Scene #9429: Downtime

Owner	Pose
Audrey Basque	The ambience of the Floor of General Works is as it ever is: golden-white light floods the whole of it at almost all times and angles, the floor a sprawling and massive labyrinth of bookcases, piles of unclassified books high enough to threaten someone if they fall, and the occasional bit or three of the terrain that opens up into the gaping void underneath the floor. Even though... there are definitely other physical floors underneath this one. On a Friday afternoon, Audrey often has the choice about whether she wants to crunch homework before the weekend, crash at the Library, or go spend the time doing... any other number of things she could be. Today she's picking the Library, but it only wins out by a thin margin. She's dressed the part, in her General Works Librarian uniform, neatly worn without flaws. While Audrey doesn't have an office, in the strict sense, she does have a desk that's assigned to her specifically, and isolated from the rest. She often uses it for homework or reading breaks between other things, and enjoys the peace and quiet while she can have it. Which is where she is right now! She's just finished sorting through a pile of several dozen books, which is next to her desk-- along several other similar piles-- and almost as tall as it. They're mostly all meant for Binah, so she'll haul them over in a bit. Right now, she's taking a quick break to try to sort out math she's been having problems with. Three copies of the Astronomica are open on the desk itself; one in its original Latin script, and boy that copy looks old, one in a revised Latin script with her notes scribbled all over it, and one in plain old English. She's got a few maps of the (Earth) sky that she's been making comparative measurements between, and both the Greek and Roman models of the universe. And so much blank paper that's been used up to draw... shapes? A lot of weird irregular star polyhedrons. At least she's looking healthy and focused, as opposed to pale, sick and out of it. Restless-- there's a quality to her eyes, the telltale signs of exhaustion and lack of consistent sleep-- but healthy. "Stupid poet... oh look at me, I have divine inspiration to write about astrology and math, let me make it a poem and dilute the language down. Ophiuchus is in June? Well I won't write about it at all! It's so irrelevant! Uuugh. So close! So close to something that works." She seems grumbly, too. With a tired sigh she leans back into her chair and lets herself sink down a bit, arms flopping to the sides. "Maybe I'm just using the wrong source material. Two thousand plus years of Tradition and nobody's combing through this one anymore... I'm so bad at taking hints."
White	In all likelihood, Sophia hasn't bothered to give greetings before settling into her part-timing for the day; her arrangement with Angela and White means she can just kind of Appear suddenly, so Audrey wouldn't have seen the vampire in reception or any of the other floors in advance. So, when Audrey gets caught grumbling to herself, it's by a Sophia dressed in her own tweaked uniform (to have a skirt and stockings instead of pants), meaning the first sign that Sophia's even present is a slightly mocking sigh behind her shoulder. Sophia has her huge sword too, but it's thoroughly wrapped up in wholecloth and tied to her back; she's just not willing to leave home without it. "Hmmmh... I suppose this must mean something, but whether it's that you need percussive maintenance or that you're being productive, I really couldn't say." It's pretty clear she was hoping for the jumpscare, but she's not working so hard for it that things like sensing the vibrations of her steps with magic wouldn't work. Once she gets some kind of reaction, Sophia steps around the desk and sits on the far right corner, tucking her skirt under and leaning to look halfway over her own shoulder at the chaotic desktop while she shifts a stack of books nine-high from the crook of her arm into her lap. "Looking for some secondhand 'divine inspiration' I suppose? Well, everyone worth remembering had their little insanities at some point... Ophiuchus though? It's been some time, but near-about the only thing I know about it is that nobody seems to know anything about it at all anymore. Or at least, nobody takes it seriously..." She smiles, and her head sways to one side slightly, just enough to make the implicit comparative jab at Audrey apparent without saying it aloud.
Audrey Basque	Audrey yelps, because she a) was really focused!! and b) doesn't keep her spatial awareness on all the time. You would THINK he would learn to, by now, with how many people have snuck up behind her out of nowhere-- or maybe for the sole purpose of avoiding Petra, while here. Now fidgety and trying to calm her heartbeat down, Audrey goes from her droopy defeated stance to an arms crossed, huffy one. A bit of attitude in her, finally? "It's customary to say hello before you ambush someone, here. You know some of these books have like... monsters in them, sometimes, right?" She looks at hers. "Well not these ones. But still!" She mellows down into a surprised blink, when Sophia speaks about the particular constellation. "Are you... could it be you're into the stars, too? Well, of course no one takes Ophiuchus seriously these days. After the craze to call it a "forgotten" sign it's this misunderstood symbol used by edgy teens who want their zodiac sign to be more special!" She's normal about this. "The zodiac isn't arbitrary! It splits the sky in twelve neat slices, it's mathematically perfect! You can't divide the sky in thirteen! But-- it's still there. There's tons of constellations that aren't part of the Zodiac that people don't forget-- Hercules, Orion, Perseus, Hydra, Pictor and Pegasus and--" She stops, clears her throat, and, arguing as much on her behalf as on behalf of Ophiuchus, resumes with: "You still can't ignore it. This poet knew his stuff, and he's got something to say about every other constellation. Accounts for all of them. But not this one. And if you're trying to model a universe," Not 'the' universe? "You can't just skip one. But it means redoing everything by hand and..." Well, she has company. So not now. "Sorry, sorry. Hello, Sophia. I see they got your sword its own uniform?"
