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Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:39 am
That sounded absolutely terrifying? Like he'd seen it in games before, usually it was some kinda flashback and sometimes the flashback was playable, but if it was happening in real life? Niter thought that sounded disastrous. Like, could he still move his body? If he couldn't, what if it came on when he was in the middle of jumping across a chasm or something? What if he could wander around in the flashback and got himself hurt? And it could be annoying, too, like if it came on in the middle of him doing a high-focus task then that would absolutely screw him over.
And that said nothing of how reality just went completely tits-up. What if he started losing his sense of self because sometimes he was someone else?
If memories came with visiting a senshi's own planet, then Niter was perfectly happy never seeing his. And he definitely — without a shadow of a doubt — did not want to remember his past self dying. No thanks, no death scene for him.
"Um, none of that scares you?" Maybe it wasn't so bad once one experienced it, but Niter was still perfectly happy to go on with his life and never experience it for himself. "Because it sounds, like, it could be a little inconvenient."
Then she was touching him and Niter didn't know what to do about that, so he stayed very still, held his breath even, until it was over.
And it was nice of her to want the best for him? But that sounded like a whole lot of emotional labor. Niter knew he didn't deserve all of that. "So, the tea's not poisonous," he recapped carefully, "and I'm not being indoctrinated into a death cult, or being set up as the virgin sacrifice?" Cuz it could really go both ways, here. He was the only one wearing the CultRobe, after all, so it could actually be a SacrificeRobe and he just fell for it. Like an idiot.
And the tea looked like, um. freshly oxygenated blood?! And maybe she didn't die drinking it, but weren't there people that stowed away the antidote to whatever poisonous thing in a little capsule and then opened the capsule with their tongues just to assuage their assassination targets that they weren't actually assassination targets? But it did smell good, and if he died then he didn't have to pay rent or face a whole money crisis, so…
He accepted the tea, as was polite, and sipped it, as was polite. And, yeah, it didn't taste like poison, it actually tasted kinda good. Good in a way that he couldn't describe — sorta like pu'erh, but not? — it was actually kinda pleasant. And he wasn't coughing up blood and seizing on the floor as his neurons were locked in synapse mode, so that was an added bonus. Looking a bit shocked, he sipped it again.
Nope, still not dead.
"This is… Actually really good?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:52 pm
"The memories have been more helpful than anything. I'd have it happen more often if I could force it." She paused for a moment to think of why it might be scary, and then explained, "While it is me, it's also not me, especially since it's such a partial glimpse. It's more like um, a friend once described it as seeing a version of yourself alternate reality. Two similar people, but different due to circumstances." "It is not a cult," Hestia answered firmly, almost petulantly. That accusation had been flung at the civilian aspect of this undertaking more than once. She was used to it, but it always stung a little. "If I wanted to go around killing people, I'd make it very obvious and it'd look very cool. There would be chains! And piranhas. And I'd be drinking this tea from the pristine skull of my enemy. There'd be background music." She spoke like somebody who once wrote an Evil Overlord's Handbook with her childhood best friend. Because she had. Taking another sip of tea, Hestia beamed happily at Niter, "It took a lot of work to make sure the blend was nice while keeping the meditative properties! It's not a hundred percent accurate to the memories, but Earth has such a wealth of plant life that there was a wide variety of viable substitutions." She was clearly very proud of the results. "Do you want to see where hearthflame, the local herb used, is grown? It's part of the main tour I've been planning."
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2023 5:08 pm
What she described still sounded pretty cursed, but Niter was starting to see how it could be useful to learn, uh, stuff about a dead civilization through crazy flashbacks. It seemed more utilitarian now, and far less imminently life-threatening.
And maybe it was a good thing that it wasn't a cult? Because, while the death that Hestia described sounded metal AF, and it could definitely go into a cutting-edge indie platformer with like, TWEWY style animation or something? Niter didn't want to get mixed up in that and end up the wrong side of dead. Nor did he want to think about his skull being someone's teacup. So. He definitely did not push the issue of cult, no matter how cultish the whole long dramatic robe business was, or how they matched her senshi outfit in a way that seemed a little too Stepford Wifey.
But she sorta had that persistent cleaning tic, so maybe that was like, #goals for her?
Niter was perfectly capable of keeping his mouth shut and his eyes on his cup. He even sipped at it all politely, trying his level best not to spill it anywhere lest she murder him with chains and background music and piranhas. And while she elaborated on her dissatisfaction in the brew, he thought to reminder her that she was the only person alive who would know what the tea was supposed to taste like, but that seemed unnecessarily rude and isolating. Instead, he volunteered, "Um, I'm sure if you keep working on it, you'll get it right someday." Or she'd get added to the Negaverse and lose her ability to come here, but —
Niter perked up, no longer lost in his thoughts, when she mentioned plants. If there was anything she could offer him, anything that seemed worth visiting? It was plant.
"Um, yes? Can we go now?" Because his second choice to why weren't we there thirty minutes ago.
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