Relt PeltFelter
08-24-11, 02:35 AM
Name: Relt Peltfelter
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Race: Homo sapiens
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5’2”
Weight: 110 lbs.
Occupation: University Student/Chinese Food Delivery Driver/Freelance Douchebag
Personality:
Relt Peltfelter is a good-natured slacker, and like the best slackers, actually lacks the energy to be truly lazy. Failing a class requires, long term, more effort than passing it, and so Relt maintains a decent level of academic success. She’s friendly enough, to those who deserve it, and equally derisive towards those who do not. While not quick to anger, her wrath has a peculiar and worrisome power all its own when fully unleashed; she was once jailed briefly for delivering a fine right hook to the face of a man protesting against the legal protection of gay marriages. Overall, Relt is fairly even tempered and laid back, an attitude not hindered by her copious enjoyment of marijuana, alcohol, surfing, and video games.
She has brought this same laid-back attitude to her exploration of the world of Althanas, though a few brushes with danger have further refined her combative edge.
Pre-Althanas History:
Relt Peltfelter is a perfectly normal girl of nineteen. She is enrolled in the University of the Pacific Coast, one of the most prestigious colleges in San Francisco, California. She was born in the year 2006; her father was a passably skilled doctor and Brazilian expatriate, and her mother was an American nurse who, sadly, died during childbirth. Relt grew up in San Francisco, and was thoroughly in love with the city by the time her father informed her that he intended to move clear across the country to pursue tenure at Yale. Asking if she wished to join him, she instead opted to attend a local university, living in the welcoming yet unhygienic arms of student housing.
And so for a year, Relt disappeared into the comforting bubble of academia. Scraping by in a few courses, acing others, her capricious nature was reflected in her rollercoaster of a grade point average. Partying and studying jockeyed for position at the top of her priorities list. It wasn’t until the beginning of her fall term that school began to bore her. To combat this ennui, Relt managed to wrangle a job as a delivery driver for the Chinese restaurant two blocks down from her apartment building.
The job was one which Relt embraced as a welcome escape from both the rigors of class and the caligulan excess of the San Francisco party scene. The restaurant was a family-run affair, small but highly prized among college students for their low prices and decently greasy food. Relt made deliveries in a creaky old company car which had been upconverted for solar cell compatibility quite recently (to line up with a recent piece of legislation outlawing the largely obsolete gasoline-driven vehicles). It was this job, and more specifically this car, which led to her current bizarre circumstances.
On a night not terribly dissimilar from any other night, the restaurant received a sizable order at around 6:00. Relt, the only driver on duty, hurriedly scarfed down the rest of her cold lo mein, and headed out the door with a veritable pallet of little white containers, each packed with lipidinous delights. The address to which the smorgasbord was to be delivered was some miles outside of town, at an old textile mill which had been recently purchased and outfitted as a laboratory of some description by persons or organizations unknown. As any astute reader will notice, such an event never bodes well.
Relt arrived and rang the buzzer at the gate so that she may provide the Cantonese comestibles which the workers within sought so desperately. A voice responded.
“What do you want?”
Slightly taken aback at this brusque greeting, Relt nonetheless managed to keep the modicum of professional courtesy she maintained while on the job.
“Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen. Uh, you guys ordered the…well, everything, actually.”
“Oh, right, dinner. Guys, it’s just the-” at which point Relt heard the absolute strangest sound which had ever graced her ears. It was not quite the noise of a living, organic thing, nor was it the sound of a machine; the closest comparison the girl could come up with was the sound of a piece of paper being torn in half, if each sheet was half a micron across, and there were an infinite amount of them arrayed in a perfect sphere around a screaming baby, being torn over and over again. It was a sound which the ears seemed to actively not want to hear, and indeed even the speaker on the buzzer gave up and popped with a sad little spark.
It should be said that any normal person would have probably left, then and there. But Relt Peltfelter was a person who held, deep within her, an ever-flowing and potent font of curiosity. This, and possibly something deeper and murkier and less conscious, impelled her to finish this delivery at any cost. The gate swung open at her touch, as did the door to the building, and every door inside. Though she had never been in this place before, Relt’s feet guided her to what must once have been the factory floor.
It was empty, now, or mostly so. A few incomprehensible machines hummed away in the dingy and dim corners, and an observation room hung near the ceiling, its single fluorescent bulb flickering wickedly. A closer look, however, showed that the glass of the observation room had been shattered from the inside, and that what Relt had originally taken for safety markings were actually disquietingly large streaks of blood. At this Relt demurred, and even the urge to explore fled her in her desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else, provided it didn’t look like an episode of CSI: Birmingham (top-rated new program, November 2021).
Relt stepped backwards slowly, feeling wary, and stepped into a wash bucket. She tripped, fell to the floor, and Chinese food flew everywhere. Instantly she was aware that something could see her, was watching her, hatred pouring off its insubstantial body like smoke from a burning bus; it was something utterly immaterial, something without life or shape or substance, but nonetheless she could feel its gaze boring into her. Heedless of her bucketed foot, Relt bolted from the building, seeking only to drive very, very far away and hide under her mattress.
And yet this thing, unseen and unknown, pursued her every step of the way, and as the inexplicably hateful orb of nothing passed through walls they rippled and shimmered like pools of mercury. The thing warped the world and all that was of it, and its capacity for hate was undiminished by its nonexistence. Relt managed to scramble into the car, but no matter how much pressure she placed on the gas pedal, the car only skidded backwards on the dusty pavement. There was a moment of unbearable lightness as the car parted company with the ground and seemed sucked into the locus of this insatiable anger. Relt knew a moment of intense, impossible speed, and suddenly, blackness.
