(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

[OOM: Ray, Jhalak, and a bunch of scientists meet with the Lemurians off the coast of Oregon.

The Lemurians have much, MUCH more important news than previously thought.]

When Ray opens the door, he has a laptop computer under one arm and a five-armed alien on his opposite shoulder. "Has anyone seen Agent K or Agent Zed?" he says to no one in particular. "The Lemurians say we've got a sleeper..."

He doesn't wait for an answer, but heads for the Bar. He needs some of that green stuff, or possibly the quantum blue. Jhalak is getting all the kiwifruit and carambolas it can possibly eat.


[OOC: Warning for probable slowtime, but I'll tag whenever I can!]
[tinytag: Long-Reach the Jotok]

Comments

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

Dominic looks more than a little peaked himself, but Ray's entrance grabs his attention.

"What kind of a sleeper?"

[gone_byebye]

"Oh- hi, Dominic. The kind that's older than the human race, hails from beyond the stars and the known dimensions of space and time, and has the effective power of a god with none of the comprehensability of deities that normally interact with humanity and other sapient bipedal species."

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

.

.

.

"Fuck."

[gone_byebye]

"About the size of it," Ray says. "On the bright side, we found out well before it woke up or even fully intruded into our dimension, and we found out from a previously unknown sapient species that's been spending most of their history doing everything they can to keep it asleep. So we're not caught with our pants completely down, so to speak."

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Dominic's not really sure he wants to know the answer to that, but he feels obligated to ask anyway. Hell, at least it'd be something to do.

[gone_byebye]

"Do you have any experience communicating with beings who can't come out of water and who have no organs of hearing, but're capable of reading and writing human languages?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"Not particularly," Dominic admits. "I know of some water-breathing spells, but I've never cast them myself, and that's not something you want done by a rookie. I could pick up some books on Qualenti culture and history if you think that would help..."

[gone_byebye]

"Possibly," Ray says. "Fill me in on the name, though. 'Qualenti'?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"They're a race of ocean-dwellers--kind of like your 'fish-men.' All territory in the Southern Ocean past the edges of the continental shelf is considered theirs."

Please ignore the fact that Dominic once claimed there were no aquatic sentients in his world. The mun got Jossed to hell and back on that one.

[gone_byebye]

Not a problem.

Ray nods. "This is an entirely different form of sentient being," he says. "From the fish-men, I mean. They live in the oceans west of my continent, although their territory extends further than that from what they told me. Does your world have octopuses? Eight-armed sort of blobby creatures that change color and live mostly near the bottom?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

"Yes... are you saying that's the species you're trying to contact?"

[gone_byebye]

"They already made contact with us," Ray says. "One of their species did, anyway. There's hundreds of species of octopus on my world, and if what they told me and Jhalak here is true, then there's a confederacy of the sentient ones that's existed since before the humpback whales came into existence as a species. I mean, it could just be a legend, but we have no way of knowing just yet, you know?"

[grumpyseer.livejournal.com]

Dominic looks more curious than impressed by this. There are plenty of species on his world with cultures that old.

"How did they make contact, if they can't leave the water?"

[bring_a_sponge]

For once Zed saw the Door coming almost soon enough to avoid it, but knowing Ray would probably be back from his meeting, he stepped across the threshold anyway. A moment later, he's taking a seat beside Ray and Jhalek.

"Evening," he nods. "Any luck?"

[gone_byebye]

"They taught themselves English from every textbook, regular book, and scrap of magazine, newspaper, and mail to go over the side of a boat for the past several hundred years," Ray says. "The Lemurians are some of the most erudite cephalopods I've ever seen."

[bring_a_sponge]

"Huh. Smart."

"And something we probably should have expected. How good a look did you get of them? Any apparent physiological similarity to the Deep Ones?"

[gone_byebye]

"No similarity whatsoever," Ray says. "They're genuine cephalopods, not tentacle-headed fish-men. The scientists I had with me even pegged them as family Cirroteuthidae, although they couldn't specify the species. And if what I have on this computer is to be believed, 'Lemurian' is a political designation, not a racial one- they implied that the Lemurian Empire is a confederacy of multiple species of octopod and possibly teuthid that've achieved sapience."

[bring_a_sponge]

"Confederacy...."

"Raises a lot of questions, but the cultural aspects can wait. Were you able to find out whatever it was they wanted to communicate?"

[gone_byebye]

For all that he's been through, Ray can't really do a grim face. The closest he gets is a flat, thin-lipped sort of expression.

"Point Nemo. 48°52.6′S, 123°23.6′W. I'll give you three guesses what's sleeping there and the first two don't count."

[bring_a_sponge]

"Stirring?"

[gone_byebye]

"The Lemurians have been trying to keep it asleep since about two days after they realized it existed. They don't know how much longer they'll be successful."

[bring_a_sponge]

"How long ago was that?"

[gone_byebye]

"The only chronological reference that I could get out of them was 'a time before the singers moved in the waters'. Assuming they mean humpbacks or other rorquals by 'singers' that places the date sometime in the mid to late Miocene period."

[bring_a_sponge]

"Hell of a long time to keep a lid on something. So why a crisis now? What's changed?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray rubs at his temples a moment, thinking. "They said it's not entirely physically present in the world yet. Hang on..."

He flips open the laptop, turns it on, and calls up the log of the text-message session. Aloud, he reads:

"'Dr. Ambassador'- that's what they called me, pretty much every time- 'that which sleeps at the farthest point in the waters has been stirring. The currents of the waters have been flowing in its favor for many years now. They grow stronger. The currents of the land are weak and broken, for all our trying to feed them from the waters. We do not know how much longer that which sleeps will stay asleep. If it wakes, your people and ours and every other people that may be will not have the mercy of the stunning before the jaws snap closed. You must make ready. We cannot do this alone any more.'"