(no subject)

[sythyry]

Shroom Doom [11 Thory 4385, Eigrach, Srineia]

I should write down some of the meal, because it really was exceptional and unusual, and I won't be having many of the more interesting dishes any time soon. (Unless I go back to Gutrumy House, which I might.)

I don't much feel like it, because, of course, of the doom.

Naturally there was doom at the poison mushroom restaurant.

Naturally it had nothing to do with the poison. That part of the meal worked just fine. The most trouble we had was with the big green glowing mushrooms, with an utterly exquisite flavor and an utterly non-exquisite amount of itchy poison. Since it was large, several of us made the mistake of cutting it up and eating it in several mouthfuls, and itching furiously for the last half of the course.

Also I don't really remember very much about the third course. I was distracted.

The Third Course

It was all quite innocent really.

Kantele:"The work on the skyboat has been a bit slow. Perhaps that's just because Sythyry has been working exceedingly fast and you're not ready for it"

Bwipin:"Well, yes, we are a blasted bit disorganized here and there about the guilds, aren't we? We're still trying to sort out the finances, wouldn't you know. Are we counting your ship repairs as 'road maintenance' or 'building that new sewer everyone agrees we need'? Not that that's your problem though."

Kantele:"But at least that fine gentleman Thenel has paid us two investigative visits and been attending to preliminary matters."

Bwipin:"Well, yes, though I must admit that's rather on his own initiative, since the lozens that will pay him for it are still earmarked for expanding some pond or other ... I suppose he's already gotten paid and well-paid for his efforts though."

There was a rather awkward moment, as most of us interpreted Bwipin's statement to mean "I, Bwipin, know all about Sythyry's little adventure with Thenel, and consider the lizard's sexual favors to be payment enough for Thenel's survey." But Bwipin had made a few references to our deviances before, and always with considerable smirking and sly words. This time his manner was just his usual conversational manner, without any special emphasis or winking.

Phaniet:"What do you mean?"

Bwipin:"Well, not him, quite. But Rehit got that quite wonderful magic sword already."

Me: [Thinking: "oh, dearie."] "Why is Rehit's sword a direct payment to Thenel?"

Bwipin:"Oh, Rehit is Thenel's fiancé. Has been for years, actually; they're taking their time getting married. Still, all in the family. They both think you're quite a fine gentleman and wizard, even if you are a bit questionable in some aspects."

Me:"Oh, I see."

Bwipin peered at me a bit worriedly. Cani can't read minds, but they can read bodies; I'm sure I came off as thunderstruck. Fortunately there's a Cani on my side, too. (A real one. All of us looked like Cani, but without the training of growing up Cani, we don't get the body-reading tricks.)

Phaniet: "I'm not entirely sure that last healing spell had a full effect, Sythyry."

Me:"Nor am I. Excuse me a moment ... and, where's the privy?"

Phaniet:"Over there ... Actually, I'll come with you, if I may."

Privately...

When we were behind the ornate tapestry screen, and hopefully out of sight, I abducted Phaniet into a private corner of space and time, and exploded for a while. Along the lines of:

Me:"How could he possibly not mention having a fiancé?"

Phaniet:"You didn't actually talk with him all that much, from what you've told me."

Me: fume whinge complain

Phaniet:"And he seemed pretty shy about personal matters. Which isn't an excuse, just an explanation."

Me: mope grackle whine

And, for variety,

Me:"So, is he cisaffectionate or transaffectionate?"

Phaniet:"I don't know. Bwipin did say they'd been engaged for a long time. Perhaps there's something defective about the relationship: and perhaps it's that Thenel is traff?"

And even:

Me:"So what am I? The home-breaker?"

Phaniet:"You're the lizard with the serious crush, is what you are. I have never seen you like this."

Which is true. I haven't felt quite like this for over a century, before I met Mynthë and didn't date (or get disappointed) quite so much.

And of course:

Me:"What should I do?"

Phaniet:"Calm down, go pee, wash your face, let me brush your fur smooth, and go back and enjoy the rest of dinner."

Me:"No! I mean, what should I do?"

Phaniet:"Either break up with Thenel, or have a long and detailed talk with him and hear his side of the story. He is obviously a very private person; there's surely more going on than you know yet."

