This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Ari is patrolling the streets of scenic Vancouver! Well, actually he's just going to visit Peter, but he's keeping an eye out for monsters along the way. It's a nice night, monsters like ruining that kind of thing. The streets are more or less deserted, it being 2:00 AM on a Tuesday. Ari whistles cheerfully.
+ Show First Post
campanas
There exist a large number of worlds. Sometimes, people have alternate versions of themselves in other worlds. My parents both have a bunch of "alts", and alts of my mother in particular coordinate with each other and share magic in order to do things. My three older sisters also have a few alts with instances of our parent templates as parents, although I'm fourth and there is only one of me because no other pairs of these people have had four children. My mother is a "Bell" and my father is a "Joker".
The most everyday magic for most of these people is wishcoins. I don't have any with me, but I have several magical wards that were placed with wishes and second-tier access to the "brainphone" telepathic network. If it had been anticipated that I might get lost like this I would also have a gem with an instantaneous wireless connection between it and the central computing power of a computer-person named Jane, who has the ability to transport people and things between any locations she can see. She would have been able to bring me home, probably after dropping an anchor into this world so the Bells could find it later and its rate of time would continue to go by at the same rate as theirs. After this is cleared up I expect to get a gem, and for other children of people who know that Milliways exists to also get gems.
I got lost through an interworld hub-and-bar called Milliways, which, while usually very safe and convenient, had nothing stopping me from mistakenly going out its door while it had not yet completely closed after a departing patron from this world. Normally leaving the bar would have put me when and where I left, instead of here. It is likely that my retrieval will be delayed, or even prevented until I find another door, by the time effect that allows that; but if I am noticed missing because time passes in my home world without me in it, the likely ways that I will be fetched include one of my mother's alts with power over Milliways's door to walk here after me and then find me with magic, or for my father or one of his alts to use their template-common power "freecasting" to teleport straight to me (wished teleportation powers only work within single worlds or sheaves).
Samaria has an Earth in its history. It and stuff on it were named by very religious people. I'm a genetically engineered angel, like my mother.
Pen is hugging herself and hopping up and down as she reads this.
The most everyday magic for most of these people is wishcoins. I don't have any with me, but I have several magical wards that were placed with wishes and second-tier access to the "brainphone" telepathic network. If it had been anticipated that I might get lost like this I would also have a gem with an instantaneous wireless connection between it and the central computing power of a computer-person named Jane, who has the ability to transport people and things between any locations she can see. She would have been able to bring me home, probably after dropping an anchor into this world so the Bells could find it later and its rate of time would continue to go by at the same rate as theirs. After this is cleared up I expect to get a gem, and for other children of people who know that Milliways exists to also get gems.
I got lost through an interworld hub-and-bar called Milliways, which, while usually very safe and convenient, had nothing stopping me from mistakenly going out its door while it had not yet completely closed after a departing patron from this world. Normally leaving the bar would have put me when and where I left, instead of here. It is likely that my retrieval will be delayed, or even prevented until I find another door, by the time effect that allows that; but if I am noticed missing because time passes in my home world without me in it, the likely ways that I will be fetched include one of my mother's alts with power over Milliways's door to walk here after me and then find me with magic, or for my father or one of his alts to use their template-common power "freecasting" to teleport straight to me (wished teleportation powers only work within single worlds or sheaves).
Samaria has an Earth in its history. It and stuff on it were named by very religious people. I'm a genetically engineered angel, like my mother.
Pen is hugging herself and hopping up and down as she reads this.
campanas
Nobody has ever told Pen that she said something well-put in her life unless they were making fun of her. She cackles.
Pen has been in this apartment long enough to see the whiteboard used. She grabs the eraser, erases a bunch of her writing (she can't reach it all) and swats the empty space.
People whose parents have manufactured a lot of wishcoins are typically born with an innate magic power that sometimes tends to take a while to manifest. People with powers like that are called ingots. This is apparently my ingot power! I like it.
Pen has been in this apartment long enough to see the whiteboard used. She grabs the eraser, erases a bunch of her writing (she can't reach it all) and swats the empty space.
People whose parents have manufactured a lot of wishcoins are typically born with an innate magic power that sometimes tends to take a while to manifest. People with powers like that are called ingots. This is apparently my ingot power! I like it.
quite-enchanted
"It does seem quite useful. I couldn't have put any of that that well, and I'd like to see Ari try. And I'm glad you like it; it'd be pretty unpleasant to be stuck with powers you don't like."
campanas
Erase erase swat!
My parents never tried to fix my grammar problem with magic because they weren't sure if I'd grow out of it and they didn't know how it worked so they worried about messing up my brain somehow. But now I can do this and it all comes out just right really easily!
