@eugene.hicks

[preseance]

I don't have a horse in this race, but y'all expressed an interest in speaking with James Henries. On that account, Jason Todd stayed up on the moon to speak with him some and this is what he uncovered.

For organization's sake, I've arranged things according to topic. Forgive me, I ain't possessed of the soul of brevity.


 James Henries:

He's a fella like us, that was once taken to a similar interdimensional nexus. This dimension happens his home, and after he returned here he set about trying to get back to where he'd been on account of missing a loved one. He's near abouts three hundred years old, and has been transferring his consciousness between clone bodies in that time, courtesy Giles Bell and some manner of advanced tech. He lives on the moon with a whole passel of birds. Frankly, after the Aerie I don't think I'm of a mind to have much to do with birds ever again, but he clearly don't share that stance.

His goal was to find a power source that could tear through dimensions. He says he destroyed a god, but doing this broke it — I know some of you are aware of this fact already, so bear with me — and it 'splintered' into pieces. These pieces seem to have brought us here and gave us powers, the blue glow and the empathy bond we're all so fond of.

The first folks that wound up here got experimented on. Some of them died. He apparently didn't seem to feel a whole lot of remorse over that.

We arrive in the Mariana Trench. There's an automated system put in place to retrieve our unconscious bodies. After we're delivered to New Amsterdam (primarily, anyhow) and we go and pick up the new arrivals, Morningstar helps us get situated. This ain't an official partnership, Henries doesn't seem to know much about Morningstar himself.

 Johann Grey:

Grey makes a point of being bankrolled by wealthy corporations the world over. Odds are, he's the most powerful man alive right now. The fella that snaps his fingers so's things get done. Happens to look like Henries, which Henries seemed not to like. Clone body thing, I suppose. Henries says Grey stole his face, though this seems like a more recent development. Lord only knows what the man looked like before. Grey's been at his game 'about half a millennia' or so, which pegs him as the older of the two.

Grey and Henries were working on Project Spinetail together, which was Henries' efforts to harness the power of a god, and Grey's to awaken one, near as we can tell. Seems like they ain't been in contact since that all went to Hell. Henries ain't got a clue how to track him down, so there likely ain't no recourse there.

Cassius seems to be the source of any further information about Grey.

 Monsters:

Some of the monsters belong to Grey, but not the ones we saw most recently. Henries seems to be of the opinion they didn't have Grey's 'signature'.

This is my personal thought, but if we've got fragments from the Blue god, it stands to reason that Grey's interference with the Gold one might be what's bringing them about.

 Gods:

There's seven of them, in theory, called different things by different cultures throughout history. Each seems to be associated with a color.

Blue we know, they're the one Henries and Grey used as I touched on already up yonder.

Gold is also a safe bet, given our recent experience in the Aerie and Antarctica, not to mention those dreams we had a while back with soldiers and the like with the gold eyes. Anyone with the Kestrels ought to know that using our powers there resulted in a golden glow rather than the standard blue just as well.

Other colors we've seen associated with the gates that we can probably reasonably assume also correspond to a god are red, black, white, green and orange, which corresponds to what some folks heard in the Aerie — that the Cardinals got their powers by chaining six out of seven of them. There's also the murals popping up around the city that seem to show the very same.

And for anyone of a mind to pester Jason for more, I would advise you don't. He's stuck his neck out enough for the lot of us, y'all can leave him be.

If there's any mistakes, they're mine alone. Feel free to correct me any which way. Any additional information would be welcome as well. Better to coordinate than not.

Comments

[evocation]

i guess it could have just totally melded with us, yeah
that would explain why our powers are all different
maybe i'm thinking about my world too much
back there everyone had a power inherent to them, and doing anything else was way more complicated and required a temporary deal with something
so maybe the powers that vary between us are more
i don't know
the pieces of the god binded to us and are reflecting or enhancing certain traits
and the stuff like the dreams and empathy bond are connective tissue
that sounds gross but you get what i mean

[strove]

When we met with Ball, he seemed to think that we were the god itself.

I've said this before on here, but my power describes me and makes sense for me. It's changed with me here, and evolved.

I don't think your home is a bad start, but I think we need to try to define ourselves more by it. Whatever that borrowed power is, it's changed someone like Loki, too.

[Though she wonders if he's dealt with that. She knows he doesn't take well to the discussion.]

[evocation]

yeah, that's a good point
i haven't really though much about how my power describes me, but i guess i might have to
are you thinking that all of us as a group are the god itself and that's why we've got these powers that connect us the way they do?

[strove]

Yes, and I've felt it. Someone had a dream during some of those experiments Gene and Jason described. At least I think that's what it was. It sounds right.

[evocation]

so maybe we can harness that more
see how many people we can stuff in one dream
or how far sharing powers can go

[strove]

We need to figure out how to take what's inside of us and impact what's outside of our minds. How we can link all that up without being ... mutually traumatized, for lack of a better way to put it. I don't know where to start.

[evocation]

practice, right?
it's not as nice and neat as having a handbook, but it'll work
loki said magic is about tricking the universe
which is a way more fun way of thinking of it than i was taught
it's like locking your desired result in your mind and knowing the power you're tapping into will make it happen
no second guessing

[strove]

So I guess my thinking is: do we need to trick a universe that should already be compliant with this power?

[evocation]

let's say influence
does that sound better?

[strove]

It's not the trickery that's offputting. It's the fact that we'd need to trick at all. We might just not know how to open a door that's waiting for us.

[evocation]

i don't actually think we need to trick it
i just thought it was a fun way of saying it
i guess what i mean is that back home, half of the work in magic is getting into the right mindset
there are still a lot of people here who aren't totally comfortable with their powers
me included
so working through that is a good first step
once we do that, opening the door might happen naturally if we're lucky

[strove]

Is everyone in your world capable of magic?

[evocation]

no
there are exceptions, but a lot of times the ability runs in families
the exceptions have been becoming a lot more common lately though

[strove]

Let's just say that I'm not a fan of anything being decided by genetics. I think it's good that exceptions exist.

[evocation]

yeah, me too
at least it's not that way here

[strove]

Apparently the corporations like to pass on power to their children. It's not so different.

[evocation]

yeah, it was kind of like that back home too
it's bullshit