[VIDEO .001 | username edward.elric]

[alchemyfreak]

[There are a few things Ed is quick to concern himself with upon arrival, and even though they certainly relate to "how the hell do I get back where I came from?" he's seen this play out enough times to know that asking that question directly is never likely to get results. At least not the ones he wants. He's well aware that this change of scenery isn't just some new challenge, because if it was there certainly wouldn't be any point to the mark outright disappearing, but it was gone. Which likely meant one thing, they were telling the truth - at least about one aspect of all this, and he was not in Muir anymore.]

Does anyone have any idea what's really going on here? Has anyone been doing any research on this place? Or been here long enough to know whether or not it is what they claim?

[Ed's skeptical about this whole situation, but cynicism wasn't enough to go on that something just wasn't right here. He had a hard time taking everything in that little introduction at face value.]

If we can just ask to be sent home given enough time, has anyone actually pulled it off?

Comments

video | un: detdecker

[couldkillthedevil]

Some people apparently have, and there's a public records office documenting those departures.

[alchemyfreak]

I'll have to look into that, thanks.

[couldkillthedevil]

No problem. I can't verify their accuracy, though. From what I've heard, some people just kind of disappeared suddenly without telling anyone they were leaving. Seems a bit odd, considering.

[alchemyfreak]

[That doesn't sound like anything new, and he's not happy to hear it.]

If they're leaving because they want to, wouldn't they want to say goodbye to their friends? That doesn't sound like they're sending people home because they want to go back, it just sounds like people are disappearing.

People disappeared where I was before, too. They weren't sent back voluntarily.

[couldkillthedevil]

You'd think so. Especially if the person in question was intending to go back with said friend, once the opportunity presented itself. I don't know much about this 'portal' or what it can do, though. It might've been an accident, it might not. I don't have evidence to prove one way or the other. Yet.

[That last bit catches her attention.]

Where you were before?

[alchemyfreak]

Yeah, apparently I'm making a habit of this.

Guess I should get used to not getting attached to any one place for long.

[couldkillthedevil]

What's that supposed to mean? You've been sent to places like this before?

Video - @chandra

[firelogic]

*Someone looks a little confused at the question. Big confused orange eyes and too many freckles.*

What's going on? We fell through a portal to a moon. What's to research, the portal doesn't stick around to really look at, but it didn't feel magical.

I'm glad there isn't anything trapped in this moon. That'd get complicated.

[alchemyfreak]

[Now it's Ed that looks confused. You're good with just showing up in a new world, and not knowing anything about it except what's given to you in the welcome guide? Suit yourself, but that's not really his style.]

Hey, if you're not interested in finding out more about this place, fine by me. Even if they're being completely honest with their welcome speech, it definitely isn't going to tell us everything there is to know, trust me.

[firelogic]

*She'll just give the blond a sorta weary look. She had as much reason to be wary of officials as anyone. But if you go into every place not trusting anything it makes you all twitchy and weird and she had enough issues.*

Nobody has tried to execute me for what I am. The local terrain hasn't tried to kill me either. The local wildlife is a perfectly normal sort and not trying to unmake reality. The food is good, and the people are nice.

I have been to a lot of places that were dangerous, this doesn't feel much like any of them. Although this is the first moon I've been to.

*What happened to him to get him this paranoid?*

[alchemyfreak]

[woah, woah, woah. Ed's going to stop you right there.]

People don't build walls for no reason, so either the terrain or the wildlife is probably not as innocent as you think.

[Yeah, he can tell you some stories but frankly he's not going to. Only because you haven't really asked and he doesn't know you. If the average person in this place had been through the things Ed had seen they'd probably wonder why he was being so calm in query.]

[firelogic]

Oh, there are plenty of dangerous animals outside of the city. But they're totally normal dangerous. Not like- you leave them alone and the moon turns to a dusty lifeless boneyard dangerous. They're just big and scary and easily deterred with a lot of fire.

*Chandra has yet to meet a problem fire couldn't solve.*

Have you been outside the wall? Cause that's where I spend most of my time.

[alchemyfreak]

[Oh so flatly.]

I haven't had time to explore much of anything, considering I just got here. It'll be part of my job apparently, not much different from what I did before.

voice | un: vakarian

[dispenserofjustice]

Not that it makes me happy to admit this, but the problem isn't the fact that they aren't willing, but more like the numbers just aren't in our favor. Since they can't predict when and where these things will turn up, it's relying on pure chance.

If anything, someone should research that - try to work out some sort of pattern or conditions in which these things pop up in.

voice

[alchemyfreak]

What you're saying is that just because they're willing doesn't mean it's always possible, given the nature of the portals here?

Then... No one's been researching these portals? Wouldn't that help get people that want to go home back?

voice

[dispenserofjustice]

Basically.

And I'm new around here myself, so I don't know who has been looking at what. My cynicism is that since these people are picking up individuals who are either going to die or don't feel like they have a place to go... It might not be a priority.

[alchemyfreak]

They're what?

[Ed didn't get that memo. He hadn't asked, mostly because he was used to this sort of thing by now, but the idea that there wasn't anywhere for him to go back to or a him to go back to it had never crossed his mind.

In fact usually it was the exact opposite: Everything will be exactly as it was, when you left it.]

[dispenserofjustice]

[Er... Oops? Makes sense that not everyone would ask these sorts of questions, but making someone else panic a little isn't what Garrus had set out to do here.]

Hold on just a sec. That's their idea of what's going on, so that's what they are running with. Doesn't mean that it's true. They were genuinely surprised that I didn't want to leave.

[alchemyfreak]

What, exactly, did they tell you? Whose idea is it that we don't have anywhere to go back to?

[As far as he's concerned he's got like four places to go back to, but he doesn't like to think about that canon portal he's only heard about in stories too much.]

video; @altin

[bringbackgold]

With cooperation, I understand people can return home. It seems to be what they say.

[alchemyfreak]

Yeah, that's what they say, but has there been any proof?

[bringbackgold]

Of things being as they say? I've been here a couple months. It isn't bad.

[ Of course, it could also be that he has his best friend from home, and has a job he likes. Or that he lives easily here. ]

[alchemyfreak]

The last place I was brought to was basically paradise, until it wasn't. They tried to play it off like our being there wasn't malicious too...

Guess I'll believe it when I see it for myself.

[bringbackgold]

Well, they're not acting like it's paradise. It's not.

[alchemyfreak]

I guess that depends on your perspective. Come from the right place and this might be exactly what you'd call a paradise.

[Muir wasn't really paradise either, but compared to Purg, what wasn't?]

At this point I'm just happy not to be the tool of some power hungry idiot with a god complex.