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Aberrant: Trans-Dimensional Explorations - Trans-Dimensional Explorations


BlueNinja

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Invisible girl (now looking solid and not wraith-like moves up next to Ash. "Who are you people? How is it you know what's going on, and why haven't we ever heard of anything like this before?" She pauses for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek, and then asks quieter, "Are you Inquisition agents?" ::unsure

"Don't worry, we're not with the inquisition. We gained our powers well before you, and under much calmer and less stressful circumstances. Your world is in danger, and you're one of the first few people who've been blessed with powers that may help save your people. Don't worry, we'll explain more as soon as we can."

* What to do with them depends a bit on their powers and their personalities. Some of them will be needed here. For now we just need to get things as much under control as we can. *

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* What to do with them depends a bit on their powers and their personalities. Some of them will be needed here. For now we just need to get things as much under control as we can. *
*If we leave any of them here they will have the same problems we do. Every time they use their powers someone will erupt.*
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*Then we all need to move to the cabin untill we get everything under control and figured out. Get glue guy back here and lets move.** he transmits, and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Its good to meet you Kristin. Don't worry...everything will settle down in a few minutes." he says as he looks back at all the other 'new' people. "We are going to be leaving for that cabin as soon as Brandt gets back with another new erupted person."
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*Then we all need to move to the cabin untill we get everything under control and figured out. Get glue guy back here and lets move.** he transmits, and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Its good to meet you Kristin. Don't worry...everything will settle down in a few minutes." he says as he looks back at all the other 'new' people. "We are going to be leaving for that cabin as soon as Brandt gets back with another new erupted person."

The corner of Theo's mouth quirks, overhearing Kristin. But her real attention is on the pentient priest.

*Why hasn't this happened before now?* she asked. *You'd think in any regular city that there be enough events to trigger a conversion.*

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There's quite a din, as the people on the street are clearly fighting to break free, and Sticky is likewise trying to get free of them. From the clothes hanging oddly on his distorted form, he looks like a cliched ivory tower professor, down to the elbow patches on his tweed jacket. You slam the injector home, and a moment later, part of his face turns around and orients on Brandt. Unfortunately, while one oblong brown eye is watching him closely, anything he's saying can't be heard over the din.

But after about thirty seconds, Sticky starts to shrink a little, and some of the people pulling away break free, stumbling away. Esteban can hear sirens coming, as well, though his occasional glances into the quantum field confirm that the mox is starting to take effect as normal. The quantum ripples from both of the novas in the street are subsiding.

"Well thank god that worked." Switching to his mental voice, he address Esteban through the link. *Looks like the mox did the trick, and just in time. Get downstairs with the others, I'll be down as soon as I finish up here. And keep in mind what you were able to see, I'd like to go over that with you later.*

Glad that things are finally starting to calm down a tiny bit, Brandt spends the next few seconds darting around the tweed-coated eruptee, freeing anyone that's still stuck. If he's able to finish before the authorities arrive, he grab Mr. Cinnabon and speed back to the others in the basement.

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Esteban sends a mental affirmative for Brandt and darts back down to where the others are hiding. He stays mostly to the shadows and moves far faster than a housecat should. However, when he enters the stairwell to the cellar he returns to normal speed and feline demeanor. When he gets downstars he walks over to one corner of the room and starts cleaning the fur behind his ears.

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*Why hasn't this happened before now?* she asked. *You'd think in any regular city that there be enough events to trigger a conversion.*
Paul sends,

*For a big, bad forest fire you need lots of dry wood AND a spark. Just soaking everything in gasoline isn't enough. These people are covered with gas but no one here has ever seen fire or lightning. Somehow they never had a first nova to set the ball rolling.*

Paul thinks for a moment,

*If those machines we’ve seen are the things that increase quantum, then somehow they had a machine or two go off without causing any eruptions, or the nova created must have died quickly afterwards. So the level of quantum for the planet as a whole increased, and increased, but it was still lower than what was needed to create a nova all by itself. Novas must create spikes of quantum when we use our powers. … But that doesn’t explain how novas can erupt back home without needing a nova around them. Either enough novas around changes the rules, or there’s a catalyst of some sort back home.*

*Here’s a better question, how many people have been within range of us? Hundreds? Call it 4 hundred? And we’ve had 4 novas created without them being in danger. So if we let this run wild, over the next week 1% of the world will erupt, and it won’t end there. Some people erupt at the drop of a dime, others need to be tossed off a building. These four are in that first group. Before everything is said and done, we could see 2% to 5% of the world erupt over the next few years.*

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Paul answers,

"The drugs are working on the others. They should work on you. The Universe is not only more complicated than we imagine, it is more complicated than we can imagine."

