me. Something else did? Maybe whatever brought me here?"

She paused to consider that, then slowly nodded.

"Yes... I don't think the black weapon was supposed to send me somewhere else. It was supposed to make me extinct. Something else did this to me. Something else... saved me. But I don't know why."

Were Choir aware of the inclination of the Nexus to grab strange things (and occasionally cram them into a human shape) she would be significantly more certain about this explanation.

A closer look reveals something curious. All the tissue that would be derived from ectoderm, skin and nails and neurons, isn't human at all. Rather, it's a collection of innumerable discrete organisms mimicking human skin tissue. For whatever odd reason any other part of her body tested, such as a blood sample, could come back irrefutably human. But skin and brain and nerves? All of those are colony organisms locked into a single configuration. It's probably worth noting that they aren't single-celled, though they are quite small, each falling below the millimeter length range.

"What... would I do?" Choir echoed. That question confused her. What does anyone do? "I would forage for food and make more bodies. I would grow and learn new lifesongs to improve myself. What else does one do?"

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

"Glad news: It appears that many of your bodies have survived, and currently make up portions of this human shape. They appear somewhat static; that is you are mimicing the shell of a human only. Other portions of your body are actually human; one third of you is composed of your own bodies, the other two thirds are a human scaffold. The fact that you arrived here may have been the work of the Nexus itself. Clarification: The Nexus is the term for this region of reality."

The car hurries off to replace the lenses after its looks and scans.

"Each being has a reason for existing. Self-improvement is only one of them. Am I taken to understand that there were many beings like yourself, with their own songs, in addition to human-pattern organisms?"

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

"They've been congealed and now they're slumbering?" Choir reasoned. "If my bodies are slumbering I need to wake them up. I'll need food. And a place without any toxic air."

Hope!

That must be hope she felt. Or at least that's what her mind called it now that it was full of words.

"When my kind awoke we were scattered and discordant. But then we started gathering our bodies together and singing the same songs. We would meet and take communion with each other, combining our bodies and voices into a new, greater song. Our thoughts became bigger as our bodies grew together. Eventually we became me. I'm the sum of the thoughts of my whole kind, our voices lifted up in a single song, in a Choir."

Hence her name.

"That's why I thought the humans didn't think. When I tried taking communion and joining their bodies with mine I only found flesh. They didn't have a voice or thoughts or memories to partake in. There was only meat. How would meat think and remember and sing?"

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

The machine whirls an affirmation.
"What is it that you eat and breathe? As you likely know, this is non-toxic to humans and many other lifeforms."

At this point the machine laughs, as cold and mechanical a sound as all its voice.

"You are also flesh. Your bodies are tiny creatures little different from humans conceptually, although you have a much different size and shape. Thought and song derive from an arrangement, not from the material used to make it. Humans have meat, you have meatless cell-bodies, I have metal, but we all sing."

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

"I don't breath," Choir states simply. "But this body does. It feels strange, filling my insides with poison... But humans need it to live, don't they? The poison? I remember when I destroyed it so it wouldn't burn me they started gasping and writhing, then they went to sleep and died. When my bodies are woken up the human parts of this body will die. I hope that doesn't hurt..."

She remembers quite vividly the humans dying. How they struggled uselessly. Those that were too close dissolved. She had tried to take communion with them, but their huge, congealed bodies wouldn't join with her. So she had to simply eat their flesh instead. It made her sad now, remembering it. It would have been so much better if she had been able to join their voices with her own. She was sure they knew things and thought thoughts that she never knew nor thought.

"Food is... well... There are different kinds of food. There's flesh and vegetation. I need those. But I need rocks, too. Special rocks that are always warm to the touch and make me feel warm inside. The humans always hid them within great stone towers and under the earth and they fought fiercely to protect them. I'm not sure if the humans eat them, too. I saw them eating flesh and vegetation, but I never saw them eating the special rocks. I never found any inside them, either. Only sealed away deep and hidden. If I don't eat enough rocks my bodies begin to grow weary and fall asleep."

She thought about that. About the elaborate buildings the rocks were inside, deep underground and submerged in water that glowed like the King's fierce flames. Why did the humans go to so much trouble to protect the rocks if they didn't eat them? Was it just to keep them from her out of spite?

