The theme of the day is

[all_too_familiar]

Revan could get used to Coruscant's nice effects. The refresher is glorious, the beds are so soft he thinks they might have found a way to literally let him sleep on clouds, the food is fantastic, and he has a wonderful new set of robes that are completely free of holes, burned bits, and general wear and tear. He is convinced he's being horribly, horribly spoiled, and something will threaten the Republic in a year or two and force him back into living out of a tiny overcrowded starship.

He is even more convinced when he opens a door and it is not a hallway, but instead a bar.

After a few seconds of peering, he calls Canderous on his comm, lets him know that he has found something weird and bizarre instead of the door from his room to the hallway. Canderous comes by with his big gun and informs him that the door is closed, from the other side, and cannot be opened.

Right then. Revan is technically still equipped to kill half of an army, isn't he. Let's see what's in here. He tells Canderous he is going exploring, and Canderous tells him to give them hell if they try to kill him. Proof that he cares.

Inside goes Revan, looking around curiously.

Comments

[all_too_familiar]

"Well, I have a datapad for taking notes and having lots of very exciting children running around is definitely better than having a galaxy overrun by malices," he agrees, amused. "I will try to be a good clone dad. If it comes to that, it might not."

[light_another_life]

"... That is quite a bizarre sentence," says a someone else that has just opened the door. "I think I've heard things that actually beat it, but it's in my top ten."

[greatestgift]

"...Um?" says Sable, turning around to look at the newcomer.

[light_another_life]

The newcomer is dressed in practical (if a bit dusty) clothing made out of materials that look really nice and probably shouldn't be used for - whatever it was she was doing that got them covered in dust.

"Hi. I'm Saevetei. There is a bar where my storage closet should be. I just - what?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Us too, the door stole my hallway, it seems to just be a thing that happens. You can go back, though." He waves. "Revan. Pleasure to meet you. I'd introduce my companion but I don't actually know her name."

[greatestgift]

"Sable," she supplies. "Hello. We were just discussing terrible life-eating mind-controlling monsters! Do you have any of those?"

[light_another_life]

"... Life-eating, yes, mind-controlling, no."

[all_too_familiar]

"Tell us about them? Assume we know absolutely nothing about your world and have lived under rocks our entire lives. Because we're not from your world."

[light_another_life]

"Uh. Okay." She finds a booth to sit in. "So we have magical things called nodes that hold a thing called essence that boils down to 'lets you do magic.' Once upon a time we thought moving nodes to where they would be convenient instead of where they started was a good idea, and we did that thing. Turns out, no. Turns out moving them is bad, because the world tries to make new ones in their place and they are without essence, and sort of - eat other things to regain it.

"To make matters worse, putting several nodes next to each other - something we also did - causes them to fight each other and steal each other's essence until all nodes but one are dead and the remaining one has gained a taste for life-eating. So that combined with the other thing started the apocalypse and now at night shadow monsters come out to try to kill me, and most nodes in the world are some flavor of murderous."

Pause. "I'm fixing it, it just takes a while. Making good progress though."

[greatestgift]

"...Well. That's slightly terrifying," says Sable. "Mine aren't like that. ...I might have to ground-rip another daybloom to explain what mine are like."

[all_too_familiar]

Revan makes a subtle face at this. Ground-ripping feels terrible to a Force user.

[light_another_life]

"Sure. Maybe I can help, the less life-eating things running around the better."

[greatestgift]

Out comes the pot. Out comes the flower. Pot goes on table. Flower goes in pot. Flower becomes drained of life and substance, a wispy grey husk in dry grey dirt.

"That is what my life-eating monsters do to things," she says. "I never went there, but there's a place in my world called the Western Levels that's said to be so badly blighted, if you drop a rock on the ground and come back the next day, it'll have turned to grey dust like everything else."

[light_another_life]

"... Charming. Do they also have mind control?"

[greatestgift]

"Yes. Which as far as I know works on anyone who isn't a Lakewalker. And you aren't one either. And if you want to kill a malice you need a Lakewalker around, because they don't need their bodies to live and if you kill a malice's body it just makes another one. I'm starting to think I should write all this down and attach a little sign to the blight-in-a-pot."

[light_another_life]

"So, how does one kill a malice if one has a Lakewalker around?"

[greatestgift]

"You actually need three Lakewalkers. Or, at absolute minimum, one really determined Lakewalker and one really lucky non-Lakewalker. Because you kill malices with sharing knives, and a sharing knife has to be made out of Lakewalker bone by a Lakewalker, specifically for another Lakewalker - or the same one if there's a shortage, I suppose - and then the one the knife was made for kills themselves with it, and then you have a primed sharing knife which will kill one malice. And if all three Lakewalkers were the same person then you no longer have a Lakewalker around to be immune to the malice's mind-slaving and go kill it for you."

[light_another_life]

"That is a very specific method for killing malices. Uh - does the Lakewalker bone have to come from a Lakewalker, or - if I have a sample of a substance, my magic lets me make more of the substance, with a bit of testing. Would that possibly be valid Lakewalker bone?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Wait, you can what?"

[light_another_life]

"... Make... more of a substance if I have space time and the equipment to study the thing I'm copying? With several samples of the thing I'm making, usually, but for some things I don't need that at all. Copper, for example."

[all_too_familiar]

"Okay. Carry on, keep figuring out Lakewalker and malice stuff. Give me a bit."

Revan goes to the door, opens it, and starts talking to Canderous on his comlink about methods of getting some cortosis through his window.

[greatestgift]

"...I'd be able to tell if it was right, if I saw some," says Sable. "What would you need to try to make some?"

[light_another_life]

"Ideally, a bit of Lakewalker bone, but dragging my equipment in here and staring at you awkwardly could work, it would just take longer and be harder to do. I have had to study substances that are inside other things before."

[greatestgift]

"I don't really want to find out if my healing potions can grow back missing body parts. Can you drag your equipment in here?"

[light_another_life]

"Sure. ... If someone would stop hogging the door."