"Precisely." Hubert utters the word with a hint of a sigh. The ramifications of it were a heavy, demoralizing thing—but that was exactly why Hubert thought to do something so horrific and cruel to a being that had already suffered as much as it had. The current Augmented needed to know if the warnings had been real or designed to control them through fear.
"After the exposure? Fine. It was unpleasant in the moment, of course—" both the moment of exposure and the horn growth the next day, "—but among other things, the scorpion soul is resilient." Hubert's voice turns dry. "In exchange for turning bright blue in the presence of radiation in the dark, I can shrug off radiation to the degree a golem can—perhaps even better."
Even if Hubert overestimated that resilience and discovered that he can, in fact, still experience negative side effects after months of reckless exposure.
Momo's brows lift in interest at that. He'd never been particularly immune to Katalyth exposure as an Arthropoda, and he's noticed by now that the Natural Soul abilities are to some degree tuned by the species (his sleep dust, reliant on the scales moths shed from their wings, hasn't been shared by any other Arthropoda he's met). But to hear a strength like that confirmed based on species is of particular interest, especially given his fairly recent discussion with Northly about the return of her water abilities based on a soul that could have potentially been Arthropoda as well.
"Honestly, having an extra warning system for it on top of our senses seems useful as well...I glow in the dark these days, but it's not the Arthropoda soul, and neither is my Katalyth resistance," he says, flexing his lower set of hands, the ones completely corrupted by fungal influence. "That was one thing I learnt out of that facility, that I've got a strong resistance to Katalyth now myself. So that's something to consider if we run into anything that'd be a way worse exposure risk for others."
He knows Spectrals have that innate resistance as well, and there's at least no shortage of them either, but it's always useful to be aware of details like that if the situation ever arises where it's needed.
Hubert nods. Momo's logic is exactly why he pushed so hard on the katalyth readings for some months before that backfired horribly.
His focus wavers and twitches again. He removes the scarf draped over his shoulders, placing it on the chair beside him. "Unfortunately I have still discovered there is limits to our resistance." Hubert stands as he talks, unbuttoning his thick winter coat. There's only four sleeves on this one to keep the heat in; as he lays it over the scarf, four more appendages on his lower abdomen, these ones insectile rather than humanoid, stretch before curling again at his waist.
"Have you met any others with souls that do not seem to align with anything known?"
Hubert adjusts his sleeves higher up his forearms as he wanders over the sink to work on the dishes. The weird split-focus of his attention calms and settles entirely on Momo, like the relief of someone who finally found where an incessant beeping was coming from.
Momo watches Hubert shed his outer layers with a bit of a tilt of the head, but figures the room might just be warm enough to allow for it more easily than outside. Since he's had Yuki over here and there, he's been trying to keep the place warm enough for him, and he's a lot less resistant to cold than Momo is.
The question gets a shake of the head, and he opens his mouth to answer...but he does hesitate a bit when Hubert goes to the sink, hands lifting but then pausing, as if torn between the urge to not have a guest doing his chores and the fact that he knows he's left it too long already. He's never been good with housework, especially with the frequency he's out of the house dealing with other matters; he just shares it or offers other things to the household when he's living with others.
"Ah...not yet, you're the first other than me. I've met someone with a second Natural Soul who isn't sure what it is yet, but from how they described it I think it is still one of the ones we know," he says, hands curling a little as he pushes himself up from his seat and gestures to the dishes. "I can help you with that. My roommate's only been gone a couple of days, so I guess I'm getting a little sloppy...you seemed pretty distracted by it, though."
He says that a little apologetically, as if to indicate he didn't realise it'd be the case, but there's also something of a question in his gaze. He's noticed he really has to pay attention to keeping things clean for other people since his Fungi soul came in (and it's worsening his habits when left to his own devices), so he wonders if this one might be an opposite case.
Hubert hums dully. His urge to clean hasn't been lost on him by this point.
"Another side effect of the horns, it seems. I've always preferred an orderly environment, but I've never been compelled to become involved until recently."
A pause. "I can't help but wonder if there is a commonality in our length of stay and our conditions. You and I are of the first otherworlder wave; I know of another who has recently developed a second soul from our wave as well, even if it is a known one."
If they're here do long, do they begin to mutate in ways Patho-Gen can't control?