White	Sophia gestures palm up at Audrey like 'well there you go, then' when Audrey provides a perfect explanation for why there was nothing wrong with startling her, freely volunteered. Then she flips her hair back behind her shoulder with a swish of her hand, just to rub the smugness in a little bit more. Asking about her interests, though, makes her look shift from 'smugly doing nothing good' to something more like a very, very mild discomfort. "Into..? No, not remotely." She pauses then and looks at Audrey's face with a slight squint like she's trying to read her mind (she isn't), and then lets out a tiny huff. "I suppose I've seen a handful of anime, where it was relevant, is all. Usually something to do with a surprise villain? Or some nothing-boy main character who needs to be special within the paradigm somehow." she finally admits, like it's a closely-kept but unimportant secret of hers. She's very slightly starting to lean away as Audrey rants about the material, like she's being physically repelled over time, but it doesn't last long enough to reach a tipping point; Sophia rocks her weight back onto the desk once the nerdy repulsion-force starts to fade, and momentarily looks relieved. "Well, it is a little ridiculous. Of course not everything of meaning has an equal place. I suppose if the Zodiac were to be anthropomorphized, there would be many more constellations strewn among, between, or even inside of their very bodies. How very... Lucky of Ophiuchus then. To be such a well-respected hanger-on... Parasite, even? Well, that's taking 'inside' quite literally." She doesn't seem to be aiming this as an inadvertent dig at Audrey, this time. She hasn't quite caught the defensive tone well enough to recognize whether Audrey's especially invested in Ophiuchus or if she's just Like That for all of the Zodiacs in some way or another. She just seems to have a rather clear mental image of Ophiuchus as less of a serpent and more of a flesh-eating worm... But, her sword being brought up is an extremely easy jump in topic, and she automatically smiles before reaching up to brush her fingernails against the exposed loop-guard over her shoulder. "Oh, of course not. This is just a bit of scrap silk Master had left behind." It's quite nice for 'scraps' though. "I simply can't bear to leave this little darling alone, and were today to be the one I'm lucky enough to have my turn with one of the 'guests', well, it would be very frustrating not to have it with me."
Audrey Basque	"Into..? No, not remotely." "Oh. Well-- yes, you still have the gist of it though. Ophiuchus in fiction is practically its own special entity, and yet its real counterpart is so often overlooked. Today as much as back then." If Audrey can read Sophia's reaction, she either elects to ignore it, or perhaps presses on because of it! "I suppose if the Zodiac were to be anthropomorphized, there would be many more constellations strewn among, between, or even inside of their very bodies." "I mean, it is. Antropomorphized, that is. If you get down to the nitty gritty of it, the constellations, including those of the zodiac, are just arrangements of stars, with particular magical properties and ties, bonds, concords even, that our ancestors noticed and ascribed images to. The images don't really matter. Orion, the arrangements of stars, existed long before Orion, the man. You could see them as precognitive-- but in the end it's just what one culture decided. Before, you would have called Orion the 'Shepherd of Heaven'. Cancer? 'Crayfish'. Scorpius? 'The Cutter'." This may answer Sophia's question. Audrey is just like this... when she's not moody. Or maybe, as a defense against being moody, right now? "B-But, anyway. All that to say... every point in the universe matters. Somehow, someway. That's just the way it is. Not every point has to feature in every equation, but to skip over a particular one... maybe this poet just didn't like it? It's a headache, either way." "Oh, of course not. This is just a bit of scrap silk Master had left behind." With her rant over, Audrey leans over her desk, elbows on it to cup her hands and rest her chin on them. "I wouldn't get my hopes up. Angela won't ever send Gebura or Binah out to greet guests because she says it'd be "too unfair". You're about as scary as them, so..." An idle glance, Audrey's golden-blue eyes shifting from nothing to Sophia. "It's nice, for 'scrap silk'. White doesn't ever half-do anything, does she? It's still surreal to hear about how she trained you from her mouth, contrasted with how... quiet and timid she can seem, sometimes."
