methods and tools

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

The gate opens in an small space. Through a doorway ahead is a mid-sized room, scattered with chairs. One wall, directly across from the doorway to the incoming gates area, is made of some clear material. On the other side of it is another room, with a metallic floor raised slightly above the first one's, with a half-dozen complex diagrams and space for many more.

The way into there appears to be through a decontamination room to the left. There is a door on the right into the rest of the base. Embedded in the wall to the left is the door to the outgoing gate area.

Both rooms are windowless and otherwise minimally decorated.

(Observant guests may note that the gravity is about a third of what they are used to.)

Comments

[meletiti_entelecheiai]

A light flickers, and suddenly a projector activates. The illusion of a man, dressed in a red suit, appears in the middle of the room, eyes closed and a look of concentration on his face.

(This is entirely feigned. The hard part of alethics is almost always in the design of the spell, not the casting.)

For a moment, he simply hovers there, unmoving.

Then the room - unblurs, sharpens unnaturally, every edge picked out in a glaring color not of this world. The light fantastic reaches out from him in curlicued fractals, cracks in reality growing like writhing vines to the edges of the room.

When they reach the floor and walls and ceiling, they seem to lose coherence, the light rushing across the Boundary of the room in a wave of unlight, a computerized grid appearing momentarily.

"Within this space, may the Truth be known to all.

Blur. Blur. Blur. Blur. Blur.

Five times blur and then hold."

/.[[Transmission] [Truth] [Connection] [Truth] [Reception]] [Blur]./ ->
/.[[[Communication] [Outward]] [Truth] [Connection] [Truth] [[Communication] [Inward]]] [[Chaos] [Distortion]]./ ->
/.[[[Communication] [[Momentum Ephemeralized Reified] [Symmetry Ephemeralized Reified]]] [Truth] [Connection] [Truth] [[Communication] [[Momentum Ephemeralized Reified] [[Symmetry Ephemeralized Reified] [Void Reified Ephemeralized]]] [[Possibility Ephemeralized] [Warp Ephemeralized]]./ ----

And Aisilian vanishes, replaced by an image of a tower, reaching to the skies, phantasmal clouds around its base and stars about its tip. A tower of Babel. A tower in slow, tumbling ruin, beautiful arches formed of crumbling masonry and spires of exposed iron and blue crystal, caught in mid-fall.

[scatteredstars]

Several things have been added to the tower.

One, in large lettering and positioned to be in clear view of the portal, is warning about the gravity.

Another is several displays of a board full of names, showing who is next for warding.

The last is a note about forum access being available on the ectos scattered around the room.

Incoming Gate

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn, Lena, and Tyche are standing near the gate, ready to greet arrivals and direct people. (Thorn looks rather amused by something.)

Re: Incoming Gate

[dotted_lines]

Steve steps through the portal. He takes a step, and his feet push him upward more strongly than he is used to. He trips, then falls, slightly slower than usual, before catching himself against a wall.

Re: Incoming Gate

[ambrovimvor]

Anda steps through the gate, takes an extra step quickly, and eyes the rather showy tower.

Linsa steps through the gate, and promptly stumbles and would fall if Anda did not reach out very quickly (too quick for standard human reflexes) and grab her and steady her.

Re: Incoming Gate

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt steps through the portal and continues walking as if she were on earth, seemingly oblivious to the lighter gravity. She spares a single glance for the tower before being directed onwards to the diagram room.

Re: Incoming Gate

[mountains_themselves]

Raezenoth floats through the gate, completely uncaring of the gravity difference.

Once through, he looks at Thorn. "I have another person I would like warded."

Re: Incoming Gate

[calledtoventure]

Ahrotahn heard there was a thing happening. She comes to participate.

...oh cool, nonstandard gravity! This party is great.

Re: Incoming Gate

[hide_and_seek]

Kit follows the other people through the gate.

Re: Incoming Gate

[antiprojectionist]

A man in a tattered labcoat with outrageously purple hair slouches in through the gate. He doesn't appear to be paying much attention to the gravity, but his stride shifts automatically as he steps though the gate, and his eyebrows quirk.

