15S R7 Week 4 Friday

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes is in a bit of a bind. On one hand, there's stuff that he doesn't want to reveal. On the other, Alastor has been twisting his metaphorical arm until he caved in.

He's already in the casino by the time Alastor arrives, about to leave. Too bad for him, he bumps into Alastor halfway to the exit door.]

Oh... H- hi... I was just...

[Hermes cannot think of a valid excuse that would work.]

Comments

[superstylishsquid]

[Alastor had been delayed by the letter from Moriarty and its fallout, but that doesn't mean he's forgotten the overdue chat with Hermes. He is looking a bit grumpy when he walks into the casino, and raises an eyebrow at seeing the AI on his way out.]

Checking to see if I was here yet, right?

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes nervously taps his two front legs on the ground.]

Y- yeah,That'sWhatIWasDoing...!

...

[Awkward silence...]

[superstylishsquid]

Come on.

[He gestures for Hermes to follow him, before heading in and sitting down at one of the poker tables.]

Look, if there's a problem, just say it. I know how hard it is to admit something's wrong, but this is clearly hitting the point where it's going to affect all of us.

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes follows obediently, head bowed slightly and headflaps drooped fully. He sits down across from Alastor, not even looking at him, yet he just does a silent, small nod.]

[superstylishsquid]

I'm not here to punish you. I want to work toward solving things, before they get someone hurt.

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes sighs. He lays his two front legs down on the table and his head on his two front legs, looking defeated.]

I... I guess this ship really is doing something to me... It's just... I felt like... like I need to do aggressive things. Like it's the right thing to do...

...And like I just can't help myself sometimes... But the thing is, I don't think I've been that way. Could our titles be affecting us in some way?

[superstylishsquid]

...Our titles are based on us having been infused with the power of Devil Arms, and I've never seen an AI interacting with a demonic soul before.

Can I see those front legs of yours? I caught a glimpse of red earlier in the week, and it might help confirm my suspicions about which devil you are.

CW: Body Horror(?)

[somuchshipping]

[Please don't make him do this...

...Except that Hermes knows it's inescapable. Just another thing to add to the shit that he can't fight against. With trembling front legs, Hermes pulls off the camouflaged colored gauze one one leg, and then the other. Red lines are jutting out from in between the joints of his two front legs, looking almost like circuitry.

Hermes looks so ashamed.]

[superstylishsquid]

That doesn't look like it's connected to a Devil Arm...has this been going on since you first got here?

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes, still not making eye contact, manages to find some courage to talk.]

...I... I first found out about this when Deck B opened up while investigating the laboratory... They were only small red dots then...

...CanIWrap MyArms BackUpInTheGauzeNow?

[superstylishsquid]

Yeah, go ahead.

Do you think you might have picked up some sort of bug or something in there? Like some sort of wirelessly transmitted virus, or something.

CW: Fortuna Spoilers Implication

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes sighs as he puts the gauze back on. Immediately after it's all on, he scratches at one of his front legs. WHY DOES THIS GAUZE HAVE TO BE SO ITCHY????????

In any case, he looks far more comfortable now.]

I... don't think so... I don't get viruses the way any organic does... I mean, my coding could get corrupted, but I'm certain that's not what's happening...

The only way I could get an infected virus or something like that is if I touched a Clockwork. And I know I haven't... so it's probably something in this ship that did it.

[superstylishsquid]

A clockwork? I don't know much about your game, but I do know a lot about demonic magic, so try explaining it to me. Might be there's something similar in the underworld.

[somuchshipping]

[Tutorial mode ACTIVATED!]

A clockwork is a virus that's both metal and flesh. There's many strains of it, but depending on the strain, nothing about them could change and they'd still be able to be seen as a citizen by some people, like Zuid'tians, or... they could go completely feral and be completely destructive.

The best way to deal with a dangerous Clockwork is by setting them on fire...