White	Sophia isn't... Not listening? But she seems to make a bit of a show of pretending she's not paying any attention, glancing off, twirling her hair around her finger, and so on. She, too, is 'just like this'. "I can't say I see the appeal of fretting so about stars when they haven't done me any favors... But people do like making their little stories, don't they?" Tonally, it seems she feels relatively neutral to the subject, like it's something she knows she should probably care more about if she could be bothered, but she just doesn't Get It in the way Audrey does. "Now that I think about it, it's a little strange D hasn't come up with some kind of arbitrary star-related gimmick for the System, as far as I'm aware... I suppose that would require that the System encompass more than one measly planet perhaps." Something about that trailing-off conclusion Audrey states before switching topics seems to make her react like she's realized there's a splinter in her finger, though. She shifts the books in her lap from one thigh to the other and leans her cheek atop the stack with another mild sigh. "I suppose they should matter, but nobody can really care about everything they should. Even the stars have to endure being looked past, by creatures so much less than them..." From her new slightly sulky position, she somehow finds a way to sulk harder, her shoulders drooping enough to put a dent in her 'bratty noblewoman' veneer. "Were I more optimistic, I might say something about saving the best for last, but... Alas." Being called 'scary' stokes something in her expression, her eyes fixing on Audrey like she's scrolling through a menu of appropriate bully-options, but her disappointment leaves her unmotivated enough for Audrey to be safe, for now. Fortunately, talking about White is easy, on account of not being able to get away with it openly much, at home. Not that that always manages to stop her, but... At least here, she just has to check around a little for spy-ders and shoo one away by setting a book on its back and pointing; spiders love quests, it turns out. She sent it to the wrong shelf, though. "... She really has you fooled, hmm? Well, it seems she's become quite popular in general... Again." That last word is pronounced with a sort of nasty emphasis on the G. She is the Ruler of Envy! "Master seems to bounce between a workaholic and a massive layabout constantly. She vanishes without telling anyone, pushes work off on anyone she can without giving them a chance to answer, changes her plans constantly when she does bother to share them, asks for absurd things just because they might barely be doable... And everyone keeps enabling her! Ariel adores her, so they're practically partners in crime. Commander Black acts like he owes them both something, so he isn't going to keep her in check. The Dolt just does whatever anyone tells him anyway, and darling Merazophis isn't much better in that respect... Even if he is in every other way." Sophia seems to rile herself up with her own complaining, shamelessly taking over the conversation and shunting the book-stack onto Audrey's desk so she can stand up and pace, gesturing with one hand while irritably clenching her fingers into her uniform at her hip. But even as she's, well, bitching... Her tone doesn't quite wander far enough toward 'angry' for it to feel too serious. She's venting, but maybe she's consciously leaving out the nicer things she could be saying, that she knows are also true. She rounds on Audrey and smacks her palms down on the opposite side of the desk to lean in suddenly, her lower lip pushed up in a grumpy pout while one of her fangs is barely poking out around it. "And she's not timid! She's a complete freak when she gets drunk! Whatever's going on inside her head, I think those Parallel Minds of hers are just keeping her busy enough not to inflict her madness on everyone else instead..."
Audrey Basque	"I can't say I see the appeal of fretting so about stars when they haven't done me any favors... But people do like making their little stories, don't they?" "Well, your current stars were designed by a jerk, so I'm honestly surprised I can use them for divination at all. Or maybe... that's indicative D might have cut corners with that and didn't touch the firmament with her grimy hands?" Everyone always hating on D rubbed off on her. Audrey glances at Sophia, like she's trying to read her body language. Audrey is not a skilled reader of body language, so she doesn't get far. "I can't afford not to like the stars though. It's one of the ways I draw power from the world, you know? If I just ignored them..." She doesn't feel the need to explain all the ways in which that would hurt her! Instead she shifts her stance, just in time to catch... "Were I more optimistic, I might say something about saving the best for last, but... Alas." She actually laughs a bit, for a moment. "No, I think you have it right. One day, a really strong guest is going to show up that Angela won't trust me or Roland to handle, and it'll be you or Gebura out there. I feel sorry for whoever that ends up being. In so many ways." "... She really has you fooled, hmm?" Another pause, to stare a bit and blink. "F-Fooled? I... well, sure, she's obviously not... AS quiet or timid as she comes across, but..." Audrey was about to say that she still finds her such, before remembering how casually White beheaded a man about to harm Angela. Sophia's rising tone mostly makes Audrey move some of her papers together so there's room for her to deposite the books, while making sure they don't topple over. That is, until Sophia circles about and SLAMS the desk. Audrey yelps again, but it's-- a whole lot more baggage than just 'surprise'. It's a flash of genuine terror, and then Audrey has to turn around a few different ways like she NEEDS to see if there's a shadow behind her or not. By the time she calms down, she has to take a deep breath. "A-A freak? I... w-well, haven't, met that side of her, I... g-guess." Nope, she needs another deep breath. In... then exhale. A sigh follows. She's going to pretend she didn't just have a freakout moment. "Everyone's a bit weirder when drunk, that's not... that weird. She's mentioned the Parallel Minds before, but I can't really... imagine how that feels. It just sounds overwhelming."
