22 Lage 4385: Reflections in the Void

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I pivoted around to face the speaker. A tall Herethroy (Herethroy're cricketfolk, slender and tall and six-limbed, with sleek shells perfect for decorating, for all you extradimensional types) stood in black robes with an acolyte's insignia on the left shoulder and a censer in one hand. "Nighters!" I waved and ran over to give her a hug. A one-armed hug, because I was still carrying the picnic basket.

Nightbloom chirped a giggle at me and hugged me back with three arms. Herethroy totally have an unfair advantage in the hugging department (not as unfair as Khtsoyis though). "What brings you to Reflections in the Void?" she intoned in her slow spooky deep voice. "A consecration. For your next enchantment?" Nightbloom has this habit of pausing a bit mid-sentence in a way that makes her sound even more emphatic. It reminds me of a Khtsoyis a bit. I haven't told her that since she'd probably take it the wrong way.

I made a face at her. "No! I want to talk to Void-Dancer about my last enchantment actually. Is he in?"

"No. He's out. Blessing a site for a ritual mage. He should be back soon. However. You can wait in the Chamber of Respite. If you like?"

“Sure!” I said, following her into the main sanctuary. The sanctuary of Reflections in the Void has no walls, no doors, no windows, and no roof. It has a floor though. The floor is lacquered black wood with white lines that radiate out from the statuary and the altar in all directions, including a number of directions that don’t exist except in the sanctuary. The lines are all perfectly straight but none of them look straight: they look like they curve and break and tilt. The floor has mirrors in it that reflect the non-roof and non-walls and not the parts of the sanctuary you would think they should be reflecting based on what it looks like is above that section of the floor. This is all because the floor is twisting in a way that floors and in fact the whole of the regular universe normally doesn’t, so that parts of the floor look like they’re where the ceiling should be, or where the walls should be, if there were walls or a ceiling. There aren’t! There’s just the floor. It’s important to remember this if you’re ever there because if you forget you’ll get really confused and think Primes are walking on the ceiling just because they look like they are. Void-Dancer says it's a representation of part of the reality that underlies what we normally perceive. A sample of one way that "Here" sees the universe, the way that all the things we think are separated by large amounts of space are really connected and close together.

This is not Illusidor pretending to be Locador. This is pure Locador.

We entered along one of the white lines at the point of no-door that’s not marked at all. It’s just the spot where you stop being in the hall and able to see the sanctuary up ahead and start being in the sanctuary from which you can’t see the entrance hall at all because it’s not there any more. When we entered, the altar was off to my perceptual right, looking like it was fifty feet away and twenty feet up and tilted at about hundred twenty degrees relative to me. Two Rassimel priests were beside it, conducting a blessing on the tools of a nervous Cani recipe-enchanter who looked as though the only thing keeping him from throwing up was that he wasn’t sure which way was up for him to throw. Straight white lines bent and twisted away from the altar towards the black spiky statues of various Locador angels. Some of the statues have little fragments of other-world windows on them, just like in the entranceway. Many of them are abstract eye-twisting shapes where the back becomes the front without ever going through the “side” stage. Some of them look kind of like Primes except they’re just as eye-twisting so that the foot is joined to the shoulder is joined to the head is joined to the hand is joined to the foot or something.

I love the sanctuary.

Nightbloom and I went to one knee with hands clasped to wrists in respect to the altar. “Is it all right if I say hallo to the angels?” I whispered to Nightbloom.

She nodded. “ Just be quiet.”

So I followed the white line all around the sanctuary. Walking in the sanctuary is so much fun! It's like you're going straight but the world keeps shifting around you, until the person who was right side up when you walked in is upside down and the rest of the sanctuary is ... still at all kinds of crazy angles to you. But different crazy angles! It's even better if you jump around you can do all kinds of fun strange things that way. But I didn't want to jump around with the blessing going on, that'd be rude. So I just waved to the angels and greeted each by name and whispered hallo to them. And no, they’re not the real angels. They’re just statues. But the statues represent the angels and it’s polite to greet them and you never know where the real angels might be so it can’t hurt. Oh wait they’re Locador angels. So it could hurt. But I think it’s the right thing to do anyway.

I didn’t go up to the altar since the priests were busy. So I just gave "Here" a little wave from a respectful distance. The priests didn't wave back of course but one of them -- Mask of Infinity -- saw me and I think he smiled.

Then I walked the straight line crooked back to Nightbloom. She'd moved to the part of the line that connects to the Chamber of Respite, although I didn't realize it until she motioned for me to kneel to the altar again. Then we turned and stepped along the line and were in the Chamber of Respite.

