Outside Context Meteorological Conditions

[wind_on_my_face]

It is a well-known fact that flying into clouds can lead to loss of orientation.

It is a less well-known fact that flying into clouds may lead one somewhere else entirely.

In fact, only one person has learned this so far.

Comments

[pythbox]

The elsewhere in question contains an unexpected amount of grass, trees, and dirt in unexpectedly close proximity.

[wind_on_my_face]

Thump goes the person.

Crashcrashcrash go the tree branches that were ripped off by wings on the way down.

After pausing a moment to process the unreasonableness of what has happened to him, the person shifts his wings into an anchor grid — it's too crowded a forest to fly here — and starts trying to remember everything he knows about self-defense, because dirt does not happen in the middle of the sky unless someone put it there, and that cloud was too small for a floating island this big, so —

Nope, still doesn't make sense.

[pythbox]

There is another person over there!

He has a canvas bag in one hand, which he is holding out toward the newcomer.

"You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees," he says in a helpful, explanatory tone of voice.

[wind_on_my_face]

These statements are correct, but why would he want to use hand tools, why is he being given hand tools, and more importantly what?

“What is this?” he asks, possibly pointing at the unexpected dirt.

Also, reinforced glass between him and the other person who might be the cause of this unreasonableness. Actually, reinforced glass between him and everything, for now. Plenty of air in with him.

[pythbox]

"Welcome to Terraria," says the person, continuing to hold out the bag. "If you want to survive, you will need to create weapons and shelter. Start by chopping down trees and gathering wood."

[wind_on_my_face]

What is this, a prehistoric recreation game? With a bad idea of an advertising strategy?

“Not interested in playing. Bye.”

He has anchors; he lifts himself straight up to get away from this and find out where he is, reforming wings once he is clear of the treetops.

Speaking of where he is: Transmit location request to the nearest relay. And compose message. Explain what he found and ask that someone ask this stupid idea some pointed questions. Transmit.

[pythbox]

From the air, it is a little more obvious that the landscape is... strangely regular. Someone's idea of a prehistoric recreation game aesthetic apparently involved a strict grid layout implemented with exquisite precision. Each tree in this forest of strangely similar trees is precisely the same diameter as every other tree, and precisely centered in its grid square. That hill over there has a slightly blocky silhouette from being sculpted at grid resolution, every angle exactly zero, ninety, or forty-five degrees from the horizontal. The grid interval seems to be about two feet.

There is no response to his message. In fact, there is no message traffic of any kind.

[wind_on_my_face]

He needs to work on his use of “what”, like following it with other words more often.

He's going straight up at a reasonably efficient speed. He wants a horizon, not trees.

[pythbox]

At an altitude of approximately one thousand feet above ground level, there are some noticeable changes to his environment:

The effect of gravity on his body is markedly reduced.

The blue sky above him fades out abruptly, to be replaced by a lovely field of stars; the cheerful yellow sun is visible just the same.

[wind_on_my_face]

THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT WORK LIKE THIS.


Should he keep going? Maybe it would be useful, if he's inside some kind of simulator box and this is the shortest path to a wall. (Nobody could build that.)

Should he go horizontally? That seems like letting someone win (who? how? what?). But it feels like the right thing to do anyway.

He yanks his anchors out of the ground far below. More tree branches suffer. He extends his wings and dives, turning his height into speed until he's halfway back to the ground, and levels off.

[pythbox]

The landscape passes below him: area of forest, area of desert, area of snow and ice, area of forest, area of jungle, area of desert, area of red, area of more desert...

Up ahead is the edge of this island, and past that a stretch of open water, and past that... a blurry horizon? As he approaches, it becomes clearer that there is in fact a blank grey wall of fog there, pefectly flat and vertical. (From farther away, it is hidden by the illusion of sky.)

[wind_on_my_face]

The landscape is only as what as most other things he's seen in the past minute.

Flying into cloud, though, is what got him in here in the first place.

He flies up to the wall, and transmits another emergency message just in case this spot is closer to the normal world, and turns back.

He circles, and makes a telescope, and looks around. Is there anything else to spot around here that could possibly help? (Are there any thermals?)

[pythbox]

No good thermals near the fog wall, that's for sure.

The landscape continues to conform to its regular grid. There are several floating islands in the sky, suspended atop extremely regular, grid-aligned, weirdly solid-looking clouds.

If he happens to look, the person with the canvas bag is still standing in the very middle of the island, holding out the canvas bag in his general direction.

[wind_on_my_face]

That person is a last resort.

He flies maybe halfway back and climbs to get a look at the tops of the floating islands.

(He's pretty what sure that this looking inside the box is not going to solve the what problem, but he hasn't thought of any other what ideas yet.)

[pythbox]

On top of the floating islands may be found extremely small forests containing shiny gold cabins.

Also to be found at floating island altitude: blue-haired women with wings instead of arms, appearing from whatever direction he happens not to be looking and firing sharp feather-shaped blue projectiles at him via an unclear mechanism that sure looks like they just spontaneously appear near the bird-women already headed toward him at arrow-like speeds.

[wind_on_my_face]

Well, he's got wings instead of arms at the moment, too.

He grabs some of the feathers in case they are at all informative about what. The rest plink off a shield. (Well, that purely symbolic attack is evidence for this being a thoroughly illegal game of some sort.)

He also gets to within hollering distance of one of the women (briefly) and asks if they would care to explain what the what.

[pythbox]

The women (there are two, to start with) do not speak at all.

The feathers vanish mysteriously a second or two after being grabbed.

Now there is a third woman.

[wind_on_my_face]

What.

The next feather, he encases in an inch of glass with the best reinforcement he can focus on at the moment.

[pythbox]

It vanishes mysteriously a second after he does that. One moment there is a sharp blue feather inside his reinforced glass; the next, air.

[wind_on_my_face]

There is slightly less what in the feather being replaced with air than it being replaced with vacuum.

He tries to claim the next one, as fast as he can.

[pythbox]

In a word, no. The blue feather is made of a completely unfamiliar material that is the same as all the other blue feathers but not the same as anything he has ever previously met; and then it is made of nothing, because there is air there instead.

[wind_on_my_face]

Well, that went nowhere in a completely what way.

There are other things to fail to understand. He lands on one of the floating islands.

[pythbox]

The cloud-like surface surrounding the dirt of the floating island is solid and can be walked upon.

The blue-haired winged women continue ineffectually bombarding him with sharp blue feathers. There are six of them now, all identical to one another.

The cabin has exactly one door, two grid-spaces wide and three grid-spaces high.

[wind_on_my_face]

What are the rules of this game?

He plays tennis with the next round of feathers.

[pythbox]

The feathers disappear when hit.

Now there are seven silent blue-haired women swooping at him to release volleys of mysteriously appearing blue feathers. All of them move in strangely identical patterns, with only tiny variations: swoop, release, turn back or fly past, face him again, swoop, release, repeat.