Patchwork Universe

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

(OOC: Abigail arrives from Periphery: Green Globes 'The joy of bouncing')

Halfway up the wall of mist to the South, a small cartoon girl appeared at high speed. Suddenly realising that she wasn't a green ball any more, she pulled a rainbow golf umbrella out of her pocket, and used it to slow her fall.
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Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

Below, on the black wasteland, a group of apprentices had been practising their earth elemental magic. It hadn't been going well.

"How are we supposed to effect a decent transmogrification on this muck?" asked Tal, kicking at the black ground. "It's barely even earth anymore."
"I think the point is that it's nearly impossible," said Suli, squatting down and prodding at the ground in a thoughtful way.

Vivi wasn't looking at the ground, she was looking up into the sky.
"What's that?" she said, drawing the others' attention.

The two boys turned and looked up at the small figure descending rapidly while clinging on to a brightly coloured umbrella. It was clear the umbrella was not doing enough to slow the rate of the newcomer's fall.

The three apprentices turned to look at each other and then twisted around to look at the top of the Dark Towers. The mangonel was not hurling blue flame, therefore the newcomer wasn't one of their master's enemies.
"Levitation spell gone wrong?" Tal suggested, regarding the fall with a professional air.
"Not enough lift," Suli agreed.
"Stop gawking and help me with this!" Vivi ordered. She had pulled off her grey apprentice's cloak and flapped it out towards them.

Grabbing the edges of the cloak Tal and Suli helped stretch it out taut and looked up in the sky again, trying to stay directly beneath the trajectory of the falling arrival.

From Abigail's point of view the triangle of grey fabric had seemed very small when she first saw it but was getting larger and larger all the time. The three faces of the apprentices were uptilted, staring at her with wide eyes as she fell towards them.

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

Abigail aimed for the small patch of grey as well as she could, hoping for some more bouncing, but all it did was absorb some of her momentum, and despite the apprentices' best efforts, she hit the ground with some force.

"Ow!" Abigail was confused. She was hurting. She hadn't been hurt since... since before she was a Toon. She got up slowly, and looked at herself - she looked almost like a normal person. Her colours had acquired shading, and she was hardly outlined at all. Something was wrong.

"Thank you for catching me but where am I? What's happened? I'm not supposed to look like this!"
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

As Vivi put her cloak back on the three apprentices regarded the newcomer. She was admittedly a bit strangely coloured and there was something odd about her aura but neither feature really stood out that much.

In turn Abigail saw three children, aged about between eleven and thirteen. All wore grey cloaks over grey robes.

"Was it supposed to be a shapeshifting spell?" one of the boys asked, curiously. "You look normal to me."
"Are you a new apprentice?" the second boy asked.
The girl rolled her eyes in sympathy with Abigail at the universal cluenessness of boys.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, picking up the battered umbrella and offering it to Abigail. It too was decidedly less perky looking than it had been. "I'm Vivi, and these are Tal and Suli. We're apprentice mages. What's your name?"

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

"I'm Abigail" said Abigail. "I'm not an apprentice, and I can't do spells, but I am hurt. I don't like being hurt. In Toon Town, I could fall that far even without you catching me, and I wouldn't be hurt."

She rubbed her arms, where bruises were starting to appear, and tried to put her umbrella back into her pocket, but although it went in further than it should have, it wouldn't fit all the way back in. Abigail looked shocked, took it out and tried again, but this time it didn't work at all.

"My pockets don't work either!" She put the umbrella down, and reached into a different pocket, but her hand came out holding something that looked like a broken bit of machinery.

She sat down on the floor and started to cry.
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

The two boys looked embarrassed and shifted their feet uncomfortably. Vivi put her arm around Abigail's shoulders and glared at them.
"Don't just stand there," she said. "Who's got the herb bags and the potion manual?"

There was a general turning out of pockets and sleeves. Abigail watched, this production of items only made her feel worse about her own pockets' failure to work.

Tal's hoard included a white quill pen and a jar of glowing white ink and stepping back a bit he uncapped the ink and drew some lines on the black ground in a wobbly set of sigels which, when completed, glowed briefly red and then a small camping fire appeared inside them. Meanwhile Suli had produced a jar of transparent liquid and a selection of small fabric bags, each tied with a different colour string. Picking up a little black leather bound book from the pile, Vivi began to leaf through it.
"Elfmoss and feverfew for bruises," she announced. "And put some sweetbark in so it doesn't taste horrid."

