Day 43: Sun Room, Second Shift

[arc_wrench]

When the shift changed, HK stayed put. Even after a long night of zombie killing, he had no interest in meatbag fuel, especially after all the discussion of chocolate with that rather strange meatbag. It was just making him crave the stuff even more than he had previously, if that was possible

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[piggy_king]

Breakfast had been a rousing success. Not only had Porky gorged himself on delicious bacon and sausage, but he had also managed to make his first friend at the institute! Wait...was Harley his first friend period? ...No, that couldn't be right. In any case, Porky was ecstatic. With a huge grin on his face, he waddled into the sun room and plopped down into one of the chairs, content to let his stomach quietly digest his massive meal.

Finally Porky had a chance to relax. Having nothing else to do, Porky leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and in a few minutes he fell asleep, snoring rather loudly.

[free~]

[per_ardua]

Raine managed a light breakfast, then went back to the Sun Room to try to relax for a while. The new intercom speaker was concerning, but as with most things here, she couldn't do anything about it.

There were a few people she needed to talk to/check up on, but in the meantime she settled in a chair and opened her book again. She noticed the loud snorer, but considering how involved she tended to get in her reading, it shouldn't bother her.

[piggy_king]

Ah...Porky was having the most wonderful dream...he was back in New Pork City, watching Lucas and the rest of his bratty friends and that stupid dog lower into what must have been a pool of lava. Surrounding the magma was, of course, a cheering crowd of people, many of which with signs printed with things like "I LOVE PORKY!" or "LUCAS SUX!" Of course, Porky's focus was mainly on Lucas and his friends. They were begging for mercy, but right as Porky was going to give the thumbs-down that would have sealed their fate, a loud squeak came out of nowhere.

"Whu-?" Porky mumbled as he snapped to attention, "What was that?!"

Porky looked around frantically, only to find that the cause of the noise had been from the chair next to him. Well, it would take more than that to dampen Porky's spirits! In fact, all it meant was that Porky had someone else to talk to!

"Hello there!" Porky said, a warm smile on his face, "Enjoying that book of yours?"

[per_ardua]

It took Raine a second to figure out she was being spoken to. Looking up, she said, "Oh, hello. It's... interesting." She didn't entirely understand anything, but that appeared to be the point of the story.

She didn't recognize the man, but some people around here were just friendly. If he wanted to talk, that was fine.

[piggy_king]

"What's it about?" Porky said, leaning over to try and get a better look at the book's title, "I'm afraid I'm not much of a reader, but there's a chance I'd know it...Ah! Pardon me for not introducing myself sooner!"

Porky immediately thrust out his right hand.

"I'm Porky Minch," Porky said cheerfully, "Pleased to meet you!"

[per_ardua]

Wondering what had him so enthusiastic, she shook his hand in return. "I'm Raine Sage.

"I take it you're from Earth, then? I'm not, so the entire library is new to me." There was a definite light in her eyes when she said that; she hated this place as much as anyone else, but it had definite pluses. "The book is Through the Looking Glass. It's more confusing than I like right now, but it is intriguing."

[piggy_king]

"Through the Looking Glass, eh?" Porky said, frowning, "I'm afraid I've never heard of it. Well, that's probably because I'm not from this Earth, either!"

Porky let out a small chuckle. It had been barely four days since he had been here, and already he had come to accept the theory of alternate worlds so easily. Truthfully, though, something like that was a bit more plausible to Porky, what with his ability to travel throughout time. Compared to that, parallel universes seemed almost normal.

"Well, my world is probably more similar to this Earth than yours is, I suppose," Porky said, "And I also take it you love books! Your eyes positively lit up even when you merely mentioned the library here!"

[per_ardua]

Was she really that obvious even here? "I'm a scholar, so yes." Learning had yet to lose its appeal, ever. There was a reason she'd latched onto Reinforce so quickly.

"What about you?" He'd said he wasn't much of a reader, but he'd also expected to at least have heard of her book. At the least, that implied he was well-educated.

