saveourearth | [Network][Video]

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[It's voice at first, there's Sky saying "All right, I've got it... Is it on?" and a woman very patiently saying "You need to take the lens cap off, Dad" and then there's a shot of a wall with old-fashioned wallpaper and everything seems kind of sepia, and a sheet of printer paper held in the camera's view as the woman says "And white balancing... there. Go ahead."

And now it's not sepia, and Sky comes in from the side. He hasn't figured out yet that you can just draw your number on a wall to get high definition Network video, so he's borrowed a small video camera and a stand. The shot staging is boring and straight on and you can tell, you can absolutely tell that his reaction to facing a camera on a tripod is to use Minister Voice. Clear, reassuring, friendly with just a suggestion of minor authority; none of the casual nature of a young vlogger.]

I'm the Reverend Sky Walker, of the Unitarian Universalists of Mossgate. Now that my last unfortunate houseguests have resettled, I can display this and ask if mysterious items have appeared in the possession of anyone else. I acquired this back during Pride.

[He, yes, reaches out and audibly tilts the camera down, showing that he's clasping something with the two hooks of his right hand prosthetic. As soon as the camera's steady again he puts his left hand underneath the object and holds it for easier inspection. It looks something like part of the flash attachment for old cameras, but it clearly isn't. After a few seconds he closes his had around it and holds down a button, and it pushes back somewhat as the green blade hisses to life.

This is a world where Star Wars is a fantasy franchise where tons of people wield 'starblades', rapiers of flexible metal that extend magic edges until they look like broadswords. This glows like one, but the hilt, the sound, the shape are new.]

This is supposed to be a kind of weapon, but at the moment it's harmless. In the interest of transparency, something harder to explain also happened, a couple of months ago. It seems to be better precedented.

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[Walter spends a few seconds thinking this feed is being transmitted publicly, not just to the Network... before being able to reassure himself that this is not the case.]

I haven't had anything appear, no. What would the 'harder to explain' thing be?

[Because spontaneous manifestation of matter is hard enough to explain already.]

Good question.

[His eyes flick - yep, his daughter has left the room - and return to the camera. Sky has closed down the lightsaber so it's inert again.]

It's a sort of sensory issue, similar to synesthesia - associating one kind of sensory input with another. Tasting color, you know? Except this is a new sense, one which I perceive as similar to sound even though it's decidedly not.

Any ideas as to what you are 'hearing', then?

As far as I can determine - life, odd as that might sound. A sterilized room such as you might find in a hospital sounds very different from one with plants and animals, and different again from one with people in it.

Somehow, I remember it extending further and being much more aware of an unusual forest than I can manage now.

[... WELP.]

Is the forest a metaphor in this case, or an actual forest?

[Given the genre span of the memories regained so far, it really could be both as far as Walter knows.]

That does sound consistent, however; hospitals, gardens, and crowds don't have the same atmosphere except in the literal sense.

It was in fact a real forest. I could map out the topography of the ground thanks to the plant life and the small animals in the leaf litter. I could count how many unknown aliens were watching my party. Now I don't have the range and precision, but I can still tell if a person is nearby and where they are even with a wall between us.

[He's thoughtful and even about this. Of course he is, he's gotten mostly used to it.]

Worms and tree roots both descend rather deeper into the ground than I'd given much thought, by the way.

That sounds extremely useful.

[And disorienting, but hey, welcome to the club, there!]

And to that end, we really could say that things are often more than meets the eye. ;)

[It's too late, Sadie; the punnening is happening.]

It could be at some point, yes. As of yet it's not much more than a curiosity.

[Well, and it gives him an edge reading people and knowing where they are without looking.]

Oh? Well, I've been an eye in the sky before, to be sure.

Between you and Stone, we clearly have that covered here in Mossgate. Well, except for the Bay, perhaps...

[Because Stone, Sky... and Sea.]

That could be a problem, yes. Perhaps we will find someone with sufficient salt?

[Sky no you don't understand modern slang well enough]

Okay, maybe we could work 'sand' into that... but that might be diverging off-topic too much.

[Because... yeah. SLANG THINGS.]

Or, no - seaweed! Water and plants.

[Sadie was not expecting a video of all things to come through on the Network, and certainly isn't expecting to see the hook-handed Minister that she had bumped into during the whole Cake thing with a light sword. She's not bold enough to return with a video as well but voice and images she'll do.]

I got an item from going on the cave tour. Not as cool as a light sword though.

[She posts a picture of a notebook, followed by a picture of an open page, the paper slightly smuged and crinkled but with a large block of text in an unfamiliar script with a well sketched picture underneath of a waterfall.]

