The Multiverse Inn

Discussions about constructed worlds, cultures and any topics related to constructed societies.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 14 Sep 2024 22:30
TBPO wrote: 14 Sep 2024 20:34 "Why wolf-monkeys are so similar to 'Earth' mammals in some way, while still being completely unrelated to the latter?"
"Convergent evolution," says Doug. "We have the body of a monkey because we used to live in trees. Of course, humans used to live in trees, too, but they came down after a while. As for the fox part, well, the wet nose helps us pick up odors better, and the whiskers make it easier to navigate dense foliage."
"But why the alien planet with no interaction with Earth or World has trees? You can't justify it with convergent evolution, because there are many other possibilities, including fungi and large barely-moving animals."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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TBPO wrote: 14 Sep 2024 23:03 "But why the alien planet with no interaction with Earth or World has trees? You can't justify it with convergent evolution, because there are many other possibilities, including fungi and large barely-moving animals."
Doug flicks his ears back in a cynoid shrug. "They're big, they're made of wood, they have green leaves. Sounds pretty convergent to me."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 15 Sep 2024 00:12 Doug flicks his ears back in a cynoid shrug. "They're big, they're made of wood, they have green leaves. Sounds pretty convergent to me."
"So there are only two possibilities: an intervention of aliens older than both human and wolf-monkey... and magic."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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Spoiler:
lurker wrote: 14 Sep 2024 16:56
TBPO wrote: 13 Sep 2024 22:33 "How do your kind reproduces, Doug?" Sarah asks.
Doug turns to Sarah “So you want to know how babby is formed?” he chuckles. As he continues, he walks back into the mass router room and rummages through his impedimenta. “I think the closest Terran animal you could compare us to would be salmon. We may look like Earth mammals on the outside, but we don’t carry our babies inside us.” He re-enters the main room. A rag is strapped to one of his forepaws and the end of his tail is ensheathed in a loofah. He begins dabbing up the ink he left behind on the floor with the rag and continues his explanation.

“We lay eggs, yes even the males. My ovary is as barren as the Nightless Desert, so I can’t have pups of my own. That was the other reason besides being a massive Terraboo that I joined a fostering order. Anyway, both males and females lay eggs, but we can only lay one egg in our lifetime. To make a litter of kits, you need an equal number of females and males to contribute their eggs to a clutch. You can have as few as one male and one female, but more is better. I have six parents myself. We call male parents ‘sires’ and females ‘dams’. Together the sires and dams form what we call a ‘childermoot’. The childermoot places all their eggs together in an incubator, or if you’re a moron—uh I mean ‘natural brooder’, just a cool dry place.”

He goes off on a tangent, dabbing up the ink a little more aggressively. “If you don’t incubate your womb-nest, you’re exposing your kits to all sorts of hazards. Womb-nests are surrounded by a membrane that lets air through. Germs can pass through this membrane and make the kits sick. Some people think incubators aren’t natural, so they leave their womb-nests out in the open. More Atavist cloaca butter. One of the missionaries that found Earth is from a naturally brooded litter. You know what happened to his litter mates? Everyone but him was stillborn. Fortunately his childermoot—or the two that were left after the others died of the same plague that killed their kits—saw sense and left that dirt farm for good. Incubate your womb-nests, people!” He looks up from his rant and flicks his ears as he realizes he’s the only yinrih in the room. “uh, sorry, guess that advice doesn’t apply to mammals.

“But where was I,” he turns to Sarah again. He sprays the loofah around his tail with some cleaning solution and begins sweeping his tail across the floor where the ink was. “We put our eggs in an incubator. A womb-nest forms over the eggs, and the insides of the eggs melt into a soup. Kits grow out of this soup. Each kit is a genetic combo of all the contributing parents. I have three sires and three dams, so I have one sixth of each of their genes. It takes about 144 days, give or take, for the kits to bake, so to speak, then they’re yeaned from the womb-nest. We call them kits from the time they’re conceived until they start eating solid food, then we call them pups.

