Jump 121: Flatland

Jump 121: Flatland

Location: Flatland
Identity: Commoner
Drawbacks: [+2400] Loon, Arrogance, Isoceles Triangle, Irregular, Woman, Wanted, Lineland, Me Be King Of Pointland!

[2800/3400] Uber-Dimensional: Ten Dimensional
[Free]      Reach Down
[2900/3400] Uplift
[3100/3400] Strangely Regular
[Free]      Master Of Your Trade
[3400/3400] Geometric Genius

No one in the world knew how it happened. A one-dimensional world, where its inhabitants only knew light and dark that just passed over all. It was known that there were those in front of them, and those behind; conversations were had, but one always knew their neighbors intimately, for one could never move ahead or behind another. Such thoughts were of course insanity.

And then rumors began to circulate.

Of one line that ... disappeared, mysteriously.

Of a line that reappeared somewhere else.

Of a line that whispered horrible things, impossible things.

Rumors always passed around, of course, but this one was a disturbingly persistent rumor.

...

"The sky is falling!" shouted the strange, irregularly triangle as it sped past, the law in pursuit of him, their hexagonal shapes immediately apparent to most who watched. "The end is coming! It starts with a point!"

"What is a... 'sky'?" one octagon asked another, being rewarded with nothing more than confusion.

The triangle, rather than answering, turned at an angle that hurt everyone's eyes and rapidly slid away, its dimensions reduced, now only a line. One disturbance of many, that began to increase over the course of time.

Those of the higher castes in Flatland saw it for what it was. Not just a single triangle, but a dangerous cult. There were at minimum dozens of likeminded psychopaths, insisting that higher dimensions existed, that they were but part of a single higher being who was going to pronounce judgement. Such was, of course, insane. Only the most addle-minded would entertain such thoughts to begin with, let alone deal with it at a higher level.

But as weeks dragged into months, the nobles began to grow nervous as the number of irregular triangles increased. To impossible numbers in a single location at times, and at other times seemingly none around at all. And rumors among the higher castes grew more bizarre, but persistent. Cultists literally appearing and disappearing from nowhere. Vanishing from jail cells. Ignoring wounds or healing them. Having bizarre shapes, like two dimensional women do, but deadlier. Outright changing their shapes, with whole crowds seeing this and confirming it.

And then cases of insanity began manifesting, from those who claimed to have been knocked into this mysterious 'sky'. Most regained their minds, either thinking the 'sky' a hallucination or blocking out the memories entirely, but for a mass psychosis, all accounts were disturbingly consistent.

And as months dragged into years, the insanity continued to grow, until the cultists pronounced their joy, pronounced the world saved, and all disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared in the first place.

...

How utterly bizarre, to feel my perspective shift so. Initially to simple single-dimensionality... then learning to see myself not as a mere line but in two dimensions. Then three, the familiar perspective. And then higher. To look at myself as I expand my awareness. To stretch out luxuriously, to take stock of myself. To truly SEE myself for the first time.

To look around and see the nature of existence on that level. What is. What is not.

To look at all the things I can do, and see how they're mere extensions of how I exist on the larger scale, to see how things are linked. To see how, for instance, having more than one of myself in one place was just a matter of pushing a little more of 'myself' into that particular physical plane, after I became mutable enough to do so, producing a 'clone' that was as much me as the original instance. To see other clone techniques were more of a 'shadow' of myself than a more solid type. To observe how science and sorcery and psionics worked at higher levels, to watch the common threads that filtered down, each working differently as effects manifested into lower planes.

Even to see how the True Magics worked. The Kaleidoscope was especially interesting, pulling across dimensions from those adjacent, or from further away, nudging things off to different worldlines, and being one of the few magics I could see that actually fully utilized higher dimensions instead of simply using them to layer attributes onto things. But that was itself an epiphany. Conceptual weapons? Not quite accurate a term, so much as effectively attacking with higher dimensions, or overlapping lower dimensions.

Screwing around with Flatland was a bonus, even if I started off stuck in two dimensions. Though it's too bad that I couldn't convince the King of Pointland that anything existed outside of himself (though did not particularly like me calling him Dot)...