New Players Coasting In

I expect to add players to this thread, but it is starting with Kurt Joseph Wright
a.k.a. Krillis, who is the first one ready to play. His character sheets are in The Character Generation Thread.

Kurt, you were given a new toy--a high speed electronic Latin/English lexicon with a little "Scriff Inside" logo on it.

You were playing with it in the bath, and dropped it in the water. Snatching it out, you got a nasty shock, and blacked out.

You are now awakening. The air is warm, and it is very bright; you are lying on your back on a soft surface which is unlike carpet, and there is white noise pulsing in the background. You are supine, eyes closed. There is a familiar but out-of-place smell in the air.

--M. J. Young

I open my eyes and try to rise to my feet.

Did Harry come with me? If so, where is he in relation to me?

Do I still see the lexicon nearby?

Can I identify the source of the smell yet?

I'm sorry for such a short post.

I don't mind short posts. Long posts help carry the game forward more quickly, but sometimes short posts are necessary.

You are on a beach of white sand in front of a blue ocean; the smell is the salt water as it breaks on the shore.

Scattered around you are the things on your equipment list, at such distance and direction from you as they would be had someone pulled the floors out of your house and dropped them straight down. The cat is among them, sleeping on the sand. There is no sign of the electronic lexicon.

The beach extends in one direction to a rocky outcropping, in the other around a backward bend out of sight. The ground rises behind you, lush with plant life once the sand ends.

You have the impression that you were to meet someone, to your right as you face the water, past the rocky outcropping but also inland up the slope at an angle.

There is something like smoke or steam or clouds in the sky mostly behind you, dissipating in the blue and sunshine.

--M. J. Young

I make my way around, gathering all of my things. I look oddly at the towel and handrag, but I still put them both, folded, inside of my bag with all of my other things.

I look at Harry and attempt to rouse him gently from his sleep. "Get up, boy." If he doesn't wake up and come with me, I pick him up and head towards the rocky outcropping. I stay on the beach for as long as I can, but I try to follow the impression.

Kurt

Harry awakens groggily, but is soon on his feet and moving with you.

You have to climb over the rock outcropping; it is rough black rock with patches of grasses growing in it. The beach continues beyond it, and starts to curve back in the direction you want to go.

You follow the beach roughly in the direction of this feeling for about an hour. It continues to curve slightly to the right most of the way, although it is a bit irregular and sometimes curves left. You cross a stream and skirt a lagoon, but eventually you come within sight of your destination.

Perhaps a hundred yards inland and left as you face inland there is a high smooth stone mass, perhaps fifty feet above the water and dropping sharply at the edge of the ocean; at that point the beach has rounded the end of it, but from here it is like a natural stone wall or cliff facing you. Atop it there are three things: a jeep with guns mounted on the hood, a campfire on which something is cooking, and man with his face toward the ocean, the jeep, and the fire, his back toward the larger landmass. He is dressed in military camouflage, but his left arm is sheathed in something metallic.

He is the focus of that feeling.

Harry seems to sense it, too. In any case, he is stalking closer to the man.

--M. J. Young

Can you give me a link to where you post the rolls that you do in games? Do they also come with explainations?

I do my best to walk softly towards the man like Harry is.

I try to remain quiet, but I don't focus on it too hard. This man was clearly some sort of experienced military, and he'd notice me even if I were good at sneaking around. My main concern is keeping pace with Harry.

If the man turns, I don't bother trying to hide, and simply raise my hand in greeting. If I'm lucky, perhaps he'll tell me where I am.

All rolls and other mechanics and the bases for most decisions are given in the thread entitled Behind the Screens 2008 at present, in the latest post.

You move as quietly as you can up the hill through the grasses until you reach the top of the rock outcropping, and then move toward the man's back.

When you are twenty yards from him, quite abruptly his left arm--the one with the metalic sheathing--moves faster than you can see it and is now pointing what appears to be a gun over his shoulder directly at your face. Harry scampers back away from this. The soldier then turns slowly, without ever losing that bead, until he is looking directly at you, eyes you up and down, and then relaxes the weapon and holsters it. He signals with his other hand for you to have a seat on one of the rocks near his fire. You can see what appears to be a large sea bird, probably a gull, roasting over the coals.

