eastbound | un: silhouette among silk spreads

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un: silhouette among silk spreads

[ A cheerful voice comes on over the network the night before they are set to leave. To some of you it may be familiar already, to others a mystery, but thankfully he is not going to leave you in the dark for long. ]

Alright, sounds like we're rolling out tomorrow! I haven't even met everyone yet so this is going to be interesting, but, uh, Hi! I'm Fox.

[ There's a long pause... ... ... Just long enough to make someone wonder where the fuck this guy went when suddenly there's a sound of a bunch of pieces of paper falling loose everywhere and him scrambling to pick them up: ]

Sorry! Sorry, uh, where was I? Right, I'm Fox, I'm - ah - a mage, I guess, is the best way to put it. Wizard always sounded stupid. Anyway, uh, so this is all a little new to me, haha - uh - not that it isn't new to you guys? From what I understand, pretty new for everyone. Even the um. People who have been here a little longer. Still not totally clear on all that but - right, sorry, not the point.

The point is! I do a lot of enchantment magic. I guess here they call it thralling? Anyway I'm from Canada and while I can't say I'm from the tundra exactly, Toronto still gets pretty fucking cold so warming spells on clothes is like, a must have, for at least six months of the year. It's kind of like - um - you know those little packets that you can rub together and they heat up? No? Handwarmers? I can't remember what they're called. Anyway - it's kind of like that. But in your clothes. So you're just always warm. Which is good, in the winter. Obviously. Um--

Uh--

God I know I had something more to say but uh--

I guess if there's anything else you think you'll need, let me know? I'm not charging anyone for spells, but you will have to bring components. So uh for warming spells incense is great, or like, a box of matches or something like that usually does the trick. In a pinch, tinder wood, but you need like a good couple handfuls of it and then a way to burn it. Anyway. You probably don't care? You don't care.

OH-- [ For a second it seemed like he was done, but he wasn't. sorry. ] -- one last thing. Um, magic? Other people's magic? Your magic? I'd really like to take a look at it. I'm real quick at picking stuff up and I'm happy to teach my own in exchange if you want? If that even works here. Still experimenting with that! So if you're up for experimenting that's good t--

[ He gets cut off by someone's screaming orgasm. ]

-oo... okay. Okay! Yeah, anyway, hit me up! Cheers!

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[ 'Enchanted' to never lose charge. Huh. He gives a thoughtful hum over the line as he tries to make sense of this. Increasingly, the things Fox and Mingyu describe about their powers are failing to map to anything he personally understands the Force being able to do... It is all things, so maybe it could be this too, but -- if so, then in ten thousand years of Sith history wouldn't someone have made mention somewhere of figuring out such an application? Even the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge still doesn't know everything about the Force's history, of course, but--... Is he about to have to lend credence to Mingyu's weird idea about everyone coming from different dimensions or the like? The thought is unnerving.

For now, though, he'll just give a sniff. ]

'At least' regulate voltage? Don't be insulting. I've lived on the battlefield for a decade and I hold the highest rank a Sith can have. I'm quite capable of controlling my powers, I can assure you. [ uhhhhhh usually ]

If you want a demonstration right now, then I'll meet you in the back of the basement.

As for the rest, it's all the same thing. Some of the old masters favored complicated methods to focus their concentration but -- mm, if you're taking notes or something we can speak of this in person. There are others on here taking notes of their own who I'm not convinced are prepared to share with the class. [ points at his eyes points at you Five ]

Hey, hey, relax, I wasn't trying to undermine your powers or authority or whatever. I'm sure lightning spells were really great in the army, they tend to like that sort of shit.

You are super grumpy all the time, you know that? Like, I thought it was just stress from like - you know. Everything that was happening. But you're grumpy now too. You alright? You need like, some tea or something? I make a great calming tea. Not like the shit that also fogs your mind and gets you high or whatever - but like, just a nice like "okay, cool, I got this, I can get through this" feeling, you know? You have no idea how stressed you feel until you have a sip and relax and then are like "damn, okay, yeah, I needed that break."

Lemme see if I can rustle up some components and I'll bring it with me to the basement--

[ absolutely deadpan ]

I haven't the faintest what you could mean. Personally I am always in a delightful mood after spending weeks kidnapped alone off to some backwater pre-spaceflight rock at the ass end of the galaxy where half the locals want to murder me, eat my essence, or sell me. What a perfectly relaxing vacation.

The Sith aren't an army. We're the people the army calls when they threw a hundred men at a problem and still came up short.

Nice, so you're like - the SWAT team. Death Brigade SWAT team.

[ He carries on as if the sarcasm just floated right past him. ]

See? Exactly. Way too much stress. You're going to give yourself an ulcer at this rate. I'll bring the tea, you'll love it, you'll se--

Wait, do you actually know where in the Galaxy we are right now? You have spaceships? I fucking knew you were sci-fi as shit.

