* Last time on... Wait, there wasn't a last time. Just pretend there was, okay? (* looks at you seriously. "Just pick a place already.") * 'lil ole Elo has been on a space empire planet for a while. He caught the eye of the ruling family there, eventually, and was invited for dinner! * But it was Really Really bad. Incompatible chmistry or something. * Which is why he is now running from armed gaurds, bent on slaying him for insulting their queens cooking! ( The fuck? Meh, oh well.) * Fwim! Wham! Viiirrrr! They're not letting up, it seems. * You're in the middle of a town, being chased in the direction of the spacedocks. * Get set, run for your life! * Elonith is running for the docks! He's currently dressed in fairly formal attire for this area, and looks a little cute at 12 years old. His hair and eyes are brown, and his skin is slightly tanned. Elonith looks fairly athletic, despite his size. He looks for an alley he could duck into as he runs along... * No alleys! And no doors, either. Everyones barred up in their houses 'n stuff, apparetly used to this sort of thing. The queen sending out her fanatical forces to crush imagined insults, that is. * Luckily, they have Storm Trooper Aim(tm). * Elonith dodges around another corner. "Dammit! Guess I'm gonna have to do this the hard way." * Elonith looks around for... something while he's running. * There's buildings. And buildings. Some scorch marks ahead of you, from misses aimed at you, and yelling behind you. And ... gasp! A sewer grate! * If you're trying to sense rifts, gimme a soul roll, -2. * Dicesuke throws the bones for Elonith (2d6-2) and gets 5. * You sense a decent strength rift in the direction of the spacedocks! * Elonith spies the sewer gate. "Not my cup of tea, but it'll work." He holds a crystal around his neck as he's running torwards the sewer. Suddenly, the top of it flies off and up aways. * You can fit through it easily enough. * Elonith doesn't waste any time when he reaches the sewers and jumps into the gate. ( And then we run away! And then we run away! And then we run away! o/~ ) * Elonith looks up. "Damn fanatics. I thought the word 'sloshy' *would* be a compliment.." * The running and yelling and shooting goes by, louder for a moment as they pass by the grate, then fading again. They still seem to be shooting. At what, who knows? * Elonith closes his eyes. "No time to waste though." His form deforms and reshapes, eventually changing into a 10 year old boy with yellow hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. He's not particularly attractive, but not really ugly either. Okay, now, where are those docks... * Elonith hmmms... and heads in the direction he thinks the docks are in. * Just follow your nose... err, your sense. The sewers seem to be just a plain linear crossgrid. * Elonith muses to himself. "Well, this is convient." His voice changed with his body as well, apparently. * Elonith does NOT follow his nose. * After a bit of trudging through icky smelly dirt sludgy water, you think you're near the rift. * Elonith nods. He looks around for any visual evidence for said rift. * It's ... up. You can't see it at all, but you can sense it even stronger. * Elonith looks up, and pops off a nearby man-hole or something in the same fashion he did earlier. * The cover goes 'pop'! * Elonith climbs up the hole with a bit of effort, wiping his forehead after he gets out. "Man, now I stink like a bugger!" * You're on the ground, and there's several big spaceships around, all grounded currently. (And the rift?) * You sense the rift from the biggest one. It has the royal insignia on it, too. * Elonith rolls his eyes. "Nothing comes easy. Well, might as well get to it." He heads to the biggest one, not bothering to cover his appearance as he doesn't look anything like he did earlier. * The entrance ramp is Waaaay over there. There's two visible gaurds, who are talking to each other. * Elonith looks up. "Hmmm..." He tries to change shape into a very young version of one of the guards he met earlier. ( Roll Mind. ) (Disguise apply?) ( W/ Disguise skill, yeah. ) * Dicesuke throws the bones for Elonith (2d6-3) and gets 6. * You ... shapechange. You think you got it right. In fact, you're pretty sure. * Elonith smiles. "Momma always said I was talented." He heads up to walk into the craft. * One of the guards nods at Elo. 'You hear? Some poor sucker insulted the queens cooking.' Yeah. Really sucks to be them. * 'Not that she ever learned to cook good.' *He glances at his partner, and Elo. 