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

[cardistry]

"Search me. Before I came here, I knew what a world was, and I could get to any of them I knew about with magic, or use a random transport spell to find a new one, and they all had the same kind of magic and worked the same way. Now I'm here and the dimensional coordinates are hell and gone from anywhere I've ever been and there's no magic I'm used to and a bunch of kinds I've never heard of and all the space between your planets is full of air."

[alicornucopia]

"...What else would it be full of, cats?"

[cardistry]

"In every other world I've been to, except for dimensional pockets where the rules are different, planets are wrapped in air and the space in between is just empty. Vacuum. Interdimensional space has little pockets of matter in between all the... interdimensional space, and those are mostly full of air wherever there isn't anything else, but they're also not usually very big."

[alicornucopia]

"What is a dimensional pocket, and what's interdimensional space?"

[cardistry]

"Interdimensional space is... between worlds? Or everywhere that's not a world? I don't know the theory at all, I've just been in and out of it some, enough to get a sense of how the coordinates work. Dimensional pockets are stable pockets of matter in interdimensional space. It's sort of all one thing but it's also sort of not all one thing at all."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh. And how do the coordinates work, then?"

[cardistry]

"Differently than coordinates for places inside worlds. Inside a world, you have the dimensional coordinates of the world and then the physical coordinates of your location in the world. In interdimensional space, it's - measured almost a completely different way; physical location coordinates only apply inside dimensional pockets, and the locations of dimensional pockets in interdimensional space don't work the same way as the locations of worlds, and in different parts of interdimensional space, coordinates for dimensional pockets work a different way than other parts."

[alicornucopia]

"That sounds complicated. Any established way to map it?"

[cardistry]

"Probably lots, but I never learned any. I have a built-in coordinate sense. I don't do it by numbers, I do it by feel."

[alicornucopia]

"Fair enough. That a Device thing or a you thing?"

[cardistry]

"A me thing, I guess. It's not a Device fundamental - it's built in, but it could've not been built in. So probably there's other Devices who don't have it."

[alicornucopia]

"So there's this bunch of loosely clustered worlds that are all sharing magical regularities, and then you got pulled here, but you're still working. That's lucky, you realize, if someone had made something like you as a wizarding construct -"

A paper-pale girl with black hair and black eyes approaches Kaylo and taps him on the shoulder. He looks up at her, then says, "yeah, go for it," and tilts his head.

She doesn't do anything in response to this immediately, though; she's staring at Brilliance.

[cardistry]

"...Hi?" says Brilliance, uncertainly. That is a weird look she is giving him. He is confused and mildly alarmed.

[alicornucopia]

"You're interesting," she asserts. "And you have a hhikiiia."

"Oh, grand," mutters Kaylo.

[cardistry]

"Huh?"

[alicornucopia]

"This is Leekath - you I never got your name - Leekath believes that she can hear the 'voices' of inanimate objects, because this is a delusion that affects some members of her species," sighs Kaylo. "Leekath, why don't you just bite me and then go do something else -"

"I want to listen to him," Leekath says.

[cardistry]

"Brilliance," says Brilliance, in vampire since that is the language that contains the word whose definition he's still unclear on and Leekath evidently speaks it. "I have a voice, I'm talking, last I checked nobody had to be delusional to hear me, do you mean listen to me a different way?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," says Leekath.

"And I'm Kaylo - apparently she's under the impression that you count as an inanimate object. Leekath, if you keep loitering like a creepy person I'm rescinding permission, there's an entire waiting list who want to get their fangs into me."

Leekath sighs. "May I?" she asks.

"If you're quick about it."

She sinks her fangs into Kaylo's neck.

[cardistry]

"I still wanna know what kind of listen she means," says Brilliance. "...Also, looks like you're ice cream."

Speaking of which it has been way too long since he tasted something and he is just gonna fix that right now.

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not ice cream, I'm a dragon," says Kaylo. "Dragons are tasty, to vampires. She means delusional kind of listening, was I not clear?"

Leekath makes a disgruntled noise around Kaylo's jugular vein.

[cardistry]

"I mean Leekath is reacting to you like I react to tasty food," says Brilliance after he has had a small bite of ice cream. "Not like anybody else seems to react to tasty food. Delusional kind of listening isn't an answer, if somebody's looking at me like that and 'listening' I wanna know what they're hearing, whether or not it's their own brain making it up."

[alicornucopia]

"Dragons are really really tasty," elaborates Kaylo. "If you're going to talk about vampiric inanimate audition with her maybe I'll come find you later - you'll be around, right?"

[cardistry]

"I repeat: they give me food," he says, grinning.

[alicornucopia]

"Right then."

When Leekath detaches, Kaylo gets up and leaves. She sits down, listening intently.

[cardistry]

"What are you hearing?" he asks.

Currently it's physical specs - his dormant form is a box of such-and-such dimensions, bearing the Bicycle logo in red and blue, containing fifty-four cards including one ace of spades, one ace of clubs, one ace of hearts, one ace of diamonds...