"Sorry I scared your animal," he says.

--M. J. Young

"Well, he seems to be nice enough." I look down and say to Harry. I gesture him to come with me towards the campfire, reassuring him.

I approach the campfire and the other man, sitting down on a rock next to him. "Don't worry about it. He's probably just suprised you noticed him. I actually was, too. Would you mind explaining that to me? Also, could we get a piece of that to eat?" I gesture towards the roasting bird.

He pauses and eyes you critically. "Obviously you're new to this. That's a newbie question, for certain."

He pokes at the fire. "Help yourself to the meat. Seagull isn't good, but it is food. There's water in that jug over there," he says pointing to a plastic bottle just beyond your reach. "I don't keep it close to the fire because it warms up too fast."

He lets you tear a bit of hot meat from the bird with your fingers and get a drink from the jug, and then continues.

"Obviously, you knew I was here. How did you know that? You felt me. Your cat felt me, too. The feeling is mutual; I felt you arrive, and I tracked your approach. You didn't come straight, so it was pretty easy to guess your distance by the change in direction. When you got close enough, my defensive sensors triggered the aiming circuits on the arm.

"So now you're wondering why there is this feeling, and the answer is complicated, but it has to do with scriff. Scriff is this strange stuff--I've been told I can't call it matter, because it's something much more primitive than matter, more basic than energy. It exists between the universes, and maybe the universes are made of it. Whatever the truth about it is, it is now in you. You died, but you also got infected with scriff. For some reason, the Scriff doesn't let you stay dead, so you disintegrated, moved to another universe, and reintegrated here. That answers the second question you didn't ask, how did you get here. As to the first question you didn't ask, you know almost as much about where this is as I do, except I've had a week to explore and reach some conclusions about it. It's a volcanic island in the middle of an ocean, with no sign of any other land in any direction.

"And because scriff attracts scriff, you can feel people who have scriff in them--me, your cat, other versers--versers, that's what we call people who travel from universe to universe because of the scriff--and you can feel your gear, because the scriff in it is attuned to the scriff in you. At least, that's how it was explained to me.

"So, welcome to the verse. Have some more bird." He rips a hunk off with the metallic arm, which you note is completely sheathed in metal skin to the tips of the fingers and appears to have mechanical and electronic parts.

--M. J. Young

I take the first piece of bird openly, as well as a swig of water. I cup some of it in my hand and offer it to Harry while the stranger begins his explaination.

Throughout the conversation, I keep paying attention but can't help but let my mind drift. None of it makes any sense at all. There's only one universe, and people don't simply come back to life. This isn't anything like the other crazy things that I've heard from friends back home.

Of course, I had thoughts of alternate universes tons of times throughout discussions with others about the metaphysical; however, when it hits one right in the face, different results occur.

I don't take the other piece of meat, my jaw dropped in shock. Thoughts cross my mind. [i]He's insane. It's all impossible.[/i] Finally, one last thought still sticks, [i]It fits the situation.[/i] Still, I don't buy the facts presented to me fully.

Instead, I ask the dumbest question possible, but the only one able to escape my lips, "How can that be possible?"

He looks at you; there might even be a bit of sympathy in his eyes, as if trying to remember something from long ago.

"Who knows? How can the people on the bottom of the Earth not fall off? If the earth is spinning, why are we not hurled into space? Why does ice float, when every other solid is heavier than its liquid form? Why do tachyons move backwards through time? There are a lot of things that don't make sense that are true; they don't make sense because we don't have all the pieces, there's something else that's true that we have wrong. How can having free scriff in you make it so you won't age, die, or stay dead? It seems to have pattern memory, and when the material it is patterning is disrupted, it restores the pattern. Anyway, that's the best answer I can get from Adams and the Architect, and I've found that when they agree on something, it's probably true.