'Not that I said that, of course. * Elonith smirks back. "What? Didn't hear a word." * The guards partner grins. "Well, let him go on. I'm sure he's got important business to attend to." * The guards step out of the way, to let Elo pass. * Elonith walks into the craft (assuming the door is open). * It's open. Inside, there's various activity. You'd think they're prepping for liftoff. * Elonith glances around for the D.rift. * It's close. You'd think it was near the engine. * Elonith heads to the engine room then! * Elo is stopped at the door! An armored guard boredly calls at him. "Hey. Engine area's restricted for non techheads." * The door to the engine area, that is. * Elonith nods. "Sorry about that." He starts walking away, glancing around for any 'tech heads'. * You saw several on your way there. Smart looking people wearing funny-looking berets, with the royal insignia on them. * Elonith walks into the bathrooms on-board and into one of the stalls. (Do I make my way there, oh-high GM? :P) * Yeah. * You're the hot gossip, too. Everyone's talking about the offworlder who pissed off the queen. What's significant is that you're the first one who lived to run away. * Elonith spares you the details and steps out looking a lot like one of the techies. Black hair, grey eyes, and white skin. His clothes, fortunately, changed with him, like they did before. He smiles to himself. * Elonith walks to engineering and goes in. * Ooh, what a sight! The engine is a big glowy column of magnetically contained antimatter. Now that you're there, your senses tell you that the big rift is actually a bunch of smaller ones, none more than 10 feet away from the core. * There's lots of talk about, 'Fluctuation, alignment, shielding, etc,' and noone seems like everythings okey-dokey. In fact, it seems from the general tone that they're having problems. * Elonith scowles. "Warp-core reactor, anti-matter... Yeah. Prime material for Dimensional travel. Well, it'll serve my purposes." He starts heading down and torwards the core. * Elonith frowns. "But first..." He pulls aside one of the techies. "What's the situation?" * 'We're having trouble stabilizing the output. It's varying in frequency and strength a lot more than it should.' * 'We'll pin it down soon enough. Cheif Engineer Flava thinks one of the power feeds got it's polarity switched.' (Chief Engineer Flava Flav? O_o) (Don't ask. I'm not bothering. :P) (*snickers*) ( .... something wrong with the name Flava for someone who's never gonna be seen again? =p ) * Elonith nods. "Good." He walks over to the core and near one of the rifts, looking like he's in pain doing so. (Heh) (Weird mental image is all) * The techie watches Elo carefully. "Be careful, there's some wierd abnormalities near the core." * Elonith nods. "Don't worry about it. I can handle myself." * 'If you say so.' *He keeps an eye on Elo, while going back to fiddling with whatever panel he was fiddling with. * Elonith keeps walking to the core. * Spide- err. Rift Sense tingling! * Elonith winces. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch, but I don't have much choice..." He looks back. "Looks like someone who insulted the queen's cooking did get away! See ya!" He jumps into the rift right after he says that. * The techie looks up. "What the hell do you-" And stops as Elo jumps through. " .... Nevermind. I don't get paid enough to deal with stuff like that." (Take me wherever you're takin' me, oh GM. ;p) * Fwoossh, woom, woo. And more stock footage of traveling through interdimensional pathways. (Take me, GM! Take me!) (....to the next scene!) * This time ... feels a bit different, heavier. * Elonith can't really tell right now, as it's still hurting like all hell. * And you're suddenly spit out, onto rough stone. It's wet and raining. You really don't get more of an impression of that, as you phase out, and are pulled against something behind you. It hurts a helluva lot, and you feel like you're being torn apart, several different paths through the mulitverse pulling you every which way at once. * This lasts for a couple of long, agonizing minutes, before you fall back down onto the rough ground. * Elonith manages a three-point landing, running into a secluded area and pulling out a shot of some-kind, grimacing in pain the entire way. Geeze man... It doesn't get much worse than this... * Elonith winces and fumbles with the shot as he tries to pull it out... * Two figures rush up to you, a third following closely behind. * Elonith puts the shot to his arm and screams in agony as he shoots himself with it. (We're Jehovah's Witnesses, and--) * "The hell?" "I've never seen anyone survive that!" "Shutup! Get him away from the monolith, pronto!" * Elonith 's muscles relax juuuust a tad. He puts the shot away and peers at the two that just came up. "What do you want." * Elonith blinks and looks behind him. * The two figures help Elo some distance away from where he landed. Or not, if he's standing. * The third starts chanting something, and his hands start glowing. * Elonith manages to stumble away, sorta... and collapses a few steps forward. * Behind you, is a big black rectangular monolith. There's a symbol etched into the surface of it, a flat line, with 5 lines at an increasing angle from center. * The two figures help Elo away from the monolith. * And now is where a sudden flash of images and memories invade your brain, entire lifetimes and personalities, lived and forgotten and gone in a split second. * Elonith 's body changes as he looses his concentration. The human