That wasn't supposed to happen

[whatamithinking]

The parameters are recalibrated, the dial is spun, and a new universe is selected.
It won't be home--they haven't collected anywhere near enough coordinate data to think they can find home yet--but it will be another step closer.
And who knows, it might be interesting.
Edie steps through the portal first.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

'Beats me, but it probably has something to do with these creepy things. We both landed right next to one of them. I'm going to try dooring over to you, if there's a good reason for us to stay separate someone should have put up a sign.' She selects Emily's armband with her own and creates a microportal.

[iamnotpolaris]

Which Emily expands with no trouble.

[pythbox]

"You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees," Trent says helpfully.

At the same time, Edie's nonperson is saying, "Greetings, Edie. Is there something I can help you with?"

Both of them are still patiently holding out their canvas bags toward their respective guests.

[whatamithinking]

'What the fuck it knows my name.' She hurriedly steps through the portal so Emily can close it.

[iamnotpolaris]

'...Did someone bring us here on purpose,' Emily wonders darkly. She closes the portal.

[pythbox]

"If you want to survive, you will need to create weapons and shelter. Start by chopping down trees and gathering wood," Trent reminds them.

Apart from Trent, the immediate environment contains a lot of bright green grass, a scattering of strangely generic trees with strangely straight vertical trunks, small songbirds flitting between the trees, and a cute white bunny.

Now it also contains a round green gelatinous blob about two feet in diameter, traversing the scenery in mighty hops that take it easily six feet into the air. It pauses between hops, wiggles in place for a couple of seconds, and then hops forward again. Hop, wiggle, repeat.

[iamnotpolaris]

Well okay then.
That's a lot less disturbing than the flesh statues that probably know their names. There's no reason, at the moment, to pay it any particular attention.

[pythbox]

The green thing lands on the bunny.

The bunny violently explodes, showering its immediate vicinity with blood and bunny parts.

The green thing hops unconcernedly on. It hits a tree and bounces off and is now hopping unconcernedly in a new direction.

[iamnotpolaris]

'...Let's not let one of those things touch us.'

[whatamithinking]

'This is going to be one of those universes, isn't it.'

[pythbox]

The green thing bounces off Trent's head. Trent does not explode; he does, however, put away his canvas bag (somehow?) and get out a bow and arrow (from somewhere?) and start firing arrows at the green thing as it hops away. The arrows just sort of appear as needed.

"Once you have a wooden sword, you might try to gather some gel from the slimes. Combine wood and gel to make a torch!" says Trent.

[iamnotpolaris]

"...We've. Wandered into some kind of animate video game."

[whatamithinking]

'I will take your word for it. (mild disdain for video-based media)'

[iamnotpolaris]

'Are there any other minds here or is it just us? If we're the only actual people here there's not much point in staying longer than necessary to calibrate the coordinates."

[whatamithinking]

'...Yes, actually. One. That way. (sense of direction)'

[pythbox]

Trent finally finishes off the green thing.

It violently explodes, showering its surroundings in translucent green slime and chunks of itself.

Two copper coins also appear amid its remains.

Trent returns his bow to wherever it came from, produces the bag again, and holds it out toward Emily, totally ignoring Edie. "You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees."

[iamnotpolaris]

Emily idly grabs the coins, twisting them through the air towards her hand, because why not.
'We might as well head that way, then.'

[whatamithinking]

'(confirmation)'
They set off in that direction.

[iamnotpolaris]

If any more hopping blobs cross their path Emily will smack them with assorted metal she has on her person.

[pythbox]

There are a fair number of hopping blobs around! The blue ones are slightly bigger than the green ones. Smacking them with metal is a good way to get them to explode, yielding coins and little balls of blobstuff - well, plenty of blobstuff, but the little balls consistently don't fade away with the rest of the exploded blobstuff after a minute.

Trent wanders after them for a bit, repeating his helpful advice, but soon falls behind.

After some walking, the weird forest abruptly gives way to a weird... tundra? There is a perfectly straight line separating grassy ground from snowy. On the snowy side, there is a new kind of hopping blob, prettily frosted and sparkling in the sun. There are also penguins instead of bunnies.

[iamnotpolaris]

Penguins, that's cute.
Emily will drape some of her metal over Emily and warm them both with magnetism. If the pretty frosted blobs produce pretty frosted balls she might collect some of them.

[pythbox]

When she picks up a frosted ball, there is an unobtrusive helpful notification in her mind that this object represents 1 Gel.

When it touches another frosted ball, they merge into one with a quiet little ruffling/popping noise and now she has a little frosted ball representing 2 Gel.

[iamnotpolaris]

Sure fits the videogame theme, doesn't it.
If she throws the combined gels at the ground, do they bounce?

[pythbox]

A little!

Snow, snow, ice, snow, small ice-lined pond. Frosted blobs, penguins. The landscape is very regular - almost like it's laid out on an invisible grid of cubes. If it is, the cell size is about 2' x 2' x 2'. This becomes particularly obvious when they pass by a steep hill - its silhouette against the sky clearly shows the cube layout, even though some of the cubes are cut in half along various planes to provide a smoother surface.

After the snowy area, there is another forest exactly like the previous forest.

And a brief discontinuity in the perceptibility of the mind up ahead, as though whoever it is faded out of existence for a few seconds and then came back. They're much more clearly perceptible afterward.

[whatamithinking]

Huh.
She gives the mind a brief telepathic nudge--not much in the way of content, just, hello, I am here, I exist.