Character University

[Bio Lab]

"Steam? Don't be daft. It's not economical." Cyrus glances longingly at the whiteboard, itching to show off. But the game was just starting to get fun. Oh, it can be quick.

"It's part magic and part physics. Oh, this is the portal gun." He rolls his eyes as G La DOS starts going over safety precautions. "Oh, come on, you people. They don't look that similar."

[[Lab]]

"You don't mean to tell me you have a lightning generator powered by magic on a table right now. What are you going to tell me next? Are over sized hoop skirts the fashion of the century? A steampunk portal gun makes a lot more sense than that really."

edited 18th Jun '12 11:35:40 PM by Aqueos

[Library -> Lab]

Ena closed her book, having finished the fourth chapter. Things were already getting heated up. It was a shame that all of the main characters would be dead by the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, but it was still interesting. Ena took the book back to where it was and told the others, "I'm leaving."

Ena rushed out the doors and down the spiral stairs to what looked like a great hall. Overhead, she could hear the rain falling down, pittering and pattering on the rooftop. The rain showed no sign of stopping anytime soon, so Ena ducked into one of the side rooms, and found herself in a lab of some sort. Somebody was playing a game on one of the computers. On the tables were modern-looking supplies and spinning test-tubes. "Hello," Ena said tentatively, edging her way into the room. "I'm Ena... so... who're you? And what are you doing?"

edited 19th Jun '12 4:32:11 AM by Collen

-Library-

Tina finished reading Azumanga Daioh, and was pretty much bored. She couldn't find any manga besides Azumanga she liked, apparently everyone before they came snagged all the manga, and left all the Yaoi and Azumanga behind. "At least the Yaoi Fangirls would be very happy." said Tina to herself. Seeing nothing she could do, she took out a pink Nintendo 3DS, and turned it on.

Auditorium

Rachel regarded the newcomer with a somewhat cold glance. Judging by his use of a mild oath, she guessed that this guy wasn't too friendly. Definitely not the sort of person she wanted to associate with.

Her thoughts flickered back to her infection. At the moment, no one had bothered to point out her odd appearance. She supposed that was a good thing, since it meant they either hadn't noticed or didn't care. That was when it occurred to her that most people probably didn't equate being pale with being anything other than a normal human unless other traits said otherwise. If anything, she probably just looked a bit sickly to anyone who didn't notice her claws.

That brought up another problem: she had a virus, sure, but as far as she knew the P-virus couldn't spread without bodily fluid transfer. However, the P-virus was far from the only pathogen that caused off-color skin - and those other pathogens could potentially be far more deadly than the P-virus could ever hope to be.

So she could either reveal the fact that she was infected with a zombie (for lack of a better word) virus that couldn't spread unless she actually tried to make it spread, or keep quiet and make everyone think that she was carrying something that could potentially wipe them all out. On the other hand though, Rachel didn't display any other signs of illness other than skin and possibly eye color - she didn't even physically feel ill, for that matter.

Perhaps if she remained quiet, everyone else would be willing to simply dismiss her as a rather pale person. However, she wasn't sure if silence was the best plan of action about this sort of thing.

Athalia continued to stare at Tina as she took out her games console. Peter had told her about those things, but she hadn't ever seen one until now. She looked at the pink item in Tina's hands with awe. Peter, noticing how interested Athalia was in the 3ds, couldn't help but find it amusing. He leaned over the Tina and said, "Hey, do you mind doing me a favor. Athalia there has never actually played a videogame in her life, and I'm sure she'd appreciate it if you would let her play that one."

-Library-

"Sure!" Tina said, handing over her 3DS to Athalia. "I'm sure you'll like Pushmo. But I also have some more games you guys can check out."

[Bio Lab]

"Oh... I'm being introduced to this lovely thing called a computer via a rather entertaining game." Cyrus nods politely at Ena. "So... I'm Cyrus... Naomi... Ezra." He points at each person in turn, pauses Portal, and picks up the lightning cannon. "And I'm about to prove that magic exists. So, Ezra, if you don't believe me, I don't see any other options."

Cyrus carefully watches the metal coil turn red hot through the glass. The cannon makes whirring noises as gears begin to rapidly turn. Tendrils of lightning arc between the eight prongs.

"Is that enough for you, or would you like to open a window so I can destroy a poor, defenseless tree?"

edited 19th Jun '12 9:46:31 AM by SnowyFoxes

[Bio Lab]

Naomi only had time for a quick "Hey," to Ena before Cyrus started up that cannon thing. And he said it was powered by magic, didn't he.

