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

[not_only]

He says something, hesitantly, in a completely unfamiliar language.

[whatamithinking]

'Ah. Hi. I'm the telepath, obviously. You can sort of push thoughts back at me like (this).'

[not_only]

'Oh,' he says. 'That's very strange. How did you get here? How long have you been here?'

[whatamithinking]

'My sister and I have a set of armbands that let us travel between universes. We got here a few minutes ago.'

[not_only]

'...You mean you can leave?'

He is very interested in this possibility.

[whatamithinking]

'...Yes. I'm guessing you can't?'
Edie's bouncing all this to Emily, as usual.

[not_only]

'I don't really know how I got here, but I've been stuck here for years, on the next island over.' He points back the way he came. 'Just today I decided to explore and see what was on the other side of the weird fog, and I guess it's another island with more people in it.'

[whatamithinking]

'You're the only other mind I've been able to sense in this world. I don't think the other islands probably have anyone on them.'

[not_only]

'If you've only been here a few minutes I guess you don't know - it's not safe here. There might have been more people once. You should make sure to build a house before it gets dark, if you're not leaving right away.'

[whatamithinking]

'Not safe like what? We saw one of the blob things explode a rabbit.'

[not_only]

'At night there are walking corpses and giant flying eyeballs that try to kill you. They're not very dangerous one at a time, but if you went to sleep in the open there might be a lot of them by the time you woke up. If you build a house, they can't get inside.'

[iamnotpolaris]

'Video game logic,' Emily sends, rolling her eyes.

[whatamithinking]

Edie declines to mirror this to the stranger.
'What kind of house? If my sister just surrounds us with metal--she has (magnetism) powers--will that do?'

[not_only]

He glances at Emily curiously when she rolls her eyes, then shakes his head hesitantly at Edie's question.

'I'm not sure about that. I brought enough supplies to build the kind of house that I know works, though.'

[whatamithinking]

'Will that take a long time? I'm used to houses taking longer than 'until nightfall' to construct.
My sister was reiterating a comment she made to me earlier about how ridiculous this universe seems to be.
Query: Would it be alright if I downloaded your language? I can do that without touching anything else in your mind.'

[not_only]

...He blinks.

'That would make it a lot easier to talk to you...' Uncertainly, 'And it wouldn't... do anything to me?'

[whatamithinking]

'No, it's a purely sensory ability. It won't do anything to you at all.'

[not_only]

'Then - okay.'

He's clearly not completely comfortable with the idea, but seems to have decided to take her at her word anyway.

[whatamithinking]

After a moment, she says, "Alright, I'm done. Thank you," in his language.

[not_only]

"Your power is very strange. I've never heard of anything like it," he says. "But it seems useful. Do you want me to build you a house? It should only take a few minutes."

[whatamithinking]

"That would be lovely, thank you."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Edie's power isn't terribly common, but it's definitely a thing back home," Emily says. "...She gave me a copy of the language, that was a thing."

[not_only]

He smiles very slightly. "Useful," he repeats.

Then he gets a tiny axe out of a pouch - it's about two inches long - and it changes into a full-sized axe in his hand, and he starts chopping at one of the nearby trees. After a few swings of the axe, the entire tree collapses into tiny cubes of wood. He gathers them up - they whiffle together just like the gel-balls - and moves on to the next tree. Where the first tree stood, the grass is very short, but otherwise there is no sign of its presence - no stump, no roots.

[iamnotpolaris]

"I cannot believe this exists in real life," Emily mutters.

[not_only]

"It is very strange here," agrees the winged man with the axe. He clears the second tree, looks around to judge the available space, and goes to clear a third.