The Keepers
Posts 234
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Post by Azoth on Nov 7, 2016 21:23:33 GMT -7
Azoth had sent the letter earlier in the week. Sin Eater, Unhallow has suggested I ask you to a conversation in the hopes of settling some differences, and what I hope to be misunderstandings, between us. As I would prefer not to be on poor terms with you, I am taking their advice and extending to you an invitation to a chess match with me, as my attempt of doing so. If you wish to accept, please meet me at the given location and time.
-Azoth It was far from the first match she’d had, but it was both her first with Sin Eater and the first in which she had a strange sense of... what she could only place as dread, prior to the match. Azoth suspected a correlation. She had not been particularly looking forward to this day, in the same way she did a check up with her doctor she knew was going to go poorly. But, while those she could swallow the agitation and just get it over with with decent ease, she couldn’t quite shake the sense of foreboding that stuck at the edges of her mind. Despite the mental protests otherwise, she did get herself out of her house and to the sanctum, however, so she would consider that success enough. She had set up in a quiet room in the back of the archives. Private, out of the way, unlikely to be disturbed; she had come here on occasion for her own work, and found it about as pleasant as the Sanctum could be. A door, lockable (not that that meant much more than a “do not disturb” post it note to a lot of supers), separated it from a hallway that saw only light foot traffic. Presently, it hung slightly ajar. The room itself was somewhat small; perhaps half the size of a regular classroom, and held several chairs comfortable enough for several hours of study, and a single wooden table. Atop it was a carved white and black granite chess set, and what Azoth was now going to call her ‘travel set’. The original had been logged in her brain the night before, and this particular copy been made approximately five minutes prior. Two chairs had been pulled up to the table and set opposite of each other. Azoth had seated herself in the chair before the black pieces, her hands folded in front of her and her legs absently swinging beneath the table. She was, as always, thirty minutes early. Sin Eater
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Nov 8, 2016 17:52:52 GMT -7
Sin Eater was a few minutes late. She limped into the room, a large wound on her belly bleeding through her blouse, with some apparently unrelated blood spatter across the rest of her. Even so, her expression was bright and cheerful as she closed the door behind her and turned the knob to lock it with an ominous click.
"Hello, Azoth! It's so kind of you to invite me. I've been looking forward to this all week."
She made her way to the chair opposite Azoth and sat down, leaning forward with her elbows planted on either side of the board. Her power didn't seem to be detecting anything out of place, but even if it had, her carefree demeanor wouldn't have been any different.
"So, what's on your mind? Forgive me for getting straight to business, but you mentioned 'settling differences' in your letter. It seems only fair to hear you out."
Sin Eater hoped that this proposed chess match was more than it seemed. If the whole fiasco that was today had been kicked off by nothing more than Azoth's desire to play mundane board games, Sin Eater might find it hard not to get... violent.
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The Keepers
Posts 234
Power Level 31
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Post by Azoth on Nov 12, 2016 15:33:42 GMT -7
It was only a few minutes after their designated meeting time, but a large part of Azoth wanted to go ahead and call this a bust. As with many of her meetings, she had not sought to guarantee Sin Eater’s attendance; only put the offer out there. Some meetings the invited party simply chose not to attend. That large part of her was ready to believe that to be the case here.
The chess set was the only thing that would have to be packed up before she left, and that wouldn’t take more than a few moments. Azoth was contemplating just that, and counting the minutes before this could be considered a lost cause, when the door creaked open, clicked behind the arrival, and made all such planning moot.
Resigning herself, Azoth shifted in her seat. Blood had been one of those things that had never particularly bothered her, nor were injuries particularly out of place on Sin Eater, from what she had gathered. Still, there were few who so often had such wounds, yet such a cheery disposition in spite. It was a stark enough combination that, when Azoth called to mind Sin Eater, it was that which came first as the identifying characteristic of who the Keeper was.
Azoth herself sat up straighter when Sin Eater sat down, and placed her hands in her lap. “Ah,” Azoth started, mildly surprised. She had thought ‘settling differences’ with ‘chess’ would have made her intentions obvious enough, and had expected Sin Eater to have caught wind of what her games of chess entailed. She came to a conclusion. “You have not heard of my version of chess, then. Let me explain.
“I have come to find that I am poor at making casual conversation with others that goes anywhere worthwhile. The goal is to get to know the other better, correct? But if we talk in circles or nowhere at all, it wastes your time and it wastes my time. Thus I have begun to implement a means I’ve found to bypass that somewhat.” She felt like she was elucidating this as much to herself as she was to Sin Eater, but that wasn’t important.
