private 1x1 with Unicorncob (rp)

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"Not really what I meant." Jenna said quietly, but didn't specify further, it wasn't really a topic she necessarily wanted to think about too much, but what she had meant was in the wording, she hadn't asked if they could return, she had asked if there was anything to return to. "I'm scared."

[Unicorncob 5,685]

"So am I," Oliver muttered. Of course, he never really made that a secret, he'd had nothing but bad feelings ever since all this started. "But we can get through this, right? You're strong and smart, and I...well, I can help you somehow."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

Jenna let out an unsure hum of agreement, but didn't say anything, instead she just stayed there, leaning on Oliver, clearly focusing on just trying to relax herself, and until Oliver did something or said something, she'd be like that for a while, slowly stopping herself from shaking.

After some time, after she had been seemingly calm for some minutes, Jenna suddenly looked up towards Oliver in realization "Wait a second, why is there no mold here? it's everywhere else."  a random thought to be sure, but she had said that thinking about stuff calms her down.

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver let Jenna lean against him, feeling her shaking. He wanted her to get time to calm down and collect her thoughts.

He looked around the room when she asked that. "Hey, you're right. Everywhere else looks all abandoned, but this place is nice and clean." And then he realized. "Do you think that means this world's you is still around?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"If what I saw yesterday is real, no, since she's laying in the bedroom dead." Jenna pointed out, that was the sole reason they kept that door closed after all, she didn't want to know if it had been real "And even if not, the writings make it pretty clear that she's not here anymore, at least not in a mental state to clean up." "Also there is lot of dust, and mummified food in the fridge." "But there's no mold." "The mold seems to be everywhere that can have mold, and things that can't mold seem to have decayed otherwise, like rusted and crumbled." "But this apartment seems fine." "Even the paper is as good as new, even though all these books and papers would be the first thing to go bad" 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver's blood ran cold as he listened. None of what he was hearing made any sense. "It...might have happened recently..."

His skin crawled. He hated being here and having nothing he could do about it. "I don't know what to do."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

Jenna thought for a second "What is 'recently' here?" "I mean, I didn't think of it earlier, but we may not know how time here works." "With all the weird inconsistency in the age of things, we can't actually be sure if time works here, so to speak." "It could go faster, slower, not at all, or in some weird nonlinear way." "The dates in the writings are months ago to us, but they could be years ago, or only few days ago here, we have no way to tell." 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver swallowed. That was a good point. He hadn't seen anything that told them what the time or date it was. They could be in the future for all they knew.

"Maybe there's a clock or phone somewhere we can check?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"All the clocks I've seen have been stuck in different times, so those tell nothing, a calendar would at best tell what was the last time someone touched it." "And while phones or other electrical things could tell something, it would require one that has been turned on this whole time, since turning off may reset them, which may be hard to find considering all the damage and the fact that even regular battery clocks seem to have run out of power." "Not saying it's impossible of course, but currently the only working pieces of anything counting time we have seen, is our own clocks, which do seem to work normally." 

"That said, the fact that everything is so....worn, and the fact that even batteries seem to have run out, it does hint at it having been longer than mere months, since batteries in low power things like clocks can last quite long." 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver bit his lip as he tried to think. Phones and other electrical devices seemed to be no good when it came to finding out if this was a whole different point in time, but there had to be something that could help.

"Oh!" he gasped. "What about newspapers? They probably won't tell us today's date, but it might tell us when things went wrong?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"That has the same problem as calendars, it would tell us the last date when newspapers were printed and sent out, but it doesn't help with figuring out the point in time" Jenna pointed out "And we already know the dates of when things started going wrong thanks to the clippings this Jenna collected, and her writings. And that was few months ago from our point of time."

She thought for a moment "Only thing I can really think of that could tell the current date accurately, besides the unlikely case that there's survivors somewhere, would be some kind of government, military or science related facility, with something that is protected against the elements, and has its own power source made to last." "The only problem with that, is how hard it would be to find one, considering such facilities aren't exactly common, and it's not like every one of them has something like that, nor would all such things necessarily count time either." 

