02 [action/voice]

[wipesfaith]

[For all his trouble, Jean got a horse. Which is great, because he's curious to explore what lies far beyond the village and he ain't walking all that way. (What can he say? Some losers from back home have gotten into him a little bit.) First, though, he needs to find a saddle and bridle - apparently, he should have made out with a few more people if he wanted riding gear too. But his pride is worth more to him than that anyway, so he doesn't mind searching through the Item Shop for what he needs.

By the afternoon, he can be found at the stables on the east side of the village. He has spent the past few days visiting Benoit, letting the horse grow accustomed to him as he cares for him. Now that he has something more sophisticated than a rope lead, he's willing to take the horse out farther than the immediate vicinity of the stables. It was already obvious to him that Benoit lacked training. Before he can think about riding him anywhere, he'll have to muster up some serious patience and start from scratch. After fitting him with the sadle and bridle, so he can start getting used to the way it feels, Jean will lead him out to a decent-sized clearing in the forest to get down to business.

Toward the evening, after returning Benoit to the stables, he makes his way back to Flame Building. Residents may have noticed a recent addition outside the building, in the form of a small pen that now houses a little lamb. He'll stop by to check on it for Marco - make sure it's not dead, not that he'd be terribly broken up if it were, because he's never indulged in lambchops before - before finally heading in.

Later, he'll flip open his journal to voice a message.]

[Voice]

Hey. I guess I'm still pretty new here, so I'm just wondering...what's worth seeing beyond this village? I've seen a map, but a map can only tell you so much. There's an...ocean out there, right? [He gets the feeling that some might find his next question a little stupid, and he swears he's sane; he just comes from an insane world.] Is there seriously salt in it?

It's weird... This whole place could probably fit inside Wall Rose - that's what's left of human territory back home - but it still seems like so much...more.

Comments

[wipesfaith]

Weird name. Sounds like some kinda food. [Like the weird shit Haruka cooks. Which he eats anyway.]

So they're...a machine? Or does it use magic? [He's just trying to figure out what he should be picturing.]

[deathsdoctor]

They're snails that communicate telepathically through radio waves. Augmented with a little machinery so we can send our own signals on those waves.

[... just. Giving you a moment to process that now.]

[wipesfaith]

What the fuck? [His kneejerk, remarkably intelligent response.]

[deathsdoctor]

[That is the intelligent response to Den Den Mushi.]

Yes. Snails. Believe it or not.

[wipesfaith]

It's pretty high up there on the list of weird shit I've learned about since I got here.

What are radio waves, exactly? [He's heard that the water in the ocean has waves, but he gets a feeling that this is something a little different.]

[deathsdoctor]

To explain that, gotta ask first - have you ever heard of the electromagnetic spectrum?

[wipesfaith]

[...The what.]

I'm guessing it has something to do with electricity and magnets?

[deathsdoctor]

Involves it.

Okay. Electromagnetic spectrum is just a fancy term for classifying different types of energy radiation. Gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves.

All of that's part of the spectrum. With me so far?

[wipesfaith]

I know that energy is heat. [Aaaand...that's about all he's got. Yup.]

[deathsdoctor]

[This is going to be the most difficult explanation ever, isn't it?]

Heat's energy, yeah. [Just going to reverse the order there, because heat's only one form of energy.] Energy that's thrown off in particles from a source, which is the definition of radiation.

All of those particles travels in waves. Each type of radiation is classified by how much energy each particle has and how fast each wave comes.

[wipesfaith]

[Give him a moment to digest all that.]

So these snails...can send messages through these little particles. And the particles can move because they're a kind of energy. [He.......sort of gets it?]

[deathsdoctor]

Pretty much, yeah.

[wipesfaith]

...That's still weird as hell.

Who even came up with something like that? Or discovered it, however it happened.

[deathsdoctor]

So I've heard. [Shrug. And since OP canon doesn't yet cover when the properties of Den Den Mushi were discovered, Law casually mentions a name that may or may not end up to be Vegapunk. The snail phones have been around for awhile.]

[wipesfaith]

[He meant it more rhetorically anyway, as in how the hell would someone even come up with such a bizarre concept.]

We just stick with regular pen on paper where I'm from.

[deathsdoctor]

Nothing wrong with that. [Amused over here.] I prefer it myself for many things.