Momo hums a little as if to say that's sort of what he was expecting with the cleaning - an interesting parallel, but he's not beyond at least trying to keep things clean when someone else is involved, so he pulls out a tea towel and starts drying the dishes and sorting them to put away.
"Could be. I'm not completely sure the other person I ran into with one recently was first wave, but I did first meet them in May and they seemed established, so they're at the very least early," he muses; the topic of initial arrival hasn't come up much with Northly, but it wouldn't surprise him if it was mostly or all first arrivals. "Maybe the longer we're here, the more receptive we are to everything else that's going on in this world. Since it sounds like yours is linked pretty directly to Kelesis."
It implies there's some sort of...if not deliberation, things that are turning beyond their vision that aren't merely the Augmenters going haywire or something.
He falls quiet, simmering in a background frustration. It seems he can't escape Kelesis. Even before that damned place opened up to him, it afflicted him with that sleepwalking episode. Then the underground, then that dreamscape in October, that blackout... it was all a continuous thread.
"And... your unexpected companion. You've noticed no links whatsoever to it?" Why his? How many of these unknown souls were there?
Momo shakes his head, gaze lingering for a moment longer than it needs to on the reflection of a glass he sets down. He certainly wishes he knew what the Fungi soul had come from, what had drawn it to him in the first place, but as it is, it's been something of an uneasy union, given its lack of concern for such human matters as individual will.
"Nothing yet, not even while we were underground," he says, recalling the lack of anything resembling that soul down in those twisted corridors, even though he'd been able to try and reach out through the ground to what he now knows to have been the frenzied plant Augmented. "Or to the places we've been so far. I wasn't even sure on Patho-Gen not knowing about it until what happened in the facility, but it was clear almost as soon as I got in there that they had no idea what it could do."
Or even what it was, in a way - it'd seemed like it was initially written off as more of a magical infection of sorts rather than a full-blown additional soul, until he started using it.
The sound on Hubert's breath is too rough to be a sigh and too soft to be a growl. It punctuates his underlying frustration well. "Our continued ignorance on these matters is an unbearable nuisance."
He shakes his head, scrubbing the surface of a plate slightly harder than he needed too. "It's small comfort that Patho-Gen seems to know little more than we do." This time, his breath is a proper sigh and his motions stall for a moment. Hubert's frustration recedes deeper, still present, but something more inwardly pensive fills its place.
"...Still, I appreciate you communicating what you have. I recognize this is delicate information for you."
While Momo tends to keep a lid on his negative emotions a bit to try and support others, Hubert's frustration is certainly relatable, and the sentiment something he's been coming back to repeatedly over these months. The questions keep piling up, and only occasionally have they run across answers even when they've been seeking them out.
He sets the glass down (until he gets a few more items from the same part of the kitchen to put away), and waves his hands a little at the appreciative comment. Even if it's not quite thanks in so many words, Momo's never great at accepting that sort of thing.
"I can't expect others to offer me information if I don't offer it back sometimes, right? If it might give us even a little bit more understanding of what's been going on, this much is fine," he says, offering a small smile. He hasn't had to sink too deeply into the especially sensitive aspects of having the fungi soul, so he doesn't mind this too much. "And I'm learning a little about your new soul too, so I'd call it pretty even."
On the information front, at least. If he'd realised Hubert would feel compelled to do his dishes, he would've cleaned them before he visited.
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"After the exposure? Fine. It was unpleasant in the moment, of course—" both the moment of exposure and the horn growth the next day, "—but among other things, the scorpion soul is resilient." Hubert's voice turns dry. "In exchange for turning bright blue in the presence of radiation in the dark, I can shrug off radiation to the degree a golem can—perhaps even better."
Even if Hubert overestimated that resilience and discovered that he can, in fact, still experience negative side effects after months of reckless exposure.
no subject
"Honestly, having an extra warning system for it on top of our senses seems useful as well...I glow in the dark these days, but it's not the Arthropoda soul, and neither is my Katalyth resistance," he says, flexing his lower set of hands, the ones completely corrupted by fungal influence. "That was one thing I learnt out of that facility, that I've got a strong resistance to Katalyth now myself. So that's something to consider if we run into anything that'd be a way worse exposure risk for others."
