text » id: nightingale

[ettersberg]

It may simply be an impression with no basis in reality, but it seems to me that since the Natha have left, more people have returned to stasis.

[ he doesn't add "what do others think?" but the question is implied. ]

Comments

[ettersberg]

I couldn't say, but these are all questions we ought to put before the Natha if they return.

[baldesion]

I find myself quite unable to put that much stock in our vanished benefactors, I'm afraid. Were you present for the expedition to Nadril?

[ettersberg]

[ does nightingale think they have more answers than they are giving? yes. does he think they'll give those answers willingly? not necessarily. ]

I was.

[baldesion]

Are you aware that within at least one of the facilities in that outpost, there were objects large and small belonging to our origin worlds? The one I found from my own was so well made as to make the thought of fabrication almost impossible, though some of its properties no longer functioned.

Whether you knew that or not, you do now. I'd had my suspicions about the Natha before that, but since I found myself questioning how such items arrived in Nadril, it has been nothing but more questions with no simple or ready answers.

[ettersberg]

What kinds of objects?

[baldesion]

[The next message takes a while, because she has some difficulty explaining what an aethernet shard is to...other people.]

What I discovered, from Hydaelyn, would be best described as a personal teleportation device. The details of our aethernet aren't important here, but I've some experience in repairing such systems and this particular crystal would not respond to anything I tried.

How would anything of that sort have arrived in Nadril? If the Natha saw fit to "preserve" it, why not house it somewhere more readily accessible?

[ettersberg]

If it is deliberate, it does seem to call into question the idea that it is their conscious effort saving people and things or worlds affected by the storm.

Perhaps it is an unintended side effect.

[baldesion]

You misunderstand. That area was specifically inaccessible to them, which is why they sent us. How could anything from our worlds have arrived there?

[Her other option was "so I see you believe in the Storm" but that might be a bit too much for just the beginnings of a conversation.]

[ettersberg]

[ he's willing to accept the story about the storm until given good reason to do otherwise, at least. ]

I wouldn't know, but I've seen a great many things that did not seem to make sense in my time but were perfectly possible.

[baldesion]

[Krile used to be willing. The events surrounding this expedition, and the sudden and very public intervention by the Natha, all feel just too convenient now. Especially now that she's down here alone.]

I'll allow that we may simply be uninformed, rather than misinformed. But it doesn't increase my trust in the Natha to any degree at all. How do we know they are as "gone" as they seem now?

[ettersberg]

I doubt there's a way to be absolutely certain.

[baldesion]

[Her end of the line is quiet for a while, the next response taking closer to a half hour to come through.]

Did you lose a large number of people to stasis?

[ettersberg]

I am the only one from my world awake.

[ no one ever woke up in the first place. but when he thinks of loss, it's the war that comes to mind more than the storm, even now. still, it would be a lie to say that the storm hasn't opened old wounds. ]

[baldesion]

Then we find ourselves in similar situations.

[Never mind that hers is recent and his long-standing.]

[ettersberg]

[ ah. ] My condolences.

[baldesion]

[Krile bristles, thankful this is not a face-to-face chat. She doesn't need anyone's condolences, nor the reminder they bring that for all intents and purposes, her friends are "dead" to her for an indefinite length of time.]

There is nothing for it now but to move forward, by whatever means necessary.

[ettersberg]

I suppose that is true.

[ nightingale is good at surviving, but at moving forward? maybe not. ]