Ian In The Wrong Place? - OTA

[ubuntu_programmer]

Open/locked?: Open
Who: Ian and whomsoever encounters them
What: Ian arrives in Auradon
Warnings: Some angst, maybe?


There was a figure slumped by the wall, their white and black hair disheveled, their glasses on the grass beside them. Their small suitcase was over their legs, their backpack dangling from one arm. After a moment they groaned and lifted a hand to their head. "Did I get hit by a truck or something...?" They mumbled.

Eyes opening, they looked around. "Well that's not good. I can't afford to be hallucinating now." They picked up their round lensed glasses and checked them before putting them on, then fished a phone out of their pocket. "No bars. Of course. I need to write an algorithm that will allow my phone to find signal from anywhere in the world. Of course, I should still be close enough to get signal anyway, hallucination or no. So... what is actually going on here...?"

Comments

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Okay, whatever my snack was laced with, it was good, I'll give it that much."

They got their drink from the machine and took a sip. "All the same, I'd like to sober up soon."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"If you're waiting for things to stop being weird- or extra weird, as the case may be-, I'm afraid you're in for a long wait," Lea said. "Because for better or worse, all this is actually happening. You're drinking real coffee in the real kitchen of a real boarding school in a real alternate dimension with real magic. And no amount of denial is gonna change that."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Look... I can accept a lot of weird things as potentially possible. I might even be able to accept alternate realities or dimensions. I can accept the potential of other worlds. But there is only one Magic I believe in," they said with an implication that this... wasn't it.

[hotheadwarmheart]

Oh yeah, he was definitely going to have to convince Mal to go dragon in front of them. And take video of their reaction. It would be priceless. "Well I mean you can refuse to believe in it if you want," he said. "But in places like this world or the one I'm from, magic is just a part of the natural world. Trying to deny it exists is like trying to deny rain exists; you can do it, but eventually you're still gonna get wet."

[ubuntu_programmer]

A brow raised and then they shook their head. "Look, if it gets me home faster, I'll try to believe anything you want. But short of that... I'm sorry, I just... don't."

[hotheadwarmheart]

This unwillingness to accepts the existence of magic could be an issue if it persisted. True, he figured evidence would eventually win out, but how long would that take? Maybe it was just the terminology that was the problem? He'd consider it.

Right now though there were more pressing concerns. "Alright, tabling the magic discussion for now," he said. "When it comes to getting home, I've got good news and bad news. Which would you like first?"

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Since bad news usually gives me something I can work on fixing, let's start there."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"OK, the bad news is that there's isn't a way to send any of us home currently," he said. "It is on the priority list, but we don't really have a lot to go on other than what I already told you about how we got here, so... yeah."

"The good news is that while you're here, time effectively stops on your world, at least as far as you're concerned. So however long you're stuck here, as far as your world is concerned, you never left. Which is great if you had any time-sensitive things going on back there."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Wait wait wait, hold up. You're telling me that whatever technology brought us here is tied up in time tech?" Yeah, they needed a better term for that...

But still, could this all be related to the experiment? They really needed to have access to Ziggy...

[hotheadwarmheart]

"It wasn't technology, but... kinda?", Lea said. "Basically, you're brought here from a certain place and time, you'd get put back at that same place and time if and when you got sent back; at least that's how I understand it."

"And any of your friends could turn up here from a different time than you. Or a different version of your world. Or both. Or another version of you could turn up, one who ended up in a totally different career, or who has superpowers, or has cat ears and a tail." He shrugged. "Basically just... welcome to the multiverse; it only gets weirder from here."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"I've read up on multiversal theory of course, but no credible theory accounts for magic," they pointed out. "Still the relationship between the multiverse and time, in very theory I've encountered was quite different. Specifically that time is the causation of the fractures which in turn become themselves the multiverse."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Bet none of them ever accounted for people being randomly scooped up and dropped in another universe- sometimes multiple times- either, but here we are," Lea said. "Me, I've been hauled all over the multiverse for... I think about two years now, give or take, and let me tell you, it's about 1000% weirder than anybody's gonna put in any kind of serious theory. The last world I was in, among other things, I help fight a crazed Chaos entity that looked like swirling rainbow colors and was made of the mingled-up psychic remains of a planet that was wiped out by a mysterious cloud of dark shapes that we could only call the World Eaters cause that's what they did. The multiverse is absolutely freaking nuts, and even if you think you how things work in one world, that doesn't mean they work that way in any other."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Now I know you're pulling my leg." Ian shook their head.

