Accountability.

[explosivecombat]

There are all sorts of secrets to this place, really, ways to get from place to place reasonably unnoticed. Some of those ways involve the ability to shift one's appearance, some of them involve shadows and vessels and darkness; for those without those sorts of gifts, though, one has to rely on more conventional means. Panels and doorways, joins and seams that don't join up quite right; portions of the wall that will open up if you manipulate them properly. The Conductor himself tends to rely on the latter; he is, after all, entirely human. He's thin, as though he doesn't eat terribly much, but his clothes are immaculate and sharply-tailored, a suit and long coat all in white and shades of pale grey; his hair is long, trailing at least halfway down his back in a thin, tightly-tied ponytail, and his eyes are cold when he moves to stand at the thirtieth podium – it's not his, it never has been, but it's going to do for now. He doesn't seem anxious at all about being here; there's nothing nervous in his demeanor, and he's keeping his head up, perfectly willing to look everyone in the face. There's a definite arrogance about him, as is probably to be expected, though he'll certainly acknowledge everyone once he's there – when he bows it's enough to be respectful, but not nearly enough to expose the back of his neck. When he speaks, his voice is recognizable but it's quiet, far moreso than one would assume him to be based on the volume of the intercom alone; his tone is even, almost unsettlingly calm given the circumstances, though there's a hardness to it that never quite goes away. "It's a pleasure to speak to all of you in person; I'd say that it's almost a shame that the circumstances have to be what they are, but I'm not going to insult your intelligence like that." He straightens up then; the smile he's offering is understated, but it's not particularly nice. "I understand that we have a fair amount to discuss; shall we begin?" Your host for the evening, everyone; let's start.

Comments

[openterrain]

But we need some sort of fuel or whatever to do it, right? Like how you were using up all those souls.

[ He's going somewhere with this, honest. ]

[explosivecombat]

Not necessarily. You only require the souls of others if you're trying to work with more materials than you have. Everything has to balance out -

[...Hold on, layman's terms are nice - ]

If you're trying to build a house, you can only use as much wood as you have. The materials all have to come from somewhere.

Alchemy involves both that concept and something like the barter system. If you don't have enough wood, you can't just magic more of it out of nowhere. You have to trade something else you have for it, something that's of equal value to what you're trying to get, and for each plank of wood you have to make a trade like that.

Souls are like currency. You don't have to have enough specific items to trade if you have those, you can just pay for however much wood you need to finish your construction job.

Does that make sense...?

[openterrain]

[ Jean will never admit it out loud, but Kimblee is pretty good at explaining things in ways he can understand. He'd probably make a good teacher if he wasn't a fucking lunatic. ]

Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

So how much 'currency' would this god of yours be worth?

[announcemyvictory]

Jean, what...?

[explosivecombat]

[...hahahaha hooooooly crap okay

he thinks he sees what you're getting at but - ]

I'm assuming you mean to destroy it, or at least the vessel. Or do you have something else in mind...?

[openterrain]

I think Blue has the right idea, using what's in that Stone to get us back home. But I have no idea if what's in there will be enough, and either way we still have to deal with that thing no matter what, right?

[ Thanks for that, by the way. ]

If we can't just fight it and we can't just run away, what if we used it up to pay for our ticket home, or get our powers back?

[explosivecombat]

...To the best of my knowledge, souls also easily fall under the law of Equivalent Exchange. Theoretically speaking you could use one to restore yourselves physically to what you were, or to return back to where you came from. I don't know for sure about both, but at least in theory that's feasible.

[openterrain]

So if we were to use the Stone to do one and the god to do the other, you really think it could work?

[ He's, uh.

He's surprisingly sincere about asking. He may not like Kimblee but he knows better than to assume he's anything but the best-informed person in the room. ]

[explosivecombat]

Well. I wouldn't recommend trying to use the god to do anything, honestly.

There's also the small problem of how you're assuming I'm willing to hand the stone over for nothing.

[openterrain]

I don't care about that right now. Out of everyone in the room you know the most, so I'm asking you: do you think it'll work?

[explosivecombat]

The god won't help you.

The stones, on the other hand, should work. I have access to two of them, this one and another; the second isn't as powerful, but it's something I've had on me for the sake of...let's say sentimental value, because it's the closest approximation I have to a reason.

[announcemyvictory]

Are we sure we want to add indignity to human remains to our list of offences?

[explosivecombat]

Do explain how this is indignity.

[announcemyvictory]

I don't want to hear that from you.

[explosivecombat]

You're the one claiming it is.

They're already dead. It hardly matters what you do to them.

[withabigsmile]

For a ticket out of here? Absolutely.

[announcemyvictory]

...ugh.

[openterrain]

So the sticking point is convincing you to cooperate with us, right?

[blazeit]

I mean, at this point we could just tell him we'll kill him for real if he doesn't cough it up.

... Not literally.

I mean, it already happened literally, but whatever. It could happen again, he said he has another one.

[openterrain]

Yeah, but none of us know the first thing about this alchemy.

[blazeit]

But he can't be the only alchemist left alive, can he? If we got outta here, couldn't we find somebody else who might know some stuff?

[sunsong]

And convincing our friends not to murder him - which, by the way, I still kinda think is the best option. We can't trust him much at all.

[ninehundredlives]

I'm honestly not sure why we're considering anything else? He's not going to help us.

[sunsong]

I don't know, because we're all still talking, I guess? I don't think my vote's going to change, at this point. Even if he agrees to help us, is it really worth the risk? I know we don't know much about this place, and I realize that he's "useful" or what the fuck ever, but I'm fuckin' done with this pretentious as fuck back and forth.

He asked for us to put us through this for shits and giggles. He's havin' fun grandstandin'. I'm sick and tired of his stupid face.

[openterrain]

Yeah, it's tempting, but best case scenario is that we kill him, bring everyone back, and then in a few years we might know enough about alchemy to reopen the Gate.

I think it's a lot more likely that we'll lose track of one or both stones and get trapped here forever.