ph_logs | [OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

[OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

Who: Jonathan Sims and YOU!
What: Open prompts for the end of summer!
When: August
Where: Around Marrow Isle
Warning(s): Cursed objects, potential descriptions of gore (More warnings pending)

1. Looking towards the future, we were begging for the past

With a sound of effort, Jon drops the last of the tools he'd been carrying too many of, letting out a winded wheeze as he tries to collect himself.

It's been quite an undertaking, collecting ins and odds from Calloway's Curios before they fell into hands, not knowing what they are or what they're capable of doing. He's not certain of the particular qualities of a few of these things, but he's seen enough things and read about even more to know when something is simply here to cause problems.

Sprucing up the unused shed behind his cliff-side home is proving to be even more of an undertaking, considering he isn't especially gifted at carpentry, but sometimes you've just got to make due.

He's so engrossed in his work that he doesn't notice the presence of anyone outside of Grimmly the Dusknoir, the large Pokemon lingering, watching with what can only be described as single-eyed skepticism. The red eye follows Jon as he moves to collect the scattered metal rods of the lock-system he'd purchased, once again trying to carry all too many things at once.

To say the least, he's far too distracted to notice anybody coming up the short path to his home - especially as, with his heavy carry load, he staggers, stumbles, and topples back, dropping the rods in a spectacularly-noisy explosion of parts around his person.

Grimmly bellows with strange, wavering, ghostly laughter, the mouth on his stomach throwing his upper half backwards, with no regard for the daggers Jon glares his way.

"Oh, laugh it up, you shit, very funny. You could be helping with this, you know, you've got two perfectly good hands!"

2. Well, we knew we had the good things

Amid all the bustle he's been dealing with recently, Jon manages to find time to write and hang a flyer on the bulletin board.

Seeking assistance from the technically inclined for a repair project.

I am in possession of three tape recorders, and need someone who could potentially lend me a hand with fixing the wiring within the machines, as well as potentially making their power sources able to plug into a wall outlet. The tapes are in pristine condition, and I will only need assistance with at least one recorder, though all three being repaired would be preferred. Offering a reward of 200B for assistance.

If interested, please contact me via sending stone or telephone. Thank you.

-Jonathan Sims

With a reward like that, it's clear he's pretty serious about getting these fixed. He'll answer just about any call about them - be it someone who's ready to help him fix these, someone with questions about them, or friends with concerns about the devices. (It may be easier said than done convincing him not to fix them, if one even could, though.)

3. But those never seemed to last (Closed to Neil and Martin)

After meeting Martin on the beach, Jon was in more of a hurry than he'd care to admit to get to Neil and confirm dinner plans. Everything's smoothly in motion, and as ridiculous as it feels, Jon's more excited about this than he can rightly recall having been in a fair bit.

He's never been an incredible chef, but he's gotten a handle on home cooking since arriving in town, and throws together a plan quickly enough to have everything just about ready. It only takes a short trip out to the markets to have the supplies for everything: lemon chicken (the citrus specifically chosen for the occasion), mashed potatoes, and supplies for a light salad, hopefully making for something of an exceptional welcome-to-town dinner.

The sun is only just dipping towards the horizon when he's wrapping up, and judging by a quick glance to the clock on the wall when a knock at the door rings through the house, Martin's at his most punctual that Jon's ever seen him. Maybe he's as excited about this as Jon is? (He surely hopes so.)

Leaning as close to the kitchen's doorframe as he can while not straying too far, keen to finish wrapping things up as quickly as possible, Jon doesn't hesitate to call out towards the front of the house.

"Come in!"

4. Oh, please just last (Wildcard)
Want this guy somewhere, sometime? Shoot me a PM here or on Discord to plot, or just go wild and drop something!

[EDITED EXTRA PROMPT]

5. Beneath the Watcher's Eye

The more time passes, the more Jon feels his resolve beginning to slip.

At first, it's simply accidental, compelling people for statements when they're not looking to share. It sustains him, he feels terrible about it, and there's another sore spot to try to navigate around on this cursed island. The more time that passes, however, the few statements that are offered by the call of his bulletin-board posts simply don't provide like they used to. More often, the fatigue hangs heavy on his bones, even without the work to wear him down. Thinking grows difficult, and simple ordeals feel as though they've gained ten new steps overnight.

