:: Yes, please... so are we all actually melded now? ::

:: I could hear that! ::

The connection to Rose seems less... direct, as if you only hear her thoughts because they are being relayed through Korax...?

:: To be honest, I am not quite sure. It seems that Rose's consciousness is being routed through Korax's, somehow. The melding might be real, or it might be because you two are in the same body. I think that the only way to tell for sure would be for Korax to jump back to his body, first. ::

I gently pick up Korax's body and bring it over to Rose/Korax. :: Go ahead, if you're ready. ::

Rose lays back and closes her eyes.

Her head sways slightly, as if she is dizzy.

After a few moments, Korax stirs, and opens his eyes.

:: I am here! ::

Rose also stirs, and opens her eyes.

:: I am also here! ::

Rose's connection still seems less... direct...

"Yipee! It worked!" I then swap to telepathy: :: It seems that we have successfully melded. The only difference is that Rose seems to be melded to Korax rather that directly me. If my hypothesis is correct, I should be able to make the connection more direct if I briefly jump into your body, Rose. Do you mind? ::

:: Yes, your thoughts do not seem as... direct... as the thoughts of Korax. ::

She glances thoughtfully toward Korax, and then toward you.

:: No, I do not mind, Christopher Chosen. ::

I touch my head to hers and attempt the mind-jump.

OOC: What exactly are you trying to do, and how exactly are you trying to do it, and what positions and locations are your bodies in, etc.?
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 16:58, Fri 02 July 2021.

I sit down cross-legged directly in front of her and lean forward until our heads touch. I then attempt to reach into her body in the same way that I just did with mine.

You feel... her head against yours.

After several moments, she stirs, and opens her eyes, and looks up at you questioningly...

:: Rimbly-grimbly-bim. I guess that I was wrong and I have to jump out of my body and jump back, using my mental interface. Do you mind if I try that, Rose? ::

Assuming that she all right with that, I ask Korax to stand about 10 feet away, I ask Rose to lie down about 5 feet away, I lie down, use the MetaDeep interface to jump out of my body, I float over to her body, let the pressure take me in, we then crawl Rose's body over to mine, and I then do the head-touch-mind-jump thing to get into my body.

You lie down, and attempt to make your consciousness roam from your own body.

You focus...

Awareness of your own body slowly fades...

All is darkness...

...

You feel an awareness of... something... an image... fading into view...



After traveling through a tunnel, you emerge into some type of large chamber, with various icons floating around.

You make your way toward the wall of the chamber directly opposite the tunnel you used to enter:



You mentally reach out to tap the portal... and as you do so, you feel like a magnet that has reached out to tap a refrigerator.

You are sucked through the shimmering field.

-=-

Awareness comes slowly.

You feel somewhat dizzy and disoriented.

A scene comes into focus.

It looks... familiar.

You see sky in the background, and tree branches in the foreground.

The perspective looks rather similar to what you last saw before closing your eyes, but slightly higher...

Your perspective rotates from the upward-looking view down toward Rose.



As you approach Rose's head, you feel like a magnet getting close to a refrigerator...

The world spins, and goes dark...

-=-

After several moments, you open your eyes.

As you sit up, you notice that this body feels... different.  Smaller than your own, yet bigger than Korax.  There are differences in senses.  There are differences in thoughts.  Just as when you first shared a body with Korax, your mind is flooded with these sensations.  The xenophile within you is gorging himself right now...

:: Christopher Chosen, is that you? ::

I pause a bit from the sheer variety of new sensations. :: Yep. Dear me. I forgot how intense direct connection is. How are you feeling, Rose? It looks like we finally have the formula down. ::

You feel her sense of solemn wonder as she also experiences so many sensations new to her.

After a moment, however, you feel the equivalent of a giggle welling up inside of her, as she latches onto a random thought running through your mind.

:: All these new senses, all these new thoughts... and you wonder if I have fingers?  So this is what it means to think like a human... ::

She finds this quite amusing...

