IC Inbox: Daybreak

[arcadianvampire]

Under Construction

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[heromedal]

[ Rex's paper comes in a few days early because he's not allowed to spend literally the entire day building bizarre and wonderful contraptions anymore apparently, so he has much more time. Not actually enough time to have read everything he's cited, but as he said, he's already looked into this.

Three pages on potential benefits of daemon contracting with each case rebuked so it's quite clear it's not advocating it. Three pages on consequences, all of them with historical cases. Three on hypothetical ways to safely perform contracting, ranging from the conventional 'being really good with words' to some really sketchy ones like 'make it more of an enslavement' thing- he appears to have designed his own process for this, detailed in excruciating detail. The final page is concluding that none of them is guaranteed to work except- 'don't do it'.

He barely managed to avoid adding 'obviously' at the end.

Probably more importantly is now he's not falling down levels of exhausted he's had the wherewithal to attach a note of apology as well. ]

AUGUST 11th -- UN: SENZALUCE

[unlogic]

[The day after their meeting:]
Professor:

I believe I will have time today for what had been brought up in our talk yesterday. Let me know if and when you are free, and where I should meet you if it is somewhere other than your office.

UN: LORDVAL

[arcadianvampire]

Ah, good! I've been expecting your message. Go ahead and meet me at the reception area of the Mithril Cage in twenty minutes. I've been busy setting up for our session, and it will be ready by the time you get here.

If you need additional time for any preparation than that, let me know.

[unlogic]

Alright. [That acknowledgement is the only text sent in the response. Nothing more than that is needed, really.

Twenty minutes is enough time. More than enough, really, as she arrives in fifteen, walking in and looking around to see where exactly Valvatorez has decided to wait for her, assuming he was already finished with the setup; it's possible that she could have gotten here just a little too quickly.

Could he blame her for that, though, if she was?]

[arcadianvampire]

[Fortunately, it was a short search, considering Valvatorez was already out in the lobby and waiting for her to arrive, sitting in one of the seats looking rather comfortable. He did take notice of Desi approaching, though, and quickly stood up.]

Ah, most excellent. You're early! I quite appreciate that.

12/22 afternoon, Val's office

[unlogic]

[Though things in and around the academy might have slowed down due to the holidays, that hasn't stopped Desidera from wandering into Valvatorez's office, completely unannounced—she's paid him enough visits by now that he would expect her to come see him at least once each week anyway. She has some large, vaguely sausage-shaped thing with her, gift-wrapped and carried under one arm.

Once in the room, she sets that package directly on his desk. On top of everything else. Including the papers he's looking over right now. Grading is now officially On Hold.]

Professor. Sorry about the interruption, but I haven't really had a good time to do this until now. [And he knows that.]

[arcadianvampire]

[Fortunately, the pointed ears aren't for show, and he could at least hear her coming, and he's spared any sort of startling or surprise about this. Still, he looks up and blinks at her, somewhat confused, when he's interrupted mid-grading session.

...He was honestly somewhat bored of it anyway, so it's not like it wasn't a nicer change of pace.

He sets down his fountain pen, looks over that package on his desk, and then turns to her.]

Indeed, no, you haven't. But what is this about, Desidera?

[unlogic]

Well, ah, with Christmas coming up and everything, I wanted to get you something as a show of thanks for these last four months.

I couldn't come up with any really good ideas, though— [Her mind had been in some very different places recently. He knows that, too.] —so I just went with the first thing I could think of that seemed appropriate. I hope that's alright.

[When he opens it, he'll find that it's a rather large plushie. A large fish plushie.]

[arcadianvampire]

Ah, I see. Of course, you didn't have to do anything for me. But I do appreciate the gesture. And I'm sure it will be all right.

[It's sometimes a little strange to get gifts from his students, but... at the same time, he doesn't really mind that either.]

...As long as it's not a glitter-bomb.

[There may be stories behind that, but he doesn't seem to hesitate in opening it, which is a signal that he trust that it isn't. When he does finally crack it open, he does smile.]

Hah, it's cute! A Sardina pilchardus, if I'm not mistaken, and an exceptionally large example!

12/25 UN: deltadeath

[trademark_skull]

[Christmas is an Earth holiday, and more so traditionally in the past, a religious one at that. Something that couldn't possibly be less associated for daemons. So for Emizel to find out he had actually gotten anything around this time of year...]

[Well, it was a nice looking staff at least.]

Why did you do it?

[Because why bother going into specific details?]

[arcadianvampire]

[Even without details, Valvatorez is able to guess well enough, given the timing.]

Because I felt like it.

But I suppose that's not really answering your question, considering the holiday doesn't hold much to the likes of us. But that's the short of it.

Is it to your liking?

[trademark_skull]

[That still doesn't really answer it!]

You know I don't use these...

[He's a Reaper - not a Mage. He should be a monster class just like his dad, if you will.]

[arcadianvampire]

You mean that it's not a scythe. Frankly, lad, you never sounded particularly excited to use one of those.

[He remembers that encounter in the store, many months ago, when Emizel seemed to ponder over an old scythe. And it's not really a jab, either. He's less interested in pushing Emizel in following blindly along the Reaper path... and more into convincing him to walk the one he likes.

Not that he means to stop him being a reaper if that's what he really wants to do, but... just that he can do his own thing.]

Besides, your command of the arcane arts seems to have grown steadily over the past few months. I figured you might find that useful in that pursuit.

3/17 afternoon, Val's office

[unlogic]

[Like most Tuesday mornings, Desidera had spent a part of the morning at the Mythril Cage for one of her usual practice sessions. These sessions were still without any real supervision, letting her handle things in whatever way she felt they should be handled, by now a pretty clear sign of the confidence that Valvatorez had in her.

