"Really? All this time I'd thought there was just the one, limited or not. I certainly haven't noticed any of them or heard them come up with others either."

He scratches his jawline with his thumb thoughtfully.

"Are Command or Core aware of this? With the right mystical tools and people, even small Wyld pockets could be foraged for a lot of materials otherwise hard or impossible to find."

He leans on an altogether too colorful tree in the fairy glade.

"I know distance and time are wonky when it comes to the Wyld, but by 'coming up to' do you mean 'actually reaching in the near future' or just 'getting closer to'?"

"New Jersey is a simplification.  They're more like bubbles,"  She tells him, "That pop when you push them too hard!  Sure you could run me into it and I could spin off some stuff, but it's just as likely it'd collapse and leave me sucking space.  Or leave you with purple skin.  I mean, they're not viable anymore. They're dangerous even for us.  If things were normal, if this timeline wasn't fucked, sure! Do it!  But as they are now?  Neverborn have already kinda killed them."

Her eyes go a little distant.

"There's still one.  It's still so... so far away.  I can feel it like a fat man can sense a McDonalds.  It may take us a long time."

”And here I was almost about to find something positive, thinking that such pockets might mean the Neverborn’s reach is weaker here to allow for even pockets of chaotic possibility.”

He shakes his head, sighing.

”We’ll get there. Someday, somehow. I just hope we’re still Living by that point.”

"It is weaker, just not as weak as you think.  It's still a positive sign!  Just one we can't be TOO excited about.  Eventually we'll have to drift into one of them and see if we can mine them like you said," She drifts over behind him and summons a floating cloud with big wobbly eyes, "C'mon.  Lay back down I want to play with your hair some more." 

"You're right, even small improvements are still improvements. Gotta count your blessings."

Daniel regards the cloud and its googly eyes for a moment before chuckling and lying down.

"It might be nice, exploring a Wyld pocket together. Just like old times."

"I don't think I can do that.  Maybe I can send a goblin with you," She says as she starts to stroke his hair with a long comb, "Fact is, if I leave here a lot of people will die, and while I kinda... don't care... (sorry!)... I know you'd get preeeeetty mad.  Also I'm pretty sure Core has shut me in here pretty much for good.  Judging by the wards I've found microscopically inscribed all over the reactor, if I try to leave, my head explodes!  So it's like the Grand Canyon all over again.  I even recognize Hatalii text..."

She puffs a bit of air out of her mouth.  A tournament arises in the far distnace, tents with thousand of flapping flags, the crash of steel upon steel while a ziggurat rises to take the hearts of the losers.

"Huh. Figured being in a Wyld pocket might allow for a relatively safe and costless short-term exit, and you're no doubt the most skilled Wyld manipulator on board so having you pop out could've been worth it. Guess we'll have to make do with the best goblin you can make. Or get you a proper kid. That seems to be all the rage about now."

Daniel looks to the clangor of the fantastical arena in the distance with some interest before focusing back to his company.

"But yes, shirking your role as Reactor would generally be bad and make me rather mad."

"I'd joke about your bargaining position but you have all the cards,"  She says soothingly, "After all, if I have to listen to Core talk to me for five more minutes I may very well calcify in place.  Turn into a solid statue, weeping, clawing at the door to try to escape.  I mean, then you'd all DIE, but it'd suck for me most of all."

Her fingers split and split again.  Hundreds of them start massaging his scalp.

"But I suppose I can make you a lovely simulacrum to take with you if we run across another wyld pocket.  Any requests?"

"Michael's a brilliant man but even when he walked on two legs he was more machine than person. As is to be expected from a Chosen of She Who Lives In Her Name, I suppose."

He sets down on the ground(?), sighing deeply in an attempt to relax.

"I mean, Assuming my Heart worked well enough before. Meant I didn't have to worry about protecting someone less sturdy than myself. If that's not an option, just have her be able to stay alive and support me, whether by being mobile and ranged or otherwise survivable."

"Oh no, I can't make a goblin like that.  They don't have graces.  You'd be stuck with one that's flesh, blood, and basically amazing programming courtesy of yours truly.  So, 'she'?  You want a woman?"  She leans over him, where he's supported by the cloud, "Tellllll me what you want her to look like."

"Not in particular, just assuming by the brunt of your creations. Besides, better the devil you know."

He keeps his gaze fixed on her eyes - with some difficulty - as she leans over him, then gives a chuckle.

"Look, I need a comrade for the mission, not a consort. It wouldn't compare to the real thing in any case."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:29, Tue 29 Jan 2019.

"No, what could?  But your desires are my concern," The soulless, formless abomination croons in his ear, "If it would keep you from impregnating demon and ghosts for a bit maybe that might be worth *almost* lowering your standards." She winks at him once, "Not many champions of man can be said to have been given such an offer.  Though, I suppose I might have to give up some things to make her competent at wyldcrafting..."

"In my defense, as far as I know I've only done the former and even that was much more her doing than mine."

He runs a finger down from her jaw to her clavicle.

"Thanks for making me feel special, but I think I'm the last person you should ask in order to get me a healthy relationship. I clearly have no idea what the hell I'm doing and getting involved with something tailored to my desires would be creepy to say the least."

"Hahahahahahah!  AAAAAHAHAHHAAHHAA!  Healthy relationship!" She laughs until there are tears of crystal dropping onto his chest, "Oh WOW Lucy.  WOW.  Healthy!  HEALTHY relationship.  With a Fae.  Or a Fae goblin.  Are you kidding me?!  No no no no, I'm offering you a spectacularly unhealthy one you don't have to care about!  No responsibilities, no judgment!  Do as thou wilt!"

She taps his chest with a long, sharp nail.

"Oh but thank you so much for the laugh!"

