phonetasmal | text;; elevencrows (+1 log prompt)

text;; elevencrows (+1 log prompt)

So it seems that the androids remembered my request from some months ago regarding tattoo equipment, and thus I suddenly find myself in possession of a large amount of such. Considering the mix of people here, I thought I'd put out word for if anyone is interested. I'm not experienced in this in particular, but I have a good amount of artistic skill and a very steady hand.

[Sometime after the message, Izunia can be found out on the deck, watching the sunset as is his usual habit. Unusually, though, he's not drawing or sipping at a warm drink against the chill.

Instead, he's turning a set of metal knuckles over in his hands - those who've seen his Royal Arms before will likely recognize the silver-with-blue-sheen material of the magical weapons, and even if they don't, the wing motif is as consistent as ever. He seems very much lost in thought, expression alternating between fondness and sadness, always a bit wistful.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well how the hell would I know? I think you'll find I was usually on the other side of fighting daemons.

The difficulty is not as much in the actual fighting for the weaker sorts as it is coming out the other side without an infection. Our curatives remove the Scourge when they heal the wound; healing by time does not.

Mm...infection's a tricky thing. Pretty sure I had some proximity thing going on, I don't remember actively looking to get Verstael or Aldercapt sick.

[A vague hand gesture.]

Had it coming, but still.

I'm astonished Verstael lasted as long as he did after working with both the Scourge in general and you in particular for so long.

I would argue he didn't. He was highly insane somewhere around Diamond Weapon's development, and unsurprisingly he only got worse by the little incident in the magitek production facility.

He managed to not become a daemon for thirty or so years, even so. Not a bad record.

...What did happen there? I've not asked Prompto, either, but.. I do wonder.

...

. . .

Oh my gods he didn't tell you.

No, Ardyn, he did not tell me in detail about the most traumatic experience in his life, I would think you of all people would have been able to understand that.

Well, obviously not in detail, but I'd have thought the colossal robot worm would at least get a mention.

...The what?

Colossal. Robot. Worm.

Verstael Besithia was a very insane individual, and coming from me that means something.

No, you can't possibly let it go at that, I need to know what the entire fuck.

Gladly. [Ardyn hopped up on the deck's railing, swinging his legs slightly like an eager child.]

So, it goes rather without saying that Verstael wasn't always the raving lunatic he became. There was a point at which he was the good intentions directly on the road to hell, and somewhere on the path between 'reduce Niflheim casualties' and 'let's just clone infants', he began to adopt this mad idea of conquering death itself.

One day, amidst several other slightly concerning projects, the rough blueprints for a project he called 'Immortalis' came across my desk.

[Izunia takes a deep breath.]

You know, every time I think I've reached the end of what stupid mortals will do in pursuit of immortality, something stupider always happens.

Keep going, I'll tell you the rest later.

It was...well, as a weapon it was reasonably impressive. Heavily armored with an advanced version of what we outfitted the infantry with, energy cannons, a decent top speed even at a size around that of Diamond Weapon or a touch smaller. If it had just been a weapon, it might have been a decent project to work on.

However, he wanted to put his consciousness in it.

And he did.

[Izunia just.

Slowly puts his hands over his face.

No, he can't possibly be expected to handle this.]

Why.

Oh, you're going to hate this. [He pulled his notebook from his vest and a pen from the Armiger, quickly starting to draw out something.] I thought it...a bit weird, but if he wanted to place himself in a hell of his own creation I wasn't about to stop him.

[Ardyn paused, glancing up at nothing in particular with a small frown and mumbled 'why did I hate him so much?']

[...Then a shrug, going back to what he was doing.]

Honestly, I recall thinking the irony of it quite funny at the time, and admittedly I'd have loved to see what would happen when he tried to take the damn thing off the continent. [Turning the notebook around after a moment revealed a rough sketch of some monstrosity.]

[And a small dot next to it, with an arrow and the words Prompto for scale.]

... Why would you - if it was to be eternity in something that could feel some kind of pleasure I could at least understand, but...

[He's just. gonna put his face back in his hands after looking at the sketch.

But after a pause.]

And that is the most goddamn phallic thing I've ever seen, so he clearly had such things on the mind.

In hindsight, he could have just-...

[. . .]

Never mind, I don’t want to finish that thought.

Now you've gone and made me curious, you know.

I was just thinking that...

[hhhhhh]

...He could have just as easily transferred his consciousness into his own clones.

His - wait, he cloned himself?

[You can practically feel where the gears are turning in Izunia's head in that regard.]

[suddenly this is far less funny and ardyn is vastly less comfortable.]

It was-...it started out as seeking ways to minimize casualties. He called it the 'Deathless Project', because its purpose was to stop Niflheim's soldiers falling in battle. But even I couldn't sublimate an entire daemon army, and the initial magitek cores were unstable. The soldiers lost their sense of self and identity in complete mental collapses.

[Ardyn shifted almost nervously, twisting the ring on his hand.]

Eventually, Verstael concluded that there was no risk of ego death if his subjects were too young to have developed an ego. From there, the slippery slope descended into replicating himself to provide the necessary numbers. Around the time the production of magitek troopers began to present results, one such subject went missing.

...That subject was Prompto. Twenty years later I knew him the instant I saw him, because he looked exactly as Verstael did when I first met him.

Damn. That does fill in the rest of the pieces.

[As he'd said, Izunia has never asked Prompto exactly what went down. That Noctis found Prompto chained in a cell had been enough to explain the boy's overall traumatic reaction to Ardyn, combined with everything else.]

I knew that he had some background of the sort, but I didn't realize that he was a clone of Verstael directly. Damn.

...He's the one who killed Verstael before he became a daemon outright, with...considerable direction on my part. 'Entrapment' is likely a better word.

It's...I'm not exactly proud of the things that happened out in the facility. But I can't very well say 'I don't want to talk about it' considering it's almost entirely my fault to begin with.

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tell him about the worm

oh boy

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