20:08 <banana> After tonight, Simon's going home for the week. It does slow down work a bit, but Aster Biologics isn't running at full capacity. 20:08 <Crion> There are tax benefits not to do so. 20:10 <banana> Aaron Aster has only little jobs piled up - routine forensics for GMP, occult-routine blood tests for the Order, an occasional callback about golems or ectoplasm. The main thing occupying his personal time has been the True King's Torc. 20:10 <Crion> Well. The torc, and the deed. 20:10 <Crion> And he can't examine the torc without Dylan. 20:11 <banana> The problem reduces to this: the alphabet curse is secondary. Now that you've experienced its infection of a ritual site - and how easily it was dispatched by the application of soap and cloth - it's clear that the thing is like tetanus. The Gangrel ghoul, pre-cursed, was an open wound hanging around the thing's storage site. 20:11 <Crion> Aster delivers the news with a bit more bedside manner than that. 20:11 <banana> It may exacerbate effects, but if you get the torc of him the thing should fade on its own. All Aster has to do with his graffitied dictionary is lock it away forever (perhaps easier said than done). 20:12 <banana> *off him 20:12 <Crion> But he does deliver the news. 20:12 <Crion> And that's a good thing! 20:12 <Crion> Wounds are so easy to clean, bind, and set to healing. 20:12 <banana> After all the research that can be done - all that can be done without speaking to wizards - Aster can see three ways to cure this thing: 20:14 <banana> The first is the least appealing. Dylan's torc is only a medium for a truly classical case of haunting, and it would end if the spirit would simply be laid to rest. You can subdivide that into two unappealing approaches: 1) battle a 900-year-old ghost, probably more dangerous than anything you're likely to otherwise face or 2) allow it to enact its vengeance by feeding it Henry the First. 20:14 <banana> It would work. But plans B and C are necessary. 20:15 <Crion> Sub-action 1 is the only one feasible there. 20:15 <Crion> To be honest, Aster might have fun with that one. Especially with the full team. 20:16 <banana> Well, he's got a binder full of copied notes on its likely powers and so on... but it would be very dangerous. 20:16 <banana> Plan B relies on the observation that Dylan Pritchard is kind of a terrible host for Cristina's spirit? 20:17 <Crion> Plan B sounds like it has some moving pieces. 20:17 <banana> He's just not anything like a princess-turned-abbess. He doesn't have her education, her mores or her intent. No wonder the haunt's expressions have been so pathetically inapplicable. 20:17 <banana> This haunt is, technically, a binding of the ghost's soul with his own. That's why it hurts him to take the torc away - part of his own is entangled within it. 20:18 <Crion> It sounds like plan B is going to ruin Dylan's life. 20:18 <Crion> Such as it is. 20:18 <banana> But it's not the main body of the ghost. It's a portion of spirit given will and intent, a mission. If Dylan could be transformed into a more suitable vessel and aided in carrying out that mission... and here you have an advantage: the quest's been warped by the alien alphabet. 20:18 <banana> If you could get him involved in building a spaceport while cross-dressing, that would maybe do the trick? 20:19 <Crion> Let's proceed to plan C. 20:20 <banana> It's kind of open-ended, the question of how much like Ætheling he'd have to be, and to what degree her vengeance can be substituted by sociopolitical progress toward the stars. Maybe if he remarried into a royal family and got employment at SpaceX- 20:20 <banana> Yes, there is a plan C. It's the easiest one. 20:20 <Crion> Ah. 20:20 <Crion> Well, let's put that one aside as well. 20:21 <banana> Why did the torc latch onto such an unsuitable host? He was the only possibility. The soul-twist that has him bound to the will of an ancient descendant of the mythical Arthur only works on living souls, and this guy has worked loyally for Stella Savoy. Perhaps he's due a promotion. 20:21 <banana> The Embrace would almost certainly break the curse, simple as that. 20:21 <Crion> Well. That's the nice way of doing it. 20:22 <banana> Sitting alone in the indoor lighting and thinking about the nice way of doing these things... it is what he signed up for. 20:22 <Crion> Technically, he signed up to get paid. 20:22 <Crion> Has Dylan come by? 20:22 <banana> He will if he's invited. 