Pocket System
- Thread starter theaceoffire
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
One of the directives of the MiB is to perform the roles of immigration, civil services, and military police all rolled up into one organization. It'd be her duty bound obligation to utterly eliminate The Initiative, and bury, likely literally, Dr. Walsh, potentially alive. And as an MiB, she'd have the chops to do it solo. The Initiative wouldn't last more than two months, if that, after Jessica finds out when they come rolling into town, usually after the current school's destruction, if one's following canon continuity.
{Edit} Add on to it, this realms' propensity for/with belief, and She'd have it wrapped up by the following Sunday, and ready to attend church. But there's the small problem that it's highly unlikely that Jessica and John would stay here long enough to encounter them.
{Edit} Add on to it, this realms' propensity for/with belief, and She'd have it wrapped up by the following Sunday, and ready to attend church. But there's the small problem that it's highly unlikely that Jessica and John would stay here long enough to encounter them.
Last edited:
We are the Does and he's digging a hole.
- Location
- Here
Jessica stepped into their new Home like a technician attempting to disarm a bomb.
This place was… Disturbingly comfortable and accommodating.
Case in point: She didn't unlock the front door. The front door didn't even HAVE a lock now!
It opened because she was family, and it was closed to everyone else unless she or John specifically invited them. Period.
Rooms inside just happened to be where she expected them, any mental query she had seemed to have an obvious answer (Of COURSE the bathroom is over here! Why wouldn't it be?), and despite this place not having air conditioning the temperature in every room was absolutely perfect.
She didn't even have time to feel too cold or hot before it seemed to correct itself, same for all the water taps… When she washed her hands, after turning on the hot and cold water, the stuff was PERFECTLY what she wanted to suds up. Not too hot, not too cold, no waiting for the temperature to adjust.
It wasn't that this place felt alive, not exactly. Not like the house John had altered in the Muppet Realm. No, it was more subtle than that.
This felt like someone who cared for her and who knew her better than anyone had just been here visiting earlier in the week and had happened to adjust a few things to match her preferences.
It was the feeling of 'well lived in', of a billion tiny flaws and facts and habits being forged into a single living space, of generations slightly changing small aspects of the building to be more. More comfortable, more convenient, more useful, more everything.
She reached down to the kitchen table and took the pain killer and glass of water. Neither of which had been there before she had needed them, but whatever. At least this was handy, even if it felt a bit off putting.
Right, best tear this bandage off quickly then. "John? Where are you?"
And now she knew he was in the brand new basement. And where the new door was to the new stairway to GET To the basement. And how long he had been there. And that he was currently distracted and too far away to hear her if she yelled.
…Right. "Is he safe doing… Whatever it is that he is doing?"
Jessica felt something that wasn't observable shrug. Because theoretically constructing that deeply should have already uncovered all sorts of complications and structural issues and what not, but her little brother was brushing aside all that annoying history and Fate and Magic and stuff because it was getting in the way and he wanted to dig more.
Darn it John… "Could you ask him to come up here please?"
Just because the building wasn't alive didn't mean that Jessica shouldn't be polite, after all.
There was no confirmation, but she already knew he would be coming back up to ground level now.
Eventually.
Damn it John! How deep have you mined already!?
~~~Pocket System~~~
"Hmm mmm hmm hmm hmm, mrm derm digging a hole…"
With each note the boy grabbed another chunk of stuff to clear the way.
"Diggy diggy hole! Diggy diggy hole…"
And replace the wall with Stone Bricks and reinforce the area, some torches and continue the stairs down…
The pattern was never ending. Soothing and familiar. Relaxing.
Humming away, he finished clearing another layer of material under the foundation and proceed to begin working on the next section down.
Mining was fun!
A few minutes later however, John flinched in the middle of Collecting another block's worth of material. "Huh?"
Oh. Sis was Home and wanted to see him.
…Wait, how did he know that?
And now John realized that reinforcing a Home imbued with Belief and a history of being unable to help each new owner defend themself from a horrific death had consequences. Powerful ones.
His new Home was FRANTIC to be helpful. Beyond enthusiastic that it could be a [[Home]] for once, and not simply a death trap waiting to be harvested. Overjoyed that it had been repaired and strengthened and empowered and finally able to P͓͚͢r̖͖͖̦͢o̜̦̤̖͜t͍̩̜͢e̲̟͜c̢̞͚̞t͓͚͜ͅ its family.
What the… "How long have you been THIS aware?"
The house wasn't sure, but it was pretty clear that this happened sometime after John had started building the magical cavern underneath it.