GM Question: what sort of thoughts/feelings am I getting from her? I would think that my outlook should be a little different at this point.

OOC: Still sorting it all out.  Just like you don't immediately absorb or understand everything when you first arrive in a new verse, you also don't immediately absorb or understand everything when you first meld with a new mind...

However, you do get a sense of solemn wonder from her.

You perceive that some of her motivation to link with you was to potentially gain knowledge and/or power and/or influence with a Chosen.  For whatever changes may be heralded by your arrival, being able to observe and influence you as you navigate the challenges before you and make choices that may alter the path of this world was a strategic risk even worth revealing any secrets of the fae.

However, you perceive that there is more than that.  There is also something of the xenophile within her.  To be able to meld with you and with Korax, and to travel to other worlds... such a solemn commitment to befriending... is significant to her...

This message was last edited by the GM at 17:55, Fri 02 July 2021.

I think to myself, not that it matters, at this point, if she overhears me: "We Chosen must generally be incredibly powerful if people can be so keen to court our favor. After all, why else would revealing fae secrets be a strategic advantage if it meant gaining influence over me. Not that I mind, of course. I remember a ton of anime that have this exact setup, and those generally had interesting story lines. This could be a ton of fun."

:: So, Rose, I had better try getting back into my body, just in case some issue arises. ::

I try to crawl our body over to my primary body. However, upon reaching it, I take about ten seconds to check for breathing and for a carotid pulse. While checking the latter, I take the liberty of seeing if I am physically capable of pointing with two fingers; otherwise, I just use my 'mitten'.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:49, Fri 02 July 2021.

:: What... is... 'anime'?... ::

Your body is still breathing and beating, as your tiny fingers are able to verify...

I smile inwardly. "Only the best form of entertainment that my kind ever invented! At least, in my opinion. It's a little difficult to describe without... hang on a second! I can just show it to you!"

I pick the scene where All Might fights the Nomu and try to send as a vivid a recreation of the scene (audio and visual) as I can to her. I am under no illusion that I can accurately recreate the sound of the Japanese dialogue.

You sense... confusion.

:: Your people have such powers, and use them to fight one another for entertainment? ::

:: Ah. Not quite, but I understand the confusion. My people had a medium of storytelling called 'animation'. To cut a long story short, it was basically a method of drawing a series of pictures in such a way as to make them appear to move. These 'moving pictures' could then be paired with the appropriate sounds, which were sourced through a method called 'recording' which allowed us to reproduce sounds perfectly without access to the original source of the sound. The moving pictures which were paired with sounds would then be viewed through a device called a 'television'. :: I display a mental image of our television with the previous anime scene playing on it. :: Although the images may look real, to some degree, they are no more real than the descriptions that a storyteller might give or the events described in a book. In other words, anime is just another method of storytelling. ::
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 02:51, Thu 22 July 2021.

You sense... more confusion, although it decreases slightly as she glosses over to your concluding sentence...

:: Your ways are... strange... and sharing my mind and body is even stranger. ::

:: I saw you use my fingers.  Is it strange to you as well? ::

:: Yes, it is quite strange. It's been a while since I had a body this small, and I am certain that I never had a head that was larger than my abdomen. However, I suppose that I don't find it as strange I might. My kind had many stories, all fictional, of course, about these kinds scenarios, and I have a very active imagination. :: I smile inwardly.

She shakes her head in wonder, considering the flood of recent new experiences.

:: The three step path you sent me through...  What does it signify?  Why was your body required? ::

:: Ah yes. The three-step journey was my attempt to simplify the usage of one of my powers. In my world, we have devices call "smartphones" which can do... theoretically anything that is within the scope of human ingenuity, provided that the proper devices are connected to them. These smartphones have an interface which is analogous to what you saw in the three-step journey. I had to explain the interface in terms of the three-step journey because, without the context of smartphones, the journey would have been too confusing. ::

:: But why was your body required, rather than you using the body you were in? ::