When she awoke, it was the middle of a violent storm, and she was nowhere near a road. The little car, crushed and compressed in the most horribly suggestive fashion, fought in vain against sliding mud and shrieking wind, skidding violently across an unknown and lightless plain before finally colliding with a stout oak tree and coming to a stop. Relt was aware of only this moment before blessed unconsciousness took her again. When she awoke again, for good this time, she would find that somehow the non-entity’s attack had transported her to another world, one very different than her home, yet one which felt peculiarly familiar. For now, however, she would dream of steam and mud and war.
On-Althanas History:
Relt originates from San Francisco in the year 2025. This hardly makes her unique; there are so many lost and lonely offworlders tumbling onto Althanas that they might as well form a damn union. However instead of trying desperately to get home and moping about the place like a big fat baby, Relt embraced the magical fantasy vibe of Althanas that a lifetime of marijuana and video games had made her amply prepared for. After a brief dance with delusion, Relt got about the business of having a damned good time.
Relt has fought giant parasitic barnacles, mysterious men dressed all in black, the restless dead, and the occasional regular human jerk. She has fallen asleep in the pickle barrel of an impregnable warship, and driven a soul-stealing abomination to madness through a method she does not quite understand or remember. Relt has made a couple of casual friendships, and about twice as many enemyhoods. Enemyships? Enemiations.
Relt knows she should probably care more about getting home, but she doesn't. She knows that she should find some kind of permanent accommodations, but she hasn't. She knows that it would be a good idea to make some lasting relationships and find allies, but she won't. Althanas has never seen a slacker like Relt, and likely never will again.
Real History:
Relt Peltfelter is a self-repeating eternal thought-entity; a semi-sentient curvature of space and time which appears, to lower-dimensional forms, to be a series of temporally disparate but similar organisms. It would not be right to say that it was born, because time does not function for it in quite the same way it does for other beings, but its extrusions follow a roughly linear path. The being has no higher consciousness, its various outgrowths being almost totally without cognizance of one another.
It must be said that the Relt Peltfelter who fought in the steam-driven trenches of a first World War was not the beginning, nor was she the end, nor do words such as beginning and end really even apply here. All throughout the history of a thousand worlds in a thousand realities, there are Relt Peltfelters. A Relt Peltfelter has seen every major conflict in every major reality. A Relt Peltfelter has cast the first stone, lit the first fire, and spoken the first word at least once each. And not a single one of them has any idea the others exist, or that they themselves are anything but a normal person.
One could liken it to reincarnation, as indeed there is a certain sense of the serial to the various units of Relt. It is reincarnation, however, regardless of time, so that the next in line may have lived centuries ago and, indeed, in another universe entirely. Instantiations of Relt Peltfelter are united by a number of characteristics. Firstly, they are very nearly always female, and very nearly always human (there are always a few outliers). Secondly, they have a predisposition towards impulsiveness, curiosity, high intelligence, capriciousness, and loyalty. Thirdly, they have an uncanny tendency to die young. And finally, they are all, without exception, named Relt Peltfelter.
When the Relt Peltfelter who faced the cyborg menace of the German Kaiser was brutally slaughtered in the castle of the usurping duke, the self-repeating eternal thought-entity reacted as if stung by a particularly vicious insect. It is this Relt Peltfelter, the unassuming student and delivery girl of San Francisco, who was maneuvered into a specific position by the gossamer strands of causality and her own higher connection’s interference, like withdrawing a hand from a pair of trick cuffs. A position which would allow her transport her to the reality and the planet of her prior instantiation’s design, for the purpose of (to continue a metaphor) squashing the offending insect.
The only problem is that the distant, throbbing ur-consciousness is like the brain of a blind octopus; it has no idea what its tentacles are doing, or how they are shaped, and lacks the eyes to watch and learn. In maneuvering this Relt Peltfelter into a suitable position to strike an avenging blow, it allowed her to become the focus for a malevolent disembodied consciousness, an entity which was both responsible for the girl’s transportation between spheres and desirous of tearing her apart, molecule by molecule. Clearly, this particular Relt Peltfelter has a heavy load to bear.
Despite the increasingly obvious elements of bizarre self-functioning Relt experiences due to her own higher nature, she will never know what she is. It is rather like a patient with a neurological disorder experiencing agnosia; everything odd that she does will be explained as a coincidence or rationalized away because Relt, and indeed not even any regular human being, has the mental wiring necessary to confront their nature as a selfless amalgam of a billion different entities scattered across an equally infinite amount of universes. The similarity of Relt's other selves to herself merely make peculiar resonances more prominent.
Skills:
Surfing:
Relt is quite a good surfer, for a hobbyist. Her own board sits unattended in her now-empty Earth apartment, but she has a solid understanding of the physics and could easily oversee the construction of a replacement. With this skill, she can have a very good time.
Swimming:
Connected to the above, Relt is by necessity a strong swimmer, equally at home in the ocean and in freshwater bodies. While she is unlikely to ever win an award, she can easily cross bodies of water between her and her goal, and is laid-back enough not to think twice of getting her clothes wet (or, preferably, removing them altogether).
Driving:
Relt is an accomplished driver, licensed and everything. Class-C, consumer vehicles, RVs, and motorcycles. Of course, this doesn’t mean a damn thing as long as her only available car is the twisted piece of metal on which she rode through the unknowable gulfs of interdimensional space.
Academic Knowledge:
Relt possesses sufficient knowledge of history, art, and literature to ably converse with anyone who wishes to discuss these. Of course, this only includes the history of her own version of Earth, and is therefore of little application on Althanas. Her scientific knowledge, however, lends her a decent understanding of chemistry, biology, zoology, and physics, and these skills may come in quite handy.