…The what now?
John slowly looked upwards… And realized he had basically stopped constructing actual floors and rooms and stuff HOURS ago.
Instead of seeing a nearby ceiling, he just saw a vertical tube of Stone Bricks with a winding staircase heading up and into the distance.
All of which was visible because John hadn't removed ANY of the Torches he had placed on the walls along the way. At all.
There were THOUSANDS of them! All flickering, all endlessly and eternally lit to keep away the non-existent never spawning monsters.
Hesitating, John reached for the nearest one… Oh dear.
Pure Essence tended to collapse into something more nuanced and tangible when exposed to materials NOT made out of Essence, and the nearest equivalent process to 'The Essence of a Pure Eternal Light on a Stick, AKA a Torch' apparently turned out to be 'Self Sustaining Magic.'
Each and every Torch above was glittering, half flames and half raw magical power.
And due to the Essence of 'Keep bad stuff away' that the original torches possessed, this massive vertical tube of Torches acted as a filtration and purification field for… Well, the entire property.
Oh dear. "Did I make a massive bonfire of magic exposing our new Home to any and all baddies on the planet?"
No.
Sheer relief flooded John as he felt the answer… Because he and Jessica owned this property, they owned the aura produced by this 'magical basement cavern', and thus it was contained within their new building along with everything ELSE they placed inside it.
Because people believed their stuff was safe in their [[Home]], that even intangible and unquantifiable stuff was 'protected' by being contained within said property lines… Even raw magical bonfires of purification and power.
…Although that ALSO meant that the density of said aura was through the roof and concentrated directly into their new house instead.
Which said house appreciated.
John stared upwards glumly. "I'm going to get in trouble for this, aren't I?"
The house helpfully let him know exactly where his sister was currently waiting for him AND how long it would take for him to climb the near endless staircase to reach her. Oof.
Again, how deep WAS this new 'sub basement'!?
…Apparently VERY deep, made much worse by the odd effects of stuffing the near bottomless pit with massive amounts of magical Torches. Spatial warping, time variance fields, recursive steps, gravimetric tapering… This was going to be an ANNOYING climb back up.
It was a tad confusing, considering that John had dug it out and constructed this mess himself and had only made a single staircase down… Yet the raw power in the space now caused sections of the pathway back up to literally act like an M.C. Esher artwork.
Crap. "Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble for this. And it is going to take me FOREVER to get back upstairs from here."
Unless he walked up two flights of stairs, then down one, then up three, then jumped off the side.
THAT would instantly bring him up to one level below the exit door. To the basement with the rooms and stuff he had made before going into a massive digging spree.
…Although how John knew this, he couldn't say. It wasn't even a hint given by the apparently now magical Home itself, just raw information about the place that was understood by a fundamental part of John's subconscious mind.
It felt similar to how, when one lived in place long enough, you no longer had to be awake to walk up or down stairs and open doors to get to that delicious coffee in the kitchen each morning.
The knowledge was just PART of you, a Fact that everyone just accepted and then ignored.
Even as he followed the directions, moving up and down and forward and back over identical sets of stairs, he didn't hesitate for a moment as he finally stepped off the staircase to drop into the nothingness of the hole.
Because it was the right path, and he k̰͖̯̰͢n̡̤͎̯̪e̥͉͜w̡̮̩͙̤̥ so on a fundamental level.
Moments later he was upstairs at the lower basement's door, exiting the magic pit.
…Speaking of which: "I'm going to just… Put a warning sign up next to this door, alright?"
The Home was fine with that.
Which was good. "Right, uh… 'Warning: Magical basement pit within. Please do not enter.' Yeah, that should do it! Straight and to the point and simple!"
…But was it simple enough?
Another sign then. "'If lost in the Magical pit, please try to survive until we can find you.', which shouldn't be a problem as long as they don't have bad intentions and we know about them being in there in the first place. Yeah, as long as they don't freak out too badly they should be fine till we get there. Right?"
The Home didn't shrug, but it felt like it had.
John stared at the innocent looking door with two new signs on either side. "...Meh, that's good enough. Big sis still upstairs?" Probably. "...And does she seem mad?"
His new Home didn't say anything, but it didn't really need to.
Dang it. "Right, best go get this over with."
Maybe it wouldn't be that bad! After all, there hadn't been any rules or agreements about NOT constructing a magical cavern under a house infused with Belief and a horrific, legendary history! Right? Yeah!