"Who or what are you?" she snapped. "Okay, sorry, that was rude, but I've never seen magic in my life and you don't know what computers are... ugh. Where did you come from, seriously?"

[Library]

Athalia gleefully grabbed hold of the 3ds, and began hitting random buttons, attempting to work out which each one did. "So... what is this? Is this the one about the Italian Man who jumps a lot you told me about?"

"No Athalia," Peter explained, "I'm sure you'll like this one more. It's a puzzle game."

Athalia's eyes widened as he mentioned puzzles, and she quickly got to work.

"Oh great," Peter said to Tina, "as soon as she works out how to play that, she is going to be insufferable."

edited 19th Jun '12 9:57:17 AM by Dvdmacyoshi

[Lab]

Ena stared at the gun, bemused but not very impressed. "You know, I'm sure there's still some Twilight books in the remains of the Young-Adult Romance section in the library. We could shoot those. After all, we've already destroyed New Moon with lightning... oh, you weren't there, were you?" Ena grinned. "It was fun, I'll tell you that."

edited 4th Jul '12 6:46:59 PM by Collen

[Auditorium]

Nathan finished re-reading Adam's letter, before putting it back in his pocket. He then listened to the musician's soothing music. It almost reminded him of back home, when his father would play guitar back on the porch...

He shifted his glance to Rachel, quirking an eyebrow.

"Anything the matter?" He asked.

[Courtyard]

The lock clicked and the chest swung open.

"YES! FREEDO- Oh rain. It's raining, quick get the umbrella."

Several crashes and a few growls sound from the chest before a huge beach eye-burningly bright neon umbrella began to slide upwards out of the chest. Two, four, six feet- far larger than anything that would fit into the chest. It rose upwards, hovering above the fountain and began to drift off towards the building.

"No! Stay! We need you to keep us dry."

Sullenly, the umbrella drifted back to cover the chest and the fountain, sulking like a scolded child.

Two pale hands emerged from the chest next, gripping the edge of them. Several additional crashes, a sudden surge of hissing and a few swears later, a face of a young man also emerged. A dark haired, blue eyed young man with a very expressive face, though the only thing it appeared to be expressing now was exasperation. Something squeaked and a small animal squirmed out to sit on his head. It was reminded one vaguely of an otter or a weasel, although the multifaceted insect eyes and small mane of quills distracted from that idea.

"Normally, I'd just use the ladder, but Znubb here apparently lost it somewhere." The young man said as he glared upwards towards the weasel-creature.

Znubb, in defiance of it's small size, grumbled like a thunderstorm with it's quills clacking against one and other.

"My fault? How is this my fault? I always pack the ladder." He fumed, "Now you've gotten me all distracted."

He paused to gather himself before looking at this new person.

"Greetings earthling! I come in peace, yadda yadda yadda, you know the rest. I'm.. er.. Znubb, give me a good name for this dimension."

Znubb was apparently taking the time to wash itself like some strange cat. It made a long whistling sound, ending with a crackle.

"Gerald? Well, I guess that'll do." He refocused on this.. whoever it was.

"I guess I'm Gerald."

[Courtyard]

"Hi Znubb. Hi Gerald." Tyler greeted the two from the chest.

That had been a bit unexpected.

"I'm Tyler. It is nice to meet you."

Tyler briefly wondered why they disliked the rain so much. That was very odd indeed.

edited 19th Jun '12 11:56:24 AM by MrAHR

[Bio Lab]

Naomi seems kind of mad. Cyrus's voice is high and shaky. "I'm just an ordinary clockwork engineer. I live in Himmelburg, the capital of the Republic." He wasn't comfortable with lying, but it was better to be safe. He takes a deep breath.

"Oh... so that was probably the explosion from earlier. Why would you destroy a book?" Cyrus frowns, puts Bessie down, and returns to the game. He's still thinking about how the portal gun works. G La DOS gave some vague hints. Maybe what he has been calling "magic" all his life had been explained by the scientists of this world. But then where were the clockwork roses? Had they found some alternate energy source?

edited 19th Jun '12 12:10:23 PM by SnowyFoxes

[Lab]

Ena shrugged. Great, another person unaware of pop-culture. At least Cyrus seemed normal... Out loud, Ena replied, "Well, the thing about Twilight is that it sucks and is unrealistic. I mean, really. Sparkling vampires? They exhale, too. Exhaling. Like goddamn humans. What genius thought that up? It deserved to be destroyed. Plus, it's fun to light things on fire."

