==> Nicole: Find answers

Discussion in 'Kintsugi In Space' started by Technicality, Mar 16, 2017.

  1. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    Lots of people have to deal with inner demons. Mine are just a little more literal than that.
    I'm sitting in the remains of the colony, but that's a familiar setting. I figured out a while ago that it wasn't real.
    Sitting across from me is the dark mirror of myself. Where I have cat ears, she has horns like a goat. And her tail is a devil's, countering my cat's tail.
    She stares at me, looking for things she can use against me. It's been several days since she showed up, and seemingly began to sift through my memories. She snickered at all the times I messed up and ridiculed me for them. But now she's run out of material, and is now searching for anything at all.
    Finally, she gives up. "Alright, fine. I give up." I breathe a sigh of relief before I notice the glint in her eyes. I'd let my guard down, and she saw through me. She pounces on what she sees.
    "Aww, isn't that sweet. You want to know where you come from, don't you?"
    I start. I guess I have. Her evil smile comes back for a moment, though it seems to be covering something up.
    "Well, you won't ever know. How could you?"
    I think I have an idea of how. I close my eyes in the dream and reach my hand out into her mind.

    Flashes of light streak across my vision. I see
    a station
    the white mist
    and a spaceship


    before she pulls herself away from me. I never noticed the black wings she had, but they unfurl as she hovers above me. "Stay back! Y-You weren't supposed to see that!"
    So she did know. She screams like a banshee and dives for me. I wake up in my workshop in a cold sweat.
    But now I know what I'm looking for. I feel that if I find this station, I can get some answers. Maybe the other people that came from the mist would be interested. I start planning my expedition, and run outside to find Wing.
     
  2. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    ((@Wingyl ))
    I've come up with an idea of what I'll need to build as I find Wing.
    "Heya, Wing. I'm planning to go try to figure out what the whole thing with that mist was. Wanna come?"
     
  3. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    "That...could work?"
    Wing shifts one of their wings.
    "It would be interesting, finding out about the phenomenon that woke me up."
     
  4. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    "Alright then. I'm planning out the ship that we are gonna use to get there." I lead Wing back to my workshop and quickly draw up a preliminary sketch. "It would travel through the elemental plane of air, and in normal space would have a light-pulse engine ((which is a fancy name for extremely efficient solar power))." In a few hours, I've drawn up some blueprints for it as well. "There. Now we need to have it built. I don't know where we can get some of these materials on-planet. So we will have to outsource it." I pull up a list of places we could get it from. "Which one of these works for you?"
     
  5. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    Wing abruptly realizes that they grew up with a different alphabet than this.
    Or possibly a different language-magical translation is great, until you're given something that it fails on and realize you've been speaking a different language than what you grew up with the entire time.

    "Uhhh...what alphabet is this?"

    It's somewhat of an odd sight-a horse-sized dragon, peering over the shoulder of a cat-eared woman, trying to figure out why they can't read.
     
  6. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    "It's the Latin alphabet. Came from old Earth. Pre-FTL." Hmm. Translator seems not to be working. I'll have to just explain it, then.
    "So that's the main cabin, I'll have the control panel in front of me here..."
    It takes a little while to show what exactly was where. While I did so, I sent the instructions to build it to a colony of nanobots in a nearby system. They didn't charge for anything except for materials. It would be done very soon.
    After I finish, I hear a ping on my computer. They've finished building it and are requesting payment (with coordinates attached) before they send it to us. I pay them, and they tell me to wait for about ten minutes.
    During that time, it never struck me to wonder how I could have paid or knew about the colony. No time for that. I'll figure it all out soon, I know it.
     
  7. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    "What's the pinging noise for? Order complete?"

    Wing had laid down on the floor at some point in the explanation, shapeshifting their neck to be a little bit longer so she could still comfortably see the plans.
     
  8. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    "Oh yeah!" I quickly type some instructions to the bots. Shortly afterwards, I get a message that it's been dropped outside the airlock to the colony. I run outside, barely remembering to put a suit on, and there it is in all its beauty.
    ((I don't want to describe it right now. Just imagine it looks like this.))
    I turn to Wing, who had followed. "Ready to go?"
     
  9. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    Wing doesn't reply. I assume they're ready.
    I step into the ship and they follow me. One of the seats is designed for them, and they manage to get comfortable inside it. I spin up the light drive, checking all the systems to make sure it's all in good shape. The computer pings at me, telling me that the ship's ready for takeoff. So we do.
     
  10. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    ((i missed the notif somehow which is why i didn't respond, sorry. is it OK to have it so that Wing had asked about if the ship had enough supplies?))
     
  11. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    "I think there should be enough supplies," I say, not looking away from the pilot's station. "I had the bots load it with enough stuff for a few days. If it makes you feel better, you can go and look in the back."
     
  12. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    "I'm going to check...they might've packed us only blue cheese or bot food, for all we know. What do bots eat?"

    Wing opened the back and started looking in there for the supplies.
     
  13. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    I kept flying. Wing was making sure the supplies were in place.
    ((@Wingyl you can do whatever here, I have no set storyline from this point on :P)
     
  14. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    <We have about fifty boxes of types of plant, ten boxes of cheese, and one box of fish. Nothing else. The boxes are very big, at least.> Wing paused. <Also, for some reason, we have a box of...smaller sealed black box things? This link won't let me send images.>
    It's batteries. Wing is talking about a box filled entirely with batteries. There may have been some confusion on the part of the nanobots.

