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t h e . w a y w a r d - e v e n t
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On the surface,
an Elysium of unsurpassed splendor. Beneath, something sinister lurks...
Elijah Robert
Marks "Which is why that hourglass is sitting on that table." ------------------ Krouser "New blood joins the earth, and quickly he's subdued. Through constant pained disgrace, the new boy learns their rules. I have it on good athority that Xavier has Metallica blood bound." *returns his attention to the rest of the hall.* "Salubri are torn between the agony vampireism is to them, and a sense of duty to their clan. They cannot stand to live as kindred, but they cannot let their legacy die out. They are the last of a dying breed, wronged, and cast out. Their very existance is a walk on the trail of tears." Vash Well, like a song I heard once said... "Time heals all wounds and life does go on" But of course, it's just a song... after all, we are dead. *Vash shrugs his shoulders and turns his attention towards Voracia. He watches her for a few moments before clapping* Way to go Ma'am, you taught that window a lesson. It sure wont do whatever it did again. Gwynhala (aloud) "In the 1800s a mathematician - I do not remember his name - wrote a story called simply 'Flatland'. It told of hypothetical two-dimensional beings who experienced motion in the 3rd dimension as growth, change, the passage of time. In one example, a sphere passed through the plane of their existence, and they called it the birth, growth, and death of a circle. Now you and I would know, that all parts of the sphere exist at the same time. But they only exist in the plane of the flatlanders spread over time. Now - and this may hurt a bit - consider the growth of a tree - or your own life - in the same context. And imagine that God sees all, all at once." Nikodemus "Infants have no perception of time. Everything just is to them. One of my goals is to enable myself to 'just be', without a thought of, or even the perception of time." Voracia "...so the Easterner accepts omnipresence, the state of being in all times at once? Or are you throwing this out for the sake of sounding intelligent? Not that you are not intelligent--but I have a difficult time believing that a man who takes precautions as you do can so easily wave a hand at 'old wounds.'" She removes a book from the mantle, examining the title. It is cangjie. "What does this say?" She tosses the book to Niko. Sun-Tzu: The Art of War "Your very name bespeaks volumes. After all, did not Nicodemus have something very, very important to hide from those with whom he associated?" Back to the books. "Nicodemus came by night..." Krouser *grins, as he stops rambling.* "It also means that no self respecting Navajo would ever be on time to an event. Clocks are an anglo consideration." Vash What next? A Mandarin novel written in Hiragana? Nikodemus "No, milady, I have nothing to hide. No more than most, anyway. "Remember, I said it was my goal to reach the state commonly referred to as Zen. I did not say I've reached that goal. "It is a common misconception that Zen Masters are passionless, logical men, or women." At this, Nikodemus bows to the lady present. "When in fact, they were possessed of much zeal. Consider the difficulty in acheiving such a goal. Would passionless souls have the fortitude to attempt such a thing?" Nikodemus turns 'The Art of War' over in his hands. "Actually, my preferred way of fighting mentioned in this tome is that of being 'formless where your opponent is strong and strong where your opponent is formless.' "Although it is perhaps mistaken to give Sun Tzu all of the credit for this text. Sun Wu is another name bandied about as it's author." Voracia Poop, poop, pooop. /ooc Krouser "Is it that our good Cat has no more than us to hide, or merely that he seeks to hide it from more people?" ooc/ lol no stranger than your character, Ma-e. /ooc Gwynhala "Yet even in the notion of 'eat when hungry. sleep when tired.' we see the word - and the concept - of 'when' - time. As he..." (nods to Elijah) "...said, time is how we measure change. without time, there is no change. and without change, there is no life." Nikodemus "Now if divisor is artificial, and therefore, not real...would it not stand to reason that Speed is not real. "And if Speed is not real, then all speed must equal zero. "If all speed equals zero, then the time it takes to cover distances is zero. That infers that there is no such thing as diatance. "Hence, all time exists at once, and all places are in the same place. "And of course, it goes even further than that." Nikodemus