[ he understood approximately half those words. Giving an irritated sigh, reluctant to have to admit this but: ]

No, no I don't. My comm equipment isn't picking up offworld signals and the local tech level is obviously far too medieval to have any of their own sensor arrays. I can only guess that we've probably been dumped somewhere pre-spaceflight in the far Outer Rim or even somewhere in Wild Space, the very edges of the known galaxy. Someplace it would be easy to 'lose' inconvenient people.

Are you actually coming, then? [ pause. squint. ] Wait, don't you have starships on Canada?

Uh... huh. Well, hate to break this to you, but I figure we are probably in an alternate timeline or dimension of space-time. I mean maybe we all managed to somehow travels millions of lightyears at the same time from different times but I think it's much more likely we stepped, like, sideways. If that makes sense.

[ He laughs. ]

In Canada? Are you kidding? Our space budget got us, like, an arm. Our crowing glory: an arm. Nah, we don't have the population or budget. Even even the States scrapped their space shuttle program. It's all rockets, now. We've gone to the moon a few times but beyond that just robots or whatever.

Hm. Mingyu neglected to mention you were pre-spaceflight yourselves. [ In Canada, not on? Huh. Must be a quirk of the translator. ]

And "dimension" also seems to be his prevailing theory, but I suppose we'll see. From my personal perspective it seems far less likely that our captor has somehow managed to bend reality itself than it does that some bounty hunters or mercenary navy with an unknown agenda traipsed across space to dump their sentient cargo here, either on Unhalad's behalf or knowing he would take advantage.

[ pausing, though ] ...But what do you mean by 'different times'?

Haha, he probably didn't want to lose face for us or whatever. But yeah, I mean, back home we kind of hope there are other populated planets, but we've never made contact with anyone. Not a blip. So it's kind of nice to know that there are other people out there? But uh- doesn't sound like we're from the same place. At all.

So, it would be pretty nuts for aliens to suddenly arrive and cart us off.

Oh- so, yeah, um. He and I - we aren't from the same year? I'm, ah, I'm from a couple years before him. And he's been telling me a bit about the people here, and the ones that I can definitely link to our timeline - at least generally - are from like... all over the place. One guy could be my great, great, great, great - how many greats can you put in 400 years? - great grandfather for all I know. Don't exactly have mom's family tree handy.

So, not that surprising. I already, um, knew about the different time lines and stuff, though. It's a branch of magic I've been - ah - studying a lot, recently.

[ his voice deepens into a bone-dry drawl ]

That's interesting, since I seem to recall Mingyu mentioning time travel as one of the most dangerous possible branches of your discipline. Something about disintegrating several city blocks worth of matter? How's that been going for you?

[ the smartass response comes first to his lips, but after that he goes quiet, mulling over this startling new information. If Fox and Mingyu, two people who clearly hail from the same world and know each other very well, are positive that they come from two different points in time, that really throws a wrench in his whole idea of what might be happening here. Not to mention the fact that temporal shenanigans, as far as he's ever heard in his life, are a theoretical idea at best for even the most powerful Force-users. If Emperor Vitiate could have gone back in time and erased all his enemies from existence before their birth, surely he would've already done so-- ]

Not - Not travelling between them--! [ He says hastily. It's not a lie, because he hasn't figured out how to do that. Yet. Not really. ... Ahem. ]

Ah- no, just, um. Kind of like fortune telling, I guess? Being able to see splitting time lines.

It's, you know, it's really not all that interesting, [ It is fascinating, but he is suddenly very self conscious ] - all I'm saying it that it's definitely a thing.

[ okay, his people skills are dubious even at the best of times, but he does have an excellent sense for when someone's fucking with him and -- a deflection that blatant is pretty hard to miss. ]

I see.

[ there's a silent, knowing pause for a moment before he goes on. ]

Well, not knowing of spaceflight or other populated planets hardly means anything. There are tens of thousands of worlds in the galaxy, plenty of them have probably never seen a starship before. Admittedly I haven't heard of Canada or anything like it, but that's still quite immaterial. No one's heard of my homeworld either.

If the two of you are definitively sure you can't possibly be from the same moment in time, though...

[ sighing ]

Well. You've given me something to think on, certainly.

Are you going to come down here?

Edited 2021-05-12 02:49 (UTC)

[ That entire long pause is filled simply with Fox wincing silently and hoping the conversation moves on. ]

Ah, well, I wouldn't worry about it, it's not like Canada is particularly memorable in the first place other than "cold" and "igloos, maybe", so.

But, uh, yeah. Definitely not the same time. And if I was brought here before, um, before he was, then there's no way that he'd find - uh... [ He trailed off, feeling heart wrenchingly guilty. ] ... It's highly unlikely. Is all I'm saying. Unless, you know, I was actually from later on in the timeline and had my memories altered, but at that point you're falling down the rabbit hole of "does anything actually exist" and it gets messy fast.

...

...

Oh! Right! Yes! Sorry, my bad, totally forgot. I'll be there in like thirty seconds.

[ It was about forty, actually, before he managed to get down to the bottom level and slip through to where Archeval was waiting. He offered the man an apologetic grin as he ran up. ]

Sorry, sorry. Sometimes my brain just um, decides to go off on its own little adventures.