“Oh, and because every human always asks,” he holds up a forepaw, palm facing out. “The difference between men and women is that women give milk. They sweat it through the palms of their forepaws. This large pad in the middle of my palm is how you can tell males and females apart. In women, there are three much smaller pads and more exposed skin. That’s the lactation patch. That’s where the interjection ‘palms!’ comes from. It’s short for ‘by the palms that nursed me!’
Argenzu and Cynewulf shook their heads. They tried to hear as little of Doug's following explanations as possible, so they pulled back their ears as far as possible and slowly nipped on their drinks in silence.
It was only after the Ynrih stopped talking that Argenzu pulled back his laptop and closed the lid.

Cynewulf got up from his seat and had to shake himself, not unlike a quadrupedal dog – except that he was standing straight.
Argenzu wiped his nose a few times in a row.

TBPO wrote: 16 Sep 2024 09:30
lurker wrote: 15 Sep 2024 00:12 Doug flicks his ears back in a cynoid shrug. "They're big, they're made of wood, they have green leaves. Sounds pretty convergent to me."
"So there are only two possibilities: an intervention of aliens older than both human and wolf-monkey... and magic."
“Doug is right, if the conditions are similar, things tend to go the same way”, Argenzu joins in.
He opens his laptop again and loads a video:
The thylacine once was the prime example of convergent evolution on Earth – it looks like a dog, it sits like a dog, but it's not a dog. Then, after 1937 AD, they were gone. They filled the same slot in the ecological clockwork of Tasmania as the wolf did in Europe or North America – but they were distant cousins of the kangaroos.
If it can happen on a planet, who could deny it happening across planets?”
“Lucky for us, it did”, Cynewulf joins in, “Otherwise we wouldn't have Emmett and Clara. My and Argenzu's planet evolved marsupial life – but nothing higher beyond that. We two are the result of humans meddling with our DNA, but everything else was a lucky coincidence.
No magic needed. Our universe isn't a Henry Portman novel.”
Cynewulf chuckles, Argenzu rolls his eyes.

“What? Agatha Roweland made my kind the bad guys in volumes 3 and 7. You read them to me”, the wolf-man hunches forward, his nose only centimetres away from the rodent's face.
Argenzu touched Cynewulf's nose with his extended left index finger:You wanted to hear me read something in Buonavallese.”
“Anyway”, Argenzu turns around, “what's a popular genre of literature where you come from?”
“If you have any, that is”, Cynewulf adds.
Éall woruld is bócfell, ǽlc of ús is án stǽr.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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Egerius wrote: 16 Sep 2024 19:24
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
lurker wrote: 14 Sep 2024 16:56
TBPO wrote: 13 Sep 2024 22:33 "How do your kind reproduces, Doug?" Sarah asks.
Doug turns to Sarah “So you want to know how babby is formed?” he chuckles. As he continues, he walks back into the mass router room and rummages through his impedimenta. “I think the closest Terran animal you could compare us to would be salmon. We may look like Earth mammals on the outside, but we don’t carry our babies inside us.” He re-enters the main room. A rag is strapped to one of his forepaws and the end of his tail is ensheathed in a loofah. He begins dabbing up the ink he left behind on the floor with the rag and continues his explanation.

“We lay eggs, yes even the males. My ovary is as barren as the Nightless Desert, so I can’t have pups of my own. That was the other reason besides being a massive Terraboo that I joined a fostering order. Anyway, both males and females lay eggs, but we can only lay one egg in our lifetime. To make a litter of kits, you need an equal number of females and males to contribute their eggs to a clutch. You can have as few as one male and one female, but more is better. I have six parents myself. We call male parents ‘sires’ and females ‘dams’. Together the sires and dams form what we call a ‘childermoot’. The childermoot places all their eggs together in an incubator, or if you’re a moron—uh I mean ‘natural brooder’, just a cool dry place.”