"But then, it seems pretty obvious that it has happened. If you're saying that it can't have happened, well, maybe you'd rather believe that you're in a comatose state and this is all a dream. I'll give you a couple of things that are true about it that are not like a dream. First, you will feel pain, sometimes pain worse than you've ever imagined feeling. Second, even in the strangest worlds you'll visit, there will still be some sense of cause and effect. The cause might be magical, but it will still be there. Third, you will meet people who can teach you things you don't already know, and you can learn them and use them later. That's not much like a dream, in my experience. But maybe you're more comfortable viewing this as all happening in your imagination. Just take my advice: when the imaginary train is headed straight for you, imagine yourself stepping off the imaginary tracks."

--M. J. Young

"That's the craziest thing that I've ever heard anyone say," I say calmly to him, and grab another piece of the bird. "However, the sound explaination does make some sense. I suppose that there's really no point arguing, comatose or not."

Then, I catch something that I had heard him say. It suddenly catches up. "Did you say magical? Heh, prove it." I smile at the stranger with my challenge.

"Prove it?" He raises an eyebrow. "Prove what? That magic exists?"

He holds your gaze for a moment, then shakes his head. "I don't think I can do that. After all, the Architect is a better wizard than just about anyone I know except maybe Whisp, and he hasn't been able to prove to Adams that magic exists. Magic is a word for anything that is powered from the supernatural realm. Adams insists there is no such place--no God, no gods, no angels, no supernatural energy. Psionic power he accepts, because it is perfectly natural. But show him an answer to prayer or a magic spell, and he'll find some alternate explanation for it. I can't prove to you that there is supernatural energy, or that supernatural energy can affect the world around us. If you believe that there's something out there that is supernatural, then magic is the logical result. If you don't, there's no way to prove that it's there. Even were I able to open a gate and take you there--and this world is biased pretty solidly against magic, so I can't do that here--I couldn't prove to you that you were there. Take my word for it, or don't, it makes no difference to me. When I can use magic I will, whether you believe it works or not."

--M. J. Young

I listen to him with my normal, skeptical look.

Finally, I respond simply, "Fair enough. I have to admit that you sure have a way of explaining things."

I deduce that by 'Adams', he means those descendant from Adam and Eve-supposing that means humans. I continue, "I sort of pride myself in being more open-minded than most other 'Adams'. I won't pressure you to prove anything. If you're right, it must be pretty much a hastle to have to explain this stuff again and again."

I hold out my hand to shake. "Thanks for the explaination. My name's Kurt, Kurt Wright. What's yours?" I add a smile on to show that I mean well.

"The call me Di Vars. Michael di Vars. I wouldn't say that Adams isn't open minded; I've known him a long time, and his theories and experiments on scriff have broken a lot of ground for the rest of us. But he's a scientist and an atheist, while the Architect is a theologian and an inventor. Adams is always looking for a natural explanation for how everything works; the Architect is more interested in why things are the way they are, and how to use them. The thing is, magic is very much dependent on what you believe, so if you don't believe in magic it won't work for you. That is very contrary to Adams' notion of science. It doesn't matter whether you believe the water will boil, because it will boil given enough heat whether or not you believe it. With magic, though, you can do the entire ritual and get nothing, and say that proves the ritual doesn't work, because the magic isn't in doing the ritual, but in believing that the ritual will work the magic."

--M. J. Young

"Well, in theory, if one believes something hard enough and strongly enough then it will become true. Wouldn't that be more of a psionic occurance rather than a magical one?"

I present a situation, "You said that one must believe for the magic to occur, so does that mean that if someone's doing magic to me and I don't believe in it, then it won't happen?"

"Well, in theory, if one believes something hard enough and strongly enough then it will become true. Wouldn't that be more of a psionic occurance rather than a magical one?"

"Whose theory is that? I don't think that's true at all. That's like saying that things will work out right because I want them to. And no, it's not psionic. How can I explain it? Try this: fire will burn you. Electricity will also burn you. If you put your hand on an uncovered wire, it will burn the skin off your hand. That doesn't mean that electricity and fire are the same thing, only that they have the same effect. If you throw water on the fire, it will probably cool and go out. Throw water on the electrical line, and you get an entirely different outcome.

