lifenet | forward-dated to very early on the 14th

Sure. I'm on the islet with the boat.

['cause . . . he realized that one might be better to take since it's (theoretically) more navigable and he's trying to figure out how to get it to the mana pool.]

Were you here when there was the cave system and the parasistic crystals? Lup told me about it.

[He's on his way. Talking as he hurries over.] Where I come from there was a disease. Except it wasn't actually a disease it was the doing of parasitic bees. They laid their eggs in a victims neck and when they were ready to be born they would drain the host dry of liquid and nutrients. As far as I know no one else infected survived at all. It had something to do with a higher power. A god we would call them here but I'm not sure exactly on the details because it mostly comes from visions of the future. But my point is...

[He's here now. Heading over to where Ceej was by the boat.] It's probably parasitic flowers.

Okay, number one? Please don't ever say "parasitic bees" again. Please. [He is begging you, Shion. "Parasitic bees" is like the last? Thing? He wanted to hear on day 3 of his insomnia run.] Number two: I was thinking genetic parasitic flowers. Or, no uh.

[He rubs at his eyes. He should probably sleep.]

The thing where only certain people can get a disease. Epidemic? No. Anemic? You know what I mean.

[He's so fucking tired.]

Oh... [He looks shocked, and then guilty. He hadn't meant to upset Connor. He sometimes forgot that certain things were weird or disturbing. Also Connor looks exhausted, but honestly Shion hasn't slept in a few nights either, which isn't unusual. At least it was due to having too much to think about and piece together rather than nightmares.] I won't Ceej, I'm sorry.

[Genetic parasitic flowers. Makes sense. Or at least as much sense as any of this.] I know what you mean. With... the things in my world they only effected people in my city. There was an entire town outside the walls... The... they did not touch the town at all... Only certain people, from a city that deserved to be destroyed.

I... genetic parasitic flowers makes much more scientific sense but what if it is some kind of... god punishment?

It's cool. Anyway, there was a, um. Memorial, I guess? I went with some other people after I finished with Lup, and we found a memorial that said a bunch of stuff but most important: "They lived and died free of the draperies of their fiction."

[He doesn't bother to make the connection for Shion, because he trusts that Shion's smart enough to get it without handholding.]

So I'm thinking there might be a reason behind the rules, y'know? Certain traits like "unnaturally" colored hair meant you were more likely to catch this. Perfume is banned, because it could be used to hide you had the disease. Stuff like that.

[Just like Ai'Tuoh. Ceej doesn't have to spell it out, Shion goes pale at the words. Shion doesn't forget anything and even if he did, the rules of that city were not ones he would forget in a long time.]

That's a good theory. They came up with the rules after whatever happened here. They either lived here, or the two islands were connected. It would be useful if we had some sort of sea map, if we could tell how far apart they were from each other. But if that's true... Whatever happened on Umui... It was so bad that they decided sending people to eternal sleep in a void world is the better alternative.

[And wasn't that a horrifying thought.]

It kind of looks like this, I'd guess. [Connor gestures to the whole of the islets.] But with Ensō in the middle, because they're all the same distance from us.

[He hasn't really been paying attention to the exact location of the islands, but he's a fair judge of distance and time and it's always about the same distance and time to get to another island from Ensō.]

Not sure if that's because this is the origin point or because the Storyteller has a limited scope of influence though. If you made me pick, though, I'd say the former.

So you think everyone started here origionally? [That was interesting. That they had started here and slowly moved to other islands.] Then each island is about the same distance away... So perhaps people started here and then moved on to islands with more resources. The people of Ai'Tuoh did not follow the Story Teller... in fact they rejected them...

So perhaps they started here, went to Umui and ended up on Ai'Tuoh... That's if here was really where they started... [Had they once been like them? Stolen from other worlds so long ago that their descendants now lived here. There had been no history in Ai'Tuoh after all...

It's a wild theory. But if there's something Shion had learned it's that nothing is too rediculous. Having all the ideas out early is a good way to start picking them apart until you find the truth.]

