[network video] @JPHawkins; DAY 17, 1pm [open]

[rattlingthestars]

[ When the video cuts on, Jim isn't looking at the camera. His head is twisted around to stare somewhere over his shoulder as his chest heaves with exertion (or maybe fear.) There's a bruise blossoming on his cheek where he'd fallen trying to escape and a dried trail of blood from his nose to his chin that he's forgotten about.

The microphone picks up the noise of the monsters outside in the snow over the rattle of Jim's breath. When there's a break in the sound Jim seems to remember what he'd been doing and turns back to the tablet. ]

Please tell me someone else is seeing these things. They're some kind of - of - of shadow things.

[ Jim has seen weird. He's seen creepy, thanks to Captain Flint. But he's never seen anything like those. Still, something about them had seemed almost too familiar. It's that which makes him wonder if it's all in his own head. ]

If you are? Don't fight them. Just run.

Comments

[armoured]

We had photographs too, though usually a professional photographer had to be called in to take them. I guess I never thought of it as weird before I got here, I was so used to just having radio and pictures.

[And then going one step further to imagine holograms is almost too much.]

It must be strange for you here too, if you're used to holograms at home, huh?

[rattlingthestars]

[ This is the first time he's thought enough about it to articulate the feeling, but: ]

It's weird. Some things seem like they're from the past, like all the old photographs and the ruins. But other things - like the tablet, and the whole network? - they're way better looking than anything we've got back home.

[armoured]

[Al has only found people who thought of the things here as futuristic or old fashioned, not a mix of both, so that intrigues him.]

Was there anything approaching this technology? Maybe where we're from isn't too far from where you are, they've just advanced a little and held onto some things from the past?

[rattlingthestars]

[ Now there's an interesting thought. It's comforting, to think maybe he isn't completely divorced from everything in the known galaxy. ]

We didn't have the set-up for a network like this on montressor, but some of the planets closer to the capitol probably do. They're possible.

Where'd you say you were from?

[armoured]

I'm from Amestris, but we really didn't have anything close to this. If you think that there might be some parallels with the technology on, uh, the capitol plants then we should maybe focus on that.

[He knows it's a very tenuous connection, but anything is better than nothing.]

[rattlingthestars]

[ Jim's willing to grasp at any straws if it means having anything at all for his mind to do while stuck in this house waiting to starve or be attacked by those things. ]

Hm, maybe. There's something else though.

[ He hesitates, unsure if Al will believe him. ]

Right before I came here, we found this ... thing that opened a portal across the galaxy. It was how Captain Flint - [ Wait, they probably didn't know Captain Flint - ] how a famous pirate was always able to escape. I thought it was destroyed, but maybe ...

[armoured]

W-What--?!

[He is stunned, his footsteps literally halting with a crunch in the snow. Only for a second or two before he starts running again, but the brief pause in the sound of metal in ice is noticeable.

He had always thought this had something to do with the portals of Truth, and nobody else seemed to have an explanation, until now...]

Do you remember anything else about it? Could you tell me? It could be how we were brought here, especially if it opened portals between worlds!

[rattlingthestars]

[ Did Jim remember anything else? Only everything. The feel of the puzzle slotting into place all the way to the last time he'd seen it as he left Treasure Planet in a hurry.]

I don't know who made it or how it works, but it fit into a huge machine - the size of a planet - and opened a door big enough to fit a ship through. You could pick any place in the galaxy on the map and the door would open there.

The machine, uh, exploded. But if there were one, there could be more.

[armoured]

[A machine the size of a planet does not instill him with good feelings, it sounds too eerily similar to Father's plan to open the portal of the earth by creating a country-wide transmutation circle.

His misgivings are evident in his voice, clearly more cautious than excited now.]

That sounds dangerous... something that powerful can't have been made easily, or without sacrifice, I hope that's not what we're dealing with here.

[OOC: I am sorry for making you wait for my reply. I was unavoidably away. I will understand if you wish to drop this thread with no hard feelings, but I am happy to carry on too.]

[rattlingthestars]

- Sacrifice? Of what?

[ Jim's not sure who built the artificial planet; that part never came up in the stories, and it all seemed too impossibly old for it to be Flint's work. The tone in Al's voice gives him pause, though. It's easy to start worrying about something when there's literal monsters at the door. ]



[ooc: No worries, I'm happy to keep tagging if you are. :)]

[armoured]

[He's pulled up short for a moment, but he can answer this without delving too closely to his personal demons.]