~~~Pocket System~~~
Jessica stared at the nervous kid. "You made an autonomous, magically helpful house by accident."
John coughed. "Technically it's not moving or anything, and nothing up here is being done with magic or robots or anything… It's just turned out like this because infusing materials soaked with Belief using raw Essence with aligned Concepts... All that has an amplifying effect. Apparently."
She reached out and lifted a cookie from the bowl on the table. "I didn't bake this. It didn't exist until I reached for it. Neither did that bowl."
Her brother winced. "Ah, but uh… That isn't magic. Not exactly. It's more like the things you need happen to be where they are needed." He pointed at the bowl. "The bowl could have existed in my Pocket, although it didn't, but I COULD have made one using my resources like anything else I craft and duplicate."
John continued on like any of this nonsense was reasonable. "So long as we are the owners of this home and I don't deliberately prevent it from happening, anything we want or need from my Pocket is just… Here. Or Crafted or Spawned or Generated or Forged, and THEN placed here."
She blinked and looked back at the cookie. "You have crispy chocolate chip cookies in your Pocket? And I didn't know?" How had she missed THAT during her inventory check… Oh wait. "You mean your Pocket MADE this cookie when it was needed."
Yeah, that made more sense.
But John shook his head. "Nah… I mean, it WOULD if we had run out or something, but that's an Essence Cookie from Steve's world. Food like that is why I risked my life before leaving the place."
She was already eating another one. "Alright, these are damn AMAZING, I admit… But I am not backing down on the 'Do not risk your life for stuff' rule." Even if these things were VERY delicious.
John picked up one himself and… It was a moist looking oatmeal cookie!? What the heck!?
He happily munched into his impossible snack but then noticed her confusion. "Yeah, when you eat an Essence food it shifts into whatever closest variant of itself exists locally that the user likes most. Just, you know, enhanced."
She glanced at the bowl of (impossibly) still warm cookies… And to her eyes, they ALL looked like crispy chocolate chip perfection. "Could you grab another one? Slowly?"
John shrugged, reached into the bowl… And without changing in any way, the cookie he chose was already another of those oatmeal cookies.
He chomped it with gusto. "Yeah, Essence can act oddly like this sometimes. Strange stuff will probably happen when I start infusing Book and Bookshelf Essence into the new books and stuff we are collecting here… Might be a good idea to do that step downstairs just in case."
She watched him sigh with satisfaction. "And… That isn't magic?"
John grinned. "Nope! Just unstable Essence attempting to find a more sturdy base state. Mostly. Unless the most stable base state happens to include magic, like with the torches in the new Magic pit. THEN it is magic."
Hold up. "Magic pit? Is that the odd warm thing that I can feel glowing under the basement?"
He froze. "Uh… Maybe? ANYWAY, we were talking about our new Home and how awesome it was, right? Let's not get distracted by this or that infinitely recursive pit of Magic and Essence and Refinement and Purification and… All of that."
Jessica's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, bro… I feel like I want to get a little bit distracted. Maybe hear a bit more about a certain Magic pit."
John waved her off. "Nah, totally boring stuff. Hey, want to see how local computers cheat using bits of Belief to replace some missing components and ignore inconvenient physical laws on a micro scale? I'm pretty sure that's how this place has created such advanced technology so early compared to other Realms we visited!"
She gave him the look.
He slumped. "Look, in my defense I was digging a hole and it turned out to be VERY satisfying."
…Yeah, that sounded like John. "Is this 'Magic pit' going to be a potential invasion foothold or increase the risks of portals and/or gateways forming below us while we sleep?"
Her brother shrugged. "Only if we already OWN the place that tries to connect." John tapped a wall. "As long as we don't invite anything in, we are good. And this place is so reinforced it has to be a very FORMAL invitation… Like a full on 'I {Insert my name here} invite {Insert their name here} into the Doe Family Home' kind of formal."
Then fine. Not to mention that it was hard to feel apprehensive about anything in this Home to begin with, considering how well and how comprehensively she somehow knew it already. "Show me the Magic pit later, just so I can feel sure that it's safe."
John blinked. "Oh, it's not SAFE at all! But it won't hurt you or me at least. And I put a sign on it telling other people to try and live long enough for us to go down there and drag them out."
She stared at her sibling and… Sighed. "Fine." Fight the battles worth fighting.
Speaking of which. "Now, about these cookies… You said that Steve had other food of similar quality that you had access to?" She glanced at the (suddenly and conveniently there) nearby clock. "It IS getting close to dinner after all. Any suggestions?"