Hello, miss. I think we've met.

[Just a suggestion of dry humor on that one.]

Ah. Do you remember anything about this book?

Yes we have. I, Erm, I don't remember it very well to be honest. [Sadie's embarrassment is clear.]

No...It just appeared literally out of thin air as I was on the tunnel tour with a friend.

I guess my story didn't hook you, then? [Sky no]

How did it appear? This... lightsaber was a weight in my bag as soon as the throbbing sensation cleared.

[Sadie groan-laughs as appropriate at Sky's terrible pun. Hopefully this guy and Walter never meet, the puns would be too much.]

I just just remember being very shocked for some reason. And that's what happened too me too I felt the echoing emptiness and then it disappeared and my bag was suddenly heavier because of the book.

[That's all he wanted.]

There's yet no way of determining just how they've materialized, then. I don't suppose you can read what the book says?

Not yet no. And no to that too, I'm working on it but between college and UCAS stuff for uni, my friend and I don't have a lot of time.

So I can imagine! Those things take precedence after all.

I want to be able to focus on it. There's a chance I could learn more about what the place I've seen was like without having to see more of it. Or it might at least prepare me for some of the weirder stuff that could come up.

Have you seen anything alongside your item?

So we can get things too, not just visions and... weird new senses.

[Because at this point he's realized that his new sense of smell isn't going away.]

This is looking less and less like some weird government plot.

[For Sam, Minister Voice fades back a bit.]

Speaking from experience?

I must confess I can believe in any given government, say, dosing people to hallucinate, but I'd expect it to affect more people in the area.

Even then, I don't think the government is to the point where they can make objects just appear. Unless someone snuck up while you were distracted and actually put it there, but knowing you, there were enough people around that'd be hard.

[He pauses, then adds,]

I can smell things I could never smell before. It's like my nose suddenly turned into a bloodhound's. It's driving me crazy, since I don't know what half the shit I'm smelling even is.

Heh. If you want to dip into conspiracy theories I could have been handed this and drugged or hypnotized in such a way that I forgot it. But, once you go down that road everything becomes very disheartening.

That sounds... aggravating. What I've got at least doesn't go into that much detail.

Again, there was probably other people around at the same time. Don't think all of them could be dealt with in the same way.

It is aggravating. Though if I ever get the smells sorted out, it might wind up being useful.

So what do you have?

I'm sure I could think of a new explanation. My third cousin Luke is a terrible conspiracy theorist. Last time we spoke he accused me of being under the thrall of... some chain of words that made no sense, but 'big fluoride' was part of it.

[Cousin Luke isn't the sole reason why Sky goes by a nickname - it's a fairly common name among his relatives - but he's one of them.]

It's a bit hard to explain, but it's certainly sensory. I can feel... life, I suppose. It's something like hearing while in no way being sound.

Huh. At least I can put a name on what I have, even if I can't entirely sort it out yet. Does it bother you? This life sense thing?

[Hmmm, that's a familiar face and voice. Hard to place, since they last spoke in a spooky cave tour. After a few minutes of browsing through the other responses, Russell starts up a video feed of his own.]

I've been... finding bones? Or maybe making them, out of thin air.

[And he holds a hand up to demonstrate. After a second or two of staring at it, a white bone materializes out of light, then drops into his waiting hand.]

Ah, you're the young man from the tour! Hello.

...Hm. [Sky blinks, shakes his head. Once again he vaguely hopes these moments aren't leading up to a stroke or something.] A good question. Is that a femur?

[It takes a second, then Russell points at his monitor in mutual recognition.]

Oh! It's you! I thought you were just some... guy in a cave...

[He's narrowly avoided saying the word old, though it probably shows, and he realizes it. Time to rush on to questions about bones.] I think it might be a tibia...? Femurs have that big, knobby end?

I'm not quite so old as that, but you can say it.

[The memory, he realizes, is of a giant stone pangolin teleporting a rock. Okay.]

I suppose it is. I don't suppose there's marrow inside if you break it open? Does it have the texture of bone?

[Please, Sky, let him have his dignity and ignore that whole slip of the tongue. Without that, Russell makes a very skeptical expression at that permission, and doesn't verbally acknowledge it. Besides, there's something else awkward to think and talk about.]

I... haven't tried breaking one? What if I break it, but it belongs to somebody? That could cause a lot of difficult questions...

[He does at least test running a thumb along it, frowning at the texture but shrugging inconclusively. He just hasn't held enough real bones to know from that.]

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