jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I was attacked by some sort of beast. A giant snake with a mirror for a head, or, instead of a head. It snuck past my perimeter sensors somehow, and when it 'ate' me, I was suddenly in a different world. That's when I fell in front of you and that skeleton-thing. As for how it gave me an jump to a new universe without hyperium and a singularity generator, I have no idea."

[segreant]

"He was a lich. The snake thing... I have no explanation."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Me neither. My tentative plan is to build a new ship and go home, but it doesn't seem like you have the kind of technology I'm used to here. It'll be an uphill battle at best."

[segreant]

"I'm not sure what you're looking for..."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Does 'computer' ring a bell'? How about 'electricity'? I'm assuming no, since swords are outdated weapons where I come from."

[segreant]

"...Lightning? Sorry, the Winter Light's gift of understanding doesn't tell me everything there is to know about the words you're using. Swords hold blessings better than most things, but maybe that's not a factor where you're from."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Blessings are not a factor where I come from. We don't have dark things, or magic, or gods. We have to do everything by being clever with... Clockwork I suppose, and electricity, which could be summarized as chained lightning, and engines, which produce mechanical force, and computers that do lots and lots of math very very fast and this turns out to be useful for more than just accounting."

[segreant]

"...That sounds interesting. It must be nice without any dark things, at least."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Yes, you can wander through the wilderness only fearing for wolves and bears instead of walking skeletons and so on. I don't think you really notice the lack of dark things until you visit a place that does have them. At any rate, would you like me to possibly make some useful devices?"

[segreant]

"Maybe; what would you be making?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It largely depends on what materials are available. Starting from the simplest and moving to the most difficult or complex: Mechanical engines that can move things and would power some other devices, water pumps and filters, a telegraph system that will allow fast communication between two buildings set up for it, light without fire via electricity, ice-making cold-making and heating machines, composite alloy/ceramic armor that is lighter and stronger than steel (though I have no idea how it'd interact with blessings), more sophisticated communication devices that can be moved around and will do voices properly instead of just simple codes, weapons of various sorts, computers which will take an entire explanation all on their own, robots which are non-alive mechanical servants that use computers and electricity to run."

[segreant]

"...I'm sure you could find people who would want all of those things. Paladins in particular could use communication setups so we could show up where dark things were quicker, and maybe the armor. We can already do light; it's a prayer like the healing one."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I can take a section of the ceramic plating in this thing out and have someone see if it would be better than steel plate. Long-range communication is on the tricky side of things, if your society doesn't use electricity yet. I'll definitely look into it."

[segreant]

"...The obvious way to test your armor is to hit it with a sword as hard as we can, so if you give us some to test you might not get it back."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"That's acceptable. If it's just cut into pieces and not completely obliterated, I can fix it."

[segreant]

"You said ceramic so I'm imagining it shattering, but maybe it's not prone to that?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It's a special ceramic, and it's a ceramic composite. Ceramic is only some of the layers in it, which include carbon nanotubes, kinetic-reactance fluids, and titanium-steel alloys. And my joiner will mend a crack in just about anything."

[segreant]

"...Okay. Huh, that could be really handy. The joiner."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"If you're thinking surgery, let me warn you that it's not meant for use on living things. Its power source will run out eventually, and I can't make more without infrastructure. But if you think it'll be useful, I can try to rig a way to recharge it. And join things."

[segreant]

"I was thinking busted staffs and armor and walls, actually. I have very basic field medic training but usually the idea is to get the dark things destroyed before they've hurt anyone."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Staffs and armor it could definitely do. Walls are big, it might be better to try something else instead of using the joiner's limited power on them. I also have a bevy of sensors and scanners. I'm trying to teach them how to detect dark things with the example of that lich as a dark thing, but I don't think it's working."

[segreant]

"Well, liches aren't very common. It would be more useful if you could detect woke shadows, which can be very hard to find."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Please describe woke shadows."

[segreant]

"They're made with a specific kind of candle, and whoever made them sends them after their enemies. They seldom directly kill people - they cause nightmares, intolerable ones that can sometimes cause literal death from fear, and they whisper to people, which in conjunction with the nightmares and/or sleep deprivation causes people to act very out of character."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"...That's intensely creepy. What form do they take, though?"