He goes off on a tangent, dabbing up the ink a little more aggressively. “If you don’t incubate your womb-nest, you’re exposing your kits to all sorts of hazards. Womb-nests are surrounded by a membrane that lets air through. Germs can pass through this membrane and make the kits sick. Some people think incubators aren’t natural, so they leave their womb-nests out in the open. More Atavist cloaca butter. One of the missionaries that found Earth is from a naturally brooded litter. You know what happened to his litter mates? Everyone but him was stillborn. Fortunately his childermoot—or the two that were left after the others died of the same plague that killed their kits—saw sense and left that dirt farm for good. Incubate your womb-nests, people!” He looks up from his rant and flicks his ears as he realizes he’s the only yinrih in the room. “uh, sorry, guess that advice doesn’t apply to mammals.

“But where was I,” he turns to Sarah again. He sprays the loofah around his tail with some cleaning solution and begins sweeping his tail across the floor where the ink was. “We put our eggs in an incubator. A womb-nest forms over the eggs, and the insides of the eggs melt into a soup. Kits grow out of this soup. Each kit is a genetic combo of all the contributing parents. I have three sires and three dams, so I have one sixth of each of their genes. It takes about 144 days, give or take, for the kits to bake, so to speak, then they’re yeaned from the womb-nest. We call them kits from the time they’re conceived until they start eating solid food, then we call them pups.

“Oh, and because every human always asks,” he holds up a forepaw, palm facing out. “The difference between men and women is that women give milk. They sweat it through the palms of their forepaws. This large pad in the middle of my palm is how you can tell males and females apart. In women, there are three much smaller pads and more exposed skin. That’s the lactation patch. That’s where the interjection ‘palms!’ comes from. It’s short for ‘by the palms that nursed me!’
Argenzu and Cynewulf shook their heads. They tried to hear as little of Doug's following explanations as possible, so they pulled back their ears as far as possible and slowly nipped on their drinks in silence.
It was only after the Ynrih stopped talking that Argenzu pulled back his laptop and closed the lid.

Cynewulf got up from his seat and had to shake himself, not unlike a quadrupedal dog – except that he was standing straight.
Argenzu wiped his nose a few times in a row.

TBPO wrote: 16 Sep 2024 09:30
lurker wrote: 15 Sep 2024 00:12 Doug flicks his ears back in a cynoid shrug. "They're big, they're made of wood, they have green leaves. Sounds pretty convergent to me."
"So there are only two possibilities: an intervention of aliens older than both human and wolf-monkey... and magic."
“Doug is right, if the conditions are similar, things tend to go the same way”, Argenzu joins in.
He opens his laptop again and loads a video:
The thylacine once was the prime example of convergent evolution on Earth – it looks like a dog, it sits like a dog, but it's not a dog. Then, after 1937 AD, they were gone. They filled the same slot in the ecological clockwork of Tasmania as the wolf did in Europe or North America – but they were distant cousins of the kangaroos.
If it can happen on a planet, who could deny it happening across planets?”
“Lucky for us, it did”, Cynewulf joins in, “Otherwise we wouldn't have Emmett and Clara. My and Argenzu's planet evolved marsupial life – but nothing higher beyond that. We two are the result of humans meddling with our DNA, but everything else was a lucky coincidence.
No magic needed. Our universe isn't a Henry Portman novel.”
Cynewulf chuckles, Argenzu rolls his eyes.
Spoiler:
“What? Agatha Roweland made my kind the bad guys in volumes 3 and 7. You read them to me”, the wolf-man hunches forward, his nose only centimetres away from the rodent's face.
Argenzu touched Cynewulf's nose with his extended left index finger:You wanted to hear me read something in Buonavallese.”
“Anyway”, Argenzu turns around, “what's a popular genre of literature where you come from?”
“If you have any, that is”, Cynewulf adds.
"Maybe your globe and life on it is very similar to Earth and World life, but you claimed that humans meddled in your world, so problem solved itself. As for Doug, this problem is more complicated." Sarah turns to Doug. "You claim that humans and wolf-monkeys evolved independently, without knowing each other. It's too big coincidence to evolve striking similarities on two unrelated worlds. It's too small chance! Independency of evolution eliminates possibility that one race created other race, but it's still possible that species alien to both races created them. If it's also impossible, there remains only one option - we all are in one big simulation..."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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((Is anyone there?))
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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TBPO wrote: 16 Sep 2024 09:30 "So there are only two possibilities: an intervention of aliens older than both human and wolf-monkey... and magic."
"I mean, there are other possibilities. I'm not a monk for nothing, you know," says Doug. "There is something beyond the ken of mortal minds that dwells in the Realm of the Unknowable. Call it 'magic' if you want, but we Wayfarers have another word for it. But I should stop since my son's not here to keep me from getting preachy."

