[Audio]

[neverfeltthatway]

Ah... to all the new people arriving, please stay calm. Try not to panic, and try not to project your thoughts so chaotically - with all of you that are arriving, it'll only make things more confusing for everyone. No one will hear your thoughts if you're not actively projecting them.

I know you all have a lot of questions. There are many of us who've been here a while, so try to find someone who looks like they know what they're doing, and they can help you. I'll try to help as best I can too - we can talk like this, or if you'd prefer face to face, I'm over by the black knight.

Comments

[neverfeltthatway]

[Armin winces at the force of the thought.] Please, everyone can hear you. You don't have to shout. And I know this is confusing, but you haven't gone mad - the voices you hear are the thoughts projected by the people you see around you.

As for where we are, I'm afraid it's not a dream - we call it Liminal Space. It's a quasi-real world that exists between dimensions.

[manyfacesof]

There's a longish and rather communicative mental silence, the sort filled with the precise lack of sound one would associate with contemplation. When he thinks again, it is at a more normal 'volume'.

"Hmph. My madness is my own and I'll not have it decided by the likes of you, lad. However, acting on the assumption, for the moment mind, that this is actually happening...'quasi-real' Sounds like Wizard talk. I was afraid of that. The only thing less reliable than good-old-fashioned madness is magic. Alright, pretending for the briefest of moments that I was educated in the streets, let's skip all the technical stuff and address the practical questions.

Things like 'How did I get here?' 'How do I get back?' and of course, 'What here is going to try to kill, maim, rob or generally carve a large and bloody chunk out of my already-pretty-ragged quality of life'?"

[neverfeltthatway]

"I'm afraid those aren't all as easy to answer as you might hope.

You were brought here like the rest of us - we don't know how. We've never met any of them, but we call the creatures who did this the Trumps.

I'm afraid there isn't any way to get back home.

As for what's going to try and kill you - in Liminal Space? Nothing. But liminal space is connected to another world right now, and that one if full of knights and gryphons and dragons and magic, any of which might try to kill you."

[manyfacesof]

"Mmm-hmmm..."

In mental space, one's silences can often say more than what one thinks 'out loud'. Sam Vimes' silence is one of

"And these gryphons and magic and..." *snort of derision* "...dragons, apparently, they getting into Liminal space to get at us? I almost hope so, because otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned them unless there was some reason we'd go out there to meet them..."

There's a slight snarl under his thoughts now.

"So what's the catch? I've got a strong and unpleasant feeling that there's a second part to this situation that you're not telling me... It's not all just sitting around chessboards and the like where it is nice and quiet, is it?"