Palamedes Sextus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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come_sailaway2022-09-03 02:27 pm
hellonspectacles) wrote in come_sailaway2022-09-03 02:27 pm
Anyone can learn to fight. Hardly anyone learns to think. [Open + Closed]
Who: Palamedes and you! (closed prompt for Clarke)
What: Pre-Setepmber 16 catch all, feat. necromancy research + moral arguments.
Where: Sand Dollars, Cabin 105, out and about
When: late August/early September
Warnings ETA: Gideon the Ninth spoilers within, particularly in any threads regarding Pal's notes!
1. Truth unvarnished, and truth unclean [Closed: for Clarke]
As Palamedes walks to Clarke’s cabin, he can feel his adrenaline spike and his body reduce its blood flow to his digestive track.
In other words, he has butterflies in his stomach.
Pal tells himself that this silly physiological reaction is merely a result of concern over his friend’s wellbeing. A few days have passed since their near-death experience at the hands of a zombie horde, and Pal has spent much of that time dead asleep from exhaustion. Now that he has fully returned to the waking world, he sets about doing his doctorly duty to check on his friends injuries. He starts with Clarke because he hadn’t had the chance to examine her before they had parted. She’d brushed him off, and he’d let her, and he needs to make sure that that was the right call.
Are there other reasons he is going to see her? Sure, yes, maybe. But he would much rather stick to the practicalities for now. After all, Palamedes has far more experience with those than he does with matters of the heart.
2. Hold on to that edge, and keep holding. [Semi-open: for anyone who has expressed interest in necromancy or figuring out the Captain's Whole Deal]
Each carefully-wrapped gift appears innocent enough, but Palamedes knows by now not to be placated. He had picked them up from Sundries the day before, and now they each sit on his desk in his cabin while he stares at them, trying to guess what wonder or horror might wait inside. Four are clearly books; another is a jar; the last an annoyingly nondescript box.
Merely looking at them reveals nothing, of course—x-ray vision is not among Pal’s many skills—and he finally gives up on hypothesizing and tears the wrapping off the damn things. The first package he opens is one of the books, Applied Spirit Microchemistry, and he smiles with wary relief. Well, that will be useful. His relief only grows: each book is a primer on some aspect of necromancy, and the jar contains a conductive gel known to improve psychometric abilities.
But the last box is where things get really interesting. Pal unwraps it, lifts the lid, and murmurs, “Hot damn.”
Immediately, he takes out his phone and sends a text to a handful of select friends.
Good morning!
Yesterday I received a box of notes related to a pre- Serena Eterna research project of mine. I believe they may be relevant to our current predicament, and I would greatly appreciate a consultation. If interested, please stop by Cabin 105 at your earliest convenience.
PS
[ooc: have you had a conversation with Pal about either necromancy or the Captain? You're getting a text!]
3. An afterlife subscription to Palamedes Sextus’ Top Nerd Facts [Open to all]
The packages are useful for reasons that go beyond his search to learn more about the Captain and free the ship’s passengers from bondage—they have a more immediate application as well. Over the past few weeks, Palamedes has spoken to a number of people who have expressed interest in learning necromantic theory. Each request thrills him, for the only non-necromancer he has ever known to show such interest is Camilla Hect.
He has begun to share the basics with a select group of people already, but now he has the textbooks to help him along. Camped out at Sand Dollars, the books laid open on the table, he busily sketches lesson plans in his notebook, periodically looking up to refer to one of the texts or turn a page.
His box of notes—photographs, in fact, showing the walls of a small room covered in necromantic theorems—also sits on the table. While not exactly basic necromancy, his research on lyctorhood is now rarely far from his mind.
4. Use that big, muscular brain of yours [Wildcard]
[Got another prompt you want to throw into the mix? Go for it!]
What: Pre-Setepmber 16 catch all, feat. necromancy research + moral arguments.
Where: Sand Dollars, Cabin 105, out and about
When: late August/early September
Warnings ETA: Gideon the Ninth spoilers within, particularly in any threads regarding Pal's notes!
1. Truth unvarnished, and truth unclean [Closed: for Clarke]
As Palamedes walks to Clarke’s cabin, he can feel his adrenaline spike and his body reduce its blood flow to his digestive track.
In other words, he has butterflies in his stomach.