“It is, at its base, a game of twenty questions. You get ten of me, and I ten of you. These questions can be of nearly anything, and must be answered truthfully. The degree to which you do so is up to you, but if you give me half-answers, I will give you half-answers in turn. That said, if you go into deep detail, I will do the same to the best of my abilities. There are only two things we cannot ask of each other: our secret identities, and the details of our powers. We also each get two skips. If one of us does not know the answer to a question, it may be passed, and that will not count as a skip. However, it will still count as a question for the asker. We answer and ask our questions as is our turn with each move of chess, thus the chess board.” Azoth finished, gesturing to the pieces.
She took a breath. “If that is acceptable to you, that is the game I purpose. It is also of note, while I consider the ten questions I ask you to be equivalent to the ten you ask me, I am still taking your time. If you wish to agree, I will owe you one standard favor for it.” This was not a clause Azoth wanted to tack onto the end, but it was her standard procedure, and would’ve given it to anyone else. Sin Eater was not exempt from this.
“As white goes first, you get the first move and question.” She finished. “Can I offer you a drink? Tea?” She added, in an attempt of hospitality.
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Nov 18, 2016 2:17:50 GMT -7
The rules of this game were indeed news to Sin Eater. One of the downsides to being so unpleasant to her fellow Keepers was that she missed out on a great deal of the Sanctum's gossip. But her gut feeling after hearing how this game would be played was actually optimistic. This could be interesting after all.
She was less enthusiastic about the promised favor, though she mentally filed the information away for possible future use. Keeping track of discrete favors had always struck her as a tiresome abstraction that bore little relevance to the real reasons people assisted each other. Not to mention that she doubted Azoth would have any interest in honoring any sort of arrangement together if the events that had transpired earlier today somehow came to light.
"That sounds like fun! Hm... I prefer coffee, actually. Black."
While Azoth handled that, Sin Eater took a few moments to consider the starting board. It occurred to her that this would be her first time playing chess since developing her powers. She had been a decent player, as far as middle schoolers went, but that was hardly a guarantee of success against someone who apparently made a habit of playing frequently.
Even so, the results of the game weren't the point here. Sin Eater advanced her kingside pawn forward, a bright smile on her face as she asked her first question.
"So, how would you prefer to die?"
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The Keepers
Posts 234
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Post by Azoth on Nov 20, 2016 0:21:55 GMT -7
Azoth set to work making drinks. The remnants of biological material that made up most drinks - tea leaves, coffee beans - had given her trouble for a good while, meaning making drinks had been one of those tasks left to be done by hand. Thankfully, she was finally beginning to get the hang of it. Azoth herself didn’t drink coffee much; she didn’t much care for the taste in the same way she didn’t much care for consuming hot charcoal, but she’d spent some time cataloging various drinks she saw as likely to be requested, and so did have a few coffees logged. What appeared in the dark blue porcelain mug that formed before Sin Eater was, as requested, a black coffee, and the favorite drink of her personal doctor. An eggshell teacup filled with a chamomile tea appeared before Azoth. She raised the cup to her lips.
Sin Eater’s question nearly made her choke on her drink. She needed a moment to regain herself - avoid coughing and spewing her mouthful over the table, swallow the liquid, wipe her mouth on her sleeve, and settle back upright in the chair. Azoth absently rotated the cup in her hands until the handle rested against her other thumb. She chose to ignore Sin Eater’s wording, as though she were asking for a method to employ.
“As my goals often involve figuring how not to die, I have not put much consideration into the other side of the issue. It is, for me, somewhat irrelevant; even counterproductive.” She began, trying not to outright say she hadn’t any idea and needed time to consider. The second she took anyway, taking a long sip of her tea. She set down the cup and looked across the table to Sin Eater. “What I can say with certainty is that, overall, I would prefer simply to not die. As a super it is not necessarily an impossibility, and so must be considered. But I doubt that is the answer you’re looking for.” She paused again. “Perhaps the most optimal way to die would be peacefully, at the time of my choosing, after I have lived a long and fulfilled life but before my body could degrade past what is manageable to live in. I do not know if such a thing is possible, but that would be my preference, should it be necessary.”
Contrary to Sin Eater, she decided to start fairly standardly. She picked up a knight and moved it forward. “Why did you join the Keepers?”
