Loser’s Jounce

The Loser’s Jounce is a high-tier Magic Item that can pull features from the Paths (and related places) into other Realms, including reality.<ref name=":0">“Loser’s Jounce,” Walt told Avery. He pressed an old, fist-sized rubber ball into her hand. The material was dense. “It doesn’t work near or in view of innocents. Works better if you have more Lost practices, Lost Others, whatever else around you. Even non-Lost Others. It’s a damn good item, Jude was the one who said you should have it. Reality is, we don’t do a lot off the Paths, and this is an item that works better in reality than it does on the Paths. [...] Bounce it three times between hand and ground to attune it to a Path. Have to be partway. Hurl it at something to push that something outside of reality. Replaces it with something representative of the Path you chose.”

“So if I used it here?”

He motioned at the ropes lifting platforms.
[...]
“Zed agreed this was better than your usual item. Talked to him about pricing. This one hurts to give away, every single item we pry away from our people does, but this…”
[...]
“Got to prime it by using it while running a Path, for every use.  And if an Innocent comes in and can’t work out how something would be where you put it, it’ll be gone or broken past the point of being recognizable in the next eyeblink.  And you’ve got to catch it on the rebound.  It’ll help you with it, but if you don’t, it has a way of being really hard to find when you go looking to pick it up.” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.3</ref>

Has an issue operating around innocents<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":a"> Magic items and magically created items tended to get weird when innocents saw them, and things created from the weapon ring counted. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.1</ref> as do it's constructions. As a thrown object it can return to it's thrower due to their connection, provided they have sufficient claim.<ref>The Jounce came back, fed speed by the wind that carried it.

It was the nature of items like this to return to sender, for the next use. Claim was the key thing. [Avery] had a claim to it- she’d earned and bought it. - Left in the Dust 16.8</ref> As paths are different every time someone runs them, the form of the path takes when the jounce attunes to it is important.<ref>Go for the Throat 23.1</ref>

Particulars

Path	Feature
The Build Up	Crane that smacks people<ref>Left in the Dust 16.8</ref> Electro-magnet<ref>Hard Pass 22.z</ref>
Kennet Found (Stuck-In Place)	"swamp" hazard area.<ref>“Bad Wolf! Stay!” Avery hollered. She threw the Jounce. The ball stored aspects of Lost places she’d been. She’d borrowed from Kennet found. A bit of stuck-in. It came in as a patch of shadow and accumulating snow, then a surge of black grasses and fronds, weeds and other things stabbing their way up from the patches of snow. Avery landed on train platform number three, which didn’t have any trains. The ground rippled, absorbing her landing. The Stuck-In Place had been a tar pit. Avery spread the tar, like this. Maybe weaker, because it came from Kennet found and not the Stuck-In Place. But it helped catch the Wolf where she’d been casually scratching and tearing through the wall. - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.1</ref>
Rolling Isles	Cardboard Boxes

Chronology

It's origin is unknown.

It was given to Avery by the Garricks as part of their payment for information on The Promenade.<ref name=":0"/>

Avery combined this with the Gate Goggles practice to find a version of the always subjective Paths that she could use in a given predicament.<ref>Hard Pass 22.z</ref>

Trivia

• A Jounce is a Middle-English relative of the word bounce.

References

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