The Chamber of Respite is a very ordinary little room. It's got normal windows with pastel curtains and some cabinets with a simple enchantment to preserve food on them and a handful of rather worn chairs and a couch and a couple of little tables. Nightbloom had to get back to her duties, so she left me here to wait for Voidsy.

While I was waiting, I put the basket in the preservation cabinet to keep the food warm and wrote up most of my day so far. Mask of Infinity came in as I was writing, so I stopped to talk to him about his day. We talked about Locador and theology and the well-being of the temple for a bit, and I remembered that one of my extra-dimensional friends wanted to know if any of the windows had shown cities of glass and steel.

"Indeed I have seen such a place," Mask of Infinity said. "But it was not ruled by a single race. Great wheeled beasts of steel and glass controlled it. There were some bipeds, but I took them for servants to their Durudor masters."

Then Void-Dancer showed up.

Comments

[vik_thor]

»chuckles«
It does feel like that sometimes…

They are actually transportation. Something like Sythyry's Strayway

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhh you have beautiful fur! I love the color! And those muzzle marks, so stylish! Who does your fur?

Wait you're from another world too? I think that Mask of Infinity would've recognized if the glass & steel master race were vehicles and not people. Maybe it's not the same world?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

If it is like the world that *I* am in, it is actually a very very complicated relationship. No, the vehicles aren't intelligent, they are ultimately just tools for getting from one place to another. But many people care about them and dote on them and structure their lives as if they were 'masters', and many people make their livelihoods in designing, building, and using them to do their job. And not to mention racing! And the idea that they have such a great impact on the world that many, many, many things would be completely different without them does have merit.

Of course, that doesn't mean that your friend might not be right -- there might be another world where the durudor things that the bipeds built, which the bipeds decided to give intelligence in order to make the tools 'better', decided that they should run things, and so they did. That is a very common fictional story in our world, and has seeped into our consciousness. I wouldn't be surprised if a world like that DOES exist, and he saw it!

Also, don't assume that just because someone has a picture next to their name, that it is an actual picture of what they look like! It's perfectly possible to take a picture of, say, a Krango, and use that as "your" picture. After all, my picture is a drawing, is it not?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

My picture looks like a drawing too though but it looks like a drawing of me. You mean yours isn't a drawing of you?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Uhm, no that isn't how I physically look. But it IS a drawing of a character that I wrote lots of stories about, that had many of my mental, emotional, and personality traits. So think of it as an author-self-insertion sort of character that represents me, from a while ago, when I thought I had actual storywriting talent!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Is there a place you can jump in the main room and just fall and fall and fall forever until someone pulls you out?

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Now you're thinking with portals! ^_^

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

It isn't actually portals. They're not allowed to put portals inside the city any-the-more.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

One can only imagine how much fun trouble they got into with those portals. The temple of 'Here' seems to be a very interesting, if spatially troubling, place.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Uhm, Tuftears is making a reference to a, uh, the closest thing I can think of that you would understand is a performance art type play that involves heavy use of Illusidor to tell a story. The plot is basically a mad, intelligent, artificially-created creature 'testing' the protagonist to come up with inventive solutions to crazy scenarios and problems, giving the protagonist a very powerful but very limited in scope Locador artifact, and the protagonist ultimately using it to try and escape the mad artificial-sorcerer's clutches. The ending left open the question on whether or not the protagonist escaped. "Now you're thinking with portals!" is one of the catchphrases the mad creature uses to 'encourage' Chell, the protagonist, to solve the pizzles. Anyway, as the story wears on, it's shown that the reason this thing was created was that two spell research institutes were competing to get these locador enchanted items produced, with the idea that they were figuring out a way to make large numbers of them very quickly, and this particular institute created this intelligent entity to help with the research. Of course, things went disastrously bad, as Chell is the only Normal person in the play, with the research assistants being mysteriously absent...

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Oh! A big part of the way in which this piece of art was produced is that it is very interactive, and the audience has to help Chell solve all these Locador, physics, movement, and spacial puzzles. If you wanted inspiration for an entertaining morality play that teaches the value of cooperation, creative thinking, spacial puzzle solving, that trying to make enchantment go faster than the way the gods want is bad, that taking shortcuts with the sladdash creating intelligent creatures to do your work for you is fraught with peril, and, of course, teaching mind-bending locador geometry, than you could do worse than take inspiration from "Portal".

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Uh huh! That's mostly what happens if you step off the floor. Nighters showed me once, it was exhilerating! You use _Guide the Fall_ to stop because after a few passes you're falling too fast for it to be safe to get grabbed.