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Nov 28, 2016 15:44:32 GMT -7
Sin Eater studied the cup of coffee before her. In the instant after it was created, it had been invisible to her power. Like so many other things created from superpowers, it was initially flawless, every mote of its existence perfectly aligned to its purpose. But then it began to cool down and minute amounts of dust began to settle on the surface, both of which Sin Eater was able to detect. Perfection was short-lived.
She took a sip anyway and found it satisfactory. Azoth's response, similarly, was satisfactory. Most people's ideal deaths fell into two categories, peaceful and quick versus exciting and quick, and most people were fairly predictable in their answers. The talk of immortality was enough to make Sin Eater's smile curl unpleasantly, but it wasn't much of a surprise either. Sin Eater's main purpose in asking the question had been to jostle Azoth's state of mind. That accomplished, she prepared to make her next move.
While Azoth had been considering her answer, Sin Eater herself had been considering the nature of the game. The fact that they had two passes each introduced a mancala-like element to the strategy, so that one might seek to lure the opponent into making their own passes and leaving themselves open to hard-hitting questions while one's own passes are kept in reserve to fend off any other hard-hitting questions asked in retaliation. It made for an interesting social element.
"Pass." But Sin Eater's own joining of the Keepers had hardly been a choice, and a response like that would spoil her image. It would be more prudent to quickly turn things around. Sin Eater moved out her own knight on the opposite side of the board, placing it to counter Azoth's. Her tone was still light and pleasant.
"How many people have you killed?"
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The Keepers
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Post by Azoth on Nov 28, 2016 22:15:25 GMT -7
A pass already? That had been a fairly simple question too; everyone she’d asked it prior had returned answers that were relatively uninteresting. The only reason she commonly wasted a question on it was in order to establish a basis of motivation and background from which further questions could be figured, and answers could be contextualized. She wondered, was there something about her joining Sin Eater didn’t want her to know? Perhaps it was a false lead, to make her think there was something there so she might waste questions trying to dig at it. Perhaps Sin Eater simply wasn’t in the mood to answer. Azoth raised an eyebrow quizzically at Sin Eater, but chose not to comment.
In reaching forward to pick up a pawn, she found herself fidgeting with the teacup, moving the handle around in her palm and running her finger along the thin rim. Azoth took a deep breath, and made herself settle. At least Sin Eater’s next question was easier. This was not the first time she’d been asked it.
“I have lost count.” Azoth replied matter-of-factly. “This month I have killed…” she trailed off to let her mind dig and sort through recent events, “eight gang members, two traitors, two officers, six for information, one for a job, one for disrespect, and one out of necessity.” She listed slowly as she recalled. “That is twenty-one. The previous month I killed…” She went silent again, for longer as she went through older memories. She chose not to bore Sin Eater with these specifics. “Thirty-two. Taking the average of the two months, twenty-six point five, and multiplying it by the time I’ve worked actively as a super, my estimate is two-hundred and twelve. Give or take,” she paused again. “Fifty.” She nodded to herself, considering that accurate. “I killed fewer people when I first joined the Keepers, but there have been a few instances which required I kill a large number of people.”
It would be best to attempt another simple question to lay the groundwork the last neglected to establish, but there was one which had been nagging her, asking to be asked, ever since the idea for a chess match was first proposed to her. In a way, it laid its own kind of groundwork. Azoth placed the pawn two spaces forward.
But, try as she might to keep her tone flat, a slight edge of hesitancy found its way into her voice. “Why did you tell Unhallow to attack me that day at the laboratory?”
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Dec 9, 2016 5:30:20 GMT -7
The answer was, again, roughly as Sin Eater had expected. But that wasn't to say that it was without purpose. Her own answer to the question Azoth had posed in turn came without hesitation.
"Unhallow herself had very little to do with it. She was simply the closest blunt instrument at hand, so I used her accordingly. Your objective there was also irrelevant. Something about outdated supernatural research, if I recall? I leaked it in exchange for some favors awhile back, so I suspect it's found its way to you by now in any case."
Sin Eater leaned forward, her hands folded around her cup of coffee. She paused as though thinking over the rest of her response, but in truth she was simply giving her words time to sink in. Her gaze was fixed, unblinking, on her opponent.
"My target was you, yourself. You're a tremendously weak person, Azoth. I mean that in every sense of the word. Your body, of course, is obvious. It stands out like a beacon to my power. Every time you drag your pathetic almost-carcass out of the Sanctum on some business, it's as though it's begging for someone to put it out of its misery. Why, all it would take is for an unpowered person to give you a little bop on the head, and so would end your unbecoming ambitions."
