JGOB, Wednesday afternoon

[livingartifact]

Jenkins was feeling a bit more social than usual today, and thus decided to head over to the local bakery for a snack after his class. He ordered himself the largest, most red-filled jelly donut in the shop, in honor of the subjects of this week's zoology lesson, and settled in to enjoy the metaphorically bloody massacre of it (with a napkin tucked into his collar to protect his suit and tie, of course) while watching the street traffic pass the shop by.

There were, of course, any number of reasons why he'd decided to isolate himself for much of the last few hundred years, first and foremost being humanity's terrible habit of dying just when you got to like them, but he had rather missed this part. "People-watching", as it had apparently come to be called, had the potential to provide nearly endless entertainment, especially when you randomly assigned all the passersby torrid affairs.

[Open! I'm spending the day trying to decipher 30 year old faxed tax audit guidelines and my mouth tastes like dentist. Distract me.]

Comments

[squidpiddge]

Molly had come in not so much for a needed snack but for the delightful smell that wafted through the place.

When you yourself smelled like death when you weren't covering it up with perfume (which she was, of course, she wasn't going to be rude when spending time with the living), you tended to appreciate great smells.

She then recognized the man from the shuttle ride and walked over.

"Hello," she greeted with a little wave. She had, almost out of reflex, pulled out her reporter's pad and a pencil.

[livingartifact]

"Ah," Jenkins greeted. "The young time traveler. I trust you've been settling in adequately?"

[squidpiddge]

"I have," Molly said with a smile. "It turns out the future isn't anywhere near as scary as where I used to live. The water is cleaner and I've not seen a single rat!"

[livingartifact]

"Ah yes! Mankind has made several remarkable leaps in hygiene. A friend of mine traveled back to the late 16th century not long ago, and could not stop complaining about the smell. . . ."

[squidpiddge]

"Well that's what happens when you don't have a good sewer system," Molly said. "Though that usually leads to the rats."

She shrugged a bit. "Don't have to worry too much about those now. Though the squirrels here seem particularly... peculiar."

[livingartifact]

"Far more sapient than those I've encountered elsewhere," Jenkins agreed. "Have you come to any conclusions based on this fact?"

[squidpiddge]

"...the squirrels are eating all the rats?" Molly offered. "Or they're magical. Could also be both. I haven't spent much time studying them."

[livingartifact]

"Considering all the other . . . oddities . . . that populate the island, I suspect magic is rather the obvious conclusion, yes," Jenkins said with a faint smirk. "Though it's also possible the rats themselves have become cannier in the last 100 years, and better at hiding."

Jenkins had now met a race of sapient -- and incredibly superstitious -- mice, after all. He wasn't going to discount anything.

[squidpiddge]

"Magic rats tend to be a little more... flagrant, at least where I come from," Molly said. "But then again, I've not gone into the sewers. But as I prefer not being gnawed to re-death, I think I'll avoid testing that particular curiosity."

[livingartifact]

Jenkins blinked. "I'm sorry, did you just say 're-death'?"

[squidpiddge]

"Oh, yes, sorry," Molly said, with an apologetic smile. "I'm quite dead already. It just hasn't taken, thanks to some pointed use of necromancy."

[livingartifact]

"Indeed," Jenkins said, leaning forwards in his seat. "You will forgive my impertinence, but you are quite the calmest undead individual I've ever had the acquaintance of."

[squidpiddge]

Molly nodded in agreement. "Well most aren't in full, or any for that matter, control of their faculties," Molly said. "I'm a bit of a special case, if I do say so myself."

[livingartifact]

"Fascinating," Jenkins said. "I don't supposed you'd be willing to discuss what made you a special case? I'm a bit of a . . . tinkerer in the areas of magic and science, and while I've always drawn the line at performing necromancy, I must say I'm very curious."

[squidpiddge]

"Oh, absolutely," Molly said. "It's pretty fascinating, and I'm not just saying that because it's me. But part of it involves things that I'm starting to think are only in the world I come from."

She gestured at an open seat near Jenkins. "I could share now, if you like?"

[livingartifact]

"Certainly," Jenkins said with a nod. "I currently have nothing but time on my hands." He frowned at his thumb, then rubbed it on a napkin. "Well. Time and strawberry jam."

[squidpiddge]

"Well, one of those is far tastier than the other," Molly said, sitting down.

"So where I come from, there's a magical world called Malifaux, which you can travel to from Earth through a bit portal. And in Malifaux, there's these crystals with magical energy trapped inside them. We call them soulstones because they get that power from, well, souls."

She shrugged like this was no big deal. "I was brought back, at least the second time, with a particularly powerful one. And that led me to being able to slowly regain myself. Though I still spent a lot of that time as a puppet for the necromancer that raised me."

[livingartifact]

"The second time you were brought back," Jenkins said. "My word. This sort of thing happens often in your world?"

[squidpiddge]

"Well there's an entire cadre of necromancers who like doing this sort of this, yes," Molly said. "They're really the worst sort of people - using people's bodies and souls as puppets for their own thirst for power. It was just my luck one liked me enough to kill me, and then crash my funeral to raise me from the dead."

Molly shuddered. "And he liked me enough to bring me back again after he accidentally abandoned me to die again in the snow."