He knows Spectrals have that innate resistance as well, and there's at least no shortage of them either, but it's always useful to be aware of details like that if the situation ever arises where it's needed.
no subject
His focus wavers and twitches again. He removes the scarf draped over his shoulders, placing it on the chair beside him. "Unfortunately I have still discovered there is limits to our resistance." Hubert stands as he talks, unbuttoning his thick winter coat. There's only four sleeves on this one to keep the heat in; as he lays it over the scarf, four more appendages on his lower abdomen, these ones insectile rather than humanoid, stretch before curling again at his waist.
"Have you met any others with souls that do not seem to align with anything known?"
Hubert adjusts his sleeves higher up his forearms as he wanders over the sink to work on the dishes. The weird split-focus of his attention calms and settles entirely on Momo, like the relief of someone who finally found where an incessant beeping was coming from.
no subject
The question gets a shake of the head, and he opens his mouth to answer...but he does hesitate a bit when Hubert goes to the sink, hands lifting but then pausing, as if torn between the urge to not have a guest doing his chores and the fact that he knows he's left it too long already. He's never been good with housework, especially with the frequency he's out of the house dealing with other matters; he just shares it or offers other things to the household when he's living with others.
"Ah...not yet, you're the first other than me. I've met someone with a second Natural Soul who isn't sure what it is yet, but from how they described it I think it is still one of the ones we know," he says, hands curling a little as he pushes himself up from his seat and gestures to the dishes. "I can help you with that. My roommate's only been gone a couple of days, so I guess I'm getting a little sloppy...you seemed pretty distracted by it, though."
He says that a little apologetically, as if to indicate he didn't realise it'd be the case, but there's also something of a question in his gaze. He's noticed he really has to pay attention to keeping things clean for other people since his Fungi soul came in (and it's worsening his habits when left to his own devices), so he wonders if this one might be an opposite case.
no subject
"Another side effect of the horns, it seems. I've always preferred an orderly environment, but I've never been compelled to become involved until recently."
A pause. "I can't help but wonder if there is a commonality in our length of stay and our conditions. You and I are of the first otherworlder wave; I know of another who has recently developed a second soul from our wave as well, even if it is a known one."
If they're here do long, do they begin to mutate in ways Patho-Gen can't control?
no subject
"Could be. I'm not completely sure the other person I ran into with one recently was first wave, but I did first meet them in May and they seemed established, so they're at the very least early," he muses; the topic of initial arrival hasn't come up much with Northly, but it wouldn't surprise him if it was mostly or all first arrivals. "Maybe the longer we're here, the more receptive we are to everything else that's going on in this world. Since it sounds like yours is linked pretty directly to Kelesis."
It implies there's some sort of...if not deliberation, things that are turning beyond their vision that aren't merely the Augmenters going haywire or something.
no subject
"And... your unexpected companion. You've noticed no links whatsoever to it?" Why his? How many of these unknown souls were there?
no subject
"Nothing yet, not even while we were underground," he says, recalling the lack of anything resembling that soul down in those twisted corridors, even though he'd been able to try and reach out through the ground to what he now knows to have been the frenzied plant Augmented. "Or to the places we've been so far. I wasn't even sure on Patho-Gen not knowing about it until what happened in the facility, but it was clear almost as soon as I got in there that they had no idea what it could do."
Or even what it was, in a way - it'd seemed like it was initially written off as more of a magical infection of sorts rather than a full-blown additional soul, until he started using it.
no subject
He shakes his head, scrubbing the surface of a plate slightly harder than he needed too. "It's small comfort that Patho-Gen seems to know little more than we do." This time, his breath is a proper sigh and his motions stall for a moment. Hubert's frustration recedes deeper, still present, but something more inwardly pensive fills its place.
"...Still, I appreciate you communicating what you have. I recognize this is delicate information for you."
no subject
He sets the glass down (until he gets a few more items from the same part of the kitchen to put away), and waves his hands a little at the appreciative comment. Even if it's not quite thanks in so many words, Momo's never great at accepting that sort of thing.
"I can't expect others to offer me information if I don't offer it back sometimes, right? If it might give us even a little bit more understanding of what's been going on, this much is fine," he says, offering a small smile. He hasn't had to sink too deeply into the especially sensitive aspects of having the fungi soul, so he doesn't mind this too much. "And I'm learning a little about your new soul too, so I'd call it pretty even."
On the information front, at least. If he'd realised Hubert would feel compelled to do his dishes, he would've cleaned them before he visited.