GLoG 93: Something something something babies

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Oh hey petting has stopped that's just great.

Geneva folds her wing across her back and gives it a fluff so the feathers lay flat.

"A few days?" she echoes, then makes a clicking noise with her beak. When she speaks again it's half to herself. "There might still be some residual exotic mass activity from the Neihnstein-Roseluck bridge... Do you think you would be able to pinpoint the precise location your vehicle entered the Nexus?"

Oh HOH!

Those were some science words, right?

It sounds like Geneva knows science things.

She perks up immediately at the mention of a scientist, her ears POING!ing erect.

"Your crew has a scientist? What's her field of specialization?"

Geneva is always glad to make contact with newcomers. It usually means more useful data.

"How I got here? Well, I was - Gilda get that fish out of your mouth it might have parasites - fiddling with an old Ministry of Arcane Science teleportation pad and it blew up in my face. When I woke up I was in a field a few miles from the city of Inside. Pretty normal call to adventure I would say."

Glory, meanwhile, retrieves her hat. "Thanks lady! Look at my bug!" The cub uncups her paws in Miranda's face which results in the dragonfly zipping free, nearly colliding with the woman's nose in the process.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

The precise point of entry, eh?

Miranda shrugs, recalling the hole her shuttle had put in Trog's as a result of their interdimensional trip. Yeah, she might have a vague idea of their entry point.

"Our cell had a scientist, yeah. Doctor Eun-Jung Bu. She specializes in chemistry, I think, but she's been known to do a little bit of everything." She pauses for a moment, weighing the merits of telling her more. "If you're offering to help, she's got a place up in Inside now; I'd be glad to show you later. I might not know much about how all of this works, but I know Eun well enough to tell she's in way over her head."

Miranda gives Geneva a small smile and chuckles a little at "call to adventure". Yeah, that seemed to be an accurate description of how things turned out.

Wait, wait... Geneva had mentioned something interesting. What was- that was a dragonfly, okay. "Whoa, there he goes!" Miranda says, pointing in the direction it had flown off, in case Glory wanted to try for a recapture.

Now, what did she want to know? Oh, yeah. "...Wait, Ministry of Arcane Science?" She asks. Somehow she doubted Geneva meant arcane to just mean "old". "Is that a magic thing?" That could lead to compatibility issues. There were a lot if other realities that seemed to have magic, but hers didn't, and trying to get back there with magic might be counterproductive.

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Glida begrudgingly spits out the small trout she had acquired. Considering how wet she is she must have gone zipping off to the lake only to return triumphantly with the fish. "But mooooooooom. I caught it!"

"If you want to eat it take it to the cafeteria and see if someone will cook it for you. DON'T play with the stove!" Geneva admonishes.

Gilda seems placated by that, scoops up the fish, and scampers off to see if there's a grownup in the cafeteria.

Now then! "Ah, hehe, no I imagine a chemical engineer might have some trouble."
"Mom?"
"It just so happens that I'm something of the local Nexus expert-"
"Hey mom?"
"-on teleportation, both phenomenological and technological. Any opportunity to study a new point of entry is-"
"Mama?"
"-an opportunity to collect more data. The better we understand the how and why of people being pulled in the Nexus the more precisely we can-"
"Mom, hey!"

A sigh. "What is it, Gabriel? Mom's talking to a grownup right now."

"Can I go see if the dwarves are out playing?" Gabriel asks.

"Yes-"

He's already scampering away.

"But no going into their fortress without permission!" she shouts after him.

Ah, children.

"Oh no my bug!" Glory laments as she goes chasing after the insect.

AH CHILDREN.

"It's a magic thing," Geneva laughs. "Back on Earth, my home version of Earth anyway, thaumatology is just another branch of science. Spell matrix engineering is just like chemical or mechanical engineering. Obviously the specifics are going to be different but there's nothing fundamentally unique about magic that differentiates it from other forms of scientific inquiry."

She tilts her head to the side a bit.

"I think I know that look. Trust me when I say that my expertise doesn't cover only magical forms of non-Newtonian motion. It also helps that the Nexus has a fascinating property of translation. Not just languages, but concepts, too," Geneva explains with a smile. Seeing a smile from someone with a beak is definitely interesting. "Case in point. What language would you say I'm speaking right now?"