Marijuana Connoisseur:
Relt has been smoking the sticky icky since she got her first pimple. There isn’t a plant growing she couldn’t figure out a way to get high off of. This may be potentially useful, in a “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” sort of way.
Chinese Food Cookery:
Given the right ingredients, Relt can probably replicate any of the various (grossly Americanized) authentic Chinese food recipes which her former place of employment produced.
Enhanced Hygiene:
Relt doesn't really worry about brushing her teeth; in 2017, dentists began offering a service where the mouth's natural bacteria are replaced with bacteria that clean the teeth. There were a couple of severe face dissolvings in the first trial run, but by Relt's time the technology had been perfected. Her spit smells like peppermint if it sits in the sun for too long.
Limited Memories:
Due to the violent and unanticipated nature of the previous Relt’s demise, this “incarnation” of Relt Peltfelter has gained access, largely through dreams, to a small amount of her previous instantiation’s memories. They’re never clear, but Relt is likely to feel at least vaguely familiar with anyone she knew in her previous instantiation. If they really got along well, she might even be able to guess the person’s name.
Abilities:
Blindsight 20/20:
Level 0: Unlike the unfortunate scientists in the facility which started this whole mess, Relt Peltfelter has a heightened ability to see that which is not, strictly speaking, actually there. The invisible, intangible, and even the merely well-hidden are laid bare to Relt Peltfelter’s peepers, as plain as day. Relt herself feels that this ability grew out of her frequent trips to the principality of Skunkton, MJ: population 420. In actuality, this ability is a side effect of her higher-dimensional nature; access to realms beyond normal human experience, however severely limited they may be, allows for altered perceptions.
Uses of Blindsight 20/20 are indicated in orange text.
Examples: ghosts hunted, ninjas gaidened, thieves out-thunk, traps un-triggered, and hollow men filled in.
Youth Diplomacy:
Level 0: Growing up in the rough-and-tumble world of the San Francisco public school system taught Relt to defend herself early. No-one would call her fighting style elegant, but only because brutal is a much better word. Anything that isn’t nailed down is a potential weapon, a la Jackie Chan, and even hitting below the belt isn’t considered below the belt. Nothing breeds improvised martial arts like a scrawny little brown girl having to smash bullies in the fucking face or have her own fucking face smashed in turn.
Level 1: Relt has experienced, in her short stay on Althanas, more fighting than she ever has before. Her extradimensional nature has had a peculiar effect on her combat; there is a moment, just before a conflict begins, that time appears to freeze. Relt is unable to move during this period, but it gives her time to identify potential openings in her enemy's stance, potential improvised weapons, and potential things to make a bong out of; though, the utility of this last one is debatable. The size of the immediate area also seems to shrink, bringing her closer to her opponent or any useful item; the effect of this on an outside viewer is that, suddenly, the tiny brown girl they are fighting has managed to grab a mop handle from the other side of the room and shove it down his throat before he could do more than lightly stab her.
This apparent cessation of the flow of time is caused by a locus of higher-dimensional gravity being dragged across the four dimensions of Althanas at an intersection to the connection Relt has to every other alternate Relt, dilating time and contracting space for a brief instant. The gravity well is, for lack of a more appropriate higher-dimensional phrase, "orbiting" Relt's position in space-time, its apogees and perigees linked inextricably to her emotional state.
Relt is able to use this to grab any item within 23 feet of her initial position and be prepared for combat, but she cannot actually attack an enemy during this period of halted time. She regards this period as a heightened awareness, and does not understand that it is a literal change in her relativistic temporal experience.
Uses of Youth Diplomacy are indicated in grey text.
Examples: masses downtrodden, thugs shrugged, villains vulgarized, shitheads shat-upon, and bullies bleeding.
Re-Empathy:
Level 0: Another potential side effect of a more-than-passing acquaintance with altered states of consciousness, Relt experiences something of an emotional bleeding effect. Individuals within about 5 feet of her for more than 5 minutes begin to experience the peculiar sensation of their emotions gradually shifting until they feel about the same as whatever emotional state Relt herself is in. If Relt is feeling happy, those around her may find their day seems a bit brighter than usual. If Relt is angry, a twinge of annoyance may color the attitude of even the sunniest of individuals. If Relt is intoxicated, then those who get too close may find that the mellow is as contagious as Relt’s less-than-melodious laughter. The effect is fairly weak, but seems to strengthen when Relt herself is either polluted or experiencing very strong emotions. This ability, too, is the result of Relt’s higher-dimensional nature. Her emotions vibrate the highly energetic superstring strata underlying all of reality, however softly, and cause resonances in the minds of other quantum observer entities.
Her empathic bleed effect is not without weakness; strong-willed individuals and people who have picked up on the apparent source of the effect and are aware of it are able to resist it.
Level 1: Relt has, without ever quite realizing it, been strengthening her emotional bleed effect. Every person who she influences causes the vibrational resonance to be exacerbated. She can now influence a person to feel as she does at a range of 10 feet, though the 5 minute onset period remains constant. In addition to effecting people, Relt's emotions are able to utterly overrule mindless entities (for example, zombies) and force them into a bizarre and unsettling mimicry of her emotional state. Relt still doesn't understand why this is, but she has begun to notice that there is a bizarre tendency for people near her to be sympathetic despite the circumstances.
Uses of Re-Empathy are indicated in purple text.
Examples: buzzes harshed, vibes brated, friends lovered, rolls slowed, and pills chilled.