Despite her words, Sin Eater's tone was perfectly pleasant. She smiled and spread her hands wide in a helpless gesture.
"And if your very existence is asking to be snuffed out, then who am I to deny it? I don't make a habit of killing people with superpowers - in fact, I've only ever killed one - but I'm happy to do my own humble part putting you in your place."
It wasn't the full depth of her motivation, but it was as much as she was willing to fully admit to herself, so it was certainly good enough for Azoth. In a single smooth movement, Sin Eater advanced her queen pawn alongside her king pawn, posing an aggressive thrust down the center of the board.
"Of the people you've killed, Azoth, who is the one you knew most intimately?"
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The Keepers
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Post by Azoth on Dec 12, 2016 1:32:36 GMT -7
It’d taken three questions for all hopes of reaching a mutual understanding with Sin Eater to be completely dashed. Azoth had been willing to give it a try for Unhallow, but that answer… It was only because what Sin Eater had said about her strength was true that the cup didn’t break in her hands. When Sin Eater leaned forward, Azoth unconsciously shifted backwards, withdrawing into herself as her knuckles became white on the teacup. When Sin Eater placed her piece, Azoth visibly jumped. She was restless; her mind couldn’t settle on if she should be afraid or furious, and her body played disjointedly along. She knew better than to give into fear tactics - she knew she couldn’t afford to - but Sin Eater had already proven she was not bluffing. It scared her to think it might happen again, and that next time Sin Eater might go farther.
It was only a flash of conflict before anger won out. To be afraid was to be weak, and people would press for advantage against even the smallest signs of weakness. Ire was pleased to fill the gap left. The insult was enough to make her blood run cold. Not only that, but she’d insulted supers as a whole by killing one of their kind. Azoth wanted to immediately ask who it was she had killed, but the chances this was a laid trap were too high - perhaps to get a question she didn’t want to answer out of the way while she still had skips, or in an attempt to make her ask a question she didn’t mind answering. If Sin Eater was trying to beg questions, she couldn’t play along. The question could be saved for later.
It took several seconds of deep breaths to calm herself to where her voice didn’t shake. “‘Intimate’ is the wrong word." She began slowly. "It implies comfort and amity. I have never killed anyone who I would consider ‘intimate’; I am above harming such people. Any whom I knew well or was previously close to lost my goodwill, and that is what lead me to kill them.
“The person who I was closest to before their betrayal and death was a nurse of mine. She had been one of my major care givers for about two years. We talked fairly often, and she played the part of my friend well. I trusted and cared about her. I assumed she thought the same of me. Not long before I left for home, I discovered that that this assumption was false. Just like all the others. We met again later in a hospital visit, not long after I gained my powers. She was given an opportunity to prove me wrong. I confirmed, and I killed her.”
She was speaking through her teeth, but was speaking freely. Unusually, she found she didn’t care if Sin Eater knew this about her, even if doing so was falling into a trap or giving the girl material to use against her. Azoth dared her to try.
“She was the first person I killed.” She added absently after a moment's pause. That should be suitable for an answer.
Azoth didn’t bother to reach forward to move her piece. Instead, the knight simply vanished from the board and reappeared in its new space towards the center. Her gaze remained affixed on Sin Eater.
“It causes Unhallow no small amount of pain to be brought into conflict between Keepers.” Even she could see that. “Why would you use someone who cares for you to the degree of Unhallow in a way that causes her so much pain?” The only like Azoth could draw in her own life was Geata, and she would never imagine causing him the amount of distress Unhallow had exhibited that day they spoke. She certainly wouldn’t refer to it with the amount of casualness Sin Eater had.
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Jan 3, 2017 4:00:00 GMT -7
"Is that how you justify your weakness?" Sin Eater's tone was somewhere between amusement and sympathy. "How can you possibly think so much of yourself when your capabilities are so limited? To be unable to kill anyone for whom you hold the slightest bit of sentimental attachment, except when they turn against you first... it's so very human."
Sin Eater's eyes bored into Azoth. She didn't so much as glance down at the board.
"And then to ask me about Unhallow... your weakness was always evident, but I had no idea you were ignorant as well. You can't even conceive of someone being stronger than you. No wonder you're so arrogant.
