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text, un: anonymouse

so hey i'm Asking For A Friend ;) but how many other immortals are here in the quarantine? any?

also! important question!! what did everyone get told when they got here? what questions did you ask? i wanna know what we're working with! Let's Work Together!

p.s., if you want to answer the first question without a name there are burner phones available at [ small list of locations ] to make unattached accounts. i'm just looking for at least numbers! names would be radical too of course!

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Yeahhh, I could not think of anything worse.

[He doesn't want to die any time soon, but with the memories of the seemingly endless cycle of running from the Hunger, he's not really into the idea of immortality.]

Well, you said it right, points for that one. But uh, elf names sound like all sorts of things, is Jacob how human names sound?

[Just to kinda drive the point home here that elves aren't a single homogeneous culture.]

It takes getting used to. Lots of... learning.

[ He pauses, then gives a shrug-nod thing. ]

Okay, yeah, probably stupid question. It's a pretty common name, at least.

Shame you're stuck in some boring-ass world with humans.

[Taako tries not to think too much about things like "all the humans I know will die a long time before me if we don't get murdered by some monster first", but it would suck even more for someone who's only got other humans.]

There's only one Taako, and you're looking at him. The whole food thing is a coincidence, pretty sure.

At least, I didn't know what I was missing before all this.

[ He's gone through so many generations. Humans aren't built for this kind of longevity but Cain's giving it the old college try anyway. ]

Sure, I bet. There's coincidences like that in Earth languages, too.

And now you do! Aren't you lucky.

[Oh wait no he means the opposite of that.]

I can also guarantee I don't give a shit about that. [Coincidental Earth names.

Earth is so boring.] What did you wanna know, my dude?

Super duper lucky. I feel so blessed.

[ Fuck that, man. :T ]

You said something about the portal?

Oh, right. It used to be alive! Not sure how that works, I'm not scientist and the portal is only a little bit magic, which puts it way outta my wheelhouse.

[He knows some other shit, too, but that's a good start.]

Do you know anything more specific than that? Or... could you have—sensed anything else about it?

[ This is kind of huge, actually. It's got to be. ]

Well, it's not a magical alternate planes-slash-universes thing, cause I know what that looks like.

[Kravitz can travel through the planes and his tears in the fabric of reality look nothing like what the portal does.]

If it used to be alive, it might've been some kinda elemental or celestial, don't know exactly what happened to make it a past tense thing, but there was that whole war thing. Could've had something to do with it.

Yet it still operates? Like... someone puppeting it? Disclaimer: there's only one kind of magic where I'm from, and only spirits get to use it. I'm working blind here.

[ It's really creepy, actually. Is everyone coming through the corpse of a dimensional being? Or could it be the leftover power of a someone rather than a something? ]

Also, what? Alternate planes-slash-universes?

Okay, uh, lemme start from the beginning.

[He hasn't really introduced himself since the whole ichor thing, so this will be a strange experience.]

I'm Taako, hi, I work for an organisation called the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, that ship I mentioned didn't really travel through, um, space so much as it travelled through the borders between realities. Every universe is contained within a planar system, and we could travel between those planar systems, from alternate reality to alternate reality. But the shit we did was nothing like this portal and, uh, the dude who... the dude I know who can travel between planes uses something else altogether. So, I'm kinda stumped on what the portal is, I was never like, the science guy? I was the magic guy, and the cooking guy. So I'm really just tryna figure this shit out as best I can.

Magic and cooking guy.

[ He's absorbing it all and cracking jokes to cover the time it takes. ]

Probably the best gig out of any of them for something like that. I'd say you're ahead of a lot of other people around here if this "portal was alive" thing isn't common knowledge. If nothing else, you definitely have the unique perspective on what's going on with this travel versus what you're used to.

We were a crew of seven, didn't exactly have room for someone who was just there to be a chef, so...

[So he and Lup multi-tasked, which is probably part of why they were chosen out of so many fucking candidates, although it did help that they were very very good at magic.]

Also uh, I only started remembering this shit like a week ago? About the whole planar travel thing, so I'm still getting my sea legs, you know?

That's... absurdly small of a crew for something like that.

[ He looks perplexed at that, like he's trying to figure it out before he says anything. ]

Yeah. Yeah, I hear you... Something like that doesn't sound natural, though.

Uh, I guess, like... we didn't know if it'd even work or if it'd kill us or if we'd ever be able to get home so they wanted to minimize risks.

[Losing a crew of seven wouldn't have been too much of a tragedy. Losing like, the starship enterprise would've been a different story.]

Magic is natural as anything else, and nature has a whole lot of shit we couldn't even begin to comprehend. Just cause something is real fucking weird doesn't mean it isn't natural.

Fair enough. Test run?

[ He just kind of smiles and shakes his head this time. Almost fond, or maybe exasperated. ]

I meant the memory loss. I get it, magic happens for some worlds more than others whether I'm comfortable with it or not. But you could say I have a lot of experience with memories and they don't really work like that unless something... happened?

Sure, yeah.

[He's going to leave it at that, because he doesn't want to talk about the Hunger and all... that... stuff. (And because we don't know enough about the IPRE).]

And the memory thing was a special circumstance, there's a creature back home that wipes memories unless you get yourself inoculated aaaand I got inoculated recently. Long story, shitty story, you don't wanna hear it.

[ Which is fair. Cain is interested but he can tell that pushing right now just won't fly, and he knows better than to try. Even if he acts like he doesn't sometimes. ]

It's fine that you don't want to talk about it. We tangented anyway. I'd be interested someday, though, that sounds like something I'm never going to get to figure out otherwise.

Where were we? I mean, if you have questions for me, I guess, that's fine, too. Kind of one-sided otherwise.

I'll write you a fucking voidfish dissertation.

[Honestly he would because then he could cut it down to the bare bones without actually mentioning the fact that someone he loved like family stole his memories.

As for the rest, he just kinda shrugs. Taako's used to these things being one sided because honestly, he rarely cares enough to dig into other people's shit. He asked Clark a lot of questions because it was his first time (he thought) meeting an alien, and that was neat.

But no, he can do this.]

Alright, riddle me this, my man, why are you so cagey about the immortal thing? Does anyone actually give a shit?

Voidfish? Really?

[ That one's entertainment. What a simple name for what sounds like a terrifying creature. ]

Yes, unfortunately. There's some pretty bad circumstances back home because people can't leave well enough alone.

Don't look at me, I didn't name it.

[I hope. Don't fucking joss me Griffin.]

Are you the only magical thing? [a beat, and:] Assuming it's magic immortal, maybe it's a science thing, I don't know your life.

[ Just watch it be a stupid group effort and everyone names it that. ]

Uh... I actually don't know what it is. Apparently it's "natural" but really, if there's any magic involved it's the only part of me that is. People where I'm from don't get magic, the spirits do.

[Taako has a feeling that if Kravitz was here, he'd have an opinion or two on how that immortality works, but right now it's just Taako, and this isn't really his area of expertise.]

How do spirits use magic if they don't got a body and shit?

[It could be like a lich, but you can't become a lich without being magic while alive so. yup.]

[ To be fair, his brother is in a similar profession and will fuck up anyone who tries to mess with Cain's immortality... ]

I imagine it's easier to reach out to the magic when you don't have flesh and bone in the way. If Abel were here you could ask him, but I'm not exactly in a position to have ever tried it myself.

That sounds super bullshit.

[Not that he thinks Cain is trying to bullshit him, necessarily, just that the reasoning doesn't make sense when it comes to... any understanding that Taako has of magic.]

I need my hands and shit to spellcast, that's why I don't wear armour.

glad we cleared that up

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