Re: The Grand Battle II! [Final Round: Dimensional Speakeasy]
05-02-2011, 12:44 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
Frank's general caginess bothered Gestalt rather a lot, but it had learned not to press with such beings. Or, at least, when to press. Despite being intensely curious about the nature of this 'Jessamine', as well as her motivations and abilities, the golem reasoned that now was not the best time to get nosy about it. Instead, it settled for exploring another avenue of information that had been niggling at it for some time.
"Yes, I suppose you're right. I have to ask, though. Who are we going to see, and why?"
Frank tossed her hair and huffed slightly. "Boy, yer just a barrel of questions, aren'tcha? Alright, I'll tell ya whatcha wanna know, but not right here, an' not right know. The walls got ears, ya know? I know ya can put two and two together."
Gestalt pondered for a few moments, putting two and two together as instructed. "Then..." it mused. "If I understand you, where can–"
"Look, okay, just clam up a bit and pretend like I know what I'm doin', okay? Sometimes it ain't even safe ta say what it ain't safe ta say, right?"
Gestalt shuffled its contents with annoyance, but had to concede she had a point. It was still difficult to adjust to the mindset it required to deal with beings whose senses outstripped his own by metaphorical miles, and whose power left even the gods in the dust; still, it hoped it was starting to get the hang of it, and took the hint from Frank, who grinned.
"Good. Now come on."
With a beckon from the construct, the pair moved off down the endless, labyrinthine corridors.
"I don't suppose it would be untoward of me to at least ask about the setting itself? This place seems rather... Spacially anomalous."
"Nah, we can beat our gums about that one. I s'pose you'd be in a prime position ta notice that, and ya might even be able to get the basics. I dunno, whatcha know about universes?"
There was silence for a few moments as Gestalt thought. What did it know about universes? It hadn't really been in a prime position to pick up a whole lot of metaphysical knowledge back in its own universe, and there hadn't been a lot of chances to pick up too much as it had been hurtled through others. Eventually it came out with "Not too much, I suppose."
"Mmm..." Frank clicked her fingers idly as she thought. "Well, if we gotta start at the baby level, we might not get too fah. Okay, imagine, uh... Imagine, like, a box. Er, no, that's not really... Maybe a bubble? I dunno, that might not..." Her face screwed up as she tried to force a square peg of knowledge into the round pinhole of Gestalt's vocabulary and experience, then lit up as something occurred to her. "Okay, imagine a piece of cloth, right? You an' all those wizahds in ya college an' all the peasants an' planets an' stahs, all of those ah the tiniest tiniest tiniest specks of dust on the tiniest specks of dust on that piece of cloth. And, uh, that cloth is ya universe, right?"
"Well," she continued, gesturing as they walked. "Then ya pick up all four cornahs and sew 'em tahgethah, so ya got a little pouch. All the little dust-specks, they can't tell whethah the cloth is curved or flat or nothin, theah so small. Like how ya can't tell the planet yer on is round, right? So ya got this pouch of cloth, it's all paisley all ovah, an' as fah as everyone in it's concehned, paisley's the only typa cloth theah is. Shuwah, they write books an' tell stories about what life would be like if the universe was plaid instead, or maybe if someone from tha paisley pouch found theah way into the plaid one, but paisley's all they really know."
"Now, you take the cornahs you sewed up, and you sew 'em onto the backside of anothah piece of cloth. Maybe this one's paisley just like the first one, maybe it ain't. Maybe it's paisley with little flowahs around the paisleys instead of dots, or maybe it's somethin' totally different. It don't mattah, though. The paisley pouch is fine doin its own thing, and it ain't affected by the othah one. Except, uh, some of them ah, but that's more like, the excepetion, and it don't mattah for the metaphowah anyway. And the specks in one pouch ain't aware of the othah pouch, unless they kno how to look fer it, and even then they can't move between 'em unless theah reeeal powahful specks."
"Anyway one pouch can have a whole lotta othah pouches attached to it, but no pouch is stuck on more than one othah pouch. Well, uh,mostly. And they don't overlap, you know, fa the most paht. So, each of these pouches is a universe, an' they mostly don't interact. 'Cept when they do. An' the big, powahful sorts can make 'em, a little bit, if they want. And they can move bits an' pieces of the universes around."