"Instead of asking me why I hurt her, you should be asking yourself why I wouldn't. The peculiar attachment she feels toward me has no influence whatsoever on my priorities with regard to her. It merely gives me more ways to use her. If the cost of achieving some goal is that Unhallow is made to suffer, then I don't consider it to have a cost at all. Even a moment's idle amusement is worth more to me than anything she could possibly feel."
It had registered to Sin Eater's power when Azoth made her move. After all, it didn't work only on human bodies. It could repair buildings and devices too, and even smooth over their functional flaws to the point that they were better-than-new. But 'function' was an arbitrary concept, and the relationship between a living human body and a dead one was not so different from the relationship between a chess board where White had the advantage and one where Black's position was superior.
Sin Eater didn't normally like to reveal the less obvious applications of her power, but this was a special occasion.
Blood vessels burst, tendons tore, skin parted. A trickle of red ran from Sin Eater's eye down her cheek as she continued to stare at Azoth. At the same time, one of her pawns on the edge of the board scratched its way forward one square. Sin Eater wasn't actually sure how this helped, but it had resulted from absorbing a flaw in her position, so it had to be right.
"You're already weak, and you surround yourself with people that make you even weaker. Hemming yourself in, restricting your possible moves. I've known common criminals with more power than you.
"That's the difference, I think, between a true 'super' and a powerless person who simply has a few magic tricks at her disposal. An unpowered person, if you will. Someone who will always live in fear.
"That's you, isn't it, Azoth? Tell me, what do you think your life would be like if you weren't a super?"
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The Keepers
Posts 234
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Post by Azoth on Jan 8, 2017 18:51:27 GMT -7
It was infuriating that Sin Eater would not stop calling her weak, and moreso that she was trying to pass off the indomitable fact as a point towards this, like being human was some kind of flaw. But she’d adjusted to Sin Eater’s painfully false and unfounded and insulting argument that she was weak - it’d peaked, and was diminishing slowly only because Sin Eater wouldn’t let it die. What the Keeper, Unhallow’s given best friend, said about Unhallow ripped a second hole in Azoth’s gut and reflamed her anger. Azoth had half a mind to end the conversation and the game here and make Sin Eater take it all back, treating Unhallow like she did, viewing her pain as little more than amusement. The only reason she didn’t was because doing so was bound to hurt Unhallow as well. Azoth stayed in her seat and remained silent until Sin Eater was done, though her nails did likewise in the tips of her fingers.
Azoth felt the uneasy chill of the scraping before she found the source. Up until that point, her eyes had remained unwavering on Sin Eater’s, but for an instant they darted downwards to the piece, moving unhelped down the board. Her eyes were wide behind her tinted spectacles when they returned to the Keeper and before Azoth could take hold of them again. She had thought Sin Eater was only able to absorbing faults. She had absorbed something, her eye told as much, but it had caused something to advance. What exactly was Sin Eater capable of?
Azoth couldn’t follow Sin Eater’s logic. She surrounded herself primarily with supers, whom were strong. The unpowereds she interacted with were like tools; put into use for as long as they were useful, and then discarded before they could weigh her down. She was not hemming herself in with weaklings, she was gathering objectively powerful allies who would bolster her own power when it was needed. But it didn’t really matter if she understood what Sin Eater was saying because she felt the meaning and insinuation behind the words.
Arguing with Sin Eater on those points was a moot cause. There was no longer hope in reconciling with Unhallow’s friend, so her only remaining obligation here was to answer the questions and ask her own. She had to remained focused on that.
Azoth made her back artificially straight. “Asking what my life would be like should I be unpowered is irrelevant on several levels. First, I am not unpowered, and never will be. Considering what it would be like if I was is akin to wondering what it would be like if I were born a dog. It has no sway in any aspect of my life and is of only temporary amusement as a thought experiment. More importantly, if I were an unpowered, none of this would matter. I wouldn’t matter, because I would be one more of the billions of pawns. I would be weak, insignificant, and vulnerable to the whims of those far more powerful than I could ever hope to be. Any power I gained would be false, kept only because people with true power, such as who I actually am, had yet to get around to overturning it. My life as an unpowered would be irrelevant and therefore it is irrelevant to to ask.”
Azoth lifted her tea cup and took a long sip. With another deep breath, her voice became mentally measured and emotionless. Forcing a composure had made her voice fake and synthetic in a way it rarely was.
“You have no respect. None for others, but especially none for yourself. By treating other supers as no more than pawns or play things, you undermine your own standing as a super. You tarnish the very thing that gives you your power, because if you were unpowered,” Azoth leaned in, but only managed forward a couple of inches, “you too would be weak. Insignificant. Vulnerable to the whims of those who are stronger than you. You call me weak, but I embrace what gives me my power. I do not understand why you try to destroy yours.”
