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[i][u]Meanwhile, back in the garden during the negotiations...[/u][/i]
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Trypano was brought to follow a man of noticeably shorter stature than her to the verdant gardens of the Imperial Palace. A variety of fruits and vegetables grew, some foreign, others grafted to create new variants of a species. There was an orchard not too far off where similar gardening experiments had been done and brought to existence a variety of different coloured fruits. They were definitely giving the Suspended Gardens of Gandakar a run for their money.

[color=9400D3]“You are a bright individual, far brighter than most of your peers.”[/color] started the man wearing the distinctly purple robe as he reached for a melon that had been ‘bred’ to have little to no seeds. [color=9400D3]“Far brighter than most people, I should say.”[/color] the fruit was split, showing off the literal fruits of knowledge sharing and meticulous work. [color=9400D3]“But, alas, our limited vessels can only give us so much time to realize our visions for this world. So few potentials end up truly realized.”[/color] he offered half of the treat to the pale scholar. [color=9400D3]“We can offer you that time. Time and power. Our power.”[/color] he smiled and tilted his head expectantly. [color=9400D3]“You would be one of us, Trypano Somia, and no longer will you be constrained by not only your own limits, but those also imposed by those who fail to see the potential of your vision.”[/color]

She walked in the garden with one who by now surely knew her own crew and theirs had clashed. This was no doubt an attempt to sway her favor, no less than it would be with many of her other peers. As expected, Laughing Squid offered flattery before stating their offer. With little else spoken before he offered a sample of one of the garden's many fruits she took the melon half from his hand, now holding it in her own.

[color=crimson]"A bright individual may believe themself bright. The brightest however knows how little it means to grade so vague a term in a linear capacity."[/color] Her blood red index nail on her left hand traced the rim of the melon, it's very edge leaving a fine line on it's surface. Subtly, beneath her unmoving mask she was acting upon the melon magically. Her eyes scanned the chronological passage of the melon itself, leaving faint impressions in the instant as she initiated a bio-chemical state of decay in the skin of the fruit, running right along the line she had left both physically and temporally.

[color=crimson]"Intelligence is a quality one may recognize but all struggle to truly define. Is someone who can memorize any information they are presented inherently able to make the most of resources present to them? Is someone who can deduce the solution to any puzzle no matter how complex naturally orient themselves in an unfamiliar location? Is someone who can perceive every force present and calculate the very outcomes of every interaction able to understand what purpose any of their own choices holds?"[/color] The rot that had set in followed the line, roots stemming out from the central point of contact, each stage in this necrotic progression pinned along both a mental, physical and even magical map she was carving along the rim in a long ring.

[color=crimson]"In the end I am not smarter than them inherently. Rather, the course of events have led me to perceive things they have not. The sum of my experiences has led me to different conclusions than theirs. Time and experience may be able to better inform decisions but every mind differs in innate variables which lead to different conclusions. One could a nearly identical life from birth and still act differently from the other. Only in the full measure of time can one say what choices hold merit over others."[/color] What had appeared to be a ring was slowly forming into a spiral, the edge passing just beneath the rot which was slowly subsuming the outer layer.

[color=crimson]"I have seen things far different from what most would experience in their lifespans. I've been displaced temporally, seen the end of Sipenta itself, witnessed those who monitor activity along the timestream, spoken to beings with knowledge beyond that of any mortal."[/color] The necrotic spiral left behind at the start of the trace line echoed throughout the surface, the path thinning as it meets up with the current where the nail carves along the surface.

[color=crimson]"For what it's worth I see no inherent wrongdoing in their philosophy. The more power one holds the more difficult control becomes, the more essential it is to maintain. You build up a status quo, taking every factor present and regulating it until all things strike a harmony. Alas, new issues arise, new problems in need of jurisdiction. The judgement is passed and then later tweaked again and then again until the issue is satisfied. All the while as life grows, as people grow, the system expands and things which were not previously problems turn imbalanced once again."[/color] With each passage of the nail the rot starts to layer onto itself, the darkening edges warping with decay the longer it spreads.

[color=crimson]"Being as short lived as I am thus far I can only imagine likening such a task to a carnival trick I once saw over in Mycormii. The performer would spin a plate upon a slender rod, keeping it balanced with focus until it strikes a balance. Then the performer would balance a new plate upon another rod whilst maintaining the previous plate. Two spinning plate, each requiring attention to keep them spinning without losing balance. This act would continue until the inevitable conclusion wherein a plate would inevitably destabilize and fall. The more talented the performer, the more plates they could keep spinning. Without the use of magic I've only ever seen someone keep up to twelve plates spinning at once. With magic, I've seen up to one hundred and forty four simultaneously maintained by a single practitioner."[/color] At this rate the rotten juices were starting to leak down her arm, dribbling from the weak points in the decayed shell as with each pass of the spiral the rot travels deeper and deeper towards the ripe, pink core.