[vik_thor]

OOooo That does sound like fun! I may have to visit a "Here"ist temple, if I ever make it to the World Tree. (Of course, that's assuming I'd be able to get into one of your cities…)

[And this picture is of me. I usually use the other one when interacting with Primes from World Tree. It's a Sleethish creature from my world. {and I'm thinking it may be more part of the magic of our world, that lets some of us access some written journals from your world. Unfortunately, we don't have visual access, like the windows you saw in "Here"'s temple.}]

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Oh you look like a very cute teensy Sleeth in that picture! What's the funny-looking furless creature holding you?

... oh wait. Which one are you? That furless hairy-faced one is a sapient isn't zie?

[vik_thor]

hee
Vik is the bigger one. The little one is Panta, a pet I've had for 17 of our years (which are a bit longer than yours)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Awww, that must be nice! And thanks for showing me your picture Mr. Vik!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

By the way, if Vik is from my world (and we look like the same race, so it's possible! But not certain!) then the sleeth looking one isn't sapient. In fact, YOU all -- every prime race and a lot of nonprime races -- look kind of like nonsapient creatures in our world. I even heard, SOMEWHERE, that one of your gods dated one of the gods from my world for a few months. This is especially funny because, if we have gods, they aren't the kind that actually show themselves and do anything obvious and generally prove that they exist, and it was only hearsay that this happened at ALL. Perhaps there are certain archetypes of life or form that cause creatures from one dimension to look somewhat like another? Maybe different gods socialize together and trade ideas? Who knows!

Also, would you like pictures of the creatures from my world that Primes resemble? How about some of the nonprimes, like Mherobump or Cyarr?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Oh that'd be funny which of my gods dated one of yours?

And pictures would be awesome! I'm really curious who we look like in your world!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Okay. Zi Ri look closest to a creature that is no longer alive any more, and we only found the bones, so we have to make drawings of what we think they might have looked like. I'm also including some creatures that look kind of like nonprimes, for good measure.










Gotta keep the Prime looking ones away from the nonprimes, you know? But in our world, all of these creatures are simple, nonsapient animals. Though of them, the Khytsoyis looking ones, Rassimel looking ones, and Cani looking ones probably have some of the smartest -- well cleverest, they are animals-- individuals.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh pictures they're SO CUTE! It's like every race changed to their waterform except they're not swimmy! <3 Except the waterform Orren of course that just looks like a normal waterform Orren. So you have Orren?

And they're not ALL cute the Nendrai-like one is pretty hideous just like a real Nendrai. And the Mherobumpish one is ... kinda ugly-cute? You know when someone draws something so ugly and ridiculous that it's sort of cute?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

No, we don't have orren. We have otters, they are not sapient--they're just animals, but still adorable and swimmy! And the Khytsoyis and Mewellicap looking ones can ONLY live in water, they can't breathe out of it.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Yea Rhinos can be cute... especially baby ones! Also reread the text that separates the primes from the nonprimes in the first image post!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also, Sythyry said that you all have waterform-orren-looking animals, and his translator even translated them to what we call our animals-that-happen-to-also-look-like-your-waterform-orren; he called them "otters". I don't know if that is being translated into the term...

Hmmm, try going here:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/otter

It's pronounced "ˈä-tər" in my language. It's derived from our word for "water".

Try tapping the little triangle thing on that link, to see if you can actually hear it? I dunno!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

If you manage to get here, a Herite (Heretic?) temple is likely to be your first stop!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Heeheehee! Though not the Temple of Reflections in the Void it's inside the city walls! :)

Giggles

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was in such a fit of giggles after this entry and the comments following!
Hee, and she thought my digression into the nature of our universe, gods, and primes was confusing and wondrous...

Delight, you'll have to forgive me; the giggles are not at your expense, I assure you. Imagine, for a moment, if you overheard two extra-planar beings discussing the World Tree and coming to the conclusion that, say, grains and beans are your masters because your peoples toil long, hot hours to grow them, breed them, and harvest them; you'd find it funny I expect. Or what if they thought that it was your cley which were sentient, and all primes are merely their homes and workplaces? Mind you, I'll stick by what Gavin said as well; it's possible that the Durador creatures in the world viewed actual were in command, but if they're in the manner I'm thinking, they're no more then carriages.

There is something about extra-planar naivete that will forever be adorable in my mind. And having been the naive one more then once only adds to it. We could talk for a lifetime about the peculiarities of our respective worlds, and their likenesses as well.

Re: Giggles

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I need to remember to ask Mask of Infinity about it again I'm sure if they were like carriages he'd've realized but it is very odd that you've got bipeds and glass-and-steel buildings and beasts-I-mean-carriage-things and not be what he saw.

