Twenty-Seventh Drop: playing catchup

[spiritofsorrow]

Friends in the City, you have my apologies for disappearing. I went exploring, lost myself a little in the new Shadowlands, found my way back...it is a very strange place. I didn't see anything of much consequence, since I spent most of the time simply thinking to myself...

But the ticking drives one home, and to others, and I missed you all. And so

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[harrysbackup]

Not that I've noticed. I've been doing my best to keep my eat to the ground.

[aibyoukaonigiri]

The shadowlands...?

[spiritofsorrow]

A place of fog and confusion, not so far from the City itself. It appears to look the same...and it is near-impossible to stay there for long periods of time. I believe I can go there, because I can shift myself into the other side, in my world. When I do that here, I go there.

If that is the afterlife of the City, it is a hostile, oppressive, and eerie one indeed.

[aibyoukaonigiri]

Ehhh!? So it's...an spooky copy of the city? You...you should definitely try to avoid it!

[spiritofsorrow]

It isn't so bad for me. I become as I was in my world, there -- a spirit, incorporeal and thus fairly immune to monsters. That is, the usual sort.

It is spooky, yes...but also, oddly peaceful. I resided in a slightly friendlier place of a similar nature, when I wasn't in the mortal world.

[horrible_penny]

You missed one heck of a curse.

Sorry to echo Tohru, but Shadowlands?

[spiritofsorrow]

What happened?

Ah...a term, for a copy of the City that seems to exist, for those who can cross over to the other side. At least, that is how I think I got there.

It felt as if I were fading out again...so I stepped across the threshold, what is usually there between the mortal realm and the spirit world, and what I found was surprisingly similar to the other side. Gray and foggy. Quiet. Still. But so telling -- there were places that had auras, some smelled like blood. But the environment is hostile, which is strange -- even being the ghost that I am, it was choking in a sense, heavy, oppressive. I can't stay there for long.

And there, I am a spirit, nothing more, nothing less. Intangible, incapable of interacting in most ways. It is as if I revert completely, become what I am in my world.

Likely as not, I could take you there, since you are no longer one of the living. I could do that, in my world -- take those between life and death to and from the spirit realm. If I reached the Shadowlands in that way, so, presumably, can

[horrible_penny]

France happened. I've got to say that I never thought I'd spend a weekend as a French prostitute.

Wait, the City has a copy? A ghost copy? That--wow. I'm sorry you ended up there, especially alone and all... spirity. How did you get out? Any idea why it's creepy?

[spiritofsorrow]

Ah--well. I see. You...don't seem very much the type, yes.

Yes, it does. But do not fear for me; I have lived alone in that sort of limbo for years. When I depart from the mortal world for a time, I go there...and then I come back.

It is simply an ability that I have, the power to cross between this world and the next, and back. I can go to the Shadowlands at will.

Why is it? I...I don't know. If it is some sort of afterlife, I saw no spirits there. Perhaps I missed them. Nonetheless, it seems a place where most wouldn't be able to stay for very long. Maybe it is simply another City, another version, one in which no inhabitants can live.

But I believe it must have more significance than that.

He read Penny's thread

[hidesinrestroom]

... Another version of the City?!

[spiritofsorrow]

Da, another. This one more resembles that of the immortal realms...

If you ever find yourself there somehow and can communicate, I likely have ways to get you out. Let me know. I'm not so sure that others may not stumble into it eventually...alternatively, someone malevolent may take you there. I likely am not the only one who can travel there, if I know the magical nature of the residents here.

[hidesinrestroom]

Great. As if the curses weren't enough..

[spiritofsorrow]

On the other hand, if you ever find a reliable way of going there, you are sure to lose any pursuers, and can likely come out somewhere else. It is a neutral ground, since it is hostile and beneficial to all equally. Perhaps we can make use of it.