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 Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:22 pm
Jacob stepped down off the bus and onto the sidewalk. Looking at what seemed to be a large compound, he sighed and pulled a crumpled paper out of his pocket.
It was the letter he had received in the mail earlier that week. He uncrumpled it and looked it over again. The whole of the letter might have made perfect sense, he thought, if he had grown up in some sort of alternate dimension where fantasy novels were life. He looked around to make sure that he wasn't suddenly standing next to a pointy hatted magician or a warrior. Just reading the letter made him feel like he had been sucked into a book or something.
He looked up again at the compound. "Well, this is the right place..."
But then again, which of the buildings was it?
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:27 pm
Dacian stepped out of the gardens and onto one of the paths of the compound when he caught sight of someone enter. And, feeling a grin stretch across his face, the mage made his way over to him.
"Hello! Are you Jacob?"
This mage was likely not what Jacob was expecting...no robes, no pointy hats - in fact, he looked pretty much like what he was: a gardener. He just happened to be of the magical variety. Wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and add in a few smudges of dirt (including on on his cheek), and you'd never guess that he was a mage.
He knew this place could be confusing to new arrivals, since there wasn't any sort of map, so he always tried to keep an eye on the entrance when expecting new guardians.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:36 pm
"Um... yes, that's me." For a moment, Jacob wanted to ask what this whole thing was about. Then again, he didn't want to sound demanding, so he kept his mouth shut. Still, looking at this guy, he was relieved. Maybe this would be more ordinary than he had expected.
"I got this...this letter," he awkwardly held out the paper he had been reading, as if it was something he was supposed to give back once he was done reading it. "It said to come here."
Still, he really wanted to ask what the letter meant. He opened his mouth for a moment to ask, but then decided not to. He would find out at some point, right? He wouldn't ask. No, he wouldn't. He had to swear to himself he wouldn't make himself look stupid by asking. No asking.
"What is this...uhm...mean?"
Curses, foiled again.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:40 pm
Jacob was just lucky that Dacian was the one to greet him, and not one of the others. Ahneta would have been flirting with the poor man non-stop (sexual harassment!), and Hadrian would have been his cold self and just been rude - that's the way he always was with strangers. And Hadrian was always in a hurry these days...
"Oh - yeah, I'm Dacian...I'm the one that sent it."
Chuckling at the question, he again that it was a good thing it was him.
"Well, to sum it all up in simple terms...we need guardians for magical children, who are the remains of our world. If you'd decide to accept, you'll have a child, and you can also have an apartment here. It's free of charge."
Really, considering that the guardians took care of the last of their people, an apartment was the least they could do.
"You don't have to decide now, of course. Would you like to meet the child?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:49 pm
Halfway through the man's last sentence, Jacob was about ready to turn around and leave. A child?! He was only 20, there was no way he could ever imagine himself responsible enough. There was no way he had ever even thought of that! Heck, he'd never even had a real girlfriend. Well that's not counting that one time, in second grade... but STILL! There was no way he could-
A free apartment?
That proposal made him think again.
"..S...sure" he said, apprehensively. He might just have to take the aprtment considering his situation with his living space, or lack thereof.
"Just out of curiosity... how... do the children..." He searched for words, not really know how to ask. "How...do they come to...exist?" He wasn't even quite sure that was the right words. He just wanted to make sure he wasn't getting himself into something he would be... uncomfortable with.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:54 pm
"Well..."
Rubbing at the back of his head sheepishly, as he began to lead Jacob towards the labs, Dacian explained.
"We basically managed to pull all the human souls from our world that were uninfected - you caught the explanation of the virus, in the note, right? - and stored them. We're working at trying to pull them out, but it's slow going since we have to be so careful..."
They really didn't want to get just part of a Soul. He had a feeling, that would be very bad.
"Actually, this child hasn't even been born yet - it's just a blob of energy. We pull the souls from th reservoir we created, and then they slowly collect energy from the surrounding area...we haven't quite figured out why it takes some longer then others, but eventually, when they've gathered enough energy, it morphs and becomes a human toddler."
And of course, there were the blends. He just hoped he didn't have to explain much about that - he mentioned them in the letter of course, but he'd already put so much in there that it could have been passed over. The explanation of what happened to their world was lengthy enough...
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:00 pm
Jacob nodded as it was explained to him. He was slightly relieved. He wouldn't have to do anything for the child to...come about. That was a relief. Still, taking care of a child...that would be the hard part. Then again, every time he thought of going back home...
He shuddered. Anything had to be better than that.
Looking around, Jacob thought the grounds looked fairly nice. He really wouldn't mind living here. Looking around at all the different buildings, he wondered which were for living in.
"So... they just kind of... change into toddlers, just like that?" He tried to imagine in his head what a soul would look like, but couldn't. "And... all I have to do is take care of it, right? And I can live here?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:08 pm
Dacian nodded to Jacob, beginning to feel happier as he felt that Jacob was starting to agree. Or at least, it looked like the man was giving the place a better look then he had mere moments before.
"I could arrange for you to meet one of the grown children, later - most of them are toddlers, but we do have one who's older."
