kaolinandbone | Tea in the Gardens and Antechambers

As the many multiversal guests are gated in, singly or in groups, a crowd slowly begins to form in the entry hall. Lioncourt looks up from her meditation break and claps her hands twice: in moments, a dozen automaton servants file out from the adjoining rooms, hands of gleaming white porcelain holding equally elegant china tea-sets. A pair of the automatons open the doors at the far end of the hall, revealing a tiered rose garden, the stone benches dotted here and there ringing a large central clearing.

"Tea is served, either here or in the gardens: I would appreciate it, however, if some of my guests might proceed onward so as to reduce crowding."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aestrix

"The books travel between worlds? How do they get there, do they flap their covers?"

From:

calledtoventure

"Well, not the books themselves. Er. They let you travel between worlds, but they don't come with you... uh. I'm not explaining this very well, I'm sorry.

"...How it works is, each book goes to a certain place in a certain world, and you touch the linking panel, and then you're in that place. The linking panel is a picture of the place. But it moves. The panel, I mean, not the place. ...It doesn't move around, it stays on the page, but the picture is... a moving picture? Do you have those?

"I'm sorry, I'm really making a mess of this."

From:

aestrix

Prism giggles a little. "We have moving pictures. So the books transport people to specific places, and show moving pictures of the place that they'll be going? ... Neat!"

From:

calledtoventure

"Yes, thank you. That's much better explained than I did it."

...Tea. Tea is delicious.

From:

aestrix

Prism doesn't have tea, but she seems perfectly happy anyway.

"So what's D'ni like, besides the magic transporty books?"

From:

calledtoventure

Well, there's plenty of tea available if she wants some.

"It's... slow, I guess. D'ni proper, the civilization, has been dead for hundreds of years. We're trying to... well, different people are trying to do different things with it, I guess. But there are a bunch of us, in the Cavern, in the ruins of D'ni. Trying to restore it, or recreate it, or to figure out how to make the books so we can create our own thing with it, or just trying to make a life, or even just wandering around looking at all the pretty things."

She smiles. "D'ni really is very beautiful. It's dark, and empty, but it's vast, and deep. Not just deep underground, although it is that, but... there's so much to explore. Always somewhere further to go." She's no longer looking at Prism, but off to the horizon. "It's a shame they weren't better people. Maybe we will do better."

From:

aestrix

"That sounds fascinating. But if it's only been hundreds of years, surely there are still some about that you can talk to? Or - what happened to cause them to die out, are they all gone?"

From:

calledtoventure

"It was a plague. There are a few survivors, but they're not hanging around the City. They went off to Releeshahn to try to start again."

From:

aestrix

"Oh. And I suppose they're not willing to answer questions, are they. Hm. ... Wait, if they're gone, who are you trying to restore it for? It seems silly to have a city with no people."

From:

calledtoventure

"For ourselves, for each other, for whatever of the culture we can reconstruct and like enough to revive. I say it's empty, but it's only mostly empty. It's a city built for of people, and there are less than a hundred of us down there.

"But to answer your question, the D'ni may be gone but we're still here: the natives of Earth, from the Surface. And we're coming to the City, so it can be alive again. It's slow going, but it's going."

From:

aestrix

Prism... Doesn't appear to understand. But she nods.

"The city must be wonderful if you all want to leave your homes to live there."

From:

calledtoventure

Ahrotahn smiles. "It is. But even before that, before I knew anything about any of this, I was Called there. I knew, we all knew, somehow, where to go, and that it would be worth the journey. And it was, and is.

"But it's not just the City. It's what the city could be. What we're trying to create, or re-create." She gestures around at the party. "My people never had any contact with other worlds, before we found D'ni. And look at this! Even if I didn't like the City, isn't the idea of traveling to other worlds — isn't it worth it?"

From:

aestrix

"I wouldn't know, this is the first other world I have been to. For a while I didn't even think the forum was real, I thought it was all elaborate pretend and everyone was in on the joke but me." She shrugs. "Called? What do you mean?"

From:

calledtoventure

"We don't really understand it ourselves. The going explanation is," she makes a throwing-up-her-hands gesture, but with only one hand (the other is holding her teacup), "'Yeesha!' But, in summary, we felt an urge to go to a certain place, and when we got there, we found D'ni." She smiles. "And each other."

From:

aestrix

"Aw. That's sweet. It sounds like you're really happy! I'm glad."

From:

calledtoventure

Ahrotahn grins. "Thanks."

From:

aestrix

"So - I don't know, do you have questions about my world? I don't really know what to say, mine feels kinda boring, there have been no - I wasn't called anywhere in particular! I have an apartment."

From:

calledtoventure

"Well... what does your Empire do? Are there other countries in your world that you trade with? How does your government treat outsiders?"

From:

aestrix

"My Empire mostly just runs things! And keeps the world trees working and keeps people fed and happy and safe. There are other countries that we trade with, but I don't know very much about them besides some stereotypes and it seems mean to represent them with just those. I - don't think my government's dealt with a lot of outsiders. I don't see why they'd mistreat any of you! They're nice to foreigners."

From:

calledtoventure

"That's good. We don't have a lot of empires in my world, nowadays, and some people think they tend to go badly. But I'm glad yours is working out."

From:

aestrix

"It is! And we have really nice stuff. And a lot of time to find what we want to do! I mean - humans get a century! Maybe. Ugh, it's awful, I'm sure we could fix it if I could get an arcanist to look at you."

From:

calledtoventure

"Immortality? That would certainly be welcome. Are arcanists rare?"

From:

aestrix

She nods. "There's a whole - testing process for them. You have to apply. I didn't qualify. It's very complicated stuff and it seems like there's only a limited number of people that can be arcanists, so they need the best."