Though I have seen things that looked like World Tree but aren't because they've got stuff ALL WRONG like Inihithre populated entirely by Cyarr and Mherobumps and Mewellicaps. O_O So maybe it did just look like the world you all are familiar with.

Re: Giggles

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Like I said earlier... we don't currently have the ability to give our durudor creations intelligence, but we are getting ever closer to that ability, and much of our fiction talks about "What would happen if we did give them intelligence and they decided they wanted to rule us, or they no longer needed us?", and it's entirely possible that the world he saw was one that operates on similar...rules to ours, and that actually happened to the culture in question! I will however say that, in most of the stories, it's the biological creatures that started out the masters, and the durudor creatures that were LATER created by the living ones, as they advanced. Oh, another thing! Most of the fiction has the durudor creatures looking somewhat like the biological ones, because that is scarier. Storytellers have to make money, do they not?

Re: Giggles

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

That's funny that they'd be scarier if they looked like living creatures I think they'd be scarier looking TOTALLY DIFFERENT. I guess it really depends what they look like though. Conlee look totally cute and harmless but they can be REALLY REALLY DANGEROUS and scary! If you know what to be scared of.

Re: Giggles

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Ah, that would be the result of something we call Uncanny Valley. As biological creatures, we have an ingrained like for things that look close to us, but a sever dislike for things that are only a little off, which look "uncanny". It may be the same with primes; let's find out:

Picture a magical construct or elemental that looks entirely non-Orren; maybe a spiky ball or a tuft of flame or a carriage or something. Without knowing reasons to be scared of it, it would be rather "meh"; not scary, not creepy, not attractive.
Now, imagine it looks closer to an Orren. Maybe it's shaped with two arms and two legs and a muzzle, even if it's still made of flame or covered in Locodor spikes or something. Now that it's something you can relate to more, it's more naturally likable by appearance, right?
Now, try to picture, if you can, it getting more and more Orren-like; at a certain point, does it suddenly get more creepy? Say, an Orren with Locodor-spikes instead of arms, eyes, and a mouth, but with legs and a tail? Or perhaps an Orran made totally of flickering flames all stuck together, with eyes that can't blink and fur that crawls over their body? Or maybe an Orren made totally of wax, that looks exactly like an Orren, except for white eyes and being able to stand still like a statue, never breathing? If it suddenly starts to get creepy when it looks like an Orren, but not enough like an Orren somehow, that's Uncanny Valley!
To finish the experiment, picture something that's very, very close; an Orren with one arm made of flame, or one with a few patches of Locodor instead of fur or something; much more not-that-creepy, right?

To us, having a machine made out of Durador that looks like us, but that is so very not like us, somehow, in mind or body becomes very creepy indeed to some. It's probably a little like how Cani view a Cani without their loyalty instinct. Mind you, it's a personal thing too. I find such things intriguing mostly instead.

Re: Giggles

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Let me give you an image of what I mean. This has a similar basic form as a biped, but looks VERY WRONG and VERY SCARY to us. This is a model that was used in a form of, basically, illusidor based storytelling, and is not real, but illustrates what I mean. Actual Durudor creatures that we use to help us fight look completely different I sure hope putting this image in here works!


This is an example of a fictional scary durodor creature that I was talking about



And this is an example of an actual not-intelligent-at-all, has-to-be-directly-controlled-and-driven-by-someone-to-do-anything, but-is-used-in-real-war-to-KILL-PEOPLE durodor fighting machine, with the parts labelled.


See how the fictional ones look, well, scary, but aren't really, um, as plausible as the real one?

Re: Giggles

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

...

Um.

Yes.

O_O

That second one looks pretty freaky too though. Are they really made all out of durudor? How can you possibly afford that?

Re: Giggles

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

The way our world is set up, Durodor is MUCH more common. The trick is getting it into a useful form. Think of it this way, there is a LOT of Amber and Bark and World Tree Wood in your world, but you can't get to very large amounts of it in a feasible and economic way, can you? Through most of our history, there were large amounts of Durudor all around, but it was very very hard to get the useful types that we could use, and much of our civilization was made possible when we figured out how to make large amounts of, say, high quality steel, quickly and somewhat cheaply from the mostly useless types of rocks, which were everywhere, that contained it.

Re: Giggles

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also, *I* most definitely don't afford that second, real one. That is a weapon of war used only by the military of the most advanced government in our world, that requires a whole lot of expertise and engineering and much much smarter people working very hard to design and create, and is really expensive, both because it does happen to use expensive parts, and because of all the work and money in designing and creating it in the first place. Oh, and the reason we use it is because those things can go places that are dangerous for people to go, so we don't risk actual people on our side dying. My culture places a very very high value on the lives of its people.

But the fictional one does look scary, doesn't it?