And John grinned. "Let me introduce you to Essence Pork Chops."
~~~Pocket System~~~
Jessica stared in shock at her fork and her now cleaned plate. "Holy shit."
John threw up his hands! "I KNOW, right!?"
This place was… Disturbingly comfortable and accommodating.
Case in point: She didn't unlock the front door. The front door didn't even HAVE a lock now!
It opened because she was family, and it was closed to everyone else unless she or John specifically invited them. Period.
Rooms inside just happened to be where she expected them, any mental query she had seemed to have an obvious answer (Of COURSE the bathroom is over here! Why wouldn't it be?), and despite this place not having air conditioning the temperature in every room was absolutely perfect.
She didn't even have time to feel too cold or hot before it seemed to correct itself, same for all the water taps… When she washed her hands, after turning on the hot and cold water, the stuff was PERFECTLY what she wanted to suds up. Not too hot, not too cold, no waiting for the temperature to adjust.
It wasn't that this place felt alive, not exactly. Not like the house John had altered in the Muppet Realm. No, it was more subtle than that.
This felt like someone who cared for her and who knew her better than anyone had just been here visiting earlier in the week and had happened to adjust a few things to match her preferences.
It was the feeling of 'well lived in', of a billion tiny flaws and facts and habits being forged into a single living space, of generations slightly changing small aspects of the building to be more. More comfortable, more convenient, more useful, more everything.
She reached down to the kitchen table and took the pain killer and glass of water. Neither of which had been there before she had needed them, but whatever. At least this was handy, even if it felt a bit off putting.
Right, best tear this bandage off quickly then. "John? Where are you?"
And now she knew he was in the brand new basement. And where the new door was to the new stairway to GET To the basement. And how long he had been there. And that he was currently distracted and too far away to hear her if she yelled.
…Right. "Is he safe doing… Whatever it is that he is doing?"
Jessica felt something that wasn't observable shrug. Because theoretically constructing that deeply should have already uncovered all sorts of complications and structural issues and what not, but her little brother was brushing aside all that annoying history and Fate and Magic and stuff because it was getting in the way and he wanted to dig more.
Darn it John… "Could you ask him to come up here please?"
Just because the building wasn't alive didn't mean that Jessica shouldn't be polite, after all.
There was no confirmation, but she already knew he would be coming back up to ground level now.
Eventually.
Damn it John! How deep have you mined already!?
~~~Pocket System~~~
"Hmm mmm hmm hmm hmm, mrm derm digging a hole…"
With each note the boy grabbed another chunk of stuff to clear the way.
"Diggy diggy hole! Diggy diggy hole…"
And replace the wall with Stone Bricks and reinforce the area, some torches and continue the stairs down…
The pattern was never ending. Soothing and familiar. Relaxing.
Humming away, he finished clearing another layer of material under the foundation and proceed to begin working on the next section down.
Mining was fun!
A few minutes later however, John flinched in the middle of Collecting another block's worth of material. "Huh?"
Oh. Sis was Home and wanted to see him.
…Wait, how did he know that?
And now John realized that reinforcing a Home imbued with Belief and a history of being unable to help each new owner defend themself from a horrific death had consequences. Powerful ones.
His new Home was FRANTIC to be helpful. Beyond enthusiastic that it could be a [[Home]] for once, and not simply a death trap waiting to be harvested. Overjoyed that it had been repaired and strengthened and empowered and finally able to P͓͚͢r̖͖͖̦͢o̜̦̤̖͜t͍̩̜͢e̲̟͜c̢̞͚̞t͓͚͜ͅ its family.
What the… "How long have you been THIS aware?"
The house wasn't sure, but it was pretty clear that this happened sometime after John had started building the magical cavern underneath it.
…The what now?
John slowly looked upwards… And realized he had basically stopped constructing actual floors and rooms and stuff HOURS ago.
Instead of seeing a nearby ceiling, he just saw a vertical tube of Stone Bricks with a winding staircase heading up and into the distance.
All of which was visible because John hadn't removed ANY of the Torches he had placed on the walls along the way. At all.
There were THOUSANDS of them! All flickering, all endlessly and eternally lit to keep away the non-existent never spawning monsters.
Hesitating, John reached for the nearest one… Oh dear.
Pure Essence tended to collapse into something more nuanced and tangible when exposed to materials NOT made out of Essence, and the nearest equivalent process to 'The Essence of a Pure Eternal Light on a Stick, AKA a Torch' apparently turned out to be 'Self Sustaining Magic.'