"If I want to change the world psionically, that involves finding the strength within myself to bend reality to my will. Sure, that's possible; but that is drawing the power from me. Let's assume, though, that there is this other place, this world outside the world, where there is this different kind of power. If I can hook up that power to this world, I can use it to change the world, and the power doesn't come from me. With the psionics, it's like I'm running the system on my own internal battery; with magic, I just plugged it into a wall outlet, and got a lot of power from somewhere else.

"Of course, as I say, I don't care whether you believe there is such a power source or not. I've used it, and I'll use it again."

"You said that one must believe for the magic to occur, so does that mean that if someone's doing magic to me and I don't believe in it, then it won't happen?"

"It's more complicated than that. After all, you believe it won't happen, and he believes it will. You've got a resistance to magic from your unbelief, but it's not a complete immunity--his belief might be more powerful than yours (and what is unbelief but belief in reverse?). So maybe you can resist his magic, and maybe you can't. Probably it will affect you less than it affects someone else who does believe, but that doesn't mean it will never affect you at all.

"Also, you've got to be clear about what you mean by being hurt by magic. If I attempt to make you burst into flame, the fact that you don't believe is going to be a big factor in this, because I'm trying to hurt you with magic. On the other hand, I can instead cause a pillar of fire to fall from the sky and hit you. That's just as much magic when I create the fire, but for you it's not a question of whether you believe magic can cause you to burst into flame, but whether fire will burn you. Once the fire is there, it doesn't matter how it was created, it's still fire. I think most wizards and priests know this, so whatever protection you might have from unbelief is pretty quickly eliminated by a simple change in tactics."

--M. J. Young

"Alright, I can believe that." I can't help but smirk for a second, noticing my choice of words. So much conversation about believing in things. If everything this man said was true, I'd have plenty of time for new beliefs to be proved to me.

I decide that my current time could be spent better, in this forested environment. "You know, I have almost zero out-door survival skills. I don't have experience starting or keeping a fire, setting up camp, hunting, or cooking raw meat." This is an attempt by me to start a conversation, hoping that Di Vars might volunteer to help me in these fields.

M.J.,

In the Behind the Screens, is there any chance that on rolls where you're calculating what the roll needs to be for certain circumstances, can you please include those calculations in it? I am completely ignorant when it comes to the system myself, and even Behind the Screens it feels like I'm not seeing the whole picture.

Thank you,

Kurt

Kurt, feel free to ask specific mechanics questions behind the screens.

Generally, if I do not do the calculations in the thread, it means one of three things:

1. I just did the calculations in a recent post, and am myself referring to that post so that I don't have to crunch the numbers again.
2. The roll is so obviously a success or a failure that I am saving myself time by not doing the calculation. A skill use success check is rolled against skill ability level (at least 11 not more than 40), plus best relevant attribute (again 11 to 40 but more typically something between 17 and 25), plus two times bias (anything from 0 to 15, doubled, so 0 to 30; it can be negative, but that almost never happens), adjusted by sit-mods. If I know there are no negative sit-mods then I know that the chance of success is at least 22, and any roll under that is going to succeed, even if very weakly (relative success means that the number rolled is also how well you did). So sometimes I don't crunch the numbers because the result of the roll is obvious without knowing the target. (It can go the other way, too--I can know by looking that a roll is a failure, if it's high enough and there are no significant positive sit-mods.)
3. There were no calculations. Attribute checks are absolute against the attribute, and thus if you have a 2@3 strength and I do a strength check you have to roll lower than 23 to succeed; if I think the task easy, I might give you a bonus in terms of an effective strength, in essence saying that this task is simple enough he should be able to do it as four intensities higher, 2@7, and any roll below 27 is good enough--but that's uncommon. General effects (GE) rolls are against the 3 to 30 scale, where 3 is the one in a thousand unlikely good (from the character's perspective) outcome and 30 is the one in a thousand unlikely bad outcome, and in the middle somewhere is the neutral/no effect result of a 16 or 17. The scale has descriptors attached to each number, so you can know that a 12 is Good Enough and an 18 is Not Favorable and a 29 is Beyond Worst Fears or Nightmares. I frequently quote what the descriptor says, but I tend to go by the numbers.
As I say, if you have specific questions about what a roll means or how it was derived, ask behind the screens. More people will benefit from discussions there than from those buried in your game thread.

