Thread: [WB] The 'Hub' World

THE SPACE IN-BETWEEN, UP CLOSE As far as can be determined, the city has always existed, just as it is, and always will exist. People come to the city from all times, all places, as it exists as a basic truth of reality, rather than a specific point in time and space. If anything, it is outside of time, and that's why it seems so literally eternal. In fact, its existence outside of time might somehow explain why reality acts so strange while one is there. What the normal universe considers physical laws don't always apply here. The more advanced a tool or piece of equipment, the less likely it is to operate properly. And even simple things operate strangely. Fire, for example it burns weakly, barely shedding light and heat. But for what little it does shed, it doesn't consume fuel. Torches never burn out, though they shed only a candle's illumination. Compasses spin uselessly, or simply point to the nearest ferrous metal. People get hungry and thirsty and sleepy, but not on the schedules they would expect, and not always at the same rate as normal. Firearms don't fire well, sometimes the powder doesn't ignite. Powered weapons don't operate, or do so fitfully and at lesser power. Non-weapon machines do slightly better, but they're still unreliable. Weapons tend to have the most immediate and instant needs, the explosive action, the sudden release, and those are what fails the most, or simply doesn't operate as it should. It's as if there's a dampening effect that shuts things down. The times nuclear weapons have been detonated in the city, for example, the destruction was barely more than a few dozen meters wide, with no lingering radiation. No, technology is unreliable in the In-Between places. The best options are muscle and smarts, maybe augmented by some simple tools, steel and wood and stone. It seems primitive to many, normal to others, but if you need to do something in this twilight nether-world between spaces, that's the best way to go about it. And people do things here, all the time. If only a tiny fraction of beings at any one time know the secret of how to travel here, spread out across the universe and throughout the timestream, that's still an awful lot of transients. Some stay, for a time or for their lives, however long or short. Aging is tricky here, but generally slower though that means little if one has realized the means to exit in a different time as well as a different place in the real world. And they generally do something to pass the time, whether that's smuggling, trading, spying, guiding, or keeping an inn. Human ingenuity at making a profit however one defines profit knows few bounds, and the shadow-realm itself is a resource many have figured out how to utilize to their own ends. And it's not just humans, either. Near humans, human variants, animal people, and creatures stranger even than that find their ways through this space. They bring goods to trade, grudges to pursue, and stories to tell when the language can be translated. Many think more like humans than one would expect. Many have thoughts that are utterly incomprehensible to the human mind. But most everybody somehow manages to co-exist, whether it's because they don't stay long, or they welcome the exploration. Those few that can't co-exist either are forcibly moved out pursuit by an angry mob that has had enough of your antics frequently ends up provoking some kind of transition or don't survive the visit. Nowhere has it been said that the City of Twilight is safe. It's not hard to set up residence one just finds a building that's currently unoccupied and occupies it. Decorations, modifications, equipment - it lingers for a while. If you make changes to a building, they'll stay as long as you do. Abandoned places eventually either become unable to be located or they go back to the way they were before ether way, the alterations disappear, and the City reverts to its primal, original form. All things are transient, except the City itself. Walking the narrow, pre-historic-feeling paths of the city can be surreal and dreamlike. The ever-present overcast glow of the sky simply points out the fact that you can't see more than a hundred feet because of the fog not that there's a hundred feet of straightaway to see, most days. Little things skitter past, and hulking shapes cross through side streets ahead, and you know all of them may be sentient beings because animals don't recognize the metaphorical existence of transitions like higher intelligences do, and can't cross over independently. A swarm of robed Bedouins, or something similar, passes by, nodding as one to a jump-suited spacewoman that lounges in a nearby doorway, who nods back as she gazes speculatively at you, her intentions unreadable. The sound of running water echoes distantly, and closer, the muffled sound of laughter, and someone playing jazz on a tinkly piano and what sounds like it could be a theramin. A pteranodon screech sounds overhead, one of a dozen weird and unexplainable noises you've heard since you arrived, and nobody else seems to pay any attention. Just another ... night? day? stretch of time? ... in the In-Between.