Retirement post

[gone_byebye]

The door opens on a chilly grey day in an alleyway in New York and closes behind a Ray wearing his winter dark bluegrey Ghostbusters duds. "Wow," he says, looking around the Bar. "What'd I miss?"

He doesn't stop for an answer, though. He heads for the Bar to drop off a note ("give a copy of this to anybody who asks about me, please?"), and then to the bulletin board to pin up the same thing for people who go there first.

Hi, everybody. This is Ray.

I realize I haven't been to Milliways very often in the past year or so. Believe it or not, I've been too busy. Some of you will remember that my particular universal continuum has linkages, very unfortunate ones, to the realm of the Cthulhu Mythos. Well, here's the thing: for the past several years those linkages have been getting stronger. The stars, as the Old Gent says, have been becoming right- and this past year they've been slotting into place one after another, so to speak.

This has not been a good October. And, bluntly put, there is not going to be a good October again within most humans' lifetimes in my world.

Egon and Ecto and I have been running a lot of mathematical models and simulations and every single one of them reports the same thing. We're about to enter into a phase of seriously horrific Mythos activity beyond the sort even Gozer would be able to stand up to. I've been working on my old applied dimensional science from the times when I worked with Eddie Dean and the Beam generators for this past year and I believe we can just about maintain conditions suitable to human life and sanity during the Mythos assaults on my world, but, as usual with these things, there's going to be a price. We have to slam the door on anything that might give the Great Old Ones and their minions access- and on anything they might be able to use to access other continua should they manage to manifest in my own.

Bluntly put, we have to close the door on all access to and from my world, to and from other universes, until such time as the stars are wrong again. Estimated duration: three hundred Terran standard years.

I may still be around at the end of it. If that happens to be the case I'll make a point of being the first person back to Milliways once we drop the barriers again. If not... well, it's been great knowing you all, and I hope you have a better time than we do.

-Raymond Stantz, Ghostbuster

(P.S. If another version of me shows up here from one of the other continua after I'm gone, please be kind to him. He probably won't wind up in my situation, but ... just be nice to him anyway? Please? For me? Thanks.)

Once the note is up he heads for the Bar, because this is going to be his last time here, and he'd like to make some use of that fact while he's saying goodbye to people.


[OOC: As I mentioned in the Back Room a few week ago, I'm retiring Ray. This is his goodbye post; it's open as long as people are finding it, basically.]

Comments

[blue_ajah]

She smiles.

"Of course. If you would permit me?"

[gone_byebye]

"Certainly," Ray says. "At your leisure."

[blue_ajah]

A faint golden corona springs into being around her, and she rises gracefully from her seat and moves around the table to him.

"In the world where I was born, this sort of thing served a different purpose," she murmurs, as she places her fingers at his temples.

"But worlds and times here are far, far different, and I choose to believe that every small nuance of choice matters, sometimes more than anything else."

As she speaks, bright silver threads of Spirit, shaded with blue, begin to wash through him like a waterfall, cleansing exhaustion.

[gone_byebye]

Ray would comment, but this strikes him as the kind of thing best not interrupted for any reason whatsoever. So he only just fractionally nods, enough to let Moiraine know he's paying attention, and otherwise holds still.

[blue_ajah]

She finishes the weave and lets it sink into him, then brushes gentle fingers across his brow as her eyes meet his.

"Light illumine and protect you, Raymond Stantz, and may the hand of the Creator shelter you through all your days and nights, until your long watch is ended and your last battle is won. You will do well."

The glow around her fades, and she resumes your seat.

"If the Wheel wills it so, I may even see you here upon your return."

[gone_byebye]

"I don't know what to say," Ray says, "except- thank you, Moiraine."

"If I make it back here in one piece, I'll make a point of looking for you."

[blue_ajah]

"I shall watch for you, as well. Three hundred years is not an unknown lifespan among the Aes Sedai, after all, although I had not thought it common in your world."

[gone_byebye]

"It's not," Ray says. "One of the gods who used to come here- Belar- was the hereditary god of my good friend Garion's people. Garion's family is composed mostly of sorcerors and one sorceress, and his wife is a Dryad, so his daughter- my goddaughter- was surrounded by people who didn't get old the whole time she knew them. Except for me. When she realized her uncle Ray was starting to go gray at the temples and would eventually get old and die of it she kind of wigged out, and, well, made a bargain with Belar to turn off the aging process and several other things for me. I can still die by major injury or other trauma, just not by sickness or getting old."

"Looks like there was more of a reason for it than she knew."

[blue_ajah]

A serene smile curves her lips.

"As I am certain you have heard me say before, Ray: the Wheel weaves, and all things are part of the Pattern. I would not be surprised to find that this was somehow so woven."

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "Garion's universe is one where the people who work with the Will and the Word live as long as their part in accomplishing the Purpose of the Universe says they need to," he says. "It wouldn't surprise me if it wound up cross-referencing Purposes with my own universe and setting things up... but I'll have plenty of time to figure that out, I think. In between everything else, anyway."

"Thank you once again, Moiraine. For everything."