White	Sophia pauses there, leaned on the desk and staring at Audrey when she hears the yelp. Her head tilts to the left a little in what might be curiosity. She thumps the desk again just to see if Audrey will make the same noise! But, it's just the once, and the outcome only really decides whether she's smirking or going back to her snooty pout when she draws back up straight and folds her arms under her chest. "Well, I suppose you use what you have. Even Master was that way, as am I. Even within the System, you can't ignore your aptitudes without a price over matters of... Mere taste." Which seems to be a snobby way of giving Audrey just the tiniest, most obligatory scrap of agreement, without acknowledging the fear-response as anything important. Back on the subject of White, Sophia shakes her head a little and makes a little swirling gesture with her fingertip. "She's no Bacchus or Dionysus, but when she was struggling to regain her powers after becoming a god, it was drinking that finally pushed her over the line again. The very first thing she did? Tie me and the puppet sisters to the ceiling! And laughed about it! Among other things." She harumphs aloud at the memory. "You know what that means, right? That the less she thinks, the more dangerous she is. And yet, her head is full of more little voices, and she keeps it that way on purpose? I can hardly even handle one Parallel Mind, and I can't begin to imagine keeping it up for more than a few minutes at a time. Ariel can't either, and I've never even gotten a hint of any of the other gods doing such a thing... Even Master doesn't recommend trying it." Somehow, Sophia has complained her way around from trying to whine about White's personality toward wondering openly about a special quality of hers, and she doesn't seem to have noticed the transition, it was just that smooth. "... How does someone even learn to do something like that, in the first place? I never would have thought of it if I hadn't seen her skill list myself years ago, before her... Latest form. Is it just brain damage? Am I not brain damaged enough?"
Audrey Basque	There's no repeat, mercifully for Audrey's sanity. Maybe it was just a combination of the sound and Sophia suddenly leaning in and... it being sudden? Loud? It certainly wouldn't feel like the astrologer is terrified of Sophia, specifically, considering how she goes on to keep talking and sort herself out. At least a little bit. She's still a bundle of nerves, now. She can try to act cool and normal again all she wants but she's... glancing about, sometimes. Looking at corners, turning her head towards noises. "I wouldn't trade my gift for any other one, I think, so if it came down to taste things would still go this way." Besides, she LIKES the sky. Learning that White just got drunk one day and then powered up is a bit surprising, to say the least. Audrey calms a bit, in that the information is such a stretch of her perception of White it takes a moment to question whether Sophia's exaggerating or if White really is that way. "I can imagine tying you up, because sometimes she still talks about that one," Audrey notes, attempting to calm down by grabbing a random book and fidgeting with it, keeping her hands busy. "But it's so hard to imagine her... 'pushed over the line'." She still can't relate to the matters of Parallel Minds. What DOES that feel like? Voices in your head? That's surely too simple a way to explain it. "But come to think of it... she did mention something about having... a particular wave of agents, that she had to 'take care of' after a point. And ever since, she keeps the Parallel Minds a lot more simple. And smaller." "Am I not brain damaged enough?" Audrey has to pause again. Not to yelp or freeze, but to just kind of... stare, a bit. That's a question she's asked herself a lot, too. "I... think I understand how you feel. There's someone I... wanted, maybe still want, to be... a bit more alike. But calling myself a person, when she exists and demonstrates what being a person actually means, makes me feel like I need to take a knife and gut out every part of me that doesn't serve to make me more... I don't know. Person-like." Audrey's stance deflates, and her head and gaze sink to stare at her desk like there's nothing else to see in the universe. She tries to take her mind off that. "What was her last form like? She mentioned she lost her body in the System's core, but not what that used to be like."
White	"Well, neither would I. I might've been insulted, before, if I was told I'd be a vampire in my next life. But really, the perks are quite worth it." Sophia agrees comfortably, while her eyes slide around and take note of Audrey's nervousness in its various forms. It's halfway like a cat following a small creature out of reflex, but... Not all that, at least. She gets distracted with a grimace and a roll of her eyes though, when Sophia brings up that White's talked about tying her up before. "It's an annoyingly recurring form of... Punishment. Really, she just takes it out on me like that when she gets annoyed, instead of telling anyone to shut up. That time, specifically though..." Sophia goes back to twiddling her hair slowly while she recollects the memory. "... Well, she was getting frustrated. I understand that much. She spent, what, two years as nothing but an easily sunburnt, motion-sick woman with a massive energy signature, unable to use any of that power. She was... Working hard, I suppose, to try and overcome it. The fact that she finally breached the barrier and regained some control just by drinking... Well, at the time I was furious. I spent all that time worrying about her and talking myself up about finally... Returning some of what I owed her, now that I was the one with power and she was powerless. And then it all flipped back to the status quo, just like that, over something that... Stupid." Sophia certainly sounds like she's put a lot of thought into those feelings... Both healthy and otherwise, at different times. "And in the end, she was some kind of prodigy. Black thought that it would take her at least a hundred years to regain the power she had before within the System. She isn't there yet, especially after that setback with the Hero-let, but she was close before that. In just nine years or so, at that. She just had to stop thinking... Ridiculous." But, she moves on, first seeming confused what Audrey is talking about regarding the 'agents' before snapping her finger. "Ah, that time. That was before she became a god. She split her Parallel Minds off into some spare bodies she had lying around, I can only assume to get some peace and quiet, but... Well, I wasn't there for most of it. I just recall being at camp when Black showed up suddenly, and the first time I met him was for him to plead that she clean up her own mess properly, because her mockeries of life were going behind her back to do an invasion without her knowledge. I didn't see how she handled it, but I've never seen her give the Minds their own bodies again since then. Everything she does thoughtlessly... Dangerous. See?" Sophia is acclimated enough to that reality to sigh and shake her head instead of being genuinely scared anymore, though.