Paul quickly injects him hoping he won't get flamed.

He stands still and allows you to inject him with mox, but you can feel the heat still radiating from him. You're not sure, but you have the suspicion that touching him might burn you - but at the least, it would be uncomfortable.
"Don't worry, we're not with the inquisition. We gained our powers well before you, and under much calmer and less stressful circumstances. Your world is in danger, and you're one of the first few people who've been blessed with powers that may help save your people. Don't worry, we'll explain more as soon as we can."
Kristin's eyes go wide, and she backs a little away from Ash. "What do you mean our world? A-a-are you ... aliens?"
"Well thank god that worked." Switching to his mental voice, he address Esteban through the link. *Looks like the mox did the trick, and just in time. Get downstairs with the others, I'll be down as soon as I finish up here. And keep in mind what you were able to see, I'd like to go over that with you later.*

Glad that things are finally starting to calm down a tiny bit, Brandt spends the next few seconds darting around the tweed-coated eruptee, freeing anyone that's still stuck. If he's able to finish before the authorities arrive, he grab Mr. Cinnabon and speed back to the others in the basement.

It's a close thing; you're dragging him through (and off of) the doorway when the first of the police cars arrive, ambulances close behind them, as the people you helped free start frantically babbling.

With everyone now assembled, it is a simple thing for Zhenglai to open a warp into the peaceful (and cold) backwoods of Oregon.

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Kristin's eyes go wide, and she backs a little away from Ash. "What do you mean our world? A-a-are you ... aliens?"

Ash shakes his head. "Nope. Not quite. We are from Earth."

Once the portal is open, Ash offers his arm to the girl. "Ready to go?" he asks her and walks through the portal with her.

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Paul sends,

*Try not to touch the fire guy, he's really hot even without his powers up.*

Paul says,

"Like I said, it's a long and complicated story. We’re as human as you. The immediate threat is this condition has the potential to spread. We have to drag this away from populated areas. We came here looking for help, not trying to start wild fires."

Paul moves through the gate and attempts to usher in the younger novas. On the other side, he looks around and yells,

"Hello! Anyone here!"

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"Excuse me Paul, but do you think it's wise to attract more attention than we already have?", Zhenglai asked with what sounded not like an accusation, but honest curiosity. He had been feeling quite out of his depth for some time now, even if all of this was immensely entertaining to an old man who had spent the previous few decades living alone on top of a mountain.

"Forgive me for sounding doubtful, it's just that it occurs to me that we haven't had more than a few seconds of calm to think things through since coming to this world. Perhaps we should take a moment to regroup?"

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"Fair enough. I have refrained from scanning telepathically for anyone nearby already, and I will continue to do so until we decide differently. However, I feel I should point out that my opening a warp here may have already done whatever damage there is to do. Let us hope otherwise, though."
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Paul says,

"Like I said, it's a long and complicated story. We’re as human as you. The immediate threat is this condition has the potential to spread. We have to drag this away from populated areas. We came here looking for help, not trying to start wild fires."

The priest raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. Bradley closes his eyes, apparently stifling a groan at Paul's unintentional pun.
Paul moves through the gate and attempts to usher in the younger novas. On the other side, he looks around and yells,

"Hello! Anyone here!"

You get quite a noisy response from the birds who remained for the winter, but no one human responds. With a bit of purpose, Bradley moves over to the cabin, pulling open a creaking wooden door after a moment of fumbling with it. "I don't know if we can gather firewood ... or if we need to. But there's a little Franklin stove inside, and I think we can all fit inside."
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Paul moves through the gate and attempts to usher in the younger novas. On the other side, he looks around and yells,

"Hello! Anyone here!"

"Do we look like aliens?" Theo asked, looking back with an 'oh please' expression. "Although actually that's a question you're probably going to hear a lot."

She smiles thinly, glancing down at Esteban before she steps through the warp gate and looks around.

"This... should be interesting."

