Lost, Found and Lost Again

[Ralma Faustus]

"Uh...." Ralma started as the short 'welcoming committee' began trying to converse with her again, ".... What?"

Her last word was punctuating when Rava started making sense. Blinking in confusion she cocked her head slightly askew as if the concept of such a funny little creature talking her language was beyond comprehension.

"How about... We start with how to get back?" She inquired, "As much as I've had fun with this world up until now, I'd just rather go back... Preferably far away from the guys who were shooting at us."

The remaining disc she quickly tagged onto the back of her brother's hand before returning her attention to the Kisske. Doing so she turned back to Rava so quickly that she didn't notice when the disc started glowing brightly and thereafter disappeared completely. Glowing symbols seemed to flow down Magnus' arm , across his shoulder before disappearing at his neck.

[TDIC]

Rava frowned slightly before consulting a small pocket computer like object. He shook his head and gave a light shrug.

"Unfortunately because of the unstable structure of the gates we currently lack the means to track all the worlds that are touched briefly by the temporal displacements. Worlds that have been touched more than once are the first to be tracked. Some of these have been cataloged and have been programed into the gates to allow travel to these worlds. Our best scientists are currently working on correcting that but meanwhile the TDIC has been implemented to make life as comfortable as possible for newcomers while they await the ability to travel back to their original world."

[Tayeth]

Tayeth had wandered closer meanwhile with his arms crossed and a smug grin on his face. He watched both but having seen Ralma use the disc, he directed his remark toward her.

"You've already received the most useful information these guys can give."

He jerked a thumb at Rava.

"That disc thing that makes everyone able to understand each other is the only useful thing I''ve ever gotten from these idiots. I've been waiting for them to "Track"" He motioned quotation marks with his hands before refolding them. "the world I came from for oh.. six YEARS now."

[Ralma Faustus]

Ralma's eyes glazed considerably as Rava rambled on about the improbability of finding her world. Technical jargon went clear over her head, and moreover the mention of science seemingly dropped her into a dull internal musing as she tried to remember something she had heard a long time ago.

"N... Nexus?" She scrunched her expression slightly trying to recall a little more.

More of a fairy tale than anything, she absently remembered from a lecture that a local priest had shouted at a crowd in her home town. That the dragons had created their world, and had created an 'impenetrable' barrier to prevent invaders from crossing from another plane. Definitely not as advertised, as she knew a half dozen other tales of 'monsters' and 'demons' spilling in from some place that nobody knew about, and stealing away young children.

Shaking the thought off, she regarded her brother, who she now viewed as more or less the most 'responsible' for their sudden change in environment. Or at least the most responsible that she had on hand, and could therefore coerce to 'fix' the problem. When he woke up, he would have to be quick to come up with a plan or she'd beat him like an old rug.

She came back to attention just in time to note the timescale that Tayeth had been waiting on to return to his own world.

"Six.. Years?" She repeated, "I don't suppose they helped you settle at all either? How's anybody supposed to live here when the air's bordering on suffocating you? Roll up in an alley under a box or something?"

[Tayeth]

Tayeth shrugged and rolled his eyes at Rava who simply stood there like a dumb parrot waiting for a cracker.

"Eh if you ask, they usually give you a data card with enough of the local currency to buy some food and maybe a roof over your head for a month or so. As for the air.. eh.. They pump cleaner air into buildings so if you rent an apartment you can enjoy cleaner air. I've heard of places that aren't quite so bad but never have bothered to travel there. World I came from wasn't much different than this so I'm used to it."

He scratched his head before remembering something.

"Oh yeah.. that disc thing lets you use the gates around this place to travel into the past of this world. Been there once.. the air was real clean. You could even see the sun and sky. Too rich for my blood though, so I came back here."

[Ralma Faustus]

Jan 15, 2011 16:34:05 GMT -8 Tayeth said:

"Eh if you ask, they usually give you a data card with enough of the local currency to buy some food and maybe a roof over your head for a month or so. As for the air.. eh.. They pump cleaner air into buildings so if you rent an apartment you can enjoy cleaner air. I've heard of places that aren't quite so bad but never have bothered to travel there. World I came from wasn't much different than this so I'm used to it."

He scratched his head before remembering something.

"Oh yeah.. that disc thing lets you use the gates around this place to travel into the past of this world. Been there once.. the air was real clean. You could even see the sun and sky. Too rich for my blood though, so I came back here."

"Well if my brother's leg is going to heal properly, he's going to have to be somewhere quite a bit better than lying on the sidewalk in this soup..." She waved a hand back and forth in front of her face as if that would make any difference in the thickness of the haze.

Tayeth's mentioning that the disc she had put against her hand could be used to allow 'time travel' made Ralma's ears twitch convulsively along with her disbelieving blink.

"Is it possible without seeing the sun to have your brain baked that badly?" Ralma sarcastically responded, "I can just jump into a 'gate' and end up in the past as easy as catching a bus? What's next?"

Tayeth was friendly enough, for sure, but the alien feline was starting to believe that their friend had recently jumped off the peyote feel-good train and was still tasting the rainbow and dancing with leprachauns...

[Tayeth]

Tayeth chuckled and nodded.

"You'd be surprised just how casual folk around here are about it. Most of the locals don't seem to bother with it though. They all just scurry along to and from jobs that they bitch about. Not really much different from my home world actually."

He looked around and jerked a thumb toward a farther off building.

"I think that motel might be the best bet for a quick room. I can front ya the cost for a night's stay if ya need help till the welcome wagon sets up your account."

[Ralma Faustus]

Ralma's head spun considerably at the thought of time travel. Multitudes of paradoxes idly crossed her mind, and she focused on those that were of particular interest. Did that mean that anybody she beat up on could just use this time-traveling ability, go back in time and warn themselves of all her tricks beforehand? Was she going to have to make it a rule to decapitate potential time-travelers who went up against her? As if on cue, she felt a jab of pain cross her forehead. Thinking too hard on something that abstract made her head hurt.

"They can be casual with it all they want. I've watched enough time travel movies to know that it's dangerous." She retorted, trying not to mention the thought that if she went on her 'typical' murdering rampage in an era a few thousand years removed, she'd likely alter the flow of history irrevocably.

It was around the moment that she recalled, that she herself was not in the best of condition. Bandages and gauze coated her limbs, and several spots seemed to been trying to stain through the material. Her natural adrenaline made it difficult to realize just how injured she was by the diminished pain response. She needed to sleep and perhaps take the time to stitch the more persistent injuries.

"Somewhere to sleep sounds like a good idea.. Maybe we can figure out some way of getting home afterward." She answered, as she picked her brother up by his belt and lifted him over her shoulder as if he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes.

She gave Tayeth the obvious opportunity to take the lead on taking them to the motel. He did say he was paying after all.