Unethical alternate solutions

[aestrix]

In an estate in the twilight belt of New Kystle, a group of mages have become annoyed with the Third Bloodline. Their lack of children, their continual refusal to have them - and the clock is ticking. They're worried about what happens if another half-blood's born, and there's no one to stop them from their rampage.

So they research alternate solutions.

They do some scrying, planning to summon whatever something interesting when they find it. Predictably, they find something interesting. Also predictably, they summon it.



------------


With Lazarus and Kolya.

With the Admin.

Comments

[aestrix]

"We, uh, really can't help that, but - sorry?"

[ending_of]

"Your attempt to contain me is also extremely inelegant."

[aestrix]

"Wha - but we worked on how to make this shield for weeks, we were very thorough-"

[darkest_evening]

While the mage is talking, another man teleports into the room.

"If that's thorough, I'd hate to see what it's like when you're slacking," he snorts. "Also, hello."

"Fuck," says a mage.

[ending_of]

The woman in the chair observes the newcomer.

[darkest_evening]

"I'll be with you in just a minute, ma'am. I have unruly children to take care of."

"I'm one hundred and six!" proclaims a mage, indignantly.

"Really," says the mysterious teleporting man, glancing through a glass globe on his staff. "Because you don't cast like it, I did better spells when I was fifteen."

He waves a hand and the mages's magic disagrees on where it's aimed at. The mage goes out like a light. The others follow, victims of their own spells, or a quick as lightning knockout spell, or, in one special case - hit over the head with the staff. Soon enough, all but the mysterious teleporting man and the woman in the chair are down for the count.

"This shield," he observes, "is atrocious. Perhaps I should start giving classes, at least on shields, so they can stop making such a mess of it. Or maybe that would only encourage them."

He kicks the shield. It stops being atrocious.

The man pulls up a chair of his own, and sits. "Well. Hello, I'm Adarin, it's nice to meet you. I'm terribly sorry about them."

[ending_of]

"The containment is more elegant now," she observes. "Although still not quite effective. I am charmed by your efficiency, regardless."

[darkest_evening]

"Well, if there's anything I try to be, it's efficient," he replies, smiling a bit. "Not quite effective? Damn. This is the trouble with other planes, impossible to account for everything. How can you tell how elegant the containment is, if you don't mind my asking?"

[ending_of]

"I have absolute perception. Nearly absolute, in this universe; there remain some things that are difficult to interpret without context. I could familiarize myself with the details in time, but I don't plan to stay that long. I would prefer to design an elegant alternative to your unaesthetic afterlife situation, implement it, and then go home."

[darkest_evening]

He blinks.

"May I help?"

[ending_of]

"Certainly. The problem is that people of your variety die in stages," she explains. "The death of the original body leaves behind an aware residue, which persists for some time before dissipating. I have an existing process for automating retrieval of dead people, but if I applied it to this universe unedited, partial immortals like yourself would arrive in my domain as a mortal body followed by a separate insubstantial residue, with both parts separately conscious. Untidy."

[darkest_evening]

Adarin connects all of those terms to the ones he's more familiar with, and then says, "It's a result of an intermingling of two species - fae and humans - quite frankly it's caused dozens of problems already. For example, insanity. Would you be willing to implement a solution that solves all of those problems in one go?"

[ending_of]

"I'm not opposed to the idea," she says. "Did you have such a solution in mind?"

[darkest_evening]

"Well, the entire problem has occurred because the two separate parts only sort of understand how to work together, and they disagree entirely over various concepts, such as 'death.' Thus causing the problem that you've brought up. So I'd like to find a way to fix that - how thorough of solutions can you implement? Should I just assume your resources are infinite, or...?"

[ending_of]

"My primary limitation is the time it takes to formulate a rule to be implemented. For example, it took me several centuries to design the rule that prevents dust from accumulating on surfaces in my domain. This solution is not very likely to take that long, because it deals with aware beings and those are a category my magic understands readily. But some of the intricacies you mention might be complicated to solve."

[darkest_evening]

Several centuries for dust prevention. What bizarre priorities. Whatever, Prime isn't going to complain.

"I might be able to dodge a lot of the intricacies," he muses. "All right, say I propose this - instead of worrying about various percentages of fae and human and how to get those all to work together and play nice with friends, why not create a singular optimized species that every part human and part fae person becomes a part of? Or is it impossible to make it so that future examples of both automatically becomes a member of this theoretical species?"

[ending_of]

"That seems potentially troublesome, for unclear gains. What are the current problems with various percentages of fae and human?"

[darkest_evening]

"The current problems are insanity if the fae and human parts are equal in proportion, our entire magic system relying on a finite but slowly renewable resource, problems that are involved with unwanted results of running out of the aforementioned resource, the residue you mentioned, and huge gaps in power due to a dilution of the fae portion. All of these problems have added up to another, larger problem - there have been three people with equal portions of fae and human, and every single one of them caused massive social structure changes, death tolls in the thousands, and absurd amounts of property damage. Out of fear of this happening again, the fae and human hybrids have obsessively been taking care of their bloodlines so that the damage when another shows up isn't too large scale. This would be taking care of both problems in one fell swoop."

[ending_of]

"It seems simplest to find some way to properly integrate the fae and human parts," she observes. "Without necessarily altering any existing proportions, although it would be possible to do that too. Do you know what it is about equal proportions that causes trouble?"

[darkest_evening]

"It's an - information overload, I believe. The fae parts don't know how to work with a human's mind without breaking it, so it gives information that it can't handle. But I could be wrong, the last's - residue is gone forever now, and I never asked her about the insanity."

[ending_of]

"I could alter your proportions to see if you can provide clearer insight that way," she suggests. "And restore them to their current state if it proves troublesome."

[darkest_evening]

"... I would be willing to try it, but not here where I could cause large-scale damage to things. Kystle, maybe, it's pretty empty right now."

[ending_of]

"My domain is also a possibility, if you're worried about destroying things. I would be able to restore them even more easily than I could here, and there would be no risk of causing any deaths."

[darkest_evening]

"Your domain will work. Shall we go now?"

[ending_of]

"Yes. What information do you need in order to transport yourself?"