Four Painful Years

> Are you really having hallucinations... or is it the inversed? Is all that you have perceived as "normal" up until now actually fake? Was it all just a cover?

JULIE: "I guess I should start with the obvious stuff."
JULIE: "Phew, okay, just... Give it to me straight... Am I going nuts?"
JULIE: "Why am I seeing three-headed dogs and ladies with fish ears? Why is there a giant floating island in the sky above Bridgeview? Why am I teleporting into conversations with twelve-foot-tall armor-people, and why am I suddenly remembering that my friends might be X-Men???"

COTTONHELM: "Elementary, Miss Mitchells. Your Barrier is breaking."

JULIE: "My what now?"

GUDRUN: "The Barrier; an imperceptible force that facilitates the divide between Mundanity, the 'non-magical' aspect of our universe, and The Flipside, the 'magical' aspect."
GUDRUN: "Mundanity cannot normally perceive The Flipside, for the most part, nor can Mundanity interact with it. Comparitively, Flipsiders can perceive and interact with Mundanity, but only to the extent the Barrier allows them to. The Mundane brain is hard-wired from birth to develop certain 'defenses' as an individual's mind comes to terms with its own defined 'truths', and one of these defenses manifests as the Barrier, which serves to protect your typical, defenseless human from the dangers of magic and the Flipside in general."

JULIE: "Whoa whoa, wait, time out! I gotta process this..."
JULIE: "So there's this like... Dresden Files thing going on where a magic world lives with the human world, but it's also like... a Doctor Who perception filter deal that makes it so magic doesn't affect us?"

GUDRUN: "... Simplified down to those colloquially analogous terms, yes, I'd say that sums up the basics."
GUDRUN: "It's worth mentioning that one's Barrier rarely shuts out magical phenomena entirely. Rather, the 'filter' in question is selectively porous, allowing certain stimuli through as long as the incoming information subscribes to one's perception of 'normalcy'."
GUDRUN: "Perfect example, that three-headed dog you mentioned. That's likely a Cerberus, a breed of magical dog named for the gatekeeper of legend. If you'd come across that dog prior to 'crossing over', so to speak, you'd have perceived it as any other mundane canid; just one head, nothing out of place."
GUDRUN: "That woman with 'fish ears' may have been a merfolk, many of which can be identified by their scaly skin and webbed appendages. But the Mundane Julie B. Mitchells, born into a world that dismisses 'mermaids' as pure fantasy, would only ever see the humanoid elements her mind allowed her to see; just a normal woman with normal ears. It wasn't until you experienced significant magical exposure that your Barrier began to collapse, allowing brief glimpses into the untouchable world around you. That may have something to do with the spent Ring of Defiance around your finger... They tend to produce quite a display once activated."

JULIE: "Heh. Forgot I had that..."

GUDRUN: "But a floating island? Physically impossible. The Barrier shuts it out as a whole. So Mundane aircraft pilots subconciously maneuver around it, and so do Mundane birds. Rain appears to fall straight through it, because any Mundane human that looks up can tell you there's nothing there. A dragon may rampage through your home town, destroying countless buildings, killing unlucky bystanders... But a freak windstorm is more plausible, so that's what people see when they turn on the news."

JULIE: "Damn..."

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You take a moment to let everything sink in.

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JULIE: "But... Why is it like that? Why does the Barrier even exist? Where did it come from?"

COTTONHELM: "All fantastic questions! So fantastic, in fact, that not one of them has a difinitive answer. At least, not yet."
COTTONHELM: "While the Barrier's true origins may forever remain a mystery, insight into why it exists crops up every so often in the form of elaborate theories. The most widely accepted theory posits that the Barrier acts as a sort of 'limiter' that prevents The Flipside from unintentionally devouring the non-magical. Not everyone is born with the ability to harness magic right away, and so not everyone is born equal. The Barrier provides Mundanity with a place to hide, a refuge from the advanced physical, mental and spiritual dangers that come naturally to a world filled to bursting with magic. It may also protect Flipsiders from overpopulation, though none can say for certain."
COTTONHELM: "Frankly I find Barrier research to be something of a resource dump. Its simply too inconsistent to study properly. There's all these little loopholes and exceptions to any one of its supposed 'rules', and you can never tell if a Mundane will cross over unscathed or simply lose their marbles! Never mind that in extremely rare cases the shock of crossing over is enough to kill some of them..."

GUDRUN: "In either case, I believe we've more than answered Julie's question by this point."

JULIE: "Yyyeeeaaah. Consider me fully educated on the matter. I'm just glad I didn't end up being in the 'lost my marbles' camp."
JULIE: "Also, you guys might wanna wake up Mister Warmaster. He's about to fall over."

COTTONHELM: "Vermillion! How could you fall asleep in front of company?"

VERMILLION: "NOT SLEEP. IS POWER NAP."
VERMILLION: "ALSO I WAS VERY BORED."

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THIS IS PART 1 OF A 3 PART UPDATE. NEXT ONE'S COMING SOON. FEEL FREE TO COMMENT OR SUGGEST REGARDLESS.