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wilson higgsbury

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Today Wilson is outside the bar, assembling some sort of contraption in the grass near the lake. He didn't carry anything out of the building with him; he's pulling planks and panels from thin air and setting them into place. It's coming together into the shape of a large metal ball standing on three legs, with spinning protrusions on the top and side. His little eyeball bird is with him, bouncing around in the grass and giving its human the occasional curious look. Chester is also there, not particularly concerned about anything that's happening around him.

This all takes place in perhaps ten minutes, and then he stops to feed some seeds to the smallbird. The round machine looks very scientific. Educational, perhaps. Surely Wilson wouldn't mind if you came up to check it out, or else he'd have built it somewhere more private.

[ooc: Some months ago I asked for and received permission to build an Alchemy Engine on the bar grounds, and here's the back room post about it. It can teach characters to use the streamlined crafting processes of Don't Starve to make items that appear in the games.]

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'Contraption' is exactly the sort of word Khadgar would use to describe it. It is not all that dissimilar from gnome craft, or perhaps goblin craft as it's round and about the size of the goblin's heavier duty bombs.

The thought does make him frown.

"An interesting construction, my friend. May I ask its purpose?"

"Science!" Wilson calls back, with considerable enthusiasm.

He wipes a smudge of grease off his fingers and onto his pants, surveying his creation.

"It identifies the scientific components of objects and possible uses for them. Like this flint!" Wilson holds up a sharp rock. "The machine taught me to make a bunch of stuff out of these."

Definitely gnomish.

"The machine taught you?" Intriguing. Khadgar approaches now that he knows this is unlikely to explode. "How does it do-ah." Startled, he stops as the doohickey on top of the machine starts rotating faster and images start popping into his mind.

"Is this magic?" He's rather confused, though not terribly alarmed.

"No, it's definitely science." Wilson is loath to admit something is magic even when it's a scrying orb powered by moon rocks and shadow-infused crystals, so you can bet he's not going to concede any such thing about a research station that doesn't even make nightmare swords.

He hands Khadgar the flint, carefully, and then another piece of flint and a handful of small twigs. "Here, try it."

"Thank you?" He is baffled. Intrigued, but baffled.

The images swirl down to just a few pressing on his consciousness, all using the materials Wilson just handed him. Most of it isn't something he would ever use, but the Razor... The moment his mind settles on it the machine's instructions become clear and he finds himself following along. The two twigs and bits of flint quickly fashion themselves into a straight razor.

Somehow.

"I'm really not certain what just happened there." The craftsmanship isn't the finest but it seems usable.

"Cutting-edge innovation," Wilson says.

"I always build one of these at my base, in case I think of something I need to know. Wilderness survival wasn't my strong suit back home."

"A machine like this would be useful even in a city."

Khadgar is impressed by it, though still flummoxed by how it works.

"Are you stranded somewhere?" It's the first logical thing that comes to mind for why someone poor at wilderness survival would need a base and a machine like this.

Wilson takes that as a compliment to his science skills, whether warranted or not given that he needed a lesser science machine to come up with it. "It would, wouldn't it?"

"I'm stuck on some kind of awful otherworldly forest island thingy, yes. On the other side of my door- well, door is a generous term- I'm attempting to track down the man who stranded me there."

Khadgar's expression brightens somewhat.

"Stranded through a portal?"

'Otherworldly' implies portals may be involved and those just happen to be his specialty.

"As a matter of fact, yes." Wilson looks interested. "Are you some kind of portal expert?"

"In fact I am! At least on my world."

He inclines his head slightly in greeting.

"I am Khadgar of Azeroth."

"I'm Wilson Higgsbury, from America. Pleased to meet you." Wilson imitates the nod-bow-thingy Khadgar did. It seems a lot tidier than a handshake.

"I'm not in a position to show you the portal, even in my world. It's one-way. Uh, it's shaped like a door, except that when it's activated some of the mechanisms slide up to look like a malevolently grinning face and shadowy hands come out of the ground and pull you down through it. Then you wake up somewhere else and an insufferably smug man who smells like smoke taunts you while you're regaining consciousness. Does any of that sound familiar?"

It sounds kind of insane when he says it out loud like that.

Edited 2019-09-03 08:02 (UTC)

"Well met, Higgsbury from America." The latter means nothing to him but that's not surprising.

He listens to the description with a thoughtful frown on his face. "Parts of it. Mechanisms would be unusual aspects of a portal but the shadowy hands sound a bit like fel magic."