It had been a while since they had started this line of conversation, with no real interruption; Gestalt found this fairly odd, but simply continued following Frank's tortuous metaphor, trying to make some sense of it.
"An' so, from one of the biggest pouches, wheah ya can see a whole bunch of littlah ones if ya know how, someone like 'Servah comes along, an' he takes little bits of thread from a whole buncha pouches, and he pulls 'em togethah and makes his own new pouch. An' that's this place, right? It's like a normal pouch, only the patterns don't match so it's a little ugly and a little weird, and the stitching's not so good so ya can fall out if yer not careful. An' if ya fall out, yer not in some othah pouch, you end up wheah theah's no pouches at all. An' fer someone like, well, most anybody who ain't Grandmastah material or close, that's about the last thing you'll evah do. Uh, I guess that's about it! All that makes any nevahmind to ya, anyhow."
There was silence for a stretch as the schrotgolem absorbed the 'lesson', before its mechanical voice pondered. "You made rather a large deal about the patterns of the fabric, but I'm not entirely certain what their significance was."
"Oh, that! Well, that's, ya know, the laws of the universe, like. Yers has got magic an' wizards and so on, but that old sap ya offed a minute ago didn't have none of that. Totally dif'rent laws of reality, still stuck togethah."
There was a quiet clicking from no apparent source as Gestalt thought. "Then if things like magic are tied to the universe they come from, how was the lich able to cast as though he were still in his home? Have locales all been selected for their harmonious 'patterns'?"
"Yeaahh, an' –no, take the right heah– an' no. Theah's a lot more to grandmasterin' than pullin' specks into various pouches and pointin' 'em at each othah. Mostly ya'd nevah notice it, and wouldn't even be able to. But, uh, basically it's important to pick contestants from universes that ain't TOO dif'rent. Nobody's gonna stick a creachah from a place where gravity is a repulsive force in with a buncha people from wheah ya come from. Plus, the 'Mastahs make shuwah to bring along a tiiiny piece of everybody's home thread for 'em to stand on, so's mages can sling fiyahballs even in nonmagic universes an' you can exist in places that ain't got spirits. It's not that simple, really, but you get the basic idea, yeah?"
"Mmm."
Gestalt did get the basic idea, or at least got the basics of the basic idea. Or thought so. In any case, it probably wasn't worth pressing for more detailed or understandable information anyway, not only because it was largely unimportant, but because it wasn't sure Frank would be able to provide it. Besides, this had gone on much longer than it had intended, and had answered a number of questions it hadn't even meant to ask.
A few moments passed before either spoke again; when the comparativesilence was broken, it was once again by Gestalt's synthetic syllables.
"Frank," it mused. "It's been several minutes since we've been attacked, where before our last encounter we could barely make a turn without running into some sort of unlikely amalgamation in broad-shouldered pinstripes."
"Yeah, well, that ain't no coincidence. First off, 'Servah ain't really tryin' ta stop us. Like I said, it's more fun for them if ya fight back, right? Second, we're gettin' to a particular area of the club. The bosses have sort of a gentlemen's agreement, or should I say Gentlemen's, with a certain part of the clientele that they won't interfere too much with what goes on in certain places. Turn a blind eye sort thing, don't even come heah if they can avoid it. Makes things niceah all around. 'Specially fer us, and the fellah we're goin' ta meet."
Frank gave a mischievous little grin to her charge. "And I can tell whatcha thinkin', and yeah, that does mean it's okay to ask now."
"Well, then who are we meeting?"
"An old friend of daddy's. Calls himself The Diarist, but only cuz Historian and Chronicler was already taken. And let me tell ya, not many other "The"s heah more jokes than he does."
Gestalt clicked with annoyance. "Another Grandmaster? I'll be honest–"
Frank cut him off quickly. "Nah, the title's a fashion thing. Not a 'Mastah, not even on the same level. Inna lotta ways, even somebody like me's got more pull and more powah than he does. But we all got specialties, right? And this guy knows stuff, and more importantly, he knows how to help othah people know stuff. Whateveah stuff he wants 'em to know, more like. He's gonna be important to ya, even though you'll prob'ly only meet him fer no time at all. An' befowah ya ask, don't. See when we get there, right?"
