text; un: faust

[spectralsnipe]

Has anyone has actually died in this place and stayed dead?

[Faust debates adding more because... Well. Context would probably be useful here but he's also not interested in completely outing his situation for all to see. So that's all you get.]

Comments

[spectralsnipe]

Are you asking to determine if you'll answer? Or just how honest you'll be?

[bailian]

Both.

You're asking people to talk about the deaths they've experienced here. If you want to hear something that personal, it's not unreasonable if they ask about your motives.

[spectralsnipe]

Death is a part of existing. Avoiding talking about it is naive.

[... Hm. But would that make him a bit of a hypocrite then? On one hand he doesn't care about anyone's opinion of him here but he supposes he can only skirt around the matter for so long.]

I died before coming here so I want to know how and why I'm alive now.

[bailian]

I can't tell you that.

[ His thumb hovers over his device, contemplating simply turning it off instead of facing this conversation. ]

None of us know how it works.

If we did, everyone here who's lost anyone would be trying to bring them back.

[spectralsnipe]

Everyone has to accept death and face it, this place doesn't have a right to take that experience from us. Trying to get around it never ends well for anyone.

[bailian]

How would you know how it ends?

[ It's not sarcasm but a vested interest in the topic which prompts his reply. Because this person acts like they're not speaking in hypotheticals but from experience. ]

Someone from your world tried to revive the dead?

[spectralsnipe]

Not "tried". Could. They had an ability to heal but it also could reanimate someone after death. But afterwards they were nothing but a mindless husk.

[bailian]

You can see for yourself, it doesn't work like that here.

[ Unnatural as his own homeland would consider the kind of implausible reanimation that happens here, it had given him the only thing he'd ever wanted for half a decade. That kind of gift tends to sway opinions. ]

In this place no one can tell the difference between someone who has already died or not.

[spectralsnipe]

I find it hard to believe that there are no consequences at all.

[In his experience nothing is free, especially anything that could be considered "good". Then again he's also just extremely pessimistic because his life has been harsh to say the least.]

Regardless whoever brought us here doesn't get to play god.

[bailian]

I never said there weren't.

[ Everything has its price. ]

Anyone who dies in this world turns to crystal. They stay that way; trapped between life and death for half a month's time.

[spectralsnipe]

Bodies crystallizing after death is the symptom of a highly contagious fatal disease in my world.

[bailian]

Maybe that's what this is too. Some kind of illness. Only it revives us from crystal when we die instead of killing us.

[ Coming from ancient times means Binghe is neither a scientist nor someone well versed in the facts surrounding virology. But he comprehends how plagues work and the process of illnesses spreading between people or through contaminated sources. ]

All I know is that everyone is afflicted soon after coming here.

I died not even a month after arriving and still crystalized afterward.

[spectralsnipe]

I had thought of that.

[But even if it is a disease that still doesn't explain how his Oripathy is somehow no longer contagious... He definitely hasn't moonlaced enough for it just be Chroma.]

When you came back was it like when you first arrived? Waking up in the crystal?

[bailian]

Those here also crystalize if they don't Moonlace enough. Or if something drains their chroma.

Anyone who dies this way revives too, same as with any other death.

[ The entire process of Binghe's own demise and reawakenng is something he'd rather discuss in sweeping generalizations, so he avoids giving a detailed blow by blow. ]

It's similar.

All of that happened more than a year ago, though. I don't care to think about it too much.

[spectralsnipe]

Oh.

[For as blunt as he might be Faust also knows he probably has pushed a bit too far. It isn't like he's exactly been forthcoming with anyone- even those from his own world- about his death so this stranger doesn't need to divulge anything either.]

Sorry. You don't owe me details.