ossifragant | 001 Thing Acquired

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001 Thing Acquired - [video; actions]

Video

[When the feed clicks on, it's shaking slightly, and a man with strange eyes is staring at it from under his sunglasses like he's half-expecting it to explode.]

So this thing is visible to anyone who is connected, huh?

[Someone says something just off camera and he smirks.]

In that case, I just have one question.

Are there any bars in New Bark Town?

[Priorities.]

Action- New Bark Town

[And get an immediate answer or not, Geed is going to wander the town with the strange cat thing following close by. This feels much closer to the freedom he had been searching for in the first place, even if there is a nagging sensation in the back of his mind that something is extremely off.

Really, he can't be worried. He's escaped the bitch as far as he's concerned so he's going to be stopping every single person he runs into to ask about the town hoping he can learn something useful because he sure as hell can't blend in. He might as well stick out in the most obnoxious way possible.

At least it'll get him noticed.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

About to go crawling on my hands and knees back to the last person I ever wanted to see again.

[It's completely truthful but it's said in a way that makes him sound like he's not taking the question seriously.]

...And who is that?

[Scar is more than a little curious about you homunculi.]

Our "master" of course.

[And there's a derisive emphasis on "master". Even though he already admitted he was going back to her.]

Your master? You mean a master of all the homunculi?

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Her name is Dante. She uses conflicts to create the Philosopher's Stone so that she can seek out eternal life.

[Give him a second, Greed, he's putting together the puzzle pieces. Stalked by homunculi to a war-torn city where he was to create the Stone? No, it can't be. He had been the puppetmaster, not some woman who called herself Dante.

And yet...]

What makes you tell me all of this?

[There's an edge to his voice, then. It could just as easily be a farce. Why would a homunculus be letting him in on their organization without a care? This "Greed" talks about crawling back... Had he run?]

Why not? I never had any interest in the Stone.

Why should she be the one to have eternal life?

Eternal life is a lie.

[But he's not focused on that. Scar dismisses it immediately.]

What do you know about a desert town called Liore?

Nothing.

I'm not exactly part of the inner circle, if you catch my meaning.

[So Scar was right. Either Greed isn't trusted, or he's on completely bad terms.]

Did you know Lust, then?

[Piece by piece, he's trying to put it together. Nobody but the people in that cabin in Liore new of Scar's connection with the homunculi. He will keep it that way as long as he can.

But his curiosity still wins him over.]

Not the one you're thinking of.

But we met briefly. That was when everything went to hell.

Sounds about right.

[Oops, was that out loud?]

But what do you mean, not the one I'm thinking of. Are there multiple homunculi of the same name?

There was a different Lust, once. But she died a long, long time ago.

Then your... "group" is repeatedly recycled, with each new homunculus taken in being named after a sin?

[Lust, Gluttony, and now Greed. It's easy to assume that there are at least four others, then.]

And how does this Dante know where to find you?

Because I hung around in the city she lives in.

[A+ thinking there, Greed. Really.]

[...SIGH.]

I mean you homunculi. People cannot possibly broadcast the fact that they make you. How does she know where to look?

[He knows for a fact that people don't exactly babble about their attempts at recreating life. But if this Dante is truly at the head of it all... Then she has to be able to find homunculi once they're created.

What became Lust had been gone before word of his brother's sin had even gotten out. At the time, it had been a menial fact in the mayhem. But now...]

[There's a shrug in his voice when he speaks.]

Couldn't tell you. She's probably intensely aware of the sort of person who would attempt to create a homunculus.

In my case? Well, she made me, so she didn't exactly have to go looking.

You say that she seeks immortality. [Foolish.] Yet, the homunculi I have met spoke of attaining humanity.

[Not a direct question, but Scar is hoping pointing out the contradiction draws something else out of Greed.]

They're being tricked.

We homunculi... well. it's hard to erase that nagging sensation that something is wrong with us.

Personally? I've never wanted to be human. That particular bribe never worked with me. She found it threatening to say the least.

[And he pauses.]

Are you aware of how a homunculus is born?

[Scar is silent for a moment longer than he would have liked. How should he answer? There are so few people alive who know about his brother. And even then...

It's hard to erase that nagging sensation that something is wrong with us.]

...Yes, I am.

[Nobody would expect an Ishbalan to know such a dark secret of alchemy. It would be more likely for an Amestrian to assume that he was ignorant.

How ironic.]

[Well, that saves him the explanation, then. But there's probably one thing he doesn't know about it because it's not something really talked about.]

Successful human transmutation is impossible. When we're born, we're born incomplete. Conscious, but immobile and in horrific pain.

Keeping that in mind, it's fairly easy to see how she gets homunculi on her side. She works her magic-- takes the pain away, and she has loyal minions on her side.

And she promises them their humanity if they get the Stone for her?

[When in reality, it was only a matter of using the Stone as an ends for immortality. Is that even logistically possible? With Scar's limited (at least in his opinion) knowledge of alchemy, he cannot imagine how that could even work.

But again, Scar has no reason to believe everything this "Greed" is saying. But still, he wants to hear it out like anything else.]

That's right.

And without the means to know better, they follow her.

[Because newborn homunculi are trusting, naive children. They may look like adults in most cases, but they never act like them. Not at first.]

I did, too, for a time. But then I realized I really didn't want mortality. That's too finite, too much like nothing for me. And then I remembered things that, frankly, made sticking with her impossible.

Remembered things?

[Oh God, not this again. It lines up too eerily...]

[He hesitates. He's said this much, and really, he wouldn't have said anything at all if he didn't think that this was Dante's newest puppet.

Still, admitting this-- admitting his past isn't an easy thing to admit because he really doesn't want to be that human who died hundreds of years ago. He remembers hardly anything about him anyway.]

We remember our deaths.

[...and with any luck, Scar will be able to read between the lines.]

001 Thing Acquired - [video; actions]

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