On a hunch, based on Vaëlorin's explanation, Cherry makes a scan against the energy records from the Betty's computers. The data indicates that they are, in fact, in a pocket dimension off The Drift, through which hyperspace travel functions.
They must be using some form of engine to shift the biological life forms (or perhaps only certain Diasporum races, since the insectoids are clearly excluded) into that dimension, since the physical objects seem to remain constant in both dimensions.
Is this anomaly something you stumbled upon here or intentionally created?"
"Oh, it be created, enabled by the machines that were engineered of old."
How's life here, anything terrible going on?"Djack seems genuinely curious.
"The sole matter one might deem terrible is our present state; in truth, we cannot depart this place. At the falling of the sun we may for a short while commune with it more directly — thus it was I came upon you. Yet once one is within, alas, they are become a part of the whole."
So you... want to leave?
"We should record this data. Unless those with you have access to it?" Cherry says as she begins to play around. She looks to Vaelorin.
"You know V we could try and recreate this for a variety of offensive and defensive uses"She says excitedly as she pulls up on TOTO a blank slate and uses a stylus to begin to sketch and do maths.
"Commune with what?" Alzura asks the man, seemingly missing the revelation that they are also ostensibly trapped here now that they have entered.
In answer to Alzura: "My meaning was that we could interact, somewhat, with the world outside, during this time. In full daylight, we are separate more fully."
In answer to Joyride: "We have no other dwelling; this place is our home. Yet your pilot — or perchance yourself — may desire to return whence you came, and therein lies our misfortune, for we possess not the means to bring it about. Now that I have delivered you from the insect creatures, you are numbered among us."
'Great, EInstien Rosenbridge math" Cherry says frowning as she then adds.
"As well as drift phrase correllation." She adds as she moves her datapad to begin to work out the math.
You're saying... we can't go back?
You're saying... we can't go back?
"Except in the way that the rest of us can, I fear so," the man confirms. "At least, we here do not possess the understanding to reverse the process."
James looks around, shrugging. Guess retiring here wouldn't be... so bad.
"Its basically a need to resync us to that reality. Math and tech. Vael is theory I am practical" She said as she seems more excited than worried.
"How large is the area you're trapped in? Are there any notable features?"
"Tis hard to judge — greater than the original colony, assuredly. We remain here, within the ancient bounds. The chief redoubt, wherein your pilot lies, was once a hold of the colony’s founding vessel. ’Tis buried yonder, back toward the settlement."
"Was there some old technology here when you arrived?"
"That I know not, Ratkin. Certainly the elders would know of such things."
Vaëlorin’s gaze drifts across the cracked flagstones, as if trying to map the folds of unreality beneath their feet.
"It is not a prison in the traditional sense," he murmurs. "More a mirror turned inward—tinted, tilted, and sealed behind a wall of resonance. We are phantoms in a world that once knew us."
He turns toward Cherry and inclines his head. "She is right—resynchronization is possible in theory, though the math is unforgiving. We will need power, precision, and time... assuming time behaves itself here."
To Joyride, he adds with a faint smile, "Retirement in a broken fragment of reality has its appeal. But I confess I prefer my sunsets metaphorical."
Finally, he turns back to the others. "If the old redoubt holds the machines that built this rift—or worse, the minds that dreamed it—then that is where our answers lie. The boundary may be thinest there. I suggest we find it... and ask the ghost of a colony ship why it refused to die."
"Ah. Very good. Uhm. Take us to your leader!"
"Tin Man is outside. SO hopefully he will be okay"Cherry says as she pauses her equations, as she stands and adjusts her gear to make sure everything is secure and on her,
"Tin Man is outside. SO hopefully he will be okay."
"The creatures do not generally damage machines, if that is what your 'Tin Man' be."
"Ah. Very good. Uhm. Take us to your leader!"
"Aye, I can take you to the redoubt. We're safe enough now."
Your host opens the door, light from the cabin spilling out into the night. The insectoids are nowhere to be seen, yet somehow you can see Tin Man, and indeed can interact with him if you choose.
James looks around trying to notice any... weirdness.
