Afterparty

[latinumsbetter]

[The earth once more closes up and all of that disappears, Quark remains on the ground for a long moment, holding Cerejeira. Finally, he raises his voice, still keeping her tucked against him. His tone is all business, brooking no argument.]

Bar'll open in ten minutes. Go get washed up, and then be there.

[He turns his head to look at Astarion, eyes narrowing.]

You. After those ten minutes, you're going to explain to everyone what you did. And then you're going to get out of my bar. Got it?

[and, not waiting for a reply, he's turning his attention to Cerejeira and Leb. He frowns, for a moment, because he knows he can't carry either of them, and normally he might have asked Fe Lu Om Ranma or Vanity but, well.]

...someone who can carry people help me with Leb and Jeira.

[So......the bar downstairs is once again open. Quark is not behind the bar. Instead, he's pushed some tables together and put some bottles of wine on the table. He's replicated some bar snacks and they're there too. There's something replicated for Riful also, in a separate bowl, which he'll give to her personally.

Fritz sitting near the entrance to the back counter where he's working and Critwo is in a nest of blankets in a corner just behind the counter. There’s been several of the extra togas gathered and folded to be used as blankets.

Leb is still asleep on one of the couches with one of the spare togas tucked around her as a blanket. Cerejeira is seated next to her, also with a spare toga tucked around her.

Once everyone is down there, Quark pushes to his feet and clears his throat.

Once the situation has been made clear, then the rest of the evening can proceed as usual for their afterparties.

Those four drinks that Quark usually makes (Athena, Alex, Misane, Aglaea) are once again sitting at the far edge of the counter. There are no new additions.]

Comments

[stringup]

...I guess you could say that. [ "Necromancer" counts on a technicality, she supposes. ] So, how do I put this...

There are a bunch of beings where I'm from that aren't "made of the same things that everybody else is". I'll set aside gods and demons, because you could say they are souls, it's just that what it means for them is different from what it means for mortal beings.

There are elementals, which are living manifestations of physical elements. Beings that are literally made out of flames, water, stone, that sort of thing. Most of them start off as relatively mindless or more like particularly simple-minded animals, and at that point most scholars would agree they don't have souls. But an elemental that lives long enough and gains enough experience will eventually develop a personality and sapience. At that point, you could say they have a soul, even if they won't join the afterlife when they die.

Artifacts made of certain magical materials also have…a will, you could say. Few of them ever become sentient except by design, but—how do I put this, as an artifact is passed on through wielders and acquires a "story" of its own, each new wielder can sort of feel the type of owner or actions it resonates with. And that can mean it will give a little more power when it counts. Even if it's not a particularly complex soul, it still has one.

[ It's perhaps telling that as she goes on, she seems to perk up a little. ]

[yourheroine]

[Not all of this stuff makes complete sense to Aoi, but it's clearly something that Velvet knows a lot about and seems to be enjoying talking about, so Aoi listens like a good bartender would to a story. She's genuinely interested though, especially when the ideas of artifacts starts to come up.]

So anything can get a soul if it's around long enough? Wow.

...what decides who gets in the afterlife? Aoi's never seen one before.

[stringup]

One could even say it might be natural law that as long as something is around long enough and is capable of "growth", it can eventually gain a soul.

[ Though it isn't lost on her how ironic it is for an Abyssal to talk about "natural law". ]

And...honestly, I don't know? It's not like we have a proper-noun "Death" like Alex and Wendy do where they're from, it's all just...force of nature and natural process, I suppose. There are enough potential factors and variables involved that it's hard to conclusively determine what decides it.