the devil in the details

[isocelesmonster]

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.

Although ostensibly the Golden has a new crew member, there's no new person in attendance at any meals. No new faces in the hall, nothing additional in the laundry. One of the standard crew cabins has been sealed up as tight as a tomb, the brass nameplate on the door unhelpfully scratched out with something sharp. No noises at all come from inside.

It'd take a careful eye to notice the only other change: the same sharp instrument has been used to carve little eyes of providence, no bigger than a fingernail, in strategic public places around the ship. They're shallow markings, not deep enough to interfere with any of the working parts of the craft, and no great works of art - each little scrap of graffiti is a matter of five lines at most. But they're there - and if sometimes the way the gold of the metal hull glints in the pupil is strangely canny, it's probably nothing to be worried about.

(It's not that Bill doesn't care about the flesh puppets that make up his new crew - oh, he does, they're all going to get very careful scrutiny over the coming days - but more important is finding out what his new playground looks like.)

When the fleet sleeps, their minds open and blossom like night-blooming flowers, each one illuminating a new section of the shared dreaming plane. For all of their poetry, few humans realize that the state of dreaming is as real an exploration as whatever meaningless actions they take while awake. It's irrelevant to their survival, most days, so evolution has never sought to provide that particular revelation. They're a young species. Five senses, auditory languages, limited psychic potential, and as far as they know when they dream they're just watching random electrical impulses fire in their brains. Ha!

(There's an expression about a one-eyed man's status in a land of the blind, and Bill intends to make it a reality.)

He steps sideways out of the material world into the closest dream as easily as a three-dimensional being can move along any of their limited axes. He makes himself invisible, at first, just to get his bearings.

[Bill is visiting dreams, as a way of saying hello! His permissions post for this ability is here. I am treating this ability on an opt-in basis. If you didn't give me the okay, he won't be spying on your character at all tonight ~but where's the fun in that~?]
ZOGSLFTS GSRH DVZP ZMW RWOV GSVNV

RH ML NLIV BRVOWRMT YFG Z WIVZN

DSVM NLIMRMT GZPVH BLF UILN NB GSIZOO

YV TOZW R OVG BLF DZPV ZG ZOO

Comments

Re: 200 million years later, it's me, and i am so sorry. first tag takes the longest.

[tallasaking]

[Dream Tyrion looks up, astonished, right before everything vanished quite abruptly, leaving just the stone throne room and the iron throne in the far end.

Then behind the naked woman, a sharp voiced response came through.] Who are you, and what are you doing here?

[isocelesmonster]

[When the bed vanishes out from under her, the woman stays floating. She looks down in surprise at the change, though, and snaps her watch shut.]

HEY, HEY, EAGER TO PLEASE! I LIKE IT!

[Her form melts like putty, a sick blend of brown and red. It slides and pours into the floor, where it fills out an invisible mold: two little legs, then yellow bricks and angles, then arms and an eye. The last drop fills out a little top hat, which Bill reaches to adjust before turning around.

He's only about two feet tall, hat included. Congratulations, Tyrion. You get to loom.]

[tallasaking]

Eager to please is not how I would put it. Mostly, I would put it as -- closing down an intruder.

[Tyrion's tone is crisp and hard.] What are you doing in my head?

[isocelesmonster]

JUST TAKING A WALK AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD, TRYING TO SEE WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE THE ATROMA DROPPED ME OFF WITH!

[Bill reaches into thin air and grabs a little crooked cane, the same glowing gold as he is.]

BELIEVE ME, HEH, IF I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW I WAS HERE YOU WOULDN'T!

[tallasaking]

I see.

[A faint snort, as Tyrion folded his hands behind him, slowly walking around the strange golden triangle with his odd clothing and ... one giant eyeball.

Still. He had seen stranger now.]

So now I must guard my dreams as carefully as I guard my words. Delightful.

[isocelesmonster]

[Disconcertingly, although Bill's body stays still, the one giant eyeball drifts around his perimeter to follow Tyrion. It makes a weird squishing sound around the narrow edges.]