Each and every Torch above was glittering, half flames and half raw magical power.
And due to the Essence of 'Keep bad stuff away' that the original torches possessed, this massive vertical tube of Torches acted as a filtration and purification field for… Well, the entire property.
Oh dear. "Did I make a massive bonfire of magic exposing our new Home to any and all baddies on the planet?"
No.
Sheer relief flooded John as he felt the answer… Because he and Jessica owned this property, they owned the aura produced by this 'magical basement cavern', and thus it was contained within their new building along with everything ELSE they placed inside it.
Because people believed their stuff was safe in their [[Home]], that even intangible and unquantifiable stuff was 'protected' by being contained within said property lines… Even raw magical bonfires of purification and power.
…Although that ALSO meant that the density of said aura was through the roof and concentrated directly into their new house instead.
Which said house appreciated.
John stared upwards glumly. "I'm going to get in trouble for this, aren't I?"
The house helpfully let him know exactly where his sister was currently waiting for him AND how long it would take for him to climb the near endless staircase to reach her. Oof.
Again, how deep WAS this new 'sub basement'!?
…Apparently VERY deep, made much worse by the odd effects of stuffing the near bottomless pit with massive amounts of magical Torches. Spatial warping, time variance fields, recursive steps, gravimetric tapering… This was going to be an ANNOYING climb back up.
It was a tad confusing, considering that John had dug it out and constructed this mess himself and had only made a single staircase down… Yet the raw power in the space now caused sections of the pathway back up to literally act like an M.C. Esher artwork.
Crap. "Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble for this. And it is going to take me FOREVER to get back upstairs from here."
Unless he walked up two flights of stairs, then down one, then up three, then jumped off the side.
THAT would instantly bring him up to one level below the exit door. To the basement with the rooms and stuff he had made before going into a massive digging spree.
…Although how John knew this, he couldn't say. It wasn't even a hint given by the apparently now magical Home itself, just raw information about the place that was understood by a fundamental part of John's subconscious mind.
It felt similar to how, when one lived in place long enough, you no longer had to be awake to walk up or down stairs and open doors to get to that delicious coffee in the kitchen each morning.
The knowledge was just PART of you, a Fact that everyone just accepted and then ignored.
Even as he followed the directions, moving up and down and forward and back over identical sets of stairs, he didn't hesitate for a moment as he finally stepped off the staircase to drop into the nothingness of the hole.
Because it was the right path, and he k̰͖̯̰͢n̡̤͎̯̪e̥͉͜w̡̮̩͙̤̥ so on a fundamental level.
Moments later he was upstairs at the lower basement's door, exiting the magic pit.
…Speaking of which: "I'm going to just… Put a warning sign up next to this door, alright?"
The Home was fine with that.
Which was good. "Right, uh… 'Warning: Magical basement pit within. Please do not enter.' Yeah, that should do it! Straight and to the point and simple!"
…But was it simple enough?
Another sign then. "'If lost in the Magical pit, please try to survive until we can find you.', which shouldn't be a problem as long as they don't have bad intentions and we know about them being in there in the first place. Yeah, as long as they don't freak out too badly they should be fine till we get there. Right?"
The Home didn't shrug, but it felt like it had.
John stared at the innocent looking door with two new signs on either side. "...Meh, that's good enough. Big sis still upstairs?" Probably. "...And does she seem mad?"
His new Home didn't say anything, but it didn't really need to.
Dang it. "Right, best go get this over with."
Maybe it wouldn't be that bad! After all, there hadn't been any rules or agreements about NOT constructing a magical cavern under a house infused with Belief and a horrific, legendary history! Right? Yeah!
~~~Pocket System~~~
Jessica stared at the nervous kid. "You made an autonomous, magically helpful house by accident."
John coughed. "Technically it's not moving or anything, and nothing up here is being done with magic or robots or anything… It's just turned out like this because infusing materials soaked with Belief using raw Essence with aligned Concepts... All that has an amplifying effect. Apparently."
She reached out and lifted a cookie from the bowl on the table. "I didn't bake this. It didn't exist until I reached for it. Neither did that bowl."
Her brother winced. "Ah, but uh… That isn't magic. Not exactly. It's more like the things you need happen to be where they are needed." He pointed at the bowl. "The bowl could have existed in my Pocket, although it didn't, but I COULD have made one using my resources like anything else I craft and duplicate."
John continued on like any of this nonsense was reasonable. "So long as we are the owners of this home and I don't deliberately prevent it from happening, anything we want or need from my Pocket is just… Here. Or Crafted or Spawned or Generated or Forged, and THEN placed here."
