alphacomplex | DAY 00

[Good afternoon, Citizens!

Your consciousness blurrily returns as the transport tube your comatose body was stored in opens up, admitting you access to an unfamiliar room. One wall is covered by vertical tubes, one occasionally sliding open to admit another confused person. The wall across from you has a sign saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB", with an arrow pointing at a red doorway in the corner. The wall to your right contains an unlabeled, dusty, and poorly-lit hallway with blue walls, floor, and ceiling. You can't see the end from here.

Somewhere on your person, you will find a thin, smartphone-sized object that wasn't there before. One side of it is lit up with a red background and a number of disabled menu items. Most of the screen is taken up by another message saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB".

What is this place, anyway? And who are these people stumbling in through the transport tube array?]

[[Beyond the three prompts below, anyone may start their own prompts to mingle or go off and do their own thing or whatever else they want!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sorry, Greed can't help overhearing. Complete accident, he assures you.]

I've never seen anything so ridiculous before. A second body?

I haven't seen anything like this before, but...

[He frowns, tipping his head slightly to the side.]

There are ways to survive a blow that should kill you.

[He absently reaches up to his face before he realizes what he's doing and he clenches his fist at his side.]

I've seen it happen before, but not like that.

[A second body.

He was content to ignore it for.... five or six seconds before it started to bother him and now here he is.]

Powerful medicine could do it, maybe, or alchemy, but I don't know what else.

Alchemy? How would that help at all?

[He's... pretty sure that's not how it works, um.]

[What are you talking about?]

With the right knowledge, near fatal wounds can be healed with it. I won't say it's basic alchemy, and I have no talent for it myself, but I've heard it's possible.

I'm not sure there's much alchemy can't do.

[Except bring back the dead properly. hahaha haha ha]

[???]

Do you call magic "alchemy" where you're from? Though even the most talented of magic-users can't heal...

[At least, he's fairly sure they can't. As far as he knows neither his mother nor his sister can heal injuries.]

Magic? I don't think anything like that exists where I'm from. Alchemy is a form of science. It deals in the properties of Equivalent Exchange-- ah, but it's a bit of a long explanation; I'm not sure it's that interesting.

"Equivalent Exchange"?

[Well, he looks interested! Go on, Greed.]

[Okay, he'll try.]

It's a basic principle: in order to create something, something else of equal value must be lost or destroyed.

Say you want to make... I don't know, a teacup. You either need a broken teacup with all the parts, or else you need to find the right amount of raw materials that would result a teacup if you put them together.

There are limits to this, of course. Rebounds happen when a person tries to go beyond his skills. It can cause serious injuries or death. Most alchemists know their limits, but rebounds can be rather horrifying if they don't know what they're doing.

That sounds fascinating. It doesn't seem like magic that Will-users control. My mother was capable of all sorts of things: creating fireballs, creating lightning, summoning spirits... There never seemed to be any sort of limit to what she could do.

[Then there's his sister... but she's only just starting to learn how to use Will, so her arsenal of spells isn't quite as impressive.]

It sounds similar, minus the spirit summoning. A person can't do that with alchemy; they can only follow the natural order of the world.

Summon spirits would violate that law.

[......says the guy who is effectively a summoned spirit.]

The common link is interesting, I'll admit.

I've never heard of travelling to other worlds, but I can't think of any other way this would all be possible.

Neither have I.

[...the Gate doesn't count, does it? But he doesn't exactly remember it, either.]

Whatever it is, it's ridiculous. And I bet whoever grabbed all of us won't be showing his face anytime soon.

It would be far too simple for all of us to turn against him if he did. Of course, he's presumably the only one who could send us back to our worlds, but with the group we have here, I wouldn't be surprised if he was killed within five minutes of showing up.

That is an excellent point.

[Greed would waste no time killing him, for one. And he knows he's not alone.]

....but that's assuming he's not hidden himself away somewhere. I know all about people who pull strings from the shadows. They're tricky; never put it past them to do things like fake their own deaths.

I'm not surprised; people like that are quite common, unfortunately.

[He knows someone who's great at pulling strings...]

I doubt we'll see them, or if we do see them, they'll be hiding in plain sight, where we won't suspect them.

[....how many people here are familiar with this sort of thing?

Probably a lot of them.]

Suspect everyone, huh?

That'll make things interesting.

Exactly.

[It's likely to wear him out by the third day...]

I'm not sure "interesting" is how I would describe it, but it's something to take into account.

[Unfortunately, everything is interesting to Greed.

This is why he ended up allied with Mr. Explodey Hands over there. It did not end well.]

With any luck, we'll catch the bastard who did this before long.

Hopefully. I have things I need to return home to as soon as possible.

[You know, like running the kingdom, building an army, oppressing his citizens, that sort of thing.]

[You know, Greed doesn't.... actually have much to return to but hey let's not bring that up.]

I'm sure you're not the only one.

[Oh, so you're one of those rulers.

........it figures you'd make a beeline right for Greed.]

...Are you saying you don't have much to return to?

[Hey, he does it out of necessity!]

You're a perceptive man.

[You and every other pompous man Greed's ever met.

Not that he minds, of course. If he minded he would have left by now.]

I assume you don't want to talk about it.

[He can certainly understand why.]

I'd prefer not.

Maybe I'll say something at some point, maybe not.

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