[voice], within the first week of October

[hasapoint]

[You feel something reaching out and touching your mind... Poking it, actually, like a prodding finger. It withdraws and tries a softer, finer touch. That withdraws too, and there's a pause. Looks like Need can't get around her powerloss and covertly use peoples' senses/look into their minds just by using the pearl network. Unfortunate.

After a moment, Need allows her presence to bloom into the connection and make itself known. If you can gauge this kind of thing at all two things are immediately evident. One is that she's very old. Not tired, not fragile, but distant and distorted to the point where her mind doesn't really feel human. The other is that she's female. There's nothing stereotypically feminine there but it's very clear. She's something crushed into a tiny space a very long time ago and also: she/her.]

Someone always figures out how to make a teleson. [Telepathy via technology.] How far does this reach? Does it work between people who haven't met?

[Need is far more accustomed to speaking mind-to-mind than using anything else, so her "voice" has a particular quality to it that I'm gonna keep rendering as italics.]

Where I'm from it's possible to visit other realities, where things might be very different, and be fully embodied in them but one's actual body remains behind. The more difficult part is getting back to it. I wonder if that's happened here.

Comments

[truthdecided]

[There's an unusual shiver in response. A prickling, like feathers standing on end. The Grumpearls are always somewhat intrusive by their nature, but this sudden contact from someone he doesn't know is different. Like a tiny mouse trying to slip through a crack in a door.

When she speaks, the tension settles slightly. It must be one of the new arrivals.

Still, there's something odd about this.]

It's not unlike telephones or speaking on an online form, if those words hold any meaning to you. You can contact individuals, or you can make public messages. It's not quite the same as transporting one's consciousness to another plane of existence.

[hasapoint]

[Need pauses.]

I was talking about two separate ideas, kid. People make different versions of telesons all the time. Cross-reality jaunts are a lot harder and more niche.

[truthdecided]

[Kid.

Kid.

He is nineteen years old! Nearly an adult... but to his credit, he forces such thoughts to the back of his mind. This is an interesting topic, after all.]

That's sensible enough. I imagine it would be rather power or resource intensive to cross the seams of reality. The closest we ever got was traversing the world of the collective unconsciousness and individual pockets of distortion, and we still had our physical bodies there.

[hasapoint]

Different realities or worlds tend to have their own rules. Sometimes a collection of them will share some and it's relatively easy to move between them. Going beyond that is always harder.

The way we worked it out on Velgarth creates a body from matter in the other reality that acts as a traveler's body. It's some tricky business but with our rules and those we tried it with, it's more possible than physical relocation. You can see why it came to mind.

[truthdecided]

So, in other words, it's a temporary vessel that lets you interact with that world...

[Fascinating. Very science fiction in a way, and yet...]

What becomes of the original body? Is it merely unconscious during that time?

[hasapoint]

[I always seem to make much of this crossover mechanic that happened once in canon lol.]

That's right. Though I think it might last a good while. The original body seems to be dreaming and if things take too long someone has to syringe broth into its throat and wipe its rump, or it'll waste away. And you need someone protecting their bodies or something else could slip in, but if they do too good a job, the original can't get back.

There was a kind of fad for this once, if you can imagine.

[truthdecided]

Ah. Possession.

[A ripple of discomfort cuts through his thoughts. The robbing of one's form and agency hits a bit close to home.]

It all seems rather complicated, both for the one traversing realities and those tasked with upkeep. The risk factor alone seems incredibly high, yet I suppose that hasn't stopped other fads from sweeping a nation.