Real & Half-Real: Chapter 1 - The Portal and the Plan

[unsheathedfromreality]

Who: The Committee to Rescue Illarion from His Very Stupid Mistake
What: Building a portal to bust into a pocket dimension and strategizing what to do once they get there. All extremely advisable science.
When: Early-mid April
Where: Throughout Trench, and in parts beyond it

It's been weeks since Illarion's disappearance in the fight against Leviathan, and scarcely fewer weeks since his Omen Iskierka began papering Trench with notes on his whereabouts. The shrike's friends and loved ones have not been idle during that time, and now their plans begin coming to fruition.

It's time to get him out of the nightmare he's trapped in--but first, they've got to break their way in, and they've got to have a plan.

[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes ]]

Comments

[butnotyet]

He considers, for half a second, what he'd just said, and speaks to clarity, as clarification is next to Godliness (this is a lie, it is very far away from godliness, just look at how unclear John's metaphors are!): "Technically I just said the eggs did — but yes, it tried to come through after them. Didn't really fit, fortunately for us; the portal was, oh, maybe a few inches in diameter too small for the whole head to fit through, up until the very end — don't know if you've noted fluctuations in their size, just before they snap shut? I managed to lobotomize it while it was three-quarters through, and then inertia got the rest of the head through once it fit — and then, well, kaput, as it were."

There's a little throat-slicing hand gesture, here, as his eyebrows quirk a little: kaput, dekaput, decapitate, whatever, same thing, right?

"Did you want the cervical vertebrae? They're sort of ruining the overall effect of the skull-as-a-storage-chest," as his hand-gesturing switches to indicating the sagging back end, with its sad little 'tail'. (One of the feet attempts to kick at the bit of spine, and gets kicked in the ankle-equivalent by one of the other feet.)

"Not like I had plans for the softspares, either, if you wanted those," Patience adds absently, gaze flicking over to That Asshole, FKA 'Sasha Buckler', to invite him to speak up if he particularly wants a bunch of loose flesh, or scaly hide, or liquidified cholesterol that used to be a brain, for that matter — whether or not he's going to get them is, of course, a different question entirely. Maybe they'll all go to Ford Pines for whatever-the-hell research he wants to do, John.

"I was told," as his tone remains cheerfully light, surely not shadowed by an undercurrent of Speculation, glancing back to Ford once more, "anyway, that in Nephele," carefully pronounced, "they're all called dragons, rather than dinosaurs... which leads me to wonder, I suppose, if your great-niece or -nephew happened to breathe fire, at any point that you're aware?"

Or, in other words: what kind of dinosaur was your relative?

"I can't help but feel a little bit envious — no matter how many forms of megafauna I've encountered," quite a few, with that slaughtering-planets-for-God-and-just-utterly-wasting-resources-left-and-right bit, "we never did find anything quite as delightful as the prospect of your own pet dinosaur. Or, well, family member, of course."

[necrolord]

"Ford can have dibs on the fleshy bits," says God, very graciously. "Wouldn't mind the bones, though. Not that the house is lacking for odd bits of bone already... I just think they're neat."

To Ford's immensely offhand declaration that he's used to kids keeping pet dinosaurs, John flashes Augustine his most delighted are-you-hearing-this-guy expression. It flickers at the thoughtful note belying Augustine's voice, at the leading edge to what he says next. God's expression shutters for the briefest moment, then clears, but Augustine knows his tells. (Not all his tells; that might've made a few things go a good bit differently, wouldn't it.)

He says, bracingly, "Well, now's the time to adopt. Construction's coming right along, best as I can tell. We'll be gearing up for the next phase of this scheme, soon."

That being the one in which John claps his First Saint on the shoulder and sends him off to do some recon on a hostile planet. Like old times, really.

[cryptograms]

Ford opens his mouth to accept the offer of bones, but Sasha beats him to it. It's a bit of a disappointment, but it's not like they don't have plenty on hand already. Still, dinosaur bones! Those are always interesting.

As to Augustine's questions: "No, it was a perfectly mundane Compsognathus. Dragons are exceptionally rare in my home dimension, if not outright extinct."

And sure, so are dinosaurs, but Ford doesn't remark on the apparent contradiction. Instead the conversation has moved on to the actual reason they're all here: the rescue mission.

"Ah-- right. The portal itself is close to completion. Now it's just a matter of ensuring its stability."

[butnotyet]

"I'm entirely certain you'll have plenty of opportunity to play with the rest of the skull at your leisure, Teacher, given that I have yet to decide to be rid of it," Patience says blandly, gaze leveled on 'Sasha' without fear or concern — why should he feel either, given how many tens of millions of times he's used that title with the most profound respect? It's not like there's any reason he'd suspect God hadn't told this Ford fellow he was a teacher, surely, or that God was trying to be incognito, right?

(God has never succeeded at 'being incognito' within the Nine Houses; why would he try, in Trench, when it's so very clear that he isn't trying to be John, either?)

"That, about the dragons, sounds like the sort of professional-see-why-aey that every scientist-researcher who never wants someone to catch him out in a confident statement later proven wrong has given me for the past several thousand years, or so," which is both amused in tone and clearly an exaggeration (ha ha can you imagine?). "Did you want the bones? I really wasn't offering them to him."

So there, Sasha Buckler: now's your opportunity to pay for your crimes against humanity (or, well, this one, at least).

"How are these portals supposed to work, anyway?" he asks — patiently, knowing his cue to set things up for a delightedly long-winded passionate explanation about something that might or might not actually make a lick of sense to him.