07.09m: Off to the Side

[Joshua]

Osmund shivers. "I will see him. It will be a while before I can walk. Even if I have the ability, I lack the endurance."

He will frown at Alys. "There was more you wanted to accuse me of.*"
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*: Just reading body language and paranoia.

[Wyvern]

Alys shakes her head. "I am paranoid, not unreasonable. So for now I will content myself with advising that you continue to avoid Odin; he has a level of shapeshifting that could allow him to access some of your secrets if he were to acquire a sufficient psychic impression of you. That should not be a thing he can do through just a few exchanged words, or even an extended conversation or two... but, as noted, I am paranoid, and choose my advice on the assumption that I could be underestimating him."

[khadjair]

Cameron sighs. "Increasingly, in finding paranoia is a survival skill around here equivalent to breathing and drinking. I'm not sure this is better than being shot at on the front lines. At least there you knew where the incoming fire was coming from."

[Wyvern]

Alys shrugs, and starts leading the way to Dworkin's booth. "Paranoia is a survival skill wherever you go, at least if you plan on living for any reasonable length of time. For example, it is most likely that Osmund is exactly who and what he claims. But he could be a shapeshifting assassin from Chaos - improbable, certainly, but even the most improbable results will come up if you roll the dice enough times."

She shrugs again. "For your kin*, with mere decades of expected lifespan, it is not unreasonable to bet that old age will kill them before a lack of paranoia does. But you have attuned to the Pattern, and I would be very surprised if anything so mundane as age can touch you."

_____
* She means "orcs" here. Which also makes it something of a flawed example, given that many of the orcs around Ht'gon are the sorts who'd rather die in battle than allow themselves to age.

[khadjair]

Cameron follows along as Alys leads, nodding. "I suspect you're right. Age feels like it will be much less of an issue for me as for others, and I can't really say why I can even sense that. I guess... There's no way to not offend by saying this so I'll just lay it out: my home Shadow is more.. Civilized I guess than many others I've seen represented. So I got used to seeing things through the lens of courts and constables, barristers and bourses. And its easy to live a good long life without needing to consider a dagger in the dark. But that world is.. Well, it is a shadow, almost like a fever dream. This is real, and this is what I need to cone to grips with. And I need to be a bit less of a child about things. I may not have asked for this gift but I am certainly not going to return it even if such were possible."

He shivers a little at the comment about Osmund and Chaos assassins but chooses to say nothing, though his expression shows just a little bit of shame at how easily he could have been played in his naiveté.

[Wyvern]

Alys frowns when Cameron mentions his place of origin being "almost like a fever dream."

"One thing it took me far too long to learn," she comments quietly when Cameron is done speaking, "is that just because something is less real, does not always mean it is less important. And that goes double for people."

[Joshua]

Seems like a good time to talk to the Dwarf in a Box. Alys already knows the way. (It is slightly different though.)