A Whole New World

[commandshumor]

Who: Todd, Open to everyone
What: Introductions and general checking the place out
When: Wed. Aug 8
Where: Library floor
Rating: G to PG (just in case)


After some interesting conversations through a magic journal with fellow people who were trapped here as he is, Todd decided he'd had enough of the fancy new bedroom-though it was indeed a nice upgrade from prison and a bench on Atlantis-and decided to explore.

He had not had any hunger pangs nor the side effects of sickness, suggesting that whatever was done to him worked where Keller and Beckett's retrovirus did not. Lacking the feeding slit in his right palm, the Wraith found himself running a couple fingers over the void skin every so often. Upon discovering the lack of one method to feed he'd tried the "normal" way. He just had to accept that the days of feeding upon humans were over with. This was what the retrovirus had been designed to do. It just so happened to happen on another world. It wouldn't be easy but he'd already tried a few grapes from the fruit bowl in his room.

Little steps.

While the tapestries and whatnot were impressive and nice, Todd found himself at a window, looking out across the expanse of this new world he'd been placed on, the scenery much more interesting to the old wraith. Until he heard footsteps and the scent of another nearby.

Comments

[madetosin]

"You wouldn't, no. I've barely scratched the surface of the city myself, and I hear there's even more out there," he says, gesturing towards the hills in the distance.

[commandshumor]

"Has anyone attempted to travel beyond the borders of the castle and city?" he asked, examining the man further

[madetosin]

"According to what I've read, yes. Assuming it's all not an elaborate ruse, of course."

He tilted his head in an appraising fashion.

"Do you fancy yourself an explorer?"

[commandshumor]

"I suppose every wraith is, considering we travel often." he replied with a slight shrug. "Well if this place has no real boundaries it must mean that if they do have a Stargate, it is in orbit. Unfortunate for us all."

[madetosin]

"Unfortunate seems to only be the beginning of our problems in this place."

Suffice it to say, he wasn't a fan of something else pulling his strings.

"Enlighten me - what is a Stargate?"

[commandshumor]

If he had eyebrows, they would be raised in surprise. It is not often one finds another who is not familiar with the Stargate system.

"I will elaborate. Stargates were created to get from one planet, solar system or galaxy to another in less than a moment. A transportation device that De-molecularizes your body and sends it to a destination predetermined by a set of star coordinates. A transportation system quite simply. Some Gates are on the planet itself, others are above, accessible only by spaceship."

Get all that?

[madetosin]

Luckily, Muraki was blessed both a scientific mind and the openness of someone who'd seen beyond what traditional science would deem possible. Still, it was something of a grandiose claim. Something that might seem more like the work of fiction. Then again, the being standing in front of him seemed to be like something from those very same stories.

"It would be all too convenient if such a thing were available here. And if it were, I wonder if it would even function..."

His magic, that normally would have allowed crossing over the borders of dimensions, didn't allow his escape. Unless this was, as this 'man' suggested, another world entirely.

"And you travel through these gates often?"

[commandshumor]

"Of course." he said as though it were obvious.

"The Stargates allow my kind to harvest our feeding grounds, among other uses. The gates that orbit the planet also allow us to come and go as we please while keeping the humans grounded on the planet."

[madetosin]

The words 'feeding grounds' caught his attention. It could mean simply they were hunters or keepers of animals, though why so on multiple worlds?

"Are humans not allowed access to them?"

[commandshumor]

The wraith chuckled as the doctor didn't seem to understand. "Humans are our herds. We feed upon them, taking their very life force from them."

[madetosin]

Most people might have been appropriately aghast at that statement. Not so the doctor, who was struck rather abruptly by the coincidence of this meeting (one he wasn't about to divulge), and instead smiled wryly at that statement as he idly pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"That sounds unhealthy for them."

[commandshumor]

"On the contrary" he said with a toothy grin. "Regulating the population ensured that they didn't advance beyond us nor grow too numerous to start ruining the worlds they occupied." he said "Also, diseases and plague were rooted out and gotten rid of. All that remained was feeding themselves and keep from inbreeding"

[madetosin]

He raised a brow, though his expression remained as bland as ever. "So you see yourselves as saviors."

It wasn't a question. And he couldn't deny the benefits that might pose, objectively. Humans were, in fact, stupid, destructive creatures. Crushing a few for a higher cause certainly wasn't beyond him.

"What makes you think you're better than them, if it requires regularly impeding their advances to maintain your foothold?"

[commandshumor]

"Superiors, not saviors." he corrected.

"Or, most of my kind think so anyway. I have learned much from a group of humans who recently came to our galaxy. They are not like the humans we cull. They are strong and look after one another like Wraith do. Ten thousand years of uninterrupted evolution and solitude from our race, making advances in technology and expanding greatly as a population."

Todd's gold green eyes flicked to the scenery again. "They have been great help to me."

[madetosin]

Humility. How boring. But the rest was intriguing enough to inquire more deeply.

"So you no longer believe yourself to be their better?"

[commandshumor]

"Yes and no." he answered. "Things are complicated. Even more so now that I'm here and unable to feed upon humans which it seems is going to take more getting used to than I first thought"

[madetosin]

"Really? Is is a property of this world, or something else?"

Any information about the capabilities of the castle could be valuable.

[commandshumor]

"It seems to be the castle's doing. I was perfectly hungry and ready to feed on any who offered themselves and then I was here. Without the pangs,-" the wraith lifted his right palm, void of anything unusual, "-and without the means to feed."

[madetosin]

Muraki raised his eye at the more or less unremarkable hand he was presented with.

"If I may ask...how is it that you feed normally?"

[commandshumor]

The wraith chuckled. "Why all the questions, doctor?"

[madetosin]

He smiled, though there didn't seem to be much humor in it.

"I'm sure you're familiar with with the concept of academic curiosity."

[commandshumor]

He shrugged and decided to play along, though Muraki was sorely mistaken to think he'd get away without answering a few questions himself.

"Typically we have a slit in the palm to which we press against a humans chest and drain their life force, leaving them as little more than a dried corpse."

aaaaa sorry for the late

[madetosin]

He blinked once at the frank explanation which was startlingly familiar and yet alien - an appropriate comparison, it seemed.

"Like another mouth, then. And given that you've been removed of the ability, I take it there is no other way for you to feed?"

tis fine, i've been busy lol

[commandshumor]

"I cannot feed upon humans anymore, or for the time being, no. However, wraith start out eating what you would call normal food before moving onto humans. I can eat normal items, but it will just be...less fun." he grinned broadly, showing his pointed teeth,

[madetosin]

The doctor smiled back, thin and vaguely pleased, not at all in keeping with the morbidity of the topic.

"I can imagine, especially if it's something you've grown used to. Not unlike a drug perhaps." It wasn't quite a question, and there was something maliciously knowing in the way he said it. He stepped closer to drop his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "What does it feel like?"