My parents never tried to fix my grammar problem with magic because they weren't sure if I'd grow out of it and they didn't know how it worked so they worried about messing up my brain somehow. But now I can do this and it all comes out just right really easily!
quite-enchanted
"It's good that it worked out this way! I know I'd like to be able to communicate exactly what I meant without tripping over myself, I used to have an awful time of it. I don't know that I'd want that if there were other powers on offer, but I just dealt with it by getting a speech coach, so it was never as much of a problem as it seems to have been for you."
campanas
Erase swat. When I'm older I'll have wishes to do whatever else I want but if wishes would have fixed my grammar problem they would probably have done it already. What was wrong with your speech?
quite-enchanted
"I used to say things before I knew what I was saying with them, so I'd stammer and never get anything out. Nowadays I'm very careful about the words I use, and I think out my sentences before I say them. And I sound very refined as a bonus. I have to talk pretty slowly for it to work right, though."
campanas
Pen nods. And then she looks at the hand she has been swatting the wall with and jumps up and down and cackles some more.
quite-enchanted
Sally deposits her bag in an armchair and starts taking things out of it. Included in the things is a human skull with walnut-sized black diamonds in the eye sockets, which she polishes with her sleeve and places on a nearby shelf.
She eyes it critically. "Too much?"
She eyes it critically. "Too much?"
quite-enchanted
She sighs. "I'm afraid you're right. But it's so useful when there's poltergeists around to have something that can devour them... I could give it to Peter, but we're trying to wean him off necromancy, and it's not like he needs any help. Maybe I'll just shove it in the closet and take it out when we need to go ghostbusting."
quite-enchanted
She pauses for a while to set up an explanation.
"The skull takes the energy that lets the poltergeist exist on this realm, takes it out of the poltergeist, and turns it into energy that we can use. Technically it'd work on any ghost, but most ghosts are nice; poltergeists are the mean ones, who often kill people. The necromancer I took it from was using it to kill all the ghosts in the area. And people, but I got rid of that function entirely. Peter is a friend of mine and Ari's. He mostly uses ectomancy- that's magic that has to do ghosts- and he used to use necromancy too- that's death magic- but we stopped him when we found out, because it was affecting his personality. The skull is necromancy."
"The skull takes the energy that lets the poltergeist exist on this realm, takes it out of the poltergeist, and turns it into energy that we can use. Technically it'd work on any ghost, but most ghosts are nice; poltergeists are the mean ones, who often kill people. The necromancer I took it from was using it to kill all the ghosts in the area. And people, but I got rid of that function entirely. Peter is a friend of mine and Ari's. He mostly uses ectomancy- that's magic that has to do ghosts- and he used to use necromancy too- that's death magic- but we stopped him when we found out, because it was affecting his personality. The skull is necromancy."
quite-enchanted
She sighs. "Magic is- tied to who you are. If you use too much of the wrong kind, it'll change who you are as it goes through. Very unpleasant. Peter became gloomy and depressed, he got much more violent, and he was starting to lose his respect for human life."
quite-enchanted
"It's not going through us, so it won't do nearly as much as Peter using necromancy for everything. And we're constantly doing other kinds of magic. It balances out. But Peter's sensitive to it, and it'd just be asking for trouble."
quite-enchanted
"Yep!"
She tosses the skull into a closet. It lands in a pile of various unpleasant-looking implements, and Sally shuts the door.
She tosses the skull into a closet. It lands in a pile of various unpleasant-looking implements, and Sally shuts the door.
yovahs-kisses
A curly-haired man appears in the middle of the room. He spots Pen and grins. "There you are, little penguin."
bitterchill
From the kitchen, there is the sound of Ari sitting up very quickly from where he was napping under the table and smashing his head on the table.
"Gah! Attack? Who! Uh... gleh."
He crawls out to the living room to observe the proceedings.
"Gah! Attack? Who! Uh... gleh."
He crawls out to the living room to observe the proceedings.
yovahs-kisses
"You got me," Micaiah says to his daughter. "What happened to your wings? Who are these lovely people?"
campanas
"Wings did - Oh Daddy look this!" says Pen, and then she erases and swats again. Swat!
Look, ingot magic! The guy who just bumped his head is Ari and he found me when I wandered into the wrong world. And that's his roommate Sally. They're nice. Ari got a magical faerie who owed him a favor to hide my wings so they wouldn't get too much attention because this is an Earth and doesn't have any angels native. Did you bring a Jane gem?
Look, ingot magic! The guy who just bumped his head is Ari and he found me when I wandered into the wrong world. And that's his roommate Sally. They're nice. Ari got a magical faerie who owed him a favor to hide my wings so they wouldn't get too much attention because this is an Earth and doesn't have any angels native. Did you bring a Jane gem?