whoops?

[andaisq]

Morty knows he shouldn't be screwing around with multidimensional shit. It's dangerous, it's impractical, it's blah blah blah. But it's a potential key to unlimited energy, how does nobody see that? He's built a dimensional siphon (it kind of looks like a cardboard box with a funnel and a TI-84 taped to it, but it damn well works), keyed in the dimensional coordinates to a random plane, and by God he's going to use it.

He flips the switch and waits for the energy bar to fill up.

It does! It fills up very rapidly. Then it explodes, along with the box. There's rather more smoke than there should be, and once the smoke clears someone is standing there.

"Whoops?" Morty says faintly.

Comments

[andaisq]

Morty makes a sour face. "The mental disorder of choice among mutants, especially Devisors. Characterized by fits of egomania, along with regular mania, plus a tendency towards obsessive and antisocial behaviors. Most of the time I'm pretty much alright; when I'm in a fit, I'm Doctor Insano. I was having a fit when I built the machine that summoned you, for reference. I'm pretty sure I actually said the words 'I'll show them, I'll show them all!'" He shakes his head in disgust. "What a fucking tool."

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh. I haven't had nearly enough actual therapy training to begin to comment on that and I'm sure the locals are better equipped anyway."

[andaisq]

He shrugs. "The therapy thing isn't really for treatment, anyway; that's all about how the wires in my brain line up, nothing much they can do about it. It's mostly just to keep me from feeling too shitty or not shitty enough about the stuff I do when I'm riding the crazy train."

[subtly_artistic]

"Gotcha. How often does this happen?"

[andaisq]

"Depends on my stress levels, really. It averages out to about once a week, with a really bad attack every month or so. I'll get little flickers of it if I get too worked up about something I'm making, but that can be headed off pretty easily by distracting me with something shiny. Fred- my roommate, he's gotten really good at that."

[subtly_artistic]

"The guy with the dog ghosts? ...I hope you don't wind up summoning people every time this happens to you, most of them wouldn't be so gung ho about it."

[andaisq]

He laughs uncomfortably. "No, this is a one-strike kind of deal. If it became a habit, I would be in a lot more trouble than I am. Usually what I end up doing is accidentally blowing something up, but that's what blast shields are for. And yeah, Fred's the one with the dog ghosts. Real good guy. We're in the same basic combat class."

[subtly_artistic]

"So you do have combat classes but you don't have a weapons policy. Not sure what to extrapolate from that."

[andaisq]

"Um, probably that we don't stab each other? Mandatory combat classes are all unarmed. And you can take weapon training if you want to for some reason, like you have the power to manifest a sword or you're training to be a big-league super or something. But otherwise it's just aikido and tae kwon do and stuff, unarmed nonlethal combat. Half of it's just so we get some exercise."

[subtly_artistic]

"Huh. ...Is this a college or a high school?"

[andaisq]

Morty shrugs. "Honestly, it's kind of both. It's for high school age kids, but structurally speaking, it's way more a university style. Plus half the students are geniuses one way or another, so if you want more advanced course material you can go all the way up to grad school classes if you want. It's weird."

[subtly_artistic]

"So I'm probably older than everyone here, being nineteen?"

[andaisq]

"There are older students! Most people manifest in their teens, but it's been known to happen in the twenties, and if you come to Whateley to learn to use your powers, you enroll as a freshman regardless. It's a special arrangement, but there's usually a few of them in every year."

[subtly_artistic]

"I pretty much already know how to use my powers and I don't think anybody here is particularly likely to know the kind of magic I was learning. Maybe I'll wind up somewhere else."

[andaisq]

He sighs. "Fair enough, I guess. It's a great place to learn science too, though. And you could learn our kind of magic?"

[subtly_artistic]

"That could be fun. Both of them."

[andaisq]

He perks up a bit. "Yeah! Especially since you're sort of starting from zero, there really is probably nowhere better than Whateley to get yourself up to speed on science stuff. And the local magic- well, I never really got anywhere with it, but you could see if your experience with your kind makes it any easier to understand? Or something?"

[subtly_artistic]

"That seems unlikely, but arcane magic and subtle arts are completely different and I like them both, so might as well add more."

[andaisq]

"I can get behind that. I'm a specialist, but it's kind of hard to resist the urge to specialize when your specialty lets you pierce the heavens and fly in the face of God using only cardboard and duct tape."

[subtly_artistic]

"...So, you can also get away with thumbing your nose at deities, here?"

[andaisq]

"Yes."

Morty once again looks like he wants to throttle an alternate universe.

[subtly_artistic]

"Are they real and just uniformly really laid-back about blasphemy, or... not real?"

[andaisq]

"Some of them do exist? Or at least it seems that way, like, there's an Avatar of Ganesha and it seems like that'd imply there is a Ganesha to be an Avatar of. But they don't smite anyone on their own. Supposedly they used to smite people thousands of years ago, but these days I feel like they're worried someone might smite them right back."

[subtly_artistic]

"...That's weird. I mean, people sometimes get into fights with gods at home, if they're epic enough - I think attempted deicide is a formal crime in the Imperium, even - huh. I don't know what to think about that. But talking about them any which way is definitely safe?"

[andaisq]

"I mean, I'm sure that killing Zoroaster or someone would be frowned upon. They might be subject to murder laws, even. All I'm saying is that a particularly thunderbolt-happy deity might end up being classified as a supervillain and Thwarted. And yeah, god-bothering's 100% safe. I mean, don't do it to their faces, but that's rude anyway."