hadriel | [2] text

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[2] text

Some things worth noting:

1. You can apparently be brought back to your home world and it's as if you've never left it at all. You can be there for weeks, months at a time and then one day, show back up back here and it's only been a day or so here that you've missed. I don't know if anyone else has had this experience before.

It is unpleasant.

2. I went into the tunnels to see if they were anything like the Maze I know of back in my world. There's two interesting things worth noting. The rock inside of the tunnel is different than out in the main area. Not sure if anyone's noticed this yet. It's strange.

But there's something stranger that we found in the tunnels. Deep inside, a ways in, there was a burnt computer chip. Totally useless but it was stranger than the formations almost.

That's about it. I figured it's more valuable to pool our information together rather than hog it to myself. Not going to find any answers that way. In my opinion, if there's tunnels and tunnels made out of different rock then that's got to mean there must be some sort of way out of here. Or at least another place to be found. I didn't explore the entirety of the tunnels and I don't really want to but it is possible.

If you do, run fast, take weapons, and try to remember everything. Back in the Maze, we'd send people in and they'd come back at the end of the day and record the route they took on a piece of paper.

Maybe that wouldn't be a bad place to start. It helped us figure the Maze in the end. Maybe the tunnels will be the same.

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(Similarly, Newt automatically decides that he likes how this boy thinks. Newt's a relatively natural puzzle solver. It's nice to see someone putting an equal amount of effort into this- whatever this all is.

Personally, Newt's fine with staying. He just wants to know more about what he's dealing with. Being in the dark is something he rather hates.)

Apparently I was here before as well. You're the first person I've met that's also shared that experience. Memory loss is a lot more familiar to me though than whatever I just went through. It felt more like a....glitch. I'd say that the Door functions in controlled chaos. It consistently brings in people from other worlds at the beginning of each month. But what it brings is the chaotic part.

We don't know that for certain- though it's a good theory and one I can back. If there's anything at all to know about this sort of situation- it's not to trust what's right in front of your face. I try to keep an open mind.

(That doesn't always work. He still doesn't believe there's any magic or gods here.)

Jumping to conclusions is our only bet right now. Geographically speaking, this entire place doesn't really scream 'earth'. The architecture alone suggests alien life form. I'm not trusting this place to work completely like earth does. I'm taking my chances on taking those different rock formations as a lead. You are right. Strata doesn't always mean anything but unless we actually break apart some rock and check it out more thoroughly...

(Which is a lot more work than Newt has energy for lately. There is a reason he's recommending other people do this whole expedition.)

I wouldn't offer up so casually. The tunnels are dangerous. If you're new here then you haven't seen the monsters. Do you know how to fight? Are you fast?

(Newt's not being a jerk. He just doesn't believe in spilling blood unnecessarily. He's cautious and protective- even of complete strangers.)

It was for an extended experiment. The Maze was considered a Trial in a series of Trials to induce stress in order to study brain patterns. An organization was attempting to find a cure for a disease that plagued my world, a disease that was directly relevant to stress levels, and we were its lab rats. "Choice" is a word I've only recently been acquainted with to put it lightly.

(Yeah he really is gonna be that blunt about his past. The Maze really isn't a secret for him nor are any of its details.)

You lost memory too?

[ Well, that’s news. Gansey makes note of it, determined to see whether there’s any pattern to be found. And any way to reclaim the lost memories, eventually. He doesn’t like not knowing. He can’t even feel the hole in his mind, but it’s enough to know that it’s there. ]

Have you ever been able to remember anything of your previous experience? I’d like to. My friends were here with me, and it feels wrong to have forgotten.

[ It feels like he’s let them down, somehow. He hates that feeling. As for the rest of what Newt says, the story is beginning to build in Gansey’s mind. He’s still making notes, scribbling in the book he’d scavenged that is passing for a journal. It could be better, but it’s better than nothing. ]

This place doesn’t have the feel of Earth to me either. It has something close, though. Architecture is one thing, but this place has plumbed water, and apparently more than enough Oxygen to keep all of us going. Biologically speaking the people here must have had some similarity to humans, by virtue of the fact that we’re able to exist in the same environment at all. Who knows, perhaps it’s Earth of another sort. Or perhaps it’s a different planet altogether.

Your maze sounds frankly horrific. But this disease you’re speaking of, that does too. There was nothing like that where I’m from. You’re definitely from Earth, are you? What year was it when this happened to you, do you know?

And to answer your question, I’m not the world’s best fighter. I think I’m fast enough. What’s in those tunnels, what are we running from?

Yup.

(You can't hear it but that 'yup' was crammed with a lot of bitterness. Who knew three letters could hold such a punch. Memory loss is kind of his thing.

It's only frustrating if you think about it.)

Trying to remember things like that is a waste of time. You're here now. That's all that matters. It's not your fault you forgot and it's not your duty to remember. I'd accept that sooner rather than later because no, I haven't gotten any memories back and I don't think I will.

(Not usually how things like that work out.)

Well they do have trees here, you know. Probably helps with that. Creating a fake livable indoor environment isn't that much of a stretch. Including fake sunlight. Whatever it is, we're stuck.