The trees stand like vast statues of themselves — gray and hollow outlines where color should have been, their leaves unmoving, untouched by the wind. The moonlight that should have dappled the ground through the pines comes through instead as faint ribbons of pale gray, like reflections through dusty glass, never quite reaching the earth. Everything that lives — every blade of grass, every creeping vine, every beetle and bird — is visible, but unreal, like figures of frosted glass. If they moved at all, one could not tell with one's eyes.
Where the explorers walk, the world responds in fragments. Fallen branches crack underfoot with a sound like splintering ice; the stones beneath their hands feel solid, yet faintly humming, as though aware of the intrusion. When one reaches to brush aside a fern, his fingers pass through the fronds without resistance, stirring a faint shimmer in the air, a distortion that closes again like water after a stone is dropped.
Colors are wrong — richer in some places, drained in others. The bark of the pines seemed black as iron, but the moss that grows on the ground glows with an inner light, not green but some color without a name, a hue seen only in dreams. Every sound sound distant, disconnected from its source.
The world of growing things is closed to you, untouchable, but the stone and timber and rusted metal of human craft responds to your touch, as if remembering the same reality you come from. In that half-world between presence and absence, the forest seems both eternal and impossibly fragile — a vision that might vanish the moment someone truly looked at it.
Alzura, blade at the ready (well not really, she can only manifest the blade in times of stress), takes the lead. "Is there any, uh, shopping you need to do on the way to the elders, now that we're here?"
Alzura kicks a bush, then a rock. "Why can't we touch the plants? They're alive, like us, so it's not that." Alzura demands of her nerds. Her solution to most things is to punch them. If they need to punch a plant, they will be very sad that it remains unpunched.
"To be sure, my new friend. But all of desire is located in the redoubt, where are also the elders. The entire of the redoubt is in sync with our citizens."
As you move through the village, you see people moving about. Someone is examining the vehicle you hid behind during the battle, as if assessing some scratches to the paint. Everyone you see stops and stares at you as you are lead to the entrance of a building, some sort of barn or shed.
"Be not troubled — they are but taken unawares. As you may well conceive, we have few strangers in our midst. And doubtless they ponder whether your coming be linked to the pilot of that Raptor, as you so eloquently name it."
Heading into the redoubt, you see at first only an old barn, with all the rural accoutrements one would expect. But at the far end, you see two men who look like police or security guards, and an open set of metal doors leading into the ground.
Heading over, the security guard notes your escort and nods. "Liam."
[/b]"More guests?"[/b] the guard asks.
"Indeed; they come in search of the pilot."
"Same deal. Entry is barred when so armed," the man says, nodding to the group's weapons, particularly the firearms and energy weapons.
Aluzra is apparently not armed. "Kinda a rude way to talk to guests."
James gives up his firearm.
"Okay" She gives over her grenades and guns, her knife and Dashko remain if she heard right.
Burlap looks at their host and the guards with skepticism. ”Why’s that? Got something in there that’s allergic to weapon’s fire?”
"Possibly everything is."
" I mean Most dont survive a lead injection" She days with a laugh
Burlap does not sense any malice in the man's tone or posture.
"Just simple security. They'll be returned when you leave the redoubt."
Once disarmed, the group is allowed to enter. The double doors lead to an old style chain-lift elevator. Your host bids you enter, and soon, you are in a world within a world.
The ancient cargo module, buried here long ago, has been sectioned off into a large complex; no one LIVES here, or at least few, but much of the other business of the complex appears to be represented, according to the street signs.
As you move toward the Council Hall, a man whose garb does not match that of his peers stops working on repairing an old refresher engine, puts down his wrench and comes over to the crew quickly.
"Behold, you pilot!" your host notes as he approaches.
The man has sandy-brown hair that grows long over his ears, and the confident swagger of a starfighter pilot.
"Boy, am I glad to see you guys! Tell me you're a rescue party!"
Alzura visually inspects the pilot. "You the pilot of the... uh, what kinda ship were we lookin' for? Stardrop fighter?"
"Juce Digly, at your service." Alzura recognizes the name. Juce is famous as a starfighter veteran, and infamous as a scoundrel.
"Raptor," Juce corrects.
James, still somewhat confused regarding the whole... dimensional thing, listens on in the hopes of learning something.
Or at least understanding some thread of the conversation he could tug upon. He watches as introductions unfold.