@dr; text; February 1st

[donttalktome]

A proposition for you, Beacon:

The Night Market is set to return this month, and with them, the machine that gives answers.
For reasons a certain subset of you will understand, I refuse to go anywhere near the thing ever again.
And yet, I still have questions.
Hold that thought for a moment.

Some of you have come to me with requests for new tablet programs. "Apps" as we call them, but I realize that term means nothing to people from worlds without it.
In the past, I offered my services relatively free of charge. Spirit of goodwill and all that.
But I did say it wouldn't last forever.

Henceforth, anyone requiring new apps or other technological assistance will be charged one answer from the Night Market's machine.
The answer must be to a question of my choosing, and it must be documented in order to count.
Payment is expected upfront, and all payments are non-refundable for obvious reasons.

If you require a portfolio of my work, you're probably already using it.
Aside from the few basic functions, a good deal of the apps on these tablets are mine.

If you require an incentive that isn't tablet-related, I'll lay one other offer on the table:
I still know the location of a place that this group has yet to discover.
But that'll cost you two answers.

The short version, for those of you too lazy to read:
If you want anything from me, you'll have to ask a question to the machine, and give me the answer with proof of where you got it.
A simple transaction, but if you have any questions, don't worry, those are still free.

[OOC NOTE: any apps/modifications characters request from Will still need to be approved as player projects by the mods. They will likely take some time to create, especially since he lost his fancy hacker tablet, so nothing will be instant. If you have any ooc questions, hit me up over at leucrotta or just PM Will's journal.]

Comments

[donttalktome]

And who the hell are you, exactly?

[featherknives]

The one that machine turned into half-blind, killing machine with guilt for even breathing the air

This is all so elaborate

I expected nothing less from humans. Usually, they don't go after their own kin, but there's always -that one-

[donttalktome]

How many questions did you ask?

And I'm not going after anyone. I'm just asking for reasonable compensation for my services.

[featherknives]

2, and the stupid bucket of bolts took into consideration my rhetorical yell at it (because of a half-assed answer) as a question too. So that makes unofficial 3

Of course you aren't.
But you also aren't telling the entire truth either
White lies, they call it, right?
Don't be surprised if someone tries to hunt you down by the end of this

[donttalktome]

Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?
And where am I lying?
People are free to ask me anything they want.
I made it clear there was a reason I wasn't doing this myself.

[featherknives]

Oh nononono
You didn't do anything to me
yet

You're not lying but you also aren't saying there are consequences for asking those questions because no one would've agreed to do it otherwise, right?
Isn't this what people call 'scam'?

[donttalktome]

I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do anything, since you already seem to think I'm "vile".
What prompted that, by the way?

And no, a scam is when you offer something and then don't deliver.
I have no intention of backing out on my end of the bargain.
Besides, not everyone here is oblivious to the machine's effects, obviously. It's not my fault if people don't look into it.
Not like I wasn't suspicious enough.

The bottom line is that my services have value, and if you're not willing to put up with some temporary discomfort, you'd better find something else worth my time.

[featherknives]

You seem awfully attached to the fact that I called you 'vile' for a person that constantly has aloof aura of "I don't care what others think of me"

You kinda forced me to use word 'scam'. I did say "white lie" at first but you don't seem to read. Or maybe you don't know the meaning

I didn't say you'd back down, I have no clue what you'd do
I'm saying that for a scientist you present yourself for, you don't show all the facts. Is that how all human scientists work? If it is, then my apologies

You do you darling
As I said, I'm here to watch the shitshow go down when they realize you didn't tell the whole truth
And are trying to wriggle out with "your fault for not looking into it" excuse
It will be fun

I don't need anything from you, no
Little human gadgets and apps can't help me with what I want
They won't help anyone

[donttalktome]

Call it curiosity. You said I didn't do anything to you directly, so it seemed to come out of nowhere.
I'm perfectly fine with people thinking poorly of me.
Just usually they have a good reason.

Don't twist my words, this isn't fucking science.
This is business.
Believe it or not, people can do more than one thing.
And if they don't realize I'm not telling them everything, then they're not very clever, are they?
That's hardly my fault.

My apologies for not being able to save the world with a communication device.
Go ahead and sue me for trying to make things easier.

[featherknives]

It just seemed vile to me that you wanted to trick people into asking machine questions without revealing it has consequences. Aren't they your human brethren?

So making the gadgets is not science? Got it. Still trying to catch onto all this thing you guys call technology.
I suppose you do have right THERE. Natural selection. Fun.