She blinked and looked back at the cookie. "You have crispy chocolate chip cookies in your Pocket? And I didn't know?" How had she missed THAT during her inventory check… Oh wait. "You mean your Pocket MADE this cookie when it was needed."
Yeah, that made more sense.
But John shook his head. "Nah… I mean, it WOULD if we had run out or something, but that's an Essence Cookie from Steve's world. Food like that is why I risked my life before leaving the place."
She was already eating another one. "Alright, these are damn AMAZING, I admit… But I am not backing down on the 'Do not risk your life for stuff' rule." Even if these things were VERY delicious.
John picked up one himself and… It was a moist looking oatmeal cookie!? What the heck!?
He happily munched into his impossible snack but then noticed her confusion. "Yeah, when you eat an Essence food it shifts into whatever closest variant of itself exists locally that the user likes most. Just, you know, enhanced."
She glanced at the bowl of (impossibly) still warm cookies… And to her eyes, they ALL looked like crispy chocolate chip perfection. "Could you grab another one? Slowly?"
John shrugged, reached into the bowl… And without changing in any way, the cookie he chose was already another of those oatmeal cookies.
He chomped it with gusto. "Yeah, Essence can act oddly like this sometimes. Strange stuff will probably happen when I start infusing Book and Bookshelf Essence into the new books and stuff we are collecting here… Might be a good idea to do that step downstairs just in case."
She watched him sigh with satisfaction. "And… That isn't magic?"
John grinned. "Nope! Just unstable Essence attempting to find a more sturdy base state. Mostly. Unless the most stable base state happens to include magic, like with the torches in the new Magic pit. THEN it is magic."
Hold up. "Magic pit? Is that the odd warm thing that I can feel glowing under the basement?"
He froze. "Uh… Maybe? ANYWAY, we were talking about our new Home and how awesome it was, right? Let's not get distracted by this or that infinitely recursive pit of Magic and Essence and Refinement and Purification and… All of that."
Jessica's eyes narrowed. "I don't know, bro… I feel like I want to get a little bit distracted. Maybe hear a bit more about a certain Magic pit."
John waved her off. "Nah, totally boring stuff. Hey, want to see how local computers cheat using bits of Belief to replace some missing components and ignore inconvenient physical laws on a micro scale? I'm pretty sure that's how this place has created such advanced technology so early compared to other Realms we visited!"
She gave him the look.
He slumped. "Look, in my defense I was digging a hole and it turned out to be VERY satisfying."
…Yeah, that sounded like John. "Is this 'Magic pit' going to be a potential invasion foothold or increase the risks of portals and/or gateways forming below us while we sleep?"
Her brother shrugged. "Only if we already OWN the place that tries to connect." John tapped a wall. "As long as we don't invite anything in, we are good. And this place is so reinforced it has to be a very FORMAL invitation… Like a full on 'I {Insert my name here} invite {Insert their name here} into the Doe Family Home' kind of formal."
Then fine. Not to mention that it was hard to feel apprehensive about anything in this Home to begin with, considering how well and how comprehensively she somehow knew it already. "Show me the Magic pit later, just so I can feel sure that it's safe."
John blinked. "Oh, it's not SAFE at all! But it won't hurt you or me at least. And I put a sign on it telling other people to try and live long enough for us to go down there and drag them out."
She stared at her sibling and… Sighed. "Fine." Fight the battles worth fighting.
Speaking of which. "Now, about these cookies… You said that Steve had other food of similar quality that you had access to?" She glanced at the (suddenly and conveniently there) nearby clock. "It IS getting close to dinner after all. Any suggestions?"
And John grinned. "Let me introduce you to Essence Pork Chops."
~~~Pocket System~~~
Jessica stared in shock at her fork and her now cleaned plate. "Holy shit."
John threw up his hands! "I KNOW, right!?"
Last edited:
these chapters are just way too small. It's the curse of the readers, you just manage to get into the chapter, and then there are no more words ): Clearly timetravel needs to be invented so you can go to a point in the furture where there are more chapters!
- Location
- My happy place
...Why and How could someone just zone out that bad to just keep digging and building for so long. He already did what he needed to, so could he really just go on doing the same thing on autopilot without getting bored? He had a GOAL when he started right? A point to stop when done.
dracklor
Beyond the Frontier
- Location
- Texas
Never played Minecraft? This is pretty normal.
