shiny new world

[mrsparkle]

Sadde's running.

Not for any particular reason, just because it's faster. He's been meaning to go to one of the capitals for a bit and now, he supposes, is as good a time as any.

And eventually he's not running anymore, because he's close enough to civilisation that someone might spot him. Not that he wouldn't be able to notice them by scent before they saw him, but still. And as he makes his way to the Norway capital at this more leisurely pace, he notices the tiny, shiny key. He walks towards it and picks it up and immediately notices just how magic it is. He can tell by the way the key feels like things, and different things depending on where it is.

He verifies that what the key feels like is consistent in absolute location by waving it around a bit and seeing that the same place always feels the same. "Huh," he murmurs to himself.

He straightens up and thinks. The first obvious thing to try is seeing whether it opens any doors - a universal skeleton key sounds like the kind of thing a magical key could be - but the second obvious thing can be tested right there and then. He pushes the key into thin air with some purpose, as if he wanted to unlock an invisible door, and then turns it, et voilà, the faintest of door-shaped outlines appears before him.

He locks the door, and it disappears. Unlocks it again, and there it is. So he pulls it open and sees-

Comments

[mrsparkle]

"Nope. That makes the experiment significantly more dangerous."

[from_scratch]

"Which one?"

[mrsparkle]

"Seeing what happens if we open a door on the other side of an already existing one. If they react somehow that could get one of us stuck. And that would be terrible."

[from_scratch]

"Yeah. ...How sure are you that a robot or something couldn't operate the key?"

[mrsparkle]

"I'm not, but if the doors do react somehow then we'd lose the key."

[from_scratch]

"True... These are annoying experimental constraints."

[mrsparkle]

"Well... we could still try to open a door where the one from my world is and see if anything obvious happens, from this side? Maybe it disappears in a dramatic flash of light, maybe it opens back to my world, maybe it doesn't do anything."

[from_scratch]

"Sure. We might have to hang out in the park a while to get it uncrowded."

[mrsparkle]

"I could watch you playing the violin to pass the time. Or gaze after you playing the violin to pass the time. One of those."

[from_scratch]

"If that would entertain you, I suppose I can go practice violin in the park." Cam gets his violin case and heads for his shuttle.

[mrsparkle]

"It is incredibly sexy that you can play the violin, but I'm not entirely sure if I think that because of the magical love thing or because I actually would have found it sexy anyway. I'd never given it much thought before." He follows.

[from_scratch]

And Cam flies down to the park, and sets up a music stand, and puts his computer on it and commands it to display sheet music, and plays.

He is not a violin genius, nor does he practice on a daily basis, but he has been doing this for well over a century.

[mrsparkle]

And either it is very obvious and instinctive or some small part of Sadde's brain thinks this is appropriate, but his new tail wags as he watches that.

[from_scratch]

Music music music. Watching the ebb and flow of the demonic crowd.

Eventually there's nobody within easy viewing distance of the portal spot.

[mrsparkle]

So Sadde goes over to the spot, finds the exact place where the "keyhole" to his old door would've been, and unlocks it there. A new door appears!

"Well, this one's definitely not shaped like the one I opened here," he comments, and then opens it. Tundra, with a strange mammal-looking thing in the distance.

[from_scratch]

"Does it matter which direction you open it from?"

[mrsparkle]

"Good question!" He locks the door, then goes "around it" and tries opening it again. This one's shaped differently, too, and when opened:

"Ooh, gas giant!"

[from_scratch]

"Oh, is it pretty?" Cam comes to have a look.

[mrsparkle]

"Yeah!"

It's purple, and has a faint ring around it, and from their vantage point the star it orbits around is half-hidden by the planet.

[from_scratch]

"Neato." Cam takes a picture.

[mrsparkle]

"Now I'm wondering what happens if I try to open a door that intersects with this one..." He closes the door but doesn't lock it, and then tries to use a spot in the middle of it as keyhole. "Doesn't feel like anything," he comments, and tries to unlock. No banana. "Interesting."

[from_scratch]

"Are there any key spots thereabouts? When it's locked?"

[mrsparkle]

He locks the door, then tries again, and there a new door appears. He opens to reveal the sunset over a desert. "'Parently. Annndd it just occurred to me that I could've summoned you before we left your place."

[from_scratch]

"Whoops."

[mrsparkle]

"Oh well. Um. Okay, so, basically no experimental results regarding the portal from my world, some experimental results about intersecting portals." He locks the latest one. "That still leaves the possibility that someone else could come from my world and suffer unpleasantness."