I mean, it scans with the fact that we know people did live here at one point. Aside from the monkeys.

[He somehow doesn't think the monkeys are the ones that let the other buildings get into such a state of disrepair. That'd be weird? It'd be weird, because they didn't seem to be nomadic, what with the way the houses in the monkey compound were constructed.]

I'm just saying that even if the Storyteller is making these islands, which is kinda the vibe we got from the floating islands, it's kind of weird that they're all the same distance away and they appear in the same spots.

Yes it's weird. [And every time they seem to have figured something out, to have come up with a feasible theory then some new information comes to light that changes everything.

It's frustrating.] Have you mapped the islands? In relation to each other I mean. [The ability to create mostly accurate sea charts was the sort of thing Connor was probably surprisingly good at.]

Edited 2018-08-04 06:28 (UTC)

I know how far they are from us. I don't know how far they are from each other.

[It's hard to tell when he only has one to work from at a time, but he pulls a crumpled planner page from his pocket and takes the pen from his bun to sketch an approximate map for Shion. I have no idea what it looks like, because the mods were Very Vague when I asked about this but it does, in fact, resemble the way the islets are clustered in a circle. Ensō has been marked in the center, more of a quick circle than an actual mapping.]

But they're situated like this, more or less.

[Shion watched him draw with a small frown. A circle with Enso in the middle. But no way to know how far away they were from each other...]

Right. [He's copying it into his own notepad.]

Where do they go though... When they disappear. They can't just sink. Not all of them. Ai'Tuoh can't have sunk...

It's like - [Connor drums his fingers on the edge of the boat, searching for words to explain.] Do you know what a liminal space is?

[That's the only way he can think of to explain this: a place that's both there and isn't at the same time. A place that's at the edges of two realities at the same time.]

[Shook frowned. It is very rare that he comes across a word that he doesn't know. But this one holds no meaning. He blushes slightly, ashamed at his ignorance.]

No. I don't know what that means.

[An ignorance that is so much worse because this is Ceej. He doesn't like looking stupid in front of Ceej.]

Okay. So like - obviously there's infinite realities, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead yada yada quantum bullshit. Most of the time, those realities are like this [Connor holds his hands together, like he might if he was about to start praying.] but sometimes, in certain places, the barrier separating different realities weakens or disappears entirely? So you get this. [Connor intertwines his fingers together.] Make sense?

[That's not really the full gist of it, but he doesn't actually want to explain quantum mechanics because it's bullshit and he hates it. The important part is two realities being close together.]

[Shion understands infinite realities. He might not have the terminology and he has absolutely no idea what a cat that is both alive and dead has to do with anything but he understands what Connor is saying.] So you think the other islands are like other universes, realities interacting with this one for a period of time before the barrier is strengthened again?

These worlds that pull people from other universes. The barriers must be weaker in general in order for that to be possible...

[He's writing this down. Terminology is good though...] If there are terms to describe all of this. Were other realities something that your world knew about? Did you study this?

Edited 2018-08-06 10:52 (UTC)

It's not exactly, like, my area of expertise? 'cause I can't pass normal physics, let alone quantum physics where the shit's made up and nothing matters.

[But he reads a lot of science fiction, so he knows the very basics of this sort of thing. He can't really explain the finer points of anything he's just said, though, because after a certain point it all just sounds like nonsense.]

Anyway, you know how the islands are only ever here for a little while? I think the Storyteller is intentionally weakening a barrier, but they obviously can't do it forever.

Yes, too much maths. [He regrets speaking the moment he says it because the only reason he knows Connor hates maths is from his dream. And he tried not to remind Ceej of that.]

Infinite realities aren't made up though. They are real. That's a good theory though... The Story Teller has barrier powers. They can weaken the barriers.

So did the Story Teller help the people get from Umui to Ai'Tuoh? If so why did the people reject them?

forward-dated to very early on the 14th

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