come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

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Most definitely the opposite of sleep; Skulduggery props himself on his elbows as Jade talks, more comfortable in the pose than someone with muscles might be. It's as big a shift as he'd suspected, as if the Earth were left with only ten years of oil left. Maybe some of the technology can be redesigned or reworked in time, and others might be replaced entirely by new inventions, but there will be a great deal that people will have to leave behind.

But, that is the nature of change, and people tend to adapt more rapidly than anyone might expect. "Given the forewarning, I'd expect some serious technological advancements will be made in the oncoming decade. People do bounce back quick."

Jade's warning is met with equal glibness. "No, you have not! But now I'm afraid I have to know. I assume it's some sort of energy runoff from the Planet Storm, but I could be wildly wrong."

"There is at least some forewarning to work with, it's true. You have a fair point; most any engineer worth their salt will probably take it as the most ambitious challenge of their lifetimes, at least. But for everyone else...well, hopefully the transition isn't too trying. ...Things are going to be very busy, for a long while..."

The sentence trails off to a frown, both audible and visible on Jade's features for a moment or so. Much as it had during the first time they'd had to collectively hash out the whole matter, between world powers--just thinking about the sheer amount of work that's going to be needing done in the next decade brings about the ghost of a sort of tension headache somewhere in the back of his head. Jade's not even the one that's going to have to do any direct heavy-lifting on that front--no, his hands will be very full with fomicry and the integration of human replicas for quite some time--but it's hard not to experience a vague secondhand anxiety for those who will have to be in the thick of it, like Natalia and Peony. ...Peony had already been starting to lose sleep due to sheer workload, in the couple of weeks after the fall of Eldrant. (With a pang, Jade hopes he isn't losing even more sleep now? ...That he himself hasn't actually been missing for well over a dozen weeks and counting, back home, becoming yet another worry to add to an already immense list--)

--Well, not that such thoughts do much good here and now, do they? Jade disperses the mental sidetrack with a slight shake of his head; the pause is a couple of seconds in reality, before he's promptly taking up Skulduggery's glib reply like the perfect lighthearted distraction it is about now.

"At any rate. 'Energy runoff'...isn't entirely inaccurate, to be fair; a good guess. The miasma came about due to...hmm, it's rather convoluted to simply put in spoken word. If I had--ah, actually. Hold on. Perhaps with a basic diagram..."

Shifting where he's seated, Jade sure is...reaching for his bag, about now? And...opening it to pull out a notebook and pen, oh boy--

By now, Skulduggery is rather used to the brief pauses that seem to come with Jade's attention drawn inward, and this particular conversation more than warrants it. After all, it's difficult trying to boil down huge, world-changing events into something succinct. He knows from experience that there are many winding threads that have to be ignored in order to get to the most basic story.

Basically, summing this kind of stuff up is difficult, and Skulduggery won't begrudge Jade's momentary distractions.

"Oh-ho," Skulduggery chuckles, pushing himself up to sit with his arms folded over his knees, "You've certainly come prepared." As if he can't tell that Jade has a natural tendency toward lectures... He definitely wants to see this, so don't mind his craned neck any!

Jade casts Skulduggery a mildly put-upon sort of look as he extricates the notebook from the bag, because...yes, it does occur to him how this probably looks, especially with that extra remark pointing it out.

"Oh yes, you know, I just had a feeling I'd be coming out here specifically to get into the mechanics of the fonbelt, so I figured I'd bring paper just for the occasion!" Thoroughly sardonic, and then punctuated by a huff of a sigh, as Jade settles back down where he was seated, notebook set across his lap as he flips it open to a blank page. "...Which is what I would say, if any of that were true. But perhaps the reality is that I've been compiling notes on our surroundings, of late, and also never got around to putting up my bag for the evening just yet. You ought to be considering this more a stroke of fortune, really!"

Because otherwise it would be an excessively convoluted explanation aloud, that Jade would probably give up on elaborating halfway through for the sheer hassle of it all...! Or something, maybe, probably. All that said, Skulduggery isn't the first person in Jade's life to come away with a distinct impression that he wouldn't be out of place in a lecture hall...not that Jade could see it himself, as insistent as he tends to be on the fact that he's not a teacher of any sort. (But the inclinations still come out, in these ways...)

"Moving on. ...Hm, would you say that your 'Earth' as a planet possesses a mantle and core under the Outer Lands of its surface? ...But it probably does not have fon slots, I take it..." Taking up his pen, Jade's starting to idly sketch a circle onto a new page, followed by a couple smaller circles within it to represent layers. --At least with the probably-fake moon about full overhead in the clear sky, there's enough light for things to be legible. Probably helped by the fact that this is a red glitter gel pen, too, but look you gotta take what you can get from the arts and crafts building in this way--

Skulduggery chuckles. "I am truly blessed tonight. Finally getting to learn something more concrete than what the books aboard the ship can offer." Which is true! Skulduggery is used to having a full range of books to choose from, and he may be living a bit vicariously through Jade's explanations of something real and scientific (at least to them).

He moves closer to get a better look at the notebook, answering as he goes. "Correct. I don't know the depths off the top of my head, but we have the crust, the mantle, and the core." Was there another one, too? He can't remember. The science always seems to be changing on him. "None of it holds any inherently magical properties. At least, none as far as I know."

"The library is remarkably lack-luster in its reading materials...you're not wrong there."