Pal tells himself that this silly physiological reaction is merely a result of concern over his friend’s wellbeing. A few days have passed since their near-death experience at the hands of a zombie horde, and Pal has spent much of that time dead asleep from exhaustion. Now that he has fully returned to the waking world, he sets about doing his doctorly duty to check on his friends injuries. He starts with Clarke because he hadn’t had the chance to examine her before they had parted. She’d brushed him off, and he’d let her, and he needs to make sure that that was the right call.
Are there other reasons he is going to see her? Sure, yes, maybe. But he would much rather stick to the practicalities for now. After all, Palamedes has far more experience with those than he does with matters of the heart.
2. Hold on to that edge, and keep holding. [Semi-open: for anyone who has expressed interest in necromancy or figuring out the Captain's Whole Deal]
Each carefully-wrapped gift appears innocent enough, but Palamedes knows by now not to be placated. He had picked them up from Sundries the day before, and now they each sit on his desk in his cabin while he stares at them, trying to guess what wonder or horror might wait inside. Four are clearly books; another is a jar; the last an annoyingly nondescript box.
Merely looking at them reveals nothing, of course—x-ray vision is not among Pal’s many skills—and he finally gives up on hypothesizing and tears the wrapping off the damn things. The first package he opens is one of the books, Applied Spirit Microchemistry, and he smiles with wary relief. Well, that will be useful. His relief only grows: each book is a primer on some aspect of necromancy, and the jar contains a conductive gel known to improve psychometric abilities.
But the last box is where things get really interesting. Pal unwraps it, lifts the lid, and murmurs, “Hot damn.”
Immediately, he takes out his phone and sends a text to a handful of select friends.
Good morning!
Yesterday I received a box of notes related to a pre- Serena Eterna research project of mine. I believe they may be relevant to our current predicament, and I would greatly appreciate a consultation. If interested, please stop by Cabin 105 at your earliest convenience.
PS
[ooc: have you had a conversation with Pal about either necromancy or the Captain? You're getting a text!]
3. An afterlife subscription to Palamedes Sextus’ Top Nerd Facts [Open to all]
The packages are useful for reasons that go beyond his search to learn more about the Captain and free the ship’s passengers from bondage—they have a more immediate application as well. Over the past few weeks, Palamedes has spoken to a number of people who have expressed interest in learning necromantic theory. Each request thrills him, for the only non-necromancer he has ever known to show such interest is Camilla Hect.
He has begun to share the basics with a select group of people already, but now he has the textbooks to help him along. Camped out at Sand Dollars, the books laid open on the table, he busily sketches lesson plans in his notebook, periodically looking up to refer to one of the texts or turn a page.
His box of notes—photographs, in fact, showing the walls of a small room covered in necromantic theorems—also sits on the table. While not exactly basic necromancy, his research on lyctorhood is now rarely far from his mind.
4. Use that big, muscular brain of yours [Wildcard]
[Got another prompt you want to throw into the mix? Go for it!]
no subject
“Well, that will certainly teach you to practice with sigils you know nothing about,” he says wryly, fully aware that the experience will do nothing of the kind. “It was an odd sensation, wasn’t it? Absolutely fascinating. I'll have to deconstruct the design to see if I can understand the component parts.”
no subject
But for the moment, Clarke gives a vague little nod. Poorly suppresses a shiver now that the spell is lifted and the world seems to have righted itself. Sudden sensory deprivation is a jarring feeling, but this bout is relatively quick to shake off. (The same will not be said for her November hangover from The Nothing.) There's an idle gesture towards the original sketch of the sigil that's sitting somewhere off to the side, as if to say: all yours, deconstruct at will.
"Odd, unsettling..."
She hated that, but beneath that experience is an absolutely thrumming heartbeat that thrived anew on successfully having managed another blood sigil. Shake off the disquiet and the quiet, Clarke, and realize what else this means in the long term. It's a path already committed to months ago, and any real progress on it should be celebrated. Any forward motion pursued. Any discomfort repeated until it no longer phased her, right? Because how else does one get better at this.
"...should we try it again?"
no subject
“You’ve cast your first ward, Clarke. Congratulations on doing the impossible.”
no subject
...she doesn't tell him this is, like, her eighth time casting a successful blood sigil.