Doug looks around. "Whatever happened to Dzojwĕsoun? I'm not even thirsty anymore, I just hope he's doing OK."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 20 Sep 2024 20:32
TBPO wrote: 16 Sep 2024 09:30 "So there are only two possibilities: an intervention of aliens older than both human and wolf-monkey... and magic."
"I mean, there are other possibilities. I'm not a monk for nothing, you know," says Doug. "There is something beyond the ken of mortal minds that dwells in the Realm of the Unknowable. Call it 'magic' if you want, but we Wayfarers have another word for it. But I should stop since my son's not here to keep me from getting preachy."
"How it affects your world?"
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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TBPO wrote: 23 Sep 2024 21:02 "How it affects your world?"
Doug tilts his head in bewilderment. "How is the universe affected by its creator? It exists, for one thing--" His voice catches abruptly as his head whips around toward the mass router room. A sound beyond human perception (and perhaps too unfamiliar to those present who do have sufficient hearing), derails Doug's train of thought. "What is that noise?" he grunts under his breath. He spins around and peers quizzically into the room. The loofah slips off the end of his tail and falls forgotten to the floor. "Sherm's told me how these mass routers work a million times, and I still can't fit it in my ear. Is that--I think he calls it the 'impulse buffer'?" He says aloud, trying to jog his memory. He pads cautiously into the room, his whiskers bristling with concentration.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 27 Sep 2024 03:14 Doug tilts his head in bewilderment. "How is the universe affected by its creator? It exists, for one thing--"
"Then it's a religion, not magic." Sarah says. She looks at her watch and is surprised that its hands were not moving. "Why hands of my watch stopped? Shouldn't time fly by here sometimes?" She got up from the chair. "Sorry, but I must go. My dog is in my house and I have to find way to enter my house." She exits the Inn.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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“Our faith is based on the premise that we will find the children of the humans – in our universe, that is”, Cynewulf interjects.
“But after 16 million years”, Argenzu cuts in, “I doubt there'll be anything left of what brought us into our four-planet living quarters.”
The rodent answered in a dismissive tone: He had serious doubts for a long time already, and he's not shy voicing them, after what he'd learned about evolution in school.
“Anyway, Argenzu asked you about your literatu—”
Only then Cynewulf noticed that Sarah left in more than a hurry.
“Oh possum me sideways... We have a little bickering in the meantime and when we can fully focus on other guests, they leave before we get our answer”, the wolf-man mumbles.
lurker wrote: 27 Sep 2024 03:14 His voice catches abruptly as his head whips around toward the mass router room. A sound beyond human perception (and perhaps too unfamiliar to those present who do have sufficient hearing), derails Doug's train of thought. "What is that noise?" he grunts under his breath. He spins around and peers quizzically into the room. The loofah slips off the end of his tail and falls forgotten to the floor. "Sherm's told me how these mass routers work a million times, and I still can't fit it in my ear. Is that--I think he calls it the 'impulse buffer'?" He says aloud, trying to jog his memory. He pads cautiously into the room, his whiskers bristling with concentration.
“I guess you have to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”, Argenzu comments, then he bursts into laughter, which sends Cynewulf into a howling laugh.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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Egerius wrote: 27 Sep 2024 19:35 “I guess you have to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”, Argenzu comments, then he bursts into laughter, which sends Cynewulf into a howling laugh.
Doug yips quietly to Argenzu but remains laser-focused on the router. He slinks forward like he’s stalking prey. Then comes a familiar low thump. The room is silent for a split second, then frantic muffled yells can be heard coming from inside the bore of the router.

