reverielogs | I empathize with your skepticism (open)

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I empathize with your skepticism (open)

» WHO? Jasnah Kholin and open.
» WHEN? Current dated
» WHERE? Observation Deck
» WHAT? Research; note taking, collaboration, exploration of ideas
» WARNINGS? None as of yet

Jasnah sits in front of the observation window, writing on a notebook in her lap, with a diamond brohm softly glowing stormlight. It's a pleasant, clear light cast across her page, where she's working on developing an initial detailed list of questions and set of preliminary notes.

Unfortunately, they're illegible, written in the sharp jags of the Alethi woman's script. But, as she goes, she asks questions out loud;

"What I'm undecided on is whether the visions we're receiving happened, or are happening as we speak.

"On the one hand, yes, the simple narrative does make sense; the team was here, they were working on moving the station. They ended up somewhere they didn't mean to be on attempt number six. Things began to go extremely wrong. There was a betrayal. The station began to try to kill them."

Jasnah has thoughts about this, but not ones she wants to say out loud, where the station would be able to hear her. Since she can't even write a note to slip it to anyone, she has to keep her suspicions to herself. For the best, probably. She wouldn't know how to explain it without sounding mad.

Madder than what she says next, even.

"On the other, I come from a planet that has a world just beneath our own. In Roshar, what's land would be sea in Shadesmar, and the sea in Shadesmar is land in Roshar. There are creatures that exist halfway between the two, visible in part in the human world and much larger where they exist beneath it.

"What if this destruction were the same? Flashes of it creeping through at unusual moments into our life here. The sounds of the screams of the betrayed crew just around each corner.

"I can't chase from my mind the memory of- a stranger, a woman I hadn't met, standing over one of the intact tables in the mess and holding a shattered piece of it. The simplest answer is there was a copy of it, somewhere else here, and that version was the one that was smashed, for her to find. And yet... well, I'll ask you the question.

"Does this feel completely real to you?"

Some people, she's invited to join her for the discussion, in particular women who she's talked with about the station before. (Part of her still hasn't overcome her prejudices, associates scholarship with her own gender.) But she's not being particularly quiet, may turn this question on anyone nearby.

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"Ten."

She answers, and tucks the done stone back into her pocket.

"You don't have any similar system on your world?"

By Vanessa's tone this is all alien.

"Not in such a way." But the idea of this being something wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Vanessa pauses for a moment, almost hesitating. Though she trusts Jasnah, they'd had quite the conversation when they first met, talking in specifics about what she knows ends up revealing more of Vanessa than what she was used to. But it was fair -- Jasnah had shown her something in trust.

"I'm familiar with uses of magic. Witches." Though she's still being a little vague. Vanessa's a witch herself, a closely guarded fact. If Jasnah asks for the clarification she'll confirm it, or let her believe it's just something she knows about.

"What would that mean in your world, for a woman to have such an ability?"

Jasnah asks, without actually asking. If the other woman doesn't feel the need to drag it into the light in specific terms, then she can respect that.

"It would mean secrecy." She knew few witches but people tended not to believe in it or they feared it. The Cutwife had been burned alive for being a witch, as tales through history had always done.

"Some witches are in service to Lucifer. Not all." Just the ones you didn't want to meet. The ones that had tormented Vanessa's recent months.

"Who's Lucifer?"

She asks, just so they don't get ahead of themselves. She's never heard the term, couldn't begin to place the origin.

"What does a witch do? How would they get power?"

Despite the fact that she had had no idea about the things that Jasnah had spoken about when Jasnah also similarly has no idea what Vanessa speaks of it throws her a little. Others that she'd mentioned magic to had not believed that it existed but they had at least been aware of it. There's a momentary silence where Vanessa decides how exactly to begin.

"Lucifer is the devil. A fallen angel." Though that likely means nothing still. "Witches who worship him use their magic for harm -- for evil." Essentially. Vanessa had used her magic to hurt someone once, taking a life in vengeance of her friend, and it had been a dark moment. She could never take that back, and though Vanessa had still fought against Lucifer it had taken her one footstep closer to him.

"Some witches are born with their power, others learn it." Or are given it from Lucifer.

"And an angel is?"

She needs this one, too, even though she can guess. Heralds of the Almighty, Roshar has, and words like this have a certain weight to them.

"-and would learning be dangerous in and of itself? Or is it just having power?"

Natural next question;

"Can men be witches?"

"I don't know. I've never met one." Although Vanessa hasn't met many witches in general. One other good witch, more who were evil.

"The danger comes from what you do. There is a careful path to walk lest you lose yourself to the darkness." Words that she kept familiar each day. Her gaze dips momentarily. Vanessa knew those words for a reason -- it wasn't just her power that could be dangerous but the evil that followed her. She was in danger simply for having her power.

