185th Page

[aldebaranshit]

(April 18th - 19th)

So upon asking around in Hugel, you've learned that Arunafeltz has been abandoned for some years now. Something about the majority of the city disappearing off until the remainder moved off to Lighthalzen and left the city as a ghost town. Many of them have heard of the traveling machine, but never had seen it for themselves, except for a few who can recount their friends or family members going off world.

The journey to Arunafeltz shouldn't take more than a day. Once you get there, you should start rooting around the city center. Explore a little bit, and enjoy yourself. Your company. You're this much closer to getting home.

[Mission: Explore the city and rig your ride home.]

(plot post )

Comments

[armedarchaeologist]

[yes it was all the crazy birds daniel hasn't been deliberately trying to avoid you.

holds the flier out to him.]

It's an ad for some kind of party. I'm guessing we missed it.

[aldebaranshit]

[like 20 years missed it]

[oh well. it says it's at the city center, Castle Rigel]

[wolfsoul]

[ takes the flier from him. ]

The food must have gone bad by now.

[armedarchaeologist]

Huh. "Rigel."

[frowns at the flier. pretty fond of ascribing meaning to things based on names, but. yeah he's pretty sure it's just a name in this case. unless the castle is, like, a foot.]

Seems like a safe bet. I guess we look for the middle of town?

[starts walking. you coming with, baker? i mean sheriff? or murderteen?]

[wolfsoul]

[ i prefer huntsman. i guess. i don't know anymore. pockets the flier and follows him. ]

You want to look for the castle?

[armedarchaeologist]

Yep. See that thing they're standing in front of? Looks important, doesn't it? If you had the only thing in the neighborhood that could punch a hole between realities, you can bet you'd ascribe a pretty great importance to it.

[shrugs. looks up at street signs as they pass to get an idea of the area. are there numbers? numbers might help. peering down alleys. generally pretty ADD with the bonus of not having to look graham in the eye.]

And if not we look somewhere else.

[wolfsoul]

[ that suits him. keep it up. also trying to make sense of which way they're headed but the street names don't help much. ]

That does make sense.

I don't know what actual portals look like but the thing from the picture might very well be one.

[armedarchaeologist]

[not much. looks down instead. manholes? sometimes they help? maybe the streets are naturally oriented toward a town center, so if they keep moving away from the city wall and not parallel to it, they'll reach the middle. some ancient cities were built like that. not so much medieval ones, though, who knows.]

Well I do, in my universe at least, but it's been made pretty clear to me that this is not my universe, so I'm trying my hardest not to make any assumptions. Or. Many assumptions, at any rate.

[wolfsoul]

[ pulls the picture back out and tries to see if he can spot any similar roofs as the building has in the picture. ]

Really? You went through one and got here?

[ he knows magic beans are really unreliable? maybe it's the same. ]

[armedarchaeologist]

Well that's— That's hardly the whole story, I mean, I didn't come back out of another one of what I went into, which is sort of like, like walking through a door on one side and coming out of the other side in a forest where they've never even heard of doors. So. Kind of, but not really.

[oh look a sign. one of those ones for tourists with the arrows and the stuff. blows the dust off of it and makes a smug face.]

Here we go. Castle Rigel, thataway.

[wolfsoul]

[ you were smart enough to read a tourist sign. four for you daniel coco. also that made perfect sense. nods and makes a face at the back of his head. ]

Well spotted.

[armedarchaeologist]

[i have three doctorates bitch.]

[crossmyhearts]

[was following the timey-wimey readings and ended up here too. still focusing on the noises of his screwdriver that he doesn't notice them until he's standing right in front of them.]

[looks up.]

Ah! Hello! Well, this is a good sign! It must mean I'm going the right way! Possibly. Unless we're all going the wrong way, but the odds of the three of us being wrong on the same thing are comparatively smaller. And also, I wouldn't be wrong.

[wolfsoul]

[ and i have three personalities. ]

Uhm, about the curse.

[ and here we go. clears throat. ]

I'm sorry things went the way they... did. It was my intention to break your family or anything.

