[nWoD] Hex, the beta adventure!

You come into being on a lawn. There's grass, and wet dew, an oversized trashcan, a lush tree in the just-starting-to-turn-colors stage of fall, and a couple of other people sharing the lawn with you. The whole thing is bordered by one of those posts-and-chain Ineffective Knee Height Fences, followed by a sidewalk and a cluster of buildings as you get progressively farther from the center of the lawn.

The time is just before dawn, the sky starting to get light but the overhanging lights not yet gone out. Surprisingly, there's a few people already out and about. One jogger yells across the lawn, "Bad night, huh?" as he goes by. Another passerby, a young woman, struggles with a too-large canvas as she makes her way between the buildings.

By all appearences, it's just another morning on a college campus. The first of the lights flicker off. The jogger waves and turns off around a dorm building, headphones in his ears, never stopping for an answer. A clock somewhere chimes out the time, six pervasive rings that rattle the branches of the tree. A bird jumps away from it, making for the sky with a few flapping wingbeats.

When the ringing is past, the tree continues to tick.

-> INVESTIGATE?

 

Norm frowned, confused. This was definitely not his lamp. Which was a good thing, he figured, though it would be an even better thing if he actually knew where he was. Or if he really wasn't dreaming. Sure, it didn't feel like a dream and wasn't really like most of his dreams either, but... he wasn't in his lamp and he couldn't see it anywhere, so... it had to be one. It just had to.

He pinched himself and didn't wake up. So it was real, then. It was really real. He was... he was... he was free. By an unorthodox method, sure, but free all the same. He grinned.

"Wow..." He couldn't help but say, overwhelmed by sheer joy.

 

Katters flinches reflexively at the chimes, but is surprised to discover that she is not hungover. This is unusual, because she's face-down on a lawn with no memory of how she got there, and the only explanation that comes to mind is "alcohol."
She rolls over and tries to get her bearings, but does not recognise the ... college? At which she assumes she passed out.
Maybe she was drugged. She checks herself for her wallet and phone.

 

She'll find that her phone appears to have regular service... Until she tries to call or text someone, at which point she will get an ERROR: Number not recognized message, except for if she tries to call her shop, which gets a phone catering service's message machine. The time is 6:02 AM.

 

Katters relaxes, relieved to discover that she has not been robbed. She scrolls through her contacts but decides she should figure out where she is before she tries to summon help. She puts the phone away.
There are other people on the lawn, maybe one of them knows the place. Hell, maybe one of them knows her.
“Hey.” She waves to Norm, trying to get his attention. “Do you know where we are?”

 

"No, not really," Norm replied. "It looks like a college campus, but... I honestly don't know anything else about this place. I don't even remember how I got here. Sorry."

 

Her head is empty. Or, she can hear her own thoughts but everyone else is silent. Dead? she thinks for one panicked moment, before she decides it's too sudden for them to all be gone.

She's lying on the ground, facedown, or she'd be able to see where she is. She pulls herself up to see some people - some still unconscious, some already talking to each other. She doesn't recognize any of them.

She considers not saying anything, in case they're dangerous - but she has no idea where she is and she'd rather die for a reason than because someone accidentally sits on her. "Hey," she calls out to them. "Over here."

 

Norm looked in the direction of the voice and was confused for a moment when he didn't see anyone. But he realized pretty quickly that she must be invisible, since he did know that was a thing people could do - at least if they had fairies or were magical creatures.

"You're invisible, aren't you?" He asked. "That's why I can't see you?"

 

"Yeah," Nat says. "Do you know where we are?" She grips clumps of grass when she sees the openness of the area. This is dumb. I'm not going to just float away, it's just my brain being dumb.

 

"Once again, sorry but nope," Norm replied. "I have no idea."

 

"Oh."

She keeps sitting where she is, nowhere near ready to stand up.

 

"Anyway, I'm Norm. Norm the Genie," he replied. "And you are?"

 

"Nat. Nat Richards." She hasn't given her name to anyone in months and it feels a little odd. "You look too old to be a genie," she says.

 

"What?" Norm asked, confused. "There's no age limit on being magical and trapped in a lamp and having to grant people three wishes. Though I don't think the last two things are true of me anymore, thank God." He grinned, just thinking about it, about how he was free now.

 

"What?" She takes a moment to absorb what Norm's just said. "No, genies are abhumans that don't age, everyone knows that." It really is common knowledge - she even used to go to school with a kid who turned out to be a genie. "Unless...you're not from where I'm from?" Did someone find a way between universes? This is too much science for her.

 

Norm laughed. "I suppose I'm not, then, since I don't even know what abhumans are. Though I'm guessing they're an unusual kind of human or something..."

 

Logical conclusion: "So if you don't know where we are...do you think we're in a different world than either of us came from?" Better not to explain what abhumans are, that she's in danger of death or imprisonment just for existing.

 

Norm nodded. "Yeah. Though you could've ended up in mine or vice-versa."

 

"I don't think so. I can't - this can't be my world, I would know if it was." I'd be able to hear them.

 

"Well, I wouldn't know if it was mine. I haven't been to every single college campus on Earth, you know. Though I have ranged pretty far in my fifty thousand years."