Being a person who tends to have very little interest in fictional matters in general, the books available on the ship have been a perpetual font of disappointment in Jade's eyes for quite some time now; to say the least, Skulduggery's sentiment is a thoroughly relatable thing, and actually takes a bit of the edge off Jade's mild internal exasperation at having to outright diagram out an explanation. The matter of Auldrant's planetary make-up is about as real and scientific as it gets for a fact, where both of them are concerned--and so, well...if he can offer such a point of interest in this sort of way...yes, that's pretty alright, he thinks.

Jade angles the notebook a bit in his lap to ensure Skulduggery has a decent vantage point in turn, as he continues drawing. Their shoulders are probably practically bumping at this point, but for once Jade at least doesn't actually notice this particularly, considering he needs to get fairly engrossed in this if he's going to get this sketched out correctly...

"Good, then, so I at least won't have to get into explaining such things as that too thoroughly. You know, it's rather nice to hear that at least some things might be consistent, between at least a few planets in different realities..." Considering what Jade's heard of Earth at this point, it wouldn't have even surprised him if it turned out to have an entirely different composition altogether. Everything else sounds so ridiculous about it already! Though, where 'inherently magical properties' might be concerned...hm. Fanning out from the smallest circle in the center of the layers Jade's drawn onto the page, he starts outlining funnels that open out to the outermost circle, indicating them as he continues speaking. The diagram on the whole is beginning to look something like this. "But I suppose, to translate it in this case, Auldrant does possess an 'inherently magical property' to its structure. There are ten very large fon slots that emanate from the core--passages through which fonons flow, so to speak. In fact, every existence on Auldrant also possesses ten fon slots, humans included. It's how we ourselves are able to access and cast fonic artes."

But, here, Jade finds himself getting just a bit distracted as a thought occurs to him--pen pausing on the page, he looks over at Skulduggery curiously. "...Actually, I do wonder--is there anything like fon slots where you're from? Pathways by which to channel your own magic through your body, so to speak. ...Or does your type of magic involve your body in any particular way at all, for that matter?"

Sometimes, you just want to read about historical battles that actually happened. Other times, you want to better understand a friend's magical capabilities. These are two things that fiction does not, generally, help achieve.

The whole fonic system is particularly fascinating, given how different it is from his own reality's magic. He is, however, extremely grateful for the diagram, because none of this would be so easily explained without it.

"We don't have anything like that, no. There are ley-lines in the planet's surface that serve as... concentrated pathways of magic. But our magic is entirely based on our biology. Some humans on our planet just have an innate ability to manipulate the elements, or perhaps they wind up with a more specific branch of magic. But we don't... have any sort of 'slot' system."

Because he's from a children's book, not a JRPG. But that's beside the point. "It sounds a bit as though people are conduits for magic in your reality, rather than possessing it directly?" Shot in the dark.

Truly, leave it to JRPGs to have truly the most convoluted magic systems sometimes.....

But, you know, at least there's pen and paper here and now to help things out--and it's not as if this slight tangent in the topic actually needs either of those things, being at least simpler to explain than Auldrant's anatomy. Skulduggery's guess is met with a prompt and approving sort of nod from Jade, pleased at the swiftness of the latter's uptake.

"Yes, that's exactly correct. Fonons themselves are sourced from the surrounding matter--and so, the standard fonist's body is the instrument through which those fonons are channeled and tuned, success entirely dependent on one's level of skill and control over their fon slots. --I suppose I ought to clarify that fon slots are not visible holes in our bodies, or anything ridiculous like that..." Here, a note of humor, recalling someone else who had mistakenly made this assumption in the past and grabbed his arm to try and find such slots. "Such channels are on a molecular level, after all. Five internal and five external, on a human being; external slots are found on the four limbs and eyes, while internal slots correspond to major organs...brain, heart, spine, intestines--and vocal cords. The eyes are the largest fon slot in the human body, with vocal cords coming in second."

Skulduggery has perhaps noticed it by now, the unnatural red coloring of Jade's eyes behind their glasses. Does this particular detail about fon slots have anything to do with that, you ask? Well. ......Maybe. Anyway! In the interim, Jade starts to resume sketching in the rest of Auldrant's fon slots and a few more layers on paper as he speaks, even if thoughts are still a bit sidetracked at the moment.

"Truthfully, I was quite surprised to discover that fon slots are not at all common here--in fact, I've yet to meet any other person who might possess them. A little surreal, in the sense that one would be dead without them in Auldrant. ...But the mingling of worlds around here certainly broadens one's horizons. That your magic might be entirely innate to your individual self is quite fascinating; you know, I met someone else with an exactly opposite sort of situation. In her own world, human beings could only use magic if they were in possession of a physical item called a 'blastia'..."

Good thing Jade bothered to clarify the matter; Skulduggery had wondered just how visible the so-called slots were. Good to know they're of a less alarming nature, really... And while he'd noticed Jade's eye color, up until now he'd only assumed it was some naturally occurring color in his reality. Now, of course, he has to wonder!

Despite being completely alien from his own magical ecosystem, he finds that it makes quite a bit of sense. Interesting how the slots line up somewhat with what he knows of chakras, actually; if he were at all capable of explaining that, they might really find some strange similarities between their planets.

"It seems that there are as many magical systems as there are realities to choose from. I've run into several people from other Earths whose magic works completely differently from mine. Or who don't have any magic at all." He says that like it's weird because it is. He isn't convinced, honestly. "I can't imagine what it must be like to not feel your magic under the skin. So to speak."

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

pretend i didn't lose this notif

no worries!!

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