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"Spanish." Miranda replies immediately, before realizing what she said with a frown. "Come to think of it, it does seem a little odd that everyone's been speaking it. Even where I'm from, it's a secondary language; most of the general public defaults to English." She mulls that over for a moment. "Give me a second, I want to try something... Ay, no, boys, no friends over, it's a school night! Now eat your dinners and behave!" Her voice barely changed when she said this, aside from taking on a certain shrill tone that suggested she was trying to imitate (if not outright mock) someone else entirely. "I'm assuming you understood that?"

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

"Ah," Geneva replies without saying anything else.

She would rather allow people to figure things out rather than JUST tell them.

Even though telling them is fun, too.

"Yes. That sounded like perfectly comprehensible Equestrian to me," Geneva replies. "Of course, you aren't actually speaking Equestrian. When my friends try they always have trouble pronouncing whn properly."

Geneva just made a very horse-y noise.

"You should hear my trying to speak English. It's pretty rough. My husband, Nick? He's from-"

The hippogriff gives a little cough.

"Cahneghfonah."

That was probably supposed to be 'California'.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

Miranda cringes involuntarily, though it's not entirely clear whether that's due to the butchering of "California" or bad memories of dealing with "Nick". "Wow. That's... it's weird that it translates like that. You'd think if whatever is translating for us can do whole languages, it wouldn't have much trouble with accents." She stops for a moment, then, "actually, it's kinda miraculous that you *can* speak English without the translator, come to think of it. Assuming you didn't know it before you came here, I mean. It's gotta be hard to learn another language if it always just sounds like your own."

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

"See, that's the fascinating part. If I just speak my first language with the intent of you understanding there's no problem, what I mean is translated into a form you can understand. But- eef Ah sfeash Eneghish is no... ah..."

Geneva knits her brow in concentration. What was the English word for 'filter' again?

Oh! Right!

Ugh. That one has an L, a T, AND an R in it.

"Fiehnegh... FILTEH."

Geneva pulls a face, then sticks her tongue out.

"My vocal apparatus is quite a bit different than a human's. Making some of the same sounds is tricky. But learning new things is fun! It's an effect that takes intent into account. If you want to simply speak and be understood it does its job. But if you're trying to speak and be heard using a specific language then it doesn't always translate. If you're wanting to avoid being understood except by speakers of your own language it doesn't translate at all."

It's very fascinating, that way.

"My husband was originally from one of the human-dominated versions of Earth. Not much of a surprise. The vast majority of Earths are populated with humans. People like myself are in something of a minority."

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"That's pretty nifty. So, if I understand you right, you could deliberately bypass the translator by... willing it, I guess?" She mulls that over for a moment. "The finer points of that system sound like they could be useful. I mean, if you approach that with a cypher... wait, actually... um. Huh." She shrugs. "Something to experiment with later, I guess."

"...Yeah, that seems to be the case, based on what Ixbe heard here in the Nexus. Eun said it had something to do with 'desynchronization', but every time she goes to explain it, I get migraines. It's a weird concept."

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

"I'm going to need to be heading to work pretty soon. Do you have any way of getting in contact with you?" Geneva asks, raising her wrist to poke at the computer she's wearing. "Because I would really like to investigate the area you and your crew arrived at. If nothing else, I might be able to map out a probability cloud of incoming trajectories. That's the easiest way to figure out where your home universe is."

Well.

It sounds like Geneva MIGHT have a way to get them back home.

Or maybe point them in the right direction?

Could be something!

Somewhere to start is more than they've got right now.

"I don't want you to go..." Gwen grouses, her face still shoved up against Geneva's flank.

"Sweetie, mommy has to go to work. You'll have lots of fun here with your friends."

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"Hold on one second." Miranda fiddles with her Hotbox for a moment, eventually producing a pair of walkie-talkies. "Normally, I'd just give you my phone number, but somehow, I don't think my provider reaches out here." She jokes, handing one of the devices to Geneva. "Thank you so much for this. It really means the world to me."

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

WELL!

Seeing the hotbox employed definitely manages to get Geneva's attention.

"Is that a programmable matter transmuter?" she asks, her curiosity getting the best of her.

It always does, if we're being honest.

