[network] @ADMIN; Arrival

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Welcome to Norfinbury. The time is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R and the date is E̛̬̞͖͖̫R҉͖̯̬R̼̻͉̰͎̳̙O̩͓͔̫͇͈̯R. This network has been provided for your use. Please interact politely with everyone else on this network.

Comments

[heavensreader]

[Her shoulders drop slightly. Relaxing, of sorts.]

It isn't truly exploring - not truly. But I want to survive and I want to leave here. And - I want to remember, after I leave,

[devoutish]

What makes it not true exploring, eh? Seems like true exploring to me.

[heavensreader]

True exploring is for the sake of knowledge. For the advancement of mankind. This is only to find a way to escape.

[devoutish]

And it cannot be for those other things as well?

[heavensreader]

What's there to advance anyone here, Mr. Solomons? This is hardly even a lost city. It's only a ruined one.

[devoutish]

Well, there's the function of the tablets. And there's the function of pulling people from different universes.

[heavensreader]

The tablets, yes... but I don't know about the business of pulling. It seems like very, very dangerous knowledge.

[But even as she says it, it's obvious she doesn't really believe it. It's the temporary upset speaking. Dangerous knowledge is just what Kesara loves.]

[devoutish]

But it's knowledge we're gonna need to know about if we want to travel back, isn't it.

[Alfie's ambivalent on the idea of the knowledge of taking being spread, but as to the knowledge of putting back... that's vital, as far as he's concerned, and he doesn't figure that they can learn about one without learning about the other.]

[heavensreader]

If it is the same thing. Really we do not know. [Wishful thinking, child.]

But if it is, then the person who has the knowledge... he will be the most powerful person in the world.

[devoutish]

Or just the most powerful person in the world that we know.

[Because really, aren't they only seeing just a tiny part of this world, here in Norfinbury?]

[heavensreader]

Definitely in the world that I will be going back to. [Which is the immediately important part.] And I think you too, Mr. Solomons.

[devoutish]

Oh - I wouldn't say that. Certainly it's something that no one on my world can do, but power comes in all sorts of different forms, isn't that right?

[heavensreader]

Yes - but knowledge like this is the greatest power of all. Knowledge that no one else has, and that can change everything in the world depending on who learns it. That is power.

[She speaks not with the sagely certainty of a child, but with a heaviness that suggests almost experience.]

[devoutish]

[Which is definitely interesting - maybe even alarming.]

What's the biggest sort of knowledge that you've come across, Kesara? Discounting this.

[heavensreader]

[She's left herself open, hasn't she. Kesara chokes down a distressed sound.

What can she say?]

I've traveled in unmapped territories. Strategically crucial unmapped territories. I've seen cities no European has ever seen.

[Simplest, broadest, and convincing-sounding. She can slip out of giving specifics.]

[devoutish]

And you've got power, then, do you?

[There's no dismissiveness in his tone; no how silly that she could think she has anything close to power.]

More power than you had before, when you were first here.

[heavensreader]

Oah, yes. It is power. Because that is how the Game is played, Mr. Solomons. One map is worth a thousand jezails, everyone who knows anything says.

[She speaks low. She's a little afraid of talking about this at all. Perhaps more than a little.]

[devoutish]

The Game. Yeah.

[He remembers that phrase - the capital G practically audible every time she says it.]

Your power's worth more than mine in a place like this, Kesara.

[heavensreader]

It's not worth a thing now. [She sounds very tired for a determined twelve years old.] I thought that it was good to have power but now I really do not know. There is so much back home that I need to do without also worrying about the power from here.

[devoutish]

But you can't do anything back home until things here are sorted, can you. You've got to take life in the order that it's given to you.

[heavensreader]

I'll do it, Mr. Solomons, I'll do all I can. But I shan't be happy about it.

[She tries for anger, there, but mostly just more tiredness comes out.]

[devoutish]

[He gets it, girl. Tiredness is all he can manage too, a lot of the time.]

No, no. Certainly not. We'll all be very angry and very fed up, and then we'll fucking use that anger.