(M) The Sliding Tavern

[Aries Jordan]

Leonie blinked her way in confusion through all of Roy's gibberish while cuddling Tikky on her lap.  But however unfamiliar the jargon he used, she grasped the basic science-fictiony concept right away.

"Let me get this straight."  She stood up and deposited Tikk on the seat of her chair.  "You're an artificially created human."  Like a golem, she thought, only imbued with an original personality instead of being a copy.  "And you have a deliberately induced expiration date.  That's sick," she added as a throwaway comment. 

"Um, would you mind if I took a look at you?"  She produced a piece of tinted glass from her pocket and cast a true seeing spell on it.

[Merlin]

Peter didn't move from behind the bar as he listened to Roy. "You're slaves," he said, his disapproval of the mistreatment and ownership of sentient beings clear on his face and in his voice. The embedded self-destruct date, the fact that Roy was aware of his impending destruction, seemed unspeakably cruel.

He looked up as Pris spoke, seeing the pretty girl for the first time, standing shyly at the foot of the stairs. Reggie was standing at the top of the stairs, watching her. Peter had no idea who Tyrell was, but he didn't question anything about him or mention him, letting Roy think what he would about the Tavern folk lest any other response upset the tall man. Roy was already under a lot of stress as it was.

[Tikkeni]

Sir Tikk took his deposit from a warm lap in stride switching to grooming himself instead as he listened in on the conversation.

[Aisling]

Aisling frowned at the stranger's words.  She understood that they needed help.  Something about a creator who had put a limit on their life.  Well, most all humans were mortal and had limits, although four years did seem cruelly short.  (On the other hand, four years was better than centuries as a slave...  at least for many beings, that would be true.)

The strangers seemed to think 1) They were similar beings.  2) They could help.

Aisling was pretty sure both were fallacies.

Even the Demoness looked nonplussed.

[brucedabold]

Roy, puzzled, looked at Leonie and shook his head no.

Red takes a long deep breath and sighs.

"Pris." She looked at the woman, then at the man. "Roy. Whether we are what you say or not, the important thing is we do not know this Tyrell, nor how you can reach him. If your time is short, it might be best to seek other options in your pursuit of him. I have no idea how to extend your life, and I'm pretty sure no one else here does as well."

The demoness takes his hand. "But like Leonie said, you are welcome to stay here, if you want, and you and Pris could slide with us to another world, leaving your pursuers behind. However, that won't extend your life."

For a moment, Roy looks like a little boy whose dog had just died. Then, suddenly his countenance returns to seriousness. "I cannot. Tyrell is the only one who can answer my questions. I must meet my maker."

[Aries Jordan]

Leonie peered through the piece of glass at Roy and went, "Whoooaaaaaa, that's weird."  She studied him for a moment, walking around him a couple of times, and then looked at Pris briefly.  "Okay, same for you. It's like... it's not magic, but... It's like you're burning hotter than everyone else.  Not literally, I mean, your body temperature is the same.  But it's as though you're burning up fuel and oxygen at an enormous rate, you're burning your cells out.  I mean it's like that, not that it's exactly that.  I can't explain it in non-magical terms and I don't think you'd understand or believe it the way I could explain it."

She put the glass away and rubbed the back of her neck.  "I might could do something," she said to Red.  "I mean, it's not my Discipline, but it's got some parallels.  It would take time, I  would have to do a bunch of research first, but I could try a variation of a golem creation spell to give them more life.  It would take an enormous source of chi, though.

"Alternately," she said, looking more at Roy and Pris, "I could try to adjust your, uh, internal thermostat to slow down your burn rate.  You'd live longer, but you wouldn't be as, um.  You can do amazing stuff most people can't, right?  You'd have to give that up.  And again, I can't guarantee results, I'd have to research first."

[Tikkeni]

Tikky looks up at Leonie's speech, one foot in the air.  "We aren't going to burn down....right?"  He asks anxiously, looking at all the people gathered in the area.

[EvilCopepod]

Rikerg didn't fully understand what they were talking about, but he got the gist of it. He started growling, unsurprised by the cruelty of humanity here, but appalled by the depths of it.

"Will killing Tyrell break the unbind you?" he asked, as he could only imagine the termination date as either a curse or part of a magical construct contract.

[Aisling]

It seemed that the young human mage thought she might be able to do something for the newcomers.  If so, Aisling's view of her worth would increase.  If nothing else, the woman was eager to help.

Aisling rather hoped the mage could do something.  That Tyrell master person seemed to be one who should not be among the living.

[brucedabold]

Roy's eyes followed Leonie as she peered at him through the glass and listened intently as she spoke. He frowned at her offer. "You can ... slow me down?"

At Rikerg's question Roy turns to the giant in the doorway. "His death would not extend my life."

[Aries Jordan]

"Well, that's one option," Leonie answered  "And it'd probably be easier for me.  The other option would be more complicated and take longer, but it would give you more life without diminishing your abilities.  But, um." 

She turned to Red again, blushing deeply.  "I'd need your help.  Because, um.  Chi is, like, life force?  And you're a succubus, right?  You know how to drain chi out of mortals using Tantric rituals.  Although I doubt you call them Tantric rituals, humans probably named them that after learning them from your people," she remarked, as a matter of academic interest. 

"Anyway.  If you and Roy and Pris were to, um.  Engage.  Then I could reverse the polarity of the ritual and you'd give them life force instead of taking it.  Of course you shouldn't do that unless you have plenty to spare," she added, frowning.  "It wouldn't be healthy."

[Aisling]

Aisling listened to the young mage with curiosity.  Fae worked magic, but it seemed to be very different than human mages.  Most worked with the magic they could naturally access.  It could take study to learn to work with it, of course, but it had everything to do with natural magic.  Her weapons had been created by a master armorer, and bespelled by him to come to her call and rest hidden in the shadows through her own ability.  She couldn't have made the weapons.  Well, perhaps if she had worked hard and had the desire to spend centuries at the forge, she might have brought out some talent to make her own weapons, but there were those who could do it better, and the Queen commanded.  Her healing ability was small, nearly useless, but it had been enhanced by one who was a powerful healer.  She had been tested for many talents, but she mainly had her two very rare abilities, so it was a waste of the Queen's asset to spend time working on anything other than physical and weapons training and using her Shadow Dancing to creep up on enemies of the Queen, unseen and undetected.

A sex spell...  that was not very Fae-ish at all.  Entrancing, alluring, Illusion, compulsion... those were very Fae.  All Fae could do Illusion to some degree.  The other things were not within her abilities.

[Merlin]

Peter listened to Leonie's suggestion with raised eyebrows. Damn, girl! He gave a short, unconscious giggle.

[brucedabold]

Red beams at Leonie. "Interesting idea. Not sure how much you could pull though. Lifeforce is like a wellspring. You can only draw so much or you run it dry, meaning death."

"However," continues the demoness thoughtfully, "if I pull from a number of sources, then I should have enough for you to give to Roy and Pris."

[Aries Jordan]

"Ah," Leonie said, blushing harder.  "Well, I don't know how many people you'd need to, uh, hit up, but I can't be one because I'll need my chi for research and spell-casting.  And once you've got enough, then of course Roy and Pris would have to be willing to engage in a threesome with you."

She found it hard to look at the two of them now, being pretty convinced they would run screaming at this point for having fallen in with a sex cult.  They really had no reason to believe she could do what she said she could.  To help them with that, she cast a simple spell that caused fire to dance over her fingertips.  "See, I can do some pretty weird shit," she offered, but she still didn't really expect them to buy into all this.