Three-Brane Monty
Level 1: The displacement of Relt in time and space from her original location was done in a very hasty and unpleasant way; that is, by dragging her through the quantum guts of a mindlessly hateful multidimensional murder monster. As a result of this unconventional transit, space-time around Relt has been getting a bit frayed. Fortunately this damage heals over time, but it can have rather devastating effects on the local reality in the short term. A notable symptom of this is that skin contact with an angry Relt, particularly a punch or a kick, can trigger a dissociative alternation event with about 25% probability; that is, a person's consciousness is temporarily and briefly shunted through a roulette wheel of their alternate-universe selves. These episodes last only as many as 3 seconds and four shifts, but can be profoundly disorienting and, occasionally, disturbing.
For instance, if Relt punches a bandit in the face, he may find himself with the peculiar sensation of being himself as a girl scout, himself as a brainless sphere of red slime, himself as a parrot, and himself as an old ceramic toilet bowl in rapid succession before being jolted back to the reality of being a bandit with a sore face, just in time to find that she has managed to stab him in the neck. While so displaced, the consciousnesses of these alternate selves are similarly displaced, and the body of the aforementioned grizzled thief may for a brief moment cry, complain of hunger, squawk, and await urination respectively while its real owner is walkabout.
Uses of Three-Brane Monty are indicated in lime green text.
Examples: genders dysphoriated, trousers of time soiled, illusions of self shattered, and unendurable infinities revelated
(note: the duration and exact nature of the shift roulette are entirely in the hands of the victim's writer)
Appearance:
Relt is a petite girl, but with an obvious strength in her slender frame. Her pitch-black hair is kept short and spiky, and not a molecule of make-up has ever touched her caramel skin. Relt wears a pair of cut-off denim shorts, as her native town is too damn hot to bother with long pants. In addition to a slightly ratty graphic tee, she wears an overlarge men’s button-up shirt emblazoned on the breast with the logo of her former place of employment, Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen. On her feet are a pair of leather flip-flops, in her lower lip (right side) is a thin steel ring, and her eyes are never without a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. Her one set of clothes is stained with zombie drool and barnacle blood, but still seem to be serviceable to a person as unconcerned with appearances as Relt.
Equipment:
Clearly, Relt was not able to prepare for her unexpected and un-asked-for sojourn to another planet in an altogether different realm of existence. Her initial equipment consists entirely of whatever was on her person or in the twisted wreck of the car at the moment the hateful entity catapulted her through space and time. Fortunately, due to the documented cleanliness (or lack thereof) of nineteen year olds everywhere, this is rather a large bounty of simple treasures. All of these items, unless otherwise mentioned, are jammed into the voluminous and tattered backpack which Relt carries with her.
Over time, however, Relt has managed to scrounge together a couple of new belongings
One (1) Kevlar Truncheon:
The responsible delivery driver’s method of assuring personal safety, this truncheon is even cheerfully emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen.
One (1) Steel Switchblade:
The irresponsible delivery driver’s method of assuring personal safety. While highly illegal and extremely dangerous, this blade is also cheerfully emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen.
One (1) Steel Claw Hammer:
Tossed into the back of the car after some long-forgotten errand, this item was salvaged on the basis that one can never have too many heavy metal things.
One (1) iVerything Cellular Phone/Personal Computer:
The slightly outdated 2024 model, this puppy not only has full wi-fi call abilities, internet connections with bands so broad they border on obese, and 6 terabytes of storage space, but is totally green and runs only off of solar power. Admittedly, 2 of those 6 terabytes are filled with cheesy movies and cult classic TV shows downloaded illegally, 1 of them is filled with pornography, 1 with music, and the other 2 are nearly filled with video games. Of course, with no-one to call and no internet to surf, it’s nothing more than a fancy gewgaw. If not for its rugged spider-silk-composite frame, it probably wouldn’t have survived the trip. It can project a screen onto a flat surface for more involved viewing.
One (1) Ceramic Skull Bong:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even in 2025, with legalized marijuana and fantastic technological marvels, some bombed-out hippy somewhere is still lovingly crafting ceramic skull bongs, and impressionable college students are still buying them. Needless to say, this is a fine specimen, only a few chips, and if you give it a few hundred years it may fetch a decent appraisal on the Antiques Roadshow.
Three (3) Grams of Marijuana:
Long-gone are the days of crinkled Ziploc bags and secrecy; this high-grade dank is kept in a special hempen pouch, for maximum irony. The pouch is emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen; Mr. Zhuang is nothing if not an enthusiastic (though not terribly realistic) merchandiser.
One (1) Month-Old Container of Pork Fried Rice:
This item tumbled behind the seats during some prior delivery, and has sat there for a while in the hot sun. Despite this, it remains at least 80% edible, for a given value of edible. It also tastes of the tears of a disappointed customer: the sweetest flavor enhancer of all. The food has only grown older, but has merely fossilized in that peculiar American-Chinese food way, instead of rotting. There are things in there which frighten even mold.
Three (3) Textbooks:
Left in her bag after an overnight study session, Relt kept them so she could remain prepared for various quizzes, exams, etc. while on the job. Having had time to look at them, they appear to be a huge-ass Biology textbook, an Art History textbook, and a Spanish textbook.
One (1) First Aid Kit:
Containing bandages, antiseptic, Neosporin, gauze, aspirin AND ibuprofen, some matches and a candle, and a couple of complicated medical apparatus which Relt has absolutely no idea how to use.
One (1) Horned Helmet:
Relt found a Viking helmet somewhere. She doesn't remember where; that was lost in a purple haze. She does remember why, however; because it's badass. It is far too big for her and bobbles around awkwardly as she moves. Relt suspects it is magic, but it isn't. She has stuffed some rags into the helmet to keep it on her head when she wears it, for reasons comprehensible only to her.