He raises his hands, glowing purple, and calls up a lilac colored transparent image of a rectangular stone archway. The two supporting pillars have hooded figures carved into them, all features covered by their cloaks except for their magically glowing eyes. The beam across the top has a coiled serpent carved into it, the head extending over the opening with jaws wide, displaying fangs and forked tongue. Its eyes, too, are glowing. He expends a bit of extra power to tint the portal itself, centered and swirling in the archway, the proper sickly green color.

"Mechanism implies a permanent portal, which would look more like this, but the hands imply more a temporary construct, as would the smoke. Did it smell sulfurous at all?"

That is an impressive illusion. "It's a machine that physically exists. He put the idea to build it in my head. There's one a lot like it in the world he sent me to, but it went somewhere else entirely."

Wilson shakes his head. "Not enough to stand out. The smoke smell on Maxwell is tobacco smoke, and the shadows don't have a very strong smell of their own."

He's never heard of fel magic before, but it does have an appropriate sound.

He dismissed the illusion. "A machine?"

He doesn't see why that couldn't work as a physical anchor point.

"And you built it? What was the source of power?" The would help him determine the type of magic at least, though he's hoping the answer isn't 'souls'.

"It had electrical components, but it also needed some of my blood." He still has a faint scar on his hand from that. "I don't remember every step of the process. I did something with two of my lab mice but I don't remember what."

Which means souls are not completely out of the question in the narration's opinion, although not a very likely choice since the only known force that can extract them is alien to both Earth and the Constant. Not that Wilson's met that guy.

Khadgar's look turns a little dark, though he's trying not to judge because he's learned enough about other magic types here to know they can vary quite a bit.

"I don't imagine mouse souls would be powerful enough to power a portal, but your blood, your life source, certainly could. Which would explain why you passed out." His frown deepens further. "Nor is this the first time I've heard of fel magic being taught across distances. Maxwell isn't a demon by any chance, is he?"

"He's a jerk," Wilson says automatically, and then, "I don't know if he's a real demon or if he has powers for some other reason and just likes screwing with people. He looks human, I guess. Sort of an unhealthy complexion but that's it. How do you tell if someone's a demon?"

The frown doesn't faze Wilson too much; he's not proud of making that deal, and he's used to people disapproving of his life choices either way.

"If there was an easy way to do that we'd all be a lot better off," Khadgar grumbles. "He sounds like a warlock at the very least. Do you know his reason for attempting to recruit you?"

People don't usually get tricked into practicing fel magic just for kicks, though that can certainly be part of it.

"I don't know if he has one besides getting me to his stupid island and watching me suffer," Wilson says, crossing his arms and leaning against the side of the Alchemy Engine.

"I know what he doesn't want me to do, and that's track him down and give him a piece of my mind," he adds. "He actually tried to bribe me to stop. With supplies, though, not anything supernatural."

Edited 2019-09-05 13:30 (UTC)

Khadgar frowns at this again, suspicious of Maxwell's motivations.

"He offered you supplies? Did he truly expect you would take the offer, or was he merely fueling your next machine?"

He eyes the Engine again, wary of the technology he doesn't understand yet.

The Alchemy Engine keeps spinning its whirligigs.

Wilson sucks in a disquieted breath and huffs it back out again. The smallbird looks at him quizzically. "He dropped me into a pre-built campsite - there was a tent, some paved pathways and a berry garden - and said he'd give me food, gold, pig people to help me, or whatever else I needed as long as I didn't go any further and agreed to a truce."

"But on the other hand he'd already tried to cut that deal with me once and I blew him off, found the parts for the portal generator, jumped over to the next world, eventually died because I picked a fight with some blowgun-wielding walrus people, and had to start all over," Wilson recounts, not stopping to explain that second-to-last part because he doesn't want to get sidetracked. "So I can see why he might have expected me not to hold up my end of the deal. Not that he went through with all his promises either, he just dropped me off near some resources and didn't give me any more once I used them up. Both this time and last time."

Helpful quilboar? Warrior tuskarr? But really, that all pales in comparison to:

"I'm sorry, did you say you died?"

And started over? As undead? He supposes it wouldn't really matter, he's worked with undead before, but he can't help but be curious.

Khadgar's mental images of the nonhumans Wilson met aren't that far off, at least physically; culturally the pigs are pretty different but the MacTusks would fit right in with a band of tuskarr who acted Scottish.

"Uh-huh," Wilson says, realising after the fact that he really shouldn't have expected that to pass without comment. He doesn't look undead, he just looks sort of pale and tired, but there are vampires here who look heartier than Wilson so the fact that he doesn't have rotting flesh or glowing eyes doesn't necessarily mean much.