HEY, YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT! I'M JUST SAYING HELLO!

[tallasaking]

Strangely enough, I don't believe you. But perhaps that's because you entered my fantasy dressed as a naked blonde woman and now I find out you are a triangular cyclops.

[Is Tyrion's dry response, as he moves to sit on the Iron Throne.]

So, this is just a friendly visit into my subconscious.

[isocelesmonster]

I WAS JUST GOING WITH THE FLOW! WHEN IN ROME-

ACTUALLY, YOU GUYS DON'T HAVE A ROME, SO I DON'T KNOW HOW THE EXPRESSION GOES FOR YOU!

[Bill's tie surfaces with a ripple on the side his eye is currently occupying. His legs rotate themselves 180 degrees, finishing the process of turning his back into his front so he can properly face Tyrion.]

YOU ACT LIKE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE EVER HAD A SHAPESHIFTING ENERGY BEING IN YOUR DREAMS OR SOMETHING!

[tallasaking]

... What is Rome?

[Sorry Bill, he will go right ahead and grab this tangent and go with it. He will also take the time to note the triangle seems to be multi-directional. Interesting.]

Not the first time. I doubt the last. I liked neither experience.

[tetractys]

ROME'S A CITY! NICE PLACE! VERY FLAMMABLE!

[Bill takes a little stroll around the new room Tyrion's conjured up.]

YOU KNOW, I FEEL LIKE YOU'RE JUDGING ME BASED ON APPEARANCES! I'D THINK YOU OF ALL PEOPLE WOULD KNOW BETTER!

[tallasaking]

...I am not entirely certain if I should take that in a positive way.

[Tyrion answered dryly, before he arched an eyebrow.]

Frankly I don't see how I could judge a large, buttercup colored triangle on appearances. Mostly, I am judging on tone.

[tetractys]

HAH! REALLY? YOU SOUNDED AWFULLY CHEATED WHEN I DROPPED THAT DISGUISE!~

[Bill snaps his fingers and the blonde woman is back, this time perched on the arm of the Iron Throne in a Vegas chorus girl's fishnets and sequinny tailcoat.

The image is immediately ruined when she starts talking in Bill's screechy voice and tries to lean her elbow against the top of Tyrion's head.]

TAKE IT POSITIVE, BUDDY! OTHERWISE I'D BE INSULTING BOTH OF US!

[tallasaking]

Any man who prefers women would prefer a beautiful blonde to a triangle. That's not judging, that is simply common sense.

[Tyrion answers glibly. He doesn't even look Bill up and down, because the illusion is quite ruined, and even more so when he speaks. So he waves his hand -- and a dragon's head looms behind the throne, glowering at Bill.]

I would lean the other way, if you would.

[tetractys]

AND I PREFER THE DREAMS OF PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY HAVE POWER, NOT JUST FANTASIES OF IT, BUT YOU DON'T SEE ME COMPLAINING!

[That was the triangle, now gleefully hovering several yards out of range of the dragon. Dragon's fire is powerful magic! It might even hurt him if dragons weren't hella extinct. And if any of this was real.]

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME IF THIS IS JUST A DREAM, SMART GUY?

[And that was the showgirl, who is making no attempt to get out of Tyrion's personal space. In fact, she'll try to rap on his skull a little bit. Knock knock. Anyone home?]

[tallasaking]

Then why are you in mine, if I am so useless to you?

[Is Tyrion's dry response, before he tipped his head.]

I do not need to kill you. I just need to kick you out, yes?

[Which is why he waves his hand again, turning the throne red hot to anyone besides him.]

[tetractys]

[Well, this throne decidedly smells like burning flesh and nylon now. The sizzling sound is closely reminiscent of raw meat. The Bill on the arm flails, startled, and falls over backwards. Her head makes a dull clunk when it bounces on the floor, and she pops into an enormous cloud of yellow confetti. It goes everywhere. Everywhere.]