White	Finally growing tired of standing and pacing again, Sophia momentarily calls out one of her wolf familiars to trot along a short distance away and pull a chair over to the front of Audrey's desk, dragging it by the leg carefully before nudging it the final bit closer with its forehead and vanishing back into her shadow when she plops down and crosses her legs. "Well, I can tell you from personal experience, if all you do is cut things out you're only going to be lesser for it. You need to fill in the gaps, eventually. And, well, to force the analogy, nobody does surgery without the replacement organ on hand, I suppose?" Sophia swishes her hand around at the wrist noncommitally, her tone conveying the haphazard level of care that is(n't) going into it, before she adds, "You might be embarrassing, and childish, but you're hardly less of a person than most of those useless reincarnations. Though, you're a bit old for that comparison maybe..?" She doesn't seem to actually know for sure. She looks at Audrey like trying to actually guess her age is really, really hard; probably because she keeps imagining her as a fussy teenager. "... Ah, I think Master can still change her form actually? She did lose 'a' body, but not the template for her body, if that sounds somewhere north of nonsense. Just more of her absurdity." She swishes her hand again like she's fanning away smoke. "When I first met her as a baby, she was just a rather large spider. Eight legs, creepy face, white body, some spikes here and there. But it wasn't long after that she evolved to 'Arachne', which I gather she was working on for some time and even bought Pride to reach. She got much bigger, then. Think of her current body, but cut off at the hips, and attached to a spider the size of a forklift, yes? Attached somewhere just behind the spider's head. It was quite the dissonance... And she didn't close her eyes back then, either, so you'd have two faces staring at you blankly, all the time."
Audrey Basque	"It's an annoyingly recurring form of... Punishment." "Is her silk so tough that even you can't break it? I've seen her use it for all sorts of stuff, but with how she keeps saying your stats are like... as high as they go, I'm surprised a bit of string can hold you. God-string or not." That might be a terrible mistake to say out loud. Audrey's starting to calm, at least; not fully, but it's that feeling you have when there's a knife against your neck. Just... Audrey can't see the knife. Or feel it. Is it even there? It might not be important. The idea of the knife is already a knife all its own, when in enough of a panic. "She spent, what, two years as nothing but an easily sunburnt, motion-sick woman with a massive energy signature, unable to use any of that power." "She'd..." Audrey tries to recall the exact conversation, as she sets the book she's fidgeting with upright on the desk and then lowers her head to use it as suppose for her chin. "Mentioned that after 'ascending' she even had to retrain skills like 'riding in the back of a wagon'. That just sounds miserable. S-Still... does she know? How you felt, I mean. About worrying, and wanting to return what you owed her?" That too might be a horrible mistake to ask. Audrey can't quite decide if Sophia's jealous, upset, or bitter. It might be all three? "I get it though. I'd be mad if one of my schoolmates outdid me by getting drunk, when the crux of my work is done through careful calculations and a methodical manipulation of the space around me." Nevermind her natural talent. "Slaving away at something hard only to have someone else achieve it by just... essentially turning their thoughts off." Audrey mulls on that for a bit. "But who knows what did it? White is... she doesn't seem shy about pointing out what an anomaly she is. Maybe it's not just thinking less, and we just don't have the full picture yet?" Audrey half-shrugs, insofar as her posture lets her. "'Ridiculous'. Well... maybe she is something ridiculous, and it's for the best? If she manages to do what she wants, you might have the chance to be ridiculous too, eventually. If you aren't already." Audrey would say she is already. "You might be embarrassing, and childish, but you're hardly less of a person than most of those useless reincarnations. Though, you're a bit old for that comparison maybe..?" Audrey glances over the matter of White's previous Parallel Minds, mostly because what follows seems more poignant and relevant. "I'm twenty-three!" she objects. "I'll live to like... four, five hundred. More if I have a say. I-- I mean, I'm not a child, but I'm not..." Old! She's not old. "But um. Yeah, fair enough. 'Blindly cutting', or, I should say, attempting to blindly cut, hasn't, had... the best results so far. It's... hard to explain, though. Trying to think about... like..." PHONE: Petra Soroka says, "Gutless helpless defeatist hollow little doormat. Clicking dials to act out an emotion or a thought and looking at the audience to see if you get it right. The way I experience thoughts and the way you experience thoughts are so different they're incompatible." "... I don't know. It's complicated." "And she didn't close her eyes back then, either," "And THAT," Audrey chains on, to avoid dwelling on things, "Is horrifying. I'm starting to warm up on White's spiders slowly but..." She shudders. Clearly, 'starting to warm up' isn' quite enough yet.