Getting yourself blind for a month is not 'easy', regardless of how useful this thing you can make is. Trying to shoot a target and threat with one eye is near impossible and I did it only because I have hundreds of years of experience on my back.
A person can die ten times over until consequences run out. By that time, the app won't feel worth the trouble

[donttalktome]

Human brethren?
Where the hell do you come from?
I don't owe anyone anything just because we happen to be of the same species. None of us exactly got a choice in the matter.

Science is an act of curiosity. It's trying to make the truth more clear by experimentation. Figuring out how things work, and why, and how they might be used.
What I'm offering isn't anything like that.
It's just production, no questions involved.

Well why were you out shooting targets and putting yourself in danger with only one eye?
I can't be held responsible for your choices.

[featherknives]

Ionia. Not that you heard of it.
And that's why you all fall apart so easily. I'm not going to give a lecture, though. Humans never listen anyway.

Do good things come from science?
I've heard some of my people tried to pursue it because of this 'curiosity' but it always ended badly

[They end up being hunted down for their feathers and magic.]

"Half-blind, with murder intent and guilt for even breathing the air"
The second punishment was the killing urge. It forced me to go out and fight
You should be happy I didn't come after anyone in the village and instead killed some of the forest spirits instead

[He could've definitively been a target. A very easy target to sate her killing hunger.]

[donttalktome]

You do know that this place has plenty of non-humans, right?
And that society isn't always divided between species?
Perhaps where you come from all humans band together and betray each other, but that's not how my world works.

[Well, except for the betraying each other thing, but that's multi-species.]

Plenty of things come from science.
Medicine, technology, infrastructure, agriculture. The list goes on forever.
Of course, weapons also come from science.
It's neither good or bad, really. It's all in what you do with what you discover.

And anyway, it seems like you had enough control to stop yourself from hurting anyone in town.
I'm not just tossing that out there, either.
I had enough control not to do anything truly stupid, either.

[featherknives]

Mine was
And we thrived when people stayed away from us
For all the things you listed science does for you, magic did for us
Maybe that's why humans started to hunt us down. No need to do sciency stuff if you can get it all on the platter, for cost of mere Vastayan life. Sweet deal, right?

How does this science look like?

[...]

I'm setting out soon to comb through forest
I could keep my eyes open for things

[Maybe she finds some, you know, yeeted stuff from way back. She needs to know to recognize it.]

Having wits about oneself shouldn't be a miracle, but here we are, praising whatever it is out there that keeps us relatively sane

[donttalktome]

Well, it's obviously very unfortunate that humans resorted to such means where you're from.
But at least know that we don't do that in every world.
Still, guess I don't blame you for hating us.
I'd do the same thing.

[He already has, kind of.]

You're asking what science looks like?
Science is an act, not an object.
I think the word you're looking for is "technology".
And that usually looks like something that very much does not belong in the wild.
Something made of artificial materials, something that's too perfectly geometrical. Something that wouldn't exist without intervention.
Basically, anything made by people.

[featherknives]

I learned that here. I suppose some humans are better than others. White sheep in the herd of black ones.

[Not only she hated, but she also killed too. But that's off-topic.]

I know how technology looks like
I mean, this tablet is technology too, right?

I was thinking more of that other sciency stuff
That weird Pluto person was asking for it all over didn't they?
What was it called
Plutonium?
How does that look like?
And are there other stuff like that?

[donttalktome]

The plutonium?
Well, first of all plutonium isn't "science", it's just an element.
You can use it for science.
It's a mineral that glows, even in the dark. It'll look like a rock with a greenish light.
The only one I've seen in person here was a solid, fist-sized piece.
In that form, it's almost entirely safe unless you decide to put it in your mouth for some reason.
But if you encounter it in powder form, I wouldn't advise breathing any of it in.
It's poisonous, for lack of a better word.
I doubt you have much experience with radiation.

[featherknives]

[Listen it's all the same to her. Science or for science.]

Okay that won't be so hard to spot, even if I fly
Although, does it glow HERE?
I mean, there's no light from anywhere except for bonfire and our lanterns.
And no, I don't have expreience

[She doesn't know what that word means, but the way the guy phrased it sounds bad.]

Would you still have use from it in powder form?

[donttalktome]

It does glow here. I'm not sure why.
The glow doesn't exactly travel far, though. It's not very bright.
Pluto never said she didn't accept it as powder.
Unless you mean me personally.
I don't even remotely have the tools to make plutonium useful, regardless of form.