1.0 : video

[because_its_cool]

[A face comes into view, an older gentleman, wearing a white lab coat over a flannel shirt. He's studying the screen with one part curiosity, one part confusion, and one part terror.]

[He clears his throat.]

Ah, hello. My name is Doctor Walter Bishop. I just arrived here, and I'm not quite sure where I am. I know I'm in Saeng Seong, but I ... I seem to have gotten turned around. I was heading toward the apartments, but now I'm in a market of some sort.

[It's hard to place his accent, though there are hints of Bostonian and possibly London.]

I would very much like to find my way home now, if I could find someone who will stop trying to sell me things long enough to point me in the right direction.

[His tone is full of annoyance, but it drops away to leave him vulnerable again. His eyes dart from the screen nervously, then back.]

Yes, I would very much like to go somewhere quiet now.

Comments

[because_its_cool]

"It makes sense. There are travelers from my world, those who can, for lack of a better term, bend time. They step through it. It looks to be teleportation, but it's simply the ability to manipulate physics on a quantum level." He nods. "There are other theories as well, though I had yet to prove them. I was very close, years ago, but I abandoned the project. It worked, though it had some nasty side effects."

He shakes his head. "Likely, it's something specific they need from sentient beings. Creativity, hope, energy... souls?" Walter is on the fence about the existence of souls. "My colleague once argued they existed, that they were merely specific sorts of energy that could be stored in something he deemed 'soul magnets'. He said he'd return to prove me wrong." He smiles. "I haven't heard from him yet."

Walter shrinks again--he's rather good at it--when she says Olivia seemed to be already 'awakened'. "Maybe she has."

[phoenixashe]

"Yeah, I'm dating a guy like that. He tends to pop around weirdly in a fight. Neat trick, but kind of unnerving. I never tried reaching for that sphere of ability, mostly for fear of smearing myself all over the landscape. "What if I screw up" is a legitimate fear when you're pushing the reality-envelope."

She nods as he theorizes about the nature of this place. "At least it isn't powered by kid-screams," she mutters, then speaks up. "Well, thing is, saying that a soul is a specific sort of energy is like saying that a person is a specific sort of meat. Energy makes up a soul, but its arrangement is uniquely complicated, person to person. Like the energy driving all living things, it is also self-propagating: a soul generates energy, radiates it, connects to others with it."

She helps him up onto the front stoop of the apartment building and stomps snow off her boots. Dog sits down next to him for a moment, panting. "You can technically trap a soul or other spirit entity in a vessel of some kind. For some of the nasty ones it's the only way to get rid of the damn things. But usually that's a horrific experience for the being involved. The only time it isn't is when they volunteer. My tradition makes different devices which are inhabited voluntarily by spirits and powered by their nature and energies. I actually have two with me."

Dog trots in through the door ahead of them. Ashe touches Walter on the back gently. "It's anything but a bad thing, Doc, think about it. If you have two Awakened people working to get you out of here, and both of us have experience in world-crossing...." she lets him finish the sentence in his head. Hope. It's an important thing.