etraya | 01. un: hound

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01. un: hound - [Voice]

[He was still learning this whole earpiece device, so excuse him for it turning on and there sound like someone was fiddling with the setting. Where was his far more technologically inclined smart kid to help him? Ah well, he did realize it was on sooner than later thankfully.]

Uh... sorry? [Chagrin tone.] I was curious about an idea, since I still consider myself fairly new to this situation. Here's hoping you all with entertain me here:

What does a sense of community mean or feel like to you?

[A beat of a pause.]

Is it friends and family? Is it gathering places and camaraderie? How about a sense of people uniting for a specific purpose in mind? Everyone here has their own agendas and their own interests, and, with no overt crime present at the moment, it's curious to me how we could build a sense of community around these parts.

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Would you have come out on the proclaimed victorious side or...?

[Who knew, maybe it would just be another war right on the heels of whatever geopolitical mess that usually started wars in the first place.]

Oh! You know magic? Does it turn you to stone too?

Looked that way. The leadership of the nation that tried to invade us has effectively collapsed.

[ Considering what happened to the Emperor — what had been the case for some time as it turns out — Yuri can't say he's surprised.

The woman he saw after that last battle wasn't the one he knew anymore. ]

My magic neither costs me in any lasting manner nor turns me to stone. I'm getting concerned about just how many worlds suffer backlash from its use.

Ah, sounds like it then. Most wars fall apart when the leadership falls apart.

[He was reminded of his own revolution; when the leadership fell apart, the large scale operation fell with it. There had been sentiment to continue, but it was aimless and full of outbursts, easy to truncate.

Easy to be brought in line.]

Interesting. So these magic rules are not all the same depending on where your from. Is this a gift you're born with or anyone can learn?

My hope is they can rebuild and that we may enjoy better relations. I come from a border territory myself.

[ He may despise the corrupt nobility of the Empire, but its common people don't deserve to suffer. ]

Where magic's concerned, people have different aptitudes and incline toward different elements, but nothing's to stop a man from learning. Natural aptitude or no, hard work pays off.

I hope for you and your countryman's sake that the tensions will ease with the war coming to an end. Here's also hoping that leadership is reasonable.

[War left victims and few winners.]

Interesting. Where I'm from the arcane is a talent that one has to be born with. Mages caused the foundation of my city as they were warring each other and nearly caused the apocalypse.

In war, the people suffer more than they already do. I'd not wish that on them regardless of lines on a map.

[ They've no control over the circumstances of their birth, after all. What they can see to is what they do with the lives they have, but war's ruinous boots trample all but a select and privileged few. With those dark mages gone, perhaps the cancer in the Empire has been excised.

In this place, he can only hope. ]

The masterminds behind the war were evidently a faction of dark mages who seized control using methods we're unfamiliar with. In their case, they effectively weaponized the Empire in an effort to destroy us. I'm sorry such power threatened your home. From the sounds of it...have they been stopped?

That's all conflict, not just war. It does seem most wide-spread in wars. You never lost anyone you were close to in your world's conflicts?

[He didn't wish for this to potentially devolve into losses, a part of his past that he preferred not to think about. The losses did seem to stack up, but he wouldn't dwell on them with others.]

That sounds about how things apparently happened in my world, but that was long before I was born. History books aren't entirely trustworthy as they are usually written by the victors.

Don't we all?

[ Not a direct yes, but a confirmation of a sort. He records them all, every name — every person he could not save. ]

We've a shadow library that attests to that very thing. Inconvenient truths have a way of winding up there.

I suppose so.

[Everyone suffered a loss, he supposed. Personal or otherwise. That was the cost of life and having to live it.]

It seems like it would be an interesting place to visit someday.

I do intend to request it sometime. You're welcome to have a look around once I do.

[ Knowledge exists to be used, after all. ]

There's redacted text to different degrees, but an associate and I have already discussed trying to sort that out.

I'll definitely take you up on the offer.

[Knowledge was power no matter where anyone lived.]

Redacted how so?