White	Sophia sighs again, this time a notch closer to actually depressed. "I could cut the silk... With Fenrir, and both hands, and a bit of hip movement. But tearing loose from within it? I aught to have her tie you up and see how you handle it." She whips her hair back snootily with a little flick of the neck. "It can be burned, with enough heat. That was how we got Wrath free, when she forgot to untie him after we brought him back to the Demon Realm. But it really is that strong; it's one area where even the Demon Lord doesn't match her, it seems. Not that Ariel's silk is especially weak by comparison, but if Ariel can't tear it with her hands..." Sophia shrugs, to imply 'then I doubt anyone could'. She postures as 'grumpy' when Audrey starts countermanding her statements about White, but Sophia at least sits through it all while tapping one foot against the top of the other. "Well it's not like I've spelled it out to her, that's just humiliating. I can hardly tell if she's the most perceptive woman alive, or the most overhyped ditz imaginable... I guess it could be both, with how many little voices are surely chattering inside her skull." Being honest is hard for brats, it's just natural. There is a slight absence in her gaze for a moment, thinking about things silently for just a precious, brief silence. She does let the corners of her mouth turn up in a brief, smug little smirk at the half-praise though. "You'll live that long, hmm? Well, that would make it all the more embarrassing to die abruptly in a fight I suppose." she muses, like that's what she thinks White might have been thinking in trying to get Audrey a battle-tutor. "Anyway. I suppose the work Master has put into making her little creatures more... 'Marketable'..." She does air quotes with her fingers. "Has paid off somewhat. But she's capable of being a little bit of a horror show herself, and I dare say maybe even enjoying it. Not just anyone thinks to make a weapon by cutting off their own leg, just because it will grow back. I don't think she considered just pilfering some steel from a battlefield even for a second, with that weird sense of... Personalization she seems to have."
Audrey Basque	"I aught to have her tie you up and see how you handle it." Audrey, in a manner that's more matter-of-fact than self-deprecating, helpfully raises an arm in a flex-like motion. "I'm sure you've noticed, but as Angela put it, I'm afraid all my stat points are in intelligence." Not wisdom. That's really important. "I think if I tried to struggle against that silk, I'd take damage. It'd be really sad to see. All that to say, I'm not doubting your strength. I couldn't do it even if I gave it my all. W-Well... not physically?" She has to think about it for a second. "I think teleporting out would be the better answer for me... if she leaves one of my hands free enough to move. Anything else I could try would have the same caveat of needing my hand but offer no guarantee." Well, bottom line. If White tied her up it'd be a terrible time. "Well it's not like I've spelled it out to her, that's just humiliating. I can hardly tell if she's the most perceptive woman alive, or the most overhyped ditz imaginable..." "Yeah... but you know, I missed my chance to tell someone something like that before. Not recently, it was... some six, seven years ago." She knows the date to the day, actually. "I'm paying for it every day of my life since. I'm thinking, between that, and having been a bit humiliated back then... it's kind of a no-brainer which one was the better deal, isn't it?" Not that it's her business mending White and Sophia's friendship. In the first place it didn't seem that tense or strained? "You'll live that long, hmm? Well, that would make it all the more embarrassing to die abruptly in a fight I suppose." "Barring... dying in a fight, yeah. Us Enlightened live in a very long time." Or barring... dying in some other, stupid way. That seems to bring the temperature of the room down a few degrees for her. She lets go of the book she was holding steady, lifting her head up and gripping into her arms with her fingers, like she's hugging herself. She doesn't even really realize she's doing it, let alone so tensely. "Not just anyone thinks to make a weapon by cutting off their own leg," So it's good there's something new and shocking to consider. "She did... what? Why? ... is it... it's not something stupid like her body having such high stats that her own limbs are better than regular weapons, is it?" She won't be surprised if it is. The System is so awful.