After the session, she went to her morning classes and then after that was a visit to the cafeteria for lunch. Nobody really questioned how much she ate, anymore.

And after that, today, she'd decided on paying the professor a visit. These visits were less frequent than before as they weren't really needed as much as they were back when she was new to the academy, but she still needed to keep him up-to-date on the way things were going for her, and occasionally he would recommend new things for her to try doing—sometimes without any direction outside of telling her the intended results, in order to see how exactly she would do it.

Today's visit in particular was because she'd had a rather interesting thought about the way her powers worked, and wanted to run a subsequent idea past him rather than just go for it.

As was generally the norm by now, she wandered into the office without any real warning and sat herself down, waiting for him to finish whatever it was she caught him in the middle of this time.]

[arcadianvampire]

[Today, Valvatorez was spending most of his time in his office straightening up and cracking the books hard on their new Herald friend that had showed his face. Of course, he'd heard the name sometime in the past, but found out... startlingly little about the daemon behind it. Even many records he'd dug out of the archives weren't proving to be of much help yet.

Truth of it was, he had been up all night working, and well into the next morning, still grinding the midnight oil by the time Desidera came in. Though despite the all-nighter, the professor didn't look much for the wear; being a daemon had some advantages, but there was a massive thermos filled with coffee on his desk.

Once Desidera wandered in and sat down though, he looked up from the thick, ancient tome he'd been studying to look at her.]

Ah, hello, Desidera. What can I do for you today?

[unlogic]

I had a bit of an idea this morning and wanted to see what you thought of it before I went and tried to do anything too silly. [... Too silly? Well, this should be good.] We both know that what I do involves shadows, and I've never really given too much thought to the implications before, but doesn't that mean that, although indirectly, I can manipulate light?

Late May/Early June, UN: Deltadeath

[trademark_skull]

[Why was he doing this...]

I spoke with father. He does not seem nearly as concerned what will happen after Nightfall.

[It is still only a hypothetical thing to be worried about, anyway.]

Though what he had to say was a little unusual.

UN: LORDVAL

[arcadianvampire]

[When Valvatorez received the message from Emizel, he was quite surprised; he had wondered if the lad would speak to him on the subject. But he was quite pleased to see that he had.

...Until he read that Hugo did not seem particularly interested about the long term ramifications of what would be the apocalypse for humankind. He couldn't help but feel... disappointed, in his rival. Even angry at him, for being short sighted. The more the vampire had looked into the concept, what daemons really wanted from Nightfall, the more he was convinced it would be catastrophic.

Valvatorez knew his hypothesis was only a guess at Hugo's motives. But with the long-held respect he had for the King of Reapers, Valvatorez hoped that maybe he had been the one too slow to predict the danger.

...But none of that mattered regarding Emizel, right now. And that second message piqued his curiosity enough to prevent the professor from stewing in frustration in his office.]

I see. Perhaps I projected my hunch too far.

What did he say that struck you as strange?

[trademark_skull]

He might rule over Hades, but it's only the daemons that actually follow him. There's some that don't always agree with him on everything, including how they might feel about Nightfall, and he can't change that. No matter how much he would want to.

He said that nobody has control over what actually Hades does. [For whatever the reason, Hugo said it was vital that Valvatorez knew that specifically.]

...Something's going on. Father's never had trouble with keeping others in line.

[Could something as simple as Nightfall really have divided Hades up? Also why would he have wanted to share this with a rival, let alone a traitor?]

Literally like 2 minutes after the Kokoro thread

[imyoubut]

Valvatorez, I require your skills for an urgent matter.

[arcadianvampire]

But of course. What do you require? Showing someone fear? A bit of muscle? Or perhaps sardines?

I have plenty of those, if you need them!

[imyoubut]

Well, I suppose I AM a bit peckish. Bringing them along certainly wouldn't be a bad idea. But no, the problem has to do with a student. Kokoro Belmont, are you familiar with her?

super early November, un:SenzaLuce

[unlogic]

[This is probably one of the simplest, most-straightforward messages Desi has sent of all the times she's used the academy's network.]

Observations over the past month:
[...and attached is a text file, a listing of some of the students from Val's classes, some of them being Desi's own classmates and others being from the less-advanced classes. Val may recognize some or all of the names as being students that have started joining Desi at the Mithril Cage on some mornings. In addition to the names, there are a variety of notes written about each student, to inform the professor of what they've each tried doing, how well she thinks they've managed, and even the things she's told them in an effort to help them improve.

There's an extra blurb of text at the end of the file, just the words "crises averted", and the number that follows is...surprisingly(?) low, honestly.]

UN: LORDVAL

[arcadianvampire]

[Once received, Valvatorez looked over the text file, taking his time and digesting the information provided carefully. The notes were reasonably well detailed, and understandable enough. The advice given proved to be pretty solid as well, given Desidera's level of experience.

A smile crept up as he read the extra blurb though.]

Sounds like they're keeping you busy. Tell me about the crises that you averted. Those always make for good teaching moments.

[unlogic]

Alex tried too hard. It was pretty much a giant ball and I'm sure that it was an attempt to find out where his limit was, but it got away from him and would have quite immediately put Viola in the infirmary had it actually hit her--it wasn't moving so fast that I couldn't intercept it.

If he'd tried pushing it any harder he could have put HIMSELF in the infirmary instead, out of exhaustion or possibly worse considering what most of us are even working with.

He chose not to try again after that. I think he understands his mistake, but I'll be keeping an eye on him and he knows that.

The other things so far were minor things that we've gone over before, so some general safety reminders might be necessary.