I'M GETTING ALL KINDS OF MIXED SIGNALS FROM YOU, BUDDY.

[Bill floats lazily up out of the cloud, back to being a triangle and apparently unscathed.]

FIRST YOU'RE DISAPPOINTED THAT I'M NOT A MEAT PUPPET, THEN WHEN I WEAR ONE IT'S OUT OF THE FIRE- [this, with a jab of his cane towards the looming dragon -] - AND INTO THE FRYING PAN! ALMOST ENOUGH TO MAKE A GUY THINK TWICE ABOUT STRIKING UP A BARGAIN!

[tallasaking]

[Well - that was ... unsettling. And annoying. Tyrion frowned from his throne and began to whisk the confetti out of his mind. Taking a moment to eye the triangle above his head.]

What I want in the scope of my dreams is not what I can attain in the scope of my reality, and beyond that ... I do not normally make bargains with people who float around in my mindseye.

[He did want something, though, and now he was trying to feel Tyrion out for it ...]

[tetractys]

[Unsettling and annoying is a pretty good summary of everything Bill does.]

NORMALLY I'D AGREE! YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO WELL ON YOUR OWN! BUT YOU'RE TALKING TO A GUY WHO MAKES DREAMS INTO REALITY! IT'S PRACTICALLY ALL I DO THESE DAYS!

[tallasaking]

[Well Tyrion would always to think that he was perceptive enough to get that obvious fact.]

And what's the running rate on making a dwarf's dreams come true?

[The confetti was gone, but Tyrion remained.]

[isocelesmonster]

FOR A DWARF, I WOULDN'T BOTHER! FOR A GENIUS THAT KNOWS HOW TO GET PEOPLE ON HIS SIDE, WELL, I THINK I COULD WORK SOMETHING OUT!

[tallasaking]

[One lip curled up at the corners, before he arched an eyebrow.] And what precisely would you do for this genius - specifically?

[tetractys]

THAT'S WHAT I CAME HERE TO TALK ABOUT! BEFORE YOU WENT OFF ON A TANGENT, ANYWAY. YOU'VE GOT A PRETTY GOOD GIG HERE IN THE FLEET, DON'TCHA? FRIENDS, A STEADY JOB, RELATIVE SAFETY...

[tallasaking]

So good that one would wonder what a yellow pyramid could possible offer me.

[tetractys]

HAHA! YOU AGREED? OH, BUDDY, I WAS KIDDING! WHERE DO I START?

[Bill starts ticking things off on his fingers.]

HERE IN YOUR DREAMS YOU'VE GOT A THRONE, BUT OUT THERE YOU'RE JUST FINE WIPING DOWN BARS AND DANCING AROUND LIKE A CAGED MONKEY FOR THE ATROMA? THERE'S A BIG FLOPPY PILE OF GIRLFRIENDS IN HERE, BUT OUT THERE THE WHITE-HAIRED CHICK WITH THE SIX HUNDRED TITLES HAS A WORLD OF BETTER OPTIONS LINED UP, AND IS A LOT MORE INTERESTED IN YOU AS A YES-MAN OR POSSIBLE SIDEKICK! BESIDES THAT, YOU'RE PLAYING CATCHUP IN THE KNOWLEDGE DEPARTMENT COMPARED TO ANYONE FROM A WORLD WHO'S INVENTED INDOOR PLUMBING, LET ALONE THE ONES WHO'VE MASTERED INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL! SO MUCH FOR THE BEST EDUCATION MONEY COULD BUY BACK AT HOME! AND IF YOU'RE NOT THE SMART GUY, WHO ARE YOU?

[tallasaking]

[Tyrion leaned back on his throne, resting his stubby fingers together as he listened to Bill's spiel. Slowly, one corner of his mouth twisted up, then the other.]

You ... haven't actually told me anything that I do not already know, or do not actually want. And trust me when I say -- I am doing twenty times better than the others from my country when it comes to modern technology.