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Race: Homo sapiens
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5’2”
Weight: 110 lbs.
Occupation: University Student/Chinese Food Delivery Driver/Freelance Douchebag
Personality:
Relt Peltfelter is a good-natured slacker, and like the best slackers, actually lacks the energy to be truly lazy. Failing a class requires, long term, more effort than passing it, and so Relt maintains a decent level of academic success. She’s friendly enough, to those who deserve it, and equally derisive towards those who do not. While not quick to anger, her wrath has a peculiar and worrisome power all its own when fully unleashed; she was once jailed briefly for delivering a fine right hook to the face of a man protesting against the legal protection of gay marriages. Overall, Relt is fairly even tempered and laid back, an attitude not hindered by her copious enjoyment of marijuana, alcohol, surfing, and video games.
She has brought this same laid-back attitude to her exploration of the world of Althanas, though a few brushes with danger have further refined her combative edge.
Pre-Althanas History:
Relt Peltfelter is a perfectly normal girl of nineteen. She is enrolled in the University of the Pacific Coast, one of the most prestigious colleges in San Francisco, California. She was born in the year 2006; her father was a passably skilled doctor and Brazilian expatriate, and her mother was an American nurse who, sadly, died during childbirth. Relt grew up in San Francisco, and was thoroughly in love with the city by the time her father informed her that he intended to move clear across the country to pursue tenure at Yale. Asking if she wished to join him, she instead opted to attend a local university, living in the welcoming yet unhygienic arms of student housing.
And so for a year, Relt disappeared into the comforting bubble of academia. Scraping by in a few courses, acing others, her capricious nature was reflected in her rollercoaster of a grade point average. Partying and studying jockeyed for position at the top of her priorities list. It wasn’t until the beginning of her fall term that school began to bore her. To combat this ennui, Relt managed to wrangle a job as a delivery driver for the Chinese restaurant two blocks down from her apartment building.
The job was one which Relt embraced as a welcome escape from both the rigors of class and the caligulan excess of the San Francisco party scene. The restaurant was a family-run affair, small but highly prized among college students for their low prices and decently greasy food. Relt made deliveries in a creaky old company car which had been upconverted for solar cell compatibility quite recently (to line up with a recent piece of legislation outlawing the largely obsolete gasoline-driven vehicles). It was this job, and more specifically this car, which led to her current bizarre circumstances.
On a night not terribly dissimilar from any other night, the restaurant received a sizable order at around 6:00. Relt, the only driver on duty, hurriedly scarfed down the rest of her cold lo mein, and headed out the door with a veritable pallet of little white containers, each packed with lipidinous delights. The address to which the smorgasbord was to be delivered was some miles outside of town, at an old textile mill which had been recently purchased and outfitted as a laboratory of some description by persons or organizations unknown. As any astute reader will notice, such an event never bodes well.
Relt arrived and rang the buzzer at the gate so that she may provide the Cantonese comestibles which the workers within sought so desperately. A voice responded.
“What do you want?”
Slightly taken aback at this brusque greeting, Relt nonetheless managed to keep the modicum of professional courtesy she maintained while on the job.
“Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen. Uh, you guys ordered the…well, everything, actually.”
“Oh, right, dinner. Guys, it’s just the-” at which point Relt heard the absolute strangest sound which had ever graced her ears. It was not quite the noise of a living, organic thing, nor was it the sound of a machine; the closest comparison the girl could come up with was the sound of a piece of paper being torn in half, if each sheet was half a micron across, and there were an infinite amount of them arrayed in a perfect sphere around a screaming baby, being torn over and over again. It was a sound which the ears seemed to actively not want to hear, and indeed even the speaker on the buzzer gave up and popped with a sad little spark.
It should be said that any normal person would have probably left, then and there. But Relt Peltfelter was a person who held, deep within her, an ever-flowing and potent font of curiosity. This, and possibly something deeper and murkier and less conscious, impelled her to finish this delivery at any cost. The gate swung open at her touch, as did the door to the building, and every door inside. Though she had never been in this place before, Relt’s feet guided her to what must once have been the factory floor.
It was empty, now, or mostly so. A few incomprehensible machines hummed away in the dingy and dim corners, and an observation room hung near the ceiling, its single fluorescent bulb flickering wickedly. A closer look, however, showed that the glass of the observation room had been shattered from the inside, and that what Relt had originally taken for safety markings were actually disquietingly large streaks of blood. At this Relt demurred, and even the urge to explore fled her in her desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else, provided it didn’t look like an episode of CSI: Birmingham (top-rated new program, November 2021).
Relt stepped backwards slowly, feeling wary, and stepped into a wash bucket. She tripped, fell to the floor, and Chinese food flew everywhere. Instantly she was aware that something could see her, was watching her, hatred pouring off its insubstantial body like smoke from a burning bus; it was something utterly immaterial, something without life or shape or substance, but nonetheless she could feel its gaze boring into her. Heedless of her bucketed foot, Relt bolted from the building, seeking only to drive very, very far away and hide under her mattress.
And yet this thing, unseen and unknown, pursued her every step of the way, and as the inexplicably hateful orb of nothing passed through walls they rippled and shimmered like pools of mercury. The thing warped the world and all that was of it, and its capacity for hate was undiminished by its nonexistence. Relt managed to scramble into the car, but no matter how much pressure she placed on the gas pedal, the car only skidded backwards on the dusty pavement. There was a moment of unbearable lightness as the car parted company with the ground and seemed sucked into the locus of this insatiable anger. Relt knew a moment of intense, impossible speed, and suddenly, blackness.
