[16:44] Cal asks, "Haha. Well, I still owe you tea, right?"
[16:44] Shai Oshura says, "Mhm! I'd love to learn about the stars."
[16:44] Cal says, "If we can't find the others maybe we can go talk about things back home."
[16:44] Cal says, "Mhm."
[16:45] Cal asks, "So! What do you want to know?"
[16:46] Shai Oshura asks, "Well! What are they?"
[16:46] Shai Oshura says, "Jewels? "
[16:51] "Not exactly jewels, no." Calael placed his notebook in front of him but it remained closed. From what Shai had seen him write in it, if any of the scribbles had made sense, there was a significant lack of study done on the stars that was recorded within. Though this was likely due to the fact that Cal had spent his time observing the night sky and his own personal star before he had come to Agartha, and somewhere else there was a notebook, much like this one, brimming with his work on the subject.

For now he spoke off the top of this head.

"They are lights off in the distance. Something of a reminder that there isn't simply darkness out there. And they function as systems to cleanse the souls of the dead, to reset them in a way and allow a rebirth into the next life." He nodded to himself and checked the teapot in front of them if it still had tea. It wasn't freshly made but it wasn't bad either. He poured it into Shai's cup before filling his own. "Which is why undead are the primary field of study I want to observe while here on Agartha; these are souls that have not yet been cleansed. People who thought they were on their way to the stars until they were unfortunately halted. And forced to remain here."
(Cal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[16:57] Trusting Demons... Snakes in the grass. And she feels like she could say nothing of worth.

The young teen follows off after Cal. They return to the familiar living room. The blue haired Demi would notice a certain smell hidden beneath incense. Bleach. As well - Some of the pillows and chars have an unusually different dye to them. As though they had just recently been recoloured with an off-shade.

Someone's been cleaning anything that Archon has touched.

She sits herself down onto a pillow and stares off ahead. The moment undead are mentioned she feels an instinctual sense of unease. "From what you've told me that undead in Crafthold doesn't seem to be forced. Could free himself any time, couldn't he?" Why would anyone want to live like that?

He must have been really scared of death... Or still be under the influence.

"So if the stars are like-" She glances at a discoloured pillow. "-Bleach that washes the soul, then what is the Spirit realm? Miss Reito mentioned that Spirits are a kind of essence left behind when someone dies?"
(Shai Oshura)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[16:59] Ren Shi says, "Okay not here..."
[16:59] Ren Shi says, "I guess the kitchen."
[17:07] Cal sipped his tea in the newly cleaned tea area and relaxed against the back of the cushioned seat he was in. At the mention of Perseus his friendly expression diminished some and gave way to the confused and ponderous one that he usually wore when discussing or even speaking with the spire shard undead.

"Perseus isn't seeking immortality, as I thought someone with that sort of power would be after. He says he lives to serve Eiphraem, and that should the day ever come where Eiphraem will no longer need his protection, then he will gladly die." Cal frowned and placed a hand atop his notebook as if he was going to open it, but instead chose not to. "It is something that I must continue forward with. Without condoning or condemning the practice... I require more study into it, this masterless form of undead. It is a rare occurrence, but one that ultimately I believe is still very much harmful to the Lifestream."

The change of subject to the Spirit Realm seemed to offer the demiangel a reprieve from what was the most confusing subject in Agartha for him.

"The Spirit Realm is where the Spirits are sent, of course. Imagine for a moment that right now you have your soul. It has lived a life before yours, and a life before that one. It will leave your body when you die and it will be cleansed and born again into yet another, newer life. The Spirit Realm is where you will go, or at least, this version of you. Your memories, your life, these are the things that make up your spirit, an entity that will exist in the Spirit Realm forever."
(Cal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:16] Shai visibly grimaces as Pereus is mentioned. "So that's the... creature Magdalen keeps claiming Eiphraem cares for..." It wasn't even alive. Yet Shai was to take this as evidence of empathy in Kraus's Mistake? It did not bode well. But - The girl chooses not to go into detail about it.

This was supposed to be a pleasant lesson of understanding. Trusting the Demonic was not within her capabilities.

Shai blinks a bit as she pulls her head back in surprise. "So, I'm... not my soul?" All this time she had believed the Spirit and the Soul were insiperable. Two pieces of a coin that would always be together. But the way Calael spoke of this it made it sound as though the Spirit was disposable...

That everything that made Shai who she is was just... collateral. "If my soul has lived a lot of lives before me does that means I'm going to fade away?" Into nothing. Her thoughts can't help but fall back to the nethradin. She'd rather go to oblivion than risk becoming one of them.
(Shai Oshura)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:23] "Both your soul and your spirit are, in essence, you." The boy pulled a paper out from the back of his notebook and placed it across the table. With a pencil he started drawing, beginning first with an outline of a body. "So here's you. Your body and stuff, right? You're born like this with--" He drew a small star inside of the humanoid shape, "--your soul inside. Your soul came from the stars, it's a recurring part of you, something that passes through many, many lives.

