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There is a mystery that's currently unsolved. It's in Avedan's head. It's not like he's going insane (he's quite sure that he's not) but lately his sleep's been pretty eventful. He'd always had dreams (didn't everyone?) but lately, they've been getting more vivid. More lifelike. And, most interestingly of all, more internally consistent.
It's really, really confusing. Avedan is somewhere between wanting to learn more about the internal history present in the dreams, and wanting to understand why they're being so - insistent. He suspects it has something to do with malfunctioning servants, but all of his are working just fine. He checked. Twice. So - maybe someone else's aren't working properly? Or something? He doesn't know, there's zero precedent for eerily vivid and consistent dreams. Avedan tries talking to someone about it, exactly once. They immediately think he's having reoccurring nightmares.
But they're not nightmares. Well. Okay, some of them are, one of the more memorable ones included desperately clutching a woman's hand, begging her to stay with him, just keep breathing, to stay alive. She didn't. If it'd been with someone he knew, he might have thought it was just a simple nightmare. But, no. He's never seen her before in his life. Only his dreams, and not all that often, either. Because there are others, with - happier memories attached to them.
He's started to notice patterns. In - consistent people, consistent places, and most interestingly, consistent personalities. He's pretty sure it's not his subconscious being uncreative (if it were that, he would be naked at work or something) but the bizarre internal consistency his dreams are exhibiting.
It's hard, to figure out if there's a timeline to it all. But there is one thing that's consistent: a city. He does a quick bit of research, finds the city's name (Lapis), and after a bit more research is confronted with the dream's reasonable level of fidelity. As in, it's nearly the same, with exception to what he suspects is construction. And he's never been to Lapis in his life. Just what is going on? He can only think of one way to find out, and that way involves packing up his bags, handing them off to a well-maintained servant, and then heading off to Lapis.
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do_over
if_at_first
"Aaaaand they have 'not bothered' to put in a spare bed besides the double in the living quarters, to accommodate you being a prude, but there is a big pillow we can put down the middle of the one bed in case that helps. Lu says to go ahead and let you sleep on the floor if you insist on sleeping on the floor and that you will get over it 'after about a week or when he's had the right dreams, whichever comes first'." Pause. "And apparently I'm three for three on talking in my sleep without noticing until I wind up sharing a room - but you shouldn't have any trouble sleeping through it? This is so weird..."
do_over
"Quite weird," he agrees after a pause. "Not bothered to put in a spare bed? What if we'd met under worse circumstances and disliked each other or something?"
if_at_first
"They were really convinced we'd get along, at least as of the time we'd be in the cache together anyway?" shrugs Sylvi. "I came to Lapis planning to need a hotel anyway, I didn't know what I was going to find."
do_over
"Same. I - will defer to their judgement, I suppose." He goes back to flipping through the booth of math, and then reads something and tilts his head. Kidan seems to have left him a note.
".... Apparently I'm supposed to ask you what you would do with one wish from something that was not purposely trying to screw you over?"
".... Apparently I'm supposed to ask you what you would do with one wish from something that was not purposely trying to screw you over?"
do_over
"It doesn't say anything else on the note, aside from, 'Just ask, don't overthink it first.'"
if_at_first
Sylvi snorts. "Well, I'd want to give it some real thought, if I only got one, but the first thing that comes to mind if I can't just make myself omnipotent and cheat that way is that it'd be swell if Lu's research on immortality had panned out, although we might have to come up with a way to slow down population growth or find more places to put people if it got widespread. I would also accept the ability to imbue servants with healing powers. I can make shines really fast with the right automaton setup, I could cover an entire continent in swarms of 'em in my lifetime even working alone, it'd be even better if the wish-granter would let me make that a generally available power - the question really ought to specify scale of wish, definitely the first thing I'd check for would be the availability of general purpose omnipotence."
do_over
"You might be able to manage servants that could heal and grant immortality if you word it well enough - something that resets people to what they consider the prime of their life at perfect health. It'd be alarming for people at first, but that would both heal people and - with enough of the shines - grant functional immortality," he says musingly to her. With a somewhat, 'You are an amazing person' gaze.
He realizes what he's doing, and then blinks. "... That explains the note. Okay then. Uh. I like your answer, it's a good answer."
He realizes what he's doing, and then blinks. "... That explains the note. Okay then. Uh. I like your answer, it's a good answer."
do_over
"It - makes me understand why exactly they were so convinced we'd get along and why I would apparently get over my prudeness in a week. Because that was a good answer."
if_at_first
"Was Kidan hiding things from you? I have an index - why would you need to secret them away and make them so uninformative?"
do_over
"I - don't think hiding is the correct term. I think that he was of the opinion that there were lots of things I just had to find out myself that wouldn't register if just given an index of them."
if_at_first
"Well, Aly did. I haven't dreamed anything about it yet, but she - invented storks. I knew they hadn't been around forever, but yeah, wow."
do_over
"Good," says Avedan. "That's - pretty amazing." Pause. "I'm going to be really bummed out if I didn't do anything cool in my past lives..."
if_at_first
"Uhhh," page page, "here's Lu reporting on Kib being smug that after Aly died Aydanci got pissed off at pox and proceeded to eradicate it from the planet? And then inventing vaccinations."