"Well, you'll probably be here for a few days, and it's a pretty easy place to survive. The weather has been pretty constant, not below maybe seventy-five at night, dew but no rain, hasn't gotten above ninety in the days and we've usually got a breeze by the water. There's fresh potable water in that stream above the cave, and the cave makes a nice shower and bath arrangement--you'll see it--and there's plenty of fruit if you can get it from the trees. The only thing to hunt is the shore birds, although I've not tried my hand at fishing--I have a thing about killing things that come from the sea, although if you do fish I'm not entirely against eating them.

"Write this down somewhere in your memory systems: to survive, you need five things. The first is water, because not only do you need to drink water within a couple days or you'll dehydrate, you also need it for hygiene and first aid. The second is fire. You're going to have to cook a lot of what you eat, and you might need to sterilize or cauterize wounds in an emergency. Even the ashes of your fire are important, as they are one of the few easily obtained medicines in the wild. The third is shelter. It protects you from the elements and to a lesser degree from the animals. A good shelter keeps the heat off you by day and retains the heat at night. Fourth, you will need food. You will need a variety of food, and you will need to be able to figure out what you can eat. Finally, and this is going to sound a bit absurd, but you need socks--good dry socks. Infected feet will cripple you, and crippling in a survival situation will kill you. Cold wet feet will make you sick faster than just about any other natural environmental condition, and if you're sick, you can't function well enough to keep yourself alive. Protect your feet.

"Now, you've got food, thanks to my bird, although you might want to explore the variety on the island; and I think we've got the water part established. There's not much you can do about socks--either you brought them or you didn't, and if they're wet you can change them and dry the wet ones in the sun. That leaves fire and shelter. I've got a fire, and I haven't bothered with shelter myself because conditions have been so comfortable, but I'll leave it to you what you want to do about mastering these survival skills."

--M. J. Young

I leave the camp, with or without Harry-depending on what the cat wants.

Out in the wilderness, I look for fruits and berries, while taking mental notes on what the plants and food look like.

After I've gathered about 15 different kinds or if it starts to get dark, I head back to Michael's camp and present them to him. I ask him which ones are edible and how he can tell.

He looks at what you've brought.

"I'm not sure what you want me to tell you. The bananas, pineapples, cocoanuts, mangos, oranges, blackberries, and guava are probably safe. I know that because this is an Earth-like world, and those foods would all be safe to eat on Earth. That's not a guarantee--I heard tales of one world in which all the proteins were indigestible to most humans, something to do with reverse molecular bonding or something like that, and you could eat it but it wasn't nutritious at all, so you would gradually starve to death. There's no reason any or all of those things couldn't be poison, but if I had to eat something I would pick one and eat it, and then decide whether I wanted to risk another or test them all.

"The others I don't know because I don't know what they are. I could test them--and I probably have a dozen ways I could test them, but I don't know which ways would actually work in this universe. I've got a toxirad gauge somewhere which is useful, but doesn't work in low tech worlds. I know a couple magic spells that will reveal various poisons and diseases in food, but they only work in magical worlds. There's an old survivalist method of testing foods, but it takes a full day to test one food, you can't test multiple foods at the same time, and there are things that can kill you that can get past it--mushrooms, for example, on Earth. Eight times out of ten, you're pretty safe looking for something you know is edible and eating that. The ninth time, there won't be anything remotely familiar so you have to take the chance on something. We got pretty hungry on NagaWorld before we discovered that we could eat the orange grass. The tenth time something you trust will get you. You can either test everything all the time, or take the risk. If you land in civilized worlds, you can usually eat what the indigs eat, but not always. The Ul-mor of Volturnus have a spice they love which we call arsenic. The people on that world with the reversed proteins were all built of those same reversed proteins. Sometimes you'll figure it out, sometimes you won't. Sometimes you die, and then you get up and start again. That's the way of it."