Inked over or scratched out, generally. Have a bit of a controlling church situation, you see.

[ From conversations he's had, this seems to be a commonality among worlds. ]

Information is power, so that makes sense.

Indeed. The printing press, for instance, consigned to the shadows because it might be used to spread lies about the goddess.

[ He's surprisingly a devout man, but he couldn't agree less with the church where this is concerned. ]

Literacy's a privilege few have back home. I intend to see it changed once the war ends.

The goddess? Who is that for you?

[He was interested now. They had their own deity in Zaun, and some believed but many did not.]

That's the same where I'm from. I was fortunate to be taught to read and write, but many don't take an interest to their own detriment.

The goddess Sothis, who created my people. I don't discount the possibility of other gods, it would be absurd to, but the Church of Seiros worships her to the exclusion of others. It's the dominant religion of my country and quite prevalent among its neighbors.

[ The people consigned to Abyss had all manner of beliefs that differ from his own. Yuri sees no reason why they couldn't all be true. ]

Some of my fellows have taken to teaching anyone interested, and they've had no small number of takers. Do your people not see a benefit to that knowledge?

Ah, that makes sense. Does your goddess occasionally walk among the people or does she stay hidden?

[Runeterra had several deity-like figures that walked the grounds as they did.]

Well, when you live week-to-week just trying to survive, there doesn't leave a lot of time or motivation to read or write. We teach who we can.

She did, once. Then there was a conflict, and betrayal, and she was killed. It's believed she still remains in some form, watching over us.

[ Yuri likes to think she's still out there. ]

For my people, reading and writing are gateways to trade professions and other such stations they'd be barred from otherwise.

A deity killed?

A luxury that someone of us can't afford. We apprentice and learn on the job, but some of us are fortunate in learning reading and writing.

She had the power to create us, but she was not invulnerable. There's little in the way of information regarding what that means for her, seeing as she hails from a distant star.

[ A creator is a creator, just the same. ]

Commoners have long been treated as ineligible for certain positions where I'm from, literate or no. Knighthood, for instance, though our young king has already made changes there. Do those in power see no value in educating the masses, where you hail from?

Usually when deities fight each other, we all suffer if any of the stories are true. And if the deity was killed by the people that they were created by, usually that's a sign of their rulership.

No. They are afraid of us, but they seem to believe keeping us uneducated means that we will cause less problems for them.

In this case, her downfall wasn't orchestrated by her own children, but others who viewed her and her creations as interlopers. In fact, they're behind that damned war I mentioned. They regard us as beasts, which is a tidy excuse for trying to eradicate a population.

[ Centuries of calculated subterfuge, all for spite. Why those dark mages refused to share ground, he will never understand, but as near as he can gather peace was never going to be an option. ]

People born to power often seem to reach the same foolish conclusion. Forced ignorance may forestall some developments, but they'll still come in time.

Ah, so they killed her and tried to destroy everything that she had built too? No wonder you all fought so hard; it was for the right of your very existence.

[That was the way of it, wasn't it? Everyone somehow fighting for survival as a baseline of most conflicts. It never changed it seemed.]

Well, for centuries, I suppose it has worked. But poor people breed and while we have a high morality rate, there's enough of us to be a real danger, uneducated or no.

Just so. The marvel is they maintained such a pursuit for centuries, and we were oblivious to their purpose until this war was raging. They have a curious habit of pontificating.

[ Like stage actors playing villains, or so it seems to him. It didn't change the existential threat, but looking back on it, the fanatacism was striking. ]

Commoners will always have the numbers. Rulers need only realize there is no nation without the people... Yet somehow it proves a hurdle with most. I consider it a blessing our young king has taken an earnest interest in his people, uncommon as that is to my experience.

Most of those that believe themselves superior resort to pontificating as if it might put everyone in their place.

Yeah well you're preaching to the choir here. They stay in power because we haven't mobilized, but there comes a point where people have little to lose in compared to the threat of an uprising.

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wolfish - 2025-04-07 21:45 (UTC) - Expand

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