"One-third gee?"

Re: Incoming Gate

[aestrix]

An elf in a sparkly dress steps through the portal. She's remarkably graceful about the change in gravity, and jumps a bit, giggling.

"Fun," she observes, smiling. And then she looks up and sees the tower-image. She makes an appreciative 'oooo' sound.

Re: Incoming Gate

[poll_the_stars]

Inavet... Is frustrated. She possibly shouldn't have left the party early out of - well. Genuine panic response. That. Was probably unavoidable, but - she suspects she could have handled it better. Probably. Are her hands still shaking? Stop that. Stop it right now.

Whatever. She can handle this. Show up, get warded, leave. Easy. She informs Lioncourt (and gains permission) to gate back to the castle, and then step through the portal.

She stumbles and hisses a curse word in the strange gravity. Maybe if she were less of a wreck she would handle this with poise and grace. But unfortunately, she is kind of a wreck.

Re: Incoming Gate

[vvvvvvibrant]

The Souleye's crew proceed in an orderly manner through the gate, barely even noticing the change in gravity.

Re: Incoming Gate

[kelardry]

Lantern steps into the lower gravity and twirls a little.

"Protection, appreciation, gratitude." A clear orb of glass appears in the air, attached by two twisting threads to two smaller blobs of glass, before vanishing.

"Biohazard -and other-, magic-vaccination, location is?" A small bumpy glass sphere, linked by two threads to a larger purple sphere with a clear flat disk growing out of one side.

Re: Incoming Gate

[botanical_engineer]

Kyeskei walks through the portal, then looks around in confusion. There is suddenly much less weight pressing her feet down and her stomach flutters for a moment, as though she is falling, and the walls are all made out of... something grey, not stone, not wood, and when she presses her hand to it, it was never alive. What?

Almost certainly an effect of it being another world, not a cause for concern, just something to find out about. If a world could have a self-editing small-seed that gets inside of people and controls or kills them, without even touching them, there would be nothing to stop the world from being made out of strange materials, or from making everything in it lighter.

She steps away from the portal to allow others to go by.

Re: Incoming Gate

[thisvorlunatic]

When the last of the party guests who were invited through the gate have crossed it, Leaf and his mother come through. The gate closes.

Leaf opens a gate to fetch his father.

Re: Incoming Gate

[thisvorlunatic]

Raezenoth wanted his acolyte gated in, so Miles goes back to the gating area and does that.

Warding

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

On the other side of the decontamination shower is the diagrammed room, with a flexible up-ramp to it. (This will change to a steeper up-ramp and a down-ramp as wardings proceed.)

Re: Warding

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt takes up a position outside the circle and waits.

Re: Warding

[calledtoventure]

Ahrotahn comes out of the decontamination area and climbs the ramp.

Re: Warding

[aestrix]

Prism goes to the diagrammed room when her name on the list flashes, and stands where she is told. She is very careful to not disturb anything.

Re: Warding

[poll_the_stars]

The quiet masked woman in black unpeels herself from an out of the way corner and heads to a circle when her name flashes. She does not look like she particularly wants to talk.

Dotted Lines, Thorn, Anda, and Linsa

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

"I hope you're not hurt," Thorn says (she sounds mildly concerned). "We should have warned people about the gravity."

Re: Dotted Lines, Thorn, Anda, and Linsa

[ambrovimvor]

"Yes, are you all right? It's weird here."

(Linsa looks concerned as well)

Thorn and Dotted Lines

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Thorn is on break, replenishing some of her lost blood.

Shortly after she arrives, however, she stands back up and heads out the mysterious door, carrying her protein drink.

Re: Thorn and Dotted Lines

[dotted_lines]

Steve sees her and waves.

P L O T

[onwhatwingswedareaspire]

Eventually it is time for the last few people to leave through the outgoing gate area.

Re: P L O T

[greatcomposure]

Cordelia casts the final gate to Nexus.