Frank's general caginess bothered Gestalt rather a lot, but it had learned not to press with such beings. Or, at least, when to press. Despite being intensely curious about the nature of this 'Jessamine', as well as her motivations and abilities, the golem reasoned that now was not the best time to get nosy about it. Instead, it settled for exploring another avenue of information that had been niggling at it for some time.
"Yes, I suppose you're right. I have to ask, though. Who are we going to see, and why?"
Frank tossed her hair and huffed slightly. "Boy, yer just a barrel of questions, aren'tcha? Alright, I'll tell ya whatcha wanna know, but not right here, an' not right know. The walls got ears, ya know? I know ya can put two and two together."
Gestalt pondered for a few moments, putting two and two together as instructed. "Then..." it mused. "If I understand you, where can–"
"Look, okay, just clam up a bit and pretend like I know what I'm doin', okay? Sometimes it ain't even safe ta say what it ain't safe ta say, right?"
Gestalt shuffled its contents with annoyance, but had to concede she had a point. It was still difficult to adjust to the mindset it required to deal with beings whose senses outstripped his own by metaphorical miles, and whose power left even the gods in the dust; still, it hoped it was starting to get the hang of it, and took the hint from Frank, who grinned.
"Good. Now come on."
With a beckon from the construct, the pair moved off down the endless, labyrinthine corridors.
"I don't suppose it would be untoward of me to at least ask about the setting itself? This place seems rather... Spacially anomalous."
"Nah, we can beat our gums about that one. I s'pose you'd be in a prime position ta notice that, and ya might even be able to get the basics. I dunno, whatcha know about universes?"
There was silence for a few moments as Gestalt thought. What did it know about universes? It hadn't really been in a prime position to pick up a whole lot of metaphysical knowledge back in its own universe, and there hadn't been a lot of chances to pick up too much as it had been hurtled through others. Eventually it came out with "Not too much, I suppose."
"Mmm..." Frank clicked her fingers idly as she thought. "Well, if we gotta start at the baby level, we might not get too fah. Okay, imagine, uh... Imagine, like, a box. Er, no, that's not really... Maybe a bubble? I dunno, that might not..." Her face screwed up as she tried to force a square peg of knowledge into the round pinhole of Gestalt's vocabulary and experience, then lit up as something occurred to her. "Okay, imagine a piece of cloth, right? You an' all those wizahds in ya college an' all the peasants an' planets an' stahs, all of those ah the tiniest tiniest tiniest specks of dust on the tiniest specks of dust on that piece of cloth. And, uh, that cloth is ya universe, right?"
"Well," she continued, gesturing as they walked. "Then ya pick up all four cornahs and sew 'em tahgethah, so ya got a little pouch. All the little dust-specks, they can't tell whethah the cloth is curved or flat or nothin, theah so small. Like how ya can't tell the planet yer on is round, right? So ya got this pouch of cloth, it's all paisley all ovah, an' as fah as everyone in it's concehned, paisley's the only typa cloth theah is. Shuwah, they write books an' tell stories about what life would be like if the universe was plaid instead, or maybe if someone from tha paisley pouch found theah way into the plaid one, but paisley's all they really know."
"Now, you take the cornahs you sewed up, and you sew 'em onto the backside of anothah piece of cloth. Maybe this one's paisley just like the first one, maybe it ain't. Maybe it's paisley with little flowahs around the paisleys instead of dots, or maybe it's somethin' totally different. It don't mattah, though. The paisley pouch is fine doin its own thing, and it ain't affected by the othah one. Except, uh, some of them ah, but that's more like, the excepetion, and it don't mattah for the metaphowah anyway. And the specks in one pouch ain't aware of the othah pouch, unless they kno how to look fer it, and even then they can't move between 'em unless theah reeeal powahful specks."
"Anyway one pouch can have a whole lotta othah pouches attached to it, but no pouch is stuck on more than one othah pouch. Well, uh,mostly. And they don't overlap, you know, fa the most paht. So, each of these pouches is a universe, an' they mostly don't interact. 'Cept when they do. An' the big, powahful sorts can make 'em, a little bit, if they want. And they can move bits an' pieces of the universes around."
