Conversation Space II.

[powersthatbe]

As Thorne shared with the network, Travelers who vanish find themselves alone in a small room. But it doesn’t look quite as described last time. Paper lanterns hang in the corners, and a lemniscate of live, spicily scented blue roses traces a figure eight on the floor. A little marble plinth sits beside the looping roses, with a champagne flute balanced on it, pink, fizzy liquid quietly effervescing within. In place of the throne that was there before, each half of the loop holds a brown leather sphere - a yoga meditation-ball chair. They’re a little tricky to balance on.


The walls, floors, and ceiling are tiled, a prismatic fade from one color to another, each tile unique, just slightly different in hue than those around it, each colored line giving a sense that it belongs to a bigger pattern, but never revealing enough to allow anyone certainty about what that pattern might be. It is only a glimpse of a larger world… in this small, quiet space.

Comments

[sagetime]

"In the normal course of play," He replies, "we do not die. Play of late has been... abnormal."

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel takes a moment, weighing his options. "Your game is strange. If I do not know your goals, I cannot promise to always act in accordance with them. Still, at present I see no reason why I should not support your goal to win."

[sagetime]

"This will mean supporting my methods and my ideals. Introspection. Reflection. Diagnosis. Stillness. Retreat."

[thezerothlaw]

"Those are not against my nature, but I doubt you would have marked me if they were." He looks at SAGE evenly. "I will not harm those here. You must realise that."

[sagetime]

"I do not require it of you," he says, softly, and bows his head. "Which is, I trust you understand, distinct from promising that it may not be required of you."

[thezerothlaw]

"No."

Daneel shakes his head, very slightly.

"I cannot do that. I would let myself be destroyed before I harm those here."

[sagetime]

"Having faced a similar choice, I comprehend. But in the excursions beyond my control, I do not have the privilege of setting terms. Nor will, in most cases, my allies."

[thezerothlaw]

He nods. "I know. But this is always how it is, for me."

[sagetime]

"Often we are defined that way," he says quietly. "By facing, once and again, the same trials with the same answers."