She'll take the walkie talkie and begins fiddling with it while at the same time poking at her wrist computer. After a few moments she'll hand the device back.

"The PipGear has a built in radio receiver/transmitter, among other useful tools. I have your radio frequency saved."

Well.

That's handy.

"I look forward to meeting the rest of your crew! It was nice meeting you, Miranda," Geneva says before turning to the cub still clinging to her. "Mommy has to go now. You have fun, okay?"

"No! I don't want to stay!" Gwen cries.

Oh geeze this is going to be hard, isn't it.

Geneva backs off a few paces and goes airborn, a single beat of her wings launching her a good fifteen feet into the air.

"Mama! Mama!" Gwen yells as she begins beating her little wings to take off, but she can't manage to vertical take off her mother just pulled.

The adult hippogriff continues climbing, higher and higher, and then the air seems to almost visibly compress around her for a brief moment before-

She vanishes.

Did she teleport?

A few fractions of a second later a deep BOOM! rolls across the campground, rattling windows. Apparently the hippogriff just casually broke the sound barrier.

Gwen, who was just a few feet off the ground, drops back to the dirt and begins screaming, "MAMA!" at the sky between shuttering, sobbing breaths.

Geneva, now rocketing toward VIGIL, allows the wind to carry her tears away.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

Well that was surreal. Still, things were looking much better than they had a few minutes ago. If she'd just managed to kinda-sorta recruit am expert to help them out, their chances of getting home safely just shot up a few digits.

But that was something to think about in a few hours. For now, she had a crying hippogriff cub in front of her. Miranda came to GLoG to do some good, and this was exactly the sort of thing she should have expected.

Well, okay. 90% the thing she should have expected.

The point is, she knew she had to help, however she could. So she takes a deep breath and sits down next to Gwen. Not as close as she had with Geneva; she got the distinct impression she'd made her uncomfortable that way. Petting was out, too, for the same reasons. An adult could handle being a little out of her comfort zone, but Gwen was just a little girl; even little things were going to upset her.

For now, the plan was mostly to just be there. She didn't really know how to handle comforting a stranger's kids. The best she could do right now was let Gwen air out and be ready to help cheer her up once the worst of it was past. Maybe make her favorite food for her? Play with her? Something like that.

It then occured to Miranda that she had no idea what was safe for them to eat, or the limits of their anatomy. If Geneva came back and found she'd accidentally poisoned or injured her kids...

To hell with that. If she accidentally hurt them, whether Geneva found out or not, she'd never forgive herself.

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Surreal?

No, that was completely normal.

Nothing usual going on at all.

Not even slightly out of the ordinary!

Gwen continues screaming and crying. Everything is awful. She wants her mom! She doesn't want to be here-

Oh no that strange person is getting closer to her. Gwen makes a distressed mewling noise and shuffles away, though she doesn't run. Or fly. Or anything. Mom left so fast she doesn't even know what way she went. She tries to tell the human to leave her alone but she's gasping for breath because she's crying so hard and that just makes her cry even more.

And it's about this time that Gilda emerges from the cafeteria. She had heard all the commotion and emerged to find out what was happening. Though not before eating her fish. There HAD been someone to cook it! It took a little while but she spent the chasing a squirrel that had gotten inside so she didn't mind any. So anyway she comes back outside and her sister is screeching and that weird human her mom was talking to is getting close to her sister so Gilda does the only reasonable thing a sister can do and poofs herself up and goes sprinting outside and goes "Yyyyaaaaarr!" as fearsome as she can manage at the human to maybe scare her away.

Gilda is very fearsome (in Gilda's opinion) so this will definitely work.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

Naturally, Miranda is unimpressed. But at least Gilda had made her job a little easier by making the first move. Miranda decides to humor her a little, taking on a cautious stance, hands ready to move anywhere she might need to defend herself if Gilda did indeed pounce. "Whoa, whoa! Easy there, tiger. Nobody's gonna hurt any of you." She says, giving her a reassuring smile. "You've got nothing to worry about."

[Deathkeeper]

Lake

Unfortunately, Gabriel wasn't able to find ANY of the dwarves, which is really a shame because everyone knows that dwarves are the best at making things that make cool click-clicking noises.
So instead he's wandering around the game and sitting out by the lake which is a shame because there aren't ANY cool noises happening right now.
What sort of horrible fate could this be?

