[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]

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.

[rattlingthestars]

[ Yeah that's magic, Al. Or at least Jim thinks so. Still, any distraction is a good distraction, so he's compelled to ask: ] And what makes someone an Alchemist?

[armoured]

It's just something that's born inside you. You still have to learn, you have to study alchemical formulae and application, but the ability to become an alchemist is there from birth.

[Ed and Al were destined to be alchemists, considering their father was a living philosopher's stone.]

[rattlingthestars]

So even if you understand it, you can't do it, no mater how hard you try? If you're not an alchemist?

[ That doesn't really sit right with Jim, but then life's unfair. ]

Sorry for the wait

[armoured]

Right. Alchemists aren't exactly uncommon in Amestris, but they're not everywhere either.

[He shrugs, the sound of it communicating through the tablet as a tiny clink of metal.]

Besides, not everyone would even want to become an alchemist.