White	When Audrey supposes she could teleport out of the web-bindings, Sophia gives an easy nod. "That's what Master did when Ariel tied her up, at least. Spatial and Dimensional magic... Goes completely over my head, I'm afraid. I've tried to learn, but the time that my Heresy Nullification training takes on its own kind of makes another incredibly boring, slog of a grind- hundreds of hours of doing nothing but casting Mark over and over- really... Unappealing." She turns the word over on her tongue like a piece of undercooked food that she can't find a place to politely spit out. "And I've used most of my skill points, so paying the proverbial aptitude tax that way won't work either. Even if I did level it up, I'm never going to manage anything like Master from within the System; Dimensional Magic is one of the most arbitrarily limited types, if you rely on the Skill entirely for control. And its attack spells are nearly useless..." That part in particular seems to disappoint her quite a bit. Audrey's warning to her is recieved with a somewhat ungrateful look, but not entirely deflected. This is a spot where the proverbial armor was already pre-damaged, or it might have been. "... It isn't like I haven't thought about it plenty, you know? She seems nigh-on invincible, up until she makes some tremendous blunder, and suddenly she's almost dead. And with D picking on her, it's..." She stops, no gestures or noises to fill the quiet, until a few seconds later she huffs again through her nose. "It's better that she doesn't know. If she'd care at all, anyway. And if she doesn't care, I'd rather cut my own leg off than get that blank stare of incomprehension again after riling myself up." She doesn't sound happy to think of it either way. It takes her a few seconds to notice the way Audrey's holding herself after that, her gaze slowly sliding up from grumpily downward-aimed and onto Audrey again over the desk. Her eyes narrow slightly; not the disinterested glare she tends to default to, but more of a squint with tiny hints of near-recognition. Before she can figure out what the sense of familiarity comes from though, she works her way around to that last question. "Well, you've certainly got part of it. She'd advanced past the point where crude steel was going to be able to keep up with her, and didn't have any weapon-related skills to improve their durability in her hands, or any kind of Imbuement skills for weapons. She had Shieldmanship from the Guardian title, but I think she took it as a symbol of what a worthless skill looks like. So..." Sophia makes a little flat-hand chop motion down lazily onto the desk, no thump this time. "... Apparently because it was part of her body, or because she'd used those scythe-y legs to fight for so long before, she did get shot up a bunch of levels in Scythemanship immediately after making it. But then her skills went away when she became a god, and the scythe ascended with her, so now it's kind of this... Stupid, overpowered thing she barely uses because she didn't keep most of the know-how. I think it's got a little bit of a mind to it, too, so it's probably best to say it's still a part of her." But then, once that topic runs dry, she's back to scrutinizing Audrey. Her arms fold again, and her fingertips drum on opposing elbows, very visibly deliberating to herself.
Audrey Basque	"That's what Master did when Ariel tied her up, at least. Spatial and Dimensional magic..." She's not surprised! White is clever. And loves to teleport things and people. "Well... hundreds and hundreds of hours of grinding a skill is just how the real world works too, isn't it? I'm usually trying to practice my magic a hour a day on average, or like, two hours every other day. Depends on... you know, stuff. Technically..." She gestures at the mess of math and shapes on her desk. "This counts. And I've been doing that since I'm..." She finally stops clenching herself to make a gesture like 'this tall', indicating maybe three feet off the ground. "But it's not like I'm always grinding the same-- spell?-- over and over, so it's not as boring as what you're suggesting." "And its attack spells are nearly useless..." "But come to think of it, I don't think I've seen White using that magic to attack. Have I...?" White's got a varied toolkit but seems to favor those shadowy spears quite a bit. And earthen walls. "And if she doesn't care, I'd rather cut my own leg off than get that blank stare of incomprehension again after riling myself up." With the heavier topic, Audrey mms thoughtfully, finally, FINALLY managing to return her gaze towards Sophia. There are no situations where she has the qualifications, strength, or experience, to tell her how she should live her life. The best she can do is 'hey I did that before and it sucks years later'. If that won't make a dent... well, it's not even the exact same situation anyway, is it? Audrey gets a bit droopy, settling on: "If you're fine never knowing if she cares... it's not my place to advise you. You know what's best for you." "She'd advanced past the point where crude steel was going to be able to keep up with her, and didn't have any weapon-related skills to improve their durability in her hands, or any kind of Imbuement skills for weapons." "What kinds of games did D grow up playing...?" Audrey only plays good games that are fun, you see. If something's awful or janky, she's not a Trash Game Enjoyer. Her time is precious!! "I never realized her scythe was that special though. I've seen her use it. With, well, deadly results. But it wasn't doing anything... like... it's obviously magical but I wouldn't have called it divine? If that... makes sense?" That makes it sound like she's downplaying it. "Like she mostly uses it to cut. If you're saying it ascended, I'm going to take it to mean it's a bit more than "has high stats"?"