Me:"Oh. So I don't need to break up with him because he's a sneaky cheater and really cisaffectionate?"

Phaniet:"If, after you investigate, you discover that he is a sneaky chater and really cisaffectionate, I would advise you to break up with him unless he's a really good lover. Even then, you'd probably be better off with Inconnu, from a moral point of view."

Me:"Oh. OK."

Phaniet:"In the mean time, can you get collected enough to not be too awful at Bwipin?"

Me:"I don't care about Bwipin. He's not even your real friend. He's your clan-assigned friend, and he's more loyal to Eigrach than he ever will be to you."

Phaniet:"Of course. He's my real friend too, but just of a lesser degree. Obviously I don't trust him in all respects. But he's fairly good company ... you were having a good time chatting with him until two minutes ago in the real world. You just have to know what his loyalties are and what they require of him. Right now, they seem to require having an extremely delicious if poisonous dinner with us. When you're ready, shall we go back and enjoy it?"

I wasn't ready for another hour and two-thirds or some such. Fortunately it was only a few minutes by everyone else's time.

I was pretty quiet for the rest of the meal.

Comments

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Advice? Listen to Phaniet for crying out loud. Talk to Thenel, determine amount of sneaky cheating cisaffection levels, sort by the algorithm of relationship sorting as outlined.

[redbird]

Yes, listen to Phaniet.

If you have that conversation and come out of it not knowing whether he's cheating by having sex with you, ask Phaniet's advice again.

Most of us are the wrong people to ask for advice because this rests, I think, on both Cani and Eigrach custom, and we're not that familiar with either.

[rowyn]

Phaniet gave you quite good advice. Do you really need more? Well, okay, I'll grant that talking to Thenel will probably be quite impossible, given his general reticience.

Also, your first lover was *married*, and made a good deal worse impression than Thenel has. Maybe you should find out how Rehit feels about his fiance.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Other matters aside... There are only three types of poison, right? Must be simple to handle cases of poisoning, rather than needing to stock a wide variety of antidotes. Does the same rule apply to venomous monsters? (I don't think so, since I remember a reference to a sort of berzerk-inducing venom.) I remember also that disease is nearly nonexistent among primes.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well it could be a political engagement, of course. Even traff people can get in cisaffectionate political engagements, right? It sounds like he didn't have the understanding of your custom of not wanting to upset people's fiances by having dalliances without their approval. It is an ethical thing, right? Not wanting to help people cheat on their fiances or spouse?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No, quite a few more varieties of pure poisons, plus of course substances like so-called "churshash venom" (the "churshash" is right) which are not, strictly speaking, poisons at all. And of course there's no good reason why one antidote for one instance of Itchy poison (say) works on all Itchy poison.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

He could just be libertine?

You should spy on them. It seems to be the way things are done in Eigrach.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

I suspect spying would be less upsetting for Thenel than asking him directly, since it's a situation he'd comprehend (dare I say expect?) if he found out about it.

. . . Oh! The concern about blackmailing makes entirely too much sense now. *is slow sometimes*

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I suspect Thenel is more attracted to wielders of magical power than he is to Rassimel(and, as a duelist, I imagine Rehit isn't totally inept in that regard, even if swordplay might be his focus?). He does seem to have a preference for fur, but that might have just been because he first met you when you were in an Orren shape.

At any rate... I'm sure you're sick of hearing it from us by now, but, really, for some people sexuality isn't so polarized. Or is polarized along different axes than most expect.

Beyond that - yes, follow Phaniet's advice; find the truth to their relationship.

It may be a relationship of expedience - especially if, perhaps, both of them are traff.

Bwipin might be wrong, or even deliberately deceptive. Even if he brought it up deadpan, he may have been fishing for a reaction all along.

In other words - talk to Thenel. I would suggest being up front - say that you've been told he has an existing relationship of some formality, and want to know how it relates to you. If he starts to deny, I would further suggest making sure that he's aware that, so long as his alleged partner is aware and accepting of his forays, it's not the end of the world; but if he insists that there's nothing going on, accept the possibility that he might be telling the truth.