features mostly go away, as his skin changes to an obsidian black. His hair changes to a much more metallic gold, while his frame gets lighter and thinner. His eyes are closed, so it can't be said if there's gonna be a problem. ( The story of my life.) * The third figure finishes its chanting, and some kind of shell of energy surrounds Elo. * "Is he okay?" "Hello?" "Come on, wake up!" * Elonith opens his eyes and glances around slowly. His eyes almost 'glow' red, and they are pupiless. "Woah... Where am I?" * "Thank god. He survived." Yeah, I survived. * The figures, are, as follows. A catgirl, with streaks of blue fur, some kind of rock-skinned person, and the third is a figure in all-concealing blue robes, except for the pointy hat, which is black, and is face can't be seen except for a big black area. * Elonith winces. "Ow... but what the hell did I just survive? It hurt a lot more than it usually does..." * The catgirl kneels down, to face him. "You survived being pulled against the monolith..." * Elonith doesn't seem phazed in the least by the strange people. "I survived a dimensional rift is what I survived... And I got one hell of a migrane because of it." (Notice: Elonith's talking with the voice of a 10 year-old.) * The catgirl blinks, and the 2nd figure speaks. "He dosen't know." Considering I just landed in your universe, I probably wouldn't know. * Elonith tries to right himself by now... Maybe that magic's doin' it's thang? * The catgirl and the rock-guy let him try! The robed person stops chanting, and whatever was surrounding you momentarilly, isn't there anymore. * Elonith shakes his head and stands up after the ordeal like he's done it before. Which he has. A lot of times. * Catgirl sighs. "I suppose greetings are in order. Welcome to the Realm." Wow, what a trip. Usually it isn't nearly as rough, though. So, what's the story with you? Not many places have a magacian, catgirl, and golem in the same universe... Although I can remember a few. * Rock-guy turns to Catgirl. "He's been around. Should reduce the shock." Hmm, the Realm, eh? I've heard simpler, but it's definetly better than where I come from. The Realm. A one way gathering point for all of time and space. * Elonith smiles innocently, although it's hard to look innocent with those freakish red eyes. "One-way, eh?" Theoretically, it's supposed to be two way. But there's something about those monoliths that destroy anything that touches them. .... Which should have included you, when you were pulled against it. Good thing he did survive it. Hmph. This might be the key to getting out of here. * Elonith nods. "I suppose that's one way of putting it." * Elonith looks up at the rain. "But I don't like the rain that much. Can we talk inside?" * Catgirl blinks, so lost in worry she forgot she was in the rain too. "AIIEEE!" * Catgirl. See Catgirl. See Catgirl run. Into the convenient shelter nearby. * Rock guy chuckles. "Can you make it there yourself, or do you need some help?" * Elonith chuckles as she runs off. "Nah, I've suffered worse." He starts walkin' to the shelter. * Oh. Elo, Linguistics check vs Shantorian. * Dicesuke throws the bones for Elonith (2d6-3) and gets 4. (Oh hell yes I made that.) * The symbol inscribed on the monolith seems familiar. It seems like some really old form of Shantorian, but you can't tell more than that. (Thanks chief!) (So, howzzat shelter?) (Sheltering!) * The shelter is odd, considering your companians. Its got a shiny, high-tech look to it. * Inside is drawers and shelves and whatnot. And a sulking wet catgirl. There seems to be communication equipment in there, too. * Elonith glances around, smiling. "So this is a sort of convergence point, then?" (What language are they talking in, anyways?) ( Normal. You can understand them perfectly, and vice versa. ) (So Common?) (Or just plain-ol-english? :P) Some scientist tried to explain it to me with a bunch of numbers. Its... uh... ( It seems to work no matter what language you speak in. ) (Cool.) * Elonith finds a table and pulls out his laptop. "A singularity of space and time, thru which anything can enter, yet none can exit, right?" A sinkhole in timespace. Um. Stuff comes in, and dosen't go out. Something like that, yeah. No, wait. A singularity was somethin' different. He argued a lot about it. * Elonith starts typing away. "I've heard of them, but never thought they existed... Oh, yeah. There is a difference, can't believe it slipped my mind." * Rock guy shrugs. "I dunno." I haven't seen anyone like him at Temple. Have you? Nuh-uh. * Elonith looks up, barely peeking over the top of the laptop screen. "So, introductions?" Oh, of course! Forgive my apperance, I was so worried when you got drawn to the monolith that I forgot it was raining. I'm Ravana T'thrull. Boomer. You? * Elonith smiles. "Pleasure to meet you too. My name, as far as anyone is concerned, is Elonith Newton." Don't ask me where the first name came from. It's a... long story. Say, has anyone deciphered the carvings on those monoliths? Newton? One