- Location
- My happy place
No, but he is not in Minecraft anymore. He is a real person with a real body. I think? I know John is supposed to be a weird overpowered eldritch godchild having fun. But for me the sheer "What? Why would you do that?" factor is throwing me off. Because he is not playing thru a screen, he is living in his body. So the way he is acting doesn't feel right or "Real" to me.
Norr
Misophist
- Location
- Any chair
They are going to find the Magic Pit and assume it's an uncapped Hellmouth, but somehow Not Evil, and it's going to confuse the heck out of them.
As someone who once terraformed a 100 sqm slope into a terraced garden because I got inspired after playing Minecraft? I can totally see John doing this. He doesn't have a normal human body, after all. I'm also pretty sure he doesn't mine using regular tools, he just Pockets and unPockets stuff, so it's like he's digging/building in Creative Mode all the time.
Last edited:
Oh... oh please let the Scoobie Gang get invited in. Between the house keeping everyone safe, and Buffy, Willow, and Xander likely to willfully ignore the warning signs. Not only would that magic well wash away ALL of Willow's mind whamies on Buffy, AND Xander. It'd also wipe away all of HER'S too. ALL while cleansing their souls.
With a likely not insubstantial possibility of forcing genetic growth to fill in the missing brain development in Willow. She'd be forced to become a person. Alex will finally get to be himself, and probably find he doesn't even like Buffy like that, and not only would the Slayer get the demonic essence cleaned and fluffed, it'd also correct any genetic damage that the "Essence of" portion of the Demon used to make Slayers could have been causing. Meaning that there'd likely not be the usual BS with aging Slayers going insane (hence why the barbaric Curcimantium (sp?)) And if John can get ahold of Steve before they leave, he could probably get some Ghast tears, or other phantasmal essence items that he can then reinforce the new clean "Demon essence" (that likely is no longer demonic) and have it make a whole new kind of Slayer, that'd probably go completely off the PTB rails, and start finding actually useful hosts that'll start tipping the scales toward good, revealing the PTBs to be balance makers all along.
They have to be invited to within the house first, to find the Magic Pit, much less sense it.
BobtjeNORMALguy
Color From Beyond
- Location
- Lost in time and space
I guess I'm not a real person then?.. Because this happens all the time for me I actually have a bad sense of time because of it. So I take it you've never met anyone with ADHD, OCD, or some flavor of Autism then.
- Location
- My happy place
In a game or real live? Because even if thirst and hunger don't stop you there has got to be a limit to how long someone can go without a reason or reward.
BobtjeNORMALguy
Color From Beyond
- Location
- Lost in time and space
Both: From personal experience the the limit can be around 12 hours or more even without food/water. A couple of times I was only knocked out of being hyper focused when I fell asleep sitting up.
So his behavior personally makes sense to me but I understand why it wouldn't for others.
- Location
- Sol;Terra;EU;D;NRW
Ignore pit, embrace foodstuff.
Totally normal reaction when it comes to the good stuff.
Once John figures out how to get modded minecraft food from the marketplace they will feast.
Probably attract a famished slayer or hunter or two. Especially if there is the food of the gods also known as Twinky.
Totally normal reaction when it comes to the good stuff.
Once John figures out how to get modded minecraft food from the marketplace they will feast.
Probably attract a famished slayer or hunter or two. Especially if there is the food of the gods also known as Twinky.
- Location
- Europe
So, when they leave this place, will the house come with them as well?
Wonder what would happen if they would end up in the Harry Potter universe, you know.
John should scan a couple of elevators, you know.
Should help with the basement, for one.
Now to bring in all the MIB stuff and then some.
Wonder what would happen if they would end up in the Harry Potter universe, you know.
John should scan a couple of elevators, you know.
Should help with the basement, for one.
Now to bring in all the MIB stuff and then some.
Well, at least they won't be able to find it, other than 'Sunnydale'. And I suspect only that because there's a lack of the hellmouth and associated taint. And the pattern of vampires staying away from a specific area, though that particular bit would be less noticeable. And partially depends on how they normally act/actually spread word to 'stay away from the scary area'.
-
And the massive area that John ended up grabbing up would have some sort of noticeable effect regardless of being able to be found or not. And that it is also filtering the energy. Which in turn makes it a 'lower density' for the surrounding area, along with keeping the filtered and purified energies in. That might slow it down a bit, depending on if the purified energy counts as density for the corrupt/tainted stuff, or it's separate enough. Given the Belief factor, it's quite possible it's acting like vacuum cleaner, with the combination of things of Corruption/Taint doing its best to do the same to the innocent, the fact that Filters filter harmful stuff away, and Homes are Safe. That and their Home might well decide to get a bit proactive in that. Not allowing anything like Vampires in, but the mindless corrupt energies? That can easily be purified? That's easy enough, especially if it's sucked in through the 'roots' of the Magical Pit. Like a metaphorical Tree in house form.
