chalk

[alicornucopia]

In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.

In unison, they complete their shared spell.

~~~

with Adarin (Aestrix)

with Ekador (kappa)

with Brilliance (kappa)

with the admin (kappa)

with Teah (kappa)

with Katran (lambda)

with Hall (kappa)

with Joy (kappa)

with Kalinda (Christy Hotwater)

Comments

[aestrix]

A young man is brought into their summoning circle. He has a pen in his hand, though no paper - apparently that wasn't brought with him. With bewilderment, he looks around.

In a language they wouldn't understand, he turns to them and asks a question.

[alicornucopia]

They don't understand him, of course. The darker (and smaller-eared) of the girls asks the blonder and more elvish one a question in a language that he likewise wouldn't understand; the blonde replies with a monosyllable ("Haan") and starts flipping through a book.

[aestrix]

The man frowns. He looks at the circle in confusion - it's not something he recognizes. Some strange off-branch of a bloodline with weird chalk-based ideas? Where in the world has this brought him?

He tries to move outside of the circle, and finds he can't. Confusion turns to a bit of worry! He asks another question, in the same foreign language.

[pyrophyte]

A human appears - pale skin, long brown hair, short tidy beard, approximately young adult - positioned as you might expect someone to be if they were sitting in a chair.

He is only this last thing for a very short time, because as soon as he arrives, he yelps and collapses to the floor, flailing ineffectively on the way down. The smallish block of wood in his hands goes flying, rebounds from thin air over the edge of the summoning circle, and clonks him on the head. He yelps again and glares at it as it tumbles onto the floor beside him.

[alicornucopia]

The girls immediately start chattering to each other in an unrecognizable language. They seem like they might be concerned for his welfare. The older of the two, who has improbably long and pointed ears, goes for a book on a nearby desk.

[pyrophyte]

He sighs.

"I don't suppose either of you speaks Welchin?" he inquires, holding one hand to his recently clonked temple while he retrieves his block with the other. "Or," switching languages appropriately, "Malinquan, for that matter?"

[cardistry]

In the summoning circle, there appears...

...an object.

[alicornucopia]

"...Did we do it wrong?" says the younger of the girls. "That looks like a box."

"Well, it's from another world. Maybe there's a sprite or something that size in it? And the box came along?" suggests the elder.

[cardistry]

The box declines to comment.

(Brilliance does not know what just happened, but he is scared and confused, and that makes it harder to keep a lid on the control program. He doesn't even have the spare concentration to try a teleport or a dimensional transfer.)

[ending_of]

An apparently-human woman appears in the circle, positioned as though sitting in a chair. A split second afterward, before she has had time to fall, a chair appears to prevent that outcome.

She looks slightly perturbed.

[alicornucopia]

The girls start chattering at each other in an unfamiliar language. They seem excited.

[ending_of]

The woman in the chair crosses her arms and observes this. She continues to look slightly perturbed.

[aeskhyne]

And in the circle, there appears... a sleeping human, wrapped in an enormous poofy blanket. Enough of one shoulder is visible to verify that (contrary to the icon) he is wearing a shirt; further information on his state of dress is not available. He looks extremely cozy.

(Looks can be deceiving. His dreaming mind is astonished, off-balance, and a little frightened. The whole shape of the world has changed - no, he's changed worlds. This is a new one. New people, new languages, new prayers. It takes him a moment to orient himself well enough to start listening.)

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, he's asleep," says Korulen. "That's good, he won't be too bothered probably, keep your voice down if you have to talk."

"Okay," whispers Saasnil.

[aeskhyne]

The cozy sleeping human remains both cozy and sleeping.

(He goes for the easiest ones first, because you have to start somewhere and it might as well be somewhere nice. Small children want toys and sweet things; this seems to be a constant even between universes. They're also some of the likeliest people in the world to be pretty vague about who they're praying to, when they're praying at all and not just wishing. And giving it to them is simple enough, on the scale of things he can do: hear the prayer, lock onto it, form an understanding of what the child wants, fill in any details they're missing, make sure the end result isn't going to make them sick or give them any severe allergic reactions or be a major choking hazard or anything, seek reasonable assurance that any nearby authority figures won't freak out about it, grant the prayer and move on.

A few dozen of those later, taking maybe a minute all told, he's starting to get a sense for this world's array of species. Underwater merfolk, furry leonines, itty bitty scaly dragons, elves and dwarves and skyfolk and wolfriders. He starts listening for the harder things - prayers that matter intensely, prayers that hurt.)

[taytahn]

A woman appears, middle-aged, with dark hair and medium skin, wearing an embroidered red robe and thin braids in her hair.

She freezes mid-gesture, and frantically pats herself as though hoping to find something in a pocket. Her look of alarm turns to horror.

[alicornucopia]

The girls who have summoned her start chattering in a language she's never heard before. The dark one says something apologetically to her while the blonde looks through a book for something.

[taytahn]

Deep breaths. Assess. She looks around.

There are bookshelves on the walls, but that doesn't indicate much. More pertinently, there appears to be some sort of circular design on the floor around her. Almost out of habit, she steps aside to clear the entry point—

—and bumps into something invisible.

This is not the first time she has appeared in a cage.

She reaches into her robe, grasping but not revealing a stylized yet functional dagger.

[or_the_broken]

A man appears in the circle, midstride, head turned back to look behind him. He stops almost immediately and reorients to face the girls, frowning in confusion. Whatever he says to them is intoned like a statement, not a question, but he regards them as though expecting an answer.

[alicornucopia]

The girls seem excited and uncomprehending! They chatter in gibberish to each other. One of them picks up a book and starts flipping through it.

[or_the_broken]

Pity he can't translate. He glances around the room, observing the furniture and decorations and cataloguing potential entrances and exits.

[joyfulnoise]

A creature who looks... sort of vaguely like a dragon... appears in the circle. He is purple with green accents - tummy, ear-flaps, crest, wing membranes, eyes - and a little more than four and a half feet tall standing bipedally, which he currently is.

He blinks confusedly at the two girls.

[alicornucopia]

The girls seem to find him really surprising, especially the blonde one. They start jabbering at each other in gibberish.

[slgemp141]

She closes her eyes only briefly. She's overwhelmed, and she's never overwhelmed. She's letting love back her into a stupid decision, and she's spent her life up to this point very studiously not doing that. But she has to be on top of her game this time. She can't let anything out of sight. The cigarette she shouldn't be smoking soothes her, and she opens her eyes as she exhales, ready for this, ready for anything.

She arches her eyebrows slightly.

Well, perhaps not anything.

Her lips part, only just. The cigarette falls to the ground, forgotten.

Has someone drugged her? Someone must have drugged her. She quickly reviews what she consumed this morning while dropping into a defensive crouch as two young women peer at her. Does the one have...elf-ears? She cautiously reaches into her boot, but waits with an eerie stillness to see what would happen next.

[alicornucopia]

What happens now is that elf-ears and her younger, browner friend start chattering at each other at high speed in total gibberish.