Nightshift 38: West Wing, North Hall 1-B

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

from here

Now, if Teisel were a sixties-numbered room, where would he be? It shouldn't be too far away. He only had two directions to go in from here. Farther down the hall were women's rooms, if he remembered the nameplates right. The rooms were probably arranged in a grid, so...

No sense standing around. He had a fifty-fifty chance of going the right way, so he might as well go...to the right? Why not.


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[enigmaticmedium.livejournal.com]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/545951.html?thread=45463199#t45463199)]

The hall they exited into was fairly empty, which didn't surprise Xelloss too much. He supposed most people were already at or further along their way to their destinations. Then again, if new patients were arriving this suddenly, that might add to the population within the patient room blocks.

That thought brought to mind how exactly King... Minch or Porky?... had been delivered into Landel's Institute. Nobody ever reported seeing unconscious bodies being carried into bedrooms to wake up, of course. The idea of lowering them from the ceiling was impractical, but funny. Teleportation seemed more likely, which to Xelloss indicated magic yet again.

"If you don't mind my asking, your highness, do you have magic in your world? Oh, but you must, if you make chimeras!" Xelloss offered the assumption blithely, ready to be corrected. People did tend to call magic by odd names in other worlds, after all, and the king might not want to talk about his creations anyhow.

[piggy-king.livejournal.com]

Xelloss was rather nosy, wasn't he? Well, no matter. Porky didn't want to get on Xelloss' bad side (if he even had one), so he answered the questions. It's not like Xelloss would be able to somehow turn them on Porky, anyway.

"Well, we do have a form of magic on the Nowhere Islands," Porky explained, "but it's not exactly 'magic,' per se. It's called 'PSI,' and it's actually a form of mental energy. It might as well be magic, but, because it's related to the mind, only a few people can use it. I knew a few people that could, but I can't use it myself."

Porky hoped that the explanation he offered would be enough for Xelloss, but explaining chimeras would be a tad more difficult. After all, Xelloss seemed to have a few grave misconceptions on the subject.

"As for the chimeras," Porky began slowly, "In my world, chimeras are merely animals. Some of them are made from two animals fused together and some are animals with mechanical parts. Anyway, there's no magic involved in the manufacturing of my chimeras. But what about you? Chimeras seem to be drastically different in your world. Different enough to be called a person, at least."

[enigmaticmedium.livejournal.com]

The openness of the answers was surprising, but convenient. Xelloss felt somewhat pleased by the fact that Porky acknowledged the similarities between magic and what was called 'PSI' in his own world, in comparison to those who stubbornly insisted their worlds had no magic and that the whole idea was crazy, despite the fact that they had some supernatural talent that just went by a different name. Flexibility in thought and in frame of mind weren't bad traits at all, but they seemed to be rare in humans.

"Really, PSI? That's interesting! Learning about new types of magic is one of my hobbies here, it's too bad you can't demonstrate it yourself, but you seem to know a lot about it, your highness." Of course, the king could easily be lying to reinforce the idea that he was helpless to Xelloss, but testing that out was too much trouble for the moment. "Where I'm from, it also requires a certain kind of person to be able to use it. Unfortunately, abilities like that are much weaker here, but most people find other ways to stay alive even if they had depended on magic before!" He gestured loosely with the shovel for emphasis.

"It doesn't sound like chimeras are so different, either. Aren't humans a kind of animal? Different species are mixed together in a laboratory using magic--the person I knew was human, but also part demon and part golem. I believe he wanted to be stronger, and he was much stronger after that!" Xelloss knew the outline of the story, but had never taken enough interest in Zelgadis to really follow up on details. His connection to Rezo, and in turn Rezo's connection to Lord RubyEye, were the most interesting things about the chimera to Xelloss. Mentioning that chimera creation was considered a horror to most humans in his own world wouldn't be very polite, so Xelloss kept that to himself for now.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/544700.html?thread=45556924#t45556924)]