[color=crimson]"I do not judge them for acting as they've deemed necessary. In the end it is not my place to tell the people of Rettan who is more deserving to lead them. All I can ascertain is that with each passing event all life draws ever closer to certain destruction. A landscape sheathed in lava, oceans turned to acid and devoid of even a sky."[/color] As the spiral turns ever tighter it reaches it's final bend, stopping on a singular point in the center of the melon. Placing a waypoint to cap off the temporal pins she's left in the timeline of the melon's decay she studies it across it's many iterations, using the rot as a physical signifier of it's temporal location.

[color=crimson]"Perhaps in a different iteration I may take you up on this offer. In this instance however there are matters that require looking into."[/color] For but a brief moment she tore her gaze from her little test to look at Laughing Squid directly.

[color=crimson]"Tell me, where do you think these issues began? Had the traveler really brought so much dissent as to provoke action from Wu Long, the church and even the Nikanese? Was it Wu Long who set so many things into motion with his machinations? Did either the church or the Nikanese slowly pluck at the strings until all this control came unwound, prompting this bout of chaos? Or perhaps it was something more integral, more intimate with the emperors themselves that changed? Why do you think all this occurred after knowing stability for so long? After all, even you must have begun to notice things after serving for so long."[/color] She asked him, probing the man even as she stared through into the very plane of existence of this decayed, rotten fruit she now held.

[color=9400D3]“You take an awfully long time to say ‘no’,”[/color] the one known as Laughing Squid had not moved his lips. In fact, he hadn’t really moved at all and stared at Trypano completely expressionless. The voice came from something closer than her. In her hand was the same fruit she had rotted away, except it was back, cut in half and perfectly restored. Except it had a mouth, one with thick pink lips and pearly white teeth, that spoke with the Squid’s voice. [color=9400D3]“for a being with so little time.”[/color] the melon then grew a pair of brown eyes and narrowed toward the pale scholar.

[color=9400D3]“HeeeeeHeeeeHeeeeee.”[/color] the half-fruit vibrated as it snickered. [color=9400D3]“Consider your position, and mine, young larvae.”[/color] the fruit licked its lips, causing melon-scented mucus to ooze out of it and spill, potentially onto Trypano’s wrist. [color=9400D3]“You should be listening to me. Not the other way around. And I recommend you heed my offer very carefully.”[/color] the motionless Black Guard infrequently looked over to the other fruits. They remained unchanged, for now. [color=9400D3]“Eternal life. Power that surpasses what you could ever achieve in your lifetime. Unobstructed research. All for just a teeny, tiny bit of cooperation.”[/color] the slush-like contents of the fruit briefly turned into an arm and hand, with index and thumb forming a C shape to illustrate just how small her role was. [color=9400D3]“But not only that. Stormcloud’s grounds would be made available, and permission to the Philosophers’ Archives of ReTan granted to you.”[/color] the fruit began to rot away as it had been just moments prior, until it was nothing, but it spoke a final line before it vanished. [color=9400D3]“A temporal scholar’s dream. Or Hell, any daring mage’s, I say! HeeeeeHeeeeee!”[/color] the fruit was truly no more.

[color=9400D3]“What will it be, then?”[/color] asked Laughing Squid with a placid smile. 

Trypano looked on, her expression no different than it was to start. It was remarkable she didn't look more unamused with his deduction.

[color=crimson]"My, you are [i]terrible[/i] at negotiations, aren't you?"[/color] She answered flatly. [color=crimson]"Here I was thinking I could at least get some work done."[/color] She cast her gaze back to the fruit he previously altered.

She cast the remains of the fruit aside, clearly tampered with and thus irrelevant to her experiment. [color=crimson]"Another question for you then: What sort of fool would trust the word of one who's loyalties are traded as readily as the trinkets of a merchant?"[/color] No longer interested in this dullard who struggled to follow her logic she turned and started back towards the main dining room where (presumably) her colleagues remained.

[color=crimson]"Act unto me or scurry back to your master's feet. You will do continue to do your duty just as I shall continue to do mine. Surely you can grasp at least that much."[/color] She dismissively waved him off, fully expecting him to try something as no doubt this was most probably a trap. The whole dinner was a trap, this much she expected. This bit was just... Annoying mostly.

Here she went thinking she might actually get to have a decent conversation for once. Even immortality can only build on what's already there apparently.

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