“Where am I?! I can’t see nothin’, Light blind it!”

The hatch opens and the bed glides out slowly. The smell of spent gunpowder and singed fur heralds the arrival of this new sophont. It’s another yinrih. His fur is an earthy brown color. He has a chunk missing from his right ear, and all the whiskers on the left side of his snout seem to have been recently burned off. His right eye is missing, the lid sewn shut. He’s lying flat on his belly, and the gun just barely clears the hatchway of the router. All six digits of all four paws are gripping the sides of the bed as though his life depended on it.

The stranger turns to his conspecific. “Who’re you?! What is this contraption?! Where in the Blind Void am I?!”

Doug doesn’t answer right away. He’s almost as perplexed as the newcomer. Doug’s nose twitches a few times as he takes in his scent. “Y-your scent. You’re from Yih?” He manages to say after a few seconds of stunned silence.

“Well where else should I be from? I ain’t no star folk,” says the newcomer.

“Star folk?” Doug plops his rear end on the ground and tugs pensively at an ear with his rear paw. “What year is it?” he probes.

“Eh? What kinda dumb question is that? Been a thousand four hundred six years* since the kindlin’.”

Doug heaves a heavy sigh. “Well sure, why not?” Doug carefully positions himself between the router and the door to block the newcomer’s view of the hall outside. “Let’s just get this out of the way. That ‘contraption’ you came out of is a mass router,” he says slowly and clearly as though instructing a young pup barely off his dams’ milk. “And I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news is I don’t know where we are, and strictly speaking, I don’t know WHEN we are, either, but it’s DEFINITELY not the year 1406.”

“Whell shoot, what’s the good news,” says the newcomer, surprisingly unphased by the revelation that he traveled through time.

“Good news is, we’ve finally found other soph—uh I mean star folk,” says Doug. “and it only took us 68 more millennia,” he mutters.

“Well smack me ‘cross the snout and call me a tree dweller! Let’s go see ‘em!” He hefts off the gun saddle and makes a move for the door. Doug follows, and the two emerge into the main area.

*1 Yih years is approximately 1.4 Earth years
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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A window appears on the wall and someone standing behind it swings at it. The window shatters and Sarah is behind it with a crowbar in her hand. She looks into the Inn; disappointment is written on her face.
"I see that my window also turned into a gate to the Inn..." She says. "I have to find way to enter my home! My dog is trapped in it..." Tears flow from her eyes. She walks away sadly. The window disappeared, but glass shards still remain on the floor.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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TBPO wrote: 30 Sep 2024 19:41 A window appears on the wall and someone standing behind it swings at it. The window shatters and Sarah is behind it with a crowbar in her hand. She looks into the Inn; disappointment is written on her face.
"I see that my window also turned into a gate to the Inn..." She says. "I have to find way to enter my home! My dog is trapped in it..." Tears flow from her eyes. She walks away sadly. The window disappeared, but glass shards still remain on the floor.
Doug slowly approaches Sarah, the newcomer in tow. The two yinrih carefully avoid treading on the broken glass with their bare paws. "I'm sorry, Sarah," Doug says.

The newcomer chimes in, "Howdy, ma'am. Seems you and me're in the same per-dicament. I don't rightly know how I got myself here, neither. Last thing I remember I was flyin' through the air in a fancy new pro-jectile them monks cooked up. Next thing I know I'm trapped in that... mass rooter?" He looks at Doug for confirmation.