20:23 <Crion> Aster has invited him. 20:23 <banana> You can hear the big man in the foyer, making loud friendly comments to the Kingfisher boy (which terrify the latter). 20:24 <Crion> Aster: "Come into the back, for Christ's sake. Leave the boy be." 20:25 <banana> Dylan emerges sheepishly. He's got a long-sleeved top on, grey cotton with a stenciled design in dark red: https://limits.thomascastiglione.com/media/l-g.webp 20:25 <Crion> He's multitasking. Mowing through the rest of whatever DS Walker has dropped off for the next two weeks, since he's heading out to the Farm after this. 20:26 <Crion> Aster: "Oh, that's good. That's very. Vampire." 20:26 <banana> It effectively covers the lump on one wrist, but he's rubbing at it. "Hey, man. I've been doing a lot of thinking, like if you can't fix this thing.. thinking about alternatives." 20:27 <Crion> Aster: "Have you been thinking about the Embrace?" 20:27 <banana> Dylan: "What?" 20:27 <Crion> "I've either got to take all my people to that crypt and kill the ghost direct, or you can become a woman who loves spaceports, or, and I think this is what you want, you have to die." 20:27 <Crion> "But thing about you dying is." 20:28 <Crion> Aster looks up. "That's the Embrace." 20:28 <banana> He was thinking about how the impending end of a monarchical term would be a great way to address some concerns with the current regime, possibly by subterfuge, but now you've driven it out of his head. 20:28 <banana> Dylan: "Shit, man. You think they'd really go for that? Like, the boss wouldn't see it as rewarding a fuckup?" 20:29 <banana> "It's- I mean I guess I've done my time, and sometimes- but the other day I was just thinking- although we all..." 20:29 <Crion> Aster: "Not really my business. Let's think of it from a different perspective: what conditions have you been given to earn the Embrace, and how far away from their fulfillment are you?" 20:32 <banana> Dylan sits, heavily, on the nearest chair or table. "I have a family. And yeah, if someone went after them and I needed revenge and I'd lost everything anyway, of course I'd go for it.. or if I was dying after a fight, they call that one out in the contract. Crippled, they can stop it being permanent if you take the blood in time." 20:32 <Crion> Aster, professionally: "Do you want to have children?" 20:32 <Crion> "And have you had them, if so?" 20:32 <banana> Dylan: "...Not more than the two I've got." 20:32 <banana> "That's enough, right? We're overloading the planet as it is." 20:33 <Crion> "Excellent. Your wife. Is she aware of the arrangement?" 20:33 <banana> "Sort... of." 20:33 <Crion> Aster looks over his glasses. 20:34 <banana> "Heather knows, but doesn't understand. She knows I'm faster and stronger and so on, and I explained why but she, uh, didn't believe it. She thinks I'm just on street drugs." 20:34 <banana> Arguably he is. 20:35 <Crion> Aster: "Do you have a plan for onboarding her or did you just view this as a job interview you'd not have to sit for?" 20:36 <Crion> "What I'm hearing is that you're not in a place for me to walk into Stella Savoy's office, literally or figuratively, and make an argument for Embrace." 20:36 <banana> Dylan: "I figured... as and when, like. We.. only have so much time in this life, right? And if we're going to reach for new worlds, become a multiplanetary species, we can't be held back by-" 20:36 <banana> "Sorry, sorry." 20:36 <Crion> "You should not be." 20:36 <Crion> "It makes my job harder, but I respect you more for it." 20:36 <banana> Dylan: "What is this thing going to do to me? If I don't cross over?" 20:37 <Crion> Aster sighs. "It's going to be annoying as shit. We don't have to really engage with it beyond that, because myself and my people are going to go to Cristina Aetherling's tomb, which is Henry I's tomb, and send her to rest." 20:38 <Crion> Aster: "Unless you are ready for the Embrace, we will have to choose the path of ghost war." 20:38 <Crion> Aster: "And I will not permit you to answer yes to that simply out of anxiety. I can't sell anxiety to the lady in charge." 20:39 <banana> Dylan: "Uuuuugh." 20:39 <Crion> Aster: "How old are your children?" 