When she awoke, it was the middle of a violent storm, and she was nowhere near a road. The little car, crushed and compressed in the most horribly suggestive fashion, fought in vain against sliding mud and shrieking wind, skidding violently across an unknown and lightless plain before finally colliding with a stout oak tree and coming to a stop. Relt was aware of only this moment before blessed unconsciousness took her again. When she awoke again, for good this time, she would find that somehow the non-entity’s attack had transported her to another world, one very different than her home, yet one which felt peculiarly familiar. For now, however, she would dream of steam and mud and war.
On-Althanas History:
Relt originates from San Francisco in the year 2025. This hardly makes her unique; there are so many lost and lonely offworlders tumbling onto Althanas that they might as well form a damn union. However instead of trying desperately to get home and moping about the place like a big fat baby, Relt embraced the magical fantasy vibe of Althanas that a lifetime of marijuana and video games had made her amply prepared for. After a brief dance with delusion, Relt got about the business of having a damned good time.
Relt has fought giant parasitic barnacles, mysterious men dressed all in black, the restless dead, and the occasional regular human jerk. She has fallen asleep in the pickle barrel of an impregnable warship, and driven a soul-stealing abomination to madness through a method she does not quite understand or remember. Relt has made a couple of casual friendships, and about twice as many enemyhoods. Enemyships? Enemiations.
Relt knows she should probably care more about getting home, but she doesn't. She knows that she should find some kind of permanent accommodations, but she hasn't. She knows that it would be a good idea to make some lasting relationships and find allies, but she won't. Althanas has never seen a slacker like Relt, and likely never will again.
Real History:
Relt Peltfelter is a self-repeating eternal thought-entity; a semi-sentient curvature of space and time which appears, to lower-dimensional forms, to be a series of temporally disparate but similar organisms. It would not be right to say that it was born, because time does not function for it in quite the same way it does for other beings, but its extrusions follow a roughly linear path. The being has no higher consciousness, its various outgrowths being almost totally without cognizance of one another.
It must be said that the Relt Peltfelter who fought in the steam-driven trenches of a first World War was not the beginning, nor was she the end, nor do words such as beginning and end really even apply here. All throughout the history of a thousand worlds in a thousand realities, there are Relt Peltfelters. A Relt Peltfelter has seen every major conflict in every major reality. A Relt Peltfelter has cast the first stone, lit the first fire, and spoken the first word at least once each. And not a single one of them has any idea the others exist, or that they themselves are anything but a normal person.
One could liken it to reincarnation, as indeed there is a certain sense of the serial to the various units of Relt. It is reincarnation, however, regardless of time, so that the next in line may have lived centuries ago and, indeed, in another universe entirely. Instantiations of Relt Peltfelter are united by a number of characteristics. Firstly, they are very nearly always female, and very nearly always human (there are always a few outliers). Secondly, they have a predisposition towards impulsiveness, curiosity, high intelligence, capriciousness, and loyalty. Thirdly, they have an uncanny tendency to die young. And finally, they are all, without exception, named Relt Peltfelter.
When the Relt Peltfelter who faced the cyborg menace of the German Kaiser was brutally slaughtered in the castle of the usurping duke, the self-repeating eternal thought-entity reacted as if stung by a particularly vicious insect. It is this Relt Peltfelter, the unassuming student and delivery girl of San Francisco, who was maneuvered into a specific position by the gossamer strands of causality and her own higher connection’s interference, like withdrawing a hand from a pair of trick cuffs. A position which would allow her transport her to the reality and the planet of her prior instantiation’s design, for the purpose of (to continue a metaphor) squashing the offending insect.
The only problem is that the distant, throbbing ur-consciousness is like the brain of a blind octopus; it has no idea what its tentacles are doing, or how they are shaped, and lacks the eyes to watch and learn. In maneuvering this Relt Peltfelter into a suitable position to strike an avenging blow, it allowed her to become the focus for a malevolent disembodied consciousness, an entity which was both responsible for the girl’s transportation between spheres and desirous of tearing her apart, molecule by molecule. Clearly, this particular Relt Peltfelter has a heavy load to bear.
Despite the increasingly obvious elements of bizarre self-functioning Relt experiences due to her own higher nature, she will never know what she is. It is rather like a patient with a neurological disorder experiencing agnosia; everything odd that she does will be explained as a coincidence or rationalized away because Relt, and indeed not even any regular human being, has the mental wiring necessary to confront their nature as a selfless amalgam of a billion different entities scattered across an equally infinite amount of universes. The similarity of Relt's other selves to herself merely make peculiar resonances more prominent.
Skills:
Surfing:
Relt is quite a good surfer, for a hobbyist. Her own board sits unattended in her now-empty Earth apartment, but she has a solid understanding of the physics and could easily oversee the construction of a replacement. With this skill, she can have a very good time.
Swimming:
Connected to the above, Relt is by necessity a strong swimmer, equally at home in the ocean and in freshwater bodies. While she is unlikely to ever win an award, she can easily cross bodies of water between her and her goal, and is laid-back enough not to think twice of getting her clothes wet (or, preferably, removing them altogether).
Driving:
Relt is an accomplished driver, licensed and everything. Class-C, consumer vehicles, RVs, and motorcycles. Of course, this doesn’t mean a damn thing as long as her only available car is the twisted piece of metal on which she rode through the unknowable gulfs of interdimensional space.
Academic Knowledge:
Relt possesses sufficient knowledge of history, art, and literature to ably converse with anyone who wishes to discuss these. Of course, this only includes the history of her own version of Earth, and is therefore of little application on Althanas. Her scientific knowledge, however, lends her a decent understanding of chemistry, biology, zoology, and physics, and these skills may come in quite handy.
