You're toting a large box of chemistry equipment on your shoulder through your lab with a short, blonde girl acting as your guide to wear to put it down. Of course, she doesn't think to mention the electrical cables snaking across the ground. After all, she steps lightly over them, but you are burdened, and with this box on your shoulder your sightlines are restricted.

You hit the cables, topple, and with dismay at what your professor is going to say feel the box go flying off your shoulder. You hit the ground, and feel the air drive from your lungs. The next chemistry laden table over you see the cable has been yanked from a wall.

Good thing the floor hasn't been mopped this morning.

And then looking up, you see a vial of yellowish fluid dropping off the table next to you. It drops in slow motion it seems, and spatters on your chest, and down on the floor.

For a split second you see electricity leap from the end of the several inch thick cable to a splash of the chemical, and then arc to the next splash, and...then it hits you.

Your last thought in that world is ...

"That must have been a great conductor..."

=============================================================

You wake surrounded by liquid, and feeling strangely full as if you'd overate at a all you can eat buffet.  You feel no pain, but you do taste salt.

PT

It would seem that I've been given a funeral at sea...

I swim towards whatever source of light I can distinguish, and when I reach the surface, take a deep breath, and check myself. Am I injured? Where am I? Have I lost anything? Why aren't I in a hospital, or at least a mortuary?
This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Tue 13 May 2008.

You see what seems to be a small whirlpool to your left.  Out of it, an occasional object will fly, and then usually drift to the bottom of the crystalline sea.

But you must be hallucinating because you just saw a toilet bowl change into a short man with sturdy arms who wears a bowling outfit.  You find the surface is farther away than you expected, but you're doing fine.

Eventually you make the surface, grateful that you have better lungs than you had realized.  You try to breathe in, and find that you have to cough out a lot of water first.

And then you take a shuddering gasp of clear air.

The sky is bright blue overhead, and around you are islands with white beaches, and islands with trees going into the water at varying distances, but the closest is a hundred yards away.

PT

100 yards to shore, easy. Maybe somebody there can help me figure out what happend to me.
Or I could investigate this whirlpool, if it really is a whirlpool. No, I should first concern myself with safety. Unusual auqatic/hallucinogenic phenomena can wait. I should find somebody, find out where I am, what to do.
Hee, maybe my phone still works... or could be made to work...
Maybe that whirlpool coughed up or will toss out something usefull.

I look for my cellphone and try to call somebody. If it's not on me, I'll dive down and look at the stuff scattered around by the whirlpool. If I don't see anything allong the lines of telecommunication equipment, I'll look at the islands, and try to remember this postition. Then I'll swim to the nearest shore.

You see a long stick carved in the shape of a fish that dropped spear like into the white sand. You see a bottle of Chateaubriand 1942 which is moving in regular rows across the sandy floor, and making lines in the sand as it does.  A two foot tall man, with black hair, and a white suit with bangles, and pointed ears waves at you from the bottom as well. He's carrying a guitar which is solid  black.

Fearing for your sanity, you scoop up the first thing that looks remotely comm device like, and then the second thing.

Still not feeling out of breath, you get back to the surface.

The first is a large, brick like thing. The second, you touch a button by mistake, on its front and with a whoop-beep the lid pops open.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you. Not my reality. The Awe is a real stickler in the mud if you take my drift." The voice coming from the communicator sounds familar.

You spit out water, and breathe in air.

PT

Who'd have thought I'd actually find something that actually works.

"Well could you just answer me some questions then? Who are you, where am I and what's an Awe?"

Well at least this one works, but what about this brick-thing.

I swim to shore, and look for the sun, to get some navigational data, and perhaps a quick tan.

"Some people call me Coyote, others Q. You're in the Eye-lands with an 'E', and the Awe is the local deity in charge of this universe.  Of course, you have a problem. You're talking to someone who lies for fun and mischief. So am I lying?"  A friendly, yet mocking chuckle comes over the line. "Now be quick, I have to go mess with the captain of a certain starship again."

You arrive at the beach, and drag yourself up on the white sands.

PT

"So I take it then you dumpt me here, and Awe doesn't mind that, but does mind you helping me get out of this mess. Why is that?
...
Ok, now if you don't mind too much I got to take care of my life for a moment.
Oh and tell the good captain I LIKE KIRK BETTER!"
>:-)

Islands with an E?... and where on earth are those? Maybe I can find out.

I mark a tree, (with either my pocket knife, or some other sharp object.) then I'll look for a stick and plant it in the ground, and mark the shadow it makes on the ground. Then, about every hour or so, I'll mark the new position of the shadow, untill night falls. This primitive  Solar disk will allow me to tell the direction of the pool, the time, my Latitude, and if I still have my watch, my Longitude. In the time I'm not drawing lines in the sand/dirt/whatever, I'll look for some food and drink. If I have those, I'll examine my "large, brick like thing".

