ximilia | audio | un: surgeonofdeath

[There's a bit of a hesitant pause, before;]

I do feel like we can say with a relative amount of certainty that there is some sort of higher power in Taeum, presumably the Highest One that Angrial refers to, and they seem, based on what Finn and I sensed, to have an Orb. I'm not sure what that means for reports of the orb potentially being in Sedorum, but frankly, this whole situation is bullshit and if there are in fact two orbs or two parts of one whole orb that we have to figure out a way to combine, I wouldn't be surprised.

In any case, this is Trafalgar Law, reporting in that Daisy, Finn, Cora and myself have been branded traitors and taken into custody for attempting to breach the area where the orb is contained. I don't have access to my abilities and I assume the same goes for the other three.
[A long pause where Law presumably just silently ruminates on the fact that he has ended up in Heaven Jail and really of course this would happen.]

This is not a request for a rescue, simply something to keep in mind as work to find the orb continues. As well as a test on my part to confirm that our comms are still functional from in here.

[ETA: Despite what Law says there is now an OOC plotting post re: potential jailbreak ideas.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right. Have those prices provided a way to solve the situations in previous missions? This is my first.

[Man's really out here getting arrested on his first mission.]

That, or created more complications. In the first mission, a large part of the problem was that a lord had made a bargain to trade away the outermost district of his city for wealth- and the inhabitants were infected with a magical plague, that corrupted them into monsters- only for someone else to steal the orb, and try to make a bargain to undo it. With our help, she succeeded, but- it cost that woman her life, because she'd used herself as payment.

In Kilnan, a mage made the bargain to feed his magic to the orb, in exchange for saving his niece. In the end, the solution was to feed it ourselves, concluding his bargain.

[Sabriel hesitates for a long moment, before continuing.]

In Scorpion's Bend... We were stuck in the illusion of a town that had in truth, been destroyed by a pulsefire storm, the inhabitants incinerated, body and spirit. But the last survivor had made a bargain, to try to undo it... with the clause that if reality returned, he'd need to live with what happened... forever. And in trying to find the orb, we triggered that clause, concluding the contract.

... I see. Thank you for the information. It seems to me like these orbs are more trouble than they're worth. Would you agree with that assessment?

Yes. Particularly when people try to bargain with them without accepting that they're both sapient and malicious, and don't view things the way humans do.

[Which really, is pretty normal for powerful supernatural entities, in Sabriel's experience.]

There's a reason Viveca and Degar want to collect them- and seal them away where no one will find them or try to use them.

The orbs are sapient?
[HE MISSED THIS SOMEHOW. BAD AND CONCERNING.]

I can't say I have especially high opinions of Viveca and Degar based on what little I've heard about them but I can at least admit that getting rid of things like this seems a good use of time.

Yes? We've all spoken to them, when we made the bargain to come here. And we've had to communicate with the orbs a few times since then- mostly to work out what any particular one wants.

Right, okay. Makes sense.
[These are bad orbs.]

It wouldn't be possible though to try and turn the orbs against whoever currently has them without paying a serious price, I assume?

The problem is that the orbs cannot act outside of their bargains. At best, they can call out to people, but not much more that that.

The other issue is that we can only retrieve an orb if the previous contract has been concluded- and in Bracia, that meant we stole the orb, and then spent some time putting up with the owner trying to kill us all to get it back, until she gave up.

[Private]

So while it's possible that stealing the orb and making a new bargain- or the death of the previous owner- are also possibilities, they're untested ones- and frankly, I don't think most of the crew would be comfortable with murder.

[Sabriel just like taking one look at his username and like I better just make this aside about murder just to be safe.]

I see. So we really just have to operate within the confines of the situation as it stands until we can resolve this conflict.

[Look, she's no stranger to death! She just doesn't think murder is the best solution most of the time.]

Exactly. In theory, if we could arrive on a planet and get to the orb before anyone else found it, we could just take it, but that hasn't happened so far.

I imagine it's easier for someone on the planet to find the orb than it is for the crew of the Ximilia to locate it from outer space, so that makes sense. But then I'm hardly an expert on how any of this works.

I was thinking more about how the orbs want to be used. So by the time we arrive, they've generally reached out to someone and made a bargain already.

Essentially you're saying we can't get here fast enough to beat them to it, is what you're saying?

Exactly. In every case, a deal had been struck before our arrival- centuries ago, in the case of Braccia.

So it's just going to keep being like this, is what you're saying. We just have to take whatever situation the orb and the person who has it throws at us.

audio | un: surgeonofdeath

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