Marijuana Connoisseur:
Relt has been smoking the sticky icky since she got her first pimple. There isn’t a plant growing she couldn’t figure out a way to get high off of. This may be potentially useful, in a “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” sort of way.
Chinese Food Cookery:
Given the right ingredients, Relt can probably replicate any of the various (grossly Americanized) authentic Chinese food recipes which her former place of employment produced.
Enhanced Hygiene:
Relt doesn't really worry about brushing her teeth; in 2017, dentists began offering a service where the mouth's natural bacteria are replaced with bacteria that clean the teeth. There were a couple of severe face dissolvings in the first trial run, but by Relt's time the technology had been perfected. Her spit smells like peppermint if it sits in the sun for too long.
Limited Memories:
Due to the violent and unanticipated nature of the previous Relt’s demise, this “incarnation” of Relt Peltfelter has gained access, largely through dreams, to a small amount of her previous instantiation’s memories. They’re never clear, but Relt is likely to feel at least vaguely familiar with anyone she knew in her previous instantiation. If they really got along well, she might even be able to guess the person’s name.
Abilities:
Blindsight 20/20:
Level 0: Unlike the unfortunate scientists in the facility which started this whole mess, Relt Peltfelter has a heightened ability to see that which is not, strictly speaking, actually there. The invisible, intangible, and even the merely well-hidden are laid bare to Relt Peltfelter’s peepers, as plain as day. Relt herself feels that this ability grew out of her frequent trips to the principality of Skunkton, MJ: population 420. In actuality, this ability is a side effect of her higher-dimensional nature; access to realms beyond normal human experience, however severely limited they may be, allows for altered perceptions.
Uses of Blindsight 20/20 are indicated in orange text.
Examples: ghosts hunted, ninjas gaidened, thieves out-thunk, traps un-triggered, and hollow men filled in.
Youth Diplomacy:
Level 0: Growing up in the rough-and-tumble world of the San Francisco public school system taught Relt to defend herself early. No-one would call her fighting style elegant, but only because brutal is a much better word. Anything that isn’t nailed down is a potential weapon, a la Jackie Chan, and even hitting below the belt isn’t considered below the belt. Nothing breeds improvised martial arts like a scrawny little brown girl having to smash bullies in the fucking face or have her own fucking face smashed in turn.
Level 1: Relt has experienced, in her short stay on Althanas, more fighting than she ever has before. Her extradimensional nature has had a peculiar effect on her combat; there is a moment, just before a conflict begins, that time appears to freeze. Relt is unable to move during this period, but it gives her time to identify potential openings in her enemy's stance, potential improvised weapons, and potential things to make a bong out of; though, the utility of this last one is debatable. The size of the immediate area also seems to shrink, bringing her closer to her opponent or any useful item; the effect of this on an outside viewer is that, suddenly, the tiny brown girl they are fighting has managed to grab a mop handle from the other side of the room and shove it down his throat before he could do more than lightly stab her.
This apparent cessation of the flow of time is caused by a locus of higher-dimensional gravity being dragged across the four dimensions of Althanas at an intersection to the connection Relt has to every other alternate Relt, dilating time and contracting space for a brief instant. The gravity well is, for lack of a more appropriate higher-dimensional phrase, "orbiting" Relt's position in space-time, its apogees and perigees linked inextricably to her emotional state.
Relt is able to use this to grab any item within 23 feet of her initial position and be prepared for combat, but she cannot actually attack an enemy during this period of halted time. She regards this period as a heightened awareness, and does not understand that it is a literal change in her relativistic temporal experience.
Uses of Youth Diplomacy are indicated in grey text.
Examples: masses downtrodden, thugs shrugged, villains vulgarized, shitheads shat-upon, and bullies bleeding.
Re-Empathy:
Level 0: Another potential side effect of a more-than-passing acquaintance with altered states of consciousness, Relt experiences something of an emotional bleeding effect. Individuals within about 5 feet of her for more than 5 minutes begin to experience the peculiar sensation of their emotions gradually shifting until they feel about the same as whatever emotional state Relt herself is in. If Relt is feeling happy, those around her may find their day seems a bit brighter than usual. If Relt is angry, a twinge of annoyance may color the attitude of even the sunniest of individuals. If Relt is intoxicated, then those who get too close may find that the mellow is as contagious as Relt’s less-than-melodious laughter. The effect is fairly weak, but seems to strengthen when Relt herself is either polluted or experiencing very strong emotions. This ability, too, is the result of Relt’s higher-dimensional nature. Her emotions vibrate the highly energetic superstring strata underlying all of reality, however softly, and cause resonances in the minds of other quantum observer entities.
Her empathic bleed effect is not without weakness; strong-willed individuals and people who have picked up on the apparent source of the effect and are aware of it are able to resist it.
Level 1: Relt has, without ever quite realizing it, been strengthening her emotional bleed effect. Every person who she influences causes the vibrational resonance to be exacerbated. She can now influence a person to feel as she does at a range of 10 feet, though the 5 minute onset period remains constant. In addition to effecting people, Relt's emotions are able to utterly overrule mindless entities (for example, zombies) and force them into a bizarre and unsettling mimicry of her emotional state. Relt still doesn't understand why this is, but she has begun to notice that there is a bizarre tendency for people near her to be sympathetic despite the circumstances.
Uses of Re-Empathy are indicated in purple text.
Examples: buzzes harshed, vibes brated, friends lovered, rolls slowed, and pills chilled.
