OOC: This is a placeholder for McCallister's new thread, GMed by Tadeusz.  Feel free to change the title if needed...  :)

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You wake from a dream of discussing Platonism with Humpty Dumpty, and every time you are about to make a point he changes the meanings of the words.

And then you're laying by a open stone gate high on a steep hillside over a vast circular valley.

Humpty Dumpty was actually starting to make sense that last time...

 I slowly climb to my feet taking in my surroundings. Generally speaking an open gate is a good thing but what lay beyond was a bit strange and looked more than a bit intimidating like a garden of sorts or an arena. Beyond merely what was out in front of me I also try to get a sense of what sort of life was here if any and if there was a wall attached to the gate and if the gate was shut would I be trapped and otherwise what was surrounding the valley in general...

 The fact that I couldn't remember my last verse was a bit worrying but also the idea that I have finally accepted that home is probably unreachable. Therefore wherever I landed was a new home...

Lets see if we can figure this place out.

In reply to McCallister (msg # 2):

It looks like you could walk around the gate on either side.  The trees on the steep almost cliff look like palms and jacqueranda and banana mixed with ferns and blackberry bushes.

Down below you see some movement under trees, but its hard to make out from the distance and the overhanging branches.

Behind you, the air shimmers.

 "At least the food might be edible," I say to know one in particular.

 I turn as I notice the air begin to shimmer behind me like heat waves. I back away slowly, careful not to look threatening. I hold up my hands as if to emphasize the point or to ward whatever it might be.

The air still occasionally shimmers a couple minutes later...

 Since I'd lost a few of my cards in my previous worlds I experimentally offer a two of clubs to the shimmer. I continue to press it towards the shimmer to see what, if anything, happens.

 If it's just heat or something else, it would be good to know.

The two of clubs flips and dips, and plunges through the shimmer.  For a second, you see a gray-walled corridor beyond as some of the shimmer parts, but then things are back to normal, except your card is gone.

 My hand flips up to my chin and I nod to myself. Some sort of illusion or teleportation. Interesting. Perhaps this is all illusion, only one way to find out.

 I see if I can hammer a stake into the ground before the stone gate and tie off my rope and begin to descend the slopes of this place. As I carefully descend, I'm careful to check for any of that movement I saw earlier. My occupation at this point is to test some of the fruit, especially the bananas. I've missed those in my trek.

You're going down the side (rappelling?), and occasionally a bit of rock mixed with pebbles breaks off underfoot and scatters down slope.  After fifty feet, its not too  hard to pick bananas from the ground, and you get a half dozen, constrained by the need to carry them, and climb, or you could get more.

Another fifty feet, and you're halfway down the slope face, and you come to a pleasant staircase cut into the cliff.  It descends to the right (if you were facing the valley) and goes up to the left.

An archeotryx, a flying dinosaur, about a foot tall is curiously studying you from a palm tree ten feet away.

(OOC: Ok, I wasn't sure if it was actually a cliff or a slope that was really steep.)

Oh, a proto-bird. Excellent.

 I drop to the stairway and I take out my camera, I get a quick shot of that archeotryx. I stow the camera and untether my AK-47 from my frame pack, if there are other dinosaurs around I need to be ready. Which way to go...?

 I decide to head down, I've only seen one dinosaur and that was the famed Allosaurus named Grendel. My eyes are peeled, I wouldn't want to run into one of those again, at least by chance. One great thing about being a Verser was the lacking fear of death. Pain on the other hand was something I'd not quite grown accustomed to. Briefly I picture thousands of rats flittering through universes like a maze, pain teaching what directions not to go to...

The flying dino, err perching, flinches when you take the picture.  But it grooms itself when it realizes its not harmed.  Then it hisses at you, but with no sign of being willing to leave its tree.

You walk on down the easy steps, and eventually come to a trail surrounded by low grass and overshadowed by hickorys and maples.  You hear a hum off to your right, but while the trees are well spaced, whatever is causing the noise, you cannot see.

And as you think about pain, you remember a rune that allows you to block pain, if I remember right.

(OOC: yep!)

 The rune that blocks pain was a blood rune I'd learned from a witch before I had gone to meet Grendel. The rune was able to stop me from feeling pain but not until I was able to invoke, draw or picture it in my mind. Nevertheless I'd still been crushed by a boulder and shot a few times, the rune was useful but not instantly useful and that was ok, but it still made me wary of such things.

 This valley was the forefront of my mind though, and distraction would surely end my visit to this world much faster than anything else. I tried to get a fix on the direction of the hum and to see if I could identify the source before I found it. Perhaps bees? Whatever the case was, I raised my gun to face it and made sure it was loaded.

Using the large bodied giants as cover, you drift from one to the other through knee-high grass, until you see a robot ahead. Flinching back behind an oak, you settle yourself, assure that it indeed is the source of the hum, and poke your head back around.

Its four foot tall, has four heron like legs, a spherical body eighteen inches across of dull silvery metal, and a single arm on a belt about its equator.

It is adding a set of initials and a heart  to the five already on that trunk, which those others look healed or mostly so.

 As I settle myself I think about the possibilities here. A crazy robot that writes on trunks. Unlike HAL-9000 had a set of data banks that could be turned off, but this bot had none of that visible at least. On the other hand, those heron legs might be easy to sweep but if this was anything like Portal playing out before him, there could be many more of these droids.

 I take a chance. "Hello," I say as I step from cover and going for a Spock-like first contact meeting, "do not be alarmed, I mean you no harm."

"Thank you.  Do you wish to declare a medical emergency, or otherwise need assistance?"

This wasn't the outcome I'd been expecting, but when you assume the worst you are often surprised, at least it hadn't been carving hearts with initials on corpses. "Hello, yes I would like assistance. Where is this place and what can you tell me of this facility?"

"This is the Generation Ship, Stairstep Universe, populated by Padzoeikans from their home world of Padzoeika."  It says in perfect English.  "I am 432, a gardening robot."

 This was definitely not the outcome I'd been imagining. "What is the Stairstep Universe?...and what are Padzoeikans?"

"This generation ship is the Stairstep Universe.  The Padzoeikans are the species that built this ship, and some of them live here.  The ship name comes from the multi-wall, or stairstep structure of the universe, with this being Wall 2, which is about 750 billion lightyears from the Center."

OOC: Yes, I said Billion, which considering the Milky Way is a hundred thousand?? lightyears across means you're a Very Long Way from Center.

 I paused while I assimilated the information. That was a very long way away from the center. "You mentioned that we are aboard a ship. Do you mean to tell me that the ship is 750 billion lightyears in radius? I suppose I also don't understand the nature of the stairstep universe and it's walls..."

 This was perhaps one of the few futuristic Verses I'd ended up in, so this seemed like a rare treat so far.

"The ship is named for an aspect of the universe." The robot pauses, and you can see its likes blinking.  Its struggling.  "The ship is ten miles, 140 yards long.  It is eight miles, 310 yards wide.  It is four miles, two yards deep.

The Library has full holovid educational programmng with advanced tutorial expert systems. I reccommend you go there."

 "Excellent," I smiled, starting to grasp the ship's not unlimited size, "ok can you provide me with a map of the ship so I can find the Library?"

"Just a minute." It uses a spinning saw on the end of arm to cut a chunk of bark loose. It is very careful not to cut too deep.

Then it uses the bark to incise a map with a fine laser.  The library is just this side of towncentre, and about two miles away.