She had been planning to move her bishop next, but Sin Eater’s move had countered that advance. In its place, her tower vanished and reappeared a few spaces forward.
“How powerful are you, Sin Eater?”
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The Keepers
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Post by Sin Eater on Jan 10, 2017 11:28:02 GMT -7
Sin Eater could sense the painful emotions churning and boiling inside Azoth. It seemed that their little game was coming to a head. Her smile was wider than ever.
"Oh, I'm very powerful. Perhaps as powerful as it's possible for anything to be."
She studied Azoth's expression for a moment. A more extensive justification was warranted.
"You don't believe me, do you? Here, allow me to prove it to you, then. I will demonstrate how I am strong and you are weak.
"There is nothing you can do, between all your matter manipulation and unpowered pawns and Keeper allies, to hurt me. I consider you to be, at worst, a minor annoyance. There is no one and nothing you can use as leverage over me. Kill Unhallow, and it simply means I have one less tool. Interfere with me on a mission, and I'll just have to work a bit harder later. It happens that most of my family died in a recent dragon attack, but I could give you the others' names and addresses if you want to verify that I won't be hurt by anything you do to them either.
"Or perhaps you'd resort to targeting me, personally? Well, my superpower means that you can't do anything permanent to me anyway, but even if I were unpowered I'd be too strong for you to truly hurt. Dying is unpleasant, but you can't hurt someone anymore once she'd dead."
Sin Eater spread her hands, gesturing as she explained.
"Of course, being powerful isn't just about how hard it is to hurt you. It's also about how easily you can hurt others!
"Let's compare the two of us again. Like I've said, you're weak because you restrict your options so much. You don't hurt anyone who's earned your goodwill, you don't kill supers, you carefully measure favors and debts, and you go to great lengths to keep it all balanced. You follow the rules. I imagine it's a psychological defense mechanism. As long as you can convince yourself that everything moves in predictable patterns of debt and repayment, action and consequence, transgression and punishment... then you can feel safe."
She picked up her queen, moving near the center of the board where it threatened both Azoth's knight and her tower. She would have to lose one or the other. However, in order to reach that square, the queen had to pass over one of Sin Eater's own pawns. It was a blatantly illegal move.
"But as for myself, I don't follow the rules. I hardly even bother keeping track of favors. I don't amass wealth or influence. I hurt those stupid enough to think of me as a friend. I can tell how much it bothers you, the way I treat Unhallow. I'm so much more powerful that I can make you suffer without even trying! Like dominoes, I just give one of you a little nudge and the rest all collapse in turn."
Sin Eater giggled, as if at some private joke.
"Incidentally, Azoth, what's your favorite method for hurting people?"
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The Keepers
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Post by Azoth on Jan 10, 2017 14:51:16 GMT -7
“That isn’t what power is about!” Azoth retorted, shooting several inches forward in her chair and simultaneously breaking her flat voice and personal promise to not respond to anything but the questions. “Power is not the ability to cause pain others and prevent pain to yourself. I am surprised to hear such a narrow-minded, blind, naive idea.” She said bitingly, unable to chose an adjective and so had gone with all of them. “You assume causing physical and emotional pain is the only way to obtain or take from others power, and you assume that my power is based solely off yours. You are full of yourself if you think you hold that much importance to me; the only reason I am here today is as a small favor to Unhallow. Not for you, not because I’m scared of you, not because I even think of you outside of the times you show up to waste your time trying to waste mine. You are nothing more than a small delay at worst, and a useless small facet of one of my friends at best. You don’t even register as a pawn on the chessboard I’ve built for myself.”
Azoth didn’t talk with her hands, but she did with her head. It and her shoulders jerked upwards with the occasional statement of anger or her chin downwards and left with a point of particular spite, which she’d habitually try to return to her usual relaxed posture before something else yanked it away again. Her inflection faded back to a flat neutral, but her body language did not.