"Close enough," he says, then his ears perk up. "You said you were launched inside a projectile?"

"Yup!" he yips cheerfully. "Been tryin' to become a martyr since I was just outta puppyhood. So I been helpin' the monks with their ree-search and dee-veloopment so we little ones can fulfill the Great Commandment and go out and meet us some Star Folk." He turns to Sarah. "Never thought I'd be seein' one myself though." He looks her up and down. "And I never thought they'd look quite like you do, if ya don't mind me sayin'. Are ya always reared up on yer hind feet like that, with your front paws never touchin' the ground? How come yer all wrapped up like a healer? I see ya got no fur 'cept that patch on yer head there. And looks like ya got no tail, neither. You really are bone not of our bone and flesh not of our flesh."

"Sorry," says Doug. "He's never seen a human before."

"yoomies? That's whatcha call'em?"

"Eh, close enough," says Doug.

The newcomer rears up on his hind feet and pats himself on the belly twice with the left forepaw. "May The Light shine on ya, friend! Name's Blessed Guts."

((Hopefully nobody minds my attempt at eye dialect.))
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 29 Sep 2024 20:27 “Whell shoot, what’s the good news,” says the newcomer, surprisingly unphased by the revelation that he traveled through time.

“Good news is, we’ve finally found other soph—uh I mean star folk,” says Doug. “and it only took us 68 more millennia,” he mutters.

“Well smack me ‘cross the snout and call me a tree dweller! Let’s go see ‘em!” He hefts off the gun saddle and makes a move for the door. Doug follows, and the two emerge into the main area.
Argenzu and Cynewulf turn around for a second, but quickly assume their normal sitting position.
“There's another of them”, Argenzu whispered.
“Uh-huh”, Cynewulf tried to listen in on the conversation, then his eyes widened: “Oh no.”
“What?”, the rodent asked.
“I think Doug is telling the new monkey-fox about the future”, the wolf-man replied in a whisper.
He's doing WHAT?!
“Shut up!”
They both resumed sitting normally, pretending that nothing was going on, until...
TBPO wrote: 30 Sep 2024 19:41 A window appears on the wall and someone standing behind it swings at it. The window shatters and Sarah is behind it with a crowbar in her hand. She looks into the Inn; disappointment is written on her face.
Argenzu and Cynewulf stared at Sarah. The two had an idea, but they weren't completely sure if their theory was true.
Then Doug and the newcomer entered the scene. The rodent and the wolf-man observed the whole interaction, although Argenzu had narrowed his eyes and was tapping the wooden table with four of his fingers.
Cynewulf clears his throat.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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Egerius wrote: 01 Oct 2024 03:16 Cynewulf clears his throat.
Blessed Guts turns around and notices the other two. He walks up to Cynewulf.

"Now yer an odd-lookin' feller, if ya pardon me sayin' so. Ya got a head like mine but the rest of ya looks like the yoomie over there." He repeats the greeting gesture. "Name's Blessed Guts. What's yers?"

Doug hurries over. "Sorry, like I told Sarah, he's never seen aliens before." Doug turns to Blessed Guts and quickly executes the same greeting gesture. "I'm Shimmering Water, by the way."

"Howdy," Blessed Guts yips at Doug then turns back to Cynewulf. "Y'all were sayin' something 'bout the future?"

While Blessed Guts is talking, Doug grabs a keyer and HUD specs from his wallet. In a single fluid motion he flicks open the specs and rests them on his muzzle. Then he wraps the keyer in his left front paw and begins chording away. With his digits curled around the keyer, his knuckles are bearing his weight rather than his palms, making him look much more ape-like.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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lurker wrote: 01 Oct 2024 13:56 Blessed Guts turns around and notices the other two. He walks up to Cynewulf.