--M. J. Young

Do I recognize any of the fruits?

Is it night yet?

What does Di Vars seem to be taking his time doing at the moment?

How is Harry holding up?

I'm assuming you would recognize most of the fruits I mentioned; if you would, then you do. Bananas, pineapples, and oranges don't look much different on the tree than in the store, and although cocoanuts have an outer husk that is usually removed before the inner sphere is sold, most people have seen the fruit in its full form at some point.

The sun is setting. You are on the western side of the island, apparently, because it is setting out over the ocean.

Di Vars seems content with tending his fire (he has a pile of wood) and watching the sky.

Harry seems to have decided to explore the immediate surrounds, but is staying close to the fire. He periodically begs another scrap of seagull from di Vars or you, so it's probably mostly the food that interests him. He's also managed to find the stream above the cave where the water is fresh, apparently, as he goes up that way periodically. That puts him out of site, but you can still hone in on his direction when you relax, and since you're on a hillside there's usually that one spot where line of sight hits the ground.

--M. J. Young

I lay down on the edge of Di Vars' camp, as long as he seems okay with it. There, I prop my backpack under my head for a more comfortable sleep. While there, I gesture for Harry to come and lay down next to me for the night.

If I survive to the next morning, I ask Michael if he's interested in exploring inland some with me today.

Michael takes no particular interest in where you sleep, although you'll find that you have to move at least twenty yards inland and another twenty laterally to get off the solid rock and onto some softer grass.

He is still sitting by the fire in the morning, although he has moved around to the other side of the fire so that he is looking at the island rather than at the ocean. The mountain casts its shadow over the camp still, but the day is bright and clear.

The bird continues to slow roast, and he continues to pick at it periodically, and offers it to you again. "It's pretty tricky, keeping meat fresh for any length of time. I try to slow-cook it and eat it from the outside. This bird is about done, though. I wonder if I can catch a shark if I use this for chum."

You ask him about exploring the island.

"Sorry. Been there, done that. Seen the white sands on the south beaches, the black sands on the north beaches, the crater at the top, the bamboo, palms, ferns, fruit trees, vines, pumis, obsidian, and the miles of ocean in every direction. Knock yourself out--enjoy the vacation. I haven't seen anything dangerous, and I've been out on the shelf about half a mile in every direction, so I'd say we're pretty safe here."

--M. J. Young

Court joins the game here, coming from page 3 of The Character Generation Thread.

Court, you were playing with a new thumb drive, supposed to be faster than anything yet developed because of "Scriff Inside". It is fast, although whether it is noticeably faster than what you've used before is hard to tell. Pulling it from the port on your computer, you slip and break the thing; a gold metallic liquid spills on your hand, you get an unreasonably nasty shock, and black out.

You are now coming to, eyes closed lying prone on a strange surface, a warm grainy surface on a slight slope, the grains hard and scratchy but the surface loose. You hear a pulsing white noise in the background, toward your feet, and smell something salty.

Kurt, as you are leaving the camp to explore the island, Michael suddenly says, "Feel that?" He startles you, but continues, "Relax, you'll feel it. We've got company."

As you relax, you have that same sense you had of needing to meet someone, pointing toward the north.

--M. J. Young

I curse, pushing myself up on my hands and knees and shaking my head to clear it. Stupid to break a piece of equipment like that. Maybe I can get another one from... where did I get the first one?

As I blink to clear my eyes, I realize I'm not in the study at home anymore. I pull on my glasses from where they fell nearby, take them off again, clean them, and put them back on. "Far out," I say quietly, as I take stock of my surroundings.

As you push yourself up, your hands sink in the warm black sand of the beach, and you begin to comprehend the pulsing white noise as the sound of waves breaking on the shore behind you--that is, below your feet as you are lying on your face.

Your possessions, those things which you listed elsewhere, are scattered on the beach around you, as if someone had lifted your house, pulled out the floors, and let everything fall undamaged straight down. (If anything on your list is not at your house, please make me aware of its current relative location, distance and direction, at this time.)