of them scientists mentioned that name. *shrug* "Who knows. Could be just a coincidence. Lotsa coincedences in the Realm." * Ravana shakes her head. "No. The leading theory is that they have some kind of symbolic meaning, and aren't actually decipherable." * Elonith nods. "Interesting... I'm going to have to take a look at those again, espically if I'm to find a way out of here eventually." The squirt seems to be settling in already. Think he can make it to Temple on his own? * Elonith finishes typing and folds his laptop. "I am not a squirt!" He pouts. I'll take your word for it. Can't judge a book by its cover, 'specially not here. * Elonith packs up his computer. "What's 'normal' for this place, anyways?" Human, Zentrati, Kingon, Kitsune, Golem, Pixie... what? Eh? Lotsa humanoids. But it's hard to define normal when you got someone from all over the multiverse. ( What are Zentrati? I know I've heard of them before... ) ( Macross! ) (Yes. Elonith has been around the block. A LOT.) (Kingon? *snerk*) (Ooops, Typo. ^_^;) 10 to 1 he makes it to Temple on his own. ( Ah, yes. ) Fine, I guess human will do. A shapeshifter, too. * Elonith closes his eyes. His alien features fade, his hair shortening to a more managable length and being brown now. His skin pales to tanned, and when he opens his eyes, they're normal human brown. His features also grow less distinct, and his figure builds a little more, making him look like an average 12-year-old. * Elonith 's clothes also change, the pants going to blue-jeans, shoes to sneakers, and his shirt chaning to a T-shirt. "So what's this temple you're talking about?" ... Nice. 50 to 1 odds that he could take on a Lord. (Make him a MAN! ) * Elonith is also very much male, thank you very much. Don't even JOKE about that. * Elonith blinks. "Lords? What'cha talkin' about?" Temple. Shrine, Nexus, Center. There's 7 monoliths, in a circle. Temple is the city in the center. * Elonith smirks. "7, my lucky number." Everyone goes there to find any possible ties they might have here. * Elonith holds his head. "Maybe it's best I don't go there then. I don't want to remember my ties..." * Ravana frowns. "Oh? Whats wrong?" * Elonith shudders. "Ya ever wonder why someone jumps thru those portals? Even though they know it'll hurt, and they'll never come back?" No, I'm sorry. I've only been through one myself. I was part of an archeological dig back home, and we found this gate neat the core of a planet. The trip was rather pleasant. But, I ended up here. * Elonith nods. "I'm not so lucky, unfortunately. I got ripped from my dimension by a dimensional rift, because of my genetic makeup... It hurt like a bitch, and I didn't know where I was... Ended up somewhere else, got sucked up by another rift, plopped on another planet..." All the while, learning who I was, and more importantly, *what* I am. Well, whatever you are, you survived contact with a monolith. Thats gotta say something for how tough you are. * Boomer turns to Ravana. "He should see the Lords. They might be able to find out something from him." * Elonith chuckles to himself. "Yeah, lucky me. But, if nobody knows what those things are, I suppose nobody from my universe has managed to find their way here yet... or has abandoned the universe." Anyways, you say there's a nexus I can go to? Which way? * Ravana shakes her head vigorously. "Nu-uh. Who knows what methods they'll use to get it from him." *she turns to Elo* "Don't tell anyone that you survived that, okay? If the Lords found out, they might dissect you or something." Even at the possibility of us all going home? But, you're right. It'd be up to him. * Elonith nods. "Usually people freak out when they find out what I really am. Don't worry. If I find something out, I'll let ya know." Temple. Its... northeast from here, about. I could take you, if you need a guide. * Elonith hmmms... "Magnetic north?" * Elonith looks way up at Boomer. "Are you offering?" Polar. And yeah. Well, turning down a kind offer isn't something I do. Let's be going then. Ravi, you gonna be okay without me? * Ravana nods. "Yeah, I'll be fine." Pitch is still here, and we got some others on call. * Elonith shrugs. "But if you need to look after the lady, I can head off on my own. It's been a while since I've talked to people who knew jack and shit about what they're really into." Then I'm you're man! If you excuse the rocky skin, that is. I don't know everything, but I know the basics. * Boomer grins wryly. "And if I say I know everything, feel free to hit me." * Elonith grins evily. "Oh, I'll do more than that." * Boomer blinks. "Right, squirt, creeping me out. Don't do that." * Elonith packs up and walks to the door. "Hey, it comes with the territory, right?" He pulls out a jacket from his backpack and puts it on, then slinging the backpack over his shoulder. "Ready to go?" Yeah. I was thinking maybe we wait for the rain to stop. Then we head out. * Elonith looks up. "Sure. What kind of tech do you have here, anyways?" He starts looking over the shiny gadgets.