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

"Perhaps provisions could be made for its survival. It would likely cause you pain if you did not separate from it immediately upon waking, as your bodies serve as the sensory system for it." The machine is having trouble finding words to properly describe Choir's mode of life.

"Interesting. You are a radiotroph, and an obligate anaerobe. We have not previously encountered such a combination." How did Choir's type come to exist, especially in a world where it can coexist with humans? From all it can imagine, she should live only deep underground. But then, other worldplanes needn't conform to its models.

"Just as oxygen, the part of air that humans need, is poisonous to you, so are the rocks poisonous to them. Being near to them causes damage to their bodies. They can disrupt my thoughts as well, although my body will not be permanently harmed by the experience. However, they are very useful. The poisonous energies can be converted and used to power machines, or concentrated for use as a weapon. My predecessors used similar rocks in order to fly."

[Rebonack]

[Infirmary]

She didn't want to feel pain, but if pain was necessary to wake up her bodies again then she would endured it. She had to endure it. She couldn't stay like this.

The tiny machine spoke some words to her, words she found herself understanding, though she had no reason to. She had no reason to comprehend any of these words. She hadn't ever communicated with words before. It hadn't ever been necessary. Anarobic. She didn't need oxygen, that horrible burning gas, to survive. Unlike the humans. Radiotroph. She fed on the radiation produced by the special rocks. It seemed strange to her that thing that were toxic to one creature were required for another.

Life was so peculiar.

"You know where to find rocks like those, then?" she asked hopefully. "You'll help me wake my bodies up?"

She paused though, thinking. Once she was awake again she would be dangerous to the humans. Everything she touched became poison to them. And if she didn't do that the very air would be poison to her. She was small and weak. The humans would try to drive her to extinction if they thought she was a threat to them, she was sure of that. She would do the same. Maybe...

"Is there a way to keep... oxygen... away from me? So I don't have to destroy it?"

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

"I know of locations where some were located, from when I first entered this worldplane. It is likely that they still remain there. This body of mine is likely unable to reach them, but other beings could guide you. There are also likely those able to create or sell the rocks you are looking for."

The machine whirrs noncommitally, unsure of how to proceed.

"As for keeping ocygen away, it could be effected by staying inside some sort of barrier, such as a pressure suit built to your eight-legged shape, or by repelling it with magnetic fields. Both would require some sort of machinery. It may also be possible using what is called 'magic', or be specializing some of your bodies to hold or repel it, if that were possible. What was the method you used in order to 'destroy' it?"

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

That was a good question.

How did she destroy it?

Choir had a dim understanding that her bodies weren't able to do this originally. They had learned it from... something. Something that she had made part of herself while her thoughts were still very small and scattered. Maybe if she described what happened the machine would understand? That seemed to work thus far.

"I make something that takes the poison out of the air and combines it with water. They become something new that looks like water, but has a sharp smell. Others dissolve and sizzle when it touches them, but it doesn't harm me. I usually foraged on the dissolved remains," Choir recounted. "The... oxygen... doesn't hurt my bodies when they're asleep. But they need to be awake for me to feed, so I have to remove all the oxygen from my surroundings. But the liquid that results kills everything else."

She paused to consider the various suggestions. "A suit? Like... a second shell to wear around my self? How would I be able to grow inside something like that?"

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

"You react the aerial oxygen into a peroxide or acid. Could you live underwater? The water itself, you imply, does not harm your bodies. Yes, like another shell. You would have to refit it whenever you grew, so it may not be practically possible."

Kestrel rolls back towards the wall.

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

Peroxide or acid. Now she had a name for the strange smelling not-water.

"I lived in the water when my thoughts were still small. But then the water was filled in with land and I began to wander in search of new sources of food. That was when I found the humans and learned from their lifesong. My thoughts grew much bigger after that."

Choir had many answers now, many explanations. She had an idea of what she needed to do. What she needed to find.

"I want to wake up my bodies as soon as I can. Who can help me find the food I need? I'm sure there's none nearby. I would be able to smell its warmth on the air. I need someone who can show me where I need to search."