He tries to fight it off; he really, truly does. The itch sinks deeper into his bones with each passing day, though - no amount of reading old statements or reading books on things that had happened in town scratch it.

There comes a point with all itches that you've simply got no choice but to scratch it.

He adds his flyer to the bulletin board once more, crisp and neat. Sending stone calls are acceptable, events that have happened within Pumpkin Hollow are valid pieces of information to offer, and anything of any magnitude will be heard. The net is as wide as he can possibly cast it.

Waiting for the net to fill is an impossible task, however. Despite himself, he begins to hunt.

His search doesn't have the physicality or brute force of a Hunter seeking prey - but in energy and approach, they're shockingly alike. He's patient, calculated, and mindful. He stays out late during the nights of shore leave from the Mipha's Grace,, finding new haunts to insert himself into. Restaurants, taverns, bustling public events, and coffee shops are his most frequent targets; if he finds the perfect candidate outside of one of those spaces wearing marks that are heavy enough, though, he won't be picky.

Once he finds scars adequate enough, he sinks into action. The approach is simple and polite: if there's too many people around, he'll ask to step aside. If it's a quiet space, he'll move to stand near, to sit across from, to linger by whoever he's got his eyes on.

And then, he'll speak. The supernaturally inclined feel static begin to build in their ears, and even those who aren't get a sensation of their own, unnatural and tingly, something akin a sleeping limb beginning to wake up.

"You have seen something great and terrible, something beyond comprehension. Tell me your story."

[Extra notes: this is my general prompt for Jon taking statements! You can play this any way you want to. If you want their CR to stay positive, your character can show up at his house and deliver their statement normally, talk afterwards, whole nine yards. For anyone who'd prefer negative CR, though, or want to have Jon take a statement but have characters who would keep that to themselves, put him wherever your character might be and have him compel it out of them!

Additionally, closed to close CR: characters are welcome to bust him compelling statements out of someone! He is doing it fully intentionally this time, and while he'll generally see himself out while emotions run high from the person he took it from, he can be caught by someone who knows what's happening. He won't target people he's friends or generally friendly with intentionally, but it can happen accidentally. Hit me with anything! \o/ ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Those bells. The familiarity, even if he's only heard them a scarce few times, melts that uncertainty faster than he could possibly imagine. He reaches to her with those new clawed hands of his, to softly touch her arm, ensure that she's truly there.

"The Unbroken Home," Jon parrots quietly, turning his head, taking in new sounds from each and every angle. "I... I'm still getting my bearings, I'll be honest with you, but this is... I've never been anywhere like this."

“I will happily guide you wherever you wish to go. I’m certain you will find yourself coming into your senses more and more as we walk. I think the forges might be the least complicated experience, of course, but the medical wing is also nearby.”

Jon considers this, for a moment. This place seems to stretch on far further than his room would have led him to believe - having a guiding hand, even offered, does wonders to take the overwhelming nature of it all down a few notches.

"...Forge, then medical wing?" He offers. Despite his uncertainty, he even jokes, "Your home, of course. I'll gladly take the grand tour anywhere you'll see me to."

"Very well. Follow me," she tugs on his hand gently.

As they walk, Jon might begin to grow more aware of other strange things about his body- the dull ache in all of his joints, the way his body seems to naturally sway as if dancing as he walks, and, perhaps most distractingly, the feeling as if this exertion is making his heart beat a little faster not in his chest, but in his head.

As they descend down a flight of shallow stairs, he can hear the sound of a subterranean wind, a low bubbling sound, and the repeated impacts of hammers on metal. This place feels warmer than the sleeping chambers, especially close to that low bubbling sound. The smell of sulfur is stronger here, too.

"House Dagoth once had strong ties to the Deep Elves. Their secrets of metallurgy mostly disappeared with them, but some of their machinery remains in use. After Red Mountain's eruption at the beginning of the Fourth Era, those machines have become more practical to use, since magmatic veins opened up in the lower levels of the stronghold. Of course, I suppose that would make them lava veins, now."

The warmth isn't unwelcome by any means, as they cross the threshold into the new space; it soothes the aches in his joints ever-so-slightly, and, at first, he isn't sure what to chalk the bubbling up to. The sounds fill the room, but the shapes aren't anything familiar with him.

The explanation of the lava vein clears up part of why that is easily. He takes an instinctive step away from the sound of the bubbling.