To make something that powerful, something of equal price always has to be paid, that's how it works. To make an equivalent exchange for a portal of that size... I can't imagine what the maker had to sacrifice.

[Of themselves, or of others.]

[rattlingthestars]

[ Jim's not sure exactly what Al's talking about, anymore. A metaphor, maybe? He powers on. ]

It would probably take a massive amount of power - that's why the mechanism had to be so big. Maybe whatever's powering the doors and the tablets is just as massive and part of the thing bringing people here.

[armoured]

If it's as big as you say it is, then I don't see how the people who brought us here could be hiding it... I haven't seen anything when new people have been brought it, and I don't think we'd be able to miss something like that. Right?

[It's a shame, it had seemed a good theory to begin with.]

[rattlingthestars]

Underground, maybe. [ He trails off, unused to having to elaborate on what he's thinking while he's trying to figure something out. Tim advised not thinking about this stuff too hard, but he couldn't help it.

Eventually he remembers Al is there, and adds: ] But it would have to be venting somewhere, and it might melt the snow.

[armoured]

Besides that, surely whenever it opened, people would notice.

[He doesn't understand the technology, but something that big can't be stealthy.]

Unless they have smaller versions of it, somehow?

[rattlingthestars]

[ Jim's not sure it's worth the trouble to explain the enormity of the cavern at the center of the artificial planet; the gate had opened easily there. If they're on a similar set-up ... well, he just got a lot more interested in those tunnels. ]

Maybe. There's no reason for the door to be that big, anyway, unless you're trying to fit ships through it.

[armoured]

Right, it seems like they're only bringing people, so the doorways could be much smaller. Do you think you would recognise evidence of this technology if we found some?

[Because god knows he'd rather it be this than a portal of Truth.]

[rattlingthestars]

Maybe. It would stand out from anything I've seen here.

[ Which wound point to it not being the way they were brought here, but Jim's not thinking too hard about that. He feels better having a theory.

After a moment's thought, Jim cautiously approaches one of the windows. There are still shadow creatures outside, but it's been long enough that if they were coming through the windows they would've done it already. He turns on the camera and points it at the window before fogging up the glass and drawing some rough imitations of the sigils from the map. ]

Most of it was covered in writing like this.

[armoured]

[Al examines the roughly drawn symbols for at least two full minutes of silence, heedless at how long he's leaving it before replying. The spidery lines are semi-reminiscent of a transmutation circle, but less complex. Could it be alkahestry? No... he's seen what May has used to perform alkahestry and it's not quite like that either.]

Do you know what it means?

[When he finally does reply, his voice is distracted.]

[rattlingthestars]

No clue. They were on the map - that's the key I found, that opened the door - and I activated it by lining them all up. Then once we got to the planet they were etched all over everything.

[ He sounds disappointed that he has no answer there. He hadn't made head or tails of it, but then he hadn't really stopped to look at the puzzle one they'd uncovered what it did. And there hadn't been any time on the planet itself. BEN might've, now that his brain's restored, but BEN's back home. ]

[armoured]

They look kind of like simplified transmutation symbols, but they're missing a lot of key elements that would make them work.

[Perhaps that similarity, however vague, is a tenuous connection between their worlds, though.]

If I find anything with those on, though, I'll definitely let you know.

[rattlingthestars]

Make them work to do what? Do you know anything about - all this? I thought you didn't have technology!

[ If Jim is a little accusatory, it's only because the shadows are making him twitchy. ]

[armoured]

We do have technology!

[Wow, rude, just because it's not spaceships (literally) or fancy holograms.]

But I'm talking about alchemy now, it's a type of science. Some symbols kind of like this, but more complex, are drawn when someone wants to perform transmutation. It might be related, but... maybe not.

[rattlingthestars]

And the symbols can transform things?

[ That sounds like magic, Al. Suspiciously so. ]

Or do you mean equations?

[armoured]

No, they're just the conduit between the alchemist and the energy used to perform transmutation. The actual transformation comes from the alchemist themselves.

[This explanation probably isn't helping the 'not magic' theory, is it?]

Like... if you drew the symbols, it wouldn't work. You have to be an alchemist and understand the transmutation circles in order to make them work for you.