People argue over what the point of this is but I personally think it's a recurring test, another chance for the soul to 'get it all right' so to speak while also experiencing more and more. No one is expected to be perfect on their first try, or even their thousandth. Each life comes with a new thing for the soul to feel and see, and in that way it is progressing towards something greater."

Cal start shading something off to the side and drew a line between it and the shape of the body. "Now-- as you go, you're creating this life, feeling the emotions, experiencing things that will be commit to memory, right? AT the same time, these things are building your spirit." He continued shading until a mimicked shape of the body was across the line. "This is the part that will be Shai, and not the collective of your soul.

Now 'Shai' the Spirit goes to the Spirit Realm. Probably in one of the better, happier areas in it, given you have a kind heart and you aren't a bad person. Your spirit is still very much you, but in a different way than your soul is.

Does this all make sense?"
(Cal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:32] Shai leans over the coffee table, her eyes shifting overg the diagram and her ears positioned to hear Calael perfectly. But even though the information was before her, Shai couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed by it all. The soul and the spirit, splitting apart forever.

One continuing in eternity until they awaken. The other being cast into the Spirit realm, abandoned. "So Lord Shen..." She looks down onto the table. "Isn't Lord Shen... Just the remains..." The discarded shell of the man, a lingering imitation with scarce memories.

"How does..." She looks up at Calael. Her eyes betrayed the budding beginnings of an existential crisis. "This means I won't get into Avalon, will I?" If half of you is lost and cast aside to live separate then that meant the soul would go on. Continuing until it is worthy.

But what of the part of Shai that is left behind? Is she the soul or the spirit? The person who is, or the soul that empowers them?

"That... makes me sad to think."
(Shai Oshura)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:42] Cal noticed Shai's discouragement and shook his head.

"The spirit of Shen that is with us is very much Shen. It is the Shen that we knew, but his memories are still in the Spirit Realm where he will return.

And no SEE. The way to GET into Avalon, I think, and what some other people say, is when the Spirit and the soul reach that point together. The spirits, you, and all the other lives your soul will experience, will go on and on and on until you have a soul ready to finish its constant cycles, a soul that is pure and good and happy.

And it will pass on to Avalon with your spirit and well--

You'll find peace." He tried to sound as reassuring as possible, but from the looks of it, Cal had had this conversation before and was expecting none of this to make either of them feel better.
(Cal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:51] So there was a chance she would reach Paradise? Her and all the other Spirits her soul has been host to. Shai tries to smile, but it was such a bitter sweet thing to think she would be cast from this world and locked into another one for what might be thousands of lifetimes. "It would only take one Necromancer to destroy everything..."

She looks down into the cup of Tea sadly.

"If one ended my life and stole my soul. Dozens, hundreds... Thousands of lifetimes, of spirits who are a part of me that I'll never know, would be doomed to the Spirit Realm. Never to find eternal peace." She looked up now - Her gaze meeting Cal's own. She finally understood the danger of Necromancy.

It was unforgivable for any soul to wish for immortality. It was so selfish to make all those lifetimes for nothing.

"I guess... I'll try my best to live a good life and to avoid dying in a state where Necromancy could work on me. But I..." Her eyes tear up, only slightly. They stun sorely as she tried to think of her future lives. Ones she as a person had absolutely no control over.

"I can't be sure if my next one will be so lucky..." More than anything now... She wanted to find the corpses of her parents. Then destroy them.
(Shai Oshura)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:58] "And that's why we'll continue to fight against it. Perseus Kang is one thing, necromancer is another entirely." He crossed his arms, lost in the same sort of somber state he gets in when discussing the subject. "It is an ugly art, the worst thing one can do to a soul. It's often enslavement, unwilling, and terrible. Luckily there's many who will always fight against it and seek to free those condemned to it.

Even if it takes a second lifetime, they'll be released." He nodded to himself more than Shai. "It's what my star has tasked me with; to release the undead slaves from their tormented masters."
(Cal)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[17:59] Cal says, "Also hello, Noel. Mikhaila."
[18:02] Mikhaila Elisheva says, "...hey."
[18:04] What became of her mother and father? It was a question that had always been in the corner of her mind like a terrible, terrible question. She had to run as they told her to go all those years ago. But she saw what became of the dead on her journey. How they rose from the ground as mindless husks, powerless against the necromancers curse.

She prays to Kraus their bodies were destroyed in some assault against a village somewhere.

"It's unforgivable... In any sense..." Even if your intentions are good... The spirit has no right to trap the soul. "I'm going to help you wherever I can. Necromancers need to face justice for all of these crimes against creation..." It all starts with Dawn.

They harbour and teach this malicious magic like some form of art. It disgusted her beyond rationality.

"--" Shai looks behind her, the almost enraged but distant look on her face was quick to dissipate. "I... didn't hear you all enter. Hello."


(Shai Oshura)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------