"Oh--- oh! Oh, I-I see," He steps closer, the jingling of his robes only just barely cutting into the ambiance of the forge. "What are the machines used for now, then? You mentioned practicality... tools, structures, or--- the bells, maybe?"

"The machines are used to form metal into regular shapes. The soundscape, as I'm sure you've realized, is ambient more than it is precise, meaning that fine details like cracks and warping are hard to detect. Once the raw materials are in a form we can predict, we work them into all manner of things. The bells are a prime example, but they are far from the only thing. The eruption of the Red Year left our cloister isolated for half a century. It was necessary to learn how to make everything we might need. In the case of caring for our home, that means quite a lot of nails."

She laughs, and this time he's able to appreciate how her bells sing as she does so.

"Once our works are generally formed, we are then able to stamp and sculpt them. Our flesh is blessedly impervious to fire, so we can form fine details into red-hot iron as easily as we might with a particularly firm lump of clay."

"I suppose that explains why we're not beginning to burn, so close to a vein of lava," Jon lets out a huff of a laugh, soaking in the gentle chiming of the bells, wholly and fully. He's clearly deeply fascinated by all of this, and even with such direction, his mind stumbles, barely knowing where to begin.

"Sculpting with hot metal, though, that's... incredible," He murmurs, finally settling on the metals. "Have you created anything, yourself?"

"Quite, my brother. I focus mostly on simple tools. Sickles, hooks, hammers, prybars... as well as small bits of hardware. Nails, mostly. Would you like to give me a hand with something simple?"

Oh, now that's piqued his interest. His posture brightens - he wouldn't have noticed the shifting, himself, if it wasn't for the soft chiming of his bells.

"I--- could I?" He asks, all hesitant excitement buried under that tentativeness. He's still not quite gotten adjusted to the idea that, in this dream, he's something else entirely. "What would you like help with?"

“We can always used more nails. I’ll teach you how we fold the metal, how we shape the nails, and how we test their strength.”

She pulls on his hand again, leading him close to another heat source. It’s odd, now that he knows he’s fireproof, to think about how his sense of warm and cold may be different.

Drelasa places something in his open hand.

“Do as I do, focusing on the piece of metal in your hand. The understanding should come through the dream.” She begins to hum, and, with only a little bit of difficulty, Jon should be able to match her pitches. The instruments integrated into his body produce a peculiar sensation that aren’t easily put into words as they channel air to create harmonics.

He feels a bit like a child being taught how to ride a bike, in handling the metal and beginning his hum. At first, it's discordant. His pitch is off, but slowly, he adjusts. Clashing sounds become complimentary, and with it comes the weightless feeling in his mind of harmony.

All the while, he folds the metal, carefully and slowly. He hasn't worked on anything so tactile, beyond the inner workings of the ship, in an age. This feels more like art than it does work, with the metal bending softly under his will.

He only hands it over when he's satisfied with it feeling like a nail - a thick one, but a nail nonetheless, offering his clawed hand over to Drelasa, splayed open to offer his work.

"How is this?"

She takes it, and for a moment, she assesses it, humming at different frequencies.

"The shape is good, as is the flow of the metal. It might benefit from being folded a few times more, to increase its strength. Here, sing to this one, and then I will give you back the one you've made. Feel the difference in how they resonate. Learn to call, and understand their response."

She gently presses a similar but different piece of metal into his hand.

For a while, she gently but eagerly instructs him, teaching him the balance between working with tools and his hands, guiding him around the forge's layout. The weight of the hammers and tongs are not quite as much of a burden as they probably would have been for Jon before. Though his joints may throb with a dull ache, he also seems to be much, much stronger.

After a time, she asks, "Shall we continue to the medical wing, brother?"

As much as he is new and inexperienced, Jon is an enthusiastic student, trying to internalize each piece of information she gives him with care. He's so deeply immersed, feeling everything so wholly, finding so much ease in all her instructions, that it hasn't yet occurred to him that these are skills he will not be able to teach him. Drelasa instructs, and she's an incredibly talented teacher; who would he be not to want to learn?

When she asks to move along, Jon's almost reluctant. He was just starting to get the hang of it, after all. But, at last, he sets the tools aside on a workspace with care. A simple hum leads him back to her side - metalwork isn't the only thing he's beginning to get the hang of.