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Paul walks into the cabin and gives is a brief look, then he checks out the newest nova.

(Over the link to everyone) *We need to tell them what's going at least in broad strokes. That means us being extra-dimentionals, the existence of novas, and the way this will spread over their world.*

*I'm not sure what to tell the about why we are here. The truth maybe.*

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"I don't know if we can gather firewood ... or if we need to. But there's a little Franklin stove inside, and I think we can all fit inside."

"I'll go look for some," Theo offers. *and keep my eyes open*

"Maybe there's a wood pile in back?" she says, walking around the back of the cabin.

(Paul says over the link to everyone) *We need to tell them what's going at least in broad strokes. That means us being extra-dimentionals, the existence of novas, and the way this will spread over their world.*

*I'm not sure what to tell the about why we are here. The truth maybe.*

*They're going to learn someday. Might as well be from us. If someone turned me into a freak, I'd hope there was a damn good reason for it*

Theo briefly closed her eyes and sighed. *Sorry, that was incredibly sarcastic. I didn't mean it.*

She glanced down. Her fingers were crossed.

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Paul waits for all the baselines to go into the cabin and since no one else appears to want to play ‘messenger’ he starts.

“I think we finally have time to tell you wants going on. There’s a question you’re going to need to help us answer at the end of this, and that question is ‘what do we do next’?”

“First let me introduce myself. I’m Paul Blue, Doctor for this crew. I was born in the South in a small town where most all the jobs came from farming, or the local power plant. It was the kind of community where after 30 years and three children, Mom has almost totally been forgiven the crime of being from France. Dad met her while he was in the army.”

*That’s an empathy trick. You get your listeners to relate to you.*

“As near as we can tell, the last time the Earth we came from was the same as this Earth was back in the 18 hundreds. At some point before 1820, history split, and not just then either. There’re all kinds of timelines where history went different. A few weeks ago we visited a world where everyone spoke Greek rather than English and Zeus is still worshiped. On our Earth, 22 years ago novas started erupting. People started gaining powers that can only be described as miraculous. What kind of powers? All kinds. Any kind. There are novas who can literally pick up mountains. Personally I can heal with a touch, talk to animals, and turn invisible.”

“Our being here is largely the work of a nova who erupted with superhuman intelligence. Somehow he got to studying time, and recently he developed a gateway which takes us from one world to another. We came here because the original probe we sent found that your Earth’s quantum field is much stronger than ours. From that information, all the religious icons around, and the cityscape we saw we figured you really had your act together. We thought that novas were here, were powerful, had been around for awhile, probably were worshiped, and had been successfully integrated into society.”

“We thought you’d have an incredible amount to teach us. Only about one person in a million on our Earth is a nova and it’s putting a great deal of strain on our society. There are still aspects of nova physiology that are mysterious to us.”

“So we came here. And, surprise, as near as we can tell, you don’t have novas at all, but your high quantum field means that one person in a hundred or so erupts simply by being next to us novas. Any questions so far?”

Paul pauses and evaluates how they are taking this.

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The cat, having lazily followed through the warp begins to explore about the area, sniffing at things and perking up its ears in a predatory manner at any birds chirping...
There's another cabin about half a mile away, but it doesn't seem to be occupied - no heat signatures. Other than the wildlife, there's no one within a considerable distance from the cabin.
"Do we look like aliens?" Theo asked, looking back with an 'oh please' expression. "Although actually that's a question you're probably going to hear a lot."
Kristin ponders this for a moment, then pinches Ash on the arm - perhaps to try and convince herself that he still feels human. Then she moves a little further away from Bradley.
"I'll go look for some," Theo offers. *and keep my eyes open*

"Maybe there's a wood pile in back?" she says, walking around the back of the cabin.

There's a few pieces of cut wood, enough to stoke a fire for a few hours, maybe a day. But once everyone gets inside, the body heat should help keep the cabin comfortable.
Paul waits for all the baselines to go into the cabin and since no one else appears to want to play ‘messenger’ he starts.

“I think we finally have time to tell you wants going on. There’s a question you’re going to need to help us answer at the end of this, and that question is ‘what do we do next’?”

“First let me introduce myself. I’m Paul Blue, Doctor for this crew. I was born in the South in a small town where most all the jobs came from farming, or the local power plant. It was the kind of community where after 30 years and three children, Mom has almost totally been forgiven the crime of being from France. Dad met her while he was in the army.”