Quibble for the translator, though - 'fiancée' (note that the first e, not the second, is accented) applies to females; for a male it'd be 'fiancé'.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Quibble for the translator, though - 'fiancée' (note that the first e, not the second, is accented) applies to females; for a male it'd be 'fiancé'.

Argh. I know that! I was fiddling with a new emacs command for accented letters, and mixed it up with an "add an accent to the previous letter" command.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

And now much of the post seems to have gone missing...

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

But the reactions to poisons in primes are fairly standard?

What about outside-the-world-tree poisons? Would those cause greater than the standard set of Prime reactions, being not limited in the ways that the gods made?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Thank you for catching both the original and followup error.

Is it OK now?

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Looks all right now. The only difference I can spot at a glance is that it originally ended with "Advice?" but, well, it doesn't cut off very early and in mid-sentence, so, in general, it works!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*grin* That one is intentional. Thanks again for telling me!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

They probably wouldn't do anything unless the gods wanted them to. On the other hand, the gods would probably want them to do something interesting, so...

What I mean is that on the very basic level world tree materials aren't made out of atoms, so any poison that relies on molecular interaction (ie, all of them from our world) would do absolutely nothing unless someone translated the effects.

OTOOH there's probably a standard translation that would happen if you stepped through a portal, and 'Here' probably designed it. Ugh. >.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Rowyn raises a very good point!

[rowyn]

This is an excellent point. Maybe consult Jyondre first to see what he thinks?

Also, I am feeling somewhat suspicious of all these coincidences. Sythyry just happened to run into Thenel at Nupyup Pond, while Thenel just happened to be a shipwright and just happened to be Rehit's betrothed?

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

Terribly sorry, I was hoping you could have all manner of fun romping and at least one untroubled portion of the world.

Though there's always the possibility that he ahd his fiancé are both transaffectionate and just got engaged to eachother to avoid suspicion.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

The fact that your emoticon is missing an eye there is probably illustrative of the general character of that kind of translation.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

eXtensible Matter Language?

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would be quite the lucky circumstance for the morality involved. I'd say that political reasons are more likely...but it could always be both. I do recall an Orren and her shoggy...

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

But that begs plenty of other questions, you know. To look at it in the simplest way, primes are essentially put together the same way as we are, and while I have not gotten a chance to study their immune system, I'd suspect that the basis of the worlds would not prevent interactions, though do to conversion or similarity is questionable, but that diseases would be subject to the same problems as usual: specificity. Primes likely could get infected by an extraplanar disease, but depending on how closely to us they are designed, there may or may not be a disease that can do it from our world. Our viruses and bacteria evolved very closely with us, and many are specific for species; they would have to overcome a rather large species boundary to infect, which is, as always, subject to the gods design.

Hmm....there are a lot of factors involved here...not to mention other worlds as well...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Prime biology is only superficially like terrestrial. At the molecular level it's utterly different, because World Tree's fundamental particles aren't at all those of Earth. -bb]

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Well, that takes the legs out from under my pondering; without a magical component (or intervention), or a similar nature, or time to evolve based on the interactions between Tree particles and Terrestrial particles, it'd be impossible for diseases to cross between. Of course, this raises further fundamental questions, mostly about visitation and interaction. For example, does a traveler have to bring terrestrial food, due to incompatible particles? And of course, being designed, it would be easiest to understand if we knew the gods motivations a bit better...and if they based their world on any standards.

Huh...looks like I'm waxing theoretical again. Sorry; I'll stop. X3

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Visitors seem to get translated into local terms as best as possible, and World Tree natives on other worlds are similarly translated. This is not always very good. E.g., a starship with planet-destroying missiles visiting the World Tree may find its missiles producing a large but not particularly deadly Fire Flower effect. -bb]

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

[And with that, a campaign idea is born. My players may never forgive me if I suggest it. :3]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Okay. I soooo want to see a story arc that involves a high tech civ, with some of the tech still working okay, visiting the World Tree, and hilarity ensuing!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[So go and write one!]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

I said I want to SEE it, not I want to WRITE it!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Lazy strumpet!]

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Read Unicorn Jelly!

http://unicornjelly.com/

It's not world tree, and it takes a while to get there, but it eventually talks about this exact scenario.