Return to sender. Please.

[wind_on_my_face]

Sure, flight is faster and more generally applicable, but being right next to the ground and going this fast is its own thing to be enjoyed.



Some object darker than the expanse of salt catches Thanjen's eye.

It's worth removing obstacles, whether they're lost things, litter, or natural. He slows down and turns back to get a closer look at it.

Comments

[pythbox]

It's a shaped piece of rock, a round ring with a round bar crossing its one-foot diameter, its unpolished surface decorated with intricately carved designs in an unfamiliar style. The material is similar to blue granite, but somewhat more uniform in texture.

[wind_on_my_face]

Definitely someone's lost sculpture. How they lost it here, who knows. Probably fell from above.

He separates and shapes part of his fairing into small rings to go down and grasp the sculpture gently in several places. It might be reinforced or it might be as brittle as the natural stone it looks like — he won't take a chance on breaking it on the return trip.

[pythbox]

The sculpture has no objections to this process—

—but as soon as he grasps the central bar, there is a flicker of blue-violet light that blossoms into a vision-dazzling flare, and then a shift.

Now he is in a room. Stone walls, stone floor, high vaulted ceiling, wooden tables piled with unrecognizable equipment. There are three other people present. They all yell excitedly when he appears, and one of them dives for the sculpture.

[wind_on_my_face]

(What.)

He's too surprised to do anything immediately. He's not holding the sculpture fixed, though.

[pythbox]

The tall pointy-eared woman gets her hands on the sculpture and smashes it against the floor, where it shatters. Everyone is talking at once, and the language is incomprehensible.

While the sculpture-smasher gets up and straightens her clothes, one of the other two fetches a dustpan and brush from behind a table to sweep up the shards, and the third interrupts himself mid-agitated-sentence to turn to Thanjen and say someething in an apologetic tone.

[wind_on_my_face]

(He has no idea what is going on, since he wasn't in a building three seconds ago.)

He is now standing in a generously-sized bubble instead of lying prone in a torpedo of a land vehicle. The opaque white coloring settles down to the bottom, leaving a good view all around for him and them.

“What are you doing? What happened?” he demands, raggedly.

[pythbox]

The apologetic one says some more apologetic things, still incomprehensible. The sweeper sweeps. The smasher asks the other two a question and they both shake their heads.

[wind_on_my_face]

Slightly more steadily, he repeats himself approximately in a couple more languages. (People still invent them occasionally, for whatever reason, and he's picked up a few.)

(Okay, think. Weird happening. Incomprehensible people. This can probably counted a potential emergency situation.

Location request/report, emergency flag — transmit. General ping — transmit.)

[pythbox]

Helplessly incomprehensible apologies from the apologetic one.

The sweeper finishes sweeping and gets up and carefully carries the shard-filled dustpan over to a bin, where he dumps the shards.

The smasher addresses Thanjen inquiringly in what might be a different incomprehensible language.

No one responds to his transmissions at all.

[wind_on_my_face]

(Well, that's concerning. What's even more so, now that he's noticed, is that he is only in this room — he cannot feel any part of his kortarem that isn't right here.)

He moves in the direction of the door. Politely, for now.

[pythbox]

The apologetic one takes a step as though intending to block his way, but then the sweeper snags the apologizer's sleeve and pulls him out of Thanjen's path. The smasher rolls her eyes at them both, opens the door, and strides off purposefully.

[wind_on_my_face]

He approaches the door —

(Okay, nothing really makes sense but nobody seems to be planning to attack him or anything —)

— collapses the bubble and repacks into a belt-style arrangement and walks through.

[pythbox]

No one attacks him! It's a hallway. The only other person visible is the purposefully striding woman who smashed the sculpture.

[wind_on_my_face]

He looks back at the people still in the room.

[pythbox]

They are arguing with one another.

[wind_on_my_face]

He walks back in and attempts to get their attention.

[pythbox]

The sweeper breaks off first, looks back at him, asks an incomprehensible question.

[wind_on_my_face]

He shows them a little blobby flowing-colored-glass scene of a little person (probably supposed to be him) making their way out of a cutaway little building with hallways (probably supposed to be this building).

[pythbox]

They both nod comprehendingly, then... start arguing with each other again.

[wind_on_my_face]

Figure of a person walking back and forth confusedly in a hallway!

[pythbox]

Comprehending nods! Escalating argument!

[wind_on_my_face]

Standing in the hallway looking exasperated!

[norbird]

The sculpture-smasher comes striding purposefully back down the hall. She's leading another woman, also tall, also pointy-eared. This new person smiles at Thanjen.

[wind_on_my_face]

“…Hello.”

He tries the dioramas again.

[norbird]

"Hello!" echoes the newcomer. She inspects the diorama, then nods and beckons.