"I should probably start that explanation at the beginning. I found a copy of the machine I built on the island Maxwell sent me to. I wasn't sure if I should use it, but eventually I got curious and I thought I didn't have much left to lose, so I tried it anyway."

"I woke up on a different island without anything but the clothes on my back, I couldn't remember how to do anything the science machines taught me, even the beard I'd grown was gone, and Maxwell was standing over me saying 'So you found my portal, did you? You'd think you would have learned your lesson by now,' and was gone by the time I sat up." Wilson's impression of Maxwell is not flattering, and mainly consists of an exaggeratedly sneering tone with a matching expression and gestures. So it's probably not too accurate either.

"I was using a homing device I found to try to locate some kind of goal or exit, but I didn't get very far before I got impaled on a spiky tentacle in the swamp, and after I was done blacking out I came back to myself in the same spot by the portal as if I'd just been lost in thought." Wilson rubs at his ribs with one hand, faintly recalling the sensation. "I tried it again the next day, and something similar happened except I was torn apart by spiders instead. That sent me back to the portal again. I was in there for days, and it didn't even seem like any time passed on the outside."

Khadgar looks well and truly flummoxed by this tale, and intensely curious.

"True resurrection? That is exceedingly rare, and powerful. Is it tied to the new realm or an aspect of that particular portal machine? Or is it simply you, now? Do you lose your knowledge each time you have a mishap? Are there marks left behind from your encounters? Do you- ah, forgive me," Khadgar cuts himself off with a grin.

"I can be easily distracted at times. If you have been resurrected without any negative consequences I would say that's more in the realm of nature or holy magic. The other domains may manage it, but not without...side effects."

"Uh, the new realm, I think, but there's only one way in that I can get at so it could be the machine. I keep my memories, but I lose my knowledge every time I go back in. No marks from those particular encounters." Wilson is also easily distracted and Khadgar seems knowledgeable about more than just portals.

"What kind of side effects?" he asks, gingerly.

"If time is malleable then it could be a Twisting Nether realm. I haven't heard of the Nether resurrecting people, however."

It's chaotic enough he supposes it's possible. Perhaps Medivh's books mention it somewhere.

"Well, one is rather undead when raised by necromantic energies. Fel cannot heal the flesh but it can animate souls enough to allow them to control their bodies again; or a body, rather, that was the first death knights." He grimaces, he knew some of those knights. "Shadow, however, only animates the flesh and the mind is lost."

He may be missing a few of the finer details. He doesn't practice any of those magics.

"How malleable? The seasons are kind of crazy, more in some worlds than others, but the days happen in the right order otherwise." Whatever else Maxwell's worlds have thrown at him, at least he's never been flung forwards or backwards in time.

"But not the kind of thing that could happen without you noticing, right?" Wilson ventures, not letting himself get distracted by the other dark-magic-related topics that have come up.

"I mean that time passes at a different rate there, much like Milliways. I'm fairly certain the bar is in a Nether pocket," he confides. Traversing the timeways is another realm of magic entirely, one that tends to attract the dragons that guard it.

"Magic of that magnitude tends to have obvious physical side effects," Khadgar assures him. "Glowing eyes in relevant shades is one of the most common, perhaps ubiquitous, signs." He demonstrates the effect by gathering enough of the ambient arcane to let his own eyes glow a pale blue.

"That sounds about right, then. Is there any other Nether stuff I should watch out for?"

"I don't think my eyes can do that." Wilson sounds disappointed; if he could make his eyes glow, he'd never have to worry about the night monster attacking him again.

Khadgar winces. "It's also the realm that demons hail from." And it's kind of infinite so who knows what else is out there. "And the realm they return to when they're killed in our world."

He releases the energy, eyes returning to his normal shade of blue. "I also don't sense any of that magic about you, yourself." There are a few items but Khadgar himself is decked out in magical gear so that's hardly unusual.

"Do demons always look like people?" Wilson asks, thinking about some of the clearly supernatural and viciously hostile creatures he's seen in his world.

"Well, that's a relief." Now he can go back to dying and resurrecting over and over again without worrying it'll make his flesh fall off or bring back his body without his mind or something else horrible.

"The craftier ones can. Many are rather bestial, but dreadlords in particular have been known to assume the guise of important humans. Nathrezim, they call themselves." The Scarlet Crusade fell due to the machinations of such a demon.

"I suppose, though that does leave the question of what is responsible. Something immensely powerful; wrangling souls is not an easy thing to do." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "Are there any gems in this machine?"

"There aren't any important humans on the island unless you count Maxwell." Wilson sounds like he does not count Maxwell.