"Certainly. Lead the way?"

And she does. She leads, back past the molten, bubbling river. She leads up a flight of stairs, and down a hallway, and around a corner. Each room they pass echoes with a different vibration. Further and further they go, and the soundscape becomes softer, still vibrant, but more muted. The doorways are marked with damped wind chimes, rather than the bright, ringing bells.

Suddenly, a terrible, anguished cry echoes down the hall; Drelasa pauses.

“Our brother Llandrys has been ailing for some time. He has a loose bone that is causing him some pain, and he does not have the capacity to understand what we tell him about why he is in pain. We shall have to do what we can to calm him.”

The cry stops Jon in his tracks, as well; with the soundscape of this wing so hushed, compared to the other ones, the agonized cuts so much more viciously through the space. Jon had been just about to ask when Drelasa explains. Were he still capable of it, worry would crease at his features.

"What prevents him from understanding?" He asks, but gladly follows Drelasa along once she resumes her pace, moving towards the source of the sound. "Is understanding something trained, or rather, something that can only... come with time?"

"Corprus destroys the body before it builds it anew. Developing organs supersede and cannibalize the brain, and this severely reduces cognitive function. In an ideal situation, the Acolytes are left to sleep through this part of their metamorphosis, but they still require sustenance, and sometimes when they wake, they are startled, and they injure themselves when lashing out. Sometimes the degeneration of the body's old structures creates splinters of bone that jut painfully into stretching flesh, and that makes it difficult for them to rest. This case is the latter. We can use tonal magic to alleviate the pain while a healer performs any necessary surgery."

"...That must be quite frightening," Jon murmurs. He knows that his own waking into this body, with only it's dull aches, was jarring enough - an agonizing injury in a world you're still relearning to understand, now that your faculties have changed so drastically, sounds terrifying. He won't say as much, but he considers himself extremely fortunate to have avoided such pain.

"You said we can help, then?"

"Yes. Every healer, even the most inexperienced apprentice, can play a hand in soothing and stilling the Acolyte while the lead healer attends to any procedure. You will know the part to play in the harmony when the others sing their part. And the vibrations will help the surgeon to better 'see' the inside of their patient's body."

"Just as we'd seen the metal before," Jon notes softly. "We should hurry then, shouldn't we? I don't want to leave them to that any longer than we have to. Seeing more can wait."

"Indeed." She takes his hand and, once again, leads him onward.

"Daeseh Drelasa. Daesohn Vonsim. Your presence is met with the utmost gratitude," a voice says with audible relief as they enter the room."

"Daesohn Dalomar. What would you ask of us?" Drelasa replies.

"If you would hold the patient at the shoulders, please... he's been recoiling away from me many times and has nearly struck his skull against my own. Vonsim, I will put you in charge of Llandrys' name-bells. Remind me, have you played this part before?"

Vonsim. It takes a moment to click the pieces together, but he feels this new body recognize the name before his mind even catches up. That's him. Though strange and melodic, so much more than his original name, it's hard to deny how it resonates with him.

"No, I haven't," Jon admits, drawing closer and offering his hands to accept the bells, tentative but so very willing to help. "If you can walk me through it, though, I'll do anything I'm able to."

Vonsim feels a small metal handle press against the palm of his hand, accompanied by a ringing noise.

"These are Llandrys' bells. As I perform the surgery, and Drelasa physically works to soothe him, you will ring the bells whenever he grows audibly agitated. We cannot explain to him what is going on, but the sound of his chime-name should help reassure him that we are not trying to hurt him. Furthermore, when I call, respond in kind with your voice, and sustain the note until I call again. Do you understand, Vonsim?"

Jon--- no, Vonsim, his dream-swept mind corrects him, takes the offered handle with care, curling his fingers around it. As he listens to the instructions, he gives the chimes a soft ring. In the waking world, he'd have trouble identifying it from the other bells, but here, it is so very clear in it's identity.

He nods, slow and contemplative.

"I think I understand. You call, I follow, and I do what I can for him. How long of a procedure do you think it will be?"

"This procedure should not take more than an hour. Less, if the bone yields readily. I think it shall- Llandrys is nearing the end of his trials."

An hour sounds like an excruciating amount of time to be in pain like this, but at least it's just one.

"Alright. I'm ready whenever you are, then."

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cw: general body horror, neurological injury

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