“As near as we can tell, the last time the Earth we came from was the same as this Earth was back in the 18 hundreds. At some point before 1820, history split, and not just then either. There’re all kinds of timelines where history went different. A few weeks ago we visited a world where everyone spoke Greek rather than English and Zeus is still worshiped. On our Earth, 22 years ago novas started erupting. People started gaining powers that can only be described as miraculous. What kind of powers? All kinds. Any kind. There are novas who can literally pick up mountains. Personally I can heal with a touch, talk to animals, and turn invisible.”

The priest stirs at the mention of Greek World, flames flickering up on his body to match the stormy frown on his face, but he subsides as Paul shows no sign of stopping.
“Our being here is largely the work of a nova who erupted with superhuman intelligence. Somehow he got to studying time, and recently he developed a gateway which takes us from one world to another. We came here because the original probe we sent found that your Earth’s quantum field is much stronger than ours. From that information, all the religious icons around, and the cityscape we saw we figured you really had your act together. We thought that novas were here, were powerful, had been around for awhile, probably were worshiped, and had been successfully integrated into society.”

“We thought you’d have an incredible amount to teach us. Only about one person in a million on our Earth is a nova and it’s putting a great deal of strain on our society. There are still aspects of nova physiology that are mysterious to us.”

“So we came here. And, surprise, as near as we can tell, you don’t have novas at all, but your high quantum field means that one person in a hundred or so erupts simply by being next to us novas. Any questions so far?”

Paul pauses and evaluates how they are taking this.

Bradley is the first to speak, and he raises both of his right hands somewhat awkwardly. "So, your world has people who look ... weird? Who are turning into something less than human?"

Kristin stares at Paul, then scrunches up her face, and slowly fades out of view. Her voice is laden with the strain of fighting against the Mox to keep herself faded to near transparency. "I'm going to learn how to talk to animals? And heal people?" She comes back into view, and then reaches over to touch the fur on Bradley's arm. "Can I make his fur go away?"

Sticky attempts to sit down in a chair, and then apparently glues himself to it - because he attempts to shift to a more comfortable position and fails. "I only have one question," he asks with a hint of desperation. "How can we stop being like this?"

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Seating himself on the floor in a corner, Brandt watches the conversation unfold. Content to stay silent for now, he mentally addresses Esteban, asking for a complete description of what was observed. As Esteban(hopefully) explains, he puts his mind to work trying to understand what was causing this phenomenon.

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"I'm not sure there's any way to completely return you to normal. However, as you gain more control over your new abilities, they may become a little less uncomfortable over time. There are ways to shut your powers off for a while, and we can help teach you to do that in a bit."

"Not all of you will develop in the same way, though," he says, turning to Kristin. "For example, I can talk to animals like Paul can, but I can't heal people or turn invisible. I can move things with my mind, which Paul hasn't learned to do. We can't tell you just what you'll all be able to do, everyone develops differently based on what they want and need."

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There's a knock at the door, then Theo comes inside with an armful of wood.

"Sorry, did I interrupt?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. Theo carries the wood over to the stove and set it down beside it. "There's a little more wood back there, I think we'll want to save it for now. Any idea of how cold it'll get here?"

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Paul nods in agreement with Johnathan, points to ‘Sticky’ and adds in a calm, measured, Doctor-in-charge tone of voice,

“Some or all of your current problems are a lack of control. Your body or mind has a switch that tells it when not to adhere to things. I can’t tell you where it is or how to access it, but I can tell you it exists. This is going to be like learning tennis, eventually you’ll stop thinking about doing something and start doing it without thinking. Thousands of other novas have done this. The first couple of weeks are going to be unpleasant but it gets much better.”

Paul nods to ‘Invisible girl’ and says,

“At their core, all novas have the same power, manipulation of quantum. But that’s theory, in practice what and how you think strongly effects what you can do. I never asked to be a force of nature, during eruption part of my mind just decided it was a good idea.”

Fur and how to get rid of it, brings us to the twin topics of dormancy and taint. Dormancy is the trick of turning off your powers, and I mean totally. You actually stop manipulating quantum. A dormed down nova usually shifts back into what they looked like as a baseline. Not every nova bothers to learn how to dorm, but it is an option.”

