progresscity | Intro Log

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Intro Log

Who: Everyone!
What: Your first magical day
Where: Progress City Tranport Center
When: Right now
Warnings: None planned!

[Today you found a ticket to a theme park. It seems relatively normal, except that it reads: Lifetime Parkhopper Pass to Progress City. ”The Most Magical Pocket Dimension in the Multiverse!” This is not a theme park you have ever heard of, if you live in a world where theme parks are of the norm.

For some reason you’re drawn to the ticket. There’s something… magical in this piece of paper, and you can practically hear it calling out to you, and you feel compelled to pick it up. It’s strange, but it’s a piece of paper, what’s the worst that could happen?

However, the moment you pick it up, you feel yourself being pulled. There is nothing pulling you but there is an overwhelming sensation that something is pulling you by the chest into the ground. You don’t have time to process what’s going on before you suddenly fall over, the strange feeling going away the moment you hit the ground.

It takes a few moments for you to regain your bearings, but as you look up you are suddenly hit with the fact that, wherever you were before, you certainly aren’t there anymore. It appears to be a transport station of some sort, and a very sleek and new one at that. Monorails pass by the station every couple of minutes, with small, slower moving vehicles consistently move in and out of the center.

The innermost wall, right behind where you stand, is lined with portals. It appears that you came in through this portal, but if you try to go back the way you came in, you’ll find that you are unable to enter it, no matter how hard you try.

While the realization that you are now trapped in this strange place, you will soon find that you also have a strange band strapped to your dominant wrist. No matter how hard you try to take it off, it seems like it’s stuck on there.

At least you’re not alone, along with a bunch of other people who arrived around the same time you did, there are humanoid people who seemed to be intrigued by your arrival. They’re all generally nice, but get confused if you ask them why you’re here and why you can’t leave. They will, however, happily tell you the name of the place you’re in if you ask:

Progress City.]

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[It's a good thing Della loves answering questions, then! Also, admittedly, she's interested in the whole talking cat thing (he's not standing on two legs or wearing clothes, okay, it's weird).]

Uh... you mean the street lamps? It's just a light! You know, to make the streets easier to see at night.

Interesting... and certainly helpful for those who can't see in the dark like myself. But how is it that the red flower stays trapped upon this stick? How does it not die out or spread?

Red-- um, nope, there's no flowers involved, just electricity.

[She spends a while just staring at the street lamp, trying desperately to figure out what the fuck that question even means.]

...Sorry, what're you... asking...?

[Bagheera pauses, thinking it over. At last, a word comes to mind.]

Fire. That's the other word for it, fire. I know man uses it, and uses it to see at night, so I take it this... "lamp" is powered by fire, as well. I was asking how it does not spread and burn the whole area.

[You took on the task of explaining electricity to a panther from a jungle in the late 1800s, you did this to yourself.]

Oh. Oh! Fire! Got it, that makes sense. [Sort of. She guesses she can see how it would look like a flower.] No, electricity is something different. It's not going to burn anything.

...Well, unless you touch it after it's been on for a while. But you don't have to worry about that with street lamps.

Oh? So then, what is electricity? How does it work? And how did man come to learn how to use it?

[This may have been a mistake.]

It's, you know, an electric current. Think like... lightning? Y'know how that's bright? It's like that, but smaller. [Not exactly a great explanation, or very accurate, but she's not really sure what else he would know that she could list as an example.]

It works in different ways with different kinds of lights. And that's a really long story! It'd probably be boring to explain all of it.

Then that just leads to the question of how man learned to harness the power of lightning! Is it related to how they learned to use fire?

And I would like to hear it, if you don't mind. This is all quite new to me. Everything here, from the stone we are standing on[He gestures to the pavement of the sidewalk.], to the buildings around us... It's nothing like I've ever seen before.

[He's a little overwhelmed, honestly, but Bagheera wants to learn as much as he can as soon as possible so he can catch up. You wouldn't deny him that, would you?]

Er... probably? We don't exactly know how, uh, people started using fire. It was a really long time ago for us. But I mean... I guess I can give you a brief history lesson on electricity, if that's where you want to start!

[She can't fault him for being curious, she guesses, even though she doesn't know how to explain to him that she's never been big into science and knows little more than what she remembers from school. She can give it a go, anyways.]

But first I gotta ask. You keep saying only man uses things like this, do... animals not have this stuff where you come from? We're all kinda the same, where I'm from. I don't want to give you information from my home if it's different where you're from.

[There's not really, uh, humans where she's from. But they seem to act just like everyone in Duckburg does so that's not as strange to deal with and she hasn't bothered asking them about themselves that much yet. Still, if there's important differences she's missing then she'd feel bad sending Bagheera off with duck-centric information.]