[wolfsoul]

[ quickly shuts up. ]

[armedarchaeologist]

[starts to get this panicked look in his eyes when graham brings up Things We Don't Talk About, like how do you people not understand how repression works.

...oh thank god.]

Doctor!

[happier to see him than anyone who's not a teenage girl has ever been.]

No, we're, we're. Uh. We're looking for a castle at the center of town. Castle Rigel? There's, there was a flier for a ball there, and a picture of a machine that looks, well. It's our only lead, but it looks pretty promising. IS that where you, where you're going?

[gestures blindly to graham. show him the thing. we're not talking about feelings.]

[crossmyhearts]

[let's skip on the soap opera talk for now children there is a time machine to find.]

I have absolutely no idea! I'm following the ripple in the space and time continuum, so I'm going wherever that might lead me. Though if that sign is right then yes, [points screwdriver at the way the sign points. screwdriver does different kind of 'beep'. maybe you can tell the difference, maybe you can't.] yes, I am going your way too.

[wolfsoul]

[ he was just trying to be polite. oh well at least he tried. does that mean the subject can be ignored from now on? yes? ]

[ shows the doctor the flier. ]

What's that stick?

[armedarchaeologist]

[lifts his eyebrows at the doctor. then lifts them a little higher and looks a little bit like he might cry. he had no idea he'd miss incomprehensible sfici technobabble this much, but he really missed technobabble. this is like sinking into a warm bath of utter confusion. oh he hopes sam is okay when he gets back.]

That's, um. I have no idea what you just said to me but I'm going to assume it's a good thing.

[clears his throat and keeps walking.]

[crossmyhearts]

[and he's just getting warmed up.]

[looks over the flier quickly.]

It's a good thing. Most likely. There are always exceptions, but considering we've already crossed universes to end up here, there aren't a lot of things that could make this much worse. It's good enough this world isn't already sinking in on itself.

[lifts head up from flier to stare pointedly at graham like he's dumb (he might be, he hasn't decided yet).] And it's not a stick, it's a sonic screwdriver. It reads anything, worlds, species, life signs, hardware, software, teleport beams, all of space and time-- it doesn't do wood, however. Sadly. Couldn't get that working.

[wolfsoul]

... Alright.

[ didn't understand most of that. why not wood though? and why is he the one trapped between two technobabble guys. ]

So detecting one little portal will be a piece of cake?

[armedarchaeologist]

[he's not a technobabble guy, he's a languagebabble guy. anyway don't whine you want a piece of this. or you did. Once upon a Time.]

Oh, don't say that, things could always be much worse, especially if we're talking alternate universes. Saying things can't get worse is pretty much a challenge to the universe to make sure they can get worse.

[grimaces at "sinking in on itself," because ow. please no. that's what he's going home to. let's not talk about universes collapsing either.]

That's. Clara had one of those, I think. Didn't she? Or was that one hers?

[the screwdriver.]

[crossmyhearts]

[don't be such a pessimist daniel, that's not how the doctor does things.]

Yes, but no. Nothing will get worse, I'm quite positive. About 50/50 sure. This time. Anyway! Yes! What? No. Clara didn't have one of these. There aren't even any more of these, and this one is mine. You must be confusing it with something else.

[it's not the only possible explanation but it's the only one he wants to consider right now. onto the other question.]

As for the portal-- finding it? Yes, that will be easy. The tricky part is to get the machine working properly, since this whole place seems to have been left to rot for a while now.

[wolfsoul]

Something tells me you might be the guy for the job.

[ am i right? or is all that swagger for nothing. ]

[armedarchaeologist]

[shrugs at the screwdriver explanation. it was an offhand question anyway. he's pretty sure clara had one but... oh was that the other clara. awkward. maybe in her timeline she never... no that's not right she said she was ditched on the planet... you know what, never mind.

shakes his head. clearing mental cobwebs. nods at graham.]

Yeah, my experience with alien tech is pretty severely limited to one culture and even then I've pretty much got no idea what I'm doing most of the time, I just... Take crystals out and replace them at random. This thing, this doesn't look Ancient. Anyway, you're the one with the screwdriver.

[briefly distracted by an alien toy store. hnn no i wanna stay and explore don't make me go back to the end of my universe.]