    <Oh, and there's two smaller boxes of clothing, but it's all identical and...either something you're not wearing, or underwear.>
    It is, in fact, a pair of boxes filled with suitable underwear for a human female...and no other clothes, or even different sizes.

    There may have been some confusion on the part of the nanobots.
     
  15. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    I look back at Wing. (It's not a very large ship.) "Hmm. We'll...need to turn around and get supplies, then." Luckily we're not even in orbit. I turn the ship around to get the supplies.
    Stupid. You should have known they wouldn't know what to give you. "Can you just get out of my head?!" I shout.
    "Gladly."
    I start. She's sitting in the other human seat, filing her nails with the tip of her tail. She's giving me a demonic grin. The mist swirls and swarms around her, giving her an ethereal appearance.
    Wing snorts. They can see her too. So my nightmare has been conjured into being.
    "Alright, you," I growl. "If you're real. then I'm getting some answers out of you." I lunge for her, but she's too quick. She flutters upwards, still filing her nails.
    "Okay. You could just ask, sweetie." She smiles poisonously. Her every action seems to be designed to infuriate me.
    It takes me all my effort not to grab at her from the floor, but that's probably what she wants. "What kind of demon are you?" I ask through clenched teeth.
    She looks at me with mock shock. "Oh, honey, I'm not a demon. I'm a daemon. Important difference."
    A daemon?
    "Yes, a daemon." She still has the thought-reading. Great. "A background process, if you will. But you gave me so much attention, it pulled me into the foreground. This is all a metaphor, but you get the gist." She gives me the same sickly sweet smile she gave me before. But...a hint of fear, too. She's slightly afraid of the power I yield. If she hears that thought, then she gives no indication of it.
     
  16. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    "What even...what is the difference between a daemon and a demon?! Translation isn't doing anything on either of those."
     
  17. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    "A demon is a devil," I explain. "The appearance my...friend...here has taken." She twirls in the air for effect. "A daemon -- with an e -- is a process in computing that watches in the background and performs tasks without any input from the user. I'm still confused about why there was a daemon in my head, since I'm not a computer."
    "You certainly act like it sometimes," she snickers.
    "Oh, shut up." Surprisingly, she does.
    I'm thinking. If she is a daemon (with an e), then that means there's some task she's here to perform.
    "And you're wondering what it is."
    God damnit, that mind-reading is creepy. Wing seems confused, since they can't hear my thoughts like she can.
    "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am."
    Her smug smile is the only response I need. She's not telling. But the smile turns to a mild surprise as the ship hits the planet with a small bump. Time to get the supplies and get out of here.

    ~~~~

    I eventually settle on calling the daemon Connie. It's surprising, but as Wing and I load some more helpful supplies onto the ship, Connie grabs some stuff and brings it in. Nothing I could see to interfere with them, and I'm appreciative for the help. She sits back in the copilot's seat, putting her legs up on the console. "Where next, Captain?" The last word is dripped in heavy sarcasm. But she seems to have let her guard down, which is exactly what I need for my plan to work.
    "I don't know. But you do."
    I grab her hand, and before she can protest, I slam it down onto the reader. She clearly had a place in mind, and the computer reads it from her memory.
    "Plotting course. Estimated distance: 14.48 light-years." Luckily we have ways of traveling faster-than-light.
    Connie yanks her hand out of the reader and tries to cancel the trip. But I've already copied the coordinates down. Even if she does, I can just put it in again. She stops trying and curls up in a ball, fuming. Quite literally fuming. Small wisps of smoke emanate off of her skin.
    I tell Wing to watch over her while I go prepare the FTL drive. I asked the 'bots to put a planar shift on this ship, so that it could travel through another plane, shortening distances quite substantially. There were faster ways of traveling, but I liked this one because it was more reliable. There isn't a rush.
     
  18. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    Wing settled down next to Connie, on a large cushion that they'd brought in.

    For a moment, the view outside went distinctly green, as the portal took up the entire field of view. Then the ship was through, and the view outside turned to a near-uniform pale blue.

    In the distance, off to the left of the ship's motion, a darker patch showed where some planar overlap had occurred-it was probably one of the many flying islands that dotted such overlap zones.

    The planar drive slowed the ship down as it entered, to allow it to safely enter; once it had entered, however, it began to accelerate again.

    Wing unconsciously slightly spread her wings when the ship wobbled slightly, before remembering that oh, yeah, he was on a ship, and turning the motion into a stretch, spreading the pterodactyl-like leading edge out as far as it could go while also waggling the riblike struts.
     
  19. Technicality

    Technicality All's fair in love and shitposting

    I'd finished setting up the drive, and we made the shift to another plane. The small window in the cramped chamber lets me see the shift. It's something to behold. I have a feeling of deja vu throughout the whole thing. While I'd been focusing on just getting answers, I'd never figured out why I had the questions. And Connie wouldn't tell me. I sighed and headed back into the main chamber. Wing was stretching out, and Connie was playing Pong with some small fireballs she'd conjured. Neither looked up at me. I sat down in the pilot's seat and watched the endless plane we were traveling through.
     
  20. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    Out the window, while it was mostly empty sky, sometimes something interesting showed up.

    Like an entire flock of living blimps. For some reason, they were bright pink.

    Wing blinked in confusion at the giant, pink herd as it receded into the distance.

    Then they shrugged and went back to watching Connie, making sure that her fireball Pong didn't actually hit anything.
     
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