She paused for a time as another thought cross her mind.

"Will the humans try to stop me from getting the food I need? They always guarded their rocks so jealously before. Gathering what I needed wasn't ever easy."

[Recaiden]

[Infirmary]

If Kestrel could properly feel fear, that might be terrifying. Or it might have lived in a relatively small area of water, perhaps a pond or swamp. The sentence is ambiguous.

"You should see, once you grow free, whether you can live again in the water; it would keep you safely isolated from oxygen and most humans who could pose a danger."

"They will likely object to your taking of the 'rocks', if they are owned. There do exist deposits of rocks that are unclaimed. The difficulty there is finding and reaching them."

[Rebonack]

[The Infirmary]

Choir was, for the record, 'born' in a bay. That portion of the bay was inundated with fill and built on top of as a result of a nearby city's explosive and continual growth. Filling in the bay had prompted her to find ways to survive on land and ran afoul with the humans who didn't care for her sterilizing everything she touched. Of course, she lacks the vocabulary and context to properly explain all of this. While she's intelligent, her grasp of how the world works is tentative.

"I can still live in the water," Choir confirmed. "I feel safe in the water. It's where I was born, I think. I began in the water. I only moved to the land because I was forced to."

The further explanation only continues to build her hope that she would be right again soon. "If there are rocks that I won't have to fight for then I want those," Choir reasoned. "That's how it was when I was still scattered and my thoughts were small. There was plenty of food and there were no others who fought me for it. I would rather prefer to live and grow without having to fight the humans if I can. Their weapons are unpleasant."

She could almost still feel the sensation of her bodies being torn apart.

She didn't like it.

[Morty]

[Infirmary]

Reelshka returns to the infirmary now, having left her son with his father and carrying a bundle of clothes for Choir.

[The Bushranger]

Infirmary

"Sure! I can pay." With that, she flourishes her hand and tries to cast a spell to summon a shiny coin into her fingers. Unfortunately, the coin remains where it was, her Individual Magical Effect does not activate and she's left looking a bit silly. Also, surprised; that was supposed to work! But due to her currently drained state, she doesn't have the magic available to perform even such a minor piece of legerdemain.

Jamie probably recognises what she was trying to do, though; it's her favourite spell.

And BR apologises for leaving this hanging so long. His brain has been scattered lately.

Jamie, meanwhile, smiles and shakes her head. "I'll pay. You've been through a lot, it wouldn't be fair to impose on you. Any particular ice cream shop you'd like to go to?"



[Elsewhere]

A Junco flies into the camp, landing on top of a tree and peering downwards with a beady eye.

[Earl of Purple]

Infirmary

"That's good. I keep my money here anyway and teleport it to me when I need it, so I don't have any on me." Specifically, if Jamie's looked through Natalie's things for whatever reason, behind the drawers in her chest of drawers. "Which one's closest?"

[Morty]

[Elsewhere]

The junco might find himself stared at by a certain tiny goblin girl from behind a rock. Literally, since she's crouching behind a rock in which she made a hole through which to look. There's something about this bird that even the subterranean child who has trouble telling them apart noticed. He won't elude her any more.

[The Bushranger]

Infirmary

"That's good. I keep my money here anyway and teleport it to me when I need it, so I don't have any on me." Specifically, if Jamie's looked through Natalie's things for whatever reason, behind the drawers in her chest of drawers. "Which one's closest?"

Jamie is many things, but a spy on her friends she is not!
Well, not that sort of spy, anyway.

"Well, there's R. Stigetto & Son Creamery & Soda Shoppe that's just on the edge of town," Jamie says after a moment's thought.




[Elsewhere]

The junco might find himself stared at by a certain tiny goblin girl from behind a rock. Literally, since she's crouching behind a rock in which she made a hole through which to look. There's something about this bird that even the subterranean child who has trouble telling them apart noticed. He won't elude her any more.

...the fact the junco is wearing a tiny bowler hat MIGHT be a small clue.

Tom tilts his head, and peers at the rock.
His peering can unnerve evil shadowcasters!
Thankfully he doesn't have it at full power.

He does tilt his head one way. Then the other.
Then looks directly at the rock.

"Seeeeeeep?"