{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/iatrolore",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/iatrolore",
  "publishedAt": "2025-06-18T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "tags": [
    "rough"
  ],
  "textContent": "The sun above blazes with yellow mana, raw and powerful.  Plants\nabsorb it, transforming it into green mana.  Animals graze, devouring\nthis fruit, and red mana pulses in their blood.  As rot claims them,\nit turns black and vacant, stripped now of so much power.\n\nA curious thing happens in poverty of swampsoil; carnivorous plants\ninvert this cycle, and this adaptation, paired with a mycorrhizal\nunion with rotten things, grants a single organism all colors of mana\nmingled in their biology.\n\nCall this the prismatic process.  Alone, individual colors of mana are\nlatent in their hosts, inert, but joined together like this, a plant\ngains the power to secrete godsap.  Liquid like formless creation,\nwhite like a rainbow.\n\nThis godsap binds to objects, mirroring their substance in the higher\nastral plane.  Whenever a bound object moves, so too does the astral\nbody.\n\nBut what happens when godsap must bind to an already bound object?\nThe connection is deferred; only one astral body can bind to a material\nbody, but astral bodies can bind to others of their kind.  This forms\na chain or stack of layered astral bodies, all mirroring the same\nobject --- by proxy. \n\nArbitrary recursion is possible but an increasingly unstable\nconfiguration.  Inevitably, the bindings loosen as the stack grows\ntaller, until it takes no more than one chance perturbation to\ndetach a binding.\n\nWhen this happens, what results is a copy in search of an original ---\na dancer seeking a partner.  Without a material body to anchor it,\ngodsap slowly denatures, its pantomine of physical characteristics\nblurring into that inert yet oozing state of initial creation.  At\nfurther length, it simply evaporates.\n\nBut if --- before it vanishes --- the astral body finds its quarry, a\nnew body to bind to, it may yield one of two profound results.\n\nFirst --- and easiest --- is the marriage of two copies.  Suppose both\nhad detached from the same stack of mirrors.  It follows that their\nstructure, their preferred dances, are already almost equivalent. They\nnow click together like teeth of two gears.\n\nStill one must ask: what do they do?  We described the usual state\nof an astral body as following the course of its material counterpart,\nand of course the wont of matter is familiar to us, subject to all the\nknown laws.\n\nThe primacy of the material body is contigent on the relative\nemptiness of astral space --- an astral flag has no wind in which to\nwave, so its banner will never move lest a material wind comes.\n\nAn astral clock will tick in tandem with material gears.  But detach\ntwo copies and bind them together.  This new clock, existing only in\nthe astral, will still tick in remembrance of earthly physics.\n\nOr more to the point, recall godsap finds its genesis in the tissues\nof carnivorous plants.  When one grows a new shoot infused with\ngodsap, then it will likewise grow in astral space.  If it continues\nto pump further godsap into those tissues, its astral body will\nburgeon with layer after layer of imitation until they slough off and\nbind to themselves.\n\nBut those detatched astral shoots will still grow --- and perhaps\nfurther down at their root, they are still attached to the plant. Like\nthis, a plant begins to truly extend along the fourth axis.\n\nThree benefits await those intrepid plants that scramble along this\npath.  First, of course, is that few (none, properly) predators exist\nin the astral realm, and thus what is secreted away in this anabasis\nis protected from grazing.  The second assuages the immediate worry\n--- what good is growing leaves in a lightless dimension? --- with\nassurance that yellow mana flows abundant in the astral planes. \n\nLast, though, is the other consequence of detatched astral bodies\nalluded to earlier.  If a detatched layer finds no copy to bind to...\nwell, on a purely physical level, what happens when a copy is \"bound\"\nis simply that an attractive force exists between it and its material\nbody, ensuring they aren't long separated.^[\"Binding\" has nothing to\ndo with this connection per se, but rather acts as an intercession; a\nbound object is not receptive to godsap infusion or the advances of\neager astral bodies.]\n\nWhen an astral body is no longer \"bound\", little actually changes in\nthe calculus of forces.  Imagine an astral water droplet, bound and\nstable.  Now imagine whisking away its physical body into a distant\npool of water.  Why should the astral body discriminate among the\nmyriad now-intermixed droplets? Its dance, the form of matter it's\ndrawn toward, is simply water itself.\n\nIt remained bound to the droplet because the droplet was nearest.\nWhen that no longer holds, it will seek any replacement.\n\nA carnivorous plant of this sort hungers for prey --- suppose if,\nbefore digesting its insect meal, it pumps godsap into the\nstill-squirming bug.  Spawned hence is an astral fly.  If detatched\nquickly, the astral fly will not mirror the digestion of its original.\nNow, for a brief spell --- until the mirror-fly dissolves --- the\nplant possesses a new copy seeking an original.\n\nHungry sundews often lure prey with the sweetest scents --- but now it\nhas devised a magnet for flies in an almost literal fashion.\n\nTake a moment to consider the implications of all this.  Here we have\na clade of plants capable of growing into a vast space unoccupied,\nuncontested by any other organism.  A space brimming with energy fit\nto harness. And by this same mechanism, an adaptation so flexible one\ncan only call it tool-use.\n\nMust you wonder, then, why these plants grew to proportions fit to\nblot out the sky, were their innumerable leaves visible to the mortal\neye?  Why the sieves of their phloem twist and fork with complexity to\nbaffle and surpass the cunning of grasping mammals?  Why, when\nlanguage found the throats of hairless primates, their name means\ngod?\n\n- - -\n\n::: {hidden=true}\n\nSuppose you are one of these godvines.  What does your hierarchy of\nneeds look like?  At the most basic level, of course, you want for\nwater and light and space to grow.  You want for the blood of animals\nto fuel your ascent into the astral plane.  You want for protection\nfrom the elements, from hungry predators, from competition.\n\nYou need, ultimately, to give and receive of pollination.  You need to\nestablish a presence in the mycorhizal network, and its distribution\nof resources and information.  But you can only tap into this source\nof nutrients if you yourself contribute.\n\nFar easier to secure consistent access to the flesh and fertilizer of\nanimals if you shape your habitat to lure or trap them.  Of course,\nto feed them you'll want fields of lesser plants to feed them.\n\nSo far, so instrumental --- but what might a godvine do for fun?\nGrowth for its own sake, perhaps; the construction of complex yet\nbeautiful architecture that presents a pleasing channel for one to\neffectively grow vines across.  The penetration of roots elevated to the\npoint of sport, \n:::",
  "title": "Concering Godvines"
}