Beneath

Earlier today, Ed and I came across someone on the lower levels of the Great Library. He'd either taken a bad stumble or was poking around behind the barricades and some unstable masonry caught him a nasty whack. Either way, he wasn't in good shape at all.

Fortunately Tenny was on hand to link him to the clinic, where he's being looked after now. Damndest thing, though. He couldn't tell us a thing about himself. What happened, where he came from, not even who he was. Total blank. Worryingly, he couldn't even recognise where he was. The word D'ni meant absolutely nothing to him. Despite the fact he was wearing Yeesha's shirt.

All we have to go on is his KI. It's pretty mashed up, but we were able to get a name from it. Benavud. We've passed it to the Restoration, hopefully they'll be able to work with it.

Gods. Douglas Adams really was right about Thursdays, wasn't he.

I asked around, but nobody's familiar with the name. I also checked the work registries, and Benavud's not there either. Did all I can for tonight, Jules. Sorry I wasn't much help.

Jules Lavisham wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 9:45 pm
Gods. Douglas Adams really was right about Thursdays, wasn't he.

Apparently.

I've taken a few pokes at Benavud's KI, and I think I can pull the Age-Registration, KI#, and Name ID off of the old device and transplant it to a new machine. It'll be a bit harder to pull journal and photo documents, let alone the incoming folder due to the damages the device suffered, but it might be doable if I can manage the transplant over.

Okay, Dr. Quinlan ordered a blood test and it just came back. BENAVUD'S NOT HUMAN.

He's- what?

...Oh, I take ONE Day off to deal with personal matters and I miss- what??? How even...

Please tell me someone has a chatlog?

Yeah, Tenny made this announcement to a few of us yesterday. Since he looks human, the most likely explanations are that he's D'ni or a Bookworlder, but we're not sure which. I've got a few ideas for how to determine that, based on suggestions made by other explorers yesterday. Either way, it's definitely big news.

The guy's a mystery, though. Both Tenny and Jules confirm that he speaks fluent American English. And that's not the only contradiction; he was found wearing a Yeesha shirt, but according to the good doctor, there are no Journey Books in his Relto. So either he didn't take the Journey (in which case the question is: where did he get the shirt?) or he did take it, and the question is: where are his Books?

Tenny said Benavud should be ready for visitors soon. Probably just a couple of people at first, but in a week or so he could meet the explorer community.

Just posted the chatlog.

Carl Palmner wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 9:48 pm Yeah, Tenny made this announcement to a few of us yesterday. Since he looks human, the most likely explanations are that he's D'ni or a Bookworlder, but we're not sure which. I've got a few ideas for how to determine that, based on suggestions made by other explorers yesterday. Either way, it's definitely big news.

The guy's a mystery, though. Both Tenny and Jules confirm that he speaks fluent American English. And that's not the only contradiction; he was found wearing a Yeesha shirt, but according to the good doctor, there are no Journey Books in his Relto. So either he didn't take the Journey (in which case the question is: where did he get the shirt?) or he did take it, and the question is: where are his Books?

Tenny said Benavud should be ready for visitors soon. Probably just a couple of people at first, but in a week or so he could meet the explorer community.

Just posted the chatlog.

...First of all, thank you, Carl.

Second of all. *What.*

Discussion on the discord made me realize some things. One, after a head injury there is a super small but possible chance of some sort of Foreign Accent Syndrome, Usually happens after strokes or large brain trauma... and we are dealing with apparent retrograde amnesia (which however is generally implied to be more a disassociation thing caused by more mental trauma than physical but physical is on the table, and both tend to have gradual recovery). Thus our pool of potential sources to know english is large, unless you get him into an mri/ct/etc and see if there's any visible damage. fmri/pet/etc wouldn't be amiss either.. but of course they're even more fun to get booked. And expensive too.

Still, the other thing is... we tested a few languages... but the one that should be tested is D'ni. Even if he's not D'ni, the language would be a bit of a lingua franca amongst the written Ages, including whatever one he came from (if he came from an Unwritten Age, then we're down the rabbit hole into how he got here, which is too deep for even me to consider plausible). And fluency would help tell, as a D'ni would probably know the language far better than a different HSX (Homo Sapiens Xenokhorus or however it'd be) member who might know some words but is fluent in their native age tongue (see Cho).

And of course other fringe theories for how he has an empty Relto. When is a hood assigned to someone's Relto? What if someone gets it in another age than Earth/D'ni and thus has no default hood to link to, and it possibly relies then on them visiting one akln to if it's been deleted? Just wondering for now.

I have an idea about why his Relto is empty. I think that he was attacked and whoever attacked him RAIDED his Relto.