pauses, smiling. "Eventually, one must reach the conclusion that nothing exists." Krouser "Time is but an anglo concept of the differences in the nows. It is only when filtered through the lense of memory that these differences appear. without a mind to interprert them, there are no differences. You argue that time must exist for life to exist. I argue that life must exist for time to exist." *looks to Niko* "Without life to interpert it, there is no existance. therefore, one must assume that the only constant nessicary for existance is life. thought, even as basic as instinctual thought. Even as basic as the knowledge of your own existance, is all that is required to exist. In the end, the only rational conclusion is to stand up, say 'f*** this paradox!' and go get something cold to drink." Voracia "I wouldn't know Hiragana if it bit me...AHAHA!" Onslaught of giggles. And then--
She steadies herself against the case, gazing from a respectable distance into the roaring fire. "Ah, the fall of man. Who created time, indeed? Hmhm." Sobering. "There is only one thing not affected by time...only one." Krouser "hmm? And what might that be, Ma-e?" Elijah Robert Marks To Krouser: "I wonder, sir, if you'd care to explain that statement? And what exactly is 'blood bound?' " ------------------ Krouser *looks to Elijah in shock. starts to speak as he shakes off the suprise.* "The blood bond is the only power of Caine that does not weaken with generation. Drink three times of the same kindred's blood, and the power of the vitae creates a simulicra of love for that kindred. Ghouls are typicaly bound to their regents, making them not only unhumanly strong, but also loyal past nearly all faults. A thrall, one who has been blood bound, is compelled by the artifical emotion to served the regent in all things." "any other questions?" Elijah Robert Marks "Well, that explains that. And it always works?" ------------------ Voracia Monotone, matter of factly: "Fear." A log explodes. "Boo," she smirks. "Eek. Run." And to the fire: "Some see their life flash before their eyes. Others, time stretches out to eternity. It is sovereign over the moments. It is lord over the years. Time...bows...in its presence." Pop. "Just go ask anyone in those rooms back there...the ones with the, "funny little symbols" on them..." Altiriel Twice-Born To Elijah. "Maybe one in a million people, for some reason, is immune to it, but yes, otherwise it always works. Theoretically, I could blood bond Caine himself." Gwynhala "The flatlander argues that change exists because of phenomenology. But he is wrong: there was change in his world, but its nature was entirely different than what he observed." "The Zen Master argues that only what happens in the instant is actionable. But he is wrong: his conclusion applies only to those who move passively through time at a fixed rate." "The shaman argues that both change and phenomenology are irrelevant, because all things happen at once. But he is wrong: he has observed only that, stepping out of time, all outcomes can be seen at once." "Forgive my pedagoguery." "If all life were to end in the next instant, the universe would continue to change. There would be no "we" to observe the change against the yardstick of "our" transit through time, and so it could be argued that there would be no time, or at the very least, that the concept of time would be irrelevant." "Now, if we consider the great expanse of time laid out before us, as a dimension like length or width or height, it might be said that all things happen at once. But we do not experience them all at once; our perception is limited. We ride a kind of temporal tour bus, where time does not pass us - we pass time. Time exists, nonetheless, as a dimension, whether we ride the bus or not - whether there is a bus or not." "If we summon the inner strength to step off of the tour bus and chart our own course through time, many things are possible. The shaman steps off the bus, finds a high mesa from which to observe, and says all things happen at once. The zen master rides the bus but realizes that at every instant, its course is a choice of collective consciousness - he plays his part. The flatlander knits, takes photographs to store in memory, and wonders why there's no restroom on the bus." Vash No, for some the blood bond can take more then three sips from a kindred. *Vash shifts uncomfortably on his feet* I'm just saying, that's all... *Vash shrugs his shoulders and takes out a mandarin novel in Katakana and begins to read* It's almost as confusing as this book, I'll admit. Elijah Robert Marks ------------------ Altiriel Twice-Born
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