Meanwhile, Glory is chasing a bug.
She could be at that a while.

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Ah HAH!

Look at that!

The human is clearly intimidated by her daunting presence.

Or so Gilda believes.

"Did you make my sister cry!?" she demands as ferociously as she can muster.

Given how small and squeaky Gilda's voice is Miranda could probably be forgiven if she doesn't think it's very scary.

Gwen, meanwhile, is laying on her side in the dirt hiccuping because she was crying to hard. She feels emotionally exhausted and she wants her mom...


[Lake]

A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS!

A large insect lands on a rock near Gabriel and begins vibrating its rear end, making a rapid pitch clicking sound. Before long its a REALLY LOUD BUZZ! This weird bug is screaming at him with its butt! What the heck is its deal?

Glory will likely notice several of the strange screaming insects on bushes and trees nearby. Its almost like they just started coming up out of the ground and being unreasonably loud.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"Not at all. The poor girl's just upset. Your mom left a few minutes ago, and she's not too happy about it." Miranda sits back down, patting the ground next to her. "I can't say I blame her. The first day of anything can be pretty scary."

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Gilda gives Miranda a really suspicious look just so the human knows that she's on to her.

Better not try anything funny!

"I'm going to go chase frogs. You better be nice to my sis!" she warns before starting to stalk off only to suddenly JUMP in surprise!

Oh no, Gwen just jolted upright with a start, too!

What's got them on edge?

That horrible screeching sound!

Gwen's ears go flat (but at least she isn't crying anymore). Gilda looks alert and ready to fight.

"W-what is that? It's loud," Gwen sniffles.

"I'm gunna find it!" Gilda declares before taking several bounding steps, beats her wings, and flies off toward the lake where most of the noise is coming from.

"W-wait! Umm..." Gwen weakly calls after her sister, eyes flicking toward Miranda. Looks like she just got ditched. Gwen folds her wings around herself and tries to look very small. Maybe if she's small and uninteresting the human will leave her alone.

[Deathkeeper]

Lake

Gabriel looks at the bug screaming at him and bolts in the opposite direction while making a distinctive hippogriff noise. That is to say a squawk/whinny/yelp. He goes bounding away back towards the camp and woods.
Meanwhile, Glory sees a bunch of bugs that ARE GONNA GET HUNTED SO GOOD so she wiggles her tail and POUNCES A BUNCH OF EM.
Glory is so good at pouncing.

[Rebonack]

[Lake]

Gilda spots her brother running away from the LOUD NOISES and decides that the most sensible thing to do would be to dive on him since he isn't paying attention.

Which is exactly what she does.

GILDA OUTTA NOWHERE WITH THE TACKLE-GLOMP!

The end result is likely going to be both of them tumbling through the silty soil that surrounds the lake. Gilda will do everything in her power to come out of this potential tumble pinning her brother to the ground.

"What's the noise! Can we eat it?"

Gilda with the important questions here.

Gwen will find that catching the screaming butt bugs is actually WAY easier than catching dragonflies. The screaming bugs don't even try to get away.

Only question is, what's she going to do with it now that she's got it?

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

Miranda lets out a quiet sigh as she watches Gilda take off. Both of these kids (as well as the other two) were her responsibility, and she couldn't be in two places at once. At least three of them seemed to be gathering in the same place, which would make things a little easier.

Gwen still seemed upset, at least as much as she could tell. Maybe the hands-off approach wasn't working so well. She'd have to do something to help Gwen adjust to being away from Geneva, even if Gwen didn't really like her.

"Hey, listen... I know you're upset about your mommy, but she's going to be back here in a few hours." Miranda begins, trying to make her voice as soothing as possible. "Why don't we head down to the lake while we wait for her? Your siblings look like they're all having fun."

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

Everything is scary and new.

Why does everything have to be scary?

Why can't she be brave like Gilda?

Oh.

The human is talking to her.

Gwen listens, but she doesn't make eye-contact with them. She just keeps looking at the ground. When the human asks if she wants to go to the lake Gwen vigorously shakes her head no.

She wants to stay here.

This is where mommy left her and so that's where she'll be when mommy comes back.