Hm. Odd. No, where I'm from, all animals live in the wild, and man lives in its man-villages. There's a little overlap~~[Mowgli, for instance]~~, but that is how it is. Man creates its own inventions, and we live off our instincts and survive.

[He had noticed that this bird looked... strange, and wore human clothing and the like. Bagheera'd been a bit too distracted by the technology lesson to ask. But now that the question has been raised, it's managed to take his attention away from electricity. Be grateful, Della.]

What is your home like, then?

I guess it's not that different for us! We've got regular animals-- uh, I mean, animals like you, who don't wear clothes and... well, they don't talk to us, and they just do their own thing. But then there's us! [She just gestures to herself.] A different kind of animal. We have villages and inventions and stuff, too.

[She pauses to consider something.] ...I don't think 'man' exists in Duckburg. Or anywhere, really, I've never seen them before I came here. They're the furless guys, right? They're not that different from the people in Duckburg otherwise, they just look kinda weird.

Interesting! I was wondering how you came to obtain man's clothing. But you can only communicate with some of your fellow animals?

The furless creatures, yes. They're... usually, they're to be avoided. They create weapons and can control the red flower- the fire- and strike down any animal they can hunt or who they believe could be a threat.

But these ones seem... tamer. Of course, it could just be from the shared confusion over what's going on here.

[Bagheera's tail lashes a little. He still doesn't really... Trust the humans, and he's not letting his guard down any time soon, but for now no one's hurt him or any of the other animals he sees. And as long as that continues, he'll keep his peace.]

That's about right, yeah! When you say it like that I guess it might sound weird.

[She does notice that he seems a bit uncomfortable with the topic, and imagines that humans are a touchy subject. Understandable, she figures, from that point of view.]

Well... we can all communicate with each other, so I don't think any fighting's going to start any time soon. Nobody has any reason to make weapons or start fires, either. I mean, I don't think anyone needs to hunt here or anything.

It is a little weird, yes, but no weirder than the whole of this situation.

... I certainly hope you're right about that. Confusion and paranoia often leads to in-fighting, and this situation has plenty of both. [See: Bagheera's arrival.] Communication won't necessarily prevent or stop that from happening. Especially if some of the people brought here are... less than savoury.

Fair enough. But I'm sure once we get things figured out, everyone'll calm down. Unsavory or not, we all seem civilized for the most part and I'm sure nobody will do anything rash once we've all settled down.

I'm glad you're optimistic.

[That's not sarcasm- he really is, and this conversation has definitely eased his mind a little.]

Sorry, I just realized- we never really introduced ourselves.

Just used to being in weird situations. It usually works out-- I'm sure it will this time, too!

[Oh, right, introductions. She holds her hand out at first and then retracts it once she realizes it's kinda pointless in this situation.]

Right, sorry! I'm Della Duck. It's nice to meet you!

[Bagheera is... completely bemused about the hand thing. He tilts his head to the side and stares at it, completely puzzled, before Della retracts it.]

And I am Bagheera the panther. And the same to you.

A panther, huh? Y'know, I've met a couple panthers before, but none of them could talk. How did you manage to learn?

Hm? I learned to speak the same as anyone- from my parents and the animals around me. Where I'm from, we're all capable of communicating with each other, with the exceptions of some prey animals.

[We're not getting into the ethics of killing sentient prey animals on day 1, alright, let's save that for another time]

Most men cannot understand the talk of animals, however. The fact that they can now is certainly a change from home. The only one I've ever known to be able to speak our languages is my man-cub, Mowgli.

It's probably got something to do with however this place works. If it is magic, I mean. Or advanced tech... I guess at some point they seem pretty similar.

[what are the ethics, Bagheera, the people demand to know. She seems much more interested in the latter topic than continued discussion of how translation works here, though.]

Your man-cub? You're raising a human kid? And that's-- how's that... working out? And how can he talk to animals?

[Bagheera practically swells up with pride.]

I found him in the jungle as a little boy- orphaned. I brought him to the Seeonee wolf pack and they raised him like one of their own pups, with me as his mentor. He learned the language of animals because he was raised alongside us all his life.

[The grin on Bagheera's face slips a little, however.]

I hope he'll be alright while I'm here. I know he has Raksha and the rest of the wolf pack, and Baloo, but... I worry.

That's incredible. [She's never heard of a kid growing up raised by animals before-- well, not this type of animal, anyways-- but it's obvious how much Bagheera cares for him.] And... I'm sure you taught him well. He'll be fine, and like you said, he's not alone or anything.

Besides, this is only temporary. We're gonna find a way out of here within the day, I'm sure of it. Then you can go check up on him!

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Intro Log

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