Not that Ismet would be such a good idea for convincing Jacob...maybe he should see if one of the other guardians with friendlier child would agree to meet Jacob. Gavin, perhaps? Although Haki was a sweet girl...
"And yes, that's pretty much it. You'll have to get your own groceries and furniture of course - although we do provide basic furniture such as a bed - but it's free. I'll give you a tour of one of the empty apartments, later."
Stopping just before entering the labs, he pointed to the other two buildings. "That's the school, and the first apartment building respectively. And there are a couple more apartment buildings further back..the gardens are over there...Oh, and there are some more buildings back in the forest, but they aren't in use."
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:17 pm
A school! This was starting to look better and better. He wouldn't have to worry about driving a kid to school every day.
Jacob took a deep breath. He was going to have to adjust to having a kid around... But even that was less humiliating than living at home again.
He felt awkward not saying anything, so he decided to just ask something, for the same of not looking ridiculous. "So..." he mused, not knowing what to ask about. "How many other kids are around then?" Well so much for not looking ridiculous.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:23 pm
How many? Good question...Dacian hadn't stopped to count them before. So, frowning for a moment as they walked into the labs, he tried to work it out.
There was Ismet, the next four, some random ones...hmm...
"I believe this one will make number eleven - and only one other of those is still an energy, mind you."
Huh. He hadn't realized there were so many of them already!
As they went further into the labs, he led the other man down some stairs to the basement level; that's where they kept the souls in Energy stage, after all. And Hadrian's office was around here somewhere, too.
"Oh, and you do know about the blends, right?"
Better make sure...
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:31 pm
"Eleven, huh..." At least that meant he wasn't going to be too alone as a guardian. He wondered how many of them knew what they were doing enough to help him out... he would have to find out at some point, though talking to people wasn't his strong point.
He was snapped out of that stream of consciousness train of though with the question, though. "Blends? Uh... sortof?" He knew what it had said in the letter, though he had no idea how any of it worked. "They are basically... merged with... something else." That raised another question he hadn't thought of before.
"Do they look... normal?"
Walking around with a really strange looking kid might be even weirder than being seen with a kid in the first place.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:40 pm
"Some look more normal then others..."
Dacian shrugged at Jacob there - it was hard to tell how different the child would be at the enregy stage. So as he walked closer to the room where the Soul was, he tried to explain further.
"Haki, for example - she's a lace blend. And there's nothing at all that can distinguish between her and any other little toddler..." asides from her fathers obsession with expensive clothing, anyway, "...but they you also have children like Ismet - he's a snake blend. And there's no way anyone could ever miss him - his skin, his markings, his eyes...pretty much everything about him is different."
In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Dacian had raised the kid, he'd probably be a little nervous around him.
"You see, when we pulled the souls, we accidently pulled the essences of some things along with them - we didn't even realize until we'd managed to birth Ismet (the first one) - and they appeared different."
Finishing up his explanation, Dacian opened the door to the room, and gestured Jacob in.
There was a wide circle of monitors around the room, a little bit away from and facing the wall; there were no keyboards in sight, so one could only assume it was touchscreen. The few monitors visible from the door showed some sort of calculations and numbers - some little graphs and such. Completely incomprehensible to someone who didn't know what they were looking at.
But that wasn't the main attraction. Inside the circle of monitors, was a ball of pale pink energy with the vaguest of expressions, floating a few feet over the ground. It floated in the very center, and there were two circles indented into the ground, between it and the monitors.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:02 pm
As the door opened, Jacob began to get a little nervous again. It would be hard explaining to people that he was a 20 year old with a toddler following him around. It would be ever hard to explain if the toddler was something...strange.
He almost stopped when they entered the room. Looking at the monitors, he wondered what they were showing. Whatever it was, it sure looked important. The room in general, he thought, looked very...important. It was completely different from anything he had ever seen. Well, he hadn't exactly seen a lot, but that was a different matter...
His attention focused in the middle of the circle of monitors, at the ball of energy. It was light pink, which threw him off at first.
"Is that...the one that I would..." his voice got quieter and trailed off as he spoke. Come to think of it... finishing his sentences wasn't his strong point either.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:10 pm
Dacian loved it when the guardians first saw their Soul. They always had such awe on their faces...he supposed it was the same as when a child was born normally, but he'd never seen a real birth. He just had this.
And it always made him smile, and swell with pride that he was involved in this..
Hehe...and he had a feeling that this was certainly better then actually giving birth.
"Yes..." he spoke quietly, the little bit of pride showing, "This is her. Or him, anyway." The only other pink soul had been a girl, so that was the most likely possibility, but...well, you never knew.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:21 pm
Jacob was silent for a full minute. He wasn't even sure what to say. It was not quite what he imagined a human soul to look like. Especially not so pink... but still... a kid could come from that?
After a few minutes of silence, though, he started feeling a little awkward, just standing there. He cleared his throat and turned around.
"So... she would live here in the compound too. Do all of the other kids live here too, or just...some?"
He almost felt ridiculous for asking that, but then again, it couldn't hurt much... he had already asked so many silly questions, one more couldn't hurt.
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