Daniel quirks a brow as WAL loses her shit. If she had a need to breathe he might be concerned for her oxygen level. Finally he lets a smirk show, though.

"Hey, you're the one offering fairytales so might as well go hard. Reality's proven just as incapable of it."

The glassy nail would probably draw blood from a lesser man, but as is Daniel pays the gesture no mind.

"You're forgetting a rather prominent source of judgment in that equation. I most certainly am not exempt from it - quite the opposite - and you just mentioned the goblin would be a notable expenditure of power; that is, not expendable."

"Wellll so long as you get me the shreds..." She says, "... I suppose a few sacrifices would be out of the question?  I mean... I could always use more Essence.  And the ambient emotions of the Last Refuge are sustaining, but they're just crumbs.  If you could shunt a few people my way you wouldn't mind seeing again..."

He frowns deeply.

"Well... If it was just killing people, I wouldn't mind handing you some lowlives who are better off dead. I mean, I killed a throng of people just today. The problem is you Raksha are said to devour people's souls, which would imply that you eating someone might remove them from the cycle of reincaranation, which is a definite no-no."

Scratching his jaw with a thumb, he delves deeper to his understanding of the metaphysical, to the dichotomy of hun and po and what parts of those exactly get drained by the Fae. He might even take a bit longer than necessary to be sure - to keep her in suspense, perhaps.

"Good thing you only eat the Po, huh? Yeah, I'm not making any promises but I might just make someone I'd kill useful instead."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Wed 13 Feb 2019.

"No way am I touching the Hun anyway.  I knew a few Fae who'd try.  It never ended up well for them.  You see, emotions, dreams, all that wonderful stuff is formless gossamer, ephemeral essence!  It's perfect for us!  But the Hun isn't, it's a solid rigid punch to the stomach.  It can even alter you.  Like... imagine the lamb you just ate giving you horns and an overwhelming need to eat grass.  Except that this also pretty much kills you and turns you into a statue.

Hmm... yeah, if you hand me some of them, I can even guarantee their death's as nice or horrible as you'd like.  Either way amuses me and feeds me at the same time!"

"I probably won't much care how you kill them. Not unless it's to send a message, which getting fed to the Reactor can be in and of itself."

He waves a hand dismissively.

"Now that you've got hope of a return to your golden days of human sacrifice, how about we move on to something less diabolical?"

"You saaaaaay that but I want to make sure that's actually the case.  I don't want anyone crawling up my ass because I offed someone by making them run screaming for a subjective eternity while I chased them with rabid monkeys with their father's face and dick..."  She starts to say more but then she trails off as Lucifer's request penetrates her solipsism.

"... Diabolical?  You wound me!  I'm not like the Yozi.  But fine.  How are the other Exalts?  Any besides Brahe annoying the piss out of you?"

”Fair enough. Let me amend my statement: as long as you kill them without involving anyone else or drawing it out unnecessarily, I don’t care.”

His frown eases as the subject changes... Although it actually loops back as the thought progresses.

”Well, aside from the ever-present mild irritation of Michael... There’s this Fire Aspect Dragon-Blooded who led the worse of the gangs I decimated today. Gunnar Hagen. Ran away as soon as I showed up. Here’s a little something to alleviate your boredom with, actually; find him and I’ll bring him here. A dragon-blood should be a proper feast compared to some random mortals, no?”

"You want him dead?" She asks, "You know... there's an old tradition called the Wyld Hunt.  Some of my buddies used to do it.  Flying through the air, shrieking and laughing, chasing down anyone we saw, it was great!... But we always did it with a specific target in mind.  I could make a bunch of hunting goblins and Wyld Hunt my way to him.  Leaving the civvies alone, of course," She says quickly to soothe him, "Just the deserving you point my way!"

There's a glint in Daniel's eye at the suggestion, but ultimately he shakes his head.

"...Nnnno. Not yet, at least. It could get ugly, and considering he's a Fire Aspect that carries a significant risk of severe collateral damage. I want to find and overpower him before he can flee or cause a distraction, and shrieking spectral riders would make that rather difficult. They're not strong enough to take him out in time."

A little glimmer remains, however.

"I think your usual sort of goblins are better suited to the task; he seemed to be the basic sex slaver gang boss sort of scum so feminine wiles should work just fine. Once he's found out, though, in the absence of King Arthur or Fionn mac Cumhaill I might just be convinced to lead a spectral host for its retribution. It would send a message about fleeing my judgment... But we would need to differentiate it from an incursion of the Dead. Many legends paint the Wild Hunt as vengeful ghosts, after all."

"I could do the other kind!  Skulking and sneaky, knives in the dark..."  She then trails off, knowing how THAT one is going to go over, and her lips purse in a pout.  "Fine then, super-sexy-mini-mes to find him and then we can make plans."  She turns upside down and floats upwards abruptly, her hair falling in front of Lucifer's face. "Man this took MONTHS.  Anyway, I mean... uhm... have you given some special thought to learning some Wyld Magick?  Would you want to build things with me?"

"I know and appreciate the value of knives in the dark, but I would not trust either of us with such an operation. That's more Lyla's territory."

He seems momentarily perplexed at WAL's mention of time, but quickly dismisses it as another of her whimsicalities. No doubt there were differences in their perceptions that would only compound his confusion if he pursued the subject.

"I have, to be honest. To my knowledge there are few Sorcerers of my caliber aboard the Last Refuge, and while we now have a Twilight it might... take a while until Arkady broaches the subject."

He runs his fingers through the hair dangling in front of him, regarding WAL with a thoughtful gaze sprinkled with intrigue.

"Not to mention my rather particular connection to the last remaining Noble Raksha in Creation. Yes, dipping my foot into Wyld Shaping under your tutelage might well be a worthwhile endeavor."