“Power is the number of options you have. The number of actions you can take and the lack of meaningful opposition stopping you from doing so. If I want a mansion, I need only to make a small sum of gold and I can purchase it. How much work would it take you to obtain that same property? If I want a small job done, I need only send one of my unpowereds to do it. Who would have to go in your case? If I want information from unpowereds, I need only the time it takes for me to travel there because the only ones who have managed to even slow me down from breaking in and taking what I want are other supers. How many favors would you need to trade to do the same? I do not ‘convince’ myself that my matters move in predictable patterns, I make them so. The balance I maintain is the optimal state. Try to nudge my tower.” She dared. “You will be able to do nothing of consequence. The ‘psychological defenses’ you speak of are tactics to keep everything in line and in order; it keeps people happy, which maintains loyalty, which strengthens my network. What is corrupted can be replaced because my pool of resources is much larger than any damage you can cause. It is stronger than you because I am stronger than you, and it makes me even moreso.”
Azoth settled back in her seat, hands folded on the table and eyes set stiffly ahead. The amount of talking was making her short of breath, and it showed in her voice, but she made no move to fix it. Her focus was too squarely on Sin Eater to fully notice.
“You asked me what my favorite way to harm people is.” She said formally. “I do not take joy in harming people, though I don’t take any particular pain in it either. Therefore, my preference does not come from an emotional stance but a logical one. ‘Harm’, taken in terms of power, would mean to cause any ill effect to someone, not just physical or psychological. The most useful way to harm someone is to do so in a way that they will no longer be an issue, without otherwise harming my own power. In the case of unpowereds, this often means killing, but there is another, broader and much more effective means that applies to both unpowereds and supers: intimidation. My favorite method of harming others is through intimidation.
“But any means of permanently removing opposition is acceptable. If an unpowered gets in my way, I kill them. This doesn’t lessen my power, it proves it. I know I cannot kill you, not only because of your powers, but to kill you hurts my own power as a super. However, I, or many others, could stop you. You cannot be killed, but you can be caught, yes? It would be particularly easy with you. Surely you know why.”
Azoth carefully wrapped her hands around her teacup and brought it back and up to her lips, letting her words settle while she took a long drink. It was one of the few non-fact based conversational tactics she knew of and employed. Its most common use was to scare wealthy aristocrats into doing what she wanted when logic wasn’t enough. Now it was simply a favored method of harm. She lowered the cup to her chest, balancing the handle in a couple of fingers and resting her other hand underneath. The queen was ignored, both in what she threatened and in the move itself. A pawn vanished and reappeared a space forward to free her own queen next turn. Sin Eater could take what she wanted.
“Because unlike me, you have no support. You have no true allies. If I was in trouble, I have people who care about me and who would come for me. Who would come for you, Sin Eater?”
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The Keepers
Posts 90
Power Level 24
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Post by Sin Eater on Jan 10, 2017 16:28:20 GMT -7
"I have no allies," Sin Eater admitted, "but that doesn't mean I have no support. Many Keepers find my abilities indispensable. I can mitigate the effects of Unhallow's power, even suppress her fear and grief. I can heal battle wounds, repair equipment. I can even cure innate health problems like yours. The moment I disappear, those who have come to rely upon me will begin to search, and some of them have powers that are very difficult to evade."
As Sin Eater continued, her tone was almost apologetic. But beneath the surface, she was fuming. The bluster about her supposed insignificance was irrelevant, but it was clear that Azoth had grasped the true curse behind immortality, and that was unforgivable. She needed to be made to suffer, immediately.
"I see your point about intimidation. But on the other hand, words alone aren't enough to intimidate. You also need to be more powerful than the person you're intimidating, and the person you're intimidating must be aware of that. And if there's disagreement regarding who's the stronger one, then a demonstration of power might be necessary. I think you'll agree that 'power', in this case at least, does refer to the ability to hurt someone.
"Ah, but please don't misunderstand. With all this talk of intimidation and demonstrations and hurting people, you must think I'm threatening you. But when I tell you about my thought process here, it's not a threat."
Sin Eater clasped her hands together and smiled brightly.
"It's a confession!
"You see, having a definite sphere of influence gives you some options, but it also robs you of others. Once you build a mansion, you are then restricted to the options that allow you to defend it, or else you risk losing it along with everything you've invested in it. The same principle applies to underlings, allies... and friends."
Sin Eater's smile began to fade. Her tone gradually flattened.
"And if you don't realize that your options have narrowed, if you aren't careful to keep your attachments absolutely secret, then they become weaknesses. They can be used to hurt you. They will be used to hurt you.
"You should know that my power can sense emotions. When I'm fighting a rival and an unwelcome guest arrives, that's annoying enough. But when they look at each other, and I recognize certain mutual emotions arising within them both... I see a weakness."