"Now yer an odd-lookin' feller, if ya pardon me sayin' so. Ya got a head like mine but the rest of ya looks like the yoomie over there." He repeats the greeting gesture. "Name's Blessed Guts. What's yers?"
“I'm Cynewulf”, he says, standing as tall as possible on his two digitigrade feet. His serious face barely covers the urge to laugh at the hilarious-sounding name.
“And I'm Argenzu”, the rodent adds.
Spoiler:
Doug hurries over. "Sorry, like I told Sarah, he's never seen aliens before." Doug turns to Blessed Guts and quickly executes the same greeting gesture. "I'm Shimmering Water, by the way."
Now both understand that the tummy rubbing is a greeting.
"Howdy," Blessed Guts yips at Doug then turns back to Cynewulf. "Y'all were sayin' something 'bout the future?"
Argenzu walks over to the monkey fox with the seemingly blessed guts: “If you have visitors from the future, don't ask too many questions – not too personal ones, either. It might cause your whole universe to change...”
The rodent has a stern look on his face, while the wolf-man puts his right hand-paw on Argenzu's right shoulder.
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

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Egerius wrote: 01 Oct 2024 17:32 “If you have visitors from the future, don't ask too many questions – not too personal ones, either. It might cause your whole universe to change...”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” says Doug. He rears up and puts his HUD specs down on the table. He inputs a few chords on the keyer, and a small laser projector mirrors the specs’ contents on the tabletop. “As soon as I heard you were testing projectiles with the research monks I had an idea who you were.”

Doug motions with his muzzle to the text projected on the table.

Code: Select all

Offline Claravian hagiographic and martyrological database. Please enter query string.

Query> Blessed Guts died 1406

Response> Best match found: Blessed Guts, saint and martyr 
Command> get vita 
Response> \

> Blessed Guts the martyr, popularly known as "blastpowder Blessed Guts" was born to a humble farming moot
> in the year 1300 PK. He was obsessed with becoming a martyr,
>  and volunteered as a test subject at the local research monastery.
> At that time, the monks were conducting trials with manned projectiles,
> examining the effects of high acceleration on the vulpithecine body. 
> Though he had several close calls, his dream of laying down his life in pursuit of the Great Commandment 
> wouldn't come until the day 31 of the fourth quarter of 1406, 
> when the projectile he was testing crashed into a ravine,
> though not before breaking an altitude record,
> making him the first yinrih to reach the stratosphere.
> Subsequent examination of his earthly remains proved tremendously useful
> in establishing the limits of yinrih G-force tolerance,
> which would aid in the Bright Way's progress from ballistic projectiles to powered rockets. 

> He was known for his affinity for firearms and explosives even outside of testing,
> and he is given special veneration by demolitionists, miners, and firearms enthusiasts.

> His feast is celebrated on the day of his martyrdom, the 31st day of the fourth quarter of the year. 

⚙ The path to the stars is painted in the blood of martyrs. ⚙

> End Vita
Blessed Guts reads the text. "Hay, that's today! I did it! Yee-haw, I finally did it! Light shine upon me! I gotta get back home so's I can get 'er done!" He begins tippy-tapping with excitement.

Doug looks up at the two fellow pelt-bearers and sighs. "We were a lot more... enthusiastic back in the Golden Age. We were also a lot more reckless with the lives of our fellow sophonts. I can't say I'm entirely comfortable with that fact, but it's hard to deny all those willing test subjects is what let us go from bashing things with crude flint paw axes to orbital flight in such a short time."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

Post by lurker »

After calming down, Blessed Guts begins looking around at all the unfathomably futuristic gadgets scattered across the tabletop.

"What're these newfangled things?" he asks Shimmering Water, indicating the HUD specs. He snatches them up from table, turns them over in his paws and brushes them against his whiskers.

Doug catches himself before he can let out a frustrated hiss. Far be it from him to chastise a living saint. "here," he gently wrests them from his paws and places them correctly on Blessed Guts' muzzle. "They're a kind of compu--" He stops himself. Of course Blessed Guts wouldn't know what a computer is. "--uh, they can show you words and pictures. Mostly words."