“Taint is a rough measure of how inhuman a nova gets. It is not a well understood subject. Apparently some people erupt too fast, or too hard, or later they push their powers faster than they should, and they end up with a distortion in their powers. Oddly colored skin or eyes. Perhaps they glow… or they may have fur. These distortions will vanish like all powers vanish if someone dorms down, but other than that they are permanent.”

“Please try to relax and not fight your powers. You are going to have to relearn how your bodies work. Think of it as puberty all over again.”

*Thank you Theo… did anyone bring matches? And how do you think they'll react when we tell them the big news?*

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*Thank you Theo… did anyone bring matches? And how do you think they'll react when we tell them the big news?*

* I'm still trying to figure out how to break it to them. Becoming a nova and finding out about an alien invasion all in one day is kind of a lot to take in all at once. *

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Ash looks at Paul then back to the 'kids'. "Look...I know this is hard to understand. Hell...I really dont understand the entire process myself...but here is what I do know. We have these abilities now. What matters is what we *do* with these abilities. With the power you guys have now...you can *save the world*. Its something big to consider...but its something you are all going to have to decide eventually."

Ash looks down at his hand as he forms a fist. "Thats why we are here...We are trying to save our world. We were hoping that this place would have some technology we could use to help defend ourselves from some *real* aliens that are going to invade our world. It looks like we may have caused some trouble here though..."

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Paul winces and says,

“I’d really intended to hold off talking about the aliens until a bit later. They’re still a century away, there’s lots of time to worry about them after we worry about you.”

(To everyone) *Speaking as a force of nature, there’s an ecology issue here we need to worry about. Think about the issues our society has had dealing with novas. Into this society, we’d be introducing not 10 thousand novas, but 100 million. With the higher level of quantum here I suspect many more of them are going to be more tainted, at least half of these four have aberrations right out of the box. Think of the ten strongest novas on our planet. Here instead of 10 Pax level novas they’d have 100,000.*

*The ecological impact is going to be drastic. It will be like introducing the green snake into Guam, or the rat into Hawaii. At best novas will simply take over, at worse we’ll see something akin to Overclocked.*

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(To everyone) *...The ecological impact is going to be drastic. It will be like introducing the green snake into Guam, or the rat into Hawaii. At best novas will simply take over, at worse we’ll see something akin to Overclocked.*

"You didn't tell them the best part," Theo sighs, turning to look at the new people. "The aliens could be coming here too."

*...great...*

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Jonathan sighs. "Let me explain. On our world, we found a device that allows us to see far into space. When we used it, we saw an alien fleet heading towards our Earth, stripmining and then destroying every planet along the way. We've been going from world to world, trying to either find something that can help us stop the alien fleet or find a different Earth where the aliens aren't coming for us. "

"Unfortunately, every world we've been to has had its own alien fleet heading towards Earth. On most Earths, the fleet is at least 100 years away, but on one world the aliens arrived early. They weren't friendly, they weren't peaceful, and they have no love for your god or any other. The only reason that the people on that world survived that attack, and not all of them did, is because people with powers, people like you and like us, stood up to the aliens and defended their planet. Your world needs you, it needs more people like you, to keep your people safe."

"Your powers may seem uncomfortable and difficult to deal with right now. They may seem like more of a curse than a blessing, but once you've learned to control them, they can become a force for good. It all depends on how you use them."

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"Sorry, did I interrupt?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. Theo carries the wood over to the stove and set it down beside it. "There's a little more wood back there, I think we'll want to save it for now. Any idea of how cold it'll get here?"
Every one of the new eruptees is far more focused on what Paul, Jonathan, and Ash are saying. None of them seem to have registered your question.
Fur and how to get rid of it, brings us to the twin topics of dormancy and taint. Dormancy is the trick of turning off your powers, and I mean totally. You actually stop manipulating quantum. A dormed down nova usually shifts back into what they looked like as a baseline. Not every nova bothers to learn how to dorm, but it is an option.”

“Taint is a rough measure of how inhuman a nova gets. It is not a well understood subject. Apparently some people erupt too fast, or too hard, or later they push their powers faster than they should, and they end up with a distortion in their powers. Oddly colored skin or eyes. Perhaps they glow… or they may have fur. These distortions will vanish like all powers vanish if someone dorms down, but other than that they are permanent.”