[hotheadwarmheart]

At that, Lea's tone and expression both changed. Uptil now he'd been fairly casual, but now he was clearly annoyed, even a bit angry. "You think I'd joke about something like that?", he said. "People literally died because of Chaos and the World Eaters. Some of them because the crew I was with wasn't able to get to them in time. I may be kinda a smart-mouth, but that's not something I'd ever use to mess with somebody, got it memorized?"

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Honestly, I'd rather it be real that someone I just met has a dark sense of humor than that it actually happened. For multiple reasons. I'm certain you'd rather be joking too, all things considered, yes?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Yeah there's... a lot of stuff I wish I could say I was making up just to screw with people," Lea said with a bit of a sigh. "But I'm not. I've been honest about everything I've said to you so far. This is all real and all really happening, even the parts that sound straight out of a comic book or a video game. You're probly gonna see some absolutely insane stuff, good, bad, and in between before this is all over."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Video game... too much to hope I passed out playing Dark Souls and this whole last year's just been one messed up dream...?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

At that Lea smiled a bit again. "Unfortunately, yeah," he said wryly. "Sorry, buddy."

"Though that does remind me how long it's been since I've had a proper game night. Me and Isa used to do that a lot when we were kids, stay up way too late, eating pizza and playing video games when we were staying over at each other's houses. Don't think either of our moms would've bought us a game called 'Dark Souls' though. Mostly it was things like Super Marietti Brothers or Hyperman- platformers- or Blocktrix- a puzzle game that involved stacking up colored blocks, with the occasional racing or fighting game thrown in. We had some RPGs too, but those were hard to play together unless we took turns."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Super Mario Brothers? Bomberman? Tetris...? Sounds like you got all the knock off games. Well if I am rally stuck here, at least I can help with that. I was on my way to some in office glamping and I thought gaming might be just the thing... so I might have a lot of my gear packed. No oculus, that's just asking for trouble, but I have pretty much everything else we'd need. And I think I can rig it up so we could MMORPG together if I can connect to the servers. I mean... I could always rig up a private local intranet to lan party it old school style, that's what I was going to have to do anyway for security reasons. So I should have the cables. It's just more fun if we can get a group together for bigger dungeons."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea shrugged. "That might be what they were called in your world," he said. "No way to tell really, unless we got copies of both to compare. All I know is that they and their sequels were pretty popular games back when I was a kid."

"Though that's another thing. Any phones or computers or whatever that you brought with you? They won't connect to the local network. Any offline features will still work fine though, and we'll give you a phone that will connect. We've got a bunch to hand out to new people, since apparently the school's headmistress invested pretty heavily in a tech company and they sent her some spare stock. And if we run out of those, we recently gained access to a little shopping plaza that includes an electronics store."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"You clearly underestimate me," they said with a grin. "A phone that does actually connect and an electronics store? I'll be able to make things work well enough for gaming. That much I can promise." And... hopefully for calling out.

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Well you're welcome to try," Lea said with a bit of a shrug. "It'd be really helpful if you could. But if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath. Vexen tried it before in the last place we were in, but no luck."

"And just in case you were getting any ideas, ask Ben first before you go grabbing stuff from the electronics store, OK? It is still a store, after all, even if its owner's not around. If there's something you actually need though, Ben'll probably cover it."

"Anyway," he said, "now that we've secured coffee and tea, how about I give you a tour? We can stop by the info booth in the lobby and get your your phone and a FAQ sheet; that actually covers a lot of what I've already told you, but there's some other stuff too and it'll probly still be handy to have, especially since this is your first cross-world kidnapping."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"I'm not a thief. I didn't know the shop owner's wasn't around, I planned to pay for my tech, thanks," they said giving Lea a look. "And a tour would be fine, especially if it gets me a phone and a place I can safely lock my stuff up so it won't be stolen while we're wandering around."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"I didn't think you would be normally," Lea assured them. "But basically the entire population pooffing off to who knows where isn't exactly normal." He indicated for Ian to follow him as he led the way out the opposite entrance to the kitchens. "Though you'll find that Auradon's not big on locks. I mean the doors to rooms can be locked, but most of the locals wouldn't think to."

[ubuntu_programmer]

They followed. "So... no one thinks they have anything of value to protect?"