"Wow!" Blessed Guts yips. Doug hands him the keyer and he tries to wrap it in his paw the same way he saw Doug using it. He mashes a few keystrokes, and a jumble of text scrolls across the display. "I can't make paws or claws of this here contraption," he grunts, handing the keyer and specs back to Doug. Doug folds the specs up and places them back in his wallet. "But it sure is dandy y'all got this far, meetin' star folk and all. Tell me more 'bout these Yoomies."

"Well, Sarah over there is a human, or at least she looks like a human. And yes, to answer your earlier question, humans do walk on their hind feet all the time. We call it 'obligate bipedialism.' See how her palms are much smoother than ours, No pads and no claws? Since they don't have to bear her weight they're much more specialized for grasping. Humans don't have much fur to speak of, either, so they wear cloth garments to make up for it, just like healers do. They also do this thing when they get hot where their skin oozes this salty liquid called sweat. It's got a rather... unique odor, but most of us who work with humans grow to like the scent after a while."

"Her ears don't look like they do a whole lot of movin' around," said Blessed Guts.

"Nah, they don't," said Doug. "Humans are very reliant on vision, and you've got to look at those ridges of hair above their eyes to tell how they're feeling, at least that's how other humans do it. They do have pheromones but they don't really pick up on them the way we do. If you're around them enough you learn to be a bit more expressive with your ears so they can read your mood better."

"They look like they can run real good on those lanky back legs...? uh, I mean lower legs?"

"They're just called legs. The other two limbs we call 'arms'. Their grasping paws are 'hands' and their walking paws are 'feet'. And oh yes, you better believe they can run. They're not the fastest in the galaxy, but they've got more endurance than anything we've ever seen. That's why they sweat, you know. It's way more effective than our panting. Those arms can throw, too, harder, further, and with scary accuracy.

"The oddest thing about them, though, is that they don't know how to write. Not automatically at least. They don't just pick it up as kits like we do. They have to be taught, and they use tools to write with. What's wild to me, even after knowing them all this time, is that there's this whole stretch of their history that's just gone. They don't have written records past a few millennia ago, so everything they know about themselves from before then has to be pieced together. Sure they were kindled, or as they would say, they'd crossed the threshold of reflection, but it's all basically educated guesswork. This also means they sundered into hundreds of isolated populations early on, then had to rediscover one another down the road. All these isolated groups developed drastically different cultures with wildly different languages and levels of technological development.

"It took them a LONG time just to get to where you are now. Even though they were kindled around the same time as us, the fact they had to invent writing really put them at a disadvantage.

"And," Doug's head droops and emotion creeps into his voice, "They don't... they don't live very long. They're lucky to see a century. So they have to slowly build up knowledge by passing it from generation to generation, for a dozen generations in just one of our lifetimes."
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Re: The Multiverse Inn

Post by TBPO »

The door to the Inn opened and Sarah entered with a stranger. He was tall and slim. He was dressed in clothes that were a little bit normal and a little bit elegant. He looked deadly serious, but when he noticed the non-humans, a flash of fear and surprise appeared on his face, but he quickly regained control and looked like a real professional again.

"Hello, I'm Telli Mente, an experienced specialist in the supernatural." The stranger introduced himself. He looked around the room. "Lots of intelligent species here. What's your problem?"
"The interior of my house has turned into this room," Sarah said. "Will you help me get into my house?"
"Hmm... It seems that the space-time continuum collapsed here, creating radiation rays that gradually emanated the interior of the house into a hyperspace tesseract, causing a umbrasonic dislocation between the two spheres..." Telli mumbled. He was gradually falling into a panic, because he was slowly running out of professional-sounding names. "No problem! Just pay me 4,000 Darra to reverse the process! I will perform a mesmeric disintegration that will return both places to the right dimensions!"
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