[library]

Loyce closed his book and put it back on the shelf, then looked for something else to read. He wondered if this library contained books from all the worlds- it seemed likely, since it contained both the book he'd just read- one that was utterly ridiculous from his point of view- and certain books he remembered from home. One of the latter caught his eye, and he took it off the shelf.

[Library]

Raze stood as he finished re-assembling his cellphone, "Still functional, as expected of Nokla." His clothes had also been dried by the air conditioning, although he would have to pay for that by going down with a cold in a foreseeable future (read: tomorrow).

Of course, it puzzled him that he received no reception, despite being in a university with mostly functional facilities.

He was in a library, and had received shelter from rain because of that fact. It would be rude to the 'owner' if Raze was to leave without reading. Quickly, he strolled to the non-fiction section, Biology, and his eyes stopped upon a book.

Vital Dust: The Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth by Christian De Duve. Thus was the book he picked up. It looked dusty, not surprising since the book dates back to 1996. He brought it to a table and began to read it.

[Bio Lab]

"Yes, that sounds asinine, but is saying that vampires can breathe truly offensive? They're fictional creatures and they can be interpreted in whatever way the storyteller wants."

Cyrus pauses the game and makes some sketches of portals on the whiteboard on the wall, scribbling some quick notes next to them, and returns to the game. "Don't get me wrong, I like lighting things on fire, too. It's very satisfying. But I usually do it for scientific reasons. Materials testing and such."

-Library-

Tina watched Athalia play Pushmo with ease. "Wow, for a first timer, you're doing good!" Tina said.

[Lab]

Ezra rights himself from his rather odd reclined position and looks at Ena.

"You seriously did that to a copy of New Moon? I'm not in love with those books but what's the point? Go burn some copies of Mein Kampf or something."

He glances at the diagram on the board and begins examining it.

"And it appears this might actually work."

edited 19th Jun '12 12:33:00 PM by Aqueos

[Lab]

Ena laughed. These people... they had no sense of humor. "Vampires are real. S. Meyer did no research on the subject. Anyway, burning the books were fun." Suddenly, she frowned, and peered closer at Cyrus's drawings. For a few seconds, she was silent. Then, her smile began to come back. "Cyrus... you might actually be onto something here! And I know a book that could help you with this... be right back!"

Ena rushed off to the library again, ignoring everyone there. She went over to one of the shelves and pulled out a familiar sea-blue book. Right now, the text was in Spanish. However, as she watched, it began to shift to English, much slower than before. Ena then went back down to the lab and placed the book on the table. "Here it is!" she exclaimed, panting heavily. "The guide to dimensional travel. If you modify some of the formulas in here, you might be able to replicate a portal gun... and beyond. It's a mix of magic and technology. If you make it create a portal that leads to this dimension instead of another, you might get a Portal-like effect! You just need to add the technology to that gun! It's just a hypothesis, but it might be crazy enough to work."

After she finished speaking, Ena realized something. She was speaking like Alice! My gods, her way of speaking must be rubbing off on me...

Auditorium

"Anything the matter?"

Rachel was silent for a few moments. Judging by the look on Nathan's face, he figured something was up. On the other hand, she wasn't sure if she was quite ready to let someone else know about her status. On the other hand, being an infected was kind of underwhelming when there was a fox-person in the same room.

"Well, there's nothing mentally wrong, if that's what you mean..." she replied.

[Auditorium]

"I don't mean to pry, and please, feel free to slap me if I'm over stepping, but is there something else wrong then?" Doltur asked. He had a habit of not knowing where the right boundaries were. Got him in hot water.

edited 19th Jun '12 1:49:34 PM by Nightmare24

[Bio Lab]

"Of course what's on the board works. It's basic portal theory. I learned this when I was a child." Cyrus adds some runes next to the sketches.

"Vampires are real? We've found no evidence of them where I live. I think it's better that way. Anything else bad about that book?"

Cyrus takes the book and mutters the title to himself. "Hm, I've seen books on this subject before, but they all dealt with the, er, magical aspect, like what I've got on the board. I'll take a closer look at this in a bit."

He draws a line in the middle with the board and starts doing calculations with runes on the other side.