White	Sophia makes a small 'hmm' when Audrey starts to relax enough to gesture, letting her other thoughts slowly deprioritize in favor of the easy, relatively mindless commisseration about the System's mechanics, magic, and the various funny little flavors of personal preference they've each observed and experienced. "Ah, right. The problem is that to attack with Dimensional Magic, you supposedly need to be able to support all of the calculations for repositioning every single component, down to a rather granular level of detail, of the target of your spell. This inevitably makes it slower than just creating a phenomena and releasing it to have the logical effect on contact, since it's more like effortfully reshaping the target. But it also doesn't make any special allowances for targetting, and if you're reshaping the target you can't just designate them by a common-sense concept like 'that person' or 'that boulder'. If you do, as soon as you start warping the target, it stops being the right target anymore and the spell fails. So you have to designate a- generally stationary and limited- space to warp, and when that's combined with the complexity and speed issues... Well, Master was able to incorporate it into an Evil Eye skill at one point, but it seems she's had trouble controlling some of her more volatile and complicated eyes since the... Injury." She starts to trail off in what might be self-reminded worry, particularly adjacent to Audrey's attempt at giving her well-meant advice, but she tries to push through with a flippant 'fun fact'. "She killed the last hero with one called 'Evil Eye of Annihilation'. Rot-attribute... Basically, a 'Death' spell in a game. But that kind of thing has recoil damage, and channeling it through her eyes like that half-blinded her for a few weeks. But that was when she was at her peak, and prepared for it. She doesn't risk things like that normally... It's things like that that make it hard to be sure she's not going to vanish for good someday, in spite of everything she's survived." "... The more relevant one was the Warping Evil Eye though. It was faster than casting manually, but it takes up the... Err, calculatory effort of most of her other Evil Eyes put together. And in the end it still has to contend with Defense and material toughness, so it's not an instant kill for sure. Just really good at killing things with squishy insides and hard outsides, since she can see into their bodies usually." Wrapping up the magic nerd-rant with another swish of her arm, she starts to pick at her thumbnail idly with the index fingernail on the same hand, staring at that rather than continuing to look at Audrey. "I can't Appraise it, so I can't be entirely sure. But that scythe seems especially linked to Black Magic, and sometimes seems to exhibit the Rot attribute too. And it's... Leaky, sometimes. The thing itself is basically invulnerable, even more than she is, so it's the only way I've ever seen to channel Rot attacks without losing your own limbs, or ruining your own weapon. And... It's hard to tell with her, since she can see all over constantly, but it seems like it moves to defend her on its own, and not always when she wants it to, or what she wants to defend against. It's just a guess, but... Really, I think that might be where her last Parallel Mind ended up. She said she was down to nine of them, now... But that skill maxes out at ten."
Audrey Basque	Sophia has a long explanation regarding the System's brand of spatial magic. She-- fixates, listening, hanging on to every word out of Sophia's mouths. White hadn't gone into it very much, barring some explanations on teleportation, which line up with what Sophia now reiterates. She interjects-- only rarely-- with 'mhm?' 'oooh' 'aah' 'so then...', in a way that very much indicates she's not just paying attention but taking mental notes. Especially on the topic of... "So hypothetically... to use it offensively, effectively, you'd need to be able to recalculate and recast the spell everytime the target changes enough to throw the magic off... or you'd need to innovate a spell that can do that by itself. Like a... practically an intelligent spell. 'Keep warping the initial target until it's in the desired end shape'." It almost sounds like that's what White tried doing with one of her Evil Eye spells? Too complicated now though... "Somehow I feel slighted that D made my favored craft pointlessly more demanding in the System, without much to show for it. Although... White's ability to teleport is... I hope I can get that good at it. But it's... it might not be an offensive spell, but its use-cases are nearly unlimited." It's versatile, for sure. "She killed the last hero with one called 'Evil Eye of Annihilation'." "She had something that powerful... I can see your concern. She does... I say timid and quiet, but, I've heard her determination to fix the System too. And... she seems the type to pursue what she wants until the end. I... hope that won't mean she burns herself out doing it." Meaning 'sacrifice', and not simple burnout, given the context. "Just really good at killing things with squishy insides and hard outsides, since she can see into their bodies usually." "Mm. That trick you made me come up with, making a big... blade, or spear, of force... it'd probably excel at that, too. It's... remarkably easy to scramble someone's insides when you're interacting with a force like gravity." She says that, but... she'd hesitate several times before aiming that at just anyone. 'Killing' doesn't come to her at all. Monsters, sure-- 'a gaggle of animals' as Lilian put it. But people? "Really, I think that might be where her last Parallel Mind ended up." "I never noticed that. I'd just as easily presume she has a cool floating weapon like half of the people out there. That's... so it's like it's a part of her? No, that's wrong right? Parallel Minds become their own people, eventually, so-- her scythe is just its own person, possibly?" Well you definitely learn many new things every day here. Sitting back straight, Audrey is reminded of the very large pile of books by her desk. She then leans against the chair fully, melting a bit. "... ah... sorry, I guess I held you up for quite a bit, didn't I? And held myself up, when I told Binah I'd be right down with her new books." It's not an escape; it certainly sounds like Audrey'd rather keep talking, but she can't admit let alone say that out loud.