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[red_planet_blues]

[Today you are all graced with the visage of the Mars marshal, who has finally decided maybe it's time he brings something up here on the network.]

Howdy folks. Name's Sparks Nevada, if we haven't met yet. Before this planet, I was on one called Crystallis. Though before that, I was on Mars, and originally, I'm... from Earth. Thing is, I know a few folks who're from Crystallis that are here, too. It was kind of a similar situation. Y'know, the whole getting dragged outta yer home to be forced to live on another planet with crazy magic and chocobos and all that stuff. The difference there was that we were all considered to be somethin' called "Heroes of Light" and we had to basically save the planet -- the whole multiverse, actually -- from gettin' annihilated. Yer welcome, by the way.

Thing is, there are sure a lotta coincidences on this planet. If the jobs and the races 'a folks and all that ain't enough of a clue, the place names are a dead giveaway. Half of them are named for the Heroes from Crystallis. Even I got one - Sparks Goldsaucia. Pretty cool. Reckon it's all a bit too much to be a coincidence.

Bonnie also brought up the map to me, and... [He looks that over in a separate window.] If ya squint just right, and slide some bits around, sure as heck does look like Crystallis. Durin' that whole apocalypse thing, the planet did get kinda messed up and broken, so I guess we wouldn't have known what the continents looked like after all that. Woulda taken some time to re-map, and I was only there for a month after the whole ordeal was over. Had a planet to get back to marshaling, ya see.

What's my point to all this? Guess my point is that I don't believe in coincidences. The universe is, like, both too big and too small at the same time for that nonsense, if'n that makes any sense at all. It does. I think.

Comments

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[red_planet_blues]

[Sparks is momentarily distracted by the fact that someone sent him a photo of a letter. It takes all of his willpower to not make a crack about this, but it helps she admitted not knowing how to use the Slate very well yet.]

Reckon that's the idea I'm getting. Honestly that's what I thought was going on the second I arrived, even if the people here don't know why. This sort of thing doesn't happen just for laughs, right? There's got to be a reason behind it. At least I hope there is.

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[rivieran]

[ Typing is just a hindrance when there are so many things to discuss! ]

Indeed - this seems too much to be just a simple joke. I hope you don't mind me asking you what you got up to on your previous bout as a Hero? While there's no way to tell the future, it may better prepare the rest of us newcomers what sort of thing we might expect.

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[red_planet_blues]

Well that's a long story, since we were there for a few years doing the whole Hero thing. But in the grand scheme of it all? Saving the planet, and then probably most other planets too, from getting crystallized.

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[rivieran]

Interesting - so it was not just "this" realm - or your equivalent of "this" realm at the time - that was in danger, but others as well. Did that also include Earth or Mars? If so, then I suppose that may be bad news my own home may be in danger too.

Long story or no, I would be chuffed to hear some things you got up to as a Hero. For example, was it mostly fighting demons or monsters, or did you spend time in negotiations with authority, or plane-hopping to different planets to save them?

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[red_planet_blues]

Probably both Earth AND Mars. Apparently any of our homes were in danger too. But hey, let's not jump to any conclusions yet before we know for sure. Besides, we did this all once before, and now this time you'll all have the benefit of our experience. I'm not the only guy from Crystallis here.

Actually we did all three of those, but it was more like time-hopping rather than plane-hopping. And not everyone. But yeah, we had to deal with other nations who had different agendas than us. One of 'em outright attacked the one we were living in at one point, because what we needed on top of everything else was a war.

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[rivieran]

And for that, I and I'm sure the rest of us newcomers truly appreciate, or will come to appreciate the experience you and the others from Crystallis will bring to the table. We are already learning about what we might be able to expect while here on Vaikuntha, thanks to you; I cannot imagine what it would be like without any of this help.

Regardless, that certainly sounds like an ordeal, and if war was one of the results of your expeditions then I am not too surprised that there are so many of us here. I certainly hope we won't have any deaths on our hands, but that may sound like a tall order...

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[red_planet_blues]

Yeah, the thing that'll worry me now if it starts happening, is if people start turning to crystal. Cuz that was a thing that happened. Sometimes people snapped out of it, but mostly they didn't. Kept them in a ward in the hospital just in case they did, though.