"Though in the other hand, we saw back in the school that there's still power, so there is a slim chance that somewhere out there exists a computer that still works." 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

"Then we can go back to the school and look for a working computer," Oliver said. "That should tell us when we are. We might even find some information on what exactly happened here if we look around enough too."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"We explored it already." Jenna pointed out "Besides, the local Jenna writes that schools were closed, something the state of the school also confirmed, so there's no reason to think they left anything running." "Also, ultimately finding it out is not as important as the reason why we came here in the first place, which is trying to stop it from happening at our home." "So it shouldn't be our main goal, but rather a side curiosity we'll try to find out while looking for other information." "What happened is more pressing than when it happened after all." she suddenly realized something "It just hit me just how dangerous this place may be." she put the notes she had been making from the other Jenna's writings in front of them, pointing at the notes regarding the so called 'death-zones' "Those may still be around, there may be areas in here which are just instantly deadly to us." it was a terrifying thought, more so than the weird undead going around, because at least for the latter, they had a way to spot the danger.

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver blinked. If Jenna thought they couldn't try exploring the school again, then why did she suggest it?

Though, he didn't like the sound of something even more dangerous around. "So we just stay out of the death-zones then."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

Jenna hadn't suggested that they would explore the school, she had merely used it as an example for the idea that power is still running in the city, since they had been in only two places, the school, and here, and here the power was offline due to the water damage in the basement. 

"That's the problem, how do you spot something like that in a place where nothing but weird mold lives." "How do we know that we aren't inside one right now?" "That's what makes them so dangerous, if they are still around."

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Well, we've been here for a while and we're still alive," Oliver pointed out. "So that must mean we're safe enough here. Or at least it isn't a death zone."

He tried to think of anywhere that would still have power. "Maybe we could look for somewhere that would have a backup generator?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"At least not active one." Jenna half-agreed, the fact was, that they had no clue what they were or how they worked, or why they ever were a thing in the first place.

"Yes that is an option, assuming it hasn't been long enough for things like that run out of juice." "But like I said, while interesting, and possibly important, ultimately it's not our main priority." she went through her own notes again, "But regardless, I think we have gotten as much information as my local version has to offer, so we should probably start planning our next move." It did still bother her how clean the place was, and she wondered if it had something to do with what she had been feeling when they came here.

[Unicorncob 5,685]

Oliver shrugged. He had no idea what else to suggest, since they didn't seem like the right move to Jenna.

"So what do we do next?" he asked. "It seems like we've done everything we can do in here."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"We gather our stuff and keep following the mysterious beam in the sky." Jenna said, getting up and gathering the local Jenna's writings to return them where they took them "Our main goal is still to try and figure out if we can close the portal, or otherwise stop this place from spreading to our world..." she paused for a second "...And hope we are not the only ones who got this idea." 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

"I hope it's nothing dangerous," Oliver says, referring to the beam in the sky. "Maybe we'll find someone else investigating it, if we're not the first ones to try anyway. It'll be nice to have someone who could help us."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"It is possible." Jenna stated "If it turns out that the portals connect to some central point, we could meet others from our world, who have gone through their own portals." "And I do wonder what happened to that one person we saw before coming here, the one with telekinesis or something." "But what comes to previous people that have tried and still are around...everything is possible when we don't even know how time works here." 

[Unicorncob 5,685]

"Maybe if we head toward the beam, we'll find someone who was brought here as well," Oliver suggested. "If not, we might at least find some clues about what happened around here, or what 'around here' is."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"I hope so" Jenna said, she hoped both of them would be true, but the former bit more, because, if there was nobody else, this all could be for nothing, after all, it was one thing to close one portal, but totally another to close them all. She started gathering her own stuff back to her backpack "Realistically speaking, it is the most likely place to find others, since big beam on the sky is a good source of navigation, even if you don't know the destination. " "But we need to be careful, because if there is something hostile in here still, it would be reasonable to think that it would be guarding whatever the source is."

[Unicorncob 5,685]

"Yeah, whatever it is," Oliver said. "Someone or something might be protecting it for some reason. I'll see if I can sniff them out first, though. It should be easy to tell since everything smells so musty here."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,594]

"True, I imagine that anything that doesn't smell like mold and dust would stick out." Jenna said in humorous way, after the smell of smoke and  the food they had made had faded, she was reminded of the smell, honestly, she would have preferred the smell of car exhaust over this, because at least then there would be some variation, she could only imagine how it was for someone like Oliver. "Are you ready to leave? have you gathered all your stuff?"