You also have this feeling that you are supposed to meet someone, toward your right and angled slightly inland. The land rises from the beach into grasses, ferns, and trees, predominantly palms. The sun is coming from your left, but is fairly high in the sky suggesting that it is mid-morning, wherever you are.

--M. J. Young

As I look at my familiar possessions scattered across the beach, I wonder how I got here, and why all my stuff is with me. I run my hand absently through my hair. I'd better get dressed before I go exploring; it was night at home.

I dress in jeans and my tie-dyed t-shirt, and replace my slippers with sandals. I pack my stuff into the duffel bag, starting with the heaviest items (Calvin & Hobbes, my laptop), filling in clothing on top of them, and shoving the food and sodas in on top and in the side pockets. I flatten and fold the soda box, then shove it in too. The bread gets a little squished, but there's nothing to be done about that. The books and DVDs go in the front pocket of my guitar case. My wallet goes in my front right pocket, my keys and cell phone in my left.

I sit down in the sand for a moment, watching the waves as I consider what to do. I don't want to haul all my stuff around while I explore, but I'm not sure if it's safe to leave it here. I decide it can't hurt - there's no sign of any habitation, other than this weird feeling that I'm about to meet someone. I pull my duffel bag's strap over my right shoulder and my guitar over my left, gritting my teeth at the weight and wishing for a proper pack. I haul my equipment over to a palm, set it down at the base of the tree, and take a good look around to mark the spot in my memory. I grab a Dr. Thunder out of my duffel bag, pop it open, and take a drink. Refreshment in hand, I head in the direction of the feeling. As I go, I check my phone for reception.

You get a fix on that feeling, and realize that it is now two feelings, and one of them is moving. It is moving left and upward, but since the ground slopes upward as it moves inland, this is not entirely unreasonable, and at the moment the two vectors are not that far apart.

A direct line toward either will take you obliquely across the rising ground at a shallow angle off the beach; the alternative is to follow the beach, which keeps you out of the grass and trees although you can see a rocky outcropping down some distance. Will you cut inland here, or follow the beach until the angle is sharper?

Either way, after a few minutes walking you realize that you can't feel the direction unless you relax and look for it; and when you do you also feel a new, slightly different feeling, the feeling that you left something or were supposed to get something, pointing back behind you toward the beach where you started.

--M. J. Young

I assume that, as expected, I didn't get any cell phone reception.

I decide to go ahead and cut inland, and I return my phone to my pocket.

A little later, when I notice the new feeling, I turn to face it. I guess that it points towards my possessions, as it only showed up when I left them behind. That's good; if I'm right, it means I won't lose them. I decide to follow my original vector, the one that isn't moving, and so I continue.

I relax to feel that pull and say, "Well, I was going to explore anyways. I guess now I'll head towards that sensation rather than the mountain."

I look down to Harry and say, "Come, boy. Let's go check out that feeling again-it helped us out last time after all."

I ask Di Vars if I can take a little extra bird for the newcomer.

Whether or not I'm allowed to, I try to feel the vector and from the high campsite that Michael has, I try to plot out an effective route in that direction.

Kurt--di Vars indicates with a gesture that you can have as much of the seagull as you want, although after you rip off a hunk, he adds "Of course, it's not very good, and our new friend might not be hungry enough yet to want something this bad."

You move inland first, to move off the rock outcropping and then up the mountain some along a comfortable path. While you are doing so, the feeling of the new person is also in motion, so you change vectors more toward the shore.

Court--sorry, correct, there is no cellular phone signal here--no bars.

After about an hour, each of you sees someone--each other.

Court, the person you see is:

6'1, 180#, Blonde lONG Buzz Cut, 18yo mistaken for 21, Hazel eyes, clean shaven, no birthmarks or tattoos, Scar on face between mouth and nose, right under the right corner of the nose, going down about half an inch, does not touch mouth, white, a bit pallid.

He has a cat with him.