[piggy_king]

"Oh, me?" Porky said, a little nervous. Porky certainly couldn't lie to Raine, but he also couldn't tell her the whole truth about his identity. What to do?

"Uh..." Porky stuttered a little, "Well, I was the leader of an island. It was a rather small one, though. But I'm sure a scholar like you would find it very interesting there! There were all sorts of bizarre animals and ruins there, not to mention PSI users! It was truly a fantastic place!"

Hopefully Porky's little diversionary tactic would work just as he hoped it would. If Raine was as much of a scholar as she seemed, all of the loose ends that Porky had left dangling there in his description of the Nowhere Islands would be positively impossible to ignore! If all went well, she would forget all about his former status as king!

[per_ardua]

He had definitely said the magical distracting words. "Ruins? I'm from a fairly small village myself, but the nearest site takes hours to get to. What sort of ruins? And what's PSI?"

She'd met leaders of all kinds before, so she didn't immediately conclude he was a king. Besides that, it didn't matter what his title was at home; those were generally irrelevant here.

[piggy_king]

Just as planned. Porky doubted that Raine would be prying into his past any time soon.

"Well, I can't say that I have the same problem as you with regards to the ruins!" Porky said, giving a small chuckle, "The ruins near my town are right outside the village gates! It's a positively massive castle! In fact, it's so big that we haven't been able to fully explore it during a four year investigation! Not only that, but it's teeming with all sorts of evidence of past civilizations! There are hundreds of suits of armor, paintings galore, and even some primitive indoor plumbing! We don't know much about Osohe Castle yet, but when we find out about its past, it's sure to be groundbreaking

[per_ardua]

Words could not express Raine's jealousy. "You say you've been exploring it for four years now? What kind of textiles does it have? Is there a library?"

Porky didn't seem like a very enthusiastic archeologist, but if he was interested enough to bring it up, that was good enough for her. The idea that he might not have done much investigating himself didn't cross her mind.

PSI also sounded worth discussing, but he'd already explained enough of the basics so that it was the castle he'd mentioned that really had her attention. She would be perfectly happy to hear about it all day.

[piggy_king]

My, Raine was a pushy, wasn't she? Well, no matter

[per_ardua]

"What's the definition of 'modern' here?" Raine asked, sounding even more interested. "A lot of the technology here is past what I know--indoor plumbing, for example, is nearly unheard of. I haven't gotten much of a look at the stoves in this area, but I'd never seen an electric one before; I've never lived in a house with anything but the wood-burning type. If it means anything to you, I'm told my world is largely pre-industrial."

The ghosts he was telling her about were certainly worth hearing about, as well. "Did you ever manage to communicate with these spirits? If they're willing to share their stories, what they have to say could be invaluable, especially if what they experienced firsthand is beyond living memory."

[piggy_king]

"Well, for me, 'modern' means around the state of things around here, you know?" Porky said, vaguely gesturing towards the institute, "Like, post-industrial I suppose. The world I come from has electricity and stuff like that, so what was odd about Osohe was that its kitchen was almost exactly like a kitchen you'd find in the institute. Quite odd, wouldn't you say?"

"As for the ghosts," Porky said, frowning a little, "Well, they were a bit...belligerent. I'm afraid they weren't much for talking. They were more inclined to attack us. Understandable, though, considering they must have thought we were 'invading' their home. Ir was purely archeological, of course, but I take it you've heard of poltergeists that think people are 'stealing' their homes, right? I'm sure it was something like that. Either way, we couldn't really communicate with them. Even Lord Passion, who seemed to be the most intelligent ghost, would rather fight."

[per_ardua]

"Hmm... I'm more familiar with spirits than actual ghosts. We did have to fight the summon spirit of darkness, but only after we had it all... assembled. Until then, it was split up into pieces that didn't try to attack or do anything else hostile--they didn't even mind being touched." Raine had, of course, tried repeatedly to pick them up.

"I'm more familiar with actual immortals than types of undead, in general."