I.1 - IX.6 [video]

[trephaestos]

[comes over the network delayed, all at once. Signature stamps read out the timeline.]

[ Day 1, broadcast 1, accidental video: ]

[The term was reserved for this arrival. Anatole has never been given one more literally scorched

Comments

Video

[trephaestos]

[Observations: What's transmitted on a forge is not just in real time but accessible later. They turn on initiated by the sender even when your forge is the receiver. Someone could activate your forge and start watching and be unseen by not speaking. Watch the light, keep it turned to the wall, always finish with text so that'll be the reset default

He pulls the blanket properly around his shoulders, though-what can one expect at a cheap public clinic-it's doing nothing to warm him. Squares his shoulders to peer into the forge screen. The other is staying on voice only. Switching to voice himself by now would be not only pointless but weakening.

He has no American accent saying,]

Ne pas voir les gens, cela permet de leur supposer toutes les perfections.

[, three kinds of pointedly.]

[ooc: for all he knows, over the forge, everyone already only hears their own language. Since River sometimes speaks in Chinese and Ezio in Italian, let's say that's not the case ;-) maybe when people speak unthinkingly in their default language their meaning will always be translated, and when they make the decision to speak a specific language, that's part of intent so that's what comes out? Forges are totally telepathic]

Voice

[upstairsmixup]

[lazily, offhandedly, silky sarcasm]

L’âme humaine, chose importante à dire dans la minute où nous sommes, a plus besoin encore d’idéal que de réel.

[ edit, ooc: ... because the awareness of quoting another, of using another's words - a frenchman's words, would totes deactivate the default unthinking translation ... thing. ;)]

Voice

[trephaestos]

[His eyes narrow to parse-less translation as intention. Gibe failed to provoke video but succeeded in establishing common reference. Enough to drop the language and the quoting. Fine as wine. Was this relevant? Until more was known, everything was relevant.]

What here can be called "ideal"?

[ooc: :D ]

Voice

[upstairsmixup]

[ There's some malice in the voice, now - but it is so muted and so smothered in dully affected sardonicism that it's barely readable. Contention is expected in this sort of exchange, thus incredulity is weak and passing.

Still lazily said, heavily spoken.]

That is a fine question, Monsieur.

My answer? Probably nothing and everything, at once.

[ ... ]

Although I cannot say that I've energy enough to summon preference, either way - for anything. Other than the decided inclination towards sleep that your bellowing interrupted, that is.

So perhaps my answer is useless to you.

Voice

[trephaestos]

[have some nasal sarcasm back]

Sorry if my abduction and incarceration interrupted your beauty sleep. If these devices have so much a mind of their own they don't have a silencing function, perhaps you could have had the foresight to leave it in another room?

Voice

[upstairsmixup]

[another scoffish laugh, then a long-suffering sigh]

That would be good thinking, except that they've such a mind of their own they follow you from room to room, as well.

Voice

[trephaestos]

[raises another eyebrow]

They're locomotive?

Voice | ... Also, assuming Trep is still on video.

[upstairsmixup]

[still peering from behind the disabled aperture of the forge. how could something take and store images so quickly? transmit them? if he was any more certain of his sanity, watching the video change in real time and react to his words would almost be enough to rouse Erik into some reverse engineering.

but then, such motivation would still have his current apathy and lethargy to contend with.

a little sound of movement as he sets the device aside.]

Persistently so.

VIDEO | ... gosh, you're right, should've been the whole time. /facepalm/

[trephaestos]

[has been avoiding studying the forge beyond superficially. Because it was not a ruled-out possibility that this is a trick, he is captured, and the point of the entire deception is this little device, to have him take it apart and/or put it back together, put his own knowledge and work into it, and so be giving the fingerprint of his knowledge and work to whoever was behind this. It could all be a trap or a test.

This new declaration is either laughable or irresistible.

Go with laughable.

For the moment.

Doesn't pick up the forge to see how such a thing could be achieved. Later, while not video. Can't have it both ways: use it and avoid it. He's been using it. He'll have to go further.]

Well, sir [deliberately not Monsieur], I'm sure this has been very informative.

Last questions.

Voice

[upstairsmixup]

[mumbled:] I'm sure it's been nothing of the sort.

[louder:] You may ask.

Video

[trephaestos]

[common reference doesn't mean common origin [ 1 ] That statement, while seeming obvious, somehow is haunting him. As meaning more than yet/previously defined.]

What was I quoting? And what were you?

Voice

[upstairsmixup]

Were we really quoting? I'm afraid I wasn't aware.

Video

[trephaestos]

[…

…inconclusive.

Which is to say: headache.]

Any for me?