"Okay, so they can look like people and animals. Can they look like shadows? Dark, semitransparent, sort of two-dimensional-looking but capable of moving through three-dimensional space if sufficiently motivated? Collapses into disquietingly wobbly shadow jelly if they're killed?" Wilson had originally assumed the shadow creatures were hallucinations borne of acute stress and sleep deprivation breaking down his mind, up until he killed one and it left behind a heap of nightmare fuel that no amount of rest, self-soothing, or general calmness and lucidity would get rid of.

All this terminology of souls and demons and magic seems terribly unscientific, but Khadgar has clearly made extensive study of these strange energies and unearthly creatures and Wilson would hate to derail the conversation with quibbles about the nomenclature. And sometimes even among scientists a silly name just sticks. It happens.

"Well, not this one. I have one back at my campsite that uses a purple gem. It's a more powerful supernatural research machine than the one with the hat, but either one can teach me to make resurrection items." 'The one with the hat' is one of the Alchemy Engine's large array of suggestions; a machine properly known as a Prestihatitator that requires wooden boards, a spider-silk top hat, and four live rabbits as its components. Or possibly the Piratihatitator, which uses a single parrot and a bicorn hat with a skull-and-crossbones emblem instead but suggests a similar purpose.

"And the impression I have from you says his humanity is in question." At the very least Khadgar suspects he's a warlock, if not a demon himself. Or whatever the equivalent would be on Wilson's world.

He frowns as Wilson describes his shadow demons. "Voidwalkers come to mind. They're not truly demons though they're simple enough that they can be controlled as such." He shakes his head. "But when killed they're banished back from whence they came, leaving just their bracers behind."

Khadgar's world doesn't have the technology yet to apply other terms to things, though the gnomes are getting close. And perhaps the draenei, if they can ever grow enough crystals to get there again. Souls will probably always be called souls, however. Tends to happen when the soul in question can tell you so.

"Hrm. I ask because gems and crystals can often be used to store energy, including souls. There aren't very many other items I'm aware of that can do so."

Khadgar is pretty much correct, not that Wilson would be able to confirm it. "I don't have any proof one way or the other, but yeah."

"In that case, that sounds like a different thing. Maybe they're related?" Wilson shrugs. "The shadows don't wear clothes or armor or anything. They don't even have arms, just a bunch of little legs like a bug."

He frowns thoughtfully at the part about gems. "There are definitely gems in my world that store and dispense different kinds of energy. Red gems make heat, blue gems take it away, purple gems manipulate space and nightmares, there's others but they're too hard to get at. I don't think I have any with me..."

He squats down, lifts open the mouth of his fuzzy box-shaped quadrupedal companion, and squints into the depths within. Chester does not seem to mind this manhandling. "Just like I thought, I dropped them off at my campsite. They're not useful enough to justify carrying around. If you want a sample I can bring you a purple gem next time I see you, though. The clockwork automatons use them as a power source for their guns, so they're the easiest to obtain."

Khadgar's eyes twinkle. "Unfortunately demons are fiendishly difficult to unmask." He sobers. "If he's using illusion magic I could craft you something that might dispel it. If he's shape shifting, though, it would have no effect."

He stares a bit as Wilson stares into his pet's? Mouth. "You said the purple ones are nightmare related?" He winces a bit. "That would fall under the purview of shadow magic. Do you hear any whispers when handling those gems?"

Hey, a pun! Wilson loves puns!

"All they do by themselves is give off a mysterious sort of feeling." Wilson's time is forty-something years too early to describe the purple gems' aura as 'weird vibes', but it's the same general idea. "I think they're a conduit for shadow energy, though. Once I tried making an amulet out of purple gems and nightmare fuel - the shadow goop I was talking about - and it wouldn't stop whispering creepily to me so I threw it in a lureplant."

Wearing the amulet was even worse.

Edited 2020-01-02 03:43 (UTC)

'Mysterious' isn't very specific. Khadgar's still eyeing the quadruped a bit to make sure it's alright.

"That certainly sounds like the Void. I've really only dabbled in Void research," he admits carefully, "but I could at least confirm if they're the same." He's not sounding too keen on it. Researching the Void is one thing, but actually messing with the stuff is enough to make him shiver.

Chester doesn't seem like he has a care in the world; he sure isn't acting like he's hurt, frightened, or demonically possessed. People shoving their arms into his mouth is apparently business as usual. Although when neither Khadgar nor Wilson has ever seen another member of his species, it's hard to say whether Chester's behaviour is normal.

"It's a deal," Wilson says. "We'll learn something no matter what the result is."

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