It had been a while since they had started this line of conversation, with no real interruption; Gestalt found this fairly odd, but simply continued following Frank's tortuous metaphor, trying to make some sense of it.
"An' so, from one of the biggest pouches, wheah ya can see a whole bunch of littlah ones if ya know how, someone like 'Servah comes along, an' he takes little bits of thread from a whole buncha pouches, and he pulls 'em togethah and makes his own new pouch. An' that's this place, right? It's like a normal pouch, only the patterns don't match so it's a little ugly and a little weird, and the stitching's not so good so ya can fall out if yer not careful. An' if ya fall out, yer not in some othah pouch, you end up wheah theah's no pouches at all. An' fer someone like, well, most anybody who ain't Grandmastah material or close, that's about the last thing you'll evah do. Uh, I guess that's about it! All that makes any nevahmind to ya, anyhow."
There was silence for a stretch as the schrotgolem absorbed the 'lesson', before its mechanical voice pondered. "You made rather a large deal about the patterns of the fabric, but I'm not entirely certain what their significance was."
"Oh, that! Well, that's, ya know, the laws of the universe, like. Yers has got magic an' wizards and so on, but that old sap ya offed a minute ago didn't have none of that. Totally dif'rent laws of reality, still stuck togethah."
There was a quiet clicking from no apparent source as Gestalt thought. "Then if things like magic are tied to the universe they come from, how was the lich able to cast as though he were still in his home? Have locales all been selected for their harmonious 'patterns'?"
"Yeaahh, an' –no, take the right heah– an' no. Theah's a lot more to grandmasterin' than pullin' specks into various pouches and pointin' 'em at each othah. Mostly ya'd nevah notice it, and wouldn't even be able to. But, uh, basically it's important to pick contestants from universes that ain't TOO dif'rent. Nobody's gonna stick a creachah from a place where gravity is a repulsive force in with a buncha people from wheah ya come from. Plus, the 'Mastahs make shuwah to bring along a tiiiny piece of everybody's home thread for 'em to stand on, so's mages can sling fiyahballs even in nonmagic universes an' you can exist in places that ain't got spirits. It's not that simple, really, but you get the basic idea, yeah?"
"Mmm."
Gestalt did get the basic idea, or at least got the basics of the basic idea. Or thought so. In any case, it probably wasn't worth pressing for more detailed or understandable information anyway, not only because it was largely unimportant, but because it wasn't sure Frank would be able to provide it. Besides, this had gone on much longer than it had intended, and had answered a number of questions it hadn't even meant to ask.
A few moments passed before either spoke again; when the comparativesilence was broken, it was once again by Gestalt's synthetic syllables.
"Frank," it mused. "It's been several minutes since we've been attacked, where before our last encounter we could barely make a turn without running into some sort of unlikely amalgamation in broad-shouldered pinstripes."
"Yeah, well, that ain't no coincidence. First off, 'Servah ain't really tryin' ta stop us. Like I said, it's more fun for them if ya fight back, right? Second, we're gettin' to a particular area of the club. The bosses have sort of a gentlemen's agreement, or should I say Gentlemen's, with a certain part of the clientele that they won't interfere too much with what goes on in certain places. Turn a blind eye sort thing, don't even come heah if they can avoid it. Makes things niceah all around. 'Specially fer us, and the fellah we're goin' ta meet."
Frank gave a mischievous little grin to her charge. "And I can tell whatcha thinkin', and yeah, that does mean it's okay to ask now."
"Well, then who are we meeting?"
"An old friend of daddy's. Calls himself The Diarist, but only cuz Historian and Chronicler was already taken. And let me tell ya, not many other "The"s heah more jokes than he does."
Gestalt clicked with annoyance. "Another Grandmaster? I'll be honest–"
Frank cut him off quickly. "Nah, the title's a fashion thing. Not a 'Mastah, not even on the same level. Inna lotta ways, even somebody like me's got more pull and more powah than he does. But we all got specialties, right? And this guy knows stuff, and more importantly, he knows how to help othah people know stuff. Whateveah stuff he wants 'em to know, more like. He's gonna be important to ya, even though you'll prob'ly only meet him fer no time at all. An' befowah ya ask, don't. See when we get there, right?"