Event: Consolidation Theory, Part One and Two

[snowblindmods]

Characters: red-marked characters
Location: ???
Date: Morning & Day 353
Summary: You wake up in a cell.
Warnings: general horror warnings; please note in subject lines for anything specific that comes up

Consolidation Theory OOC Post
Part Two OOC Post

Comments

[thewarningafter]

I know. Believe me, I know it wasn't real curiosity, it was something driving them. Some glitch in the programming...unless it was something deliberately done to them. We can't eliminate that possibility.

[fiftheclipse]

Programming...

No, let's say it was a mistake. Could whatever happened in that pit have affected the nanomachines? Not.. doing anything weird to ours, but maybe like.. a patch? Like someone knew there'd be some instability, and gave us the chance to try correcting it. ... Well, "try" is the key word. It was only those of us without red eyes who were immune.

That doesn't give us a motive for the second incident, but I think those two give us one for this: Miller didn't like what happened any more than we did.

So either he was behind it from the start, and things didn't go the way he'd planned-- He wants to "fix" us, right? That makes sense if he made us this way. Or, maybe there's something else going on, too. The thing is, I don't know how this guy thinks. If he fucked up, would he really admit something's wrong?

I shouldn't have dismissed it just because following the lead on my own didn't work. Something was trying to guide us. It's possible Miller wants to cut us off from it before it can help.

[thewarningafter]

[Stephen snorts.]

Unless there are two beings of immense horror and too many teeth, that was the thing under the town--the thing that wants us to free it when we get to the center. If it wants to help us, it's so we'll let it out. Miller....

[Stephen frowns, pausing to think about it.]

The last time Miller interfered this directly, he was using people to fix the broken machinery of this place. Seemed like he just wanted to keep it going. And take the opportunity to be a dick, but that goes without saying.

[fiftheclipse]

Tell me what's so unreasonable about him and that.. monster being on opposite sides. If it's part of this "center" thing, too, then maybe letting it out isn't the wrong idea.

[thewarningafter]

Nothing, that's what. But just because it's his enemy doesn't mean it's our friend.

We just don't have a lot of better options right now than trying to get to it.

[fiftheclipse]

So what if it is our enemy? I dunno about you, but I'd still take a free-for-all over those two tag-teaming us, any day. We need someone he's scared of. Someone who can reach him.

[thewarningafter]

I'm not saying we shouldn't. It's still the best option we have right now if only because it's the only thing we're reasonably sure we can actually accomplish if we manage to reach the town center. The end game...our end game may look more like breaking the system beyond repair to prevent further sessions than like getting out ourselves.

[fiftheclipse]

You sure it can't be both? Once it's broken, it'll probably lose its hold on us and send us all back home.

... Or explode and kill us all. Same thing, right?

[thewarningafter]

If you assume it's actively holding us here. One-way interdimensional travel is more likely...if we're really ourselves to begin.

Our minds are here, at any rate.

[fiftheclipse]

... These are our bodies, only they're not our bodies. Yeah, I've been thinking something like that, too. My consciousness wasn't in mine, when I was taken.

But isn't it holding us? Why do we keep coming back when we die? That's supposed to be a one-way ticket of its own, and it's not leading anywhere.

[thewarningafter]

They have our brains mapped; if we're only our minds there's nothing stopping them--wait, what?

[fiftheclipse]

You don't think people normally revive...?

[... Nah, pretending to misunderstand sounds like a fun idea, but he's pretty sure he knows what really drew that reaction.]

... It's not a secret anymore. Before I got pulled in here, I was able to move between timelines. Not like that time travel you see in movies-- bodies stay where they started. It's more of a trade. One consciousness goes in, and the other gets kicked out.

I'd made the first jump just fine. The second... Well, I'm pretty sure Norfinbury's not where I was planning on.

Point is, my body didn't come with me. It couldn't have. But I'm in it. How does that make sense?

[thewarningafter]

[Stephen narrows his eyes.]

You knock the consciousness out of yourself from another timeline? Where does it go?

[Yes, that's his first question. Others will follow.]

[fiftheclipse]

Well, probably where the first consciousness left from?

[thewarningafter]

...And that doesn't bother you?

[fiftheclipse]

Of course it does. But those other versions of myself are still me. Shouldn't I be able to choose my own fate?

[thewarningafter]

Seems kind of unfair that the you who made the right choice the first time is the one that gets shunted off to die.

How is it I keep meeting people with even shittier consequences for time travel than mine?

[fiftheclipse]

[... Die?

He hadn't.. said that part...

Well, if he knows how it works, it's less that Junpei has to be careful about.]

Maybe. But I think the me who died in a rain of bullets still got off easier than having to be trapped here. At least there was an end.

You know a better way, or something? Don't tell me you've got a time machine back home.

[thewarningafter]

[It seems a natural enough assumption to Stephen. Why go to all the trouble of changing timelines if you didn't do something as drastic as die? It's not just him who uses time travel to cheat death (or use death as a tool), right?]

Don't be ridiculous; there's no such thing as a time machine. I'm a sorcerer; temporal magic is one of my areas of study.

[fiftheclipse]

[Well, it's a.. nicer assumption, than the reality, for sure. It's probably a good thing that as long as they remain unaware of the misunderstanding, Junpei has no reason to point out dying is required to activate it.]

... Wait, what? A sorcerer?

What do you do, go around fighting dragons and all that?

[thewarningafter]

[Stephen snorts.]

I protect my native reality from extradimensional incursions.

Close, though.

[fiftheclipse]

[Extradimensional what, now?]

Th-there's stuff invading your world..?

[Under different circumstances, he'd wonder if that was even possible. But if Norfinbury's like this, there might not be any reason to doubt it.

Still,]

There some reason they think your reality's better than all the others?

[thewarningafter]

I don't know; ask Dormammu, the devourer of worlds, why he devours worlds. I've never understood it.

[fiftheclipse]

[Well, this is just...]

... Someone really turned up the crazy dial in your timeline. So, what's the problem? Does shifting over to the reality where Dor-what's-his-face doesn't exist mean you'll be a regular guy with no magic, like the rest of us?

[thewarningafter]

It's possible. That that's not how it works, anyway--and even if I could, the bigger problem would be that I'd be leaving everyone in my original reality to die.