Between Q and the hallucinations, I could be stuck here for a looooong tiiiiime.

"Actually no, I had nothing to do with your arrival. Its just one of those communicators got caught up in a time/space vortex, a minor thing really, in the midsts of my experiments with the Andromeda Galaxy. And so it had a connection to me."

Q pauses and his voice turns icy.

"I. Do. Not."  He grunts. "The barbarian punched me in the nose. I much prefer Picard. He pretends to be civilized."

The comm link clicks off.

You have your watch. You notch a small pine tree, and all alone walk back to the forlorn stick to work on the probably useless experiment.  For a number of minutes you fall into despondency, until finally it lets up.

Placing a call on the cellular phone you hear....

"Yes, speak up. This is #1246984573."

PT

I'll keep the communicator, trekkies will understand my situation. They tend to be a bit dramatic, but they usually pull though in the end. Hang on, did I just consider a fictional spaceship to be a reliable source of aid!?!

"Hi there, #124684...3...something , I'm beached on a place called the Islands but with an E. Could you help me get out of here and back home?"

I check my pockets, see if anything else besides my watch survived my trip n dip.

"What's your designation? I don't know any E-lands. I'm stationed near NP1, but I'm always willing to help out a chum. Course, we've got a few invaders coming in, I'm going to have gut some of them, but I got a few minutes to spare." He's fairly casual about 'gutting'.

"Is this anything to do with that weird destabilization we just went through. Because me and my buds up here at NP1 have got no clue."

Your stuff looks undamaged by the water.  You find it very easily as well, almost as if you know where things are without looking for them.  In fact, you feel as if you left something down the eye-land to your left.

PT

"My designation? is eh... #1249864341. Look, I'm stuck on some pine covered island, do you have the resources to come and pick me up, or are you to busy gutting?"
You'd think you could get the coastguard or something, but I don't think I'll have the time to quietly figure out their number. Hang on...
"Or maybe you could tell me the phone-number of the local coastguard? That would be very helpfull."

Guess I'll just work on the solar disk and basic survival needs. But first I'll find that thing I left down the eye-land to my left.
I go down to the eye-land to my left, and look for the thing I've apparently left.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:24, Tue 20 May 2008.

"I'm in the Coast Guard. But I'm in the 'T' Force.  Did you want someone in the 'White' Force? Or one of the 'mighty slimers' as we call them? Or I can connect you with HQ at Marrow Road?" There is a bit of a laugh in his voice at that last couple.

"I have to add...some of these concepts you're using don't really seem to be translating properly....'island' for one. 'Pine' for another. Are you one of the DDream People?

A bit baffled, you walk along the very pleasant white sands of the beach for about a quarter-mile until you see a small hut built near the water edge. The odd feeling seems to be coming from it.  Meanwhile you've heard some grunts and thumps over the phone.

"Got most of 'em, laddie, but not all. They got through Cillia Forrest, and hit us hard. Hopefully the roaming patrols will finish them off."

PT

"Send over whomever is responsible for search and rescue. Day-Dream people, never heard of them."

I take a careful peek into the hut.

(not into the cell phone)"Hello? Anybody home?"

"They're part of the Idea Generating Complex along with Immagics, and Symbolic Logics, and Archetypical Technicians.  Its very glamorous work being a receptor for the Quantum Field Pattern, but without the Coast Guard, the whole universe would be destroyed by outside invaders. Speaking of which, I've got to go. Got some nasty fellows inching their way up the NP1. I would send some over  your way, I mean help, pal, but I have no idea where you are talking about. I know of no location inside the Universe which corresponds to 'E'-land. Not from the top to the bottom of the Universe."

He hangs up.

You duck your head into the one-room cottage.

A sun-dried blonde guy with bushy hair and large eyebrows is sitting on a something that looks like a giant conch shell, but it seems soft under him.  He looks up at you with surprise, half-closes his eyes, and then nods in revelation.

"Welcome, fellow verser to Aquatica. Most folk call me Cap'n Ryan. On account of way back when, I was a captain on the Waveskipper. Sweetest smuggler you ever did see. With her foils locked, she could fly. Course you can't run something like her here."

PT

I sit myself somewhere in the cabin.

"Verser? What is a verser? And why couldn't you use the Waveskipper here? The water seems perfect for sailing and boating of all kinds."

"People like you and me, sonny. Get tangled up with scriff, become quasi-immortal multiversal travellers."

He pulls out his Seiko electronic diver's watch, and shows it to you. Its not running. He then punches a button on the side.  A tiny, two inch tall Japanese salariman appears, bows, and in perfect Japanese announces what sounds like the time.  Since you don't know Japanese, you're not sure what he said.