She picked up her queen, then knocked over Azoth's knight with a click that rang through the quiet room. Her expression was completely blank. The fresh blood from her eye and the slightly older blood on her clothes were obviously hers, but the spatter across her face had a different source.
Sin Eater spoke slowly, staring at Azoth with cold eyes that had seen Death millions of times.
"So, tell me, Azoth. Who is the one super I've killed? Whose blood am I wearing right now?"
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The Keepers
Posts 234
Power Level 31
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Post by Azoth on Jan 14, 2017 1:29:55 GMT -7
Azoth had previously wondered if Sin Eater would be able to cure her illness. It was an obvious extrapolation based on the most rudimentary things the Keeper appeared capable of, and so chances of the ability were determined to be high. The only reason she’d never sought her out to confirm and request was the enormously large favor she would owe the Keeper she didn’t want to owe a nickel to that she would be obligated to fulfill. Someone like Sin Eater was among her last options, when all of her other plans were exhausted or something was too pressing to do otherwise. She still had many more to try, and time was still on her side. What she didn’t appreciate was Sin Eater throwing it in her face that she could make the whole trial simple, and she knew it. For lack of an offer after this long, it was unlikely she was going to of her own volition, likely out of some inane reason that drove her actions. Azoth didn’t appreciate being teased.
Indeed, Azoth almost seemed to be burning her way through the chair as Sin Eater went on. She was subconsciously sinking into herself and her seat. She didn’t say anything, nor did her expression change. Neither did the aura slosh of anger, irritability, hate, or malice subside. Azoth couldn’t understand what exactly the Keeper was on about.
It took her a moment to figure out the identity of the person she was referencing, but the only ally and friend who had arrived to help her fight Sin Eater was Geata. Why she was talking like she was, not dissimilar to when an unpowered thought they had a piece of blackmail over her, was confusing. She said this wasn’t a threat, but there wasn’t much besides threatening Geata that she could possibly be talking about. Her previous statement therefore must’ve been a lie, and this was some threat passed off as, what was it, a confession?
It wasn’t until her question that the last piece fell into place, and it slowly dawned on her what exactly Sin Eater talking about. For a moment, Azoth’s heart stopped.
She had to be bluffing. Or lying, or twisting her words to make her think something that wasn’t true to mess with her head. It had to be something like that, a head trick from Sin Eater. She was trying to trick her. It couldn’t be true, because it was impossible. It couldn’t be Geata’s blood.
But what if Geata was really dying, or was already- her throat caught and she had to shake the thought. Geata couldn’t be dead. There was no way. He was stronger than that; stronger than her. He’d promised her he wouldn’t die, and Geata did not betray his promises. But if he was dying, she needed to get to him as quickly as possible to help; she couldn’t afford to sit around and try to call a bluff.
She had to get proof. The blood itself wouldn’t work, but if Sin Eater had made any contact with the person in question, tiny follicles of their clothes would’ve rubbed off on hers. It was small, but she could trace it. Azoth took bits of Sin Eater’s clothing, too small to be noticed by unaided senses, until she found recent specks of cloth different from her own clothing.
The purple material was easily recognizable. She’d seen in a good number of times before;t it was one of the more common traces Azoth found whenever she got rid of her daily outfit. It was Geata’s sweatshirt. Azoth’s eyes went wide and her body still enough that the tea in her hands was completely placid, and she searched again for more of the purple sweatshirt on her shirt. Maybe the age of the material was off. Maybe her memory wasn’t remembering the makeup of Geata’s outfit correctly.
But the more she tried desperately to prove herself wrong, the more proof she found. The traces of Geata’s shirt had to be as recent as today, possibly as recent as within the last hour. Nothing else was prominent enough to have happened between whenever Sin Eater met with Geata and now; it couldn’t be anyone else’s blood. Her power was never wrong. Her power’s memory never forgot. Sin Eater was telling the truth.
She didn’t need proof to believe the other half of Sin Eater’s implication; somewhere, Geata was dying. Possibly already... dead. Azoth shook the thought again. The blood was fresh. There was still time.
She had to believe there was still time.
Azoth stood up quickly enough that the chair fell backwards. Her boots hit the ground, followed soon by the crash of the chair, and she slammed her hands down on the table hard enough to rattle the few pieces directly in front of her. True malice and a deep, gut clenching fear rose up in Azoth in a way and with far more potency than anything she’d experienced prior. She was shaking - and shaking the table with her - but her voice was not. It sounded like her throat was full of daggers and she screeched louder than she’d ever had reason to do so before.
“Where is he?!”
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