[Video]

[alderaanda]

[Someone has found her way into the ghost zone. Nat shows the network a shot of floating rocks and some ghostified sparrows hopping among them.]

Why aren't more people going through these um warp holes? They should be mapped. "There are flying weird animals sometimes" isn't a good keep-out sign, if you ask me. Besides, most of them are harmless.

[She yelps! -One flew too close and startled her.] -Just annoying.

Comments

[highly_gifted]

It came in handy now.

But yes, we shouldn't be seen by the boat driver or the tourists. It shouldn't be hard - there is a lot more jungle than people here.

[alderaanda]

Your accent was good?

Gotcha. Hey, okay. That island with the crumbling wall, right? Get it on your left.

[highly_gifted]

Well enough. They're taught mostly European Spanish in the classes that I took, but I could adapt it somewhat.

[Annnnd he'll start walking.]

[alderaanda]

[It can be disorienting to move around here. There's no 'ground', just various rocks of different sizes, some floating grouped together enough that they can be walked on. Look down between them and there is the same green and black as the 'sky'. Gravity just seems to be towards whichever rocks are closest. There is a long tumble of stones with weeds growing in them which looks vaguely like a staircase, and there is Nat descending it. Her 'down' is not presently the same as Feivel's.

Rather than waving Nat does that reverse nod thing Cool People can do - eye contact from a distance, lower chin, then raise head sharply.]

Hey, you're not munched.

[highly_gifted]

Because I won't let myself get eaten by some ...creature.

[He nods towards a door nearby the place where he stands.]

There.

[alderaanda]

Don't get cocky. You might have to run. The good thing is the terrain slows a lot of things way down.

[at this angle it's like he's on a wall and she's on the floor, or the other way around. It feels both like up and like down.

hmm Nat could walk to him, negotiate the point where gravity 'changes' and endure him probably complaining about how long that took, or run but no way not for this, or option three. She sets her feet, runs a few paces, and takes a flying leap! Farther than she'd usually be able, and midair she's closer to the surfaces he's standing on - and lands nearby. She laughs, briefly, then brushes off her shirt.]

They tend to find that confusing.

[highly_gifted]

[....he's kind of awestruck and hiding it badly. Wow.

He wants to try to. And will.

Just not now.] None of them fly?

[alderaanda]

[yeah she's only tried it with much smaller jumps before. Nat feels about ten feet tall.]

I think most things can. Everything else here - you saw that little bird monster coming in? and the glowing sparrows? Everything else here kind of changes and gets green and can float. But most of the stuff without wings doesn't seem to know to fly, they move above the rocks, or walk.

[highly_gifted]

[Looking at a movement in the distance. A ...being that he mistook for a cow at first, but the head is oddly small and it has wings.]

Maybe they aren't used to being able to fly.

[alderaanda]

Probably. I expect some learned fast, some are learning, some will never get it... You know how it goes.

If you get near one of the mutant animals you get that vertigo heartbeat feeling. Just once, though.

[highly_gifted]

[Pondering it. Well. Nothing bad has come out of that weird feeling yet. ...Not much at all, really.]

Later.

[And with that he pushes the door back open and steps out into the jungle.]

[alderaanda]

[yeah Nat has no idea if it did anything to her, but the swan-snake thing had been cute and let her touch it.

She follows and immediately unzips her sweater. It's a lot more hot and humid here! Nat turns in a circle - wow, that's a nice obvious warp hole - and listens to the various bird calls.]

...I should pick up a GPS.

[highly_gifted]

You have something on you that can do that?

[alderaanda]

Not just now. I bet whatever people use for geocatching will work.

[highly_gifted]

Likely.

[He steps over some roots and heads down into the direction that he knows the tourists did not walk into.]

It might be expensive.

[alderaanda]

Could be! But marking coordinates is a quick way of getting down location, and keeping things precise. I'll look into it.

[She follows at enough distance to not be on his heels, pulling the front of her shirt away so air gets in.]

[highly_gifted]

[They walk around the jungle for a while and then Nat returns to the ghostzone while Fe returns to his boat... but of course they'll tour the ghostzone together, at least a couple of times.]