"I learned enough to keep myself protected." At times it hadn't felt enough but it had gotten the job done when it counted.

"Something like this wouldn't be taboo if men could do it."

She predicts, with a snort. Jasnah has lived long enough, and through enough assassination attempts to develop deep feelings about patriarchal societies and the threat powerful women pose.

"Can you do anything that would be relevant to us here?"

There's a small smile and Vanessa's head rises again. If only Jasnah being from a different world told a different story.

"It's possible. I haven't found anything yet but sometimes things come to me -- spirits. If any remain here it could answer some questions." If they were forthcoming. Even if not Vanessa would get a sense for what had happened to the place.

Though little does she know that her magic has been dampened here.

"Of course I won't speak of this."

She doubts she needs to say, but may as well.

"But please let me know if you learn anything- and if you want an observer, I'm happy to take notes on any experimentation."

Jasnah is happy to put pen to paper.

"I don't have the time I'd like to devote to it, but I'm studying different systems of power."

Vanessa gave her a nod, grateful for the secrecy. She didn't want to find out if people here still had the same prejudices that she was used to.

"I will call on you." Jasnah probably would be the only one she would as she was the only one who knew so much.

"Though perhaps being here offers you that time." Alongside her other projects. Perhaps some days she may need a break in thought from one of them.

"If there's any way I can be of use I would like to." She's already promised to share information as it would benefit them all, why not be as useful as she could? Have a sense of purpose.

"I'm afraid I'll have to."

She agrees, mouth pinching in a slight frown. Jasnah doesn't like to admit it, but the simple truth of the matter is;

"I haven't gotten anywhere. There's nothing here but questions without answers. I keep arranging and rearranging the data, but there just isn't enough of it to draw meaningful conclusions with any degree of certainty. I'll have to... find something else to keep myself occupied."

An abhorrent thought. It feels too much like admitting defeat.

"The time we have may provide you with more data." There was much that they didn't know about the station at this point in time but it was reasonable to assume that the longer they were there would provide them with more opportunities (and time) to learn more. Hopefully to their advantage.

"Perhaps you could talk me through what you've learned. I can't promise that I could offer much to help." She's never had quite the investigation before. None of Vanessa's deeds so far had ever been so theoretical or data-oriented.

"All right."

Says Jasnah, and leans back, enumerating what they know now, by memory.

"Just over fifty people arrived on board, each greeted by the message that someone had tried to save the world, but destroyed it instead. From the same network, we know that people were trying to go somewhere, and that on the sixth attempt there was a problem, that they aren't where they thought they should be. Similarly, that there was a traitor on board, and last of all that the station began to try to kill them. That's from the network."

So, making a shelving gesture;

"We also experience hallucinations, sound and sight, of major destruction on board. People screaming for help, small explosions, wreckage."

Another spatial gesture, grouping those phenomena neatly and setting them aside.

"We know the station was set up for our arrival, but only to a degree. Food and drink available, but wreckage everywhere. Translation systems engaged, but no record of the past. People want us here, but had no luxury to spare."

And, last subsection;

"The station can affect our minds. We understand each other. The station can affect the network. We read the same language. All perception and fact are inherently suspect, though to what degree we can't know."

"There's a path." It's an obvious one, one that Jasnah's probably already considered, but it's the only thing that Vanessa has so far. She'd seen the hallucinations, felt the pain and fear of the voices. She'd theorised then that it had been an echo, given that there had been no one here that seemed to know them.

"What we experienced was what they did -- their pain, perhaps even their deaths." Such tragedies could leave a mark on a place, something that lingered. It seemed that it was great enough for people to recognise it that weren't usually susceptible to it.

"Perhaps setting it up was their last act. They may have hoped to have someone to greet us, to help with their problem." Whether that problem was the traitor or their mission being unsuccessful she couldn't say.

"It's a narrative."

She agrees;

"I can see their facts fitting in a consistent line. I don't know if it happened behind us, or happens beneath us, in some world just under our own."

Possible, on Roshar.

"Which seems most likely?" It's as much a question about what Jasnah believes about this place as well as a probe about this other world she knows. Though Vanessa had said originally that it sounded like the demimonde she wanted to know how accurate that thought was.

She shakes her head; she has absolutely no way to know.

"We should proceed accounting for both possibilities. Which is simple enough, when we have absolutely no way to proceed at all."

"We keep searching." They were thrown into an impossible situation but that feeling was something that Vanessa had felt recently. She didn't know what they could do in their search but perhaps simply being open and hopeful would allow something to come along.

"The information is there, simply well hidden. We cannot lose sight of it." Even if it felt hopeless or as if it would never be found.

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I empathize with your skepticism (open)

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