un: eudaimonikos; video

[eudaimonikos]

Hello, Trench! Boy, that's a fun name for a city, isn't it? Trrrrrrench. Sounds...about like what it is, I guess.

So! [He claps his hands together.] Who's here from Deerington? Man, it must've been at least a century since I saw you guys! How's it been? Oh - oh, and look! Eleanor made it too!

[He reaches off-screen to fling his arm around the neck of what, when he pulls it over in front of the camera, proves to be an enormous dappled grey Warg. Her teeth are huge. She's still wearing her enchanted leather war-armor, which really just makes the optics here worse.]

This is my dog, Eleanor! Also, I'm Michael, for all the new folks. I was in the nightmare city before this one, and then I went home for a little bit.

So - what's everyone up to? And what's with the new phones? Are we all using weird, smoky first-generation birds as phones now?

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[opress]

What does her name mean?

[It sounded kind of human, but he wasn't certain.

Though cue in the background hissing squeaky noises like a dog toy was simultaneously being deflated and pumped up.]

[eudaimonikos]

No clue. I named her after a friend of mine from home.

[Human names mean things, he's sure, but hell if he knows what they are.]

What's going on over there?

[opress]

I didn't know you had friends. What planet are you from?

[No offense. He didn't know anyone had friends back where they were from.]

Ruin has returned after feeding. It's chewing on my leg.

[eudaimonikos]

I'm not, I'm from space. Or the afterlife. Eleanor was from Earth, though.

[Or both?]

What is Ruin?

[opress]

[Confused.] Space... or the afterlife? Are they different places?

It's my rathtar. Think... a ball of gnashing teeth and tentacles that clings to and eats anything it can fit into its mouth.

[There's a sort of fondness in his voice talking about the squicky creature.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael waggles his hand a little.]

We've made more of a setting since then. Buildings and things. Hardly anyone goes out in the void anymore. [.....] Well, sounds better than a ball of tongues.

[opress]

Is the void a black hole?

You have a creature that is a ball of tongues? [Someone's interest is piqued.]

[eudaimonikos]

Nah, just space. [He snorts.] And I've been a ball of tongues. We all go through that phase sometime. It's one of the starter forms you get.

[opress]

The area above and around planets or... just an area in general. [He was getting himself confused and it showed in his tone.

However, more importantly: a ball of tongues.] You mean... your infantile form?

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah!

Ehhhhhh...maybe more like a teenager? It's about halfway through. The larval stage is literally just a weird bug, and then a giant slug - not that we were ever children mentally. You're still the same inside. You just happen to also be a weird bug. [You know, normal shit.] And literally a teenager, at one point.

[opress]

Ball of tongues as teenager does sound... accurate.

Are you wearing a human skin suit?

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah. Same one I got in Deerington.

[They tend to last a lot longer in the afterlife; a lot less stuff trying to murder him there, usually.]

[opress]

What are you without the skin suit then?

[Savage was always interested in what other's 'true' forms actually looked like. After all, he couldn't and wouldn't change his own appearance.]

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, you know. An extradimensional demon thing without shape or form.

[That's the lie he always tells! Consistency!]

[opress]

So you don't have horns?

[He huffed in disappointment.]

Having no shape or form must make meetings with other of your own kind interesting. Any accidental merging happen?

[eudaimonikos]

No, no horns.

[But that's actually a pretty interesting question! Obviously impossible, since it's founded on a lie, but people don't normally follow that logic trail that way.]

No - demons don't tend to get that close to each other. Unless we're fighting, and you aren't gonna accidentally merge then.

[opress]

That's unfortunate.

[He was still waiting for another species to have horns. Michael in his meat suit seemed the best chance so far.]

A solitary species then. You fight for the usual: resources, power, mates?

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael grimaces a little.]

Power and resources. We don't mate. [gross???] Can't reproduce at all, actually. Imagine if immortals were just doing that all the time, there'd be a billion of us.

[opress]

[Hold up a second.]

You're immortal?

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah? Did you not know that?

[Granted, they haven't talked as much as he has with Maul, but Michael tends to discuss it pretty freely.]

[opress]

No.

[If it had been mentioned when he was a boy, he probably hadn't been paying attention enough to remember or he hadn't believed it in the first place.]

If you're immortal and can put yourself into whatever meat skin you want, why would you choose an old human one?

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael waves a hand.]

Oh, that came from the lottery. Everybody gets a randomly assigned one, unless you get important enough to commission something. The human part is...so we can learn more about them. It's actually sort of a sign of rank. People doing grunt work don't really need to know those things, so they can just be lava monsters or whatever.

[opress]

So you're having a meat suit like that means you're important. Have you learned anything useful about humans? If so, share.

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael considers this for a second. Most of the things he considers most important also seem fairly basic: "they're nice".]

They're very good at changing. Maybe that doesn't seem strange to you - you're mortal too. But it's interesting. Oh, and some of their organs, they just don't really need, but they will still get upset if you take them.

[opress]

[He was offended being called mortal. It didn't seem like Michael could actually die even attacked.]

Being adaptable is important for survival. [And being upset about organ removal? He could understand that.] Removing organs tends to be a personal offense.