The priest gets a sort of arrogant smirk on his face when you start talking about Taint, and his eyes go back to flickering. But he doesn't say anything.
Jonathan sighs. "Let me explain. On our world, we found a device that allows us to see far into space. When we used it, we saw an alien fleet heading towards our Earth, stripmining and then destroying every planet along the way. We've been going from world to world, trying to either find something that can help us stop the alien fleet or find a different Earth where the aliens aren't coming for us. "

"Unfortunately, every world we've been to has had its own alien fleet heading towards Earth. On most Earths, the fleet is at least 100 years away, but on one world the aliens arrived early. They weren't friendly, they weren't peaceful, and they have no love for your god or any other. The only reason that the people on that world survived that attack, and not all of them did, is because people with powers, people like you and like us, stood up to the aliens and defended their planet. Your world needs you, it needs more people like you, to keep your people safe."

"Your powers may seem uncomfortable and difficult to deal with right now. They may seem like more of a curse than a blessing, but once you've learned to control them, they can become a force for good. It all depends on how you use them."

Sticky manages to pry a hand off the chair, and raises it before speaking. "If I understand all of this properly, then our sudden gain of powers is unexpected to you, and you came here looking for allies to defend yourselves before these alleged aliens arrive. Have you checked to see if they are going to arrive here, as well? And what, exactly, are we supposed to do about it? I hardly think gluing myself to the hull of a rocket and going up to meet them will accomplish anything."

The priest, still with his smile, turns and looks towards the stove. "Have faith, companion," and the wood that Theo brought inside bursts into flames.

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The priest, still with his smile, turns and looks towards the stove. "Have faith, companion," and the wood that Theo brought inside bursts into flames.

Ash frowns, "Be careful, Holyman. Your still new to your powers...this early there have been known to be surges in powers. But there are more then a few things you can do to help out agenst the coming threat. Especially if you work together. Stickyness may not take the ships out...but you may be able to help make a weapon of some sort. It all depends on what you do with it...and how you do it."

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"We came to warn you as much as to look for new allies and new information to help us. As for what you can do to help, well, that's a difficult question to answer. Some of the changes you've gone through are easy to notice - flames, flight, invisibility, and your stickiness. Others take time to be reckognized. Many novas excel at sciences they've never studied, or have heightened perception and quicker wits. Some of these things take longer to notice or develop than others."

"In a few hours, we'll be able to open a portal back to our world. We can bring our device here, and check for the alien fleet. In the meantime, we can work on helping you control your powers. I helped teach some of the people here how to dorm down - to suppress your powers and become a normal human again for a while. When you're all ready, we can start practicing that. I'll be walking you through a guided meditation - kind of like a group prayer, but not exactly - that should help you focus your mind and suppress the power inside you."

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The priest, still with his smile, turns and looks towards the stove. "Have faith, companion," and the wood that Theo brought inside bursts into flames.
Paul gets a big ‘proud-father’ smile and claps his hands together lightly a couple of times in admiration. They’re learning.

Paul nods to Sticky and says,

"Saying you can’t do anything right now is like saying seeds are small. You will grow. As for whether or not they’re on their way, we’ll check, but this world is only 200 years different. Greek world was thousands of years different and they still had them. I think they’ve been on their way for a long time.”

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Seating himself on the floor in a corner, Brandt watches the conversation unfold. Content to stay silent for now, he mentally addresses Esteban, asking for a complete description of what was observed. As Esteban(hopefully) explains, he puts his mind to work trying to understand what was causing this phenomenon.,,

While poking about the perimeter, Esteban hears the mental ping that someone wants to chat. Its Brandt asking for the report on Sticky's eruption. Esteban does indeed share the information, transmiting the images and sensations he picked up while using Quantum-Attunment. Hopefully Brandt can make sense of the information since he also has access to those senses.

Finally he returns, scractching at the door to be let in.

*Theres another cabin not too far away. We seem to be alone...for the moment...*

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While poking about the perimeter, Esteban hears the mental ping that someone wants to chat. Its Brandt asking for the report on Sticky's eruption. Esteban does indeed share the information, transmiting the images and sensations he picked up while using Quantum-Attunment. Hopefully Brandt can make sense of the information since he also has access to those senses.

Finally he returns, scractching at the door to be let in.

