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[It's Annabeth! A little less tired than she's been the last few months, but somehow a little more fidgety.]

Everyone knows we're basically here to fight that creature, right? I call him Mally, since saying his name is still dangerous unless properly warded. [A beat.] Thus far he's been impossible to kill, but not to defeat or pushback.

[She runs a hand through her hair, apparently not realizing she's just tugged out a handful of strands from her ponytail.] What I want to know is - what we know about that. About all the other times he's been stopped in the past.

It seems kind of stupid to keep hoarding it, since we all have a stake in what happens. [Hahaha that's funny Annabeth, with what she's potentially sitting on. Mages more powerful than Eshai and sketchy allies, how do they work??] People have been sacrificed to stop him before - Emperor Eshai's sister among them, to extend the life of another turtle, Asti's sister Sinbrilee. Mally was trapped in someone's body and torn to pieces at least once, too. If we need to stop him permanently, we need to know what works and what doesn't.

[Tapping her fingers absently on the desk in front of her rn.] About a year ago, when the turtle dove underwater, the barrier was breached by reanimated corpses - jiangshi - and it's more than likely Mally was responsible. Eshai believed so herself. The creature primarily works through manipulation and subtleness, rather than flash and spotlights. He might be laying low as of late, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's doing nothing.

[Maybe she just wants as many people as possible to know whatever they can, because the more people who can be proactive, the less she has to do the same. And maybe she wants to compare to what Eva's told her, too, before deciding how to go about dealing with it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wait, names of other threats? Because Mally is pretty much the big bad. The gangs have their troubles, but it's not like they're on the same level.

But no, not at all. Last summer he pretty much used a whole network of influenced kedan to do his work for him.

[So that joke went right over her head.]

No, I meant the heavy thinkers you were talking about.

[The people he can get more information from.]

Fantastic. Mind control is always fun.

[It all sounds like blood magic to him.]

Has the thing shown any slightest weakness to anything?

Edited 2014-01-28 14:21 (UTC)

I was mostly speaking about myself, but there are a lot of thinkers in this place. Depends on what you're looking for.

[A sigh.] Loads of fun. It's also entirely possible he'd be able to possess one of us foreigners, though hopefully not so long as the barrier is in place.

Not particularly, no. A lot of the pushback against him before was due to us destroying and undermining his support network.

You're giving me answers so right now you'll do.

[All this says to Hawke is that they'll be utterly vulnerable is that barrier disappears. Definitely a sobering thought.]

So has any one of us ever actually seen it? In person?

[she rolls her eyes.] You could sound a little less ungrateful.

I spoke to someone who claimed it appeared before him once, taking the form of "a human with fur of silk and canines sharp as daggers," but I've heard it doesn't actually have a body of it's own.

Oh I'm plenty grateful. See?

[He flashes her a big, bright smile. The smile drops a few moments later.]

So it can probably look like whatever it wants, has no known weakness, and can control people's minds. Fun. Maybe if we all hold hands and wish real hard it will go away.

Edited 2014-01-29 17:58 (UTC)

[He just gets a flat look, both for statement and smile.]

Yeah, because doing that's worked out well so many times. Just because we don't know to stop him for good yet doesn't mean it's impossible. They never said it'd be easy either, though, but at least we know a little more than previous attempts.

[How sad, not even the slightest sense of humor to be found here. Oh well.]

If it was impossible then we'd all be dead already and if it was easy then I wouldn't have woken up in a water basin a few weeks ago.

One more question.

[Sorry Annabeth, you've got to deal with him just a little longer.]

How did it get trapped in someone's body?

I never said you had to stop asking questions. [She can be grumpy over people, but as long as they don't insult her, she's pretty good about answering what they ask. Mostly.]

I don't actually know the exact details - if they've been found, I'm not privy to them. But he was dead upon imprisonment. I've been assuming mages and magic were involved, alongside some sort of spell, and that the body was one he possessed of his own volition.

Oh trust me, I'll come up with more later.

[Despite all of his snark he's pretty interested in this. After all, the last thing he wants is for this thing to come to Thedas.]

So, not a large chance of imprisoning him in a rock or something and tossing that into the sea then.

Come up as many as you please, but ask as many people as possible, too.

[She makes a sound that's almost-but-not-really a snort.] Yeah, no. Better rule that out right off the bat. Considering we were underwater when the jiangshi attacked a year ago.

In due time. I always like exhausting one source before moving onto the next.

[But right now he's tapping out of ideas.]

Maybe we'll just have to look to legends and the past to find some real answers, as trite as that sounds.

That's not the sort of thing you tell a source. [more eyerolling tbh.]

There are people here who can time travel, so that's more of a literal possibility than you're probably implying.

I like to be honest.

[He shrugs in return.]

That...you know what? Nevermind. I'm in a city built on a turtle full of shapeshifting people. Why question the logic?

[He sighs and rubs his forehead.]

Please tell me there's a good reason someone hasn't tried this already, or at least a reason why it won't work.

Shapeshifting people who aren't native to this world, either, in case you weren't aware.

Well, I don't really want to speak for them. Wondering if it would work at all in a different world, lack of necessary supplies, that sort of thing might hold it up. There are probably some kind of restrictions.

Maker, is anyone here actually from here?

[Hawke would figure the emperor but if the people that live in this city aren't even natives who knows anymore.]

So no one has actually tried as far as you know?

Eshai and Evandau, though neither of them were born in Keeliai. And, you know, the people on the continents.

[A beat.] Yes, actually. But she didn't find anything at least on the upfront related to Mally. [She fiddles around, then sends a ping for this!] That's what she did find, though.

[Give him a moment while he reads some of that.]

Now that's interesting. For an old man the Emperor seems to be holding himself together fairly well. Thanks. This is more than what I had when I got here.

[Which was nothing really but at least he's being grateful.]

Eshai was apparently over a thousand years old, when she died. Their race is long-lived, though it looks like Evandau's the last one now. [Lie. Not that any sign of that shows on her face. She pauses.] You're welcome.

Is there anything else glaring you're wondering about?

[So the Evandau is neither human or Kedan. Also interesting, at least to him.]

Nothing except the meaning of life, why are we all here, and little things like that. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get those figured out on my own.

Yeah, sorry, everyone needs to find their own answers to those.

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