Video

[snowsparksjr]

[A seventeen-year-old boy dressed in ornate golden robes sits cross-legged on a bed in an undecorated room. It’s the middle of the night, but he’s awake, and there’s a restless energy in his fidgeting which hints that he has either just finished pacing or he’s about to start.]

How is it that none of you people have heard of cultivators???

[His tone is bossy and irritable. He has discovered that people are wrong on the network. Thank goodness he’s here now to save you all from yourselves.]

What methods do you use for suppressing the spirits of your dead? You know, if you’re not properly soothing the spirits of your ancestors you’re going to be overrun by ghosts and walking corpses any day now.

Are burial customs different for imPorts than for locals? Has anyone seen ghosts and walking corpses here?

I’m here now, and I’ll be able to help you with everything you’ve been doing wrong. Give me information about how burial is handled in this place.

[Sitting up straight like a little prince, he beckons at the screen, expecting to be brought information like tribute.]

Comments

voice;

[thecacophony]

Are you a medium?

[snowsparksjr]

I'm a cultivator.

[Weren't you listening??]

Pacifying and suppressing restless and violent spirits is part of our duty. If you don't have cultivators here, then explain to me who pacifies and suppresses your violent ghosts and corpses.

[thecacophony]

[Sorry, kid, she barely paid attention.]

Yeah, okay, but you do magic on the dead, right?

We've got some other people here who do that shit too. They've got a shop, if you really want to go ask some questions about this kind of crap.

[snowsparksjr]

[Well at least she got the basic gist.]

Yes. What is the location of this shop?

[It's reassuring to find some evidence of qualified persons who handle ghosts, even though Jin Ling thinks that owning a shop is likely to indicate that they are low-class or driven by petty greed.]

text;

[mofi]

back where im from
we just floated them

[snowsparksjr]

THAT JUST CAUSES PROBLEMS FOR PEOPLE DOWNSTREAM.

[mofi]

out into space
not a river

[snowsparksjr]

WHAT SPACE

voice;

[mycrosstobear]

[Well, there's a kid who's going to have a lot of adjusting to do.

Dryly-] Pretty sure at least ten percent of imPorts are already dead back in their worlds.

[snowsparksjr]

[This is an unexpected new data point to consider.]

So maybe that is what's happening. The sorcerers who run this place are using necromancy to bring and reanimate dead souls from other places.

Are you dead?

[mycrosstobear]

[Oh, like Hell is he discussing that with some new brat on the network.] Are you?

[He sighs.] Look, try reading the stuff around here first. There aren't any "sorcerers" in charge, it's not necromancy or anything from your universe. You charge in acting like you're going to fix a problem that doesn't exist, you're just going to mess things up for everyone.

that’s literally Jin ling’s mo

[snowsparksjr]

I’m trying to get information about WHY this place doesn’t have that problem. Why are there no ghosts?

text

[choosetruth]

It's easy to keep walking corpses down where I'm from. So long as you destroy the brain, you're golden.

[snowsparksjr]

WHAT ABOUT THE SOUL?

[choosetruth]

Already gone, if it exists at all. Not my purview.

[fettchquest]

Where I’m from, the dead stayed dead, buried or not.

It’s less simple here.

[snowsparksjr]

We’re here now. So what happens HERE?

[fettchquest]

Some ImPorts who die return alive. Usually after a few days or weeks.

They are themselves. Not corpses or ghosts.

[He has seen what appear to be ghosts here as well, but suspects they were merely illusions. They’d proven nothing more than a short-lived annoyance anyway.]

[Not Here, But Always Here Too.]

[dazzlingdream]

[Too rash. Too rash by far. Yao wants to caution him, but it is no longer his place. So, instead, he watches, eyes faintly narrowed as if he is working out a complex equation.]

video;

[storyseeker]

If you're interested in the specifics, stop by a funeral home and see if they'll agree to walk you through it. Gotta say that being overwhelmed by the walking dead hasn't been a problem so far, though.

[snowsparksjr]

[This is good and helpful advice. Jin Ling has learned enough about this communicator by now that he understands how to enter "funeral home" and investigate the results.]

These funeral homes must be diligent about their practice. I will look into it further.

[storyseeker]

They are. Well, they'd have to be. There are some pretty strict laws.

[Video]

[prophesiedone]

They don't exist in our worlds maybe? [Kid. Kid.] I don't think it's really necessary to even think about the spirits of the dead in my galaxy.

[That is a path he doesn't want to go down. His mother. His victims. Padmé.]

I don't think imPorts stay dead for long and I've never heard of their bodies sticking around when they do die.

[snowsparksjr]

[Jin Ling just stares at all of this. It's so opposite to what he's used to thinking that he doesn't know where to start.]

We--we imPorts, we don't exist after we die here? So we go home. So maybe this world isn't real, if everyone real is brought in from other worlds.

[Sorry, natives, apparently Jin Ling just decided you're not real.]

[prophesiedone]

That isn't exactly what I said. If you die, you could go home and forget you were ever here. Or you will return, good as new, in a certain amount of time.

[He likes this one's spunk; he just doesn't want him to have the wrong idea.]