20:39 <banana> "I'm meant to be the one that gets hurt so as others don't have to, you know?" 20:39 <Crion> Aster waves a hand. "Yes. Meaning is always subordinate to context." 20:40 <banana> "My oldest is twelve, the younger boy's five. He's learnt all his letters... God damn it." 20:40 <banana> "What if we got the clan to help?" 20:40 <Crion> Aster: "So you're not getting Embraced for, let's ballpark, ten years." 20:40 <Crion> Aster: "I would welcome that help, if they're willing to provide. We don't need it." 20:41 <Crion> "We don't need to make promises to get it." 20:41 <banana> Dylan: "Ten years more of the sun on my back. Yeah. That's.. what I want." 20:41 <banana> "Okay, look." He squares up a bit. 20:42 <banana> "Boss Stella's paying you to find a solution, right? You've found it: bust this ghost. We, the clan, we can fight shit! But you've got specialised knowledge and want to earn a fee, so like.. it should be you offering to help us fight. All together. I warrant I could sell that." 20:42 <banana> "If I could sell things, generally." 20:42 <Crion> Aster: "I haven't actually set a fee for this job." 20:43 <Crion> "Are you familiar with pro bono work? It's something American lawyers do." 20:44 <Crion> "They work for free because their guildmasters tell them to, and they brag about it, because it makes them look righteous." 20:44 <banana> Pritchard's nodding along. He doesn't get it at all, though. 20:45 <Crion> "Think of this as pro bono, and think of me as a cynic to rival a lawyer. You, Dylan Pritchard, owe me no remuneration." 20:45 <banana> Dylan: "Okay. Fine by me, though that don't mean I don't owe you." 20:50 <Crion> Aster: "Doing it for free, then, means that bringing Stella Savoy and the Gangrel in on these affairs is much more effacious. They'll be doing it for you." 20:51 <banana> "As long as I don't tell anyboss about the other way to fix it." 20:51 <Crion> Aster: "They've guessed." 20:52 <banana> Dylan: "Well, no, it'd be ok I guess. There's only one condition in the contract, to cross over - you have to want it. Really, forever, in full understanding it." 20:52 <Crion> "That you're not just dead somewhere is a testament to your service." 20:52 <Crion> "Because that is why the Embrace breaks it." 20:53 <banana> Dylan hums tunelessly. "How do you feel about vampires, anyway? You work with 'em..." 20:53 <banana> "I won't pass it on!" 20:53 <Crion> Aster: "I don't trust anyone who lives longer than I will." 20:54 <Crion> "And I don't trust anyone who makes more than I do." 20:54 <Crion> "The Wise and Solemn Court are, generally speaking, aware of both registers." 20:55 <banana> Dylan: "To be honest, we already get the long life just from the Ration. A monthly dose and you never age. It's a hell of a deal, in more than one sense acourse." 20:56 <Crion> Aster: "That said, vampires are predictable. They're horrifically violent, but in ways that can be patterned. Their behavior, especially towards women, regardless of gender, is trendline pathological. I am satisfied with vampires far more than more volatile denominations." 20:57 <banana> "Yeah, that's a thing... the bosses believe in an orderly world, and yeah, it's for them, but it's good for us too. I've seen monsters, and compared to monsters... they're very nearly not." 20:57 <banana> "I had some thoughts on political stability but, you know." 20:58 <Crion> Aster: "I am aware, broadly speaking, of what your blood tithe demands. If I had to choose between the monthly ration and the horrible, cold whole deal...well, I'd choose to be a farmer somewhere. But if those were the only options, I don't want to be at the behest of a supply chain." 20:59 <Crion> Aster: "I think this can be sold, and am willing to help sell it, as a boon to the Registrar of this Court." 20:59 <Crion> "The more vampires we can get involved, the better this goes." 20:59 <Crion> "If you want those ten years." 20:59 <banana> Dylan: "That's not something you hear every day. I'll set up a meeting, so... thanks." 21:00 <Crion> Aster nods. "I'll be out of pocket for a few days. Savoy, coincidentally, will understand." 21:00 <Crion> "But I will come back utterly victorious, because that's what my House does, and then we will be in a position to set a schedule." 21:01 <banana> There's an absurd dialect-based digression on the different meanings of 'out of pocket', but you sort it out eventually, and the night rolls on.