Unscrewing the lid and dropping a selection of herbs into the jar, Suli poked it towards the flame and they all watched as it heated up and began to shine softly greeny-gold.
Abigail might have asked questions at this stage but Vivi had produced something a bit like a cross between a watch and a compass and all three were clustered around it, staring between it and the bubbling liquid.
"Now!" Vivi announced and Suli, who had pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves, reached out to take the jar out of the fire. The flames continued to flicker until Tal scuffed out the sigels with his boot.
"Let that cool a bit before drinking it," Suli warned, putting the jar down carefully next to Abigail.
"It's a healing potion," Tal explained. "We use them after flying practice."
"It'll make you feel better," Vivi added.

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

Abigail wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and automatically started to reach into a pocket again, before remembering that it would do her no good.

She sniffed the potion and looked up gratefully at Vivi. "Thank you," she said, and when it was a little cooler, she started to sip it.
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

Meanwhile the others sat crossed-legged on the black ground and rifled through the heap of items to produce two squashed packets of cheese sandwiches, several broken and crumbling oatcakes and four withered golden apples. Dividing these into four piles with meticulous fairness and the use of protractors.

"I'm sorry it's not very nice," she excused herself to Abigail. "But apprentices don't get very good food here. It's supposed to encourage us to work harder. Any good mage can conjure up decent food."
"I can do sausages," Tal explained but they always taste of strawberry."
"I can do Fzzttzrk," Suli said with a sly grin.
Vivi rolled her eyes again.
"That's not even a thing!" she protested. "Anyway, I can do a mean curry but it's kind of difficult to eat curry without knives or forks or spoons."

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

Abigail began to cheer up, although she still kept looking at bits of herself, as if trying to memorise what she looked like.

"You're wizards? That's really exciting! Do you live there?" She indicated the towers visible in the distance.

"I live in Toon Town, but I don't really know where it is anymore," she waved a hand vaguely south. "I've been to so many exciting places! There was one like a train station, and I got in a big balloon-thingie, and flew to this place that was all blue, and I floated, and then I went to this place where I was a bouncy green ball, and then I came here. I think I like here least." She frowned. "Have you been to any of the other worlds?"
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

"Travelling to other plains is advanced magic," Tal said. "We're still on basic conjuring and manifestation."
"What's a train station?" Suli asked, focusing on the part of Abigail's adventure's he hadn't understood.

"That's the Dark Towers," Vivi explained, turning her head to look at the towers rising out of the moat of blue fire. "All the apprentices live there." She gestured across the blackened wasteland and added. "There's nowhere else for miles. All wizards' castles are like that. We work for Snark Sinistre. But he's away right now."

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

"I don't know about magic, but I've been to lots of different worlds, and it's really easy. I came from a different world just now! D'you want to see? Only, you have to be careful to make sure you don't come back out really high up, like I did."

Abigail temporarily forgot her problems in her enthusiasm for showing off to these new friends. So many people! She'd forgotten how much fun people were.
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

The apprentices looked at each other. Abigail might claim to be be a magician but her talk of visiting worlds sounded like translocation to them. That was a powerful spell. Even the really advanced apprentices hadn't managed it, as far as they knew only Snark himself could travel to different worlds.

"Will it take long?" Tal asked, clearly tempted.
"We have a charms tutorial this afternoon," Suli explained.
"How do you travel if you can't do magic?" Vivi asked, dubious for once. "Don't you have to draw a pentangle or something?"

All three seemed oblivious to the curtains of mist not far away to the south and east.

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

"It doesn't take long! You just walk from one world to the next. You know the mist? You just walk through it, and there's another world! C'mon, I'll show you!"

Abigail realised that the apprentices didn't seem to see the mist. She looked backwards and forwards between herself, her new friends, and the wall of mist, and came to a decision.

"Well, you just have to know where to walk. Follow me! I promise you can come straight back if you want to!" She turned towards the east.
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That's all folks!

Snark Sinistre · Good Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Dark Towers

Tal and Suli scrabbled the remainder of their possessions back into their pockets and sleeves as Vivi stood up and followed Abigail.

Looking straight ahead across the wasteland Vivi wondered what her new friend meant by 'knowing where to walk'. Catching up to Abigail she linked arms with her.
"You said when you went places you changed," she remembered. "Will that happen to us too? I'm not sure I want to change into someone else."

Abigail · Poor Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 88 Location: Toon Town

"I don't think so. I'm usually a Toon, you see, but now I don't really look like one. But because you're a normal person I'm sure you'll be fine! And I'm always still me!"

The wall of mist was very close, and Abigail could glimpse jungle through it.

"Right. We're going to go through now." She looked behind to see if the boys were following, and then steered Vivi through the mists.

(OOC: Abigail and Vivi go to 'Children exploring' in Kerya)
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That's all folks!