Three-Brane Monty
Level 1: The displacement of Relt in time and space from her original location was done in a very hasty and unpleasant way; that is, by dragging her through the quantum guts of a mindlessly hateful multidimensional murder monster. As a result of this unconventional transit, space-time around Relt has been getting a bit frayed. Fortunately this damage heals over time, but it can have rather devastating effects on the local reality in the short term. A notable symptom of this is that skin contact with an angry Relt, particularly a punch or a kick, can trigger a dissociative alternation event with about 25% probability; that is, a person's consciousness is temporarily and briefly shunted through a roulette wheel of their alternate-universe selves. These episodes last only as many as 3 seconds and four shifts, but can be profoundly disorienting and, occasionally, disturbing.
For instance, if Relt punches a bandit in the face, he may find himself with the peculiar sensation of being himself as a girl scout, himself as a brainless sphere of red slime, himself as a parrot, and himself as an old ceramic toilet bowl in rapid succession before being jolted back to the reality of being a bandit with a sore face, just in time to find that she has managed to stab him in the neck. While so displaced, the consciousnesses of these alternate selves are similarly displaced, and the body of the aforementioned grizzled thief may for a brief moment cry, complain of hunger, squawk, and await urination respectively while its real owner is walkabout.
Uses of Three-Brane Monty are indicated in lime green text.
Examples: genders dysphoriated, trousers of time soiled, illusions of self shattered, and unendurable infinities revelated
(note: the duration and exact nature of the shift roulette are entirely in the hands of the victim's writer)
Appearance:
Relt is a petite girl, but with an obvious strength in her slender frame. Her pitch-black hair is kept short and spiky, and not a molecule of make-up has ever touched her caramel skin. Relt wears a pair of cut-off denim shorts, as her native town is too damn hot to bother with long pants. In addition to a slightly ratty graphic tee, she wears an overlarge men’s button-up shirt emblazoned on the breast with the logo of her former place of employment, Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen. On her feet are a pair of leather flip-flops, in her lower lip (right side) is a thin steel ring, and her eyes are never without a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. Her one set of clothes is stained with zombie drool and barnacle blood, but still seem to be serviceable to a person as unconcerned with appearances as Relt.
Equipment:
Clearly, Relt was not able to prepare for her unexpected and un-asked-for sojourn to another planet in an altogether different realm of existence. Her initial equipment consists entirely of whatever was on her person or in the twisted wreck of the car at the moment the hateful entity catapulted her through space and time. Fortunately, due to the documented cleanliness (or lack thereof) of nineteen year olds everywhere, this is rather a large bounty of simple treasures. All of these items, unless otherwise mentioned, are jammed into the voluminous and tattered backpack which Relt carries with her.
Over time, however, Relt has managed to scrounge together a couple of new belongings
One (1) Kevlar Truncheon:
The responsible delivery driver’s method of assuring personal safety, this truncheon is even cheerfully emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen.
One (1) Steel Switchblade:
The irresponsible delivery driver’s method of assuring personal safety. While highly illegal and extremely dangerous, this blade is also cheerfully emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen.
One (1) Steel Claw Hammer:
Tossed into the back of the car after some long-forgotten errand, this item was salvaged on the basis that one can never have too many heavy metal things.
One (1) iVerything Cellular Phone/Personal Computer:
The slightly outdated 2024 model, this puppy not only has full wi-fi call abilities, internet connections with bands so broad they border on obese, and 6 terabytes of storage space, but is totally green and runs only off of solar power. Admittedly, 2 of those 6 terabytes are filled with cheesy movies and cult classic TV shows downloaded illegally, 1 of them is filled with pornography, 1 with music, and the other 2 are nearly filled with video games. Of course, with no-one to call and no internet to surf, it’s nothing more than a fancy gewgaw. If not for its rugged spider-silk-composite frame, it probably wouldn’t have survived the trip. It can project a screen onto a flat surface for more involved viewing.
One (1) Ceramic Skull Bong:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even in 2025, with legalized marijuana and fantastic technological marvels, some bombed-out hippy somewhere is still lovingly crafting ceramic skull bongs, and impressionable college students are still buying them. Needless to say, this is a fine specimen, only a few chips, and if you give it a few hundred years it may fetch a decent appraisal on the Antiques Roadshow.
Three (3) Grams of Marijuana:
Long-gone are the days of crinkled Ziploc bags and secrecy; this high-grade dank is kept in a special hempen pouch, for maximum irony. The pouch is emblazoned with the logo of the Zhuang-Zhuang Chinese Kitchen; Mr. Zhuang is nothing if not an enthusiastic (though not terribly realistic) merchandiser.
One (1) Month-Old Container of Pork Fried Rice:
This item tumbled behind the seats during some prior delivery, and has sat there for a while in the hot sun. Despite this, it remains at least 80% edible, for a given value of edible. It also tastes of the tears of a disappointed customer: the sweetest flavor enhancer of all. The food has only grown older, but has merely fossilized in that peculiar American-Chinese food way, instead of rotting. There are things in there which frighten even mold.
Three (3) Textbooks:
Left in her bag after an overnight study session, Relt kept them so she could remain prepared for various quizzes, exams, etc. while on the job. Having had time to look at them, they appear to be a huge-ass Biology textbook, an Art History textbook, and a Spanish textbook.
One (1) First Aid Kit:
Containing bandages, antiseptic, Neosporin, gauze, aspirin AND ibuprofen, some matches and a candle, and a couple of complicated medical apparatus which Relt has absolutely no idea how to use.
One (1) Horned Helmet:
Relt found a Viking helmet somewhere. She doesn't remember where; that was lost in a purple haze. She does remember why, however; because it's badass. It is far too big for her and bobbles around awkwardly as she moves. Relt suspects it is magic, but it isn't. She has stuffed some rags into the helmet to keep it on her head when she wears it, for reasons comprehensible only to her.