*Theres another cabin not too far away. We seem to be alone...for the moment...*

When Esteban comes on-mind to share the experience, Brandt closes his eyes, beginning the process of sorting through the cascade of images shuffling into his mind. Absorbing them, he notices immediately differences between his own perspective of the quantum substructure of the universe and Esteban's. The shape-changers viewpoint was more...primitive...no, that wasn't the word. Primal, that was it. It was completely alien to Brandt. His own perception showed the universe in a cleaner, more pure scientific manner.

Filing that observation away for future consideration, Brandt focused, allowing the sensations to flow past his mind's eye, over and over, repeating. He hoped to catch a pattern, something he could use to form a hypothesis. There...what was that? Mentally rewinding, he replayed the scene he'd just seen. He watched the wave-form of Sticky's quantum signature mesh with his own as he darted around. It was a bit weird, actually, watching himself from this perspective...but that was something to think about later. He watched as the waves collided, arcs of quantum spilling outward, and still further outward. They should be dispersing, but...

"Oh, hell." His eyes snapped open just before the priest ignited the wood Theo brought in. "Don't do that!", he barked. Seeing the shocked look on some of the other faces there, he groaned, leaning his head back against the wall he was sitting against. "Okay, please don't do that. In fact, nobody do anything that might affect the quantum fields here unless you absolutely have to. I think I know what's causing these eruptions."

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While poking about the perimeter, Esteban hears the mental ping that someone wants to chat. Its Brandt asking for the report on Sticky's eruption. Esteban does indeed share the information, transmiting the images and sensations he picked up while using Quantum-Attunment. Hopefully Brandt can make sense of the information since he also has access to those senses.

Finally he returns, scractching at the door to be let in.

*Theres another cabin not too far away. We seem to be alone...for the moment...*

Theo lets Esteban in, saying sotto voice, "Recepción detrás, señor."

"Oh, hell." Brandt's eyes snapped open just before the priest ignited the wood Theo brought in. "Don't do that!", he barked. Seeing the shocked look on some of the other faces there, he groaned, leaning his head back against the wall he was sitting against. "Okay, please don't do that. In fact, nobody do anything that might affect the quantum fields here unless you absolutely have to. I think I know what's causing these eruptions."

"Is it good or bad?" Theo asks, closing the door once Esteban's tail was inside.

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Theo lets Esteban in, saying sotto voice, "Recepción detrás, señor."
,,

Esteban looks up at Theo, giving her a double-eyed wink of acknowledgment. he brushes once against her leg, then proceeds to weave around the room, checking things out and hopping on surfaces.

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"Is it good or bad?", Theo asks.

Brandt shakes his head, unsure how to answer.

Paul says, "How so?"

Sighing, Brandt reaches behind him for his backpack, sliding it around to his front. Retrieving a bottle of water and a small metal cup he uses for cooking, he pours some water into the cup, filling it approximately halfway.

Looking up to check that everyone is paying attention, he sets the cup of water on the floor, kneeling above it.

"Imagine that the water in this cup is the quantum field of our home universe." he says, glancing up from beneath his eyebrows at the others. "When anything disrupts it, like one of us using our powers, the quantum field is disrupted, like so." He gently taps the surface of the water, causing a brief ripple that touches the edge of the cup and then rapidly settles back to a calm surface.

"Now," he continues, leaning back on his heels, "normally the quantum field immediately tries to correct itself, just as the water did. After all, no matter how powerful an individual is, their effect on the substructure of the universe itself is rather like me tapping my finger on the surface of an ocean; it simply won't cause enough interference to really do anything."

He holds up the same finger he just tapped the water with. "But...imagine if this water were more consistent, able to transmit the same amount of interference more readily, and for vastly further distances." He smiles slightly. "Like a bowl of Jell-O. Tap it, and it doesn't stop wobbling as quickly as water does. By its naturally cohesive nature, it just absorbs that force and re-transmits it until the mass finally overcomes the introduced energy."

Brandt sighs. "To put it simply, this world's quantum field is like the Jell-O. Even the slightest interference in its field will travel much, much further than it would in our world. Maybe as much as an order of magnitude greater in distance. On the plus side, we don't have to worry about whether it was us or the portal that started this. We found these guys," he gestures to the natives, "on accident. If there are any other eruptees, anywhere on this planet, that are unaccounted for, there will be no stopping it."

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