EARTH 5746JK1278!W welcomes you, hero.

[capemods]

WHO: Any imPort transported to Metricog of Earth 5746JK1278!W.
WHERE: The city of Metricog.
WHEN: The moment of midnight February 24th, 2013 to the moment of midnight February 28th, 2013.
SUMMARY: Now stolen away to a strange city of a strange world, our heroes are left to their own devices in their efforts for answers!
FORMAT: Whatever the player chooses.



This is the city Metricog. It is quite unlike the City you were living in but a few moments ago. However, in terms of global placement, it IS the City. Metricog belongs to a steampunk world with towering buildings of steel and smoke stacks rising to the sun. Streets are paved with bolts. Cogs and copper clocks and brass valves are etched into every alley, every concave. You will be sequestered from your world to this strange land FOR FOUR DAYS and greeted by stranger inhabitants: natives of Metricog are sentient and can communicate with you in a verbal-to-audio manner that you can understand (how strange), but they are not fleshed. They are natives made of oil, of coal, of natural gas – or of mechanics. There are androids so very human-like with their follicle wires or they are bodiless walls of machinery lining rooms and halls that see and listen and speak. The range is as wild as your imagination.

The atmosphere of Metricog twins what your City atmosphere is like – but not for the same reasons. Your very ability to breathe oxygen at ground level is dependent on the fifty house-sized bellows scattered about the cityscape. These provide a frequency of communication unique to the citizens of Metricog, no imPort can understand it directly. The fact that imPorts can survive the byproduct of these machines is pure coincidence. If anything were to happen to even one of these bellows, your oxygen levels would suffer. If two? You would find it hard to focus, to think, your blood would slow. If three? Try not to think about if three.

Any flora or fauna you might be remotely familiar with are secluded to well-protected glass biomes. Rabbits, pigeons and rats are collected under flower bushes and stubby shrubs and young groves in three separate biomes. Each biome is differentiated from the other in some way, even if they have overlapping elements. All are where Central Park would be.

Suffice to say, organic organisms like most (BUT NOTABLY, NOT ALL) imPorts are a rarity. So you will find it VERY peculiar when the native mayor of Metricog greets you and tells you that your flesh-and-blood brothers who had come just the day before!

Wait, what?

Yes, you’re only the second group to debut EARTH 5746JK1278!W. There's a reason why you were brought here by the omnipotent Lachesis (who gained her superior power and changed the world -- and the universe -- two years ago). You may not know it, but you're on the tail of five Vulcanus Skrull agents. They are all empowered in a special way that only Vulcanus can connive, and they are hiding from you. They do not want you here, it was never planned for you to come here. These agents have their own mission for Vulcanus, and it's to learn how to mine this world for fuel. After all, a war against imPorts needs fuel, and half the natives of Metricog are just the ticket. But you don't know that. All you know is what you're told from the mechanic and fueled denizens of Metricog: that your brothers had already come!

If there are people like you here, you need to find them. What if they're other imPorts? What if they're City natives? What if they can help you?

What if they have answers?

Comments

[professorlionface]

[Hank hadn't been spared similar treatment, though it tended to come in one of two flavors. The first would often start with one of the mechanical natives commenting on the brilliant blue of his coat, which he'd respond to as politely as he could, but would try to extricate himself before it escalated to an attempt to actually pet him. Their hands had been like rakes against his arms, and face when they could reach it, and he never liked to deal with uninvited touching normally.

The second was a little more dangerous, but not as visible to someone who wasn't as used to it as he was. People have avoided him and cross on the other side of the street because they were afraid of his size since he was a kid. When it gets truly insidious is when an eight-foot-tall Metrcogian, a man whose arms themselves could have been bulldozers and breathed like a furnace confronted him directly like he was looking to cause trouble. It took some fast talking and even quicker feet to defuse that one.

He'd only just lost him maybe five minutes ago when he runs into Karkat, looking more than a little frazzled. He was still in the labcoat, t-shirt, and rolled-up khakis he arrived in, but his mane was a mess and he looked like he was still trying to catch his breath. Seeing one of the City's own kids was a welcome sight at that point, whatever he might end up encountering from it.

He sticks his hands in the pockets of his labcoat and glances down at the boy.]

Long day? [It was a silly question, really. Every one of them has had a long day at this point, and some of them certainly look it, himself included.]

[crab]

[ karkat starts with recognition when he looks up to see hank -- the big blue overly concerned furball. it quickly settles back into aggravation, however. he gestures widely with his hands, at the metallic world around them. ]

Oh, no, it's been business as usual. I can't imagine a more monotonous day. I get yanked from dimension to dimension all the time, I pretty much thrive on it. It especially gets me off when the natives of said random dimensions decide to fondle me with reckless, cold, metallic abandon.