Kurt, the equipment list I have for you seems to be lacking clothing; I believe you were dressed when you versed out, but don't have that information. Is that my oversight, posted somewhere on the character creation thread, or did you forget to list your clothes?

Kurt, the person you see is:

Will be 19 years old in one month, just under 5'9”, fairly slight just under 120#, European lineage, lightly tanned, dark brown hair growing down neck and over my ears after being cut to a “respectable length”, unkempt scruffy black facial hair goatee-plus-mustache with patchy sideburns, eyes blue-green, and glasses rounded rectangles, gunmetal frame; scar on right forearm, slightly darker than other skin and barely visible from curling iron burn at two or three years old, pulled from counter.

He is wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

It is evident to each of you that the other is one of the senses that you feel.

--M. J. Young

I've been posting in the first person because Krillis is, but I'm not entirely comfortable with it. Would it be a problem if I switched to the third person?

When Court sees the pale man down the path, he allows himself a wary smile. He isn't sure yet what's happening, and is a little afraid he'll be thought crazy. Nevertheless, he's glad he's found someone, and hopes they'll be able to help. He waves, and calls out as he approaches.

"Hi there! Can you help me? I think I passed out, and don't know how I got here, or where 'here' is."

[i]Well...I don't suppose that this is absolute evidence to support Michael, but I might as well assume he's right at the moment.[/i]

I force a broad smile and wave hospitably to him. "There's not much that I can help with, friend. I've been here one night already and have found out that we're on an island with an endless ocean in all directions. Why don't we start with introductions?"

I offer a big leg of roasted bird to him and say, after taking a bite of another bird leg I had gotten for myself, "I'm Krillis, who're you?"

I am not picky about perspective, as long as it does not become confusing.

There is a sticky entitled Coding on This Board which explains what works, what doesn't, and how to do it here. The short version is that it's all HTML using < and > bracketing, and the tags that are recognized are listed below the reply box. Note that the < strong > and < em > tags are the only text style codes listed; these create bold and italic text, respectively.

The one calling himself Krillis is wearing jeans, white shoes and socks, and a black T-shirt.

Please, continue your discussion and decide what you are going to do next.

--M. J. Young

"Thanks," Court replies, taking the leg. He bites into it before giving his name, chewing thoughtfully for a second or two, and then gets distracted on the way there - "If we're on an island with nothing but ocean for miles around, how the heck did I get here with all my stuff? Either I've been kidnapped, or I chartered a boat in my sleep."

He takes the last swallow of Dr. Thunder, crushes the can beneath his sandal, and then realizes there's no where to put it that isn't littering. He settles for holding onto it, for now.

I give him a small smile and an even smaller laugh, while scratching the back of my head. "Well, how you got here-that part's complicated. If my friend on this island is right, then it has to do with something called 'scriff'. Evidently, when we died, we were infected with scriff. That stuff sent us here and it's why we can sense eachother.

Um...I think that was all he said. Michael also mentioned that scriff doesn't really let you die, but sends you to a different universe instead. Sorry, but that's pretty much all I could make of it." A thought then coming to mind, I add in, with a gesture towards his bird he's eating, "So welcome to the verse, have some more bird."

I sit down, expecting Court to have the same sort of reaction I did-namely shock. I pet Harry while I'm on the ground.

Court turns slightly, looking past Krillis as he begins thinking out loud. "So am I dead or not? Obviously not, since I'm standing here talking to you. But you're saying we can't die? We just travel to other universes? That makes us... immortal, then - assuming you're not screwing with me." He sits next to Krillis, almost falling into place. "That doesn't make... why..." He falls silent for a while.

"I forgot to introduce myself when I started asking questions - call me Ryven." He continues eating, slowly.

I touch his shoulder lightly and say, "Trust me, it doesn't make much sense to me either. This is nothing like what I was taught back home-still, I'm trying to look at it as positively as possible... I hate to say it, but it puts me at ease some that someone's just as lost as I am."

I stand up and look toward the mountain, finishing, "Still, I'm trying to look at this like a vacation-at least for now. I was going to go over to the mountain with Harry before I felt you pop up. Did you want to come along, Ryven?"