It was frustrating, to put it mildly. Yes, I'm definitely from earth. Apparently we were in a place called Mexico. Then we went to Denver. I'm just from an Earth that's mostly dead. Sun flares destroyed everything between the tropics and the rest of the world was disease ridden. So, you know. Earth just a shitty version of earth.

Gonna be totally straight with you right now- I wouldn't bother asking me many questions about the history of my Earth. My memory was swiped before I was thrown into the Maze. I really only know anything from the two past years of my life. Kind of an empty well here. Sorry. I've no bloody idea what month it ever even was.

(He's thinking about Gansey's world though. He's currently in the process of trying to just..forget his own world. Not a favorite subject. He knows well enough about the world Cashmere came from and Peter and Arya but...)

Is there "magic" in your world?
Well then you might want to avoid those tunnels for now. Have someone train you to fight at least a little bit so you don't go in completely hopeless. As for the tunnels- well. There's large man-eating bats, these things called White Walkers- I haven't seen those yet but apparently quite nasty, these strange humanoids with long tongues that- are quite alarming, other creatures that kind of look and sound like children but will gang up on you in packs and stab you to death. Mean-eating bats, trolls, and a bunch of other goodies I probably haven't had the luck of running into yet.

Two years. Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry. That's really terrible.

[ Two years ago was when Gansey first came to Henrietta. The thought of losing everything before that - England, Wales, every country he'd trawled through, every scrap of earth he'd searched. Malory. All of it, gone in an instant. He'd feel entirely lost.

No wonder this boy doesn't mind dealing with the loss of a few months. Gansey immediately stops complaining about it. Compared to what Newt's dealing with, he has no right at all.There's magic in my world, yes. Not everyone can see it, and in fact not everyone is aware of it. I spent a long time looking for it, but the wonders are there. Once you know where to look, you'll start to see them. Even if you can only observe, and not participate. My home is built upon what's called a ley line. Essentially, it's a concentration of energy, and people with magic in them tend to be strengthened there.

But that's getting off the point. That's a rather large collection of monsters designed to drive us back, don't you think? There's two ways of looking at it, I suppose. One presumes that someone is deliberately keeping the monsters there, to stop us from looking in the tunnels. The other is that the tunnels really are a dead end, and so there's nowhere else for the monsters to go. It could even be a combination of both, I suppose.

Don't apologize. It's fine. I've had two years to realize that the past isn't all there is to life. Present and future is a lot more important.

(Besides, wishing for the impossible was the most guaranteed way to be completely miserable. There's a lot of things he has to be miserable about but there's some things he refuses. Getting the memory loss conversation out of the way was important though. After all, most people here knew things that were more "common".

He had no clue about a lot of things and it was just easier to explain it upfront than later when someone was giving him a weird look for not knowing what a movie was or something of the like.

Newt would likely argue that Gansey was plenty entitled. Wasn't every entitled to their pain? Newt wasn't that kind of person to say no.)

I don't know a lot about magic. Didn't really believe it was real for a while until my roommate helped me understand it a little better. It's still strange to me but not as impossible. Do you "participate" in magic? Is that like- doing strange things? Healing people or having future sight or turning into animals?

(He actually has already met two of the latter. He's assuming this is a common thing whoops. Kid has no idea how diverse magic is.)

It's hard to say. Monsters in my world were just meant to make us squirm, put us in situations so the Creators could watch and see what we would do. Intent is a lot murkier than people here seem to want to admit. Truth is we don't know what the 'gods' actually want. It could be...many things. Two ways is pretty limited. I'd say there's much more than that.

There's also the option that the monsters are an accident. If they come from other worlds just as we do then maybe there's no rhyme or reason to them coming through anymore than there seems to be for us to come through. Maybe they're intentional. Maybe they represent different things we're supposed to do. Maybe something in the tunnels attract them and that's why they cluster there.

Who knows.

(Newt hesitates a moment, just frowning down at his screen. Eventually he makes up his mind.)

If you want, I could help you learn to fight a little. Anyone can throw a punch but that won't do shit against a troll. I'm pretty decent with things like spears. Spears are nice. You can throw them or fight and if you're good- you can defend with them too.

I don’t participate. Or I can’t, more accurately. I’ve spent a very long time looking for it.

[ Looking for any sign of it, even. And now, of course, he’s seen more magic than he’d imagined at all, and not all of it is so wonderful as he’d always thought. Much of it has been darker than anything he’s ever wanted. He could tell Newt so many stories.

He starts with the easiest of them. ]

I’ve met people who could see the future. I wouldn’t quite exactly call that magic, in fairness – there’s more than one argument that classifies psychic powers as more of a science than anything else, and I think I’d probably agree with them.

Healing is something I’m aware of, let’s say. But I’d prefer to talk about that when we’re actually talking.

[ Fighting is another story entirely. Gansey has never thought of himself as a violent person. Quite the opposite, in fact. The thought makes him desperately uncomfortable, but -

But, he does think they need to explore the caves. ]

Maybe? My friend tried to teach me. If we’re talking about monsters, though, it might be different. I can’t promise I’d be good.

[ He can basically promise he’d be terrible, actually. ]

But I think you’re right. I think we don’t know enough about what’s out there and if we’re going to find a way home, we need to know more. We won’t find out by staying here.

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