[ yes, a long day. ]

[professorlionface]

[Hank glances down at him with a frown.] Yes, that sounds about right.

[He reaches up to smooth out his hair, straighten his pince-nez, just try to work the frazzle out. It sounds like he's run into pretty much the same thing, except...]

None of them have been particularly threatening, I hope? Nuisances, sure, lacking boundaries, definitely. Just generally more than a bit rude, but nothing worse?

[crab]

[ karkat huffs irritably, but, well, it's pretty hard to find a way to get offended when someone agrees with you. he tries, nonetheless. ]

Unless you count constantly grabbing my horns and prodding me so many times and in so many places I am probably never going to get the indentations of their stupid miscellaneous appendages out of my flesh as violent assault, which I'm starting to at this point, yeah, they've been a fucking pleasure.

[professorlionface]

[He exhales, giving Karkat a smile.] I know you'll probably find little comfort in it, but at least for that!

The problem is that it's the initial disorientation all over again, but when I first arrived in the City, there was someone already there to fill in the gaps. Aside from our mysterious trailblazers here, it seems we're the first wave.

[He's talking like they've been imPorted all over again, mostly to cover his bases. He has no way of knowing they'll be going back, but...] Hopefully, it won't last long enough for us to greet the second, if there is one.

[crab]

God, don't even suggest the idea that we're stuck here. [ karkat hisses, panicking slightly at the thought. ] Bite your fetid mouth twitcher.

[professorlionface]

Sorry, just thinking aloud. [While worrying quietly. There isn't even any kind of infrastructure in place here to support them, if they are stuck here, well...he can appreciate a little more what it means to be an alien. Realizing the company he has now, he keeps that thought to himself.]

I'm sure it will work out. But it does make you sort of appreciate the City a little more, doesn't it? at least what we do have there.

[crab]

You mean breathable air, actual food, and usable bathrooms? Yeah. The City was basically a fountain of blessings in comparison to this horseshit.

[professorlionface]

It's a place that, well, I don't want to say actually wants you around, [Even if there's a big dumb AI who does just that.] but at least has the infrastructure in place to support your existence.

Here, there's no pretending we aren't complete strangers, even invaders.

[crab]

I think you mean "novelty entertainment".

[professorlionface]

I mean both, really, and neither is acceptable behavior, when we have even the slightest means to deter against it. Here there'd be little weight to a large scale complaint. We're mostly a joke to them, have you seen the sleeping arrangements?

[Another Metricogian couple passes them by, and Hank gives them the most intense glare he can manage. They cross to the other side of the street.] At least Cityzens are generally more subtle about it.

[crab]

I prefer the occasional, sweet auricular caress of some nutjob howling freak from across the street at me, honestly.

[ he rolls a shrug. ]

[professorlionface]

I think occasional is the keyword there. We're too new here, too different from the regular populace. That makes us the oddity to everyone we encounter.

Perhaps some bizarre jungle world would be easier to blend into. Or your own homeworld. [He looks over at Karkat with that line. He basically does not know anything about Alternia.]

[crab]

[ wow, what's that weird noise he's making? is he choking? is he having a seizure?

no, he's just laughing really obnoxiously the instant hank mentions his homeworld. ]

[professorlionface]

[He frowns. He hates not being in on a joke, he likes jokes.]

Did I say something wrong?

[crab]

My homeworld. [ karkat wheezes out after a few more beats of laughter. ] Wow, yeah, they'd be welcoming as shit. You know we're so kind and accommodating when it comes to other species, that's why our Empire is devoted to the subjugation and domination of our entire galaxy.

[professorlionface]

Oh. [Why do so many alien civilizations he's encountered always end up being aggressive empires?] Well, maybe not then.

Most of us probably wouldn't look like we fit anyway, come to think of it. Let's hope for the jungle instead.

[crab]

I'd rather hope for the transdimensional rubbish to ball itself up and fling itself back into the cosmic wastebasket it crawled out of, never to inflict itself upon our already soiled, shitty lives ever again.

[professorlionface]

Mm, wouldn't that be nice? Not really worth counting on, though. The multiverse always seems to have other ideas for us.

Besides, where would we end up if that happened? The City? Back at home? Certainly not here, but if you had to choose between the other two, where would you go?

[crab]

My home is dead. [ he says it callously, as though it has no true emotional weight. (this is a facade) ] I don't really have a choice.

[professorlionface]

Oh.

[He shifts a little awkwardly, holding his glasses in front of him to seemingly give them a look over, but mostly just to have something to frown at.] Well, now I've made an idiot of myself to you twice in a row.

Terribly insensitive. I'm sorry about that.