Feliz: “I’ve been a planewalker for a few years now, Tarsheva,”While not terribly interested, Tarsheva motions for him to go on. “Yes?”
Feliz: “Well, I’ve traveled through a number of gates and portals, and been to a bunch of the planes. I’ve even used an astral conduit or two. But I’ve never really been to the Astral Plane to speak of.” Felliz’s normally confident bearing was wrinkled with feelings it was unaccustomed to - conscience, guilt, and possibly humility.
Tarsheva: “Uh huh.”
Feliz: “Look, I don’t care about your condescending concern. I just want your help. I know you know the chant about the githyanki and the Astral, and I want you to lann me.”
He glared at her with sullen eyes. Just for a moment, she met his gaze.
Tarsheva: “Fine. What do you want to know?”
Feliz: “The githyanki. Tell me more about them. I’m met up with some githzerai, but I’ve heard the githyanki are different in a few -”
Tarsheva (interrupting): “Very different, but they’re not your first, or even your main, concern if you’re going to the Astral Plane. By the gods, they’re not even natives. Just settlers who called kip there years ago. No, my friend, you’ve got to learn about how the plane works first.”
Feliz: “I’m listening.”
Tarsheva: “Ever been to a play?” Lifts her cup to her mouth.
Feliz: “Sure. I’ve even been in a few. I did some time with a group of traveling actors in Ysgard. We once -”
Tarsheva: “Then you can tumble to what backstage means.”
Feliz: “Of course.”
Tarsheva pushed her long blonde hair away from her face. The scar revealed near her temple served to punctuate her words - an effect she was well aware of and used when making important, but complicated points. “It’s not entirely inaccurate to think of the Astral Plane as the backstage of the multiverse.”
Feliz: “Huh?” Dropping all pretense of erudition.
Tarsheva: “The multiverse is the stage. It’s where things happen. It’s what folks are supposed to see. The Astral is in the background. It’s not something anyone was ever supposed to see. No one was ever supposed to go there. It isn’t a there at all. No space, no time, nothing.”
Feliz: “Wait a minute. Back up. The Astral Plane isn’t part of the multiverse?”
Tarsheva: “Not really. It’s the place in between.”
Corgz: “In between what?”
Holmes: “Everything.”
Corgz: “How can anything - let alone a whole infinite plane – be between everything?”
Holmes: “Simple. The Astral’s not a place. It has nothing to do with space at all. It’s a realm of the mind. That’s why even though there is no distance to measure or space to occupy, it appears that there is. It’s all a matter of perspective - or rather, perception. The mind sees distance, feels space around it, and perceives what it thinks is a plane. In fact, it’s not really a plane at all. It’s not a plane, it has no space - it is the absence of space, the absence of a plane. It is the void between all true spaces.”
Feliz: “So, it’s just in my head?”
Holmes: “There’s no gravity, no up or down, and no north or south. A body moves through space just as she moves her arm - simply by thinking about it. There’s no air to breathe, but there’s no need to breathe, either (or eat, for that matter) - but a body still needs to sleep, since this is a function of the mind. The Astral is virtually always deafeningly quiet and disturbingly still. No wind, no noise, and no obvious signs of life present themselves to the newcomer. Only if a body shows up near a conduit will she see anything move. Conduits appear as long, spectral tubes winding out of sight in either direction. They vibrate, pitch, and whip about, as if responding to an unseen, unfelt wind. There’s also color pools, energies on the edge of comprehension, monstrosities, dead gods and more. But there’s no space. Only mind: thoughts, perceptions, memories, emotions and dreams.”
Merriq: “’Course, this applies only to the endless reaches of the Silver Void. On one of the strange astral islands or on the body of a dead god, things might very well work differently. If it feels like there’s gravity, then things work as though gravity’s there. Like so many things on the Astral Plane, everything operates just like it seems it should. Some might say intuition is a governing law of reality on the Astral.”
Pandaman: nods gravely.
Feliz: “So no space… what about time?”
Merriq: “No time either. Leatherheads who learn this fact immediately think of the Astral as a way to cheat time. Go to the Astral, wait a few thousand years, and then go back to their home plane, they think. The catch is, it doesn’t work like that. When a visitor to the Astral leaves, all of the time that he missed instantly catches up with him. This means that if a 20-year-old human woman enters the Astral and stays for 50 years, she remains 20 the whole time in the Silver Void, but she instantly ages 50 years upon leaving, becoming a 70-year-old woman. Returning to the Astral Plane does not allow her to
regain her youth, either. While time does not pass on the Astral (although the perception of time does exist), it does in the rest of the multiverse, and time can’t be cheated.”
Holmes: “Most bashers don’t eat while on the Astral because no one gets hungry there. When time catches up after leaving the plane, a body’s usually real hungry - though no one’s ever died of starvation, myself included. But if a basher has been poisoned in some way, it does not affect him until time catches up with him. In other words, the sod had better take care of deadly poison before leaving the Astral or it will put him in the dead-book before he can blink. Also, the body can’t heal naturally. If a berk gets nicked, then the wound will bleed almost naturally - at first. Once the damage is done, however, the wound will not scab up or heal in any way. Instead, the cut will gape open, weeping blood and causing great annoyance, pain, and perhaps disgust to the berk. The only way to heal wounds of any kind on the Astral is by magic. So, if a body plans to travel to the Astral, then he should remember to bring along a few healing spells and potions.”
Feliz: “Combat must be odd…”
Pandaman: nods gravely.
Corgz: “Speaking of magic…”
Pandaman: nods gravely.
…
The camera pans away.
