hmph

[freedomsuitsme]

(come_sailaway IC inbox)

"Do try to keep your handwriting legible. I've enough on my plate without having to decipher chicken scratch."

"Correspondences written on a dirty bar napkin will not receive a response."

Comments

[freedomsuitsme]

"If Friday is too occupied with getting things back in order to help you with that, you can borrow mine. Gods know you need more warding than I do."

He steps back, not wanting to get in the way of Wilson's pacing.

"So it could be that Lft. Tayray has Opened a Door, in some fashion. But that means we can only hope that either something better than Them answers, or that They answer before something worse finds us."

1/2

[takethatnature]

He does prefer to load up on armour and take the blows he can't avoid head-on rather than put all his faith in his dodging skills, even without making any comparisons between the amount of trouble the two of them get into.

"Thanks," he says, only a little bit begrudgingly. "Better to have it hit me with something I can walk away from than hit you and shatter you into a million pieces. I'll work on my lightning rod impression."

2/2

[takethatnature]

Wilson stops pacing to stare wide-eyed at Maxwell. "Worse than- stars and atoms, you really know how to find something reassuring to say in a tough situation."

That little Deerclops sculpture with all the moonglass spikes impaling it through the body and eye comes to mind.

[freedomsuitsme]

"I'd like to be ready for the worst, whether it's coming for us or not. Always assume your opponent is two steps ahead of you. I've made the mistake of thinking I control the board before, as you very well know."

[takethatnature]

Wilson cracks an off-center, fiendish-looking smile, made more so by the fangs left as a parting gift from the Nightmare Throne. "I do know."

He frowns, eyes drifting vaguely ceilingward. "Maybe it's a good sign that They haven't already made a move. If They were waiting for us directly outside the wall, wouldn't They have reached in and grabbed us while They had an opening?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"In theory. Although..." He strokes his chin, thinking.

"The probe may not have been enough of an invitation. To open the Door wide enough, They... or anything else... may need to be called by a more deliberate act."

[takethatnature]

"So is that something we should be doing or trying to stop anyone else from doing? If we don't want to be obliterated or eaten or turned into half-dead moonglass porcupines?" Wilson's frustrated frown isn't going anywhere; he's out of his depth in a field he doesn't even want to be working in. "Is your ritual something like that?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"It's... it's whatever I need it to be, to put a stop to whatever madness might ensue. But I don't know it would be enough to overpower something coming in from the outside."

[takethatnature]

"So it needs a more potent power source?" He doesn't know what that would be, or how one would go about connecting it, but maybe Maxwell will.

[freedomsuitsme]

"I... I don't know. It could address almost anything already present on the ship. But I don't think the force behind it would be a match for any sort of power cosmic." Not without the rest of Tiamat's power, and I'm certainly not giving her that without a very good deal, he thinks.

[takethatnature]

"I suppose that's to be expected," Wilson says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The Captain can control what abilities we get to keep, and if you could harness enough power to fight off a cosmic monstrosity singlehanded, you could probably use it to blast your way out of here."

[freedomsuitsme]

"So it's less for fighting anything on the outside, and more for taking control of whatever is already in here. And from what I understand, it will only work once. So I need to play my hand carefully."

Oh Max, if only you knew how complicated this was going to get...