[ otherworld online ] [ part 1 ]

The flow of time was weird enough when you could mark it’s passing. One moment, it would be a quarter of the way through your work shift, the next you’ve already missed your lunch hour and the shop closes in forty minutes. Not to mention the discrepancy between dream time and ‘real time’, or how time could appear to pass slowly, or quickly, when the actual flow of time never changed. Yet, it was the fact that time was quantified at all that kept people from going out of their minds.

So, what happened when time couldn’t be quantified? Erin stared at her ceiling, pinned down by the sleeping, and thus immovable form of Tetra, her giant maine coon - bengal - probably some siberian cat, attempting to answer that question. She’d noticed during her first trip to Ashdown that her phone didn’t get service, or really function much except for a paper weight. Trying to check the time only resulted in the screen flickering and then the phone dying. It felt like they’d spent half the day stuck among the trees and creatures, but the moment she left the otherworld, she’d been right on time for work.

A significant detail when you live four blocks from your work, and left late to begin with.

At first glance, it would seem tech just didn’t work in the otherworld. Perhaps magic got in the way, or whatever deaziens kept Heliodora within the fog wanted to keep whoever strayed too far. Time was immensely important for navigation and sense of sanity. When she used to take the bus to school, she could tell when they’d arrived simply by how much time had passed. At sundown - whatever clock described time that was - Tetra always wandered to the front door to be let in. In the otherworld, there wasn’t a way to track that time. Even with rain, generally you could tell what time of day it was supposed to be. Other Ashdown just had rain, at the same dull gray color that didn’t seem to move.

A lack of cell service, while inconvenient, did have the added benefit of no one at work could get ahold of her. A lack of tracking time was a far more important issue. Cell service involved cell towers receiving information, and again, if the creatures of the otherworld didn’t want their existence or world to be known, cell service would be hard pressed to restore or create. Time though… she wondered what she could do about time. If she could somehow restore the ability for phones to track time, or perhaps a device like a watch that could keep time, even in a magic saturated world…

She’d first need to know how magic effected technology within Other Ashdown. It couldn’t be with tech she brought in; it would have to be some sort of tech or computer unit already present within the fog. Provided it ran on electricity like the real world, Erin was confident she could figure out how it worked. Tech running on magic would be a harder problem. She needed a native unit though. There was no telling what repercussions would come from working on magic saturated tech, a concept that both frightened and intrigued her at the same time.

Either she’d have a computer Transformer, or the unit would be the most powerful computer she’d ever seen.

The techy nerd stretched as far as the giant cat on top of her would let her, and reached her phone with her fingers. She typed a message out to herself, as well as one to Asiya of a possible excursion into other Ashdown.

How did you get to other Ashdown of your own will?

[ wc: 621 ]