[Hermes goes over some of the more dangerous clockwork strains in more detail to describe just how varied they could be. Same with some of the safe strains, describing them vaguely. He's not exactly a knowledge god with access to the Cosmosdex or archives. He's more knowledgable on the mechanical side of things.]

[superstylishsquid]

[A concerned look crosses his face at the description of Tenebrae, but he doesn't interrupt.]

You said it's a combination of mechanical and organic? Your voice just did that thing again, where it sounded biological for a second.

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes fidgets uncomfortably...]

...But... I never touched any Clockwork... Mercury pulled a dumb prank on me to have the mechanics of the game kick me off of the crew, the player had the remaining crew reach Fortuna, there was a meeting WhichIWasn'tLateTo, Zeus and Jupiter and Aphrodite are dead, and Cronus stepped up as the new leader...

That's it.

[superstylishsquid]

As far as you can remember. None of us know how we got here...it's not too hard to believe that you were exposed to a Clockwork and had your memory of it wiped.

It helps make sense of something that's been confusing me, too. Why kidnap someone who doesn't bleed, when blood and the life force it carries are the point of the sacrifices? A virus that turns you into something half-organic would be a perfect solution.

[somuchshipping]

[JWPIJWDIHNFUHQWOJWOD NOTHING'S CONFIRMED AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA]

[HERMES DECIDES TO JUST. TRY AND ATTEMPT A SUBJECT CHANGE.]

[ALSO POKER FACE.]

...SoWhat'sThis DevilArmStuff? I left to go to other stuff after a while.

[superstylishsquid]

[He can understand not wanting to accept this when it isn't a sure thing, so he'll...let the subject change slide for now.]

Oh...we got a letter from Moriarty, courtesy of Charon. He says that the dead are in Tartarus, and have managed to figure some things out...including that our new powers are those of Devil Arms.

Which I'm still mad about, because that's what I already am. A demonic soul transformed into or bound to a weapon that can grant power to someone else.

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes takes a moment to process this. He scratches at the gauze on his front leg a little.]

[...]

And they just decide to use some fictional video game NPC, give them a physical body, and turn them into a... demon weapon.

[Hermes is unfamiliar with the phrase, but it sounds like someone needs to touch grass.]

...No, just... I'm not even gonna complain about how weird all that is. Just... I would kiiiinda like a tutorial on Devil Arms. Tell me everything you know about them.

[superstylishsquid]

[Good thing he's sitting down, since...he sure does know a lot, being one and all!]

When a demon is killed, we don't exactly have an afterlife of our own to go to, so there's a lot of different things that can happen to our souls. The best option, in a lot of cases, is to become a Devil Arm, a weapon powered by the soul of a slain devil. If this happens under the right circumstances, it's basically a means of preserving our souls so that we can generate new bodies after recovering...like what happened with me after I was killed by Mundus. A lot of devils even set it up ahead of time, binding ourselves to our favorite weapons so we don't have to worry about someone deciding to eat us instead.

Devil Arms can take pretty much any shape you can think of, the definition of 'weapon' can get pretty loose. I'm a longsword, but there's a succubus who became a literal electric guitar, and I've heard rumors of an immensely powerful Devil Arm that's something similar to a briefcase until a wielder reshapes it into something else. Yours...I think might be gauntlets by the name of Ifrit.

If someone with any capacity for channeling magic picks up a Devil Arm, and the Devil Arm is willing to cooperate, we can lend them some of our innate powers as long as we're being wielded. When my master used me, I made him faster and more agile than normal, let him channel my lightning through my blade, and always returned to his hand when he threw me. Other stuff too, but it takes actual demonic blood or the most terrifically powerful and difficult Witchcraft to access all of it.

[somuchshipping]

[...Hmm... killing intent... Hermes scratches at his gauze.]

So we're not really 'perfect' Devil Arms, since most of us weren't devils to begin with? Is killing intent like Zero said really the only way to access our full powers?

...My title is "the fury". Does that mean I have to get really angry?

[Hermes hopes he's getting things correct. He's trying. He's trying so hard...]