"There is a lot of magic here, but technology higher than the lever doesn't work. And the magic seems to have a  quirkiness, and a pervasiveness thats unusual, I hear from other fellow versers that have dropped through."

PT

Riiiiiiiiiight, this is some sort of dream. I'll just pinch myself an wake up.
I pinch myself.
AAAAAAAAAA, son of a B...

"Ok, so why are you just sitting here?
...
Do you know anything about a whirlpool spitting out junk in the sea just of shore, or any other people on these islands."

"At one time, I tried to Fight the Power, and Do the Right Thing, but I found its far easier to sleep on my conch, wander the beach a bit, and watch the world go by. If you're asking, why am I here? I'm here because I slept in. Very pleasant." He shrugs, and smiles. "You want something to eat or drink?"


He nods, and gets up to putter around the kitchen end of his cottage.

"Sure, the whirlpool, near as I can figure it, sucks things in from in between the walls as it were, and then dumps them out above the Changing Sands. When you and I were passing nearby, if that concept makes any sense, we got sucked in. As to people, well, thats a yes and a no. I haven't seen another human, I assume you're human, in at least three  years. But there are plenty of people of all sorts and shapes. Not all of them have two legs or any legs atall."

"Yes, I would like something to eat and drink, thanks."

Some useful information at last. It sounds weird, but paradimensional junk-spitting vortexes are weird. Ryan is unlikely to be of any help though, and even if he was, he wouldn't be very interesting to hang around.

"And these other people, do they too just live life as it comes and goes, or do they have a more active lifestyle?"

"Well, that varies by temperment, don'tcha know. The 'Uman, my chief concern in this area, likes to use her cat of nine-tails to lash people. And the Pie Rats are an annoyance. There's some kindly folk that live on the bottom of La Goon Lagoon not like the Pie Rats who live atop it. And there are the Towers of Menhaden if you like the big city. They're always working. And on the north side of the Eye-land is some female lawyer types...the Sue She."

He opens a cabinet, pulls out a chunk of meat, and drops it into a basin of water. He stirs the water, and you smell cooking meat. He pulls it out with a pair of tines that chime out a song as they near the meat.

"Itssssss donnnnnnnnneeee" The lovely harmony fades.

"Bare Beer Bear meat" He drops it on a plate for you, and provides a Swiss Army Knife to eat it with. "Half beer, half bear. It dissolves in your mouth, not in your hands." He pauses and thinks. "It grows on the barely trees, on the lee side of the eye-land."

PT

Bare Beer Bear Bore Bump...meat. Sounds like a reeeaaal treat. It's a new experience.

I take a big bite from the Bare Beer Bear meat.

"So if you needed some help, who of these people would you turn to?"

The meat turns into a mouthful of smooth brew and cooked roast bear.

"Why sonny, you're a verser. What help would you need? Nothing can really stop us. Kill us, sure, but that's no big deal for you and me."  He seems startled by the notion of asking for help, but then shrugs. "The Towerfish are good at things, but they require U.S. Grants and Link-coins and lots of them. If you can find him, there's a fellow over on the north side of the eye-land...Duperman...I think he's one of the Mark Kens truthfully, although no one else agrees with me.  If you can yell like a girl, he might come to your aid."

He pauses.

"Now if you really want help, the Water Lady is, I hear, very powerful in her Temple Under the Sea. But its hard to get to, and I've never bothered to try."

PT

"Ok. The Water Temple, where is that? Well, thanks for the meal and the info. Maybe I'll drop by again sometime."
Water Lady, huh. I'll try her next. Why did I need help again?
I head for the Water Temple.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:32, Fri 30 May 2008.

"Well you asked what I'd do if I needed help. I assumed you needed help, or thought you did. Head south, keep on going, avoid the seaweed maze which might trap you forever."

You turn to the door, and see two people standing there. One is a man with red hair and blue eyes. The other is a female in archaic clothing.

"Excuse me, I'm Christophe, and this is my wife, Annie. I'm recruiting for a problem that needs to be solved."

"I don't want any problems. I like living the peaceful life. Besides Christophe, I've heard of you. Have you assasinated ten emperors yet? You're a stone cold killer."

"If I was, I might kill you, but I won't."

"Because there would be no point to it."

"No, because it would be rude."

The man seems very polite and charming in manner, but Cap'n Ryan seems somewhat afraid of him all the same.

OOC: I'm taking a two week vacation (something I've done before, or close enough), and if you like you can join in Krillis' temporary gather.  This is your chance to do so, if you like.

PT

"Maybe I could help?"

OOC: sounds ok, but where do I find this gathering?

The man reaches out to hold your hand, and the world wavers around you....

========================

Krillis should be posting a thread entitled "Temporary Gather: something, something" later today (although I need to talk to him a bit.)