[Deathkeeper]

Lake

Gabriel is tackled! How rude.
"They're big gross bugs. They're yucky and I don't like them." Gabriel tells Gilda promptly.
Everyone knows bugs are gross.
Especially big ones.

Meanwhile, Glory has a bunch of bugs in her claws!
They're not really doing anything.
....
This is boring. Glory lets the stupid boring bug go and goes looking for something else that isn't so BORING.

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"Okay. Nobody's going to make you." Miranda replies calmly. She meant it, too; if Gwen was going to stay here, she could at least go down to the lake herself without having to worry about her wandering off. There was absolutely nothing stopping her but the guilt associated with leaving a crying child on her own.

"...I'm sorry, I don't think we've actually been properly introduced. My name's Miranda. My friends call me Mira. If you want to, too, that's okay with me. What's your name?"

[Rebonack]

[Main Lodge]

The human is STILL talking to her.

Gwen doesn't know her. People Gwen doesn't know are scary.

But...

The human is still talking to her.

And telling her name.

Gwen's eyes flick briefly toward Miranda. Should she make eye contact she'll avert her gaze again just as quickly.

And then?

"Gwen," she squeaks, barely audible.


[Lake]

Tackling isn't rude tackling is fun.

How else are you supposed to play if you aren't rolling around in the dirt?

"Bugs?" Gilda replies, looking up at-

Oh.

Yeah.

There are lots of bugs all over.

One just landed on a rock nearby and begins vibrating its butt and NOW IT IS SCREAMING.

Gilda pins the thing to the rock with one paw and then gobbles it up. This, of course, means that Gabriel is free to escape.


Gwen, leaving the cicadas behind, might find several interesting things near the lake. For example?

That beetle!

It isn't very big.

BUT!

It is VERY shiny and VERY green! And it runs around really fast, too!

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"Gwen..." Miranda smiles. "Cute name. It suits you." She pulls out her Hotbox and starts fiddling with it again. "What kinds of things do you like to eat, Gwen? Personally, I could really go for some tamales, but that's probably just me."

This was the most basic trick in the babysitter's handbook; bribery with food. She didn't want to overuse it, but a tasty treat to help coax Gwen over that first-day humo seemed like an appropriate application.

[Morty]

[Main Lodge]

Gwen's loud cries have attracted someone's attention. The little hippogriff might recognize Reelshka, one of the caretakers of the League. Geneva must have left the kids alone here this time. Reelshka is quite familiar with the reaction of a child who is left alone in the daycare for the first time, but it never gets any less... loud. But who is this with her? She seems to be trying to comfort Gwen...

"Welcome to the Good League of Good," she says to Miranda before crouching down near Gwen. "And hello, Gwen. Good to see you again," she says gently before looking up at the woman again. "My name is Reelshka Trollfinger, one of the caretakers. I don't believe I've seen you around before."

[Ironsmith]

[Main Lodge]

"I wasn't here to be seen." Miranda replies, extending her hand. "Miranda Cortez. I'm here to volunteer for a while. Got here at around the same time as Geneva, and... well, I couldn't really just leave Gwen alone. It'd kinda defeat the purpose of my being here in the first place."

[Reinholdt]

[The Darkest Corner]

From the blackest pitch of darkness in the furthest forgotten recesses of the campgrounds grows a void. A terrible expanding gloom of shadows. A chill emanates outwards as if all heat were being sapped from the area by this malignance's existence.

Roiling outwards from the emptiness, both separating from and embodying the shadows, is a small figure about the size of one who has suffered for a decade. Nearly humanoid but grotesquely lacking in discreet features, the umbral monster floats forward, abandoning the safety of the dark to seek out new life. Beside it a tendril of solid shadow trails like a pet, clutching a piece of paper that the monster cannot. A piece of paper with various pictures, but many many words. While the monster has been learning to read, there are just so many words, it could use help deciphering some of them.

Spoiler

Show

[Deathkeeper]

Lake

Gabriel makes a [I]face[/I. A very birdy face of disgust to be exact.
"That's gross, Gilda. You're gross." How could he possibly be related to someone so unbelievably gross? He goes trotting off before he catches any of her grossness on him.
Meanwhile!

Glory sees a COOL BUG and scampers off to pounce upon it!
"COME BACK COOL BUG!"