I half expect John to end up going exploring in the other underground areas and absentmindedly plopping down Torches (or other light sources with that same Essence property), but not doing any actual digging. Maybe pumping that same 'No Monsters' Essence into streetlights. Feeding into the Belief that street lights provide Safety. Something that can cascade, since people would actually feel safe because of the Essence. Would take a bit, given that most everyone has already learned not to stay out after Dark, but it'd probably cut down on the obituaries, since those are the people that would tend to be out during that time (probably).
Though something kind of disturbing comes to mind; given that there's a high death rate, but also still enough people to be functional something is going on there. And I think Belief might be a key. Part of it being that the Mayor provides the image of a successful town, which needs a population. And there's only so much bringing in new people to town, and a higher than average birthrate to keep things stable population-wise. Meanwhile, the vampires, demons, and what not would have the Belief that if they go hunting, they'll find what they're looking for.
Which brings to mind a horrific possibility, something that might only be possible because it's on a Hellmouth. That some of the victims of vampire attacks and the like didn't actually exist until after being 'found'. With retroactive memories being inserted into people akin to what happened with Dawn. Enough to go 'oh hey, that was a person that existed', possibly with 'stand-in' family members that just 'moved away' after the tragedy rather than anyone that actually existed. And enough memory fading to ignore the fact that they didn't actually live anywhere or the like. With more details existing out of Belief if they survive/get turned. A minimum of changes that occur due to Belief.
Something that actually fits with 'television show made real' on the metaphysics. Writer needs a vampire to feed? Just make some nameless person. Same with a new fledgeling being needed. More or less giving a 'reason' for the background characters that don't have a name/history. Until they need them. Which, again, is kind of horrifying, to have such an extension on the 'big enough library you can find anything' kind of setup. And well, it's canon that some demons outright refer to humans as 'cattle'. It's eerily similar to mobs in minecraft in a way. Just popping in out of nowhere, except it's actually people. (And as a side note, I don't recall anything in this fic's version of thing as to how villagers worked, if they exist or not, if they are similar to Steve/his friends/builders. Which might be the closest comparison. At a guess, I'd assume they're filled with the essence of something like 'NPC'. Otherwise... John destroying everything behind him might have unfortunate implications unless it was an old enough branch to be before them.)
Fragnostic
Cheshire
- Location
- Neko City
Once again, I am lawfully obliged to post this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34CZjsEI1yU
Nah, considering its alignment it's more of a Heavenmouth. The first of its kind in BtVS.
Because you know John can't stop himself from making more. It's therapeutic.
A! You are forgetting a few vital bits of info!
1: John is a child and like all children he gets lost in thing he enjoys like digging. I know I got lost in a lot of things as a kid, movies, sandboxes, beaches ext...
2: John was conceptually supported by the supper house... As a 'home' people are supposed to be comfy and well rested at home... Even in the super magic cavern/ basement.
3: John is a young elder-thing or multidimensional being thing.... Tired is a relative thing and mostly a interesting flavor of the day. Like warm red or cool blue light is for meer mortals.
This is more of a sid note but John is under the influence of a fragment of the ever expanding! Infinitely developing! And perpetually confused Adam Adventure Burns! The bone daddy him self who's shadow can mutate entire universe due to a hankering for candy...... Weird mystery basement is like a 2/10 on the 'its just a...' scale.... Many a 2.5/10 because it fulled by a new 'faucet' of 'reality'.
Last edited:
Since none of the magic is leaving the house probably not unless John starts mucking things up... Though I can see him feeling sad that the statues are all moldering and it would only take some essence blocks to fix things right?.....
- Location
- Sol;Terra;EU;D;NRW
John could get access to them easily. Or at least a version of them.
Because there is a minecraft mod for them.
Tho the jumpscare soundeffects may make them slightly less effective....
It's chapters like this last one that make me realize that in a few months I'm going to have to sit down and read the entire story over again from scratch, because it's too good and I'm caught out waiting for another amazing and somehow still creative and unexpected chapter again.
...I may need to go read the adventure of Adam Burns a third time. Damn it, I had stuff to do this week!
...I may need to go read the adventure of Adam Burns a third time. Damn it, I had stuff to do this week!