[Not entirely intentional broadcasts...]

[professorwolf]

[While important things might be being discussed elsewhere on the telepathic network, there's one voice that seems more focused on one particular person. However, that one particular person isn't receiving... so it's going broad and wide, dropping in on various brains, more on accident than anything else.]

Nick!

Nick, where are you?

Nick, come out, answer me.

I can't find your scent, Nick.

Please just answer me, I can find you, I'm sure of it.

Nick?

[One Randolph Lyall is looking for somebody, and he is looking really hard. Sorry, everybody whose minds he just unintentionally-slash-intentionally projected into, friends and strangers and brand new people.... Usually he has better control than this, keeping his thoughts to himself or to whomever he's directly aiming them at, but he's getting increasingly panicked, and a wider mental net simply must be thrown.]

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

...Lyall-sensei? Who's Nick?

[professorwolf]

[Not this person. Obviously. There's a little frustration in what tone comes through in the response.]

Sorry, I'm just looking for him. He usually responds right away but I guess I can't-- find his mind, exactly. He's from my world, he came with me here. He's my boyfriend.

[It always sounds so dumb to say the word, but it comes out with no hesitation at all, right now. Lyall is too unsettled right now to care how dumb it sounds.]

[leftbehindagain]

So he's gone missing? That doesn't sound good.

[No judgment whatsoever about the 'boyfriend' part. Kanji would have to bean Naoki with whatever blunt object he could get his hands on.]

[professorwolf]

Does this sort of thing happen often? People going missing? How does one find them again?

[He's not going to go to the logical conclusion of that, where Nick is potentially just gone. Surely they can just find him again, in the mess that is liminal space.]

[stopinthenameofawe]

[...isn't that the name of the guy who knew entirely too much about her.]

Lost someone?

[professorwolf]

Melissa?

[Here, have another guy who knows too much about her, though he hasn't revealed that to her, yet.]

Sorry. Um, yes, I have. Usually he answers when I try to reach him across the network.

[stopinthenameofawe]

[oh goddamnit.]

Have we met?

[professorwolf]

Not as ourselves, exactly. I... believe I met you during the Jaunt before this one. But Nick told me you were here.

[shiroganeheir]

[Naoto mentally winces. She has a feeling that if she couldn't find Souji, she'd be in a similar state.]

I am not usually the one to use this phrase, Sensei, but calm down. Can you describe him to me? I can get in my copter and see if I can see anything from the air.

[professorwolf]

Yes, sorry. He just-- usually responds when I try to reach him across the network. He's taller than I am, a little broader-- dark hair, a little shorter and thicker than mine. Dark eyes. Mid-thirties. Answers to the name Nick Burkhardt. I haven't seen him since before the Jaunt, but Zeviel seemed to know his face, at least. I don't know if that means he was there and I just never saw him, or if the Jaunt took my memories of him and turned them into something else.

[shiroganeheir]

Do not apologize. When someone that you care about is missing, it can be emotional. I do not want to think about my reactions if I could not find Souji.

I will look for him. Let me know if you find him in the mean time, and take a few breaths, Sensei. As someone very important told me once, we will pull you through this.

[professorwolf]

Thank you, I'll try. I appreciate the help, Naoto.

[Calming down isn't likely to happen, exactly, but he is trying not to actively panic.]

[chalicejoker]

[Oh, hey, that's a familiar voice. One Hajime does not like hearing so worried.]

I haven't seen him, but I think I could send out the demon roaches to look for him...

[Not that Hajime sounds entirely confident of this new ability and these new little helpers.]

[professorwolf]

Demon r-- you kept those?

[That's a momentary distraction, at least.]

[chalicejoker]

Not on purpose.

[He sounds a little embarrassed.]

Or they kept me, I have no idea how that works. But yeah, they're...still around.

[professorwolf]

Like the wings, in my case. Lovely.

[He doesn't actually mean that. Sarcasm just doesn't always translate well.]

I imagine roaches won't search by sight, so they might have more luck than most of us in this muck. If they even know what to look for.

[upcard]

[She can hear all of the conversations happening, and she knows....well.

She knows that he's not here anymore, from the sounds of things. And Mai knows very well what that sort of thing feels like.]

Um... he's not here, is he...? Not anymore, I mean.

[...]

Are you okay?

[professorwolf]

We don't know that yet. It's possible he might be in some sort of dungeon, or so I've been told.

[And no, he's not really okay, but that's not important right now.]

[upcard]

Yes...that's what Hijikata-san said about Ukyo-san as well. And... I haven't found him yet either, but that's why we have to keep looking, no matter what.

[thornsofmalkav]

Holy shit. Did I just hear you inside my head? When the fuck did I develop telepathy?

[Congrats, Lyall, you're babby's first telepathic conversation.]

[professorwolf]

Yes, you did. You developed it as soon as you were brought here-- we all did. But it only works with other Travelers, not people, say, on another world once we're dropped off, or on the creatures that sometimes show up here in liminal space.

[Even in the midst of searching and being a little panicked, at least he can also still be helpful.]

[thornsofmalkav]

Liminal space. Right. No offense, but it's kinda boring as fuck so far.

... well, okay, this swingset's nice. I just found in a couple minutes ago.

[wholeheaded]

[ oh, this is his nightmare. he hadn't known Nick but from Lyall's behavior and the others' responses Ambrose figures out what's happened. ]

I'm sorry. [ and? what would he do, what would he want, in a similar situation, if Daneel-- he'd want to be left alone, first of all and for some time. and then...] I... if you need to talk, I'll listen. And I might be able to help make it bearable.

[ he is of course thinking of psychic healing. ]

[professorwolf]

[Lyall isn't. He doesn't know such a thing exists-- and he's not sure he'd really want it, even so. It's a hurting heart, not a exactly trauma. So his reaction to the offer is mild confusion, on top of the gratitude.]

I appreciate it... I'm... not sure I'm going to find him, at this point, but I'm still looking.

[And that's hard to say.]

[wholeheaded]

[he'll just...roll with that, then. ]

If he has gone missing... it's happened to folks before, they end up in these things called dungeons that we need to go into and help them get out. Sometimes they just get turned around in liminal space and turn up again.