[ thankfully, the House of Dew's basement looks to be relatively empty right now, though there are probably more wooden storage crates scattered around than Fox might like given his concerns about safety. Archeval is perched on one of them when the other young man arrives, idly poking at a little device in his hand which Fox would certainly identify as 'sci-fi' what with its holographic screen.

It's certainly different to see dark hair, a pale face, and very green eyes glance up toward Fox in the dim light rather than the metal mask from before. 'Darth Imperius' doesn't look like he could be that much older than Fox himself. ]

No imposition on me. [ shrugging, dryly ] But I was starting to think perhaps you'd changed your mind. What kind of demonstration are you after? [ the wry drawl deepens ] Or has this become more about shoving tea at me now?

Oh - wow, you look way better without that terrifying um - mask? Helmet? Thing? I approve. Good? Work? On looking good? I'm going to shut up now.

[ He walks up to Archeval and leans over curiously to look at the holographic screen, making an :o face out of interest but managing to not go and tap on it without permission. ]

Oh, no, I always want to see shit, I can just get distracted sometimes. Tangents? I go off on tangents. But I always like learning things. But yeah, I brought you tea! I didn't, um, I don't have a tea pot so we'll have to figure something out, but-- [ He shuffled through his pockets to find a little folded piece of wax paper, and opened it up to show Archeval. It was a mixture of dried leaves, some little flowers. ] I had to, uh, take some of Mingyu's tea, but I can still enchant it properly. It's not exactly what I use back home, but that's okay, the enchantment can piggyback on pretty much any kind of brewed tea, it just effects the strength and so on, since the tea is the main component.

But- um - the force? I wanted to see the force. Oh! I know! Can you boil water with the force? Then we can make tea!

[ He meets Fox's gaze with the driest stare known to man, having decided at this point to just be amused by all this. He can begin to see the outline of what Mingyu might see in such a person. ]

Did you bring a powered heating element? Thermal kitchen coil? Drink synthesizer? [ snorts ] A metal plate? I can't simply emit heat from myself, no. [ he tucks the commlink back into one robe pocket, however, to casually perch his elbows against his lap, hands folding together briefly before he starts to pull them slowly apart as though gesturing during a conversation. Purple lightning arcs between them and down his gloves a bit almost casually, lighting up their quiet corner of the basement for a moment. ]

I suppose in a pinch I could electrocute a pile of wood until it caught fire. But generally back home I would say the Force is not used in cooking, unless I get too lazy to carry my utensils. [ this he posits in another wry drawl, letting the lightning go with a flex of his fingers for a second as he glances over toward that packet of tea. Fox will feel a weak tug against the wax paper in his hand, and if he lets go of the packet, it will float over obediently into Arche's lap where he picks it up to give it a sniff.

As all this happens, Fox probably feels a little something on the air -- Arche's use of his power is certainly detectable by magicians from Fox's world, though perhaps its specific nature is harder to define than something Fox might be more familiar with. These small uses feel subtle, though, to be sure. ]

[ Fox pulls himself up onto a box, leaning forward far enough that it looks like he might fall off it, but he keeps his balance.

He watches the electric display with interest, then watches the packet float over toward Archeval. ]

Is that because it can't cook or because you consider it - uhm, what's the phrase - like, too good for cooking? [ He'd met plenty of mages like that, who wouldn't 'stoop' to use magic for day-to-day purposes, even if it made more sense. People who thought that the art of magic should be an elite, awe-inspiring thing. Fox was not one of them. ]

So - electricity, clearly, or at least electrical current manipulation. And creation? It didn't seem like you were pulling it from anywhere, exactly. Levitation - that one's interesting. That's not cheap to do if you're using components, whereas the electrical charge can be done with basically anything. It's easy to manipulate physics to do things it already wants to do. Way harder to make it fight against gravity. Normally for that sort of thing I actually use magnetic spells - it ends up looking the same but you're not actually having to break the laws of physics.

What else can you do?

[ he regards Fox with a vaguely amused look again. This is starting to feel like one of the better, less lethal moments of some Academy lecture or other. ]

Well, what would you like me to do?

[ a second passes by, though, before that tea has floated back into Fox's grasp and Arche is cocking his head a little, glancing the other young man up and down with a faintly curious gaze. Fox can probably feel... a small, indefinable something. It's more obvious than before, more intensely focused on him. ]

First of all, I sincerely promise the Force isn't, what was the word, lame? [ He pronounces it very dryly ] I could tell you some stories, but I imagine most here would not believe me.

And let me see -- are you in need of magnets? Surely we could ask around, there's no need to flounder about by yourself. This planet seems to have a number of common minerals, I would be shocked if there isn't something useful close at hand. If you are so interested in how to recreate my various abilities, though, I must say I find myself quite curious as to what your 'magic' can't do. I would be interested to discover where the gaps and overlaps might lie.

[ he pauses after that to raise a brow at Fox a bit, waiting for the answer or perhaps just his reaction. Those aren't the only things he picked up